‘A Place of Low Walls and High Ambitions’

In his first State of the University address, Interim President Mike Kotlikoff cites Cornell’s founding principles as today’s lodestars

“In the President’s Words” brings the president’s messages to the broader Cornell community, so alumni can hear from the University’s leader first-hand. The following—illustrated with recent images of life on campus—has been condensed from his State of the University address at the Trustee-Council Annual Meeting (TCAM) in October 2024. The full text can be found here, and a video of the address is available for viewing.

By Mike Kotlikoff

Hunter Rawlings, who was president of Cornell when I first arrived here, has a great story about the first big speech he made as president at the University of Iowa, to their faculty senate. He worked hard on it, making sure it sounded sufficiently elevated and appropriate for the occasion. He thought it went over all right, and was feeling pretty good about himself until the next morning, when he stopped off in the men’s room near his office.

When he went to dry his hands with the electric dryer, he noticed someone had attached a little piece of paper to the start button. It said, “Press this button for a message from the new president.”

I’ll take the lesson from whoever wrote that, and try not to spend the next half hour blowing the room full of hot air.

What I hope to do instead, is to provide some historical context for the criticism universities currently face, articulate the principles that we have been applying to our current challenges, and hopefully convince you of the importance of universities and reassure you that Cornell continues to live up to its founding ideals and successfully fulfill its missions.

When I say it’s an honor to be here, I really mean it. This is a unique place that has been populated by giants and has transformed countless lives. It is also a place that can sometimes be unruly and difficult to govern. But I don’t think you can get one without the other.

This is a unique place that has been populated by giants and has transformed countless lives.

To paraphrase Carl Becker, universities don’t have souls, but they do have personalities.

And there is something in the Cornell personality that appealed to me right away, and that I’ve continued to cherish—something that’s made Cornell what it is for so many generations of Cornellians. Not just a place you work or study, or a place you spend a few years of your life on your way to somewhere else—but a place that shapes who you are, and becomes part of who you are, for the rest of your life.

Cornell University was made possible by a unique moment in America’s history—one even more divided and divisive than our own. We were coming to the end of the Civil War. Our nation had narrowly survived what was almost the end of the American vision. The Morrill Act had been signed into law, and a new generation of American universities was coming into existence across the country.

Two New York State senators—Andrew White, an advocate for traditional university scholarship, and Ezra Cornell, an inventor, tinkerer, and citizen scholar—saw an opportunity.

Noël Heaney / Cornell University

For White, it was the chance of a lifetime to build a world-class university on a foundation of American democracy.

For Cornell, it was the philanthropic project he’d been looking for—a way “To Do the Greatest Good,” and an opportunity to influence what universities taught.

The two of them together conspired to create something new—something fundamentally democratic and useful to society.

Cornell University was made possible by a unique moment in America’s history—one even more divided and divisive than our own.

They envisioned a university that would be utterly unlike anything that existed at the time. And one with a radical commitment to American ideals of democracy—walking the talk of those democratic ideals in ways that our founding fathers never really intended, and a lot of people thought shouldn’t be allowed.

Educating men and women of all races, religions, and backgrounds together; with a free and independent faculty that could teach subjects beyond the classical curriculum, including practical studies like agriculture and engineering, that weren’t seen as university-worthy at the time.

To those of us living in the America of 2024, it might seem that the invective directed against higher education today has no equal in our country’s history.

Let me politely disabuse you of that notion.

When Andrew White introduced the bill establishing Cornell University into the state senate, it was, he wrote later, “a signal for war.”

The nonsectarian university was attacked as “godless”; Ezra Cornell’s character was assassinated in local papers across the state. The worst motives you could imagine were ascribed to both White and Cornell, sometimes by proponents of other colleges hoping to win the land-grant status and funding for themselves.

Jason Koski / Cornell University

The attacks didn’t stop when the University was established. One of my favorites derided Cornell as “a school where hayseeds and greasy mechanics are taught to hoe potatoes, pitch manure, and be dry nurses to steam engines.”

