A Fond Farewell to Dear Uncle Ezra

13 11 2012

It’s bittersweet. After 26 years of operation and over 20,000 responses, Dear Uncle Ezra, the “Dear Abby” of the Big Red, has gone on indefinite sabbatical. DUE was useful to this blog for its grab-bag of historical info, cited in these entries many times over the past few years. When first launched in the fall of 1986, DUE could be accessed from one of the two dozen computer sites, or few personal computers on campus.  Now in 2012, and thinking of blogs like this one and of internet culture, I suppose answers to many writers’ questions are just easier to find through google these days. But sometimes, it’s nice to just have someone hear you out, an impartial ear.

I wrote to Dear Uncle Ezra as a freshman. I don’t think the question will surprise most of the readers here.  A quick back-story on this, but my first few months at Cornell were a very trying time for me, since it was my first real experience away from home. And I guess that experience carries over somewhat to my current situation, as I moved to a new region for the first job in my post-grad school meteorology career. Having to build a new social network. Learning the ropes of my job. Not the easiest things in the world, when it seems tempting to settle into something else “easier” or closer to “home”.

From September 5, 2006:

Dear Uncle Ezra,
For years,
I’ve wanted to be a meteorologist, and I came to Cornell to study for that career. However, over the past year or so, I have had an equal if not greater interest in studying to be a history teacher at another university (it has a more focused program than Cornell’s, though I mean nothing against the school). I know that if I transfer, a lot of people will be dissappointed that I’m throwing away an “Ivy League education”. I feel confused and somewhat frustrated at being unable to make a decision, and I have to make it within the school year*. Could you weigh-in on the issue?

Dear Career-confused,

Glad to hear that you haven’t waited til the last minute and have the year to think this one through.  Choosing a career can be a very difficult process, but remember that it is a process and not just one single decision.

Fifty years ago, people in the United States got into the mind set that you chose a career (or even a company) and stayed there until retirement.  This is no longer true, as there is a lot of flexibility to combine interests into a “perfect” job, or to change positions or careers along the way as your expertise and needs change.  I myself, Ezra Cornell, was a carpenter, potter, farmer, public works engineer, communications entrepreneur, and then founder of this university.  But back to you.

In order for your direction to be the right one for you, you will need to continue engaging in the process of exploring your options.  One way to do that is to do research on what the two careers will be like.  Interview people in those positions to learn more about them.  Make an appointment with Cornell Career Services, 103 Barnes Hall, 5-5221.  They provide a wide range of services to help students reach decisions on majors and careers.  They could also help you find an internship or lead you through their career- information library, which might lead to greater clarity.

It might also help to talk to those people who think it would be a mistake to change schools: hear their thoughts and let them know your needs, goals and dreams.

Remember that it is your life and you must make the decision that is right for you after you weigh all of the information that you gather.

If you need a great sounding board along the way, feel free to contact EARS for free, confidential  and immediate counseling by phone or walk-in, 5-EARS or 211 Willard Straight Hall.

***

So I stayed the path in my career, doing my BS, my MS, and now at my first job (with what may be job number two coming up at a research facility a five hour flight away). My life is in flux, and it’s intimidating. Sometimes its good to have someone to sound off to. And for me personally, that’s what Dear Uncle Ezra was.


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The Descendants of Ezra

4 09 2012

The inspiration for this entry comes from a recent Sun article detailing the rescue of a woman from the gorge, in which the first responder was a Cornell student, and descendant of Ezra Cornell.

Some famous people, like William Shakespeare and Abraham Lincoln, have no living direct descendants. Ezra Cornell, who is at least famous to those who have spent four or more years in Ithaca, is quite the contrary.

Ezra Cornell had either nine or eleven children, which sounds prodigious until you realize that couples had as many children as possible back in the mid-19th century simply to ensure that nature and probability would allow at least a few of them to survive into adulthood. Indeed, four of Cornell’s children died before the age of 25. However, that leaves behinds seven children – three boys and four girls (or five children consisting of three boys and two girls, depending on which source is correct).

The most famous of Ezra’s direct descendants is likely his son Alonzo, who served as governor of New York from 1880 to 1882, and was married twice. The wikipedia article claims he had four boys. One of them, Charles Ezra Cornell (d. 1947), served as trustee and had three children of his own, of which at least one, William Cornell, survived to adulthood. So plenty of possibilities for descendants here.

