Jacob Gould Schurman - Cornell President

Cornell President

As Cornell's president, Schurman helped invent the modern state-supported research university. Under the Morrill Act, states were obligated to fund the maintenance of land grant college facilities, but were not obligated to fund operations. Subsequent laws required states to match federal funds for agricultural research stations and cooperative extension. In his inaugural address as Cornell's third president on November 11, 1892, Schurman announced his intention to enlist the financial support of the state. Cornell, which had been offering a four-year scholarship to one student in each New York assembly district every year and was the state's land-grant university, was determined to convince the state to become a benefactor of the university. In 1894, the state legislature voted to give financial support for the establishment of the New York State College of Veterinary Medicine and to make annual appropriations for the college. This set the precedents of privately controlled, state-supported statutory colleges and cooperation between Cornell and the state. The annual state appropriations were later extended to agriculture, home economics, and following World War II, industrial and labor relations.

In 1898, Schurman persuaded the State Legislature to found the first forestry college in North America, the New York State College of Forestry. The College undertook to establish a 30,000-acre (120 km2) demonstration forest in the Adirondacks, funded by New York State. However, the plans of the school's director Bernhard Fernow for the land drew criticism from neighbors, and Governor Benjamin B. Odell vetoed the 1903 appropriation for the school. In response, Cornell closed the school. Subsequently, in 1911, the State Legislature established a New York State College of Forestry at Syracuse University, and the remains of Cornell's program became the Department of Natural Resources in its Agriculture College in 1910. The State later followed the same model to establish a state college of ceramics at Alfred University.