Named Honors at Cornell

College lawyers argue that the decision to name or unname a building is separate from the donor’s decision to make an unconditional gift. Conversely, lawyers for unhappy donors argue that there was a binding contract, and naming the building was the quid pro quo for making the large donation.

Middlebury College Chapel

Just as McGraw Tower iconically represents Cornell, a chapel at the top of a hill signifies Middlebury College. The chapel was originally named Mead Memorial Chapel in honor of the family of John Abner Mead; Mead was a Middlebury alumnus and a Republican governor of Vermont from 1910 to 1912 who donated money for the chapel’s construction. However, Governor Mead’s legacy would later be tainted by his remarks endorsing eugenics to the extent of advocating giving developmentally challenged people vasectomies. Based on this 1912 speech, a campaign to rename the building was launched, and in 2021, the trustees renamed it “Middlebury Chapel.” A lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Mead family, and on Oct. 3, a Vermont Superior Court judge ruled in favor of the college on most issues:

“Governor Mead contributed most of the funds supporting the initial construction of the chapel, but he did not provide funds for its indefinite maintenance,” Judge Mello wrote, “and Middlebury has determined that the time has come to change the name.”

The lawsuit will go forward to determine if there was a contract between Mead and the college and whether “Middlebury breached the covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”

The same legal analysis can apply to naming decisions at Cornell. How free is Cornell to rename its buildings? Will arbitrary treatment of past donors turn off future philanthropy? Where does Cornell choose to draw the line?

In 1903, Ithaca experienced a typhoid fever epidemic, with 681 cases and 51 deaths. To prevent further epidemics, Trustee Andrew Carnegie offered to pay for a water filtration plant and reservoir for the system that supplied the campus with water drawn from Fall Creek. His $131,000 gift funded the new water works as well as paying the expenses of the sick students.

The water filtration plant was built behind Fernow Hall with the reservoir near the site of Bailey Hall. The above-pictured plaque was installed on the “Carnegie Filtration Plant.”

In 1928, a more modern water filtration plant was built near Caldwell Road but has never been officially named. However, the Carnegie plaque shown above was moved from the old plant and installed on the new one.

Issac P. Roberts was the first Dean of the College of Agriculture. An early building on the Ag Quad was named in his honor in 1905-06. New York State considered Roberts Hall too expensive to renovate, so it was demolished in 1990, and a new Roberts Hall was built near its site. The name remained on the replacement building.

For over 50 years, Cornell resisted building men-only dorms. In the 1920’s, George F. Baker, a prominent NYC banker, donated $350,000 to build a set of English Collegiate gothic dorms at the bottom of Libe Slope. These were always referred to as “The Baker Dorms.” In 2003, when the West Campus was reorganized into houses with the Baker Dorms to be assigned to different houses, Cornell suddenly renamed them “the Gothics,” depriving Mr. Baker of his full naming rights. The driveway to the west of them was renamed “Gothics Way.” North Baker, South Baker and Baker Tower still carry Baker’s name instead of the whole set of buildings.

To accommodate the post-World War II surge in students, in 1954, Cornell invested $4.2 million in six identical buildings built below the Baker Dorms called University Hall 1 through 6. Gradually, Cornell gave these buildings more unique names for Classes of 1917, 1918, 1922, 1926, and 1928 and for Elmer Sperry, inventor of the gyroscope. Because the buildings were not built with a sense of architectural permanence, there was not a high donation expectation for naming these buildings. Instead, the naming recognized the lifetime total donations from these generous classes. However, there was no effort to carry these names forward into the replacement buildings (perhaps by naming a lounge or other common rooms.) The replacement buildings were funded by a $100 million donation from Charles Feeney ‘56, who asked to remain anonymous.

The assets of Friedrich Sigismund von Cramm were donated to Cornell in the spirit of the U.S.-German reconciliation after World War II. His portrait still hangs in the main lobby of the building. The building has always been operated as a co-op. However, in recent years, some students objected to having the co-op named after a Nazi. So, although the building is still named for Von Cramm, the co-op is now called “Redbud” which has become its commonly-used name.

When Cornell built its Electrical Engineering building in 1883 it was named in honor of Benjamin Franklin for his electrical discoveries. In 1980, years after the Fine Arts program took over the building, Cornell renamed it in honor of Olive Tjaden Van Sickle ’25, a prolific female architect.

