Cornell Presidents
This information was compiled by Cornell University Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections and the Cornell News Service.
Andrew Dickson White (1832-1918)
President from 1866-1885
A radical idea in American education was born when Andrew Dickson White and Ezra Cornell crossed paths in the New York State Senate. White was a worldly intellectual whose dream was to create a "truly great University" that would "afford an asylum for Science - where truth shall be taught for truth's sake. ..." He and Cornell, a farmer and inventor who made his fortune developing the telegraph system with Samuel F.B. Morse and Hiram Sibley, agreed the new institution would be nonsectarian, a controversial stance for the time.
White and Cornell successfully politicked to obtain the benefits of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862 for their new university. On Feb. 7, 1865, White introduced into the State Senate a bill that established Cornell University as an institution for "the cultivation of the arts and sciences and of literature, and the instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts and military tactics, and in all knowledge." Gov. Reuben E. Fenton signed the bill that constitutes Cornell's charter two months later on April 27.
White was largely responsible for recruiting faculty to come to the new institution, and as president, he was instrumental in the development of the university's library and its other collections by his own purchases and through encouraging the gifts of others. He traveled in Europe to purchase collections and to learn about the newest innovations in technical education. He initiated other educational developments. He suggested the establishment of mechanical laboratories and workshops for the Department of Mechanical Engineering and bought the first piece of equipment, a power lathe. He promoted the first Department of Electrical Engineering in the United States, taught and encouraged historical studies, and founded the Department of Political Science "for practical training."
Born in 1832 in Homer, N.Y., White attended Geneva (later to become Hobart) College and then graduated from Yale University. In 1854, he was appointed attachˇ to Thomas Hart Benton, minister to Russia. He became a professor of history at the University of Michigan, where he stayed until 1860. He was elected to the New York State Senate in January 1864.
White was a distinguished scholar, lecturer and writer. His major work, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, was published in at least six languages during his lifetime. He served as the first president of the American Historical Association and as president of the American Social Science Association.
After White resigned the presidency in 1885, he continued to live in Ithaca until his death in 1918. His influence on the development of the university he helped establish continued throughout his life. He died in Ithaca on Nov. 4, 1918.
Charles Kendall Adams (1856-1902)
President from 1885-1892
Charles Kendall Adams, a former student of Andrew Dickson White, continued to build upon White's legacy. His achievements included major changes in the organization of the university. Requirements for admission and for degrees were strengthened, courses of study were improved, and faculty research and publications were encouraged. In 1886, a College of Law was created.
Adams lobbied actively in Washington for the Hatch Act, which provided for the establishment of agricultural experiment stations in connection with land-grant colleges. The Summer School became official in 1892. New buildings constructed included Barnes, Lincoln, Boardman and Morse Halls and the
University Library. During Adams' administration, the number of students increased from 573 to 1537; tuition was raised from $75 to $100; and the income of the university rose from about $300,000 to about $400,000. In 1889, Cornell was regarded as the third American university in wealth and income, after Columbia and Harvard.
Born in Derby, Vt., in 1835, Adams had only an elementary school education until he was 21 years old. He worked his way through the University of Michigan, where he studied with Andrew Dickson White. He taught history at the University of Michigan until his appointment in 1885 as president of Cornell.
As a result of major conflicts over honorary degrees and control of faculty appointments, Adams was forced to resign as Cornell president in 1892. He subsequently became president of the University of Wisconsin, a position he held until his death in 1902.
Jacob Gould Schurman (1854-1942)
President from 1892-1920
In 1886, Jacob Gould Schurman came to Cornell as professor of Christian ethics and moral philosophy. In 1890, he was named to head the Susan Linn Sage School of Philosophy at Cornell. Two years later, he became Cornell's third president.
