Today, the Cornell Chronicle presents the first installments in a four-week series on the university's North Campus Residential Initiative. The stories in today's edition focus on the overall conception of the initiative and the innovative new programs that are helping bring it to fruition. In the weeks ahead, we will examine: the Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies book project for first-year students; the carefully planned architecture and sustainable design of the new residence halls and community center; and the anticipated outcomes and actual impact of the initiative on the campus community.
Last week, the doors to two new residential complexes opened to freshmen on North Campus, offering a new undergraduate experience for Cornell students.
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| A moving-in-day view of the new North Campus complexes through the windows of the North Star dining hall in the Community Commons. Frank DiMeo/University Photography |
Beginning this fall, all 3,029 freshman students will live on North Campus -- in the new Court and Mews halls and in the older residence halls. They will share a common living-and-learning environment, one designed to bring them together as a group, to help them forge a sense of class identity and to ease the transition to university life.
The opening of the new doors marks the culmination of many dreams, many years of planning and a vast human and financial investment. It also marks a new beginning, a transformation in undergraduate life.
Cornell President Hunter Rawlings held the key to that transformation when he brought a vision to Cornell six years ago. It was not a vision about bricks and mortar or an imported housing plan, but rather a vision for an intellectually based student life -- one that better melds the living and learning experiences of students.
"The vision I brought to Cornell was one of an intellectual climate that is an integral part of university undergraduate life -- one that exists outside of the classroom as well as in the classroom," Rawlings said recently.
Rawlings said that when he came to Cornell in July 1995, several factors helped turn his vision into a top priority for his administration.
"I heard from many quarters about the high level of academic and other stress experienced by undergraduates. Cornell is a challenging place. That's a good thing, but the ways in which students cope with the stress are not conducive to a healthy and productive environment. Life within the classroom was different, qualitatively, from life outside the classroom."
Rawlings also noticed the cultural as well as geographic divisions on campus and was determined to bridge them.
"The other thing that concerned me was that students visiting Cornell gained a clear impression that we had two different campuses. If you were one type of student, you lived on West Campus, and if you were another type of student, you went to North Campus. Students were making housing and lifestyle choices that had consequences for their intellectual life, and that concerned me quite a lot."
Rawlings soon learned that residential life had been reviewed, analyzed and debated for years at Cornell, with at least 23 reports since 1966 offering various suggestions. But Rawlings wanted solutions, not suggestions. He designated residential life a top priority and backed that up by approving the financing to make it a reality.
The first part of the solution, coming on line this fall, was to locate all freshmen in a new living and learning environment on North Campus, with shared programming and community space and with active faculty participation and classes and seminars within that space. It was this vision for shared programming and shared class identity that shaped the design of the new facilities.
The cost of those facilities is roughly $65 million. That includes 558 new beds in two state-of-the-art new residence halls and a community commons with a 625-seat dining facility, a fitness center, a large multipurpose room and three private dining rooms. In addition, site work and other improvements were made to existing residences.
Each of the new residence halls has nine study lounges, four TV/social lounges, two program lounges, including one set up as a seminar room, two multipurpose rooms, including one set up as a seminar room, and one faculty-in-residence apartment. The total number of faculty-in-residence on North Campus now totals eight, and an additional 83 faculty members will be involved in programming on North Campus, including new dining hall discussion groups.
The number of construction workers on North Campus peaked at about 325, with the total construction worker-hours estimated at 750,000. The finished facilities will require an additional 80 new employees and 60 half-time student employees, according to Jean Reese, a Residential Initiative project leader.
The second part of the solution involves West Campus, which will be transformed over the next decade into a house system, with five residential communities for upper-class students, each with its own dining room and faculty leadership. A new community/recreation center will serve those communities. The budget for West Campus is $200 million, and in October 1999 Rawlings announced an anonymous $100 million gift to support that undertaking. Roughly $177 million is for facilities and $23 million is to endow programs to take place in the new facilities, according to John Kiefer, associate director of planning, design and construction.
Finally, the third component of the solution involves updating the Greek Life Strategic Plan in the context of the Residential Initiative.
Rawlings stressed that the new residential plans for Cornell are unique to Cornell and to the university's culture and geography. Committees for both the North and West Campus initiatives, which included faculty, staff and students, traveled to other colleges and universities and studied their housing options before recommending plans for Cornell.
And there are already signs that students and faculty are responding positively to the North Campus initiative.
"While we don't yet have hard data, anecdotally we are hearing that there's a link between our admissions results for this fall, which are outstanding, and the North Campus project," Rawlings said. "What North Campus says is that Cornell is investing a large amount of thought and money in undergraduate life. That signals that this is a high priority, and students are responding."
The university received a total of 21,519 applications for fall 2001. That was 6.5 percent more than last year and 7.9 percent more than two years ago. A total of 5,861 applicants were admitted, for an overall admit rate of 27 percent, the lowest in more than two decades. The yield was 51.7 percent.
Rawlings pointed to another sign of the excitement generated by North Campus and the new programming for freshmen: The Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies book project. All incoming freshmen were required to read the book by Jared Diamond over the summer and, as part of Orientation, attended a symposium followed by small discussion groups with faculty and upper-class students this week.
"The response to the book initiative was successful beyond our anticipation," Rawlings said. "More than 200 faculty members across the entire campus -- not just one or two colleges -- and several hundred upper-class students volunteered to help lead discussion groups. That's a remarkable sign of intellectual engagement."
Rawlings led one of the discussion groups, as did Provost Biddy Martin, who Rawlings said gets credit for the innovative idea. Martin said the book also will be the basis for writing assignments for some of the seminars in the John S. Knight Writing Program and that later in the semester -- Sept. 25 -- author Diamond will be coming to campus.
"It's a very exciting initiative," Rawlings said. "It's an entire campus engaged with a common intellectual enterprise. That's exactly what we ought to be doing as an intellectual community. Not just as many separate classes scattered across seven undergraduate colleges, but as one class. And not just as an exercise during Orientation week, but with follow-up, bringing people together throughout the semester."
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