Telluride Association

The organization states its mission as providing young people with free educational programs emphasizing intellectual curiosity, democratic self-governance, and social responsibility.

The first President of the Telluride Association was Charles Doolittle Walcott, a paleontologist and fourth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.

The house originally provided room and board for young men who had worked for Nunn and were studying engineering at Cornell.

The houses are largely self-governed, with somewhat different focuses: residents of Cornell Branch take on such responsibilities as hiring employees and maintaining and renovating the house, while residents of Michigan Branch plan and execute an annual project linking practical work in the community with theoretical and academic inquiry.

Distinguished faculty guests have included Michel Foucault, Richard Feynman, Frances Perkins, Linus Pauling, and Allan Bloom.

Beginning in the late 1950s, the Telluride House at Cornell operated a two-year postgraduate exchange scholarship program with Lincoln College of Oxford University, welcoming a Sedgwick Scholar to stay at Telluride House and to study at Cornell, usually for a master's degree, and sending a Housemember to study for an Oxford M.Phil.

Members are elected to membership, usually while in their twenties, on the basis of demonstrated leadership and commitment to Telluride's educational goals.