Regarding Ezra’s other surviving children, Franklin Cornell, a banker, passed away in 1908, and at that time, three of his four children were still alive – one boy, Franklin Cornell, and two daughters, Ms. Dorothy Cornell and Mrs. Eunice Cornell Taylor.

Oliver Perry Cornell, the third son of Ezra, survived well into his mature years (d. 1911). He married and had at least one son.

As for the daughters, they tend to be less easy to track, since they take the names of their husbands. There was Mary Emily Cornell  and Emma Pettit Cornell Blair (d. 1914), of which I can be certain. A Dorothy and Emma Cornell also appear in one of the sources, but this could be a repeat, someone’s wife, or some other error (and this is why I would never wish to be a genealogist). Mary went to Vassar, passed away at the age of 87 in 1935 (making her the last of the first generation), and appears to have remained unmarried. But Emma did marry, and had three boys, Charles, Cornell, and Hamilton Blair.

So, given this illustration, it is likely that there are Cornell descendants sill kicking around today, many of whom still live near the Ithaca area. Among those, Ezra Cornell IV (class of 1970), and the kid from the Sun article, Thomas Ezra Cornell Collum ’14.

On a final note, in the early days of the university, direct descendants could attend free of charge. However, with the proliferation of descendants, this practice was discontinued beyond the fourth generation, by order of the Board of Trustees in 1932. The university notes that the last folks eligible were of college-age around sixty years ago. So even if you find out you’re a seventh-generation progeny of Ezra, it won’t help your pocketbook if you attend the Big Red. But I’m sure it would make a nice conversation piece.


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Quotes of Cornell

12 07 2012

A few thoughts from prominent folks about the school Far Above Cayuga:

“The university of Mr. Cornell, a really noble monument of his munificence, yet seems to rest on a misconception of what culture truly is, and is to be calculated to produce miners, or engineers, or architects, not sweetness and light. -Matthew Arnold, Preface of Culture and Anarchy, 1869 (Bishop 177)

“Columbia cannot grow, or at any rate cannot grow rapidly…unless it shall, at least to some extent, modify its plan of instruction in a more or less distant imitation of Harvard or of Cornell University”. Columbia President Frederick Barnard, 1870.

“[Cornell Vice-President Albert] Russel is a man whose nonreligious convictions are very pronounced, giving the university an air of positive irreligion. The decadence of the students is positive testimony to the evil effects of free inquiry.” – Lyman Abbott, editor of the Christian Union, 1881 (Bishop 215)

“I see, or think I see evidence of a growing disposition to drift away from the original intentions of Mr. Cornell in the founding of a purely non-sectarian university…I look to you [A. D. White] to protect my investment in Cornell from the common enemy.” Cornell Trustee Hiram Sibley to A.D. White, 1888.

“The University was sadly in need of reorganization and refitting.” – Benjamin Ide Wheeler, in reference to Cornell in the mid-1880s, quoted in 1902. (Bishop 259)

“The graduate students are the crown of the University, and Cornell cannot afford to neglect them for the sake of any others…” – David Starr Jordan, 1888

“The cry of the horse leech is modest and attenuated beside the stupendous greed and the insatiable clamor of this favored institution.” – New York Press, Nov. 1892

“[Cornell was] better endowed than any institution in the land, yet never did anything.” U.S. Sec. of Agriculture James Wilson, 1904 (Bishop 366)

“There is no university in the country in which freedom of thought and of speech is more firmly entrenched in tradition and in policy.” – Prof Henry A. Sill to Carl Becker, 1917

“[Cornell students] are good because it is too much trouble to be bad.” Romeyn Berry, Alumni News, 1926

“No more do the better students chant their Alma Mater in a happy trance; they sing from the side of the mouth, with the air of cynical priests of old Egypt.” – Alumni News, 1931.

“Cornell is a center of revolutionary communistic activity.” – State Sen. John J. McNaboe, 1936

“CORNELL GOES BOLSHEVIST” – Headline, New York World-Telegram, 1944

“We must retain private initiative and management in certain important fields, and certainly some of it in higher education.” -Edmund Ezra Day, 1948.

