Campuses[edit]

The Arts Quad on Cornell's main campus with McGraw Tower in the background

Overlooking Ho Plaza from atop McGraw Tower, with Sage Hall and Barnes Hall in the background

Sage Chapel hosts religious services and concerts, and is the final resting place of the university's founder

Ithaca campus[edit]
Main articles: Cornell Central Campus, Cornell North Campus, and Cornell West Campus

Cornell's main campus is on East Hill in Ithaca, New York, overlooking the city and Cayuga Lake.
Since the university was founded, it has expanded to about 2,300 acres (9.3 km2), encompassing
both the hill and much of the surrounding areas.[33] Central Campus has laboratories, administrative
buildings, and almost all of the campus' academic buildings, athletic facilities, auditoriums, and
museums. North Campus is composed of ten residence halls [34] that primarily house first-year
students, although the Townhouse Community occasionally houses transfer students. The five main
residence halls on West Campus make up the West Campus House System, along with
several Gothic-style buildings, referred to as "the Gothics".[35] Collegetown contains two upper-
level residence halls[36][37] and the Schwartz Performing Arts Center amid a mixed-use neighborhood
of apartments, eateries, and businesses.[38] Construction has also begun on two new residential
buildings that will be situated on North Campus, providing beds for an estimated 800 students, to be
completed by fall 2021.[39]
The main campus is marked by an irregular layout and eclectic architectural styles, including
ornate Collegiate Gothic, Victorian, and Neoclassical buildings, and the more
spare international and modernist structures. The more ornate buildings generally predate World
War II. The student population doubled from 7,000 in 1950 to 15,000 by 1970, at a time when
architectural styles favored modernism.[40] While some buildings are neatly arranged
into quadrangles, others are packed densely and haphazardly. These eccentricities arose from the
university's numerous, ever-changing master plans for the campus. For example, in one of the
earliest plans, Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of Central Park, proposed a "grand terrace"
overlooking Cayuga Lake.[41]
Several of the university buildings are listed as historic landmarks. [42] Those listed on the National
Register of Historic Places include the Andrew Dickson White House, Bailey Hall, Caldwell Hall,
the Computing and Communications Center (formerly Comstock Hall), Morrill Hall, Rice Hall, Fernow
Hall, Wing Hall, Llenroc, and 13 South Avenue (Deke House).[43] At least three other historic buildings
—the original Roberts Hall, East Robert Hall and Stone Hall—have also been listed on the NRHP.
The university demolished them in the 1980s to make way for other development. [44] In September
2011, Travel+Leisure listed the Ithaca Campus as among the most beautiful in the United States. [45]
Located among the rolling valleys of the Finger Lakes region, the campus on a hill provides views of
the surrounding area, including 38 miles (61.4 km) long Cayuga Lake. Two gorges, Fall Creek Gorge
and Cascadilla Gorge, bound Central Campus and are used as popular swimming holes during the
warmer months (although the university and city code discourage their use due to hazardous
swimming conditions).[46] Adjacent to the main campus, Cornell owns the 2,800 acre
(11.6 km2) Cornell Botanic Gardens, a botanical garden containing flowers, trees, and ponds, with
manicured trails providing access through the facility. [47]
The university has embarked on numerous 'green' initiatives. In 2009, a new gas-fired combined
heat and power facility replaced a coal-fired steam plant, resulting in a reduction in carbon emissions
to 7% below 1990 levels, and projected to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 75,000 tons per year.
[48]
 This facility satisfies 15% of campus electrical needs, [49] and a university-run, on-campus
hydroelectric plant in the Fall Creek Gorge provides an additional 2%. [50] The university has a lake
source cooling project that uses Cayuga Lake to air condition campus buildings, with an 80% energy
saving over conventional systems.[51] In 2007, Cornell established a Center for a Sustainable Future.
[52]
 Cornell has been rated "A-" by the 2011 College Sustainability Report Card for its environmental
and sustainability initiatives.[53] However, the university has drawn criticism from student groups for a
planned North Campus expansion for which they have not released an environmental impact
statement.[54]
Since 2007 the university has committed to achieve net carbon neutrality by 2035, from the baseline
2008 emissions.[55] Acting as the first Ivy League institution to take on such a sustainability goal.
[56]
 Cornell's Ithaca campus as of 2020 is powered by 6 solar farms, providing a total of 28 megawatts
of power.[57] In counterpart to lake source cooling, heating needs plan to be met through the
development of Earth Source Heating, a mid to low-grade enhanced geothermal system. The
geothermal system is planned to supply 20% of campus heating demand. [58] The Earth Source
Heating project has received a $7.2 million grant from the DOE,[59] and researchers plan to drill a test
well in Spring of 2021 on Cornell land. The wells for Earth Source Heating will be 3-5 km deep
reaching temperatures of >150°C. Waste biomass burning will be used to cover the estimated 20
'cold days' when the geothermal can not provide peak heating. [55]

New York City campuses[edit]

Weill Cornell[edit]
Main article: Weill Cornell Medicine
Weill Medical Center overlooks the East River in New York City.

