Cornelliana
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Cornelliana is a broad term that can refer to anything related to Cornell University's unique traditions, legends, and lore.
Contents |
[edit] Traditions
[edit] Arch sings
Cornell's numerous a cappella groups frequently offer free, short performances in the archways of campus buildings (usually dormitories) known as arch sings. The casual, public performances are typically held in an archway for reasons of acoustics and shelter from the weather. Typically one or a small number of a cappella groups will perform for a small audience, often to publicize upcoming concerts, though arch sings are also frequently held simply for their own sake.[citation needed]
[edit] Chalkings
Year-round, students draw advertisements in chalk for organizations, lectures, sports, and other activities and events on sidewalks and courtyards. These drawings are often clever and/or artistic. At times, particularly at the beginning of the academic year, they seem to cover nearly every walkway.[citation needed]
[edit] Dragon Day
Dragon Day is an annual celebration that began in 1901, known as "College of Architecture Day", and occurs, traditionally, on the Thursday before St Patrick's Day. The central event is the burning of a dragon designed and built by Architecture first years at the hands of the oldest fifth year Architecture student, with the help of the Ithaca Fire Department, on the Arts Quad.[1]
[edit] "Far Above Cayuga's Waters"
"Far Above Cayuga's Waters" is Cornell's alma mater. The lyrics were composed in 1870 by two roommates to the tune of "Annie Lisle", a popular ballad of the day. The song is considered to be one of the best known alma maters in the world as it has been adapted and adopted by numerous universities, colleges, and high schools both in the United States and the world. The song traditionally concludes campus concerts by the Cornell University Glee Club.[2]
[edit] Freshman beanies
In the first part of the 20th Century, male freshman at Cornell were required to follow eleven strict rules published in the freshman handbook. These ranged from "No smoking on campus" to "Give your trolley seat to an upperclassman." Number four on that list was "Wear your cap." The cap was a red beanie with a gray button on top. Freshmen boys wore their hats until the annual spring beanie burning. This rule was taken very seriously. One student, Frederick Morelli 1924, was chained to a tree for two hours and dunked in the lake for refusing to wear his cap, thus earning Cornell the name "Lynch College". By the 1960's, this tradition had disappeared.[3]
[edit] "Give My Regards to Davy"
"Give My Regards to Davy" is Cornell's primary fight song. It was written in 1904 by three roommates at Beta Theta Pi to the tune of George M. Cohan's "Give My Regards to Broadway". Cornellians sing this song at sporting events, especially hockey.[citation needed]
[edit] Hot Truck and Louie's Lunch
Generations of Cornellians have had their late night food cravings satisfied by the two legendary food trucks, the Hot Truck and Louie's Lunch. Louie's Lunch, or just "Louie's", was created around 1920 by Greek immigrant Louis Zounakos. Its original incarnation was a food cart that he pushed around campus, which he soon replaced with a Ford truck. In the late 1940's, Louie bought the custom made red and white truck that Louie's has been run out of to this day across the street from Risley Hall. Below West Campus sits Louie's rival since 1960, "The Hot Truck". Unlike Louie's which serves a wide variety of edibles, The Hot Truck sells just one item: pizza subs. The original owner Bob Petrillose determined soon after opening that he could cut costs by only selling pizza. Bob discovered that he could produce a superior pizza when he put the toppings on buttered French bread. He dubbed his creation the PMP (or "Poor Man's Pizza"), which has since been brought to national popularity by Stouffer's. Over the years, the variety of pizzas has expanded with complete dictionary of combinations (of varying peculiarity) created by students, such as the "North Baker", which has garlic, mozzarella, pizza sauce, mustard, lettuce, and sour cream & onion potato chips. The Hot Truck is now owned by Shortstop Deli, which also serves its subs.[4]
The Hot Truck has been the subject of a strip on the webcomic goats. See here
[edit] New Student Reading Project
A recently begun Cornell tradition is the New Student Reading Project or sometimes called Freshmen Reading Project. Begun for the Class of 2005, all incoming freshmen and transfer students are required to read a book chosen by the university. Alumni and faculty are encouraged to also read the book. When students arrive, they participate in discussion groups and other activities related to the book. For example, in the Fall of 2005, Chinua Achebe came to Cornell and discussed his Things Fall Apart ('09). Other novels have been Guns, Germs, and Steel ('05), Frankenstein ('06), Antigone ('07), The Trial ('08), and The Great Gatsby ('10).[5]
[edit] Slope Day
Slope Day is an annual day of celebration, held on the last full day of classes (usually the first Friday of May). Though Slope Day has gone through many reincarnations since its inception in 1901, in recent years focus has shifted to live musical performances open to the Cornell community and a select number of guests. Students gather on Libe Slope to enjoy the music and party. Recent performers include Ben Folds, Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, The Game, O.A.R., Dilated Peoples, Rusted Root and Fat Joe. Slope Day is often criticized for the excessive drinking that many students participate in before, during, and after the scheduled events.[6]
In recent years, Slope Day has become more regulated, in an effort to stop underage drinking on the Slope. In order to regulate it, the Slope itself has been fenced off and entrances have been placed for ID checks.
