Collecting Four Years of Cornell
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Slope Song
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What are you wearing, right now, sitting in class, or Libe Café or in the salad line at the Terrace?
Look around. What are the other students wearing? What immediate thoughts or judgments come to mind as you survey the clothing choices of yourself and your peers? Do outward appearances reflect how we lead our daily lives as Cornellians?
The Fiber Science and Apparel Design department believes they do. The department maintains the Cornell Costume and Textile Collection, an extensive assortment of more than 9,000 apparel items from throughout history — including Andrew D. White’s heavy fur coat and an exquisitely beaded flapper dress from 1925. The Collection, as a research and teaching resource, operates with the approach that the choices people make about their clothing and appearances provide insight into their mindset and daily lives.
That belief is extended to the Cornell community within the Collection. While they accept donations of couture and casual wear of all kinds and from all periods, they also encourage graduating seniors and alumni to donate casual clothing they wore during their time on the Hill. We all have that one outfit that we put on and immediately feel ready to tackle any campus crisis — prelim, break-up, interview — that comes our way; it’s been through the tumult of our time at Cornell. That’s what the Collection is looking for, articles of clothing that serve as a window into the daily choices, struggles and successes of a Cornell student from a given period of time.
With this program, the Collection recognizes that the four undergraduate years are a brief time of rapid change, growth and formation of identity; a period that is experienced by every individual, and every era, in a different way. In seeking to preserve past manifestations of the undergraduate experience, the Collection is also acknowledging that college campuses and their students are useful tools in the examination of a time period’s society. The college campus is a microcosm.
College students are so often considered representative and reflective of contemporary society because our studies and campus activities challenge us to both understand and respond to the issues of the world around us. This challenge takes place both inside and outside Cornell’s classrooms and administrative offices. Undergraduates have tremendous potential to stimulate change and awareness, and their innovative ideas and organizing skills are one of a research university’s greatest assets.
In BioNB 321: State of the Planet, a course pioneered last spring, each class features a professor from a different Cornell department addressing the current state of the world — in environmental, political, economic, climate, business and social terms. Each student is also required to complete some form of activism, such as lobbying to politicians, expressing views in art form or compiling an educational resource, to pass the class. A loose definition of activism, combined with a diverse presentation of prominent issues, empowers students to respond in a way that can effect change across the spectrum.
The Big Idea Competition, operated by Student Agencies, Inc. and sponsored by Entrepreneurship@Cornell, offers an opportunity “for Cornell undergraduates who have a great idea for a business, and are tired of doing nothing about it,” to pitch their idea to an active audience of successful entrepreneurs and faculty for cash prizes and valuable connections. Contestants are provided with no other parameters or limitations. The Competition recognizes the desire of so many Cornell undergraduates to effect change in incredibly diverse, innovative ways, yet it also provides guidance and financial assistance from the University for their initiatives. The Competition’s contestants are put in the position to use their time at Cornell — and the intellectual growth and skills they have gained — to transform the world around them.
American culture has long considered college to be one of the most transformative periods of an adult’s life. By cataloguing an entire collection of student apparel, the Collection, on the third floor of Martha Van Rensselaer Hall, recognizes the importance of four years on the Hill to the lives of Cornell’s thousands of alumni. While the college experience gives students tremendous individual gain, it is also relevant and transformative to society as a whole. An undergraduate is given four years not only to shape his or her own identity and appearance, but also the opportunity to shape and mold the world around him or her.
Elana Beale is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be contacted at ebeale@cornellsun.com. Slope Song appears alternate Mondays.