A community-funded shelter called the Johnny Parson Club was built along the west end of Beebe Lake next to the dam. (It was named for a mechanical drawing professor.) In 1958, a new two story building was built overlooking the lake named Noyes Lodge. It contained a cafeteria and, in the 1970s, “the Pancake House.” Later it was turned into the Language Resource Center. In 2016, with $3 million gifts each from Martin Tang ‘70 and Charles Feeney ‘56, the building was converted into the Tang Welcome Center. The Tang name is highly advertised, with Noyes Lodge remaining the official but unused name.

The Gannett Foundation, in honor of Frank E. Gannett, Class of 1898, donated $500,000 to build a clinic building in 1956 at the corner of Campus Road and College Ave. Prior to this building, all health care was given at Sage Infirmary, which is now called Sage House. In 1979, a wing was added on the back of the building without changing its name. In March 2017, Gannett Clinic was renamed “Cornell Health,” and the building was greatly expanded. Finally, on Oct. 18, 2024, the Trustees renamed the expanded building The Ceriale Center for Cornell Health in recognition of a $20 million gift from the Melissa and John V. Ceriale Family Foundation. However, that donation is earmarked for mental health services rather than construction costs.

Prior to World War II, all of the engineering programs were on the north side of the Arts Quad in Franklin, Sibley, Rand, and Lincoln Halls, plus the Hydraulics Lab deep in Fall Creek Gorge. The long-term master plan called for a separate Engineering Quad in its present location. As a first step, Cornell built Franklin W. Olin Hall in 1942 to move Chemical Engineering south of Barnes Hall. Next, in 1951, a new building for the Department of Engineering Mechanics and Materials was named for Robert H. Thurston (for whom Thurston Avenue is also named.) Thurston led Cornell’s Mechanical Engineering efforts as a dean, but did not donate funds for Thurston Hall.

In 2023-2024, Thurston Hall was expanded into the Engineer Quad lawn to provide 50,550 sq ft of space for Biomedical Engineering. The campus was surprised at the Sept. 20 dedication ceremony to learn that both the original part and the addition to Thurston Hall were being renamed to honor a gift from Martin Y. and Margaret Lee Tang. So, not only is Tang’s name placed on the Welcome Center on Thurston Avenue, but his name also completely replaces Thurston’s on the south edge of the Engineer Quad. Cornell has not disclosed the exact size of the Tang family’s new gift. As an accommodation to Thurston’s memory, the building’s auditorium may carry the Thurston name.

A key element in the move toward the Engineer Quad was to move Electrical Engineering out of Franklin Hall and into a site then occupied by some fraternity houses and faculty cottages. Prominent Chicago architect Phil Will ‘30 (of Perkins and Will) designed a new master plan for the Engineering Quad and a set of complementary modern buildings for it. The problem was that after World War II, generous donors were very hard to find.

Ellis L. Phillips, class of 1895, was a co-founder and, for 25 years, President of the Long Island Lighting Company, the electric utility that serves Nassau and Suffolk counties. In 1930, Phillips and his wife established the Ellis L Phillips Foundation. In 1949-50, the foundation gave a series of gifts totaling $1.6 million ($20.9 million in today’s dollars) toward the design and construction of Phillips Hall. The Foundation gave a number of other gifts to Cornell and to Columbia, but Phillips Hall was the largest single gift in the history of the Foundation.

The result was a free-standing, 100,000 sq ft building. Because Phillips Hall’s steel frame vibrated too much, in the 1970s, a small wing was added to the west for the Knight nanoscale lab. From 2001-2004, Duffield Hall was built along the western wall of Phillips, with an atrium bridging the two buildings. The original nanoscale lab was demolished, and a new one was incorporated into Duffield. This left a large grassy lawn to the east of Phillips Hall between its east and north wings.

Cornell is now seeking approval from the City of Ithaca to construct another building to be named after David A. Duffield ‘62 on this lawn so that the building would extend along Campus Drive from Feeney Way to Hoy Road. Because Cornell feels that it would be too confusing to have Phillips Hall sandwiched between two buildings named after Duffield, they are proposing to abandon the Phillips name. While Ellis Phillips’ gift was comparable in size to the $20 million gift toward building Duffield Hall, there is no sound reason to so disrespect the Phillips family. (In fact, the plans submitted to the City were so thoughtless that the drawing that showed the location of the proposed building misspelled the name of nearby Grumman Hall.)

If Cornell believes it too confusing to have an “East Duffield” and “West Duffield,” there are other solutions, including naming the new building after a different donor or an Engineering School Dean. Alternatively, Cornell could name its solar farm or its hydroelectric plant after Phillips. The renaming of Phillips Hall is proceeding without on-campus debate.

In addition to Phillips Hall, there have been unsuccessful proposals in the recent past for Cornell to rename Morrill Hall and Goldwin Smith Hall.