[edit] Swim test
In 1918, at the urging of the Director of Women's Physical Education, Cornell began requiring that all female students must pass a swim test before graduating. In 1937, the school expanded the swim test requirement to all undergraduates. Despite reviews of this policy over the years, all students—with the exception of transfer students—must pass a swim test. Students who fail or do not take the swim test are enrolled in an introductory swimming course. Colleges and universities with similar swimming requirements include Stanford, Columbia University, Bryn Mawr, the University of Chicago, Notre Dame, MIT, Hamilton, Dartmouth, Swarthmore, and Washington & Lee, and the service academies.[citation needed]
[edit] Traying
When snow falls on Cornell, dining trays begin to disappear from the dining halls. Students steal the trays in order to participate in traying, a long-held Cornell tradition in which students slide down Libe Slope on the trays. Due to the safety hazards associated with sledding down the Slope - which has patches of trees on it - at such high speeds, the administration has published warnings outlawing this tradition. Regardless, Cornellians continue to slide down the Slope every winter.[citation needed]
[edit] Primal Scream
At midnight before the first day of finals each semester, it is a tradition for students to go outside and yell as loud as they can in order to relieve tension. Supposedly, the collective scream is so loud that it can be heard a few miles away at the Ithaca Commons.[citation needed]
[edit] Legends
[edit] Arts Quad statues
On the Arts Quad exist two statues memorializing the founders of Cornell, Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White. According to legend, if a virgin crosses the Quad at midnight while the chimes are ringing, the two statues will walk off their pedestals, meet in the center of the Quad, and shake hands on the chastity of the university. (Variants of this legend have it that they will take each other's place, or they will dance a jig to celebrate the student's purity.) To this day, the statues have never switched places, shaken hands, or danced; Cornell's tour guides maintain this is because the bells do not ring at midnight. Every year since 1936, Phi Sigma Kappa has repainted footprints on the Quad to memorialize the legend.[citation needed]
[edit] Ghosts
The widow of Willard Straight made several reportedly unsuccessful attempts to contact her late husband through mediums. Hiram Corson (1828-1911), a Professor of Anglo-Saxon Literature, was purported to have had posthumous conversations with Robert Browning and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. On a more permanent basis, ghosts are said to haunt several buildings on the Cornell campus.
In Risley Hall, the namesake of the dormitory, Prudence Risley, flits about the building, flickering the lights. During its days as the Residential Club, Ecology House suffered a fatal fire, whose victims are credited for strange lights and voices. Some say that the Statler Hotel is haunted by the building's namesake, Alice Statler; other buildings said to be haunted include the Undergraduate Admissions Office, McGraw Tower, and the Delta Kappa Epsilon, Sigma Chi and Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity houses among others.
If a bride is married in Sage Chapel, she will probably use the crypt to prepare as no other appropriate room exists. Within that crypt are buried the founders and numerous other important contributors of the University. If the bride waits long enough, it is said the spirits may rise to bless the marriage.[7]
[edit] Hoy Field
One campus legend says that the first person to hit a home run out of Cornell's baseball field was former U.S. president George H.W. Bush while he was a student at Yale University. This legend is not true. The first player to hit an outside-the-park home run was a student at Syracuse University. Interestingly, however, the second person to achieve this feat was Columbia University student and future baseball hall-of-famer Lou Gehrig on April 21, 1923.[8]
[edit] Relationships
Many Cornell legends relate to relationships. One says that if a student refuses a kiss on the suspension bridge that stretches across Fall Creek next to the Johnson Museum of Art, the bridge will collapse into the gorge. Another legend says that if a couple walks around the entire perimeter of Beebe Lake while holding hands, the two are destined to be engaged. Yet another legend says that about 60% of Cornell students marry each other. In reality, the number is closer to 8%.[9]
[edit] Lore
[edit] Campbell's Soup
Campbell's Soup cans' colors are red and white. Cornell's colors are red (carnelian, specifically) and white. The similar colors are no coincidence. In 1898, Herberton Williams, a Campbell's executive, convinced the company to adopt a red and white color scheme, because he was taken by the crisp colors of the Cornell University football team's uniforms. In 2004, at the urging of The Image Committee of the Student Assembly, Cornell University officially reverted to a version of this shade of red (PMS 187) after a four-year brush with the much brighter PMS 186.[citation needed]