“At a time when Cornell was becoming a multicultural place, the Board of Trustees has thrown a dart into our celebration.” – Prof. Kenneth McClane, on the decision or Trustees to not divest South African investments, 1989

“[My wish for Cornell] is that it will continue to thrive and reach new heights … welcoming men and women of every color and creed, whatever their social standing or pecuniary condition. – Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 2003

“I am grateful to Cornell. I have seen the good work you have done in every stage of life.” – Bill Clinton, 2004 Convocation speech.

“My memories are strong about this place; important. And the two times I have been here for sustained periods have always been extraordinary.” – Toni Morrison, 2009.

“I would venture to say that the students at [Bush staffer Monica] Goodling’s law school at Regent University are far more impressive than those at the Cornell agriculture school — the land-grant, non-Ivy League school Keith [Olbermann] attended.”-Political Pundit Ann Coulter, 2009

“I got an excellent education, and that’s all I got from it…If I had to do it over again, or I had known what Cornell had been like, I never would have gone there.” Political pundit Bill Maher ’78, in a 2012 podcast


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Why Syracuse and Cornell Would Ever Be Mentioned in the Same Sentence

3 07 2012

I have a certain fondness for the Orange. I grew up in the Syracuse sphere of influence, where because of the lack of national sports franchises in the region (a few hardy souls follow the Buffalo Bills, who went 0-4 in a row in the Super Bowl in the 1990s; having not been to the playoffs in over a decade, beings a Bills fan requires grief therapy), the Syracuse Orangemen/Orangewomen, now using the extra PC term of Syracuse Orange, were the teams to follow, especially in football and basketball. When I was growing up in my hometown not too long ago, it was generally expected that if you were reasonably talented, you went to SU. And a couple dozen of my high school classmates did just that. I was the only one in my year that went to the Big Red, 50 miles southwest of University Hill.

In my mind, I often draw parallels to Cornell and Syracuse. They were both established in the Reconstruction Era – Cornell in 1865, and Syracuse in 1870. Both are large institutions – the combined student enrollment for Cornell is 20,939, and Syracuse is 20,407. In terms of the prestige factor, both are well-regarded, although Cornell, with its Ivy League gilding, is usually considered the more respected of the two. US News & World report ranks Cornell in a tie with Brown for 15th (roughly constant for the past few years), and Syracuse 62nd (a drop of about 12 spots since I started college in 2006). That all being said, if Syracuse had had what I wanted to study, and it was better ranked in that field than Cornell, I would’ve gone to Syracuse, lack of ivy notwithstanding.

The two are physically close, superficially similar, and their history is intertwined, which is what I want to touch on with this entry. Collegiate snobbery aside, Cornellians and Syracusans undoubtedly owe a fair amount of their history to each other.

First of all, Syracusans can thank Ezra Cornell (or curse him, perhaps) for being located where they are today. Andrew Dickson White and Ezra Cornell were state senators in the early 1860s, when the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act was passed; Cornell represented the Ithaca area, and White was elected out of the city of Syracuse. While they both united under the common goal of establish one strong university with those land sale proceeds, they differed on location. White wanted Syracuse to be home to the new school, and for the college to be seated on what is now University Hill. He believed that Syracuse, a burgeoning transportation hub, would make it easier to recruit faculty, and that the city would serve the university better. However, Ezra Cornell strongly disagreed; he detested Syracuse as a den of sin, citing an incident where he was twice-robbed of his wages as a young man while working in the city. Old Uncle Ezra offered up his farm in Ithaca if White agreed to keep the school out of Syracuse. White relented, and in following fashion, named the school after its biggest benefactor. On a final note, while Ezra gave $500,000 (1865 dollars) and his property to his fledgling institution, he gave $25,000 (1865 dollars) to those who supported a Syracuse school, so they would support the bill establishing the Ithaca school. In turn, this money was used to assist moving Genesee College from Lima, New York, to Syracuse, and helped SU to be established.

