Cornell Big Red Men's Squash Coaches
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Cornell University is a
private Private or privates may refer to: Music * " In Private", by Dusty Springfield from the 1990 album ''Reputation'' * Private (band), a Denmark-based band * "Private" (Ryōko Hirosue song), from the 1999 album ''Private'', written and also recorde ...
statutory land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. It is a member of the Ivy League. Founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, Cornell was founded with the intention to teach and make contributions in all fields of knowledge—from the
classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...
to the sciences, and from the theoretical to the applied. These ideals, unconventional for the time, are captured in Cornell's founding principle, a popular 1868 quotation from founder Ezra Cornell: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." Cornell is ranked among the top global universities. The university is organized into seven undergraduate colleges and seven graduate divisions at its main Ithaca campus, with each college and division defining its specific admission standards and academic programs in near autonomy. The university also administers three satellite campuses, two in New York City and one in Education City, Qatar. Cornell is one of the few private land grant universities in the United States. Of its seven undergraduate colleges, three are state-supported statutory or contract colleges through the
State University of New York The State University of New York (SUNY, , ) is a system of public colleges and universities in the State of New York. It is one of the largest comprehensive system of universities, colleges, and community colleges in the United States. Led by c ...
(SUNY) system, including its agricultural and human ecology colleges as well as its industrial labor relations school. Of Cornell's graduate schools, only the veterinary college is state-supported. As a land grant college, Cornell operates a cooperative extension outreach program in every county of New York and receives annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions. The main campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York spans 745 acres (more than 4,300 acres when the
Cornell Botanic Gardens The Cornell Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden located adjacent to the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York. The Botanic Gardens proper consist of of botanical gardens and of the F. R. Newman Arboretum. The greater Botanic Gardens ...
and the numerous university-owned lands in New York City are considered). As of September 2021, 61 Nobel laureates, four Turing Award winners and one
Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...
ist have been affiliated with Cornell. Cornell counts more than 250,000 living alumni, and its former and present faculty and alumni include 34  Marshall Scholars, 33 
Rhodes Scholars The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
, 29  Truman Scholars, 7 
Gates Scholars The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation established the Gates Cambridge Scholarships in 2000 with a $210 million donation to support outstanding graduate students' study at the University of Cambridge. The scholarship is one of the most competitiv ...
, 63 
Olympic Medalists This article includes lists of all Olympic medalists since 1896, organized by each Olympic sport or discipline, and also by Olympiad. Medalist with most medals by sport Summer Olympic sports Winter Olympic sports A. Including military patrol e ...
, 10 current Fortune 500 CEOs, and 35 billionaire alumni. Since its founding, Cornell has been a co-educational, non-
sectarian Sectarianism is a political or cultural conflict between two groups which are often related to the form of government which they live under. Prejudice, discrimination, or hatred can arise in these conflicts, depending on the political status quo ...
institution where admission has not been restricted by religion or race. The diverse student body consists of more than 15,000 undergraduate and 10,000 graduate students from all 50 American states and 119 countries.


History

Cornell University was founded on April 27, 1865; the New York State (NYS) legislature authorized the university as the state's land grant institution. Senator Ezra Cornell offered his farm in Ithaca, New York, as a site and $500,000 of his personal fortune as an initial
endowment Endowment most often refers to: *A term for human penis size It may also refer to: Finance *Financial endowment, pertaining to funds or property donated to institutions or individuals (e.g., college endowment) *Endowment mortgage, a mortgage to b ...
. Fellow senator and educator Andrew Dickson White agreed to be the first president. During the next three years, White oversaw the construction of the first two buildings and traveled to attract students and
faculty Faculty may refer to: * Faculty (academic staff), the academic staff of a university (North American usage) * Faculty (division), a division within a university (usage outside of the United States) * Faculty (instrument) A faculty is a legal in ...
. The university was inaugurated on October 7, 1868, and 412 men were enrolled the next day. Cornell developed as a technologically innovative institution, applying its research to its own campus and to outreach efforts. For example, in 1883, it was one of the first university campuses to use electricity from a water-powered dynamo to light the grounds. Since 1894, Cornell has included colleges that are state funded and fulfill statutory requirements; it has also administered research and extension activities that have been jointly funded by state and federal matching programs. Cornell has had active alumni since its earliest classes. It was one of the first universities to include alumni-elected representatives on its board of trustees. Cornell was also among the Ivies that had heightened student activism during the 1960s, related to cultural issues, civil rights, and opposition to the Vietnam War; with protests and occupations resulting in the resignation of Cornell's president and the restructuring of university governance. Today, the university has more than 4,000 courses. Cornell is also known for the
Residential Club Fire of 1967 A residential area is a land used in which housing predominates, as opposed to industrial and commercial areas. Housing may vary significantly between, and through, residential areas. These include single-family housing, multi-family reside ...
, a fire in the Residential Club dormitory that killed eight students and one professor. Since 2000, Cornell has been expanding its international programs. In 2004, the university opened the Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar. It has partnerships with institutions in India, Singapore, and the People's Republic of China. The former president,
Jeffrey S. Lehman Jeffrey Sean Lehman (born August 1, 1956) is an American scholar, lawyer and academic administrator who is the vice chancellor of New York University Shanghai. Known as an advocate for the role of universities in globalization, he previously serve ...
, described the university, with its high international profile, as a "transnational university". On March 9, 2004, Cornell and
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
laid the cornerstone for a new 'Bridging the Rift Center' to be built and jointly operated for education on the Israel–Jordan border. A graduate student group, At What Cost?, formed at Cornell in August 2002 to oppose a
graduate student unionization Graduate student employee unionization, or academic student employee unionization, refers to labor unions that represent students who are employed by their college or university to teach classes, conduct research and perform clerical duties. As of ...
drive run by an organization called CASE/UAW that was affiliated with the United Auto Workers. The unionization vote was held October 23–24, 2002, and the union was rejected. At What Cost? was considered instrumental in the unusually large 90% turnout for the vote and in the 2-to-1 defeat of the unionization proposal. There had been no prior instance in
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
graduate student unionization history where a unionization proposal was defeated by a vote.


Campuses


Ithaca campus

Cornell's main campus is on East Hill in Ithaca, New York, overlooking the city and Cayuga Lake. Since the university was founded, it has expanded to about , encompassing both the hill and much of the surrounding areas. Central Campus has laboratories, administrative buildings, and almost all of the campus' academic buildings, athletic facilities, auditoriums, and museums. North Campus is composed of ten residence halls that primarily house first-year students, although the Townhouse Community occasionally houses transfer students. The five main residence halls on West Campus make up the West Campus House System, along with several Gothic-style buildings, referred to as "the Gothics". Collegetown contains two upper-level residence halls and the Schwartz
Performing Arts The performing arts are arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art objects. Perform ...
Center, amid a mixed-use neighborhood of apartments, eateries, and businesses. Construction has also been completed on three new residential buildings that will be situated on North Campus, providing beds for an estimated additional 1200 students, to be completed by fall 2022. These are named after Hu Shih, Barbara McClintock, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg—all Cornell graduates. The main campus is marked by an irregular layout and eclectic architectural styles, including ornate
Collegiate Gothic Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europ ...
,
Victorian Victorian or Victorians may refer to: 19th century * Victorian era, British history during Queen Victoria's 19th-century reign ** Victorian architecture ** Victorian house ** Victorian decorative arts ** Victorian fashion ** Victorian literature ...
, and Neoclassical buildings, and the more spare international and modernist structures. The more ornate buildings generally predate World War II. The student population doubled from 7,000 in 1950 to 15,000 by 1970, at a time when architectural styles favored modernism. While some buildings are neatly arranged into quadrangles, others are packed densely and haphazardly. These eccentricities arose from the university's numerous, ever-changing master plans for the campus. For example, in one of the earliest plans, Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park, proposed a "grand terrace" overlooking Cayuga Lake. Several of the university buildings are listed as historic landmarks. Those listed on the National Register of Historic Places include the Andrew Dickson White House, Bailey Hall, Caldwell Hall, the Computing and Communications Center (formerly Comstock Hall), Morrill Hall,
Rice Hall Rice Hall is a building on the Cornell University campus that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It is a three-story rectangular building. Its first floor is built with rusticated brick imitating clapboards, and has c ...
,
Fernow Hall Fernow Hall is an early twentieth century Cornell University building, that was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It currently houses the Department of Natural Resources. It is named in honor of Bernhard Fernow, who was t ...
,
Wing Hall Wing Hall is a building on the campus of Cornell University that was built during 1912–1914. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Wing Hall was designed by architect E.B. Green, himself a Cornell alumnus, of Buffal ...
, Llenroc, and 13 South Avenue (Deke House). At least three other historic buildings— the original Roberts Hall, East Robert Hall and Stone Hall—have also been listed on the NRHP. However, the university demolished them in the 1980s, to make way for other development. In September 2011, '' Travel+Leisure'' listed the Ithaca Campus as among the most beautiful in the United States. Located among the rolling valleys of the Finger Lakes region, the campus on the hill provides views of the surrounding area, including the Cayuga Lake. Two gorges, Fall Creek Gorge and Cascadilla Gorge, bound Central Campus and are used as popular swimming holes during the warmer months (although the university and city code discourage their use, due to hazardous swimming conditions). Adjacent to the main campus, Cornell owns the
Cornell Botanic Gardens The Cornell Botanic Gardens is a botanical garden located adjacent to the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, New York. The Botanic Gardens proper consist of of botanical gardens and of the F. R. Newman Arboretum. The greater Botanic Gardens ...
, a botanical garden containing flowers, trees, and ponds, with manicured trails providing access throughout the facility. The university has embarked on numerous 'green' initiatives. In 2009, a new gas-fired combined heat and power facility replaced a coal-fired steam plant, resulting in a reduction in carbon emissions to 7% below 1990 levels, and projected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 75,000 tons per year. This facility satisfies 15% of campus electrical needs, and a university-run, on-campus hydroelectric plant in the Fall Creek Gorge provides an additional 2%. The university has a lake source cooling project that uses Cayuga Lake to air condition campus buildings, with an 80% energy savings over conventional systems. In 2007, Cornell established a Center for a Sustainable Future. Cornell has been rated "A−" by the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card for its environmental and sustainability initiatives. However, the university has drawn criticism from student groups for a planned North Campus expansion for which they have not released an environmental impact statement. Since 2007, the university has committed to achieve net carbon neutrality by 2035, from the baseline 2008 emissions, acting as the first Ivy League institution to take on such a sustainability goal. Cornell's Ithaca campus, as of 2020, is powered by 6 solar farms, providing a total of 28 megawatts of power. In counterpart to lake source cooling, heating needs plan to be met through the development of Earth Source Heating, a mid to low-grade enhanced geothermal system. The geothermal system is eventually planned to supply 20% of campus heating demand. The Earth Source Heating project has received a $7.2 million grant from the DOE, and Jefferson Tester and
Teresa Jordan Teresa (Terry) Jordan is a sedimentary geologist known for her research on the geology and hydrology of the Atacama Desert and the use of water and geothermal heat from sedimentary rocks. Education and career Jordan has a B.S. from Rensselaer ...
are leading the research to drill a test well on university land in Spring of 2021. The wells for Earth Source Heating will be deep, reaching temperatures of >. Waste biomass burning will be used to cover the estimated 20 'cold days' when the geothermal can not provide peak heating.


