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This chapter presents the author’s recollections from 1964 until 1968, as a graduate student in the Philosophy Department—that is, in the Sage School of Philosophy—at Cornell University, where Keith Donnellan was a professor. Donnellan is described as an extraordinarily nice person and an effective and encouraging teacher. He also became a good friend.

This chapter discusses Cornell University's transformation into a research university after World War II. It examines the role played by two Cornell presidents, Edmund Ezra Day and Deane Waldo Malott, in Cornell's emergence as a university that privileged research over teaching. Day, president of Cornell from 1937 to 1949, brought to Cornell a deep commitment to linking academic excellence to public service and pressed the need for heightened social consciousness throughout the university. Malott, president of Cornell from 1951 to 1963, had to deal with two principal issues during his tenure: navigating Cold War passions on campus and responding to the new undergraduate culture, with students' demands for greater control over their private lives. The chapter also considers the establishment of a research library at Cornell, along with various colleges such as the School of Business and Public Administration. Finally, it assesses Cornell's relationship to New York State and some of the administrative changes at the university in the postwar period.

This chapter examines Cornell University's evolution into a larger, more complex, and more bureaucratic institution in the 1960s and 1970s. It first discusses the changes that Cornell went through under presidents James Perkins (1963–1969) and Dale Corson (1969–1977), beginning with Perkins's initiatives during a period of political unrest. Perkins insisted that universities had to become moral actors directing themselves to the realities of war, poverty, and racism as the civil rights, feminist, and student movements swept through America. Young people, especially college students, led a revolt against traditional authorities. Perkins had to deal with a politicized campus, but was able to transform Cornell from a virtually all-white institution to an inclusive college for “any person,” including people of color. After assessing the challenges that Perkins had confronted at Cornell, the chapter considers Corson's legacy and cites Cornell's politicized environment during his tenure, including faculty appointment and promotion.

This chapter examines changes at Cornell University as it headed toward the twenty-first century. At the end of the twentieth century, academics and administrators engaged in a serious and substantive reassessment of the nature, practice, and organization of research in universities. Multidisciplinary work occupied a central place in areas of inquiry with significant societal implications, such as the environment, energy, and health care. This chapter considers the various initiatives, including those involving research, introduced at Cornell by presidents Hunter Ripley Rawlings III, Jeffrey S. Lehman, and David J. Skorton. It also discusses the impact of the Great Recession of the 1930s on Cornell and how the university responded to the crisis, citing projects such as those related to construction on the Ithaca campus.

This chapter details the establishment of Cornell University's medical department. Within a few years of Cornell's founding in 1865, the university started offering a four-year course in natural history leading to a Bachelor of Science degree. The program was considered good preparation for students contemplating a career in medicine, but there were no large hospitals that were suitable for training medical students. In 1885, Charles Adams became Cornell's second president and attempted to expand the university by creating a medical school, although his efforts were frustrated after failing to pitch the idea to Cornell's board of trustees. Ultimately, in 1898, a proposal to create a new medical school that would maintain both high academic standards and financial stability presented itself, backed by Colonel Oliver H. Payne along with Dr. Lewis Stimson and Dr. Alfred L. Loomis.

This chapter examines the civil rights era at Cornell University, with particular emphasis on the issue of race. The civil rights era at Cornell began in April 1961, when Martin Luther King Jr. urged white Cornell students to join the “freedom riders” that summer at sit-ins at segregated facilities in Mississippi. A month after King's visit, a substantial number of Cornell students joined forces with students from Ithaca College and Ithaca High School to picket the Greyhound Bus terminal, demanding that the company desegregate its facilities in the South. Cornell's new president, James Perkins, believed that the school should involve itself in the civil rights struggle. This chapter discusses the ways Cornell showed its concern with race and addressed the issue of racism, such as increasing the number of Afro-American graduate students. It considers the racial tension at Cornell and how James Turner, director of the Afro-American Studies Center and an associate professor of Afro-American studies, helped usher in a new era of racial politics at the university.

This chapter examines developments at Cornell University under Frank H. T. Rhodes, who served as president from 1977 to 1995. Given the multiple constituencies and multiplicity of views in Cornell's multiversity, the Rhodes administration had its share of conflicts and critics: strikes by service and maintenance workers in 1980, 1981, and 1987; the arrest of more than 1,000 people in 1985 amid protests over Cornell's divestment policy in South Africa; protests by African American students and faculty against proposals to institute random housing assignments for first-year students; and Latinos' occupation of Day Hall. This chapter considers the ways that Rhodes responded to these challenges and helped Cornell solidify its reputation as a research university during his tenure. It also discusses Rhodes's initiatives to address tuition increases, such as turning to philanthropy.