I guess they were hoping for something a little bit more elite and “woke.”

It is perhaps comforting that criticism of university leadership was part of the deal from the jump. Ezra and Andy got through it, and so will we.

From the vantage point of 2024, it’s easier to have some perspective on that criticism, set next to the enormous positive impact that this university has had on the world over the intervening 159 years.

Jason Koski / Cornell University

What we need to do today is apply that perspective to our own moment: listening to criticism where it has merit, evaluating ourselves honestly, and always being open to improvement—even as we forcefully defend the value of our institutions to individuals and society, and our bedrock principles of academic freedom and free expression.

Now, as then—there is no better way to rebuild a fractured nation than to educate citizens to think for themselves, and live together; and to value truth, openness, and equality as cornerstones of our democracy.

There is no better way to rebuild a fractured nation than to educate citizens to think for themselves, and live together.

From alumni and parents, the questions I hear most often, asked sometimes accusingly and sometimes inquiringly, is whether this is still what Cornell does.

Do we still value intellectual rigor and open inquiry?

Do we still challenge students to think deeply about a subject and train them to be critical thinkers?

Ryan Young / Cornell University

Is Cornell still a place where students are safe, and one that honors its duty of care to every student, even when they act in ways that make us shake our heads?

My answer to them is a resounding yes!

In 1940, Carl Becker described the Cornell tradition—the tradition that has shaped the trajectory of all liberal higher education, in the United States and beyond—as a tradition of freedom and responsibility. A tradition, as he put it, that “allows a maximum of freedom, and relies confidently on the sense of personal responsibility for making good use of it.”

It is a tradition grounded in our history, and our shared values. We are and must continue to be a community that respects the right to think otherwise, and speak freely, even when that speech offends. And at the same time, a community that cherishes our shared humanity despite our differences, and appreciates how essential it is to respect the rights of others as we assert our own.

When Becker gave that speech, marking the 75th anniversary of Cornell’s founding, the circumstances of that founding had taken on a particular resonance. Democracy and the nation faced existential threats.

The great European centers of knowledge and reason, including the renowned universities of Germany, had been swallowed whole by a rising tide of autocracy. Universities committed to evidence and facts, and free and vigorous public debate, were an intolerable opposing force.

Sreang Hok / Cornell University

To Becker, the role of universities as bulwarks against these tides was naturally front of mind. He famously described the preparation of students to enter and strengthen our democracy as a principal role of Cornell and other American universities.

Universities promote humane and rational values, he said, and educate new generations, not only for their careers, but for their lives as citizens of their nations and members of their communities: cherishing and embracing both the freedom, and the responsibility, of living as part of a democratic society, protecting common interests, and sharing common values.

Jason Koski / Cornell University

But to serve that purpose, we must be committed to protecting the fundamental principles from which we derive these values. And free speech—including the right to say things that offend—is the first and perhaps the foremost of those principles.

It is the right that enabled our creation in 1865. It is the right that enables us to serve the purposes Ezra Cornell and Andrew White intended. And across our departments and schools, colleges and campuses, it is the right that enables all of our work today: the work of remarkable scholars who expand human knowledge, and share it with others; who teach the knowledge and skills, from the classical to the cutting-edge, that will help new generations contribute to and thrive in a democratic society.

Sreang Hok / Cornell University

A democratic and meritocratic system of education is central to the Jeffersonian ideals of democracy this country is based on—a system where every student has the same opportunities to thrive, regardless of their background and resources; and where success is determined not by luck of birth, but by talent and effort. It’s an aspiration we haven’t always lived up to as a nation, but it is a founding commitment for us at Cornell.

Across our schools, colleges, and campuses, Cornell is a place of low walls and high ambitions, a uniquely collaborative environment that brings theoretical and practical knowledge together across multiple disciplines to address and solve complex challenges.

A democratic and meritocratic system of education is central to the Jeffersonian ideals of democracy this country is based on.

