By Linda McCandless
On May 12, 1904, six black bulls, a cadet band and an entomology float led the parade celebrating Cornell's designation as the official New York College of Agriculture (CALS). On May 12, exactly 100 years from the date of the original, the parade will be re-enacted. Black bulls -- well, make that Holstein heifers -- are being rounded up. So are horse-drawn carriages, the Cornell equestrian team, antique cars, floats, animals and bands.
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| Liberty Hyde Bailey, right, who was instrumental in the founding of the College of Agriculture in 1904, illustrated his lectures with specimens from the "outdoor laboratory." Well liked as a teacher, he expected quick-witted and candid responses. "What do you know today that you did not know the last time we met?" was a favorite question of his. Courtesy of Kroch Library |
"We are looking for more students and departments to get involved and lots of people to line the parade route. May 12 is the middle of study week -- what better time for a celebration?" said June Losurdo, CALS centennial director.
Parade participants will convene at 1:30 p.m. on Ho Plaza and start off at 2:30 p.m. The parade will pass between Sage and Olin libraries, past Day Hall, up Tower Road and conclude in front of Fernow Hall, with an ice cream social. CALS Dean Susan Henry will lead the parade and then will occupy a reviewing stand with former CALS deans and other VIPs to award prizes. A mystery "centennial" ice cream is being made by the Cornell Dairy, and its name will be revealed during the ice cream social.
The entire Cornell community is encouraged to come line the parade route. Tower Road will be blocked from approximately 2:30 to 3:30 p.m.
"The Centennial parade will be a great opportunity for the Cornell community to celebrate an important historical event in the life of the university, while at the same time showcasing the diversity that CALS has become today," said Marvin Pritts, chair of the Department of Horticultural Sciences and member of the committee that is organizing the parade. "The entire college has been invited to participate. Everyone is welcome to view the parade and partake of a special ice cream in honor of the centennial. It should be exciting, informative and fun."
May 12 officially inaugurates the college's yearlong centennial celebration, which is being launched around the slogan "Celebrating the past, shaping the present, and inspiring the future." Events will include a Centennial Students' Garden dedication at Mann Library, May 12; a symposium of agricultural educators in September; and a "Golden Age of Innovation Symposium" in April 2005, during which Nobel Prize laureate Nelson Borlaug has agreed to speak. A series of lectures by World Food Prize laureates is also planned, in conjunction with regional, alumni and reunion activities.
A complete schedule of events is online at http://www.cals.cornell.edu/centennial/.
A botanist by training, Bailey believed science on behalf of agriculture had to be useful to the students and farmers who would put it to practice. He was a man of vision with a decidedly practical bent, and he broadened the field of agricultural education to include research, resident teaching and extension.
When Bailey became dean in 1903, he set out to secure funding for the agriculture department and concentrated on gathering support from the farm groups and other agencies involved in agricultural education, with which he was familiar. Bailey had good working relations with then Cornell President Jacob Schurman, Whitman H. Jordan (director of the Geneva Experiment Station, which was founded in 1880, but did not become part of CALS until 1923), and F.E. Dawley, director of the Bureau of Farmer Institutes. Schurman was convinced that Cornell needed to be "a People's University ... for the people of every class and profession," as opposed to a university for the landed elite. Men like Schurman and Bailey were intent on getting the Legislature to accept their view that the state had a special responsibility to its land-grant institution.
Other institutions in New York competed for the land-grant designation, particularly Syracuse, Union, Cobleskill and Colgate.
It was May 9, 1904, when the train reached Ithaca bringing word that New York Gov. Benjamin Odell had signed the State Agriculture College bill, appropriating $250,000 for the construction of a college of agriculture on the Cornell campus. This was the signal for a demonstration in which over 2,000 students took part. They wheeled out the big guns in the university armory, fired over 100 rounds of ammunition, and then headed over to Bailey's house for a speech.
On May 12, a more official celebration took place, including the parade, which was followed by a bonfire and fireworks on Libe Slope, while chimes pealed out from the clock tower. According to newspaper accounts from the time, "it was the biggest [bonfire] ever seen." The finale to the fireworks included a ground display of the initials "N.Y. AGR."
The whole event ended with a banquet at which absolutely everything served came from the university farm. Among other oddities: At each plate was a boiled egg stamped, "Laid on the farm, Brooded over for years, Hatched in Albany."
One year later, on May 1, 1905, the college broke ground for Roberts Hall.
Gould Colman and C.S. Wilson '04 contributed to this account.
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