In many ways, the relationship between Cornell and Syracuse could be described as antagonistic. Cornell had the first school of forestry in the state, from 1898 to 1903. At that point, Bernhard Fernow had ticked off enough Adirondack land owners and wealthy vacationers that the governor vetoed funding for the school, which led to the Board of Trustees shutting it down. However, several years later, under the influence of Syracuse trustee Louis Marshall, a new forestry college was established in Syracuse, semi-associated with SU (SUNY ESF, in 1911). Rather than completely give in, Cornell continued a much smaller forestry college within the agriculture school, which annoyed the bean counters in Albany enough that they officially made SUNY ESF the primary forestry school in the 1930s, relegating Cornell to only “farm forestry“. In exchange, Syracuse had to drop all ambition of its own College of Agriculture. Today, the forestry department at Cornell is known as the Department of Natural Resources.

Competition for state money has always been a sticking point for Cornell and Syracuse. While Cornell lost the battle for the forestry school, Syracuse lost the battle for the ILR school (Industrial and Labor Relations) while it was being conceived in the late 1930s. Post WWII, academic competition between the two schools has given way as they diverged in their interests; the primary contests between the two institutions these days involve sports, where Syracuse usually has the upper hand.

So, as much as students at the two schools may taunt and jeer at each other, both institutions have played a crucial role in helping to develop the other. However, given my orange and red sympathies, I will forever be unwelcome at SU vs. Cornell games for the rest of my life.


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The Freshman Beanie

11 06 2012

Distinguishing between the years of students of Cornell can be rather difficult after about the first month of the academic year.  Unless it’s orientation, Greek rush, or some other telling factor, you can take a glance at some random person crossing the quad and have no idea whether or not they’re a freshman, a junior, or perhaps even a young grad student (whereas for older grad students, they might be mistaken for professors). However, it’s not like anyone worries about that; except in the case of love and relationships (senior to senior: you’re dating a freshman? Robbing the cradle much?), someone’s year usually doesn’t merit much attention. Well, things were a bit different back in the day.

In the days of yore, it was traditional for freshman males at Cornell (known as “pikers”, like those referenced in “Give My Regards to Davy”) to wear a rather peculiar-looking felt cap called a “Beanie”, which was like a snow hat (wikipedia directs the query to “tuque”, a word I’ve never used in my life), red in color with a grey button on the top. Examples can be seen in the below photo, which dates from a 1919 Cornell football game.

Image Courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Beanie was part of the mandatory rules for freshmen, and they were required to wear it in public until the spring, when all the freshmen burned their caps in a ceremonial bonfire. This was a kinda cutesy little sentimental event meant to instill class camaraderie and make warm fuzzies, when the sophomores weren’t trying to kick the crap out of freshmen in the occasional class battles.

The cap rule, along with other rules such as not walking on the grass and not wearing any high school or prep school emblems, tended to be strictly enforced, and with harsh consequences. Violators were liable to have their heads shaved or go for a quick dunk into Beebe Lake.

Of special note regarding the beanies is the case of Frederick Morelli, a freshman originally of the class of 1924, who absolutely refused to wear his beanie. After numerous dunkings and warnings from his peers (including a double dunking into a public fountain and the lake, with a placard hung on his neck saying “Moral: wear a frosh cap”), Morelli ended up being pursued by a mob of angry upperclassmen, and had to be saved by the president of the university to avoid serious injury. The Sun actually condoned the mob’s behavior. But George Lincoln Burr, the most senior faculty member at the university at the time, threatened resignation over the manifestation of “lynch law” on the campus. Fred Morelli withdrew from the university, but returned a couple years later and graduated in the class of 1926. Perhaps his penchant of pushing his bounds played into his undoing; after graduation, he became a gangster and nightclub owner, and was gunned down outside of his club in Utica in 1947. Fun fact: the city of Utica was run by the Mafia and its associates for decades, up through the early 1990s.

The caps faded out, as did the class battles, as a result of the changing demographics post-WWII. Frankly, after killing men in trenches, and now married with children, most vets who came in under the G.I. Bill as freshmen could not give two salts for collegiate antics. When the sophomores made an attempt to enforce the rules in 1949 by shaving the heads of three frosh, the enraged students brought their grievances before the mostly G.I.-composed Student Council, who promptly banned enforcement of the practice. The beanie remained voluntary up to the early 1960s, when it faded out completely.

So nowadays, students can feel completely to engage with members of the other classes. Unless it involves doing a walk of shame to Collegetown from a freshman dorm. That would be awkward.


