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They sit atop East Hill and South Hill, with the bustling city of Ithaca sprawled across the valley between them. Each has grown from humble beginnings to impressive physical dimensions, and each has made a name for itself that resonates far beyond Tompkins County. Cornell University and Ithaca College are the twin pillars of the local economy and society, yet each often operates as if the other weren't there. Or so it seems, anyway, to casual observers.

The reality is much richer and more complex. The connections between CU and IC go back many years and take many forms, from academic collaborations to sports events to artistic productions to the many casual interactions that take place at Moosewood and the Farmers Market. These connections aren't always obvious, but they deepen and extend the educational and social missions of both institutions. The sum of Cornell and Ithaca College is much greater than the parts.

The relationship traces its roots back to the early years of both schools. Perhaps the earliest intersection involved the Fernow family.When the Ithaca Conservatory of Music was founded by William Grant Egbert in 1892, its faculty included Sophie Fernow, whose brother Bernard would become the director of Cornell's shortlived College of Forestry. (Founded by the state legislature in 1898, it was dismantled after Governor B.B. Odell vetoed its appropriation in 1903.) The Fernows were the first of many siblings, spouses, parents, and children whose families would have ties to both schools.

Cornell relied on the Conservatory--which became Ithaca College in 1931--to provide music instruction for its students. In his History of Cornell,Morris Bishop '14, PhD '26, reports: "In 1896–97 two one-hour courses were offered under a Choral Union by staff members of the Ithaca Conservatory of Music. . . . The Conservatory [also] took over the music in Sage Chapel, our student singers receiving two hours credit." (The Ithaca College Story, written by IC professor John Harcourt, gives a similar account.) In return, Cornell's faculty offered language instruction to students from the Conservatory. With that, an academic exchange began that has continued to this day.

The collaboration has also manifested itself in athletic competition. The Big Red and Bomber football teams scrimmage every fall, the baseball squads have vied for the Mayor's Cup, and the Coaches Against Cancer basketball game has become an annual fund-raising institution. Coaches have also made the trek from one hill to the other. To name just a few well-known examples: Ward Romer '70, an outstanding rower at Cornell, became the crew coach at IC; and Ted Thoren, who was Cornell's head baseball coach from 1962 to 1990, is an IC alumnus. So is Tom Ford, CU's current baseball coach. And Dave Wohlheuter, a tennis champ at Ithaca College during his undergrad years, later served as sports information director at both Cornell and IC.

The relationship has not been without its bumps. Insults have sometimes been hurled by students and faculty, and alumni have been known to express disdain for their colleagues across the way. One especially low point occurred in 1933, when Ithaca College was in difficult financial straits and appealed for help to Cornell President Livingston Farrand. "The college can't possibly succeed," Farrand wrote to IC board chairman Louis Smith."My suggestion is that you go down the hill, close the college down, lock the doors, and throw the keys in Lake Cayuga." Fortunately, Smith did not take Farrand's advice.

Today the interactions are widespread and multifaceted. Students at each school often study at the other (up to twelve credits without added fees), and there are frequent academic collaborations.Music still plays a central role, as witnessed by Ensemble X and the many area musical groups with players from both schools. Cornell benefits from Ithaca College's expertise in communications, while IC partakes of CU's resources for science and engineering. And there is no shortage of places--from downtown to Collegetown to many other local destinations--where students, faculty, and staff meet, socialize, and sometimes marry.

It would be impossible to catalogue all of the many collaborations and connections between Cornell and Ithaca College, but we have assembled what we hope is a representative sample. If you'd like to point out others, or tell us your own CU-IC story-- please write.

-- Jim Roberts and Maura Stephens

JIM ROBERTS '71 is the editor and publisher of Cornell Alumni Magazine. MAURA STEPHENS is the editor of Ithaca College Quarterly. They would like to thank Fred Antil '55, former board member of the Cornell Alumni Federation and current president of the Friends of Ithaca College, for providing the impetus for this article.

Do plants affect how we feel and think? How can Ithaca expand economically and still be environmentally sustainable? What can a giant infrared telescope aboard an airliner teach us about the universe?

These are the kinds of questions that faculty teams from Cornell and Ithaca College have set out to answer. The two schools have placed new emphasis on building a closer relationship, and academic collaboration--which has waxed and waned over the years--is stronger than ever today.

Often, collaborations emerge because IC faculty members who have PhDs from Cornell, or who held previous research positions there, continue work begun on East Hill. In many cases, faculty with mutual interests have complementary expertise, and their combined efforts can produce grant proposals that are more likely to get substantial funding than those of individual applicants. A few collaborations develop out of marriages: IC psychology professor Nancy Rader, PhD '79, and her husband, Dave de Villiers, PhD '02, a Cornell horticulture research associate, have teamed up with other IC and CU experts on a joint project that will investigate the effect of plants on well-being and cognitive performance, to assess the importance of having plants in extraterrestrial environments.

