President Emeritus Rhodes praises Cornell Tradition program at celebration

The Cornell Tradition recognized 20 years of rewarding excellence in undergraduate service, work and scholarship at a special celebration in New York City, Sept. 21. President Emeritus Frank H.T. Rhodes, who was in office in 1982 when the Cornell Tradition was founded, addressed over 150 tradition donors, friends, alumni and fellows during a formal dinner in the historic Hudson Theater of Manhattan's Millennium Broadway Hotel.

Cornell President Emeritus Frank H.T. Rhodes addressed Cornell Tradition donors, friends, alumni and fellows in the Hudson Theater of Manhattan's Millennium Broadway Hotel, Sept. 21. Cornell Tradition

An alumni-supported recognition program, the Tradition awards 600 fellowships each year to undergraduate students based on their work experience, campus and/or community service, leadership and academic achievement.

In a surprise announcement, Rhodes, in his own words, "unveiled the cloak of anonymity" by disclosing the name of the Tradition's founding donor, Charles Feeney '56. Rhodes also highlighted the contributions the Tradition has made to Cornell during the past two decades.

As Rhodes relayed, the Tradition program was conceived in response to two trends which in the 1970s and 1980s were endangering the university's founding "any person, any study" tenet: rising tuition and a federal government policy of replacing grants with loans. "The effect was to place a heavy burden on students at graduation and often pressured graduates to seek high-paying careers after graduation rather than working in lower-paying fields they might find more rewarding," Rhodes said.

"The Tradition addressed both those issues, while also advancing the founding ideals of Ezra Cornell," he continued.

As Rhodes outlined in his address, the Tradition is a contemporary expression of Cornell's vision. "To date, the Tradition has replaced nearly $23 million in student loans," Rhodes said. "As the founders of the Cornell Tradition had hoped, the program has grown beyond its original roots as a scholarship program. It has become a community that now includes 4,000 past and present recipients of Tradition fellowships," he said. "It has become a community whose members are committed to each other and to perpetuating the Cornell Tradition's founding ideas."

The Tradition's 20th anniversary celebration, kicked-off at the New York event, actually will be a yearlong series of events recognizing the people and the service that have made the program a success. Smaller and more informal events are being planned in cities across the United States throughout the academic year. At present, plans are under way for events in Boston, Chicago, Rochester, Buffalo, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. The principal spring event of the anniversary year will be the annual Cornell Tradition convocation in March 2003 on campus.

For more information on any of the 20th anniversary events or about the Tradition, contact the office at 107 Day Hall; send e-mail to cornelltradition@cornell.edu or call 255-8595.