When biomedical engineering major Cali Brady \u201924 was on her first visit to campus as a gymnastics recruit, she watched her future teammates sprint up the Slope\u201412 times in a row. \u201cThat was very intimidating, because I was out of breath just walking up it for the first time; being from Illinois where it\u2019s very flat, I was not prepared for that,\u201d she recalls. \u201cOnce I made it on the team, they told me how hard it actually was for them, which made me feel better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cornell\u2019s landmark hill\u2014officially called Library Slope, more often shortened to Libe Slope or just \u201cthe Slope\u201d\u2014has been one of the University\u2019s defining physical features for more than a century and a half, marking the geographic and altitudinal transition between West Campus and the Arts Quad. For generations of Cornellians, trekking up the Slope to class from West Campus (be it the U-Halls, Greek houses, co-ops, apartments, or living-learning residential houses) is a shared experience. Student and alumni memories of the Slope and its place in campus culture are often weather-related\u2014from bracingly cold, icy, or snowy winter mornings to wind and rain to gorgeous fall evenings, languid late-spring afternoons, and postcard-perfect sunsets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the decades, the Slope has been the site of outdoor Commencements<\/a>, official physical education activities like skiing\u2014and, of course, Slope Day. Today, it also reflects the times by hosting swaths of grass left unmowed in an effort toward better sustainability, and the Sesquicentennial Grove<\/a> (dedicated in 2015) is perched at the top edge for Cornellians to celebrate and ponder more than 150 years of University history and its promise for the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Slope itself, and the land comprising central campus, is part of\u00a0a 300-acre swath of farmland between Fall Creek and Cascadilla gorges that Ezra Cornell purchased in 1857 and operated as a farm before donating to the University. (As the University has acknowledged with a\u00a0formal declaration<\/a>, the parcel is located on the traditional homeland of the Gayogo\u0331h\u00f3\ua789n\u01eb\u0241, or Cayuga Nation.) According to\u00a0A History of Cornell<\/em>\u00a0by Morris Bishop 1913, PhD 1926, Ezra\u2019s first memories of the region date to boyhood, when he stopped in the area on his way to visit an uncle near Geneva. \u201cHe remembered his childhood delight with the view from East Hill,\u201d Bishop writes. \u201cCayuga Lake had thrilled him, since he had never seen any water larger than a millpond.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"graphic](\"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/09\/Libe_slope_gradiant_9_10-1024x576.jpg\")
Ezra\u2019s \u2018childhood delight\u2019 <\/h2>\n\n\n\n