Cornell University

History

Cornell was founded in the mid-1800s through a New York State Senate bill that established the school as a land grant institution on the farm of Senator Ezra Cornell in Ithaca, NY. Cornell generously offered his farm as a site for the school as well as an endowment to get the school off the ground. Co-founder Senator Andrew Dickson White became the first president of Cornell University and the school was inaugurated on October 7, 1868 with 412 students. Two years later, Cornell admitted its first women, making it the first coeducational school in the Ivy League. Until 1970, women were required to live in dormitories, which constrained admissions for female students.

Cornell has been described as the first truly American university because the founders believed in a revolutionarily egalitarian version of higher education and the mission of outreach and public service. Cornell experienced significant expansion in the 20th Century, with its student population growing to the current level of about 20,000 undergraduate and graduate students. Thus far in the 21st Century the school has undertaken an ambitious program of internationalization, opening the Weill Cornell Medical College in Doha, Qatar, and forming relationships with institutions around the globe.

— With special reporting by Alexandria Sun '11

Location

Cornell is located in Ithaca, a city in central New York State with a population close to 100,000. The region is known for its natural beauty, with waterfalls and gorges bracketing the campus. When the weather is nice, outdoor activities are popular, including sailing, swimming, skiing, and hiking. There are also state parks are just ten minutes away from campus, New York City and Toronto are less than a five-hour drive away.

Ithaca also has commercial centers that students visit, including Collegetown, which features a number of restaurants, shops, and bars. Some upperclassmen choose to live in the district’s apartment buildings. Ithaca’s small businesses give off a small town feel: used bookstores, art house cinemas, craft stores, and vegetarian restaurants contribute to the character of the community.

— With special reporting by Alexandria Sun '11

Campus

Cornell’s 745-acare campus is located on a hilltop overlooking the 40-mile-long Cayuga Lake. Two sides of the campus are bounded by some very old gorges. Cornell’s campus seamlessly connects nature and the built environment, with trails, arboretums, and gardens blending with university quads. There are more than 260 buildings divided between Central and North Campuses on the top of the Hill, West Campus on its slope and Collegetown south of Central Campus. The main campus is marked by several architectural styles that include Gothic, Victorian, Neoclassical, and Modernist.

Central Campus contains administrative as well as the majority of academic buildings, athletic facilities, auditoriums, and laboratories. North Campus has housing for freshmen, graduate students, program houses, and 29 Greek houses. West Campus has residential colleges for continuing students and 25 additional Greek houses. Collegetown has the Performing Arts Center as well as some housing for continuing students.

Issues

Toward the end of the 2007-08 academic school year a sophomore was allegedly raped. Members of the Sexual Violence Resistance Network (SVRN) picketed Ho Plaza and shouted inflammatory statements about the number of women at Cornell who have experienced sexual assault. Since July 2007, the Cornell Police Department reported six sexual assaults on campus, four of which were classified as rape, and SVRN attacked the entire Cornell administration and crisis management team for their supposed inability to help and respond to rape victims. Students were upset by the protest and it implications, and the matter remains unresolved.

Commonly heard complaints stem from Ithaca’s unpredictable weather, which includes a lot of rain, snow, and generally long winters. This weather can be depressing for students, and some believe it contributes to the idea that they are more prone to committing suicide than students at other colleges. This, of course, is a stereotype, although the idea of students committing suicide by jumping off a bridge nearby is not unheard of.

Dorms

All first-year students are guaranteed on-campus housing for their first year.

“Housing at Cornell is all about luck. Freshmen are segregated into a little patch of land north of the main campus, which goes by the name ‘North Campus.’ The hike from North Campus to Central Campus can be gruesome in winter with snowflakes whirring around you. Also, walking alone back from Central at night can be a little daunting too. First-year students live in residential communities that have two active community centers, three dining halls, and two athletic facilities nearby. There are traditional residence halls, which are old-style dorms with a common lounge and floor bathrooms. Students can also choose to live in one of Cornell’s nine program houses, which place students with similar interests or backgrounds together. Some of the more popular houses include Ecology House, Ujamma (a tight-knit African American community), and Risley (performing Arts).

