Hunter Ripley Rawlings III (born December 14, 1944) is an American classics scholar and academic administrator.  He is best known for serving as the 17th president of the University of Iowa from 1982 until 1995 and as the tenth president of Cornell University from 1995 until 2003.  He also served as Cornell's interim president in 2005-2006. He is president of the Association of American Universities (AAU).

Originally from Norfolk, Virginia, Rawlings received his B.A. with honors in classics from Haverford College in 1966.  From there he moved to Princeton University, where he received a Ph.D. in classics in 1970.  After graduating from Princeton, he joined the faculty at the University of Colorado at Boulder. He became a full professor there in 1980.  Rawlings began his career in academic administration at Colorado, serving as chairman of the classics department and later as associate vice chancellor for instruction. In 1988, Rawlings was named President of the University of Iowa, a position he held until 1995.  

Rawlings then came to Cornell University. He was its tenth president, serving from 1995 until 2003.  At Cornell, he was good at asking people for money.  Rawlings started several new positions and programs to support undergraduate education. Cornell built of several new dormitories and centralized the location of freshmen dormitories on campus (initially protested by Al Sharpton and others due to alleged racial implications). Rawlings promoted stronger undergraduate admission standards.  Rawlings began initiatives in certain areas of science and engineering that he considered important to the future (such as bioinformatics, computational biology, computer and information sciences, genomics, and materials science), and began plans for Weill Hall, a large new life sciences building.  He encouraged cooperation between the humanities and social sciences.  He also worked on an agreement to start a branch of Cornell's medical school in Qatar.

While President of Cornell, Rawlings also held the rank of professor of classics, and continued to hold this position after he left the presidency.  He taught an undergraduate course in classics the last two years he was president. At the same time, many students and alumni leaders criticized his hands-off approach toward the student body and his focus on the business operations of Cornell.

After the sudden resignation of his successor as president, Jeffrey Lehman, effective June 30, 2005, Rawlings became Cornell president again until a permanent replacement could be found. David J. Skorton  became the new president on July 1, 2006.  (Like Rawlings, Skorton was previously President of the University of Iowa.)

Currently, he serves a professor of classical history in Cornell's Department of History and Department of Classics.

Rawlings is a member of many prominent organizations, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and served as a committee chair of the AAU. On June 1, 2011, he became President of the AAU.

References

Other websites
 Cornell Presidency: Hunter R. Rawlings III
 Cornell University Library Presidents Exhibition: Hunter Ripley Rawlings III (Presidency; Inauguration)
 Hunter Rawlings Interview

American historians
1944 births
Living people
People from Norfolk, Virginia