President of Cornell University | |
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Appointer | Cornell University Board of Trustees |
Inaugural holder | Andrew Dickson White |
Formation | 1866 |
Website | https://president.cornell.edu/about/ |
The President of Cornell University is the chief administrator of Cornell University, an Ivy League institution in Ithaca, New York and New York City. Included in the list below are all Presidents of Cornell University, from the first President Andrew Dickson White through the current President, Martha E. Pollack. There have been 14 Presidents of Cornell University, not including three interregnum presidencies during university presidential transitions.
New York's only land-grant university, Cornell University was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White and has its main campus in Ithaca, New York, as well as two newer satellite medical campuses in New York City and Qatar. Cornell joined the newly formed Ivy League in 1954 and is the only land-grant institution within it.
No. | President | Term of office | Education | Notes | |
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1 | Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) [1] | 1866 – 1885 (19 years) |
| White was the co-founder of Cornell University, along with Ezra Cornell, and introduced the bill in the New York State Senate establishing Cornell University. The bill was passed and became the university's charter. [2] White served on the faculty of the University of Michigan | |
2 | Charles Kendall Adams (1835–1902) [3] | 1885 – 1892 (7 years) |
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3 | Jacob Gould Schurman (1854–1942) [4] | 1892 – 1920 (28 years) |
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4 | Livingston Farrand (1867–1939) [5] | 1921 – 1937 (16 years) |
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5 | Edmund Ezra Day (1883–1951) [6] | 1937 – 1949 (12 years) |
| First dean of the University of Michigan's business school. | |
– | Cornelis de Kiewiet (interim) (1902–1986) [7] | 1949 – 1951 (2 years) |
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6 | Deane Waldo Malott (1898–1996) [8] | 1951 – 1963 (12 years) |
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7 | James Alfred Perkins (1911–1998) [9] | 1963 – 1969 (6 years) |
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8 | Dale R. Corson (1914–2012) [10] [11] | 1969 – 1977 (8 years) |
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9 | Frank H. T. Rhodes (1926-2020) [12] | 1977 – 1995 (18 years) |
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10 | Hunter R. Rawlings III (born 1944) [13] | 1995 – 2003 (8 years) |
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11 | Jeffrey S. Lehman (born 1956) [14] | 2003 – 2005 (2 years) |
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– | Hunter R. Rawlings III (interregnum) (born 1944) | 2005 – 2006 (1 year) |
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12 | David J. Skorton (born 1949) [15] [16] | 2006 – 2015 (9 years) |
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13 | Elizabeth Garrett (1963–2016) [17] | 2015 – 2016 (<1 year) |
| Garrett died in office in March 2016. [17] | |
– | Michael Kotlikoff (acting) | 2016 (2 months) | Acting President from February to April 2016 [18] | ||
– | Hunter R. Rawlings III (interim) (born 1944) | 2016 – 2017 (1 year) |
| The Cornell University Board of Trustees appointed Rawlings as interim university president following the death of Elizabeth Garrett, effective April 2016. [19] | |
14 | Martha E. Pollack (born 1958) | 2017 – present |
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Andrew Dickson White was an American historian and educator who co-founded Cornell University, one of eight Ivy League universities in the United States, and served as its first president for nearly two decades. He was known for expanding the scope of college curricula. A politician, he had served as New York state senator and was later appointed as U.S. ambassador to Germany and Russia.
Ezra Cornell was an American businessman, politician, academic, and philanthropist. He was the founder of Western Union and a co-founder of Cornell University. He also served as President of the New York Agriculture Society and as a New York State Senator.
The New York State College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University is one of Cornell University's four statutory colleges, and is the only College of Agriculture and Life Sciences in the Ivy League. With enrollment of approximately 3,100 undergraduate and 1,000 graduate students, CALS is Cornell's second-largest undergraduate college and the third-largest college of its kind in the United States.
Edmund Ezra Day was an American educator.
Helen Elizabeth Garrett, commonly known as Elizabeth Garrett or Beth Garrett, was an American professor of law and academic administrator. On July 1, 2015, she became the 13th president of Cornell University—the first woman to serve as president of the university. She died from colon cancer on March 6, 2016, the first Cornell president to die while in office.