The freshman ritual can be summed up as working hard and hanging out with friends on weekends and at night. In the quieter, more intellectual dorms, like Balch (all women), or townhouses, which are across the road, people bond while watching movies. In the more rowdy ones, such as Dickson and Mary Donlon, which is shaped like a thong from a bird’s eye view, people get pretty crazy. At 2:00AM on a Saturday morning, you can hear screaming from the end of the hall as people return from one of the legendary frat parties. The rooms on North Campus vary. Sometimes, students can get a single the size of a double, which depends on the location and luck. These rooms come with basic furniture such as a bed, desk, and closets.

So, where do upperclassmen live? Every March, rising freshmen, sophomores and juniors who want to live on campus next year frantically stare at the computer and try to get the rooms they want. But, the trick to the game is that everyone is assigned a lottery time slot before winter break and the system is based on seniority. This means that if you are a freshman who has a 10:00PM timeslot on the last day of room assignments, your prospects are pretty bleak: you could be edged all the way to North Campus or into the Gothics, which have extremely narrow corridors, and cramped rooms. Many students want more privacy after their first year and choose to live in singles. The majority of upperclassmen who stay on campus live at West Campus, which is down the slope. The best places to live there are Hans Bethe House and Carl Becker House since they are newly built and extremely roomy. However, Cornell is building two new residence halls on West Campus for its ever growing student population. You also get the option to live in a frat, sorority, or any off-campus house or apartment in Collegetown. ”

— With special reporting by Alexandria Sun '11

President

David J. Skorton took office as Cornell’s 12th president in July 2006. An experienced administrator, Skorton served as president of the University of Iowa and is also a board-certified cardiologist, biomedical researcher, and advocate for the arts. He holds faculty appointments in internal medicine and pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City and in biomedical engineering at the College of Engineering at Cornell.

Skorton received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Northwestern University in 1970 and an MD there in 1974. Following a residency at UCLA he joined the University of Iowa faculty and eventually became the school’s president.

Skorton is also former professional jazz and R&B musician who used to perform in Chicago. He is in the midst of carrying out an ambitious plan for Cornell’s future which includes increased scholarship availability, sustainable building, and overall retaining the school’s prominence across a wide variety of academic fields.

— With special reporting by Alexandria Sun '11

Famous Alumni

Ken Blanchard (1961) is a management consultant who co-authored the popular One Minute Manager series.

Adolph Coors (1907) was the founder of the eponymous brewing company.

Arthur Dean (1919) was an American lawyer and statesman who helped negotiate the treaty that ended the Korean War and also worked on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Allen Funt (1934) was an American producer and the creator and host of Candid Camera.

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (1954) is an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court.

Henry Heimlich (1941) is the American physician who created the Heimlich maneuver.

Keith Olbermann is the host of MSNBC's Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Christopher Reeve (1974) was an Actor and activist for medical research into spinal cord injuries.

Kurt Vonnegut was the acclaimed author of Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse-Five, and numerous other works.

E.B. White (1921) was an American writer and the author of Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. White also worked with Cornell University professor William Strunk, Jr. on the widely used Elements of Style guide to American English.

Students

The College

Getting In

To Apply

Traditions

Facts

Cornell is the youngest member of the Ivy League.

The football team has won the Ivy League championship three times, last in 1990

Cornell and UPenn have the seventh most-played rivalry in college football.

When Harvard plays Cornell’s men’s hockey team, some fans throw fish on the ice.

News

Cornell featured in Unigo Guide to Sinners and Saints 2008

Vice President Ainslie Leaves for Princeton

Gettysburg Address on Display at Cornell University

Fence Around Fall Creek Gorge Attempts to Block Access

Sports