Schurman's administration was characterized by the extensive growth of the university's facilities and its shift from a privately endowed institution to a combination of state and private funding. During Schurman's presidency, a College of Veterinary Medicine was established with full state support, but under Cornell's control. Extension work began in New York state in 1894. In 1904, a state appropriation established the New York State College of Agriculture at Cornell. The Cornell Medical College was established in 1898, and a new building was constructed in New York City.
In 1914, the Drill Hall (Barton Hall) was constructed with state funding. With the entrance of the United States into World War I, the U.S. War Department organized a Students' Army Training Corps and contracted with the university to provide academic and military training. In 1918, nearly half of the student population was enrolled in the SATC.
Schurman's administration also saw the transformation of the American university from a teaching institution to a research establishment in which teaching is done. Several major academic journals were initiated at Cornell during this period. He also strongly supported diversity in the student body, including the provision of scholarships for Chinese students. Regarding an African-American woman living in Sage College, he wrote in 1911: "All university doors must remain open to all students irrespective of color or creed or social standing or pecuniary condition." Throughout the 28 years of his presidency, Schurman was a proponent of academic freedom and an advocate of a liberal intellectual atmosphere on campus. In Schurman's time, Cornell became one of the great universities of America. Enrollment increased from 1,538 to 5,765. The physical domain grew from 200 to 1,465 acres.
Born in 1854 in Freetown, Prince Edward Island, Schurman attended the Prince of Wales College and Acadia College in Nova Scotia, and he graduated in 1877 from the University of London with first class honors in mental and moral science. He then studied philosophy for a year at Edinburgh and London, earning an M.A. and D.Sc. in 1878.
While still president of Cornell, Schurman in 1899 served as chairman of the First Philippine Commission. In 1912 and 1913, during the Balkan Wars, he was minister to Greece and Montenegro. Upon retiring from Cornell, he served as Minister to China from 1921 to 1925 and as Ambassador to Germany from 1925 to 1930, where he was particularly popular for his efforts to rebuild the University of Heidelberg. After returning to the United States, he lectured in China and wrote on international subjects.
Livingston Farrand (1867-1939)
President from 1921-1937
Cornell historian Morris Bishop described Livingston Farrand as "one of the most likable, nay lovable, men this campus has known." A physician, he developed a plan for the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis in 1905 that became a model for later public health movements.
Born in 1867 in Newark, N.J., Farrand graduated from Princeton University in 1888 and earned a medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York. Interested in primitive psychology, he joined expeditions to northwestern America with Franz Boas and others, and was appointed professor of anthropology at Columbia in 1903. Deeply concerned with public health questions, Farrand served as executive secretary of the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis from 1905 to 1914, when he became president of the University of Colorado.
Farrand became the fourth president of Cornell in 1921. There was significant administrative reorganization to meet the increasing complexities facing the university. New departments and curricula were formed in music, fine arts, drama, regional planning, chemical engineering, automotive and aeronautic engineering and administrative engineering. In 1921, a unified College of Engineering was created, and a dean of the Arts College was appointed. In 1922, the first college-level hotel course in the country was begun, and the College of Home Economics was created in 1925, the first state-chartered college of home economics in the country.
Cornell's international connections were strengthened. Cornell-in-China, originally begun in 1921, became a "Plant Improvement Project" sponsored by the University of Nanking, Cornell and the International Education Board. In 1931, 10 students came from the Soviet Union, most to study engineering.
The Great Depression caused hardships on campus. With the advent of the New Deal, the National Youth Administration provided federal aid to students in return for work, harkening back to Ezra Cornell's efforts to provide student jobs and looking forward to modern work-study programs.
Farrand provided strong support for academic freedom during the 1930s. Despite severe economic problems associated with the Depression, his achievements were substantial. Enrollment rose to 6,341 by 1937. The general endowment increased from $12.2 million to $19.8 million, and the value of buildings and grounds grew from $10.2 million to $26.4 million.