[edit] Items atop the clocktower
At least two times, students have placed items atop the clocktower secretly in the middle of the night. In October 1997, a pumpkin was found on top of the clocktower. It remained there until it was removed in March of the following year. It was found to have been cored, which accounted for its longevity. It has since been memorialized as an ice cream flavor, "Clocktower Pumpkin", produced by the Cornell Dairy. A piece of the pumpkin is stored in the Wilder Brain Collection. In April 2005, a disco ball was found tied onto the clocktower with climbing rope. According to the Cornell Police, someone gained access to the top of the clocktower by breaking a sealed hatch on the clocktower and then free-climbing up the roof.[10]
[edit] Gettysburg Address
President Lincoln, in April 1864 — at the request of George Bancroft, a historian, wrote out a manuscript of the Gettysburg Address. Mr. Bancroft planned to include this copy in "Autograph Leaves of Our Country's Authors," which he planned to sell at a Soldiers' and Sailors' Sanitary Fair in Baltimore. As this copy was written on both sides of the paper, it proved unusable for this purpose, and Mr. Bancroft was allowed to keep it. This manuscript is the only one accompanied by a letter from Lincoln transmitting the manuscript and by the original envelope addressed and franked (i.e. signed for free postage) by Lincoln. This copy remained in the Bancroft family for many years until it was donated to the Carl A. Kroch Library at Cornell University and can be viewed by anyone who asks. Out of five known manuscripts, Cornell's copy holds the distinction of being the only one owned by a private institution. Among historians, Cornell's manuscript is known as the Bancroft Copy.[11]
[edit] Hugo N. Frye
In 1930, Republican leaders across the United States received letters inviting them to a celebration in Ithaca to celebrate the 150th birthday of Hugo N. Frye, the founder of the New York Republican Party and coiner of the immortal phrase "Freedom in the land of the free." Many leaders sent replies lauding the great work done by Frye, which were read at the celebration. Much to their embarrassment, a New York Times reporter got a hold of this story and discovered that Frye was the creation of Lester Blumner and Edward Horn, two editors for the Cornell Daily Sun.[12]
[edit] Stump
In the 1960's, Dutch Elm Disease finally killed all the elms on Cornell's campus. In 1969, the grounds crew left one stump to be a lasting reminder of the elms, affectionately known to Cornellians as the Stump. For a decade, students used the stump as a combination soapbox/message board, delivering speeches from atop the piece of wood and tacking posters to its sides. In 1975, a student group sawed down the stump in the middle of the night and ransomed it for charity. Unfortunately, though the grounds crew reattached the stump, vandals knocked it over again. The stump stayed down, never again to be raised.[citation needed]
[edit] Secret societies
- See also: Quill and Dagger
Myriad Secret Societies flourished on Cornell University's campus from 1889 until the 1960s. These societies included Cornell's first fraternities and sororities, class honor societies, and drinking societies. As students rebelled against "elitism" and "The Establishment" during the 1960s, many of Cornell's drinking societies and honor societies became inactive or disappeared. Of the numerous class societies active in the early 20th century, two remaining secret senior honorary societies, Quill and Dagger and the Sphinx Head Society, are the most well-known. Membership is mutually exclusive between the organizations.[citation needed]
[edit] The White library bell
When Andrew Dickson White returned to the United States in 1894 from his post as the minister to Russia, he brought back a 361 pound church bell. For many years, janitors rang the bell to warn students of the library's nightly closing. Due to complaints about the "booming resonance" of the bell, librarians began ringing a smaller bell to warn of White's bell.[13] Today, White's bell is stored in the Andrew Dickson White Reading Room in Uris Library.[14]
[edit] References
- ^ http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/cu_facts/read_more.cfm?id=55
- ^ http://www.gleeclub.com/experience/cornellsongs.php
- ^ http://www.cornellsun.com/?q=node/17740
- ^ http://shortstopdeli.com/welcome.htm
- ^ http://www.reading.cornell.edu
- ^ http://www.alumni.cornell.edu/cu_facts/read_more.cfm?id=31
- ^ http://cornell-magazine.cornell.edu/Archive/2004sepoct/depts/Cornelliana.html
- ^ http://www.news.cornell.edu/chronicle/04/5.27.04/U.S.prez_visits.html
- ^ http://ezra.cornell.edu/posting.php?timestamp=1048136400#question6
- ^ http://www.news.cornell.edu/campus/pumpkin_tale.html
- ^ http://rmc.library.cornell.edu/gettysburg/good_cause.htm
- ^ http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/pranks/hugofrye.html
- ^ http://www.library.cornell.edu/olinuris/ref/renovation/uristraditions.htm
- ^ http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/books/hst/biography/AutobiographyofAndrewDicksonWhiteVolume2/chap28.html
