“Whenever I bring someone to Cornell, regardless of the season, the first place I take them is to the Botanic Gardens and the Arboretum. There they can experience the scope of the university. It is captured in the sweeping vistas, in the range of species, in the seamless organization, and in the diversity of the vision. I feel as though I am inviting them into a place that you have to know to appreciate what greatness is. The care that built the gardens is at once invisible but not secret. It is a priceless asset to the university, to the state and to anyone who cares about nature and what its beauty can teach us.”

About

Gerald Torres is currently the Jane M.G. Foster Professor of Law, Cornell Law School. Professor Torres is former president of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS). He has served as deputy assistant attorney general for the Environment and Natural Resources Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., and as counsel to then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno.  In addition to his numerous publications, he has served on the board of the Environmental Law Institute, on EPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. He served on the National Petroleum Council. He was Board Chair of the Advancement Project, the nation’s leading racial and social justice organization.  He is Chair of Earth Day Network and serves as a Trustee of the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is a board member of the Bauman Foundation. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Law Institute.