New York City campuses


Weill Cornell

Cornell's medical campus in New York City, also called Weill Cornell, is on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. It is home to two Cornell divisions: Weill Cornell Medical College and Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and has been affiliated with the NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital since 1927. Although their faculty and academic divisions are separate, the Medical Center shares administrative and teaching hospital functions with the Columbia University Medical Center. These teaching hospitals include the Payne Whitney Clinic in Manhattan and the Westchester Division in White Plains, New York. Weill Cornell Medical College is also affiliated with the neighboring Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center,
Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a private biomedical research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and provides doctoral and postdoctoral education. It is classif ...
, and the Hospital for Special Surgery. Many faculty members have joint appointments at these institutions. Weill Cornell, Rockefeller, and Memorial Sloan–Kettering offer the
Tri-Institutional MD–PhD Program The Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program is an MD-PhD program based in New York City that was formed by combining earlier MD-PhD programs that had their inceptions in 1972. The current version of the program, which is operated by Weill Cornell Medicin ...
to selected entering Cornell medical students. From 1942 to 1979, the campus also housed the
Cornell School of Nursing The Cornell University School of Nursing was a nursing school in New York City founded in 1877 as the New York Hospital Training School for Nurses; it closed in 1979. The school awarded a Bachelor of Nursing degree after five years of study, two in ...
.


Cornell Tech

On December 19, 2011, Cornell and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology won a competition for rights to claim free city land and $100 million in subsidies to build an engineering campus in New York City. The competition was established by New York City Mayor
Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman, politician, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner, co-founder and CEO of Bloomberg L.P. He was Mayor of New York City from 2002 to 2013, and was a ca ...
, to increase entrepreneurship and job growth in the city's technology sector. The winning bid consisted of a 2.1 million square foot state-of-the-art tech campus to be built on
Roosevelt Island Roosevelt Island is an island in New York City's East River, within the borough of Manhattan. It lies between Manhattan Island to the west, and the borough of Queens, on Long Island, to the east. Running from the equivalent of East 46th to 85 ...
, on the site of the former Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital. Instruction began in the fall of 2012, in a temporary location in Manhattan (
111 Eighth Avenue 111 Eighth Avenue, also known as the Google Building and formerly known as Union Inland Terminal #1 and the Port Authority Building, is an Art Deco multi-use building in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. Fifteen stories ta ...
), in space donated by Google. Thom Mayne, of the architecture firm Morphosis, has been selected to design the first building to be constructed on Roosevelt Island. Begun in 2014, construction of the first phase of the campus was completed in September 2017.


Other New York City programs

In addition to the tech campus and medical center, Cornell maintains local offices in New York City for some of its service programs. The Cornell Urban Scholars Program encourages students to pursue public service careers, arranging assignments with organizations working with New York City's poorest children, families, and communities. The NYS College of Human Ecology and the NYS College of Agriculture and Life Sciences enable students to reach out to local communities by gardening and building with the Cornell Cooperative Extension. Students with the NYS School of Industrial and Labor Relations' Extension & Outreach Program make workplace expertise available to organizations, union members, policymakers, and working adults. The College of Engineering's Operations Research Manhattan, in the city's Financial District, brings together business optimization research and decision support services addressed to both financial applications and public health logistics planning. The College of Architecture, Art, and Planning has an 11,000 square foot, Gensler-designed facility on
26 Broadway 26 Broadway, also known as the Standard Oil Building or Socony–Vacuum Building, is an office building adjacent to Bowling Green in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The 31-story, structure was designed in the Renais ...
(The Standard Oil Building), in the Financial District, that opened in 2015.


Qatar campus

Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar is in Education City, near Doha. Opened in September 2004, it was the first American medical school to be established outside of the United States. The college is part of Cornell's program to increase its international influence. The college is a joint initiative with the Qatar government, which seeks to improve the country's academic programs and medical care. Along with its full four-year MD program, which mirrors the curriculum taught at Weill Medical College back in New York City, the college offers a two-year undergraduate
pre-medical Pre-medical (often referred to as pre-med) is an educational track that undergraduate students in the United States pursue prior to becoming medical students. It involves activities that prepare a student for medical school, such as pre-med course ...
program with a separate admissions process. This undergraduate program opened in September 2002 and was the first
coeducation Mixed-sex education, also known as mixed-gender education, co-education, or coeducation (abbreviated to co-ed or coed), is a system of education where males and females are educated together. Whereas single-sex education was more common up to t ...
al institute of higher education in Qatar. The college is partially funded by the Qatar government through the Qatar Foundation, which contributed $750 million for its construction. The medical center is housed in a large two-story structure designed by Arata Isozaki, an internationally known Japanese architect. In 2004, the Qatar Foundation announced the construction of a 350-bed Specialty Teaching Hospital, near the medical college in Education City. The hospital was to be completed in a few years.


Other facilities

Cornell owns or operates several other facilities. The
Arecibo Observatory The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science F ...
in Puerto Rico, site of the world's largest single-dish
radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...
, was operated by Cornell under a contract with the National Science Foundation from its construction until 2011. The Shoals Marine Laboratory, operated in conjunction with the University of New Hampshire, is a seasonal marine field station dedicated to undergraduate education and research on the Appledore Island, off the MaineNew Hampshire coast. Cornell also has facilities devoted to conservation and ecology. The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station, operated by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is in Geneva, New York, northwest of the main campus. It operates three substations: the Cornell Lake Erie Research and Extension Laboratory (CLEREL) in
Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
, the Hudson Valley Laboratory in Highland, and the Long Island Horticultural Research Laboratory in Riverhead. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca's Sapsucker Woods performs research on biological diversity, primarily in birds. On April 18, 2005, the lab announced that it had rediscovered the ivory-billed woodpecker, long thought to be
extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...
. (Some experts disputed the evidence and subsequent surveys were inconclusive). The Animal Science Teaching and Research Center in Harford, New York, and the Duck Research Laboratory in Eastport, New York are resources for information on animal disease control and husbandry. The Cornell Biological Field Station in Bridgeport, New York, conducts long-term ecological research and supports the university's educational programs, with special emphasis on
freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does include ...
lake systems. The Department of Horticulture operates the Freeville Organic Research Farm and the Homer C. Thompson Vegetable Research Farm in Freeville, New York. The university operates a biodiversity laboratory in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, and one in the Peruvian
Amazon Rainforest The Amazon rainforest, Amazon jungle or ; es, Selva amazónica, , or usually ; french: Forêt amazonienne; nl, Amazoneregenwoud. In English, the names are sometimes capitalized further, as Amazon Rainforest, Amazon Forest, or Amazon Jungle. ...
, named the Cornell University Esbaran Amazon Field Laboratory. The university also arranges
study abroad International students, or foreign students, are students who undertake all or part of their tertiary education in a country other than their own and move to that country for the purpose of studying. In 2019, there were over 6 million internati ...
and scholarship programs. "Cornell in Washington" is a program that allows students to study for a semester in Washington, D.C., holding research or internship positions while earning credit toward a degree. "Cornell in Rome", operated by the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning, allows students to use the city of Rome as a resource for learning architecture, urban studies, and the arts. Similarly, the "Capital Semester" program allows students to intern in the New York State Legislature in Albany. As New York State's land grant college, Cornell operates a cooperative extension service with 56 offices spread out across the state, each staffed with extension educators who offer programs in five subjects: Agriculture and Food Systems; Children, Youth, and Families; Community and Economic Vitality; Environment and Natural Resources; and Nutrition and Health. Cornell also operates New York's Animal Health Diagnostic Center.