Administrators at both schools encourage the trend. Since 2000, Francille Firebaugh, PhD '62, Cornell's vice provost for land grant affairs, has strengthened the bond between the schools by serving on the IC board of trustees. And Peter Bardaglio, IC provost since 2002, has asked his faculty-- whose focus is chiefly on teaching--to seek out more research opportunities, which has in turn created more relationships with Cornell faculty.

The collaborative research with the highest visibility is taking place far above Ithaca. Cornell astronomy professor Terry Herter, who directs the Radiophysics and Space Research Center, is the principal investigator overseeing a group of seven scientists devising what promises to be the world's largest airborne observatory--the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, a 2.7-meter infrared telescope that will fly to the edge of the stratosphere on a modified Boeing 747. The project includes IC physics professor Luke Keller, a Cornell research associate from 1999 to 2003, who designed the telescope's Faint Object Infrared Camera and is helping develop image analysis software. "I just couldn't build such an instrument on my own at IC," says Keller, who is also working with Cornell astronomy professor Jim Houck, PhD '67, on a $10 million project to help design an infrared camera for NASA's $700 million Spitzer Space Telescope. "I needed Cornell's research and engineering infrastructure."

Other recent collaborations reach beyond the two campuses to include the greater Ithaca region. The Sustainable Tompkins Initiative, which promotes long-term economic stability and environmental integrity in the county, involves IC and Cornell faculty and students as well as local businesses and community members. IC assistant professor of business administration Mark Cordano '83 joined Cornell professor Stuart Hart and post-doctoral scholar Mark Milstein to establish the Johnson School's Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise, which aims to bring environmental sensitivity to management issues. The partnership has already spawned student organizations, IC-CU faculty relationships, and new courses. "The potential positive impact on the region of this growing collaboration between Cornell and IC is tremendous," says IC provost Bardaglio. "Together we can provide a national model of how higher education can help provide the leadership necessary to create a more sustainable economic, social, and environmental future."

Perhaps the largest joint effort the two schools undertook was the seven-year Pathways to Life Quality project, co-directed by John Krout, professor of gerontology and director of IC's Gerontology Institute, and Phyllis Moen, then-director of Cornell's Bronfenbrenner Life Course Center (BLCC). The study, which ended in 2003, examined how the places where elderly people live affect the quality of their lives. After Moen left Cornell in 2001, Elaine Wethington, an associate professor of human development, helmed the project and co-authored a book on the study's findings with Krout.

As one of BLCC's first efforts, Pathways gave the new center immediate public exposure, facilitating other research on the elderly and contributing to the federal funding of the Cornell Institute for Translational Research on Aging, which Wethington directs, in 2003. The affiliation with the Gerontology Institute was a boon,Wethington says, because the well-established organization has deep regional roots. "It's nationally recognized," she says, "and has relationships with a large network of organizations in Upstate New York associated with elderly housing."

On his end, IC's Krout found that the partnership had "tremendous benefits," in part because the Cornell name helped in obtaining a larger grant. "It raised our profile on campus--and nationally and internationally."

-- Tamar Morad

TAMAR MORAD taught journalism at Ithaca College during the 2004-05 academic year. Her husband, Ron Morad, received his master's degree in city and regional planning from Cornell in May 2005.

Andrew and Nancy Ramage share a common scholarly interest, and an uncommon perspective: Andrew is a Cornell professor in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology; Nancy, an Ithaca College art history professor and Cornell adjunct. Theirs is a marriage of academic equals: together they have co-authored several books on classical art and art history, including Roman Art: Romulus to Constantine--considered the standard introductory text to the field-- and a guide to Cornell's classical collection published by the Johnson Museum in 2002. They've also worked side-by-side on an ongoing archaeological excavation in Turkey for many years.When one spouse leaves town, they can pick up each other's classes without missing a beat. Andrew even subbed for Nancy at IC during her sabbatical year.

Since the couple arrived in Ithaca in the early 1970s, they've watched the relationship of their respective employers evolve over the years. They agree that there's often a certain chill between the hills. "I think that we operate too much as separate units," says Nancy. "I personally am very interested in what's going on at Cornell--it's a huge asset for us to have it on the doorstep. I'm very much in favor of collaboration, but in terms of exchanges on the teacher or student level, there's precious little, and I regret that."

The rift, they say, is rooted both in the obvious differences--Cornell's size and resources dwarf those of IC--and in the less quantifiable Ivy League cachet that stubbornly divides the two academic cultures. "There has been a bit of a chip on the shoulder at IC, although less so now," says Nancy. "I actually think IC students are afraid of Cornell students.Many of them have never been to Cornell--they think it's somehow out of reach. And it's not only Cornell students that have disdain for IC, but the faculty, too. Some faculty look down their noses, and I think they're dead wrong. I have huge respect for my IC colleagues. They're every bit as good as those at Cornell, but I don't think that's the Cornell perception at all."

