A member of Haverford's class of '66 who is currently serving on our College Board of Managers, Rawlings was chair of the Association while president at Cornell.  His five-year term at AAU begins June 1, and he succeeds Robert M. Berdahl, the president since 2006, who is retiring.

Before serving at Iowa and at Cornell, from 1988 through 2003,  Rawlings worked 18 years at the University of Colorado at Boulder, another AAU member. In a news release issued by the association, he stressed the importance of the partnership between the federal government and research universities in producing transformative technologies and top graduates, and in advancing scholarship.

“AAU's first responsibility,” he said,“is to work with government to ensure that this relationship remains strong” despite“potentially severe fiscal restraint and increasing demands on our universities.”