Organization and administration

Cornell is a non-profit organization governed by a 64-member
Board of Trustees A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organiz ...
consisting of both privately and publicly appointed trustees. Three trustees are appointed by the
Governor of New York The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has ...
: one seat is reserved for the eldest lineal descendant of Ezra Cornell; two members from each of the fields of agriculture, business, and labor in New York state; eight trustees to be elected from among and by the alumni of the university; two trustees to be elected from among and by the faculty of the university at Ithaca and Geneva; two trustees to be elected from among and by the membership of the university's student body at Ithaca (one undergraduate and one graduate student); and one trustee to be elected from among and by the nonacademic staff and employees of the university at Ithaca and Geneva, 37 trustees at large and finally, the Governor, Temporary President of the Senate,
Speaker of the Assembly Speaker may refer to: Society and politics * Speaker (politics), the presiding officer in a legislative assembly * Public speaker, one who gives a speech or lecture * A person producing speech: the producer of a given utterance, especially: ** In ...
, and president of the university serve in an ''
ex officio An ''ex officio'' member is a member of a body (notably a board, committee, council) who is part of it by virtue of holding another office. The term '' ex officio'' is Latin, meaning literally 'from the office', and the sense intended is 'by right ...
'' voting capacity. Robert Harrison has served as the chairman of the board since 2014. The board elects a President to serve as the chief executive and educational officer.
Martha E. Pollack Martha Elizabeth Pollack (born August 27, 1958) is an American computer scientist who has served as the 14th president of Cornell University since April 2017. Previously, she served as the 14th provost and executive vice president for academic ...
was inaugurated as Cornell's fourteenth president on August 25, 2017. She succeeded Elizabeth Garrett, who served from July 2015 until her death from
colon cancer Colorectal cancer (CRC), also known as bowel cancer, colon cancer, or rectal cancer, is the development of cancer from the colon or rectum (parts of the large intestine). Signs and symptoms may include blood in the stool, a change in bowel mo ...
on March 6, 2016 — the first Cornell president to die while in office. The Board of Trustees holds four regular meetings each year, and portions of those meetings are subject to the New York State Open Meetings Law. Cornell consists of nine privately endowed and four publicly supported " statutory colleges": the New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, College of Human Ecology, School of Industrial and Labor Relations, and College of Veterinary Medicine. These statutory colleges received $131.9 million in SUNY appropriations in 2010–2011 to support their teaching, research, and service missions, which makes them accountable to SUNY trustees and other state agencies. The budget also includes $3.9 million of state funds for Cornell Cooperative Extension that is matched by the federal government. Residents of New York enrolled in these colleges also qualify for discounted tuition. However,
Attorney General In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general or attorney-general (sometimes abbreviated AG or Atty.-Gen) is the main legal advisor to the government. The plural is attorneys general. In some jurisdictions, attorneys general also have exec ...
Eliot Spitzer Eliot Laurence Spitzer (born June 10, 1959) is an American politician and attorney. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he was the 54th governor of New York from 2007 until his resignation in 2008. Spitzer was b ...
issued a 2005 opinion asserting that, with respect to their academic activities, statutory colleges should be understood to be private, non-state parties.:1 Cornell is decentralized, with its colleges and schools exercising wide autonomy. Each defines its own academic programs, operates its own admissions and advising programs, and confers its own degrees. The only university-wide requirements for a baccalaureate degree are to pass a swimming test, take two physical education courses, and satisfy a writing requirement. A handful of inter-school academic departments offer courses in more than one college. All academic departments are affiliated with at least one college; the last department without such an affiliation, the
Cornell Africana Studies and Research Center The Africana Studies and Research Center (ASRC) at Cornell University is an academic unit devoted to the study of the global migrations and reconstruction of African peoples, as well as patterns of linkages to the African continent (and among the pe ...
, merged with the College of Arts and Sciences in July 2011. Seven schools provide undergraduate programs and an additional seven provide graduate and professional programs. Students pursuing graduate degrees in departments of these schools are enrolled in the Graduate School. The School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions offers programs for college and high school students, professionals, and other adults. Of the 15,182 undergraduate students, 4,602 (30.3%) are affiliated with the largest college by enrollment,
Arts and Sciences The arts are a very wide range of human practices of creative expression, storytelling and cultural participation. They encompass multiple diverse and plural modes of thinking, doing and being, in an extremely broad range of media. Both h ...
, followed by 3,203 (21.1%) in Engineering and 3,101 (20.4%) in Agriculture and Life Sciences. By student enrollment, the smallest of the seven undergraduate colleges is Architecture, Art, and Planning, with 503 (3.3%) students. Several other universities have used Cornell as their model, including
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, Clark University, the University of Sydney in Australia, and the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom; the last did so on the recommendation of one of its financiers, Andrew Carnegie, who was a Cornell Trustee. The university also operates eCornell, which offers both certificate programs and professional development courses online. In addition to being New York's land-grant college, Cornell is also a partner in New York's sea-grant program, and is a part of New York's space-grant consortium. The university previously served as the hub of the Northeast's sun-grant program, but the hub has since moved to
Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...
. In 2015, Cornell ranked fifth among universities in the U.S. in fund-raising, collecting US$591 million in private support.2015 Donations to Colleges and Universities
Retrieved March 10, 2016.
In addition to the central University development staff located in Ithaca and New York City, each college and program has its own staffed fundraising program. In 2006, Cornell launched a $4 billion fundraising campaign, which reached $3 billion in November 2010. In 2013, Cornell's "Cornell Now" fundraising campaign raised over $475 million.


Academics

Cornell is a large, primarily residential research university with a majority of enrollments in undergraduate programs. The university has been accredited by the
Middle States Commission on Higher Education The Middle States Commission on Higher Education (abbreviated as MSCHE and legally incorporated as the Mid-Atlantic Region Commission on Higher Education) is a voluntary, peer-based, non-profit membership organization that performs peer evalua ...
since 1921. Cornell operates on a 4–1–4 academic calendar with the fall term beginning in late August and ending in early December, a three-week winter session in January, and the spring term beginning in late January and ending in early May. Cornell, Oregon State University,
Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campuses and facilities throughout Pennsylvan ...
, University of Georgia, and University of Hawaii at Manoa are the only institutions to be members of all four Land Grant, Sea Grant, Space Grant, and Sun Grant programs.


Admissions

Admission to the university is highly competitive. By the spring of 2021 (Class of 2025), Cornell's undergraduate programs collectively received 67,000 applications; 5,863 were admitted, an 8.7% acceptance rate, and enrolled. For the Fall 2019 enrolling freshmen, the middle 50% range of SAT scores were 680–760 for evidence-based reading and writing, and 720–800 for math. The middle 50% range of the ACT Composite score was 32–35. The university continues to attract a diverse and inclusive student body. The proportion of admitted students who self-identify as underrepresented minorities increased to 34.2% from 33.7% last year, and 59.3% self-identify as students of color. That number has increased steadily over the past five years, enrollment officials said, from 52.5% in 2017 and 57.2% last year. Of those admitted 1,163 will be first-generation college students, another increase over last year's 844.


Financial aid

Section 9 of the original charter of Cornell ensured that the university "shall be open to applicants for admission ... at the lowest rates of expense consistent with its welfare and efficiency, and without distinction as to rank, class, previous occupation or locality". The University Charter provided for free instruction to one student chosen from each Assembly district in the state. Starting in the 1950s Cornell coordinated with other Ivy League schools to provide a consistent set of financial aid. However, in 1989, a consent decree to end a Justice Department
antitrust Competition law is the field of law that promotes or seeks to maintain market competition by regulating anti-competitive conduct by companies. Competition law is implemented through public and private enforcement. It is also known as antitrust l ...
investigation ended such coordination. Even after the decree, all Ivy League schools continue to award aid on financial need without offering any athletic scholarships. In December 2010, Cornell announced a policy of matching any grant component of financial aid offers from other Ivy League schools, MIT,
Duke University Duke University is a private research university in Durham, North Carolina. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1892. In 1924, tobacco and electric power industrialist James ...
or
Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...
, if an accepted applicant is trying to decide between Cornell and those other schools. On January 31, 2008, Cornell announced a new financial aid initiative to be phased in over the following two years. In the first year, 2008–2009, Cornell replaced need-based loans with scholarships for undergraduate students from families with incomes under $60,000 and capped such loans annually at $3,000 for students from families with incomes between $60,000 and $120,000. The following year, 2009–2010, the program improved by replacing loan with scholarships for students from families with incomes up to $75,000, and capped annual loans at $3,000 for students from families with income between $75,000 and $120,000. For families above $120,000, need-based loans were capped at $7,500 per year. The initiative costs an additional $14 million per year to fully implement. Although Cornell's endowment dropped 27% in the second half of 2008, its president announced that the financial aid initiative will continue by withdrawing an additional $35 million from the endowment for undergraduate financial aid in 2009–10. Cornell is seeking $125 million in gifts to support the financial aid initiative. In 2010, 1,647 of the 3,181 full-time freshmen enrolled were found to have financial need (40%). Of these, Cornell could meet the full financial aid needs of all 1,647 freshmen. Cornell's average undergraduate student's indebtedness at graduation is $21,549.


International programs

Cornell is a member of the United Nations Academic Impact aligning institutions of higher education to the United Nations and promoting international cooperation. Cornell is the only US member school in the CEMS Alliance, and the Cornell Master's in international Management is the only programme in the US to offer the CEMS Master's in International Management (CEMS MIM) as a double degree option, allowing students to study at one of 34 prestigious CEMS partner universities. Cornell offers undergraduate curricula with international focuses, including the Africana Studies, Asian-Pacific American Studies French Studies, German Studies,
Jewish Studies Jewish studies (or Judaic studies; he, מדעי היהדות, madey ha-yahadut, sciences of Judaism) is an academic discipline centered on the study of Jews and Judaism. Jewish studies is interdisciplinary and combines aspects of history (esp ...
, Latino studies, Near Eastern Studies, Romance studies, and
Russian Literature Russian literature refers to the literature of Russia and its émigrés and to Russian language, Russian-language literature. The roots of Russian literature can be traced to the Middle Ages, when epics and chronicles in Old East Slavic were c ...
majors. In addition to traditional academic programs, Cornell students may study abroad on any of six continents. The
Asian Studies Asian studies is the term used usually in North America and Australia for what in Europe is known as Oriental studies. The field is concerned with the Asian people, their cultures, languages, history and politics. Within the Asian sphere, Asian ...
major, South Asia Program,
Southeast Asia Program The Southeast Asia Program (SEAP) was founded in 1950 to promote the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge about countries, cultures and languages of the region. It is an interdisciplinary program of Cornell University that focuses on the dev ...
and China and Asia-Pacific Studies (CAPS) major provide opportunities for students and researchers in Asia. Cornell has an agreement with
Peking University Peking University (PKU; ) is a public research university in Beijing, China. The university is funded by the Ministry of Education. Peking University was established as the Imperial University of Peking in 1898 when it received its royal charter ...
allowing students in the CAPS major to spend a semester in Beijing. Similarly, the College of Engineering has an agreement to exchange faculty and graduate students with Tsinghua University in Beijing, and the School of Hotel Administration has a joint master's program with
Nanyang Technological University The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is a national research university in Singapore. It is the second oldest autonomous university in the country and is considered as one of the most prestigious universities in the world by various inte ...
in Singapore. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has signed an agreement with Japan's National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences, and with the
University of the Philippines, Los Baños A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
, to engage in joint research and exchange graduate students and faculty members. It also cooperates in agricultural research with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. Cornell also offers a course on International consulting in association with
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM Bangalore or IIMB) is a public business school and Institute of National Importance located in Bangalore, India. Founded in 1973, it was the third IIM to be established, after IIM Calcutta and IIM ...
In the Middle East, Cornell's efforts focus on biology and medicine. The Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar trains new doctors to improve health services in the region. The university is also developing the Bridging the Rift Center, a "Library of Life" (or database of all living systems) on the border of Israel and Jordan, in collaboration with those two countries and
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
. Cornell has partnered with
Queen's University Queen's or Queens University may refer to: *Queen's University at Kingston, Ontario, Canada *Queen's University Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK **Queen's University of Belfast (UK Parliament constituency) (1918–1950) **Queen's University of Belfast ...
in Canada to offer a joint Executive MBA. The innovative program includes both on-campus and videoconferencing-based, interactive virtual classroom sessions. Graduates of the program earn both a Cornell MBA and a Queen's MBA. Cornell also has an ILR exchange program with institutions such as Bocconi University and the University of Warwick.


