Kotlikoff thanks staff, outlines challenges in annual address | Cornell Chronicle

""Without you, the magic that occurs in our classrooms, in our residence and dining halls, in our libraries and laboratories and athletic facilities, and everywhere else across our campuses, would not occur,""

""From introducing to implementing the floating holiday time program, it's been a meaningful initiative, and it's incredibly gratifying to see it being recognized for enhancing flexibility, inclusivity and employee well-being,""

""When we learned that we were being directly targeted by the administration with stop-work orders and non-payment of grants, something amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars, we established two goals,""

President Michael I. Kotlikoff addressed staff on Jan. 8, expressing deep appreciation for university employees as the backbone of campus operations. The Employee Assembly presented a 2025 Appreciation Award to the 15-person team that implemented the floating holidays program, a move praised for enhancing flexibility, inclusivity, and employee wellbeing. Kotlikoff described unprecedented challenges across higher education, highlighting severe disruptions to research funding and a settlement reached with the Trump administration after stop-work orders and non-payment of grants. Leadership established goals in response to targeted funding interruptions and detailed the necessity of the settlement.

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