Last Wednesday I saw the underground tunnels of West campus and the memorial room first hand, which was a fascinating experience. The tunnels are surprisingly kind of just concrete hallways. The memorial room has really cool gothic-style decor and I seeing the names of those who fought in WWI from Cornell really drove home to me the historical significance of this school.

However, I found the most interesting portion of the Cafe to be hearing about the history of this part of campus. One of my main takeaways from the discussion was that Ezra Cornell was dedicated to creating a school with an environment of inclusion rather than elitism. His beliefs extended into every aspect of the school from its decision to admit black and female students shortly after its founding, to its options for student housing. Rather than providing on-campus housing, he opted to have students live in town where they would be integrated into the Ithaca community. However, later Cornell added large-scale on-campus housing because this has become standard across all universities. This discussion made me realize that even decisions which seem mundane often have purpose or meaning behind them. I had never considered student housing to be connected to the mission of the school in any way, but it turns out that the school’s mission is apparent in ways I never expected.