Rankings

Cornell is ranked 12th on average over the past 30 years by '' U.S. News & World Report'' National Universities ranking. In 2020 Cornell ranked 7th in the US according to QS World University Rankings and 9th according to Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In 2015, Cornell ranked 8th domestically and 10th internationally in the CWUR rankings. Cornell ranked 14th in the world in the 2018 edition of the QS World University Rankings and 19th globally in the 2017 edition of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. The university ranked 10th in the 2013 '' Business Insider'' Best Colleges in America ranking, 13th globally in an academic ranking of world universities by
Academic Ranking of World Universities The ''Academic Ranking of World Universities'' (''ARWU''), also known as the Shanghai Ranking, is one of the annual publications of world university rankings. The league table was originally compiled and issued by Shanghai Jiao Tong University ...
in 2015, and tied 6th in the United States by the U.S. News Academic Reputation peer assessment score in 2020. Cornell was ranked 8th nationally in '' The Washington Monthly'''s 2022 ranking of universities' contributions to research, community service, and
social mobility Social mobility is the movement of individuals, families, households or other categories of people within or between social strata in a society. It is a change in social status relative to one's current social location within a given society ...
. In 2017, the university was ranked 7th in ''The Princeton Reviews "Top 50 Green Colleges". In its annual edition of "America's Best Architecture & Design Schools", the journal ''Design Intelligence'' has consistently ranked Cornell's Bachelor of Architecture program as number one in the nation (2000–2002, 2005–2007, 2009–2013 and 2015–2016). In the 2011 survey, the program ranked first and the Master of Architecture program ranked 6th. In 2017, Design Intelligence ranked Cornell's Master of Landscape Architecture program 4th in the nation with the Bachelor of Science in Landscape Architecture program ranking 5th among its undergraduate counterparts. Among business schools in the United States, the Johnson School of Management at Cornell was named the 9th best business school by '' Forbes'' in 2019, 8th by '' The Washington Post'' for salary potential, 13th overall by ''Poets and Quants'' in 2020 but 4th for investment banking and 6th for salary worldwide in 2015, 11th nationally by '' Bloomberg Businessweek'' in 2019, and 11th nationally and 14th worldwide by '' The Economist'' in 2019. In 2013, the Johnson school was ranked 2nd for sustainability by ''Bloomberg Businessweek''. Cornell's international relations offerings are also ranked in ''
Foreign Policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...
'' magazine's
Inside the Ivory Tower "Inside the Ivory Tower" is a College and university rankings, ranking of the world's best university programs in international relations. The ranking is published by the ''Foreign Policy'' magazine in collaboration with the Teaching, Research, and ...
survey, which lists the world's top twenty of such programs at the undergraduate, Master's and Ph.D. levels. In 2012, the survey ranked Cornell 11th overall for doctoral programs and 12th overall in the undergraduate category. In 2015, Cornell was ranked third in New York State by average professor salaries.


Library

The Cornell University Library is the 11th largest academic library in the United States, ranked by number of volumes held. Organized into 20 divisions, in 2005 it held 7.5 million printed volumes in open stacks, 8.2 million microfilms and microfiches, and a total of 440,000 maps, motion pictures, DVDs, sound recordings, and computer files in its collections, in addition to extensive digital resources and the University Archives. It was the first among all U.S. colleges and universities to allow undergraduates to borrow books from its libraries. In 2006, '' The Princeton Review'' ranked it as the 11th best college library, and it climbed to 6th best in 2009. The library plays an active role in furthering online archiving of scientific and historical documents. arXiv, an e-print archive created at Los Alamos National Laboratory by Paul Ginsparg, is operated and primarily funded by Cornell as part of the library's services. The archive has changed the way many physicists and mathematicians communicate, making the e-print a viable and popular means of announcing new research.


Press and scholarly publications

The Cornell University Press, established in 1869 but inactive from 1884 to 1930, was the first university
publishing Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
enterprise in the United States. Today, the press is one of the country's largest university presses. It produces approximately 150 nonfiction titles each year in various disciplines including anthropology, Asian studies, biological sciences, classics, history, industrial relations, literary criticism and theory, natural history, politics and international relations, veterinary science, and women's studies. Cornell's academic units and student groups also publish a number of scholarly journals. Faculty-led publications include the Johnson School's '' Administrative Science Quarterly'', the ILR School's ''
Industrial and Labor Relations Review ''Industrial and Labor Relations Review'' (ILR Review) is a publication of the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations. It is an interdisciplinary journal publishing original research on all aspects of industrial relations. The ...
'', the Arts and Sciences Philosophy Department's '' The Philosophical Review'', the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning's ''Journal of Architecture'', and the Law School's '' Journal of Empirical Legal Studies''. Student-led scholarly publications include the '' Law Review'', the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs' '' Cornell Policy Review'', the '' International Law Journal'', the '' Journal of Law and Public Policy'', the '' International Affairs Review'', and the '' HR Review''. ''
Physical Review ''Physical Review'' is a peer-reviewed scientific journal established in 1893 by Edward Nichols. It publishes original research as well as scientific and literature reviews on all aspects of physics. It is published by the American Physical S ...
'', recognized internationally as among the best and well known journals of physics, was founded at Cornell in 1893 before being later managed by the
American Physical Society The American Physical Society (APS) is a not-for-profit membership organization of professionals in physics and related disciplines, comprising nearly fifty divisions, sections, and other units. Its mission is the advancement and diffusion of k ...
.


Research

Cornell, a research university, is ranked fourth in the world in producing the largest number of graduates who go on to pursue PhDs in engineering or the
natural science Natural science is one of the branches of science concerned with the description, understanding and prediction of natural phenomena, based on empirical evidence from observation and experimentation. Mechanisms such as peer review and repeatab ...
s at American institutions, and fifth in the world in producing graduates who pursue PhDs at American institutions in any field. Research is a central element of the university's mission; in 2009 Cornell spent $671 million on science and engineering research and development, the 16th highest in the United States. Cornell is
classified Classified may refer to: General *Classified information, material that a government body deems to be sensitive *Classified advertising or "classifieds" Music *Classified (rapper) (born 1977), Canadian rapper *The Classified, a 1980s American roc ...
among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity". For the 2016–17 fiscal year, the university spent $984.5 million on research. Federal sources constitute the largest source of research funding, with total federal investment of $438.2 million. The agencies contributing the largest share of that investment are the Department of Health and Human Services and the National Science Foundation, accounting for 49.6% and 24.4% of all federal investment, respectively. Cornell was on the top-ten list of U.S. universities receiving the most patents in 2003, and was one of the nation's top five institutions in forming
start-up companies A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend t ...
. In 2004–05, Cornell received 200 invention disclosures, filed 203 U.S. patent applications, completed 77 commercial license agreements, and distributed
royalties A royalty payment is a payment made by one party to another that owns a particular asset, for the right to ongoing use of that asset. Royalties are typically agreed upon as a percentage of gross or net revenues derived from the use of an asset o ...
of more than $4.1 million to Cornell units and inventors. Since 1962, Cornell has been involved in unmanned missions to Mars. In the 21st century, Cornell had a hand in the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. Cornell's Steve Squyres, Principal Investigator for the Athena Science Payload, led the selection of the landing zones and requested data collection features for the Spirit and Opportunity rovers. Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers took those requests and designed the rovers to meet them. The rovers, both of which have operated long past their original life expectancies, are responsible for the discoveries that were awarded 2004 Breakthrough of the Year honors by '' Science''. Control of the Mars rovers has shifted between NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech and Cornell's Space Sciences Building. Further, Cornell researchers discovered the rings around the planet Uranus, and Cornell built and operated the telescope at
Arecibo Observatory The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science F ...
located in
Arecibo, Puerto Rico Arecibo (; ) is a city and municipality on the northern coast of Puerto Rico, on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, located north of Utuado and Ciales; east of Hatillo; and west of Barceloneta and Florida. It is about west of San Juan, the ...
until 2011, when they transferred the operations to SRI International, the Universities Space Research Association and the Metropolitan University of Puerto Rico. The Automotive Crash Injury Research Project was begun in 1952. It pioneered the use of crash testing, originally using corpses rather than dummies. The project discovered that improved door locks, energy-absorbing steering wheels, padded dashboards, and seat belts could prevent an extraordinary percentage of injuries. In the early 1980s, Cornell deployed the first IBM 3090-400VF and coupled two IBM 3090-600E systems to investigate coarse-grained parallel computing. In 1984, the National Science Foundation began work on establishing five new
supercomputer A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer. The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second ( FLOPS) instead of million instructions ...
centers, including the Cornell Center for Advanced Computing, to provide high-speed computing resources for research within the United States. As an NSF center, Cornell deployed the first IBM Scalable Parallel supercomputer. In the 1990s, Cornell developed scheduling software and deployed the first supercomputer built by Dell. Most recently, Cornell deployed Red Cloud, one of the first cloud computing services designed specifically for research. Today, the center is a partner on the National Science Foundation Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) supercomputing program, providing coordination for XSEDE architecture and design, systems reliability testing, and online training using the Cornell Virtual Workshop learning platform. Cornell scientists have researched the fundamental particles of nature for more than 70 years. Cornell physicists, such as Hans Bethe, contributed not only to the foundations of nuclear physics but also participated in the Manhattan Project (see also:
List of Cornell Manhattan Project people Scientists from Cornell University played a major role in developing the technology that resulted in the first atomic bombs used in World War II. In turn, Cornell Physics professor Hans Bethe used the project as an opportunity to recruit young scie ...
). In the 1930s, Cornell built the second cyclotron in the United States. In the 1950s, Cornell physicists became the first to study
synchrotron radiation Synchrotron radiation (also known as magnetobremsstrahlung radiation) is the electromagnetic radiation emitted when relativistic charged particles are subject to an acceleration perpendicular to their velocity (). It is produced artificially in ...
. During the 1990s, the
Cornell Electron Storage Ring The Cornell Electron Storage Ring (CESR, pronounced Caesar) is a particle accelerator operated by Cornell University and located 40 feet beneath a football field on their Ithaca campus. The accelerator has contributed to fundamental research in hi ...
, located beneath Alumni Field, was the world's highest-luminosity electron-positron collider. After building the synchrotron at Cornell, Robert R. Wilson took a leave of absence to become the founding director of Fermilab, which involved designing and building the largest accelerator in the United States. Cornell's accelerator and high-energy physics groups are involved in the design of the proposed
International Linear Collider The International Linear Collider (ILC) is a proposed linear particle accelerator. It is planned to have a collision energy of 500 GeV initially, with the possibility for a later upgrade to 1000 GeV (1 TeV). Although early proposed ...
and plan to participate in its construction and operation. The International Linear Collider, to be completed in the late 2010s, will complement the
Large Hadron Collider The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is the world's largest and highest-energy particle collider. It was built by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) between 1998 and 2008 in collaboration with over 10,000 scientists and hundred ...
and shed light on questions such as the identity of dark matter and the existence of extra dimensions. As part of its research work, Cornell has established several research collaborations with universities around the globe. For example, a partnership with the University of Sussex (including the
Institute of Development Studies The Institute of Development Studies (IDS) is a think tank affiliated with the University of Sussex in Brighton, England, and based on its campus in Falmer, East Sussex. It delivers research and teaching in the area of development studies, an ...
at Sussex) allows research and teaching collaboration between the two institutions.


