Last Wednesday, Prof. Adam Shwartz presented on Cornell Tech, Cornell’s new graduate program in technology. Interestingly, the program will find its permanent home next summer on Roosevelt Island, far from Ithaca– but connected (by gondola) with what one might argue is the start-up capital of the country– Manhattan. The purpose, explained Shwartz, is to adapt to a quickly evolving and technologically oriented world: just ten years ago, Shwartz pointed out, we had no iPhones, no Facebook and a much more limited use of any such devices or programs. Our world has changed irrevocably (for the better) in the last decade. The issue now is keeping up.

Thinking back Ezra Cornell’s oft-cited “any person, any study,” Cornell Tech’s purpose and vision fits precisely within the University’s history; yet, its location, outside of Ithaca, offers a new dilemma: must the University be constrained to one physical location? Of course, one can justifiably say that in 2016, the answer is no: technology brings the two campuses together. But while communication can be shared, culture, perhaps, cannot. The biggest question in my mind, therefore, is that of the relationship between Cornell and its new satellite. How will the two communities interact? What, at Cornell Tech, will be open to undergraduates? What, in Ithaca, will be available to Cornell Tech students? When presented with questions of this nature, Prof. Shwartz, hinting at how the last decade has so unpredictably unfolded, gave a simple shrug of the shoulders, and a somewhat unsatisfying “We will see.”