I recently had the pleasure of hearing Nel de Muelenaere present some of her research on the namesake Rose House, Flora Rose, and (among other things) her role in the development of the College of Home Economics, now Human Ecology, at Cornell. As a student here, it is all too easy to take Cornell for granted. Despite living here, most of us hadn’t heard of Cornell more than eight years ago, when we started high school, and almost certainly didn’t know anything about it beyond it’s Ivy League reputation until we applied. As such, (in my opinion) it can seem that Cornell is just the way it always has been, that the labors of Ezra Cornell and A.D. White simply birthed onto Ithaca a a fully fledged twenty-first century university, all the way back in 1865, with newer buildings just being built to catch up. I exaggerate of course, but the fact is that we as students do not often think about how much our university has changed, and is changing, throughout history. Dr. Muelenaere’s talk was an excellent wake-up call to that fact. The life of Flora Rose was indeed an exceptional one, but above all it was a life of change. Not, perhaps, in her own situation or perspective, but rather in the change she inspired and effected in the world, and in her university, is this made clear. Despite the relative (for its day) liberalism of its founding ideals, the early twentieth century saw much to be desired in Cornell’s treatment of women and women faculty, a fact which we as modern students may be prone to forget. Yet, it was due to the efforts of exceptional Cornellians Flora Rose and Martha van Rensselear that the University did progress in this respect, and began to more fully live up to the high ideas expressed by its founders. The story of Flora Rose does not just serve as a reminder of a distant past, however; it reminds present Cornellians that they too are shaping the history of Cornell. From the classes we take to the clubs we join, we are helping to further the mission and story of Cornell ever onward into the twenty first century. One can only hope we give future Cornellians as much to be proud of as Flora Rose has given to us.