The 06-07 Annual Report
 |
A Message from the President
A Message from the chair of the Board of TrusteesA Year in ReviewFundraising Highlights
A Message From the President
Cornell relies on your continued support to offer transformational experiences to our students. Through your gifts you have made an impact on this campus.
This Honor Roll of Donors recognizes each of you who supported Cornell in 2006-07 and reports on the accomplishments made possible by your gifts. We celebrated a record year because of your generosity, with the Annual Fund reaching a new high of $2.2 million. Your gifts have an immediate impact on each student—creating and sustaining extraordinary opportunities in the classroom, on campus, and around the world.
During the past year we launched the Berry Center for Economics, Business, and Public Policy, endowed by a $5 million gift from Jim McWethy ’65. We announced a $2 million gift from Richard Williams ’63 and honorary alumna Marlene Williams that will be used chiefly for bringing speakers and performers to the Hilltop. Dimensions: The Center for the Science and Culture of Healthcare program continues to grow, and the Cornell Fellows program has funded and placed over 50 students in fellowships around the country.
There is no better way to illustrate the impact of your gifts than to relate the experience of one of the members of the Class of 2007, Alyssa Borowske.
Alyssa majored in biology and environmental studies with a minor in geology. She spent a block studying coral reefs in the Bahamas, a block studying wildlife ecology at the Wilderness Field Station in Minnesota, and a week in Portugal with geology Professor Rhawn Denniston collecting stalagmites. They analyzed the stalagmites and she presented her research at the Cornell College Student Symposium, Iowa Academy of Science, and North Central Geological Society of America. Alyssa also assisted biology Professor Bob Black with hawk research for four years and presented a project on flocking behavior at the Cornell College Student Symposium.
Alyssa spent the summer of 2006 at the University of Michigan Biological Station, participating in a nationwide program to monitor bird populations. For her environmental studies honors thesis, she studied campus sustainability and wrote an environmental audit of the college. As part of the project she was chosen to participate in the Cornell Fellows program as the Dean Fellow in Environmental Studies with John Mark Dean ’58 in Columbia, S.C. In her final months on campus, Alyssa initiated a Mortar Board-sponsored graduation project in which seniors signed a pledge to live a life of environmental and social responsibility. She was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to New Zealand, where she is studying the impacts of Australian magpies on native bird species.
Alyssa would not have been able to participate in off-campus study, faculty student research, or the Cornell Fellows program without alumni and friends who believe in this college. Cornell relies on your continued support to offer transformational experiences to our students. Through your gifts you have made an impact on this campus. On behalf of Cornell students, thank you.
Les Garner
President, Cornell College
 |
A message from the chair of the Board of Trustees
The immense impact of Cornell graduates, people like you, on the quality of life in our communities…is testimony to the good work that has gone on here on the hilltop for all these years.
Ten years ago I was invited to join the Board of Trustees of Cornell College. It was an immense honor for me. Just think of it: privileged to help this college provide a place for young men and women to develop themselves intellectually, physically, and spiritually, something it has been doing since before the Civil War.
The immense impact of Cornell graduates, people like you, on the quality of life in our communities, our country, and more recently to the far corners of the world, is testimony to the good work that has gone on here on the Hilltop for all these years.
When I joined the Board I was of the mind that Cornell College had existed forever and would continue to do so. It didn’t occur to me that this ongoing presence is not a given. In the past 10 years working with a whole host of hard-working individuals on the Board of Trustees, plus dedicated, loyal faculty and staff members and thousands of alumni such as yourself, I now know why Cornell has so existed and what it will take for it to continue to be a place of immense value to our nation and the world at large.
Last year 4,549 of you felt the value of Cornell was significant enough to share your personal finances with the college. Your contributions came in varying amounts but all were a part of an effort which produced record giving to the college’s annual fund. These gifts alone will cover nearly $2,000 of the expenses for each student attending in 2007-08. During this same period your gifts provided $5.6 million toward increasing the college’s endowment and providing for ongoing facility expansion.
Small, residential, liberal arts colleges like Cornell have played and will continue to play an important role in the future of our country. The Hilltop is a unique educational setting in which young men and women can learn to think critically, communicate effectively, serve generously, and live caringly. These traits, well developed and willingly implemented, give us great hope for the future.
I thank you for your support for Cornell. It is appreciated, it is needed, it is an investment with great significance, and, I guarantee, the return is extraordinary. Your gifts have a far-ranging impact through alumni in communities worldwide.
Dick Brubaker ’55
Chair, Cornell College Board of Trustees