Edmund Ezra Day (1883-1951)
President from 1937-1949
Edmund Ezra Day became the fifth president of Cornell in 1937, and later led the university through the turbulent years of World War II and its boom years afterward. During his presidency, academic programs were revised and expanded. A Department of Sociology and Anthropology and a Department of Slavic Language and Literature were created. Area studies were initiated in 1943 with a course in Contemporary Russian Civilization.
The central event of Day's presidency was World War II. The Army A-12 and Navy V-12 programs began in 1943. The College of Engineering created the Engineering, Science, and Management War Training Program for the war industry, training some 30,000 persons, and a one-year program for the industrial training of women. The Medical College sponsored the Army's Hospital No. 9 on Biak Island off the coast of New Guinea.
After the war, the campus developed rapidly, with record enrollment, which grew from 6,341 to 10,034. Cornell's Laboratory of Nuclear Studies quickly developed into one of the world's leading centers of research in experimental particle physics. A new School of Business and Public Administration began operation in 1946. The Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory, a research lab in Buffalo, was acquired by the university. In 1948, the State University of New York was formally established. Cornell's state colleges were defined as state-supported but not state-operated. On May 15, 1944, a bill establishing the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations was passed and signed; the school opened on Nov. 1, 1945. Day's achievements also included administrative reform, the success of the Greater Cornell Fund and the creation of entirely new schools.
Born in Manchester, N.H., in 1883, Day received a B.S. and an M.A. from Dartmouth College, and a Ph.D in economics from Harvard University where, from 1910 to 1923, he served as professor of economics and chairman of the department. During World War I, he was a statistician for the U.S. Shipping Board and the War Industries Board. He went in 1923 to the University of Michigan, where he served as professor of economics, organizer and first dean of the School of Business Administration and Dean of the University. He became director for the social sciences from 1928 to 1937 for the Rockefeller Foundation and director of general education for the General Education Board from 1930 to 1937.
Day resigned the presidency in 1949 because of ill health. He was appointed to the post of chancellor, giving his energies to the major overall aspects of university development, to the higher levels of fund raising, and to the cultivation of the university's relations with the state. He also continued to serve as the chief executive officer of the Medical College.
Deane Waldo Malott (1898-1996)
President from 1951-1963
Deane Waldo Malott's term as Cornell's sixth president represents the largest period of building in the history of Cornell University, with more than $100 million worth of construction.
The university constructed new campuses for the Engineering, Industrial and Labor Relations and Veterinary schools. Other new facilities included Olin Library, Anabel Taylor Hall, the Materials Science Center, Statler Hall, Mann Library, Morrison Hall, Riley-Robb Hall, Teagle Hall, Lynah Rink, Helen Newman Hall, north campus dormitories, Mary Donlon Hall, the Industrial Research Park near the airport, Gannett Medical Clinic, the Laboratory of Ornithology and the Ionospheric Research Facility in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. The Andrew Dickson White House was renovated as an art museum and its carriage house as the Big Red Barn.
During Malott's administration, the athletic program was expanded into one of the largest intercollegiate programs in the world. In 1953, the Medical College was reorganized as the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, with a graduate school. Sponsored research jumped to a massive $39.4 million in 1960-61; research became a group effort, the beginning of "big science."
With the acceleration of McCarthyism, Malott was faced with one of the major threats to academic freedom in the 20th century. While his personal feelings were conservative, in public statements he defended academic freedom and criticized McCarthyism. Malott contributed to and was successful in maintaining an atmosphere where current issues could be freely discussed.
James A. Perkins (1911-1998)
President from 1963-1969
Academic innovations were a hallmark of James A. Perkins' administration. By the late 1960s, he was regarded as one of the leading theoreticians of higher education. Based on recommendations of a group of distinguished biologists from around the country, a Division of Biological Sciences was created. It was an administrative innovation, combining courses in the College of Arts and Sciences and in the College of Agriculture. Similarly, the new Department of Computer Science combined courses in the Arts College and the College of Engineering. Perkins was instrumental in obtaining major foundation grants for biology, computer science and international studies. During his tenure there was rapid improvement in salaries for faculty and staff and 23 endowed chairs were created. Building continued with the construction of the Chemistry Research Building, Clark, Bradfield and Emerson Halls, and the new Campus Store.