Cornell's medical campus in New York, also called Weill Cornell, is on the Upper East
Side of Manhattan, New York City. It is home to two Cornell divisions: Weill Cornell Medical
College and Weill Cornell Graduate School of Medical Sciences, and has been affiliated with
the NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital since 1927.[60] Although their faculty and academic divisions are
separate, the Medical Center shares administrative and teaching hospital functions with
the Columbia University Medical Center.[61] These teaching hospitals include the Payne Whitney
Clinic in Manhattan and the Westchester Division in White Plains, New York.[62] Weill Cornell Medical
College is also affiliated with the neighboring Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center, Rockefeller
University, and the Hospital for Special Surgery. Many faculty members have joint appointments at
these institutions. Weill Cornell, Rockefeller, and Memorial Sloan–Kettering offer the Tri-Institutional
MD–PhD Program to selected entering Cornell medical students.[63] From 1942 to 1979, the campus
also housed the Cornell School of Nursing.[64]
Cornell Tech[edit]
Main article: Cornell Tech

On December 19, 2011, Cornell and Technion-Israel Institute of Technology won a competition for

rights to claim free city land and $100 million in subsidies to build an engineering campus in New
York City. The competition was established by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to increase
entrepreneurship and job growth in the city's technology sector. The winning bid consisted of a
2.1 million square feet state-of-the-art tech campus to be built on Roosevelt Island on the site of the
former Coler-Goldwater Specialty Hospital. Instruction began in the fall of 2012 in a temporary
location in Manhattan (111 Eighth Avenue in space donated by Google).[65] Thom Mayne of the
architecture firm Morphosis has been selected to design the first building to be constructed on
Roosevelt Island. Begun in 2014, construction of the first phase of the campus was completed in
September 2017.[66]
Other New York City programs[edit]
In addition to the tech campus and medical center, Cornell maintains local offices in New York City
for some of its service programs. The Cornell Urban Scholars Program encourages students to
pursue public service careers, arranging assignments with organizations working with New York
City's poorest children, families, and communities.[67] The NYS College of Human Ecology and
the NYS College of Agriculture and Life Sciences enable students to reach out to local communities
by gardening and building with the Cornell Cooperative Extension. [68] Students with the NYS School
of Industrial and Labor Relations' Extension & Outreach Program make workplace expertise
available to organizations, union members, policymakers, and working adults. [69] The College of
Engineering's Operations Research Manhattan, in the city's financial district, brings together
business optimization research and decision support services addressed to both financial
applications and public health logistics planning. [70] The College of Architecture, Art, and
Planning has an 11,000 square foot Gensler-designed facility in 26 Broadway (The Standard Oil
Building) in the Financial District that opened in 2015.[71]
Qatar campus[edit]

Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar

Main article: Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar

Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar is in Education City, near Doha. Opened in September 2004,
this is the first American medical school to be established outside the United States. The college is
part of Cornell's program to increase its international influence. The college is a joint initiative with
the Qatar government, which seeks to improve the country's academic programs and medical care.
[27]
 Along with its full four-year MD program, which mirrors the curriculum taught at Weill Medical
College in New York City, the college offers a two-year undergraduate pre-medical program with a
separate admissions process. This undergraduate program opened in September 2002 and was the
first coeducational institute of higher education in Qatar.[72]
The college is partially funded by the Qatar government through the Qatar Foundation, which
contributed $750 million for its construction.[73] The medical center is housed in a large two-story
structure designed by Arata Isozaki, an internationally known Japanese architect.[74] In 2004, the
Qatar Foundation announced the construction of a 350-bed Specialty Teaching Hospital near the
medical college in Education City. The hospital was to be completed in a few years. [27]

Other facilities[edit]
Cornell owns and/or operates other facilities.[75] The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, site of the
world's largest single-dish radio telescope, was operated by Cornell under a contract with
the National Science Foundation from its construction until 2011. [76] The Shoals Marine Laboratory,
operated in conjunction with the University of New Hampshire,[77] is a seasonal marine field station
dedicated to undergraduate education and research on the 95-acre (0.4 km2) Appledore Island off
the Maine–New Hampshire coast.[78]

A World War I Memorial on Cornell's West Campus in Ithaca

Cornell has facilities devoted to conservation and ecology. The New York State Agricultural

Experiment Station, operated by the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, is in Geneva, New
York, 50 miles (80 km) northwest of the main campus. It operates three substations: The Cornell
Lake Erie Research and Extension Laboratory (CLEREL) in Portland, New York,[79] Hudson Valley
Laboratory in Highland,[80] and the Long Island Horticultural Research Laboratory in Riverhead.[81]

Cornell's Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, designed by I.M. Pei

The Cornell Lab of Ornithology in Ithaca's Sapsucker Woods performs research on biological

diversity, primarily in birds.[82] On April 18, 2005, the lab announced that it had rediscovered the ivory-
billed woodpecker, long thought to be extinct (Some experts disputed the evidence and subsequent
surveys were inconclusive).[83] The Animal Science Teaching and Research Center in Harford, New
York, and the Duck Research Laboratory in Eastport, New York, are resources for information on
animal disease control and husbandry.[84][85]