This chapter examines Cornell University's efforts to expand its global reach between 1995 and 2015; in the words of President Frank H. T. Rhodes, Cornell strove to become “the land grant university to the world.” From its earliest days, Cornell had been international in its aspiration and, to an extent, in its global outreach. Over time, the international content of many courses increased, the number of international students and scholars grew, and faculty with international roots and experiences were recruited. Cornell also built an excellent reputation in international studies and international engagement. This chapter shows how Cornell deepened its commitment to infuse international and comparative perspectives into teaching, learning, research, and engagement through a range of initiatives, including the establishment of the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, relations with India and China, the use of the Internet in going global (and enhancing revenue), and expansion of its presence in New York City.

This chapter explains that the term “malaise” is frequently used to describe the 1970s, a decade generally remembered for its economic and political woes. The United States was plunged into a deep recession in 1973. Medical schools, hospitals, and the health care system were certainly affected. Health care costs escalated rapidly, and the public became increasingly aware of factors that were contributing to a rise in chronic conditions. University medical schools like Cornell University Medical College were forced to tread a fine line between charting a socially responsive course and maintaining a commitment to academic scholarship. By the end of the decade, the situation at Cornell had turned dire. Serious reservations regarding the quality of its students and faculty had emerged, relations with New York Hospital had taken a turn for the worse, and financial problems appeared insurmountable.

This chapter examines the transformation of undergraduate student life at Cornell University in the late 1990s. Colleges and universities across the country began to reconceive and reconstruct the residential environment and thus the student experience. A consensus was emerging that dormitories, along with fraternities and sororities, should not be intellect-free zones. This chapter considers how Cornell tried to find better ideas to replace in loco parentis during the period 1995–2015, such as fostering student health and welfare, and how Cornell's “millennial” students expressed their individuality and asserted their identities as Cornellians. It shows that some students promoted political and social agendas and that identity politics revolving around issues of race, ethnicity, and gender remained a significant factor at Cornell during the millennial years. It also discusses Hunter Ripley Rawlings III's decision student housing at North Campus, Cornell's success in athletics during the period, and how the university addressed the issue of hazing on campus.

This chapter shows how the end of military hostilities led to an economic boom and renewed prosperity throughout the country. Postwar economic growth triggered an exponential increase in federal funding for research at medical schools. Cornell's research program experienced a corresponding expansion. The influx of funds allowed Cornell to build its research infrastructure, recruit new investigators, and direct additional resources toward finding better treatments for disease. However, Cornell University Medical College experienced a few more obstacles in the following years: anxieties regarding the spread of communism, the advent of the Cold War, demands for a larger supply of doctors, and the shift towards specialization. In addition, the period of time between entering medical school and starting the practice of medicine had lengthened. Still, despite the cost and extensive training, increasing numbers of applicants flocked to Cornell.

This chapter looks at how the federal government and private insurers began setting limits on the amount of money they were willing to pay for medical care. Under legislation enacted in 1983, hospitals began receiving a set fee for Medicare patients based on their diagnoses, regardless of how much it actually cost to treat them. Another challenging development was the rise of managed care. Under this system, third-party payers, such as employer-sponsored health insurance plans, attempted to reduce medical costs by limiting the number of hospitalizations and the use of specialists by member patients. These health care trends threatened New York Hospital, Cornell University Medical College, and by extension, Cornell University. As the New York Hospital–Cornell Medical Center struggled to handle these challenges throughout the 1980s, relations between the hospital and medical school continued to deteriorate.

This chapter examines how the issue of ethnic studies at Cornell University evolved into a component of what came to be known as “multiculturalism” or “identity politics.” It considers how Cornell responded to students' requests for various ethnic studies programs. It shows that identity politics became a fact of life at Cornell during the tenure of Frank H. T. Rhodes; ethnic studies programs proliferated and “black” residence halls and affirmative action were hotly debated. Partisans of identity politics, who viewed themselves as victims of oppression, demanded opportunities to learn about and celebrate their history and heritage, and safe, secure, and separate spaces for members of their group. In time, their numbers included African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, women, and gays, as well as some “white ethnics” (including Jewish, Irish, and Italian Americans). This chapter also discusses the attitudes of students toward identity politics, along with the existence of racial tension on campus.

