In the late 1960s, Cornell was among the Ivy League universities that experienced heightened student activism related to cultural issues, civil rights, and opposition to U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

In 1969, armed anti-Vietnam War protesters occupied Willard Straight Hall, an incident that led to a restructuring of the university's governance and forced the resignation of then Cornell president James Alfred Perkins.

[36][37][38] In March 2004, Cornell and Stanford University laid the cornerstone for the building and operation of "Bridging the Rift Center", located on the border between Israel and Jordan, and used for education.

The campus has expanded to approximately 745 acres (301 ha) since its founding, now including multiple academic buildings, laboratories, administrative facilities, athletic centers, auditoriums, museums, and residential areas.

[41][42] In 2011, Travel + Leisure recognized Cornell's campus in Ithaca as one of the most beautiful in the United States, praising its unique blend of architectural styles, historic landmarks, and picturesque surroundings.

Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park, proposed a "grand terrace" overlooking Cayuga Lake in one of the earliest plans for the development of the campus.

[55] Cornell University has implemented several green initiatives, designed to promote sustainability and reduce environmental impact, including a gas-fired combined heat and power facility,[56] an on-campus hydroelectric plant,[57] and a lake source cooling system.

The winning bid consisted of a 2.1 million square foot state-of-the-art tech campus to be built on Roosevelt Island, on the site of the former Coler Specialty Hospital.

The Cornell Urban Scholars Program encourages students to pursue public service careers, arranging assignments with organizations working with New York City's poorest children, families, and communities.

[76] Students om the School of Industrial and Labor Relations' Extension and Outreach Program make workplace expertise available to organizations, union members, policymakers, and working adults.

[96] The university is also a member of the Laidlaw Scholars program, which provides funding to undergraduates to conduct internationally focused research and foster leadership skills.

These offices provide programs in agriculture and food systems, children, youth and families, community and economic vitality, environment and natural resources, and nutrition and health.

[108] The university charter (specifically, paragraph 1.b of section 5703 of the Education Law) provides that one member of the board, the life trustee, is the eldest living lineal descendant of Ezra Cornell.

[130] Cornell University, under Section 9 of its original charter, ensures equal access to education by admitting students without distinction based on rank, class, occupation, or locality.

[132] Although a 1989 consent decree ended this collaboration due to an antitrust investigation, all Ivy League schools still offer need-based financial aid without athletic scholarships.

[133] In December 2010, Cornell pledged to match any grant component of financial aid offers from the seven other Ivy League schools and MIT and Stanford for accepted applicants considering these institutions.

[135] Despite a 27% drop in the university's endowment in 2008, attributable partly to the 2007–2008 financial crisis, Cornell president David J. Skorton allocated additional funds to continue the initiative, and sought to raise $125 million in donations for its support.

[155][156] The university has garnered praise for its contributions to research, community service, social mobility, and sustainability, evidenced by its placement in The Washington Monthly and The Princeton Review's rankings.

arXiv, an e-print archive created at Los Alamos National Laboratory by Paul Ginsparg, is operated and primarily funded by Cornell as part of the library's services.

[186] In the 2004–05 academic year, the university filed 203 U.S. patent applications, completed 77 commercial license agreements, and distributed royalties of more than $4.1 million to Cornell units and inventors.

[192] It was the first to use corpses instead of dummies for testing, leading to crucial findings about the effectiveness of seat belts, energy-absorbing steering wheels, padded dashboards, and improved door locks.

As of 2024, Sage School is home to several notable philosophers, including Tad Brennan, John Doris, Rachana Kamtekar, Kate Manne, Julia Markovits, Andrei Marmor, Shaun Nichols, Derk Pereboom, and others.

The university is also home to three secret honor societies, Sphinx Head,[210] Der Hexenkreis, and Quill and Dagger[211][212] that have maintained a campus presence for over 120 years.

On at least two different occasions, the university has awoken to find something odd atop the 173-foot (52.7 m) tall McGraw clock tower, once a 60-pound (27 kg) pumpkin and another time a disco ball.

[16][18] Cornell is the only university or college in the world with four female alumni, Pearl S. Buck, Barbara McClintock, Toni Morrison, and Claudia Goldin, who have won unshared Nobel Prizes.

[281] Among senior U.S. government officials, Cornell alumni include Janet Reno ('60), the first female U.S. Attorney General,[282] and Ruth Bader Ginsburg ('54), a former U.S. Supreme Court associate justice.

In medicine, alumnus Robert Atkins ('55) developed the Atkins Diet,[309] Henry Heimlich ('47) developed the Heimlich maneuver,[310] Wilson Greatbatch ('50) invented the pacemaker,[311] James Maas ('66; also a faculty member) coined the term power nap,[312] C. Everett Koop ('41) served as Surgeon General of the United States,[313] and Anthony Fauci served as Chief Medical Advisor to the President during the COVID-19 pandemic.

'25; Nobel laureate) authored The Good Earth,[322] and Thomas Pynchon ('59) wrote canonical works of post-World War II fiction, including Gravity's Rainbow and The Crying of Lot 49.

In athletics, Cornell graduates include football legend Pop Warner (1894),[328] head coach of the U.S. men's national soccer team Bruce Arena ('73),[329] Major League Baseball commissioner Rob Manfred ('80)[330] National Hockey League commissioner Gary Bettman ('74),[331] six-time Stanley Cup winning hockey goalie Ken Dryden ('69),[332] tennis singles world # 2 Dick Savitt,[333] seven-time US Tennis championships winner William Larned, Toronto Raptors president Bryan Colangelo ('87),[334] and Kyle Dake, four-time NCAA division I college wrestling national champion.

Carl Sagan, who narrated and co-wrote the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning PBS series Cosmos: A Personal Voyage and won a Pulitzer Prize for his book, The Dragons of Eden, was a professor at the university from 1968 to 1996.