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Cornell and Crime II: Here There Be Guns

15 05 2012

If you want to have a spirited debate on campus, open the floor for a discussion for the provision of guns on university grounds. Stating the obvious here, but student-owned guns are prohibited on campus, and have been for over a century (CUPD officers are issued Glock semi-automatics, an effect of the Willard Straight Hall takeover back in 1969). Few things seem to do a better job of getting someone’s blood to boil, and not without due reason. I thought of looking at this because of this recent little piece from the Sun about a student being robbed at gunpoint in North Campus, and the ensuing “we should be allowed to have guns/are you crazy no we shouldn’t have guns” comment queue.

I mulled this over in my head a little while, thinking that this usually gets tied into some “good old days” argument about back when everyone could have guns and everyone was safer (and there was much less crime, everyone was good-looking, all the kids were above-average, and whatever else those rose-tinted glasses show). I decided to look at the Sun archives for some historical perspective.

One of the first things returned in the search was an article from 1930 – before the vast majority of us were even alive – detailing a series of armed robberies and the murder of a gas station attendant leading to a possible rise in gun permit applications (the only requirement be that you are a law-abiding citizen of “good character”). So much for those good old days. For what it’s worth, the CUPD was formed the following year, with a whopping two patrolmen on horseback, and no guns during day shifts (today, Cornell has six times as many students, and about 45 officers).

As for the case of responsible students, it’s not always easy determining which are and which aren’t – as these cases demonstrate. You have (in order) the hard-partying student, the student claiming self-defense, and the self-inflicted fatal gunshot wound (thought to be accidental, but could have been otherwise). In imagining a world where guns were okay on campus, I can see a clear case for pulling the gun rights of the first, a lawsuit waiting to happen with the second (the gun owner claimed he shot at someone who was leaving racist notes under his door), and another lawsuit waiting to happen with the third, if the family gets on the “my child’s university didn’t do enough to prevent this” train. There would be time, money, and a bevy of other issues involved.

On the other hand, as this Sun editorial from 1981 illustrates, there are some valuable reasons one can have for owning a gun, such as women protecting themselves against rapists, and it’s important to note that most gun owners are responsible, law-abiding citizens. From here we can get into a range of arguments, all of which are easily blown out of proportion. The passion people put into the guns argument is second perhaps only to abortion, especially with regards to the intransigence of its debaters.

So I didn’t write this entry to start up a gun control debate; that’s what news websites are for. The purpose of this entry is to show that there was no “golden era” for either party – no period where guns, or the lack thereof, made us so much safer. There will always be crime, there will always be grey cases in the argument of who is and isn’t irresponsible, and for the foreseeable future, there will be a gun control argument.


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When The Mayor of Ithaca Stood Up To Cornell

23 04 2012

So, this entry is a little delayed because I was at a conference doing what scientists do best, which is trying to explain their research and justify the grants that pay for it. Since my research (and by extension, my paycheck) takes priority, things got a little pushed back with the blog updates.

Anyway, I made a reference in the previous entry to how Cornell is both a blessing and curse for Ithaca; the blessing being the attention, the jobs and the steady economy, the curse is that Cornell pays a pittance towards the real value of their property in the city (as in, 4.5% of the assessed value). This is covered by the PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) agreement. But how that agreement originally came to be is much more interesting as the situation it stems from.

Turn the clocks back about eighteen years to 1994. At the time, the mayor of Ithaca was avowed socialist Ben Nichols, who was a retired professor of electrical engineering from Cornell (he had also completed most of his education at Cornell).  Perhaps that makes this story all the more interesting; a David vs. Goliath, if Goliath had been supporting David’s career for forty years. Ben Nichols was first elected in 1989, and then again in 1991 and 1993 (two-year terms; these were increased to four-year terms shortly before he lost his fourth run for mayor in 1995).

In late fall of 1994, Ben Nichols, recognizing the dire situation of Ithaca’s budget, demanded for Cornell to pay a higher share for its use of city fire services and police patrols. Specifically, he wanted Cornell to pay an annual fee of $2.5 million, which he thought was adequate to cover dorms, fraternity houses, and the campus store, as they were not purely academic buildings. At the time, Cornell paid about $143,000 (this started around 1967, as a way to cover fire services and a PILOT for the ICSD), and perhaps in politer terms, Cornell told him to take a hike. What followed was a battle with jobs and laws as weapons.