This chapter examines Cornell University's admission of GI students after World War II. Six months after the end of hostilities, President Edmund Ezra Day, along with eighty-five other presidents of institutions of higher education in New York State, attended a meeting to discuss a strategy for educating and housing the large number of veterans whose tuition, room, and board would be paid by the GI Bill of Rights. Day formed a committee in 1945 to plan for the return of thousands of former Cornell students who had left campus to enter the armed services, as well as new veteran applicants. This chapter considers the problems encountered by Cornell in handling the GI invasion, along with the impact of the war veterans' presence on campus on students. It shows that the GI students brought to Cornell a new sensitivity to discrimination against racial, religious, and ethnic groups. It also explains how the student riots of 1958 helped bring an end to in loco parentis in the university.

This chapter examines the anticommunist hysteria—the phenomenon known as McCarthyism—that engulfed Cornell University during the Cold War. It begins with an overview of the controversy involving two Russian émigrés, Joshua Kunitz and Vladimir Kazakevich, who had been hired to teach in the university's Intensive Russian Language and Culture Program. It then considers how Edmund Ezra Day and his successor, Deane Waldo Malott, addressed the issue of communism on campus. It also discusses Robert Fogel's role in putting Marxism on the postwar campus map; the House of Representatives's indictment of Cornell zoology professor Marcus Singer for contempt; and the involvement of two acting university presidents between June 1949 and July 1951, Cornelis de Kiewiet and Theodore P. Wright, in controversies over academic freedom issues that rocked the campus. The chapter shows that Cornell did not purge left-leaning faculty members and refused to exclude unpopular ideas from the institution's definition of academic freedom.

This chapter examines student activism at Cornell University that began in early 1965. Nathaniel Pierce convened the first meeting of Students for Education (SFE) on March 8 to air students' grievances, including lack of contact with faculty, the grading system, and James Perkins's recurring absences from campus. Perkins declined to meet with anyone from SFE, but Dale Corson decided to talk to six students. Changes came quickly, such as increasing faculty numbers to reduce the size of classes. This chapter considers how Cornell became a key venue for student antiwar activism on America's campuses because of the moral and strategic leadership provided by Cornell United Religious Work (CURW) and the Cornell chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society. In particular, it discusses the ways that Cornell students staged Vietnam War protests and how Cornell addressed the issue of drug use on campus.

This chapter examines Cornell University's political engagement, divestment, and two-China policy. Political activism over a range of international issues did not vanish during the tenure of Frank H. T. Rhodes. Students and faculty protested against the nuclear arms race, while conservatives became more visible on campus with the help of a newspaper, the Cornell Review. Furthermore, a movement for divestment from South Africa gathered strength on the campus, culminating in the construction of a “shantytown” and mass arrests in 1985 and 1986. This chapter discusses the ways that Rhodes and other Cornell administrators addressed the political engagement of faculty and students. In particular, it considers Rhodes's position regarding “constructive engagement” as well as apartheid and divestment in South Africa. It also looks at the establishment of the Cornell in Washington program.

This chapter presents how Cornell University Medical College (CUMC) was reborn as the Weill Cornell Medical College. A generous donation from Sanford Weill, chair of the board of overseers, and his wife, Joan, led to the renaming of the medical school in 1998 and the completion of its first strategic plan. The road to the Weill gift began when CUMC integrated its strategic planning and fundraising efforts for the first time. In 1990, Cornell University launched a five-year Campaign for Cornell—the New Horizons for Medicine campaign. At the same time, a strategic plan for the medical college was being developed, the Strategic Plan for Research, which became the fundraising template for the medical college's section of the campaign. Philanthropy also became increasingly important to Cornell as it tried to build up its academic programs and faculty.

This chapter explores how Cornell University Medical College (CUMC) joined with New York Hospital between 1928 and 1934 to construct a new medical center on the Upper East Side, creating a greater integration of clinical, research, and teaching activities. The medical center's cornerstone was set on June 12, 1930. In a volume of the student-run Cornell Daily Sun, G. Canby Robinson, director of the New York Hospital–Cornell Medical College Association, wrote in enthusiastic terms of the affiliation between CUMC and the New York Hospital. His idealism was not just confined to the expansive possibilities presented by the affiliation; much of his correspondence conveyed a deep-seated belief in the power of medicine, not just to heal bodies but also to inspire a love of mankind and of service to humanity.