A Legacy Continued

Sick in hospital. Needs interference run with professors.

Displaced by house fire at 2 a.m. Needs loaner computer, clothes, pizza.

Homesick, very homesick. Needs anxieties allayed.

These are the students Laura Lewis finds at the center of her life.

Lewis is ILR's Frank B. Miller Director of Student Services. The post was named this year for a former ILR professor who died in 2006.

For five of his 31 years as an ILR faculty member, Miller also served as student services director. He was available when students needed him – around the clock.

The directorship in Miller's honor was endowed by son Brian Miller, a 1979 Arts and Sciences graduate, and Brian's wife, Heidi, in support of "Far Above…The Campaign for Cornell."

Lewis, in an interview, said, "The endowment really benefits students because it allows us to continue Frank's legacy."

The student services office is a "critical stopping point" for students dealing with financial, family, academic and other challenges, said Lewis, who has led the office for six years.

More than 3,000 in-person meetings with students have been logged by student services staff members during the past two years, Lewis said. Additional communication flows in over the phone and via email.

"We know that sometimes students need help with a specific problem and we see quite a wide range" of issues, Lewis said at a summer ceremony officially launching the directorship. Help is requested for transferring credit, finding a tutor, starting a new campus organization, proofreading a personal statement for law school application.

"But, many times, students – and their parents – want to know that someone cares about their concerns and is willing to listen, even when we don't have the answer or we have the answer and it may not be the one they want to hear," she said.

"Our work," Lewis said, "does not fit neatly into an 8 to 5 schedule, something Frank certainly appreciated."