After the rebuff, Mayor Nichols decided to fight back by denying Cornell construction permits, using a normally-unenforced zoning rule regarding the amount of parking spaces needed for a facility – Cornell had about 1/10th what was required for an enterprise of its size, a gross deficit of just under 9,000 spaces. So, no construction could be undertaken, nor renovations, unless those parking spaces were built. Mayor Nichols said that he had many meetings and pleasant conversations with the university, but no results.

To quote:

“Most universities say that they legally are not required to do this, and so the position that we took is, `OK, if you stick to every legal right that you have, we’ll do the same,” Nichols said. “And things like building permits and zoning law, we will adhere to every fine line of the law.’ ”

Cornell, of course, fought back using the hundreds of construction workers and tradesmen who suddenly found themselves without work; that May, they protested in front of city hall, demanding a lift of the ban. Furthermore, Cornell said they would consider paying only after the permits were granted. After the protest, Mayor Nichols relented, saying that the lifting of the ban had nothing to do with the protests, and everything to do with the belief that a discussion on an appropriate payment plan would take place at a “much more accelerated pace“.

In the interest of epilogues, eventually a revised and compromised PILOT agreement was hammered out later that year, which increased Cornell’s commitment (albeit still meager compared to assessed value). this was revised to be tied to inflation (Consumer Price Index) in 2003, and increased outright to a minimum contribution of least $1 million annually.

A Cornell supporter might look down on the mayor of the city for being petulant, but I am personally impressed that a Cornellian/faculty member stood up against the metaphorical 800-pound gorilla. Even if there is hardly a snowball’s chance in Hades I’d ever support a socialist candidate.


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The Keyword Bar XIII

13 09 2011

I feel a little guilty when I write “Keyword Bar” entries. I feel like they’re a melange of two separate thoughts – “Cornell and Ithaca aren’t doing anything I’m interested enough in to write about” and “I’m too lazy/busy with other things to research Cornell-related topics today”. So I depend on people prowling the internet and coming across the page in order to find topics worthy of writing brief snippets.

Regarding the opening photo; that photo comes from this past graduation weekend. I’m not sure if it’s the same person who put up the angry sign a couple years ago about how someone stole the peaches off their tree and as a result she couldn’t make peach pies to give to her sad elderly friends, but there’s a good chance it’s the same person (the sign did a good job of making me feel like a d—–bag and I didn’t even know there was a peach tree on the property). Anyway…

1. “new apartment building 309 eddy street ithaca cornell” 9-13-2011

I’m going to assume this is under construction? I’m going to go down there and take photos, come hell or high water.

2. “rothschilds building ithaca history” 9-12-2011

So, the Rothschild Building is also recognizable as the old Tetra Tech building on the east end of Ithaca Commons. Surprisingly, I have virtually no photos of it except for this one, where I’ve circled it in red:

The building was finished in 1975 (i.e. finished right after the Commons opened) and underwent a renovation in 1993, when Tetra Tech bought the previous occupant out (The Thomas Group) in a corporate takeover. It was built on the site of the old Hotel Ithaca, which had been torn down nine years earlier in the name of urban renewal.  The main occupant (Tetra Tech) moved out to the tech park last year because according to them, the space was too old and inefficient. The 76,000 sq ft. is slated for conversion into residential units.

3. “first snowfall in ithaca usually” 9-8-2011

Depends on your definition of “first snowfall”. Only twice in the past 20 years has there been an inch of snow before November 1st in Ithaca – 1993 and 2009 (October 31st and October 16th respectively). The 2009 snow is the earliest 1″ snowfall on the 120-year  record (however, November 2009 was 3 degrees above average and failed to record even a trace of snow). November usually averages 5.9″ of snow, but in the past decade there have only been four years with 1″ snows (November 18 & 21, 2008, November 9 2004, November 16, 27, 28 2002, November 23 and 30 2000)., and only 2 (2008 and 2002) that received above-average November snowfalls. But, in all except two years, there was at least a trace of snow in November. A quick anecdote, I think in the meteorology major, we said that the first 1″ day on average was November 18th, but if this blurb proves anything, it’s that it varies widely from year to year.