Student life


Activities

For the 2016–2017 academic year, Cornell had over 1,000 registered student organizations. These clubs and organizations run the gamut from kayaking to full-armor jousting, from varsity and club sports and a cappella groups to improvisational theatre, from political clubs and publications to chess and video game clubs. The Cornell International Affairs Society sends over 100 Cornellians to collegiate Model United Nations conferences across North America and hosts the Cornell Model United Nations Conference each spring for over 500 high school students. The Cornell University Mock Trial Association regularly sends teams to the national championship and is ranked 5th in the nation. Additionally, the Cornell International Affairs Society's traveling Model United Nations team is ranked number 16 in the nation. Cornell United Religious Work is a collaboration among many diverse religious traditions, helping to provide spiritual resources throughout a student's time at college. The Cornell Catholic Community is the largest Catholic student organization on campus. Student organizations also include a myriad of groups including a symphony orchestra, concert bands, formal and informal choral groups, including the
Sherwoods The Cornell University Glee Club (CUGC) is the oldest student organization at Cornell University, having been organized shortly after the first students arrived on campus in 1868. The CUGC is a thirty-nine member chorus for tenor and bass voices, ...
, the Chordials and other musical groups that play everything from classical, jazz, to ethnic styles in addition to the
Big Red Marching Band The Cornell Big Red Marching Band is the only corps style marching band (as opposed to a scatter band) in the Ivy League. It performs at all home, and most away, Cornell Big Red football games. In addition, the band has performed at halftime fo ...
, which performs regularly at football games and other campus events. Organized in 1868, the oldest Cornell student organization is the Cornell University Glee Club. Apart from musical groups, Cornell has an active outdoor community, consisting o
Cornell Outdoor EducationCornell Outing Club
an
Outdoor Odyssey
a student-run group that runs pre-orientation trips for first-year and transfer students. A Cornell student organization
The Cornell Astronomical Society
runs public observing nights every Friday evening at the
Fuertes Observatory Fuertes Observatory is an astronomical observatory located on the North Campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. The observatory was designed by L.P. Burnham, Cornell Professor of Architecture and completed in fall of 1917. It was orig ...
. The university is home to the Telluride House, an intellectual residential society. The university is also home to three secret honor societies called
Sphinx Head The Sphinx Head Society is the oldest senior honor society at Cornell University. Sphinx Head recognizes Cornell senior men and women who have demonstrated respectable strength of character on top of a dedication to leadership and service at Corn ...
, Der Hexenkreis and Quill and Dagger that have maintained a presence on campus for well over 120 years. Cornell's clubs are primarily subsidized financially by the Student Assembly and the Graduate & Professional Student Assembly, two student-run organizations with a collective budget of $3.0 million per year. The assemblies also finance other student life programs including a concert commission and an on-campus theater.


Greek life, professional, and honor societies

Cornell hosts a large fraternity and sorority system, with 70 chapters involving 33% of male and 24% of female undergraduates. Cornell's Greek Life has an extensive history on the campus with the first fraternity, Zeta Psi, being chartered by the end of the university's first year.
Alpha Phi Alpha Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. () is the oldest intercollegiate historically African American fraternity. It was initially a literary and social studies club organized in the 1905–1906 school year at Cornell University but later evolved int ...
, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter organization established for African Americans, was founded at Cornell in 1906. Alpha Zeta fraternity, the first Greek-lettered organization established for Latin Americans in the United States, was also founded at Cornell on January 1, 1890. Alpha Zeta served the wealthy international Latin American students that came to the United States to study. This organization led a movement of fraternities that catered to international Latin American students that was active from 1890 to 1975. On February 19, 1982, La Unidad Latina, Lambda Upsilon Lambda fraternity was established; it would eventually become the only Latino based fraternity in the nation with chapters at every Ivy League institution. Latinas Promoviendo Comunidad/ Lambda Pi Chi sorority was established on April 16, 1988, making the organization the first Latina-Based, and not Latina exclusive, sorority founded at an ivy-league institution. Cornell's connection to national Greek life is strong and longstanding. Many chapters are among the oldest of their respective national organizations, as evidenced by the proliferation of ''Alpha-series'' chapters. The chapter house of
Alpha Delta Phi Alpha Delta Phi (), commonly known as Alpha Delt, ADPhi, A-Delt, or ADP, is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity. Alpha Delta Phi was originally founded as a literary society by Samuel Eells in 1832 at Hamilton College in Cli ...
constructed in 1877 is believed to be the first house built in America solely for fraternity use, and the chapter's current home was designed by John Russell Pope. Philanthropy opportunities are used to encourage community relations, for example, during the 2004–05 academic year, the Greek system contributed 21,668 community service and
advocacy Advocacy is an Action (philosophy), activity by an individual or advocacy group, group that aims to influence decision making, decisions within political, economic, and social institutions. Advocacy includes activities and publications to infl ...
hours and raised $176,547 in charitable contributions from its philanthropic efforts. Generally, discipline is managed internally by the inter-Greek governing boards. As with all student, faculty or staff misconduct, more serious cases are reviewed by the Judicial Administrator, who administers Cornell's justice system.


Press and radio

The Cornell student body produces several works by way of print and radio. Student-run newspapers include '' The Cornell Daily Sun'', an independent daily; '' The Cornell Review'', a conservative newspaper published fortnightly; and '' The Cornell Progressive'', a liberal newspaper published every month. Other press outlets include ''
The Cornell Lunatic ''The Cornell Lunatic'' is the college humor magazine at Cornell University, founded on April 1, 1978, by Joey Green. History During Green's two-year tenure as editor, the ''Lunatic'' was a 72-page glossy magazine of satire and parody publish ...
'', a campus humor magazine; the '' Cornell Chronicle'', the university's newspaper of record; and '' Kitsch Magazine'', a feature magazine published in cooperation with Ithaca College. ''The Cornellian'' is an independent student organization that organizes, arranges, produces, edits, and publishes the yearbook of the same name; it is composed of artistic photos of the campus, student life, and athletics, and the standard senior portraits. It carries the Silver Crown Award for Journalism and a Benjamin Franklin Award for Print Design – the only Ivy League Yearbook with such a distinction. Cornellians are represented over the radio waves on WVBR, an independent commercial FM radio station owned and operated by Cornell students. Other student groups also operate internet streaming audio sites.


