Columns

SULLIVAN BAKER | Our Campus is an Architectural Hodgepodge. We Should Treasure It.

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Cornellians crave order. Our campus teems with neurotic overachievers who meticulously plan their days, their semesters and their careers. But Cornell, an inherently disorderly institution, often leaves these order-seekers wanting. Cornell’s disorganization might be most evident in its campus landscape; to the chagrin of many, the buildings that form the East Hill skyline are a seemingly incoherent mishmash of architectural styles. But we should value Cornell’s architectural hodgepodge, as it reflects our identity as a “non-pretentious college,” (as historian Morris Bishop ’13, Ph.D. ’26 put it), and embodies the once-radical principles that have guided the university for more than 150 years.

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Goldwin Smith’s Anti-Semitism Fuels Anger

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New light has recently been shed on the character of one of Cornell’s jeweled alumni and benefactors: Goldwin Smith, as revealed through his own and others’ writing, was an influential anti-semite.
Professors Glenn Altschuler, american studies, and Isaac Kramnick, government, verified these findings in a co-authored Cornell Alumni Magazine article last month.
Smith was a renowned intellect and professor at Oxford University at the time of Cornell’s inception. He left his post in 1868 to help launch Cornell’s humanities department and teach English and constitutional history, giving the new University instant credibility.
It was in Toronto, Canada, where Smith moved after only three years in Ithaca, that he became publicly active in expressing his anti-semitic views.

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Univ. May Influence Future of Canadian Farmers’ Market

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A 137-year-old farmers’ market in the small city of Orillia, Canada might lose its land, and Cornell University may be the only actor able to save it. As a result of an 1872 covenant drawn by Mr. Goldwin Smith, Patrick Kehoe, a concerned Orillia resident, is now appealing to Cornell to become the “Guardian of the Covenant.”