Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
The steep hills and dramatic gorges of Ithaca were the setting for a revolution in American education when, in the 1860s, a self-made man sought "to do the most good... to the poor and to posterity." Ezra Cornell's philanthropy, enhanced with funds from the Morrill Land Grant Act and enlarged by the vision of educator Andrew Dickson White, created what has been called the first American university--'a modern, democratic, research-oriented institution open to young men and women of all creeds and races. Reflecting the ideas of its founders, Cornell University has combined the industrial science and technology of America with the humanism of Athens to serve both the individual and society.In her concise, generously illustrated account of Cornell, Carol Kammen places that bold vision in its nineteenth-century context--a time when higher education was restricted to a privileged few. Now the university enters the twenty-first century as an institution of international stature and a leader in educational opportunity.Kammen, a noted local historian and lecturer in history at Cornell, tells the story of this great university with verve. Highlighting the text are excerpts from important documents and images from archives in the Cornell Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, selected by Susette Newberry, a Cornell archivist specializing in photography and media studies. Together, words and images illustrate the growth of the university, the origins of its famous schools and colleges, and its enduring commitment to excellence in education.
Synopsis
In their history of Cornell since 1940, Glenn C. Altschuler and Isaac Kramnick examine the institution in the context of the emergence of the modern research university. The book examines Cornell during the Cold War, the civil rights movement, Vietnam, antiapartheid protests, the ups and downs of varsity athletics, the women's movement, the opening of relations with China, and the creation of Cornell NYC Tech. It relates profound, fascinating, and little-known incidents involving the faculty, administration, and student life, connecting them to the "Cornell idea" of freedom and responsibility. The authors had access to all existing papers of the presidents of Cornell, which deeply informs their respectful but unvarnished portrait of the university.Institutions, like individuals, develop narratives about themselves. Cornell constructed its sense of self, of how it was special and different, on the eve of World War II, when America defended democracy from fascist dictatorship. Cornell's fifth president, Edmund Ezra Day, and Carl Becker, its preeminent historian, discerned what they called a Cornell "soul," a Cornell "character," a Cornell "personality," a Cornell "tradition"--and they called it "freedom.""The Cornell idea" was tested and contested in Cornell's second seventy-five years. Cornellians used the ideals of freedom and responsibility as weapons for change--and justifications for retaining the status quo; to protect academic freedom--and to rein in radical professors; to end in loco parentis and parietal rules, to preempt panty raids, pornography, and pot parties, and to reintroduce regulations to protect and promote the physical and emotional well-being of students; to add nanofabrication, entrepreneurship, and genomics to the curriculum--and to require language courses, freshmen writing, and physical education. In the name of freedom (and responsibility), black students occupied Willard Straight Hall, the anti-Vietnam War SDS took over the Engineering Library, proponents of divestment from South Africa built campus shantytowns, and Latinos seized Day Hall. In the name of responsibility (and freedom), the university reclaimed them.The history of Cornell since World War II, Altschuler and Kramnick believe, is in large part a set of variations on the narrative of freedom and its partner, responsibility, the obligation to others and to one's self to do what is right and useful, with a principled commitment to the Cornell community--and to the world outside the Eddy Street gate.