Online Courses Turn Profs From ‘Sage on the Stage to Guide on the Side’

“Any person, … any study”: it is the phrase heard resounding across the Arts Quad as a backwards-walking tour guide shouts to a shuffling clump of wide-eyed high school students about Cornell’s history of inclusiveness. For Cornellians, the phrase is cliched, but beloved — seen running across the front of every brochure, every banner and every statue across campus. Ezra Cornell was progressive for his time and aimed to promote his institution’s role as a nondiscriminatory place of learning that is open to any student, regardless of race, ethnicity or gender. Unbeknownst to Ezra Cornell, the age of the computer would take this inclusiveness to another level.