(I won’t say there aren’t any silos at Cornell. But ours are up at the Vet College—and they’re full of silage.)

In an era where advanced technology, particularly artificial intelligence, is making so much possible, the human qualities that machines can’t imitate—like resilience, creativity, and empathy—are more important than ever. The ability to think critically and strategically, to communicate clearly and negotiate disagreements, to understand the viewpoints of others and work as part of a team, are key to effective participation in civil society, and essential to learning to lead.

Jason Koski / Cornell University

Understanding, as well, the complexity of systems—the many forces that interact across political conflict or historical events—is essential to developing a mature understanding of the world, approaching complex challenges with humility instead of hubris, and developing the capacity to find workable solutions.

The ongoing crisis in the Middle East has shaped events on college campuses across the country over the past year. Here at Cornell, we’ve been clear about our tradition of “freedom and responsibility” and what that means on our campus:

Jason Koski / Cornell University

That we fully support the right to speak one’s mind, including expressing opposition to university or government policy. But it is not and can never be acceptable, on this campus, to exercise your rights at the expense of others’; and I’ve acted firmly and decisively when that has happened.

The freedom to pursue our goals at Cornell means the responsibility to respect others’ rights to do the same. The individual right of free expression ends where disruption of the work of our academic mission begins.

Here at Cornell, we’ve been clear about our tradition of ‘freedom and responsibility’ and what that means on our campus.

Being a Cornellian means, as well, that if you’re going to lift up your voice over an issue—you should know what you’re talking about. We’ve expanded our educational offerings on current issues, including, over the last academic year, a new lecture series, “Antisemitism and Islamophobia Examined”; and this year, a speaker series on pathways to peace in the Middle East.

Living and learning as part of a vibrant and diverse academic community is a key part of the Cornell experience for all of our students, and strengthening that community—giving air to what unites us, over what divides us—was a core priority for me as I stepped into this role.

And I believe strongly that to strengthen this community, our faculty and our administration need to be visible and active members of this community.

Interim Provost John Siliciano ’75 and I have visited every college and every school, and convened meetings with our shared governance bodies, student groups, the Daily Sun, leaders of our Jewish and Muslim communities, and Ithaca community partners. All have involved frank conversations and open dialogue. Our community is Cornell’s secret sauce that builds the kinds of bonds that bring you back to TCAM and keep you engaged with this precious place.

Living and learning as part of a vibrant and diverse academic community is a key part of the Cornell experience for all of our students.

As universities educating the future leaders of our democracy, we have a responsibility to ensure that our students go out into the world able to live in an environment of diversity with respect, and recognizing that all democracies are only as strong as the democratic values of their citizens.

I see that responsibility as a particularly central one for Cornell, with our history and our land-grant mission, and our founding vision of how a newly imagined, uniquely American kind of education could combat and counteract the forces that divide us.

Sreang Hok / Cornell University

It was a vision designed to foster the values and competencies that were then, and remain today, essential to innovation and creativity, and to a democratic society: respect for knowledge and truth, and the ability to evaluate evidence and challenge our own conceptions; the ability to engage with difficulty and across difference; the capacity to take part in productive civil discourse—to debate ideas without attacking individuals, and engage in reasoned discourse and fact-based disagreements; and particularly, a fundamental commitment to ideals of human dignity and worth.

To quote John Dewey: “Democracy must be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.”

And in a time when we do face so many challenges, as a society and a planet, it’s an even greater privilege and responsibility to be part of these institutions that we all cherish—teaching freedom and responsibility, and nurturing democracy for generations to come.

Top: President Kotlikoff delivers his State of the University address. (Photo by Ryan Young / Cornell University.)

Published October 24, 2024

---

Other stories You may like

• 

  • Quizzes & Puzzles

  Far(ther) Above: The Campus Stairways Quiz

• 

  • Quizzes & Puzzles

  July / August ’23 Trivia Roundup

• 

  • Students

  Move-In ’24 in Photos: The Hill Welcomes Our Newest Cornellians