President's Office

Cornell’s Master Plan:
Addressing the Needs of an Evolving Campus

A Presidential White Paper
Addressed to the Cornell College family
from Leslie H. Garner Jr.

August 2007 

In the past three years, Cornell College has launched two academic centers, created the Cornell Fellows program, and built two residence halls. A new Office of International and Off-Campus Studies is helping prepare our students to serve in a world of intense global interaction. And Cole Library’s new Center for Teaching and Learning is ensuring that today’s students develop critical skills in research, information literacy, analysis, and communication. More extraordinary opportunities are open to Cornell students than perhaps in any previous moment of our history.

As we planned for these initiatives, we began thinking about how to sustain and support them, and about how they related to our long-term strategies for campus facilities. We decided it would be an appropriate time to review and revise our campus master plan. The Board of Trustees set up a task force to oversee the process.

We hired Performa, a planning firm experienced with small private colleges, to help us develop a comprehensive campus master plan, including cost estimates and strategies for financing them. Performa’s team visited campus throughout 2005–06 to meet with students, faculty, staff, trustees, administrators, and community members. As part of the process, we had conversations with the Alumni Board and Parents Advisory Council. The 20-year multiphase plan we created builds on the history, values, and strengths of the college. The Board of Trustees approved Phase I with the knowledge that the master plan is a living document that will change over time.

Phase I outlines $34 million in renovation and construction over the next five to eight years. The timing of each project is dependent on funding. A campus listed entirely on the National Register of Historic Places, with every one of its 19th-century buildings still intact, provides a unique challenge to campus planners. The list below outlines our progress to date on Phase I:

Clock Tower Hall
Our newest residence hall opened this month to 96 upperclass students. Clock Tower Hall will house 96 students in four-person suites, each consisting of two single rooms, a double room, a living room, a bathroom, and a storage room. The building features wonderful natural light via large windows, kitchens on each floor, and heating/air-conditioning controls for each suite.

Pfeiffer Hall
The exterior of this residence hall, built in 1930, was refurbished during the summer of 2006, and the interior will be remodeled by fall 2009. The building will gain an elevator, all new electrical service, new heating system, and new plumbing. It will also acquire more spacious bathrooms, great lounge and study spaces, a conference room, and office space.

The Commons
The 7,000-square-foot addition to the front of our campus hub will bring in much-needed openness and natural light to the top floor, as well as a larger and more convenient bookstore, three private dining rooms, and lounge and conversation spaces. The 14,000-square-foot rear addition features a 200-person multipurpose room which can be divided in half. Two classrooms will be replaced, and we will add four new and spacious classroom/meeting rooms, two conference rooms, and a meeting room for 60. The modest remodeling plan will upgrade building utilities and reorganize and expand student activity and organization space on the Orange Carpet level.

Cole Library
The minor library project will consolidate all Center for Teaching and Learning studios on the first floor, construct a 25-station computer classroom and a seminar room, and install a coffee and snack shop looking out to the pedestrian mall.

West Science
We are still in the planning phases of this project slated to begin no sooner than 2010. We're designing an addition to house expanded teaching and research labs, especially wet labs. In the existing building we will update utility systems and refurbish labs for lighter-duty uses. The project will include reconfiguration of offices, classrooms, specialty lab facilities, and spaces for studying, meeting, and relaxing. We are looking to make both the addition and the remodeling as green as possible, both in materials and in operations.

King Chapel
We plan to install an elevator and refurbish the entrances as soon as possible and are preparing to renovate the organ. More extensive structural, utility, and cosmetic work will take place over the next few years.

Rood House
This residence hall will be converted to office space in the near future. We have a preliminary architectural/structural report which lays out what needs to be done and a preliminary construction evaluation estimating costs and time lines. Details are being worked out in anticipation of a proposal for funding.

Multi-Sport Center
This summer we tripled the size of the wrestling room by reclaiming the pool area, and doubled the size of the weight room in the process. We also replaced the arena floor, including a purple Olympic-quality surface for the running track. We are evaluating which steps to take next.

Property acquisition
The master plan suggests that the college sell a few of its Mount Vernon properties which are not adjacent to the college in order to purchase properties which are. We have already purchased a house and an apartment building to serve as short-term faculty and staff housing. And we will remain alert for opportunities to purchase other properties that fit the college’s longer-term interests.

Next steps
Liberal arts education is a high fixed-cost enterprise and we need to plan carefully for future academic and financial success. The college is continuing discussion on Phases II and III, looking forward 20 or more years, and on ways to advance its distinctive mission and vision.

Our current success is the result of prudent planning for over 150 years. Now we are planning for an even brighter future with a more significant endowment and more vibrant Annual Fund support. This is something you will hear more about in future white papers.