4. “edgemoor lane murder ithaca” 9-6-2011

None that I’ve ever heard of. Edgemoor Lane has almost exclusively been the home of professors, then fraternities and small dorms, since it was built in the 19th century, so a murder likely would’ve attracted Cornell’s attention, but nothing turns up online.

5. “why is cornell considered the heathens on the hill” 9-9-2011

Cornell was founded as a non-sectarian school, a radical departure from the norm in the mid 1800s. Many preachers and men of the cloth attacked the schools for its seemingly amoral standards, for instance not mandating church attendance. Heathens on the hill arose as a pejorative term that took on a more endearing, self-deprecating tone as non-sectarian schools became more common in the following decades.


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Flooding in Ithaca: Because Blizzards Aren’t Bad Enough

4 09 2011

This kinda ties into the last entry, which discussed the historical context of hurricanes (a.k.a. tropical cyclones if you follow the research literature) in the Ithaca area. Irene, while it had devastating impacts in some towns in the Capital Region and the Catskills, left Tompkins County with 1-2 inches or rain, hardly more notable than a particularly rainy summer day. I went down to southern Connecticut to enjoy being exfoliated by high winds on a beach, and a decent though not amazing storm surge. Then I came back to my Albany home to find roof damage, and a 60-foot ash tree that crashed down in front of the duplex across the street and on top of a Honda Civic. I’ve had better weeks, meteorologically speaking.

As I mentioned previously, the two worst floods in Ithaca occurred quite a long time ago – in 1857 and 1935. However, this is not to say that Ithaca hasn’t been flooded in modern times. The flood control channel down by Cass Park is there for a reason. Also, here’s a youtube video that starts with the flooded intersection of Mitchell and Pine Tree next to East Hill Plaza from way back in December 2010.

But comparatively, that’s small potatoes to some of the floods Ithaca has seen. The 1857 flood was massive. It also hails from a much different time in Ithaca’s history, before the colleges, and when the town itself had a few thousand people. Although sources are severely lacking, the downtown area was underwater for several weeks. This was before the era of effective flood control, and since downtown Ithaca is basically surrounded by steep hills on three sides and a lake on the fourth, the drainage system is about as far from optimal as you can get. Add to that some relatively impervious soil, and it becomes a big soggy problem.

Flooding is not unlikely with the spring thaw, or rapidly evolving early winter storm systems that start off with a warm moist tongue of air, dumping heavy rains before the area freezes over (certifiable proof that Mother Nature hates us all). But the two worst floods are summer events – June 1857 and July 1935, respectively.

The flood of June 17, 1857 seems to be the result of a highly localized warm-season precip event directly on the Six Mile Creek watershed (the creek just south of the Commons), which gives me the impression of a wet microburst or a cloudburst type of event. Both tend to be local and related to intense thunderstorm activity (and here’s a fun thought for when you go to sleep – they are notoriously difficult to forecast, and microbursts are one of the biggest reasons planes won’t land near thunderstorms). Anyway, the raging torrent washed out two dams, whose debris then slammed into the Aurora St. bridge, collapsing its stone arches and sending the whole shebang surging through the town. Hell, you can quote Dear Old Ezra on that one.

Some measures were taken to improve flood control, including more or bigger dams (like the one on Beebe Lake in 1898), and these were damaged by further floods, including events in 1901 and 1905. But nothing quite prepared the ares for the disaster that was the July 1935 flood.

The July 8, 1935 flood, from the descriptions I can find, seem to indicate an intense and prolonged mesoscale convective system (big effin thunderstorm complex), or something of similar intensity, with tropical moisture but nothing TC-based.  At the very least, it was definitely associated with thunderstorms on the evening of July 7th, in an area spanning from Hornell to Binghamton.

The 24-hr. rainfall total of 7.9 inches in Ithaca (the weather station was on the Ag Quad) is impressive. The local creeks almost immediately began to flood, and as drainage brought more water through the streams, they began to tear away at their banks, and flood Cayuga Lake downstream. The damage went throughout the county, from homes washed away in Enfield to cottages being washed from the lakeshore up by Trumansburg. A passenger train was stranded, and all the train tracks in the county were washed out or impassable due to debris. Most state parks in the area were badly damaged and downtown was once again flooded. Eleven people lost their lives in Tompkins County as a result of the flood (with 52 being lost in total, and $26 million in damage [1936 dollars, equivalent to $409 million today]). The damage to Ithaca was about $1.8 million in 1936 dollars, or $28 million in 2009 dollars.

