Political science professor Wayne Cornelius approached the lecture podium inconspicuously, the sleeves of his royal blue shirt folded neatly at the elbows. Before him a crowd of undergraduate students greeted one another, warily eyeing the battery of teaching assistants that had blockaded a portion of the first few rows.

“First let me congratulate you on taking this course on immigration,” Cornelius intoned, his resonant voice chasing away the last echo of chatter.

His next task was to conduct a survey to determine the percentage of students descended from foreign-born parents. Discovering that his sample yielded a percentage of 75, he deadpanned with only a glimmer of a smile: “Immigration is really too important an issue to leave to the politicians.”

For several decades, Cornelius has worked tirelessly to prove the merit of this statement. As director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies, begun in 1999 with Eleanor Roosevelt College, he has brought the politics of immigration policy into the jurisdiction of academia, capitalizing on UCSD’s arsenal of intellectuals and garnering the support of academic think-tanks.

Idean Salehyan, a political science graduate student entering the final leg of his Ph.D. career at UCSD appeared unfazed by Cornelius’ assertion regarding politicians. His eyes widened in agreement as he remarked, “The politics of immigration tends to be really emotional … and professor Cornelius does a really good job at doing real serious academic work and then making it relevant to political discussions.”

When Salehyan first met Cornelius, he was one of a myriad of undergraduates attending the professor’s “Politics of Immigration” course. Presently, Cornelius presides as a member of the candidate’s dissertation committee, and Salehyan has learned much about his mentor over the past six years.

“He’s probably one of the most meticulous people that I know,” Salehyan said. In his research, in his classes, even in his personal life, he’s very exact about the way he does things. And he really pays attention to all of the details, not just the big picture.”

Though meticulous, the professor is hardly austere. “Are you afraid of dogs?” he asked with a mark of concern before opening the door to his bright, immaculate office. A moment later a chocolate brown Labrador retriever bounded up to the entrance to welcome his owner with a profusion of friendliness. Bookcases filled to capacity panel the walls and gold embossed letters attached to the shelves alphabetize his library. An enlarged portrait of his family leads a retinue of perfectly aligned certificates. It is the closest frame in his line of vision.

However, Cornelius admitted his path to becoming a university professor and world-renowned immigration expert was not quite so linear.

“If I had to do it all over again, I probably would be a musician rather than a college teacher, but that’s neither here nor there,” said Cornelius with an easy smile.

In fact, the professor’s inaugural years as an instructor began at MIT in 1971, and it was not until a growing Mexican studies constituency at UCSD lured him from his perch at the elite technical institute that he left for California.

“This place had a vaguely formed idea in 1979 that the university wanted to take advantage of its position as the only major research university on the U.S.-Mexico border, so it occurred to a few people here that they should have a research center devoted to Mexico.”

What began in 1979 as the Center for U.S.-Mexican studies has grown into the CCIS, a new international migration studies minor unique to UCSD and the Mexican Migration Field Research and Training Program.

Over the years, Cornelius has traversed ivy league campuses, rural migrant enclaves and borders of both time and space.

While he’s garnered the attention and respect of media engines like “60 Minutes,” and advised political coalitions on immigration strategies and fallouts, it is his role as a teacher and mentor that has won him acclaim among colleagues and students alike. To be sure, he has navigated significant political currents. This past spring, he advised a committee suited with the task of crafting an immigration reform bill for Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), using student-collected data.

“The result is a piece of legislation that is much more balanced and humane and likely to be successful in the real world than might otherwise have been the case,” he said.

However, teaching has proven to be Cornelius’ crowning achievement. Christina Ortiz, who has served as Cornelius’ executive assistant since last March, characterized his capacity to teach in glowing terms.

“He is devoted to his classes, and thrives working with the young minds that crowd his classes,” Ortiz said. “On the same note, his ex-alumni return time and again asking for advice and guidance in their careers.”

Cornelius’ current project, pioneering the international migration studies minor, exemplifies his commitment to undergraduates especially. Salehyan spoke of his mentor’s exhaustless energy in spearheading the movement for the minor, which has attracted new faculty members to teach across a spectrum of disciplines. Cornelius also supervises the selection process of all applicants to the Mexican Migration Field Research and Training Program. Once he has carefully appointed his panel of 22 UCSD undergraduates (graduate students and students from universities in Mexico comprise the rest of the group), he equips them with what he terms a “skill set” to interview disparate migrant populations, analyze statistical data and draw conclusions that will be featured in a published text.

“[I hope] that the international migration studies minor will become a vehicle to qualify more students to work in the field of international immigration as researchers, lawyers [and] public officials,” Ortiz said.

“It’s a great way to pick up skills,” Salehyan said of the new minor. “It’s a really unique minor too because it’s not just course work. … They definitely build in more than just going to class.”

Cornelius spoke candidly of favorite authors, historical characters that fascinate and repel him, his participation in the San Diego Master Chorale as a second tenor, and an abundant library that spills into three rooms.

Speculating briefly about the possible sequence of his life had he defied the recommendation of an early voice coach to avoid a career in singing, he spoke with even greater gravity of the careers of UCSD students who he says suffer from a lack of knowledge on border issues: “[In studying immigration] we’re studying a live, evolving, sociological phenomenon that is both changing in itself and is changing us in ways that we can only begin to imagine.”