Like planting acres of seedlings, a comprehensive campaign like Far Above ... The Campaign for Cornell is an act of faith that what gets started will grow stronger with time.

But we can gain perspective and inspiration by looking at the powerful impact of gifts made in the past. It has not taken long for them to transform the Cornell landscape.

Consider that just 10 years ago:

• David Duffield '63, MBA '64, made one of the largest gifts Cornell had ever received, a $20 million commitment toward a new engineering building and additional endowed funds for its future care and upkeep. Today the vision is real: Duffield Hall is a showpiece for nanotechnology research and scientific collaboration.
• Chairman Emeritus of the Cornell Board of Trustees Austin Kiplinger '39 was among a small group of Cornell alumni who saw a hidden treasure in Cornell's music program. That prompted several gifts to help renovate and expand Lincoln Hall. Built in 1888 for the Department of Civil Engineering and Architecture, the building today is a highly specialized space where faculty and student musicians have access to soundproof recording rooms, digital technology for composing music in the classroom and a library replete with digital recordings and some 75,000 LPs.
• The Mellon Foundation stepped forward with $1 million to endow graduate fellowships in the humanities. This year, it has invested again in Cornell by creating senior professorships.
• Foreseeing the potential of digital information networks, Arthur Penn '56 made a lead gift to establish the Cornell Institute for Digital Collections -- the first major effort to digitize thousands of images, manuscripts and one-of-a-kind resources held by Cornell. It has since been incorporated into the University Library's division of the Digital Library and Information Technologies.
• Joan and Sanford Weill backed the Cornell Medical College with a magnificent commitment, linking their name to it in perpetuity and laying the foundation for additional transformative gifts in 2007 to the medical college as well as to the Life Sciences Technology Building, now Weill Hall, and the Weill Institute for Cell and Molecular Biology.

This list is only a snapshot, but consider where Cornell would be without these critical investments by forward-looking benefactors. Suddenly, the meaning of a "transformative" gift comes into clear focus.

Far Above ... The Campaign for Cornell is very much about investing in the work of today's students and faculty. But the real excitement has to be reserved for the vision of what Cornell will become 10 or more years from now, when the seedlings planted today grow to maturity.

Bryce T. Hoffman is a writer for Cornell's Alumni Affairs and Development.