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As a final project, a popular course on Cornell history lets students create miniature time capsules for future generations

By Joe Wilensky

“This scrapbook,” Barbara Lou ’25 writes, “is a collection of moments—mundane, meaningful, and everything in between—that together paint a picture of my life as a Cornell student.”

Created as the final project for a popular course on Big Red history, Lou’s scrapbook includes ephemera like ticket stubs, restaurant receipts, and event flyers; it also contains screenshots of late-night texts, Lou writes, “because they made me laugh when I needed it most.”

pages of a student's scrapbook made for final project for AMST 2001 course showing a "Go Big Red" bracelet, a photo of three women, and a Cornell Big Red sticker — Most scrapbooks include trinkets, stickers, photos, and handwritten entries.

Lou submitted the 18-page volume via PDF in May 2025 for the First American University, a one-credit American Studies course on Cornell history and lore taught by Corey Ryan Earle ’07.

She was among the nearly 100 classmates who opted to create scrapbooks—either physical or digital—chronicling their experiences on the Hill for future generations as their capstone project for the course.

And tomorrow’s students and scholars will indeed have access to them: once graded, the scrapbooks become part of the University Archives.

page of a student's scrapbook made for final project for AMST 2001 course that includes a folded t-shirt from the Cornell Quidditch Club — Some feature larger mementos, like this T-shirt.

“Compared to a century ago, scrapbooking is a dying art,” Earle observes.

“Today’s students capture their experiences online, through social media—but will that be accessible in 100 years? This project provides a way to preserve the history of our present day, so future historians know what Cornell was like in 2025.”

The University Archives already holds an impressive collection of student scrapbooks dating from the medium’s golden age more than a century ago.

Today’s students capture their experiences online, through social media—but will that be accessible in 100 years?
Corey Ryan Earle ’07

But in recent decades, Earle and other faculty have worked to connect current students to past generations through scrapbooks that are then added to the Archives.

For more than 20 years, former history lecturer Carol Kammen—author of First-Person Cornell: Students’ Diaries, Letters, Email, and Blogs—had participants in her writing seminars create scrapbooks that chronicled their day-to-day experiences and captured the current campus culture.

During that time, then-University Archivist (now emerita) Elaine Deutsch Engst, MA ’72, called the volumes “informative and always delightful,” noting they comprise “extraordinary documentation of what today’s students are thinking and feeling.”

While scrapbooking isn’t the only option that Earle gives for his course’s final project—students can also do a standard research paper, an oral history, or a podcast episode—it’s often among the most popular.

The scrapbook assignment requires a minimum of 25 items; each must bear a description of what it is, why it was included, whether it’s notable or unique, and what part of the creator’s experience it captures.

cover of a student's scrapbook made for final project for AMST 2001 course — The cover of a digitally submitted volume.

“I’ve seen students squeeze in all sorts of random objects,” Earle notes, “like rocks from the gorges, a pen from the Statler, or a plastic dinosaur from a Collegetown bar.”

Photographs are plentiful throughout the spring ’25 crop—but there are also numerous menus and receipts; wristbands from events and local watering holes; pins and plane tickets; solar eclipse glasses (relics from the celestial viewings of April 2024); and much more.

“While creating this scrapbook, I wasn’t just curating photos and keepsakes,” Lindsay Williams ’25 declares. “I was also revisiting the lessons I’ve learned along the way.”

I wasn’t just curating photos and keepsakes; I was also revisiting the lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Lindsay Williams ’25

One student, an animal science major, included a small plastic bag of ox hair from his wool fibers class.

Another, a prolific photographer, showcased dozens of his digital images of campus and its environs.

The Class of 2025 was the last cohort of undergrads to have had their college experiences significantly shaped by the COVID pandemic—so it’s unsurprising that face masks and test strips appear in quite a few of the scrapbooks.

page from a student's scrapbook made for final project for AMST 2001 course picturing the "COVID quarantine experience" — COVID-era relics—like test strips and memories of social distancing—are a common theme.

But frequently, the students openly wrestle with finding tangible mementos that document their lives—ones lived largely online.

“I knew I wanted to find and describe personal items that relate to my four years at Cornell,” writes Ella Kim ’25. “In this digital age though, I thought it would be extremely difficult to find 25 physical items; most of my memories are contained within the photos on my iPhone camera roll.”

Most of my memories are contained within the photos on my iPhone camera roll.
Ella Kim ’25

Mana Setayesh ’25 prominently affixed a receipt from the Cornell Store into her scrapbook, noting that it’s “one of those full-circle places: It is where I bought my first Cornell merch when I was a prospective student visiting campus—and where I just bought the frame to display my degree.”

On the inside front cover of her volume, Minna Chow ’25 pasted—as an “apology to future historians”—an extensive disambiguation of her (admittedly, somewhat impenetrable) handwriting.

page of a student's scrapbook made for final project for AMST 2001 course showing Slope Day backstage passes and written entries — Slope Day figures into numerous volumes.

She’s one of several students—Lou among them—who clearly leaned into the challenge of speaking to the Cornellians of tomorrow.

“If someone stumbles across this scrapbook 100 years from now, I hope they see more than just a student’s keepsakes,” Lou writes.

“I hope they glimpse what it felt like to be 21 years old, trying to figure out adulthood, surrounded by snow and deadlines and beauty and friendship. I hope they understand that Cornell was not just a place to study—it was a place to live, to grow, and to remember.”