Perkins was committed to excellence in undergraduate education. He returned to the precedents of White and Cornell in the development of the Freshman Seminar program, the Society for the Humanities and the Andrew D. White Professorships-at-Large. He was especially committed to encouraging diversity in the student body. The Committee on Special Educational Projects (COSEP) was established in 1964 with a Rockefeller Foundation grant to provide educational opportunities for a significant number of minority students. The last year of Perkins' administration was largely involved in confronting the rising level of student political protest and activism. He resigned the presidency in 1969.
Born in 1911 in Philadelphia, Perkins graduated with high honors in 1934 from Swarthmore College and received a doctorate in political science from Princeton University in 1937.
Dale R. Corson (b. 1914)
President from 1969-1977
Dale R. Corson led the university through the final years of the Vietnam War and student activism, and through the economic recession of the 1970s. His role was to return the university to stability and concentration on research, teaching and scholarship.
Corson brought together the state and endowed components of Cornell, forming one university enjoying public and private support, as envisioned by White and Cornell and articulated by Jacob Gould Schurman. Significant support was provided for the research programs at Arecibo, the Wilson Synchrotron Laboratory and the Nanofabrication Facility. He revitalized the Department of Geology, expanded the Division of Biological Sciences and added new programs such as Medieval Studies. The I.M. Pei-designed Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art was completed. He encouraged such multidisciplinary programs as Science, Technology, and Society; the Materials Science Center; environmental programs; radio physics and space research.
The status of women on campus was greatly improved during the Corson presidency. A Women's Studies Program was formally established in 1972. A Provost's Advisory Committee on the Status of Women was created and presented specific recommendations. New employment procedures were implemented, and increasing numbers of women were appointed to the faculty and to high administrative positions. He provided support for the Africana Studies and Research Center, which had developed from the black studies movement. Corson recommended the formation of an Affirmative Action Advisory Board to monitor the status of women and minorities and to propose more effective procedures.
Born in Pittsburg, Kansas, in 1914, Corson received a B.A. degree from the College of Emporia in 1934, his M.A. from the University of Kansas in 1935, and his Ph.D. in physics from the University of California at Berkeley in 1938.
In 1946, Corson came to Cornell University as an assistant professor of physics and helped design the Cornell Synchrotron. He was appointed associate professor of physics in 1947, became a full professor in 1956, was named chairman of the Physics Department in 1956, and became Dean of the College of Engineering in 1959. He served as Provost of the University from 1963 to 1969.
Frank H.T. Rhodes (b. 1926)
President from 1977-1995
Frank H.T. Rhodes presented his 18th and final commencement address as president of Cornell on May 28, 1995. At his retirement on June 30, he was the longest-serving Ivy League president and a national leader as an advocate for education and research. He played a significant role in the development of national science policy under several presidents.
Rhodes increased diversity at Cornell among students and faculty. Minorities as a percentage of the student body grew from 8 percent in 1977 to 28 percent in 1994. The number of women and minorities on the faculty more than doubled in the same time. Evaluations of teaching and advising of students were added to tenure standards.
Research funding more than tripled during Rhodes' tenure, from $88 million in 1977 to more than $300 million in 1993. Asian studies, supercomputing, biotechnology and nanofabrication were four major initiatives for which Cornell now has national laboratories or programs and a state center.
A successful $1.25 billion capital campaign was completed, due largely to Rhodes' tireless efforts to strengthen support for financial aid, educational programs and libraries. Rhodes ended deficit spending and left the university with a balanced budget. New buildings and facilities that were built during Rhodes' tenure include: the supercomputing center, teaching hotel, Native American program house, biotechnology building, center for theatre arts, nanofabrication laboratory, athletic facilities and others.
