# Cornell FIRST Administration Core

> **NIH NIH U54** · CORNELL UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $471,000

## Abstract

Project Summary (Administrative Core)
The Administrative Core for the Cornell FIRST program will support the hiring and retention of 10 new
assistant professors from groups underrepresented in their fields, while transforming institutional climate
into a culture of inclusive excellence. The strength of Cornell’s program is its foundational roots as a
complex private institution with a public mission, with its founding based on support for diversity, a culture of
interdisciplinary research, and a track record of catalyzing change at different scales that were
institutionalized. Given Cornell’s success in establishing programs for the effective development and
support of early-career faculty, particularly those underrepresented in their fields, Cornell is in an excellent
position to test the hypothesis that FIRST Cohort faculty will be successful in an environment that
supports advocacy through sponsorship, consistent and individual-centered mentoring, and
evidence-based professional development. We further hypothesize that Cornell’s institutional
culture and scientific excellence will be enhanced with the hiring of a FIRST Cohort of diverse
faculty. Cornell’s FIRST program features interdisciplinary hiring of faculty underrepresented in their fields,
across six colleges and 20 departments, with a focus on retention, career development, and evaluation. The
Administrative Core of the Cornell FIRST program will develop an inclusive FIRST Cohort search
process that will lead to 10 hires in 3 clusters encompassing quantitative biomedical sciences, infection
biology and health equity; hire and retain a diverse FIRST cohort of new faculty taking advantage of
Cornell’s existing interdisciplinary field system approach where faculty are organized by research interest
rather than by department; and will foster sustainable institutional culture change to support FIRST
Cohort faculty to enhance their development, retention, progression, and promotion. Here, Cornell
will accelerate its Belonging at Cornell framework for developing a culture of Inclusive Excellence, using a
combination of institutional policies that impact hiring, mentoring, promotion and tenure, salary equity, and
other initiatives aimed at enhancing compositional diversity, retention, and success of our faculty. We
expect that the Cornell FIRST program will successfully hire, retain, and support 10 new faculty
underrepresented in their fields, while fostering sustainable institutional culture change. These activities will
result in increased diversity of the faculty in the biological, biomedical, and health sciences at Cornell, while
contributing to the diversity of academy, and future generations of the STEM workforce.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10361858
- **Project number:** 1U54CA267738-01
- **Recipient organization:** CORNELL UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Avery August
- **Activity code:** U54 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $471,000
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2021-09-21 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10361858

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10361858, Cornell FIRST Administration Core (1U54CA267738-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10361858. Licensed CC0.

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