Walter Fredrick LaFeber was an American academic who served as the Andrew H. and James S. Tisch Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at Cornell University. Previous to that he served as the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History and a Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow at Cornell.
Charles Kendall Adams was an American educator and historian. He served as the second president of Cornell University from 1885 until 1892, and as president of the University of Wisconsin from 1892 until 1901. At Cornell he established a new law school, built a library, and appointed eminent research professors for the Ivy League school. At Wisconsin, he negotiated ever-increasing appropriations from the state legislature, especially for new buildings such as the library. He was the editor-in-chief of Johnson's Universal Cyclopaedia (1892–1895), and of the successor Universal Cyclopaedia (1900), sometimes referred to as Appleton's Universal Cyclopaedia.
Quill and Dagger is a senior honor society at Cornell University. In 1929, The New York Times stated that election into Quill and Dagger and similar societies constituted "the highest non-scholastic honor within reach of undergraduates."
Dale Raymond Corson was an American physicist and academic administrator who was the eighth president of Cornell University.
Henry Williams Sage was a wealthy New York State businessman, philanthropist, and early benefactor and trustee of Cornell University.
Hunter Ripley Rawlings III is an American classics scholar and academic administrator. He is best known for serving as the 17th President of the University of Iowa from 1987 until 1995 and as the 10th President of Cornell University from 1995 until 2003. He also served as Cornell's interim president in 2005–2006 and again from 2016–2017. Currently, Rawlings is Professor and University President Emeritus at the Department of Classics.
Frank Harold Trevor Rhodes was the ninth president of Cornell University from 1977 to 1995.
Cornelliana is anything related to Cornell University, an Ivy League university founded in 1865 in Ithaca, New York. The university has a considerable number of traditions, legends, and lore unique to the university that have developed over its existence, which spans over 150 years.
The history of Cornell University begins when its two founders, Andrew Dickson White of Syracuse and Ezra Cornell of Ithaca, met in the New York State Senate in January 1864. Together, they established Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, in 1865. The university was initially funded by Ezra Cornell's $400,000 endowment and by New York's 989,920-acre (4,006.1 km2) allotment of the Morrill Land Grant Act of 1862
David Jan Skorton is an American physician and academic. He has been president and chief executive officer of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) since July 15, 2019. Prior to the AAMC, he led the Smithsonian Institution, as its 13th Secretary from July 2015 to June 2019. A cardiologist, he was president of Cornell University from 2006 to 2015. Before arriving at Cornell, he served as president of the University of Iowa, where he had been a longtime professor and then vice president. He began his career as a professor of medicine and engineering. He was the first physician to serve as president of the Smithsonian Institution.
Cornell University is a private Ivy League land-grant research university based in Ithaca, New York. The university was founded in 1865 by Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White. Since its founding, Cornell has been a co-educational and nonsectarian institution. As of fall 2023, the student body included over 16,000 undergraduate and 10,000 graduate students from all 50 U.S. states and 130 countries.
The Cornell University Department of History is an academic department in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University that focuses on the study of history. Founded in 1868, it is one of Cornell's original departments and has been a center for the development of professional historical research institutions in the United States, including the American Historical Association and the American Historical Review. It remains a highly-ranked program in the field and its alumni and faculty have won Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes, among other distinctions. In addition, many of Cornell's presidents have served among its ranks.
Sage Chapel is the non-denominational chapel on the campus of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York State which serves as the burial ground for many contributors to Cornell's history, including the founders of the university: Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White as well as their wives. The building was gifted to the university by Henry William Sage and his wife. The chapel opened in 1875 and is located on Ho Plaza, across from Willard Straight Hall and next to John M. Olin Library, John McGraw Tower, and Barnes Hall.
Central Campus is the primary academic and administrative section of Cornell University's Ithaca, New York campus. It is bounded by Libe Slope on the west, Fall Creek on the north, and Cascadilla Creek on the South.
Ezra Cornell is a monumental statue in Ithaca, New York, United States. Located on the Arts Quad of the Cornell Central Campus, the monument honors Ezra Cornell, the co-founder and namesake of Cornell University. The statue, designed by Hermon Atkins MacNeil, was dedicated in 1919.