Housing

University housing is broadly divided into three sections: North Campus, West Campus, and Collegetown. Cornell began experiments with co-ed dormitories in 1971 and continued the tradition of residential advisors (RAs) within the campus system. In 1991, new students could be found throughout West Campus, including at the historic Baker and Boldt Hall complexes; since a 1997 residential initiative, West Campus houses transfer and returning students, whereas North Campus is almost entirely populated by freshmen as well as sorority and fraternity houses. The options for living on North Campus for upperclassmen are the program houses and co-op houses. Program houses include Risley Residential College, Just About Music, the Ecology House, Holland International Living Center, the Multicultural Living Learning Unit, the Latino Living Center, Akwe:kon, and Ujamaa. The co-op houses on North are The Prospect of Whitby, Triphammer Cooperative, Wait Avenue Cooperative, Wari Cooperative, and Wait Terrace. On West Campus, there are three university-affiliated cooperatives, 660 Stewart Cooperative, Von Cramm Hall, an
Watermargin
and one independent cooperative
Cayuga Lodge
In an attempt to create a sense of community and an atmosphere of education outside the classroom and continue Andrew Dickson White's vision, a $250 million reconstruction of West Campus created residential colleges there for undergraduates. The idea of building a house system can be attributed in part to the success of Risley Residential College, the oldest continually operating residential college at Cornell. In 2018, Cornell announced its North Campus Residential Expansive project. By 2022, the university aims to add 2,000 beds on North Campus. Five new dorms and a dining hall will be created, three of which will be located in Appel Field and will be exclusive for freshmen. Sophomores will have two new dorms located in the current CC Parking Lot. Additionally, Cornell has several housing areas for graduate and professional students. Of these, Schuyler House (which was formerly a part of Sage Infirmary) has a dorm layout, while Maplewood Apartments, Hasbrouck Apartments, and Thurston Court Apartments are apartment-style, some even allowing for family living. Off campus, many single-family houses in the East Hill neighborhoods adjacent to the university have been converted to apartments. Private developers have also built several multi-story apartment complexes in the Collegetown neighborhood. Nine percent of undergraduate students reside in fraternity and sorority houses, although first semester freshmen are not permitted to join them. Cornell's Greek system has 67 chapters and over 54 Greek residences that house approximately 1,500 students. About 42% of Greek members live in their houses.
Housing cooperative A housing cooperative, or housing co-op, is a legal entity, usually a cooperative or a corporation, which owns real estate, consisting of one or more residential buildings; it is one type of housing tenure. Housing cooperatives are a distinc ...
s or other independent living units exist, including Telluride House, the Center for Jewish Living, Phillips House (located on North Campus, 1975 all women; 2016, all men), and Center for World Community (international community, off campus, formed by Annabel Taylor Hall, 1972, mixed gender). The cooperative houses on North include The Prospect of Whitby, Triphammer Cooperative, Wait Avenue Cooperative, Wari Cooperative, and Wait Terrace. On West Campus, there are three university-affiliated cooperatives, 660 Stewart Cooperative, Von Cramm Cooperative Hall, an
Watermargin
and one independent cooperative
Cayuga Lodge
Besides this, there exists also cooperative housing not owned by Cornell, like Gamma Alpha or Stewart Little. , Cornell's dining system was ranked 3rd in the nation by the ''Princeton Review''. The university has 29 on-campus dining locations, including 10 "All You Care to Eat" cafeterias. North Campus is home to 3 of these dining halls: Robert Purcell Marketplace Eatery (located in Robert Purcell Community Center), North Star Dining Room (located in the Appel Commons), and Risley Dining (located in Risley Hall). West Campus houses 6 dining halls, 5 of which accompany the West Campus residential houses: Cook House Dining Room, Becker House Dining Room, Rose House Dining Room, Jansen's Dining Room at Hans Bethe House, and Keeton House Dining Room. Also located on West Campus is 104West!, a kosher/multicultural dining room. Central Campus accommodates just a single dining hall: Okenshields, located in Willard Straight Hall.


Athletics

Cornell has 35 varsity intercollegiate teams that have the nickname of the Big Red. An NCAA Division I institution, Cornell is a member of the Ivy League and ECAC Hockey and competes in the Eastern College Athletic Conference (ECAC), the largest athletic conference in North America. (ECAC Hockey is no longer affiliated with the ECAC.) Cornell's varsity athletic teams consistently challenge for NCAA Division I titles in a number of sports, including men's wrestling, men's lacrosse, men's ice hockey, and rowing (the women's crew program is subject to the NCAA, while the men's rowing program is governed by its own administrative body, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association). Under the Ivy League athletic agreement, the university does not offer athletic scholarships for athletic recruiting. Cornell's
football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
team had at least a share of the national championship four times before 1940 and has won the Ivy League championship three times, last in 1990. In 2010, the Cornell men's basketball team appeared for the first time in the NCAA tournament's East Regional semifinals, known as the "Sweet 16". It was the first Ivy League team to make the semifinals since 1979.


Cornell Outdoor Education

Cornell runs one of the largest collegiate outdoor education programs in the country, serving over 20,000 people every year. The program runs over 130 different courses including but not limited to: Backpacking and Camping, Mountain Biking, Bike Touring, Caving, Hiking, Rock and Ice Climbing, Wilderness First Aid, and tree climbing. COE also oversees one of the largest student-run pre-freshman summer programs, known as Outdoor Odyssey. Most classes are often entirely taught by paid student instructors and courses count toward Cornell's physical education graduation requirement. One of the most remarkable facilities at Cornell Outdoor Education is The Lindseth Climbing Wall. The wall was renovated in 2016, and now includes 8,000 square feet of climbing surface, up from 4,800 square feet previously. The new wall now offers a more modern environment with bouldering, top-rope, and lead climbing facilities appropriate for various skill levels.


Cornelliana

Cornelliana is a term for Cornell's traditions, legends, and lore. Cornellian traditions include
Slope Day Slope Day is an annual day of celebration held at Cornell University historically during the last day of regular undergraduate classes, but has moved to the following day as of 2014. The Slope Day Programming Board (SDPB) is responsible for organizi ...
, a celebration held on the last day of classes of the spring semester, and Dragon Day, which includes the burning of a dragon built by architecture students. Dragon Day is one of the school's oldest traditions and has been celebrated annually since 1901, typically on or near St. Patrick's Day. The dragon is built secretly by the architecture students, and taunting messages are left for the engineering students for the week before Dragon Day. On Dragon Day, the dragon is paraded across the Arts Quad and then set afire. According to legend, if a virgin crosses the
Arts Quad The College of Arts and Sciences (CAS or A&S) is a division of Cornell University. It has been part of the university since its founding, although its name has changed over time. It grants bachelor's degrees, and masters and doctorates through af ...
at midnight, the statues of Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White will walk off their pedestals, meet in the center of the Quad, and shake hands, congratulating themselves on the chastity of students. There is also another myth that if a couple crosses the suspension bridge on North Campus, and the young woman does not accept a kiss from her partner, the bridge will fall. If the kiss is accepted, the couple is assured a long future together. The university is also host to various student pranks. For example, on at least two different occasions the university has awoken to find something odd atop the 173-foot (52.7 m) tall McGraw clock tower—once a 60-pound (27 kg) pumpkin and another time a disco ball. Because there is no access to the spire atop the tower, how the items were put in place remains a mystery. The colors of the lights on McGraw tower change to orange for Halloween and green for St. Patrick's Day. The clock tower also plays music. The school colors are carnelian (a shade of red) and white, a play on "Cornellian" and Andrew Dickson White. A bear is commonly used as the unofficial mascot, which dates back to the introduction of the mascot "Touchdown" in 1915, a live bear who was brought onto the field during football games. The university's alma mater is " Far Above Cayuga's Waters", and its fight song is " Give My Regards to Davy". People associated with the university are called "Cornellians".


Health

Cornell offers a variety of professional and peer counseling services to students. Formerly called Gannett Health Services until its name change in 2016, Cornell Health offers on-campus outpatient health services with emergency services and residential treatment provided by
Cayuga Medical Center Cayuga Medical Center, officially referred to as Cayuga Medical Center at Ithaca and abbreviated as CMC, is a not-for-profit general hospital in Ithaca, New York, serving the residents of Broome, Cayuga, Chemung, Cortland, Schuyler, Seneca, ...
. For most of its history, Cornell provided residential medical care for sick students, including at the historic Sage Infirmary. Cornell offers specialized reproductive health and family planning services. The university also has a student-run Emergency Medical Service (EMS) agency. The squad provides emergency response to medical emergencies on the campus at Cornell and surrounding university-owned properties. Cornell EMS also provides stand-by service for university events and provides CPR, First Aid and other training seminars to the Cornell community. The university received attention for a series of six student suicides by jumping into a gorge that occurred during the 2009–10 school year, and after the incidents added temporary fences to the bridges which span area gorges. In May 2013, Cornell indicated that it planned to set up nets, which will extend out 15 feet, on five of the university's bridges. Installation of the nets began in May 2013 and were completed over the summer of that year. There were cases of gorge-jumping in the 1970s and 1990s. Before this abnormal cluster of suicides, the suicide rate at Cornell had been similar to or below the suicide rates of other American universities, including a period between 2005 and 2008 in which no suicides occurred.


Campus police

Cornell University Police protect the campus and are classified as peace officers and have the same authority as the Ithaca city police. They are similar to the campus police at Ithaca College and
Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
, and University of Rochester because those campus police are classified as armed peace officers. The Cornell University Police are on campus and on-call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Their duties include: patrolling the university around the clock, responding to emergencies and non-emergency calls for service, crime prevention services, active investigation of crimes on campus, enforcement of state criminal and motor vehicle laws, and campus regulations.


People

Cornell counts numerous notable individuals who have either come to the university as faculty to teach and to conduct research, or as students who have gone on to do noteworthy things. As of October 2020, 61 Nobel laureates were either faculty members, researchers, or students at Cornell.