As for the university, being on higher ground protected it from the wrath of the waters. Barton Hall was used as an emergency shelter for almost seven hundred people. The damage to campus was estimated at $10,000-$12,000 (1936 dollars, about $250,000 today), mostly due to the hydroelectric plant being flooded and some trail and bridge damage.

So, maybe it’s not on a Biblical scale, but there’s something to be said about living on higher ground and away from creek banks in the Ithaca area. Or you can just look at the Beebe Lake Dam after a good rainstorm to get a faint idea of how much worse it could be.


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Categories : Cornell, cornell history, general history, ithaca, weather

Taking Care of Cornell’s Students’ Bodies

10 05 2011

After I wrote about the medical college, I felt inspired to write up a brief piece regarding the history of student health at Cornell. Understandably, the value of this entry to the practical person looking up health information is nil, but then, I would hope that if someone has health issues, they would be looking through health websites like Gannett’s instead of blogs.

Anyways, most Cornell students know that if they feel sick, or think they might be pregnant, or some combo thereof, that a trip to Gannett Health Center is in order. Back in Cornell nascent days, if you were sick, well…you were pretty much screwed. A student at Cornell a few years after its founding, if they were to become ill, could hope to be taken care of by their friends, roommates or professors, if they were lucky and had strong connections. Otherwise, you were S.O.L. If it was any consolation, so were all residents of the city of Ithaca, which wouldn’t get it’s first hospital for a few more years (the first hospital opened on Aurora Street sometime during the 1870s, and the second hospital was built off of Quarry Street in Lower Collegetown in 1910; that complex still stands today as the Quarry Arms apartments, which Collegetown Terrace will be built around). In 1870, the faculty senate voted to set aside rooms on campus for sick students (Bishop 176), and the first medical examiner, a sort of campus physician, was appointed in June 1877 (he held two job titles, the other being an assistant professor of mathematics). Jennie McGraw of Cornell Chimes fame put a bequest in her will of $15,000 for the construction of a student hospital on the grounds of Cornell, and this was increased to $40,000 before her death in 1891. However, thanks to the Great Will Case, Cornell never saw any of her money used towards a health facility.

The first building dedicated solely to student health was the Cornell Infirmary, which still stands as the Schuyler House dorm to the far southwest of main campus. The Sage Complex  initially consisted of only the east building, which was essentially a converted mansion built in 1880 as Henry Sage’s retirement home after he moved from Brooklyn to Ithaca (Bishop 211).  Upon his death in 1897, he asked that the building and land be donated to Cornell, which his sons Dean and William did with an additional $100,000 donation for maintenance (Bishop 333). They might not have done that if Sage had outlived his nemesis and fellow generous benefactor Willard Fiske. Both sons were furious that Fiske was interred in Sage Chapel in 1904 and abruptly stopped all involvement and donations to the university. William Sage actually had donated a building to Yale some years later. But, I digress. The original Cornell Infirmary had room for twenty patients, and the large addition on the west side was completed in 1912. What you received was bed, board, and modest nursing care and lab services. While a student of yesteryear might receive advice on hygiene or bad habits, actual diagnosis by physicians was a role the university refused to take on until around 1940. It was felt that the university should not be responsible for the clinical care of its students, only lend a hand in their treatment. Medical advising by Cornell staff was generally discouraged.

By the 1950s, it was felt that the Infirmary was inadequate, poorly located and outdated, so a new building was constructed on land that used to hold two faculty residences. This building was named for media mogul Frank Gannett 1898, who generously funded its construction. The Gannett Health Clinic opened its doors in 1955 and received an expansion to its west side in 1979, bringing it to 39,000 sq ft. The masterplan suggests a 90,000-130,000 sq ft structure to replace the current building on the current site sometime during the next several years.

I’m marginally jealous that Cornell’s health center is on campus. The one at my grad school is located a half mile away across a four-lane highway. What a nice way some colleges provide for their students.


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Categories : academic buildings, Cornell, cornell history, factoids, ithaca

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