Early Asian Alumni – at Cornell

About

Cornell University has a long and distinguished history in Asia. A key component is the proud history of Asian students who have attended Cornell. The stories of the early Asian students at Cornell form an important part of Cornell’s international legacy.

Through the generosity of Mark E. Hansen (Class of 1979), we have created a web site to showcase selected early alumni from East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. The site includes an exhibition with stories of selected individual students, and index of Asian alumni and other Cornell students who lived and worked in Asia, from Cornell’s earliest years to 1960. An alumni index is also provided on the site. Largely drawn from Cornell’s Alumni Directories (1922, 1931, 1938, and 1960), it is by no means complete or exhaustive. All of the records presented on this site were pulled from Cornell alumni files; yearbooks, including the Cornell Class Book (1895-1917) and the Cornellian (1869-1960); and other materials from the Cornell archival collections. Although many of the early alumni files for international alumni do not exist or lack information, we have tried to present the most cohesive account of the available alumni biographies and data.

Alumni and Friends

We encourage current alumni and friends to contribute additional names, as well as recollections and stories, and other materials (documents, photographs, audio, video, etc.) to add to the site. We also hope that this site will help to raise awareness of Cornell’s long relationship with Asia. Through the stories and the index, we hope that students, scholars, and family members will do further research to understand the driving forces for and socio-economic background of Asian students to study at Cornell, and to explore the linkages to those Cornell students who pursued careers in Asia, in business and commerce, education, government and military service, and religious/missionary activities.