Faculty

, Cornell had 1,639 full-and part-time faculty members affiliated with its main campus, 1,235 affiliated with its New York City divisions, and 34 affiliated with its campus in Qatar. Cornell's faculty for the 2005–06 academic year included three
Nobel laureates The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make ou ...
, a Crafoord Prize winner, two Turing Award winners, a
Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...
winner, two
Legion of Honor The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...
recipients, a World Food Prize winner, an
Andrei Sakharov Prize The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, commonly known as the Sakharov Prize, is an honorary award for individuals or groups who have dedicated their lives to the defence of human rights and freedom of thought. Named after Russian scientis ...
winner, three National Medal of Science winners, two Wolf Prize winners, five MacArthur award winners, four
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
winners, a Carter G. Woodson Scholars Medallion recipient, 20 National Science Foundation career grant holders, a recipient of the
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
Award, a recipient of the American Mathematical Society's Steele Prize for Lifetime Achievement, a recipient of the Heineman Prize for Mathematical Physics, and three Packard Foundation grant holders. Kurt Lewin taught at Cornell from 1933 to 1935 and is considered the "father of social psychology". Norman Borlaug taught at the university from 1982 to 1988 and is considered the "father of the Green Revolution", being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Congressional Gold Medal, and 49 honorary doctorates.
Frances Perkins Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Perkins; April 10, 1880 – May 14, 1965) was an American workers-rights advocate who served as the 4th United States secretary of labor from 1933 to 1945, the longest serving in that position. A member of th ...
joined the Cornell faculty in 1952 after serving as the first female member of the United States Cabinet and served until her death in 1965. Perkins was a witness to the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire in her adolescence and went on to champion the
National Labor Relations Act The National Labor Relations Act of 1935, also known as the Wagner Act, is a foundational statute of United States labor law that guarantees the right of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining, and ...
, the
Fair Labor Standards Act The Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) is a United States labor law that creates the right to a minimum wage, and "time-and-a-half" overtime pay when people work over forty hours a week. It also prohibits employment of minors in "oppres ...
, and the
Social Security Act The Social Security Act of 1935 is a law enacted by the 74th United States Congress and signed into law by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The law created the Social Security program as well as insurance against unemployment. The law was pa ...
while United States Secretary of Labor. Buckminster Fuller was a visiting professor at Cornell for one year (1952), and Henry Louis Gates, African American Studies scholar and subject of an arrest controversy and White House "Beer Summit", taught at Cornell from 1985 to 1989. Plant genetics pioneer
Ray Wu Ray Jui Wu (, 14 August 1928 – 10 February 2008) was a Chinese-born American geneticist. A pioneer of plant genetic engineering, Wu was Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Molecular Genetics and Biology at Cornell University. Biography Wu was t ...
invented the first method for
sequencing DNA DNA sequencing is the process of determining the nucleic acid sequence – the order of nucleotides in DNA. It includes any method or technology that is used to determine the order of the four bases: adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine ...
, considered a major breakthrough in genetics as it has enabled researchers to more closely understand how genes work.
Emmy Award The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...
-winning actor
John Cleese John Marwood Cleese ( ; born 27 October 1939) is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter, and producer. Emerging from the Cambridge Footlights in the 1960s, he first achieved success at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as a scriptwriter and ...
, known for his roles in ''
Monty Python Monty Python (also collectively known as the Pythons) were a British comedy troupe who created the sketch comedy television show '' Monty Python's Flying Circus'', which first aired on the BBC in 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four ...
'', '' James Bond'', ''
Harry Potter ''Harry Potter'' is a series of seven fantasy literature, fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The novels chronicle the lives of a young Magician (fantasy), wizard, Harry Potter (character), Harry Potter, and his friends ...
'' and '' Shrek'', has taught at Cornell since 1999. Charles Evans Hughes taught in the law school from 1893 to 1895 before becoming
Governor of New York The governor of New York is the head of government of the U.S. state of New York. The governor is the head of the executive branch of New York's state government and the commander-in-chief of the state's military forces. The governor has ...
, United States Secretary of State, and Chief Justice of the United States.
Georgios Papanikolaou Georgios Nikolaou Papanikolaou (or George Papanicolaou ; el, Γεώργιος Ν. Παπανικολάου ; 13 May 1883 – 19 February 1962) was a Greek physician who was a pioneer in cytopathology and early cancer detection, and inventor of ...
, who taught at Cornell's medical school from 1913 to 1961, invented the Pap smear test for
cervical cancer Cervical cancer is a cancer arising from the cervix. It is due to the abnormal growth of cells that have the ability to invade or spread to other parts of the body. Early on, typically no symptoms are seen. Later symptoms may include abnormal ...
.
Robert C. Baker Robert C. Baker (December 29, 1921 – March 13, 2006) was an American inventor and Cornell University professor. He invented the chicken nugget as well as many other poultry-related inventions. Due to his contributions to the poultry sciences, ...
('43), widely credited for inventing the chicken nugget, taught at Cornell from 1957 to 1989.
Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on ext ...
was a professor at the university from 1968 to 1996. He narrated and co-wrote the PBS series '' Cosmos'', the Emmy Award- and Peabody Award-winning show that became the most watched series in public-television history. He also wrote the novel '' Contact'', the basis for a 1997 film of the same name, and he won a
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
for his novel '' The Dragons of Eden: Speculations on the Evolution of Human Intelligence''. M. H. Abrams was a professor emeritus of English and was the founding editor of '' The Norton Anthology of English Literature''.
James L. Hoard James Lynn Hoard (December 28, 1905 – April 10, 1993) was an American chemist, a member of the Manhattan Project. Hoard was internationally recognized for his research of boron. Linus Pauling, a Nobel Prize laureate, said that Hoard "contrib ...
, a scientist who worked on the Manhattan Project and an expert in
crystallography Crystallography is the experimental science of determining the arrangement of atoms in crystalline solids. Crystallography is a fundamental subject in the fields of materials science and solid-state physics (condensed matter physics). The wor ...
, was a professor emeritus of chemistry and taught from 1936 to 1971. Vladimir Nabokov taught Russian and European literature at Cornell between 1948 and 1959. The nominee of the Nobel Peace Prize, one of the authors of the theory of intelligentsia Vitaly Tepikin received the academic medal of Cornell University in 2021. Cornell has twice (2008 and 2009) been named a "Great College to Work For" by The Chronicle of Higher Education, due to receiving high ratings in
compensation and benefits Compensation and benefits (C&B) is a sub-discipline of human resources, focused on employee compensation and benefits policy-making. While compensation and benefits are tangible, there are intangible rewards such as recognition, work-life and de ...
, connection to institution and pride, faculty-administration relations, job satisfaction, and post-retirement benefits. Many faculty, and president, live in the upscale suburb of
Cayuga Heights Cayuga Heights is a village in Tompkins County, New York, United States and an upscale suburb of Ithaca. The village is in the Town of Ithaca, directly northeast of the City of Ithaca and Cornell University's main campus. The population was 3, ...
, directly north of campus.