In 1992, Rhodes was named to the Special Commission on the Future of the National Science Foundation. He served as chair of the National Science Board, the policy-making body of the National Science Foundation, appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1987. In 1989, President George Bush named him to the President's Education Policy Advisory Committee. He was chair of the 1987 National Commission on Minority Participation in Education and American Life that produced the report, One-Third of a Nation. He co-chaired the 1988 Business-Higher Education Forum Task Force on Human Capital that produced the report, American Potential: The Human Dimension.
Born in Warwickshire, England, on Oct. 29, 1926, Rhodes is a naturalized U.S. citizen. He earned his bachelor and doctor of science and of philosophy degrees from the University of Birmingham, England. A geologist by training, he is author of more than 70 major scientific articles and monographs, some 60 articles on education and five books.
Before coming to Cornell in 1977, Rhodes was vice president for academic affairs at the University of Michigan, having earlier served as dean of the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at that university. He had previously served for 12 years as professor of geology and head of the Geology Department at the University of Wales, Swansea, and as dean of the faculty of science there.
Rhodes is professor emeritus of geological sciences at Cornell. At Commencement ceremonies in 1995, the Board of Trustees announced that the Cornell Theory Center building was renamed the Frank H.T. Rhodes Hall.
Hunter R. Rawlings III (b. 1944)
President from 1995-2003
Hunter R. Rawlings III came to Ithaca with a vision for composing Cornell -- for organizing the remarkably diverse parts of Cornell in such a way that they would work more effectively together. During his presidency the university took great strides toward making that vision a reality. Today, thanks largely to Rawlings' efforts, Cornell is much more than the sum of its individually excellent parts.
Rawlings renewed Cornell's emphasis on the importance of undergraduate teaching, setting an example by personally teaching an undergraduate course in the Department of Classics over the last two years of his presidency. He created the new position of vice provost for undergraduate education and the Presidential Research Scholars program. He envisioned and implemented a new approach to residential life for Cornell undergraduates, resulting in the transformation of the North Campus for freshmen and the forthcoming creation of residential colleges on the West Campus for upper-level students.
He set strategic scientific priorities, as recommended by a faculty committee charged with identifying areas of emphasis in the life sciences and engineering - advanced materials science, computing and information science, and the new fields that comprise the biological revolution, including genomics, computational biology, bioinformatics and nanobiotechnology. He reorganized the biological sciences on the Ithaca campus and set in motion the plans for a pioneering Life Science Technology Building.
At the same time he provided additional support for the humanities and social sciences, recognizing their critical significance for the future of men, women and children in a rapidly changing scientific and technological environment. He gained the respect of faculty across the campus for his support of intellectual life and academic standards, initiating and personally participating in a series of foundation-supported faculty seminars in the social sciences and humanities to encourage intellectual collaboration across disciplines and departments.
Rawlings renewed the strength of the Weill Cornell Medical College, guiding the implementation of the Medical College's strategic plan through a successful major gifts campaign. He also signed an agreement to establish a new branch of the Medical College in the Middle Eastern nation of Qatar, thereby creating an unprecedented expansion of Cornell's role on the international scene.
In his commitment to academic excellence, Rawlings promoted the growth of undergraduate applications for admissions, lowered the university's rate of admission offers, and raised the yield on those offers of admission. He was an advocate for increased student diversity and Cornell's need-blind admission policy, which was made permanent during his tenure.
Born in Norfolk, Va., Rawlings received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1970 and is a 1966 graduate of Haverford College, with honors in classics. His scholarly publications include a book, The Structure of Thucydides' History (Princeton University Press, 1981). Among his many appointments to boards and commissions, Rawlings currently serves as chair of the Association of American Universities (AAU) and is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
With his resignation as president Rawlings assumed a full-time professorship in Cornell's Department of Classics.