Alumni

Cornell counted 245,027 living alumni as of August 2008. Its alumni constitute 34  Marshall Scholars and 31 
Rhodes Scholars The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Established in 1902, it is the oldest graduate scholarship in the world. It is considered among the world' ...
, and Cornell is the only university with three female winners ( Pearl S. Buck,
Barbara McClintock Barbara McClintock (June 16, 1902 – September 2, 1992) was an American scientist and cytogeneticist who was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. McClintock received her PhD in botany from Cornell University in 1927. There s ...
, and Toni Morrison) of unshared Nobel Prizes among its graduates. Many alumni maintain university ties through Homecoming's reunion weekend, through ''Cornell Magazine'', and through the Cornell Club of New York. In 2015, Cornell ranked No. 5 nationwide for gifts and bequests from alumni. Cornell alumni are noted for their accomplishments in public, professional, and corporate life.
Lee Teng-hui Lee Teng-hui (; 15 January 192330 July 2020) was a Taiwanese statesman and economist who served as President of the Republic of China (Taiwan) under the 1947 Constitution and chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT) from 1988 to 2000. He was the fir ...
was the president of Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen was elected to be the first female president of Taiwan, Mario García Menocal was president of Cuba,
Jamshid Amuzegar Jamshid Amouzegar ( fa, جمشید آموزگار‎; 25 June 1923 – 27 September 2016) was an Iranian economist and politician who was prime minister of Iran from 7 August 1977 to 27 August 1978 when he resigned. Prior to that, he served as ...
('50) was prime minister of Iran, Hu Shih (1914) was a Chinese reformer and representative to the United Nations, Janet Reno ('60) was the first female United States Attorney General, and Ruth Bader Ginsburg ('54) served on the
Supreme Court A supreme court is the highest court within the hierarchy of courts in most legal jurisdictions. Other descriptions for such courts include court of last resort, apex court, and high (or final) court of appeal. Broadly speaking, the decisions of ...
. Alumnus
David Starr Jordan David Starr Jordan (January 19, 1851 – September 19, 1931) was the founding president of Stanford University, serving from 1891 to 1913. He was an ichthyologist during his research career. Prior to serving as president of Stanford Univer ...
(1872) was the founding president of
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
, and M. Carey Thomas (1877) was the second president and first female president of Bryn Mawr College. Additionally, alumnus Matt Urban ('41), a Medal of Honor recipient, holds the distinction as one of the most decorated soldiers in World War II. Cornellians in business include:
Citigroup Citigroup Inc. or Citi (Style (visual arts), stylized as citi) is an American multinational investment banking, investment bank and financial services corporation headquartered in New York City. The company was formed by the merger of banking ...
CEO Sanford Weill ('55), Goldman Sachs Group Chairman Stephen Friedman ('59), Kraft Foods CEO
Irene Rosenfeld Irene Blecker Rosenfeld (born May 3, 1953) is an American businesswoman who was the chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of Mondelēz International. Rosenfeld's career began at Dancer Fitzgerald Sample, a New York City advertising agency. ...
('75, '77, '80), Autodesk CEO
Carl Bass Carl Bass is a former president and chief executive officer of Autodesk, Inc., a maker of professional 3D design software and consumer applications, and was a co-founder of Ithaca Software, which commercialized HOOPS, a 3D graphics system. Bass h ...
('83), Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini ('84), S.C. Johnson & Son CEO Fisk Johnson ('79, '80, '82, '84, '86), Chevron Chairman
Kenneth T. Derr Kenneth T. Derr is a member of the board of directors of the Halliburton Company. He is a retired chairman of the board, Chevron Corporation (international oil company). He served as Chevron's Chairman and chief executive officer from January 1, 19 ...
('59), Sprint Nextel CEO
Dan Hesse Daniel R. Hesse (born c. 1953) is the former chief executive officer of Sprint Corporation. Hesse's tenure at Sprint focused on improved customer service, and he served as the spokesperson in Sprint's "Simply Everything" commercials. In January ...
('77), Verizon CEO Lowell McAdam ('76), MasterCard CEO
Robert Selander Robert W. Selander was the President and Chief Executive Officer of MasterCard until 1 July 2010 when he was succeeded by Ajay Banga. He had held this position since April 1997. Before that he spent 20 years with Citibank, where he developed their ...
('72), Coors Brewing Company CEO Adolph Coors III ('37), Loews Corporation Chairman Andrew Tisch ('71),
Burger King Burger King (BK) is an American-based multinational chain store, chain of hamburger fast food restaurants. Headquartered in Miami-Dade County, Florida, the company was founded in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida–based res ...
founder James McLamore ('47), Hotels.com founder David Litman ('79), PeopleSoft founder
David Duffield David Arthur Duffield (born 21 September 1940) is an American billionaire businessman in the software industry. He is the co-founder and former chairman of PeopleSoft, co-founder and chairman emeritus of Workday, Inc., and current founder and ...
('62), Priceline.com founder Jay Walker ('77), Staples founder Myra Hart ('62),
Qualcomm Qualcomm () is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Diego, California, and incorporated in Delaware. It creates semiconductors, software, and services related to wireless technology. It owns patents critical to the 5G, 4 ...
founder
Irwin M. Jacobs Irwin Mark Jacobs (born October 18, 1933) is an American electrical engineer and businessman. He is a co-founder and former chairman of Qualcomm, and chair of the board of trustees of the Salk Institute. As of 2019, Jacobs has an estimated net ...
('56), Tata Group CEO Ratan Tata ('62), Nintendo of America President and COO Reggie Fils-Aimé,
Johnson & Johnson Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Its common stock is a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the company i ...
worldwide chairman
Sandi Peterson Sandi Peterson (born 1959) is an American businesswoman. She is currently an Operating Partner at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and serves on the Microsoft Board of Directors. She was group worldwide chairman at Johnson & Johnson from 2012-2018 and p ...
,
Pawan Kumar Goenka Pawan Kumar Goenka is an Indian businessman, and the retired Managing Director of Mahindra and Mahindra Limited, an Indian multinational automobile manufacturing corporation headquartered in Mumbai, and the chairman of SsangYong Motor Company ...
, MD of Mahindra & Mahindra, and Y Combinator founder Paul Graham ('86). In medicine, alumnus Robert Atkins ('55) developed the Atkins Diet,
Henry Heimlich Henry Judah Heimlich (February 3, 1920 – December 17, 2016) was an American thoracic surgeon and medical researcher. He is widely credited as the inventor of the Heimlich maneuver, a technique of abdominal thrusts for stopping choking, first ...
('47) developed the Heimlich maneuver,
Wilson Greatbatch Wilson Greatbatch (September 6, 1919 – September 27, 2011) was an American engineer and pioneering inventor. He held more than 325 patents and was a member of the National Inventors Hall of Fame and a recipient of the Lemelson–MIT Priz ...
('50) invented the
pacemaker An artificial cardiac pacemaker (or artificial pacemaker, so as not to be confused with the natural cardiac pacemaker) or pacemaker is a medical device that generates electrical impulses delivered by electrodes to the chambers of the heart eith ...
,
James Maas James Beryl Maas (born 1938) is an American social psychologist and retired professor. He is best known for his work in the field of sleep research, specifically the relationship between sleep and performance. He is best known for coining the ter ...
('66; also a faculty member) coined the term " power nap", C. Everett Koop ('41) served as
Surgeon General of the United States The surgeon general of the United States is the operational head of the United States Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) and thus the leading spokesperson on matters of public health in the federal government of the United States. Th ...
, and
Anthony Fauci Anthony Stephen Fauci (; born December 24, 1940) is an American physician-scientist and immunologist serving as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the chief medical advisor to the president. ...
served as the U.S.'s Chief Medical Adviser during the COVID-19 pandemic. A number of Cornellians have been prominent innovators. Thomas Midgley, Jr. ('11) invented Freon, Jon Rubinstein ('78) is credited with the development of the
iPod The iPod is a discontinued series of portable media players and multi-purpose mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. The first version was released on October 23, 2001, about months after the Macintosh version of iTunes ...
, and Robert Tappan Morris developed the first computer worm on the Internet.
Bill Nye William Sanford Nye (born November 27, 1955), popularly known as Bill Nye the Science Guy, is an American mechanical engineer, science communicator, and television presenter. He is best known as the host of the science television show ''Bill ...
('77) is well known as " The Science Guy".
Clarence W. Spicer Clarence Winfred Spicer (November 30, 1875 – November 21, 1939) was an American automotive engineer and inventor, best known for the first practical design and use of the universal joint in automotive applications. Early life and education ...
invented the 'universal joint' for automobiles while a student in 1903. Eight Cornellians have served as NASA
astronaut An astronaut (from the Ancient Greek (), meaning 'star', and (), meaning 'sailor') is a person trained, equipped, and deployed by a human spaceflight program to serve as a commander or crew member aboard a spacecraft. Although generally r ...
s, Steve Squyres ('81) is the principal investigator on the Mars Exploration Rover Mission. In aerospace, also, Otto Glasser ('40) directed the USAF program that developed the SM-65 Atlas, the World's first operational
Intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons c ...
.
Yolanda Shea Yolanda Shea is a Research Physical Scientist at NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. In 2019, Shea earned a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE) for her work in pioneering shortwave spectral measur ...
is a research scientist in the Science Directorate at NASA Langley Research Center. In literature, Toni Morrison (M.A.'50;
Nobel laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...
) is well known for her novel '' Beloved'', Pearl S. Buck (M.A.'25; Nobel laureate) authored '' The Good Earth'', Thomas Pynchon ('59) penned such canonical works of postwar American fiction as '' Gravity's Rainbow'' and '' The Crying of Lot 49'', Junot Díaz ('95) wrote The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao for which he won the
Pulitzer Prize The Pulitzer Prize () is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine, online journalism, literature, and musical composition within the United States. It was established in 1917 by provisions in the will of Joseph Pulitzer, who had made h ...
for fiction, and E. B. White (1921) authored ''
Charlotte's Web ''Charlotte's Web'' is a book of children's literature by American author E. B. White and illustrated by Garth Williams; it was published on October 15, 1952, by Harper & Brothers. The novel tells the story of a livestock pig named Wilbur and his ...
'' and '' Stuart Little''. Although he did not graduate, Kurt Vonnegut wrote extensively for the Cornell Daily Sun during his time at Cornell. He went on to pen best sellers such as '' Slaughterhouse-Five'' and '' Cat's Cradle.'' Lauren Weisberger ('99) wrote '' The Devil Wears Prada'', later adapted into a 2006 film of the same name starring Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway. Media personalities who have graduated from Cornell include conservative Ann Coulter ('84)Karlgaard, Rich. ''Life 2.0: How People Across America Are Transforming Their Lives by Finding the ''Where'' of Their Happiness.'' New York: Three Rivers Press, 2005. 41. and liberals
Bill Maher William Maher (; born January 20, 1956) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is known for the HBO political talk show ''Real Time with Bill Maher'' (2003–present) and the similar la ...
('78) and Keith Olbermann ('79). Several Cornellians have also achieved critical acclaim in theatre and entertainment. Christopher Reeve ('74) played ''
Superman Superman is a superhero who appears in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by writer Jerry Siegel and artist Joe Shuster, and debuted in the comic book ''Action Comics'' #1 (cover-dated June 1938 and publi ...
'', Frank Morgan was
The Wizard of Oz ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' or ''The Wizard of Oz'' most commonly refers to: *'' The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'', a 1900 American novel by L. Frank Baum often reprinted as ''The Wizard of Oz'' ** Wizard of Oz (character), from the Baum novel serie ...
, and Peter Yarrow ('59) of folk band Peter, Paul and Mary, wrote '' Puff, the Magic Dragon'' and other classic American tunes.
Jason Ardizzone-West Jason Ardizzone-West is an American scenic designer, production designer, and architect. He received the 2018 Emmy Award for Outstanding Production Design for a Variety Special for Jesus Christ Superstar Live (NBC Universal). Personal life & ed ...
('95) is an Emmy Award winning scenic and production designer. In architectural, alumnus
Richmond Shreve Richmond Harold Shreve (June 25, 1877 – September 11, 1946) was a Canadian-American architect. Biography He was born on June 25, 1877 in Cornwallis, Nova Scotia, the son of Richmond Shreve, an Anglican priest, and Mary Catherine Parker Hocken ...
(1902) designed the
Empire State Building The Empire State Building is a 102-story Art Deco skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. The building was designed by Shreve, Lamb & Harmon and built from 1930 to 1931. Its name is derived from "Empire State", the nickname of the st ...
, and Raymond M. Kennedy ('15) designed
Hollywood Hollywood usually refers to: * Hollywood, Los Angeles, a neighborhood in California * Hollywood, a metonym for the cinema of the United States Hollywood may also refer to: Places United States * Hollywood District (disambiguation) * Hollywood, ...
's famous
Grauman's Chinese Theatre Grauman's Chinese Theatre (branded as TCL Chinese Theatre for naming rights reasons) is a movie palace on the historic Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6925 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, United States. The original Chines ...
. In the arts,
Arthur Garfield Dove Arthur Garfield Dove (August 2, 1880 – November 23, 1946) was an American artist. An early American modernist, he is often considered the first American abstract painter.. Dove used a wide range of media, sometimes in unconventional combinati ...
(1903) is often considered the first American abstract painter. Louise Lawler ('69) is a pioneering feminist artist and photographer, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In athletics, Cornell graduates include football legend Glenn "Pop" Warner (1894), head coach of the United States men's national soccer team Bruce Arena ('73), Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred ('80) National Hockey League commissioner
Gary Bettman Gary Bruce Bettman (born June 2, 1952) is an American sports executive who serves as the commissioner of the National Hockey League (NHL), a post he has held since February 1, 1993. Previously, Bettman was a senior vice president and general cou ...
('74), six-time
Stanley Cup The Stanley Cup (french: La Coupe Stanley) is the championship trophy awarded annually to the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff champion. It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, an ...
winning hockey
goalie In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting ...
Ken Dryden ('69), tennis singles world # 2 Dick Savitt, seven-time US Tennis championships winner William Larned and Toronto Raptors president Bryan Colangelo ('87), and Kyle Dake, four-time NCAA division I wrestling national champion. Don Spero was an Olympic and world champion rower.


See also

* Cornell realism


Notes


References


External links

*
Cornell Athletics website
{{Authority control 1865 establishments in New York (state) Cornell family Educational institutions established in 1865 Ithaca, New York Land-grant universities and colleges Schools in Tompkins County, New York Tourist attractions in Tompkins County, New York Private universities and colleges in New York (state)