According to Andrew, that isn't disdain coming from the east--it's sheer lack of interest. "I don't know that the Cornell people, as a group, pay as much attention," he says.

Both professors attest that reputation and higher SAT scores don't necessarily equal a richer classroom experience. "The students I have at Cornell are rather quiet,"Andrew says. "They're not inclined to stick their necks out in class in terms of questions that may be obvious, but also are what half the class really wants to ask."Nancy, on the other hand, has little trouble sparking dialogue. "I think that many Ithaca College students are blossoming academically," she says. "Many of them do much better in college than they did in high school, so the atmosphere is one of coming out of themselves, and they're very happy to be learning."

At Cornell, "there may be something of a different view of class and life," Andrew adds. "I think there's some indication that professors are regarded as separate and not quite real. And so they clam up."

Ithaca College's smaller classes do provide a closer-knit learning environment, Nancy says. "Professor-student relationships tend to be a bit more intimate. I know all my students every semester by name--what they do, what they're interested in. Many of our students call us by our first names. Teaching is our primary mission, no question, which I think might be a little different than at Cornell."

Andrew isn't so sure. "That's true for some but not for others," he says. "In history of art, a lot of what we do involves students from all over, not just Arts and Science, so there's a lot of looking after them. Service teaching, I call it, is important to us."

The tone of intra-departmental relations, they say, sometimes mirrors that of the classroom. Nancy's art history department at IC boasts "an unusually good sense of camaraderie, " she says, while the faculty in CU's more interdisciplinary history of art and archaeology department feel "a bit scattered," according to Andrew. "People do tend to do their own academic thing. I definitely would like to see more general chatting."

Both bemoan what they see as a general deterioration of research skills among undergraduates--a symptom of a reluctance to use the library rather than the Web--and Nancy admits that IC students in general can be weaker than Cornell's when it comes to writing papers. Academically, however, she says her classes can go toe-to-toe with the Ivy Leaguers.

"It's so topsy-turvy," says Nancy. "We teach the same types of courses, and we often compare notes on our exams. By and large my students perform better, while he's tearing his hair out." She turns to her husband." Am I being fair?"

He smiles. "Reasonably."

--Carolyn Bonilha '06

CAROLYN BONILHA is a rising senior at Cornell and a former CAM editorial intern.

When Ithaca College undergraduate Candace Lazarovits got dressed on the morning of her first microbiology class, she hesitated to put on her favorite IC baseball cap. A senior majoring in critical science exercise, Lazarovits was taking the class at Cornell. She wore the hat, but when she walked into Morrison Hall that morning, she still chose a seat in the far corner. "When I got there, I wasn't sure how the students would accept or feel toward me," she says.

Lazarovits is one of thirty-seven Ithaca College students who took classes at Cornell this past spring semester. As she drove between campuses, she probably passed by at least one of the eighteen Cornell students traveling in the opposite direction to attend class at her school. Part of the Cornell University-Ithaca College Exchange Program, which allows students to take up to twelve credits in their neighboring school, these undergrads get a taste of campus life at two very different institutions, each of which offers unique classes and degree programs. Ithaca College tends to draw Cornellians with its music school and extensive health science department, while Cornell attracts IC students because of its engineering school and broad language offerings.

For these trans-campus students, the differences between the two schools can be revealing. Cornell nutrition major Michael Spadafino '06 took advantage of Ithaca College's School of Health Sciences and Health Performance to obtain his minor in exercise science. "The classes are a lot smaller at IC," says Spadafino. "It's noticeable because the classes I'm taking there are entry-level classes, and the ones at Cornell are usually 100-plus students." The more intimate classroom size can affect how students relate to the faculty: Lazarovits notes that her Cornell classes are often too large for professors to know their students' names."But at Ithaca, I'm on a first-name basis with my professors and know a lot about their families and lives," she says.

Outside the academic arena, trans-campus students benefit from personal connections with their crosstown peers, making them immune to some of the commonly held stereotypes about the two schools.While Spadafino admits that the Ivy Leaguers do seem more competitive for grades, he notes, "As far as differences are concerned, there aren't many, because the IC students are there to take classes just like you." Lazarovits, who excelled in her microbiology class, agrees. "I was a little nervous about taking a class at Cornell because of the stigma that they're superior," she says. "However, I did well in the class."

These exchange students also keep a foot in both schools' social scenes, which are otherwise largely isolated by Ithaca's topography.While Cornellians tend to stick to Collegetown, IC students are more likely to be found hanging out in the Commons area of downtown Ithaca. Once a week, however, South Hill traditionally heads east. "On Wednesday nights, it's screaming IC in Collegetown," says Lazarovits.

IC senior politics major Melanie Ashworth, who took a Thai language class at Cornell in spring 2005, has had little trouble forging educational and social ties to both campuses. She knows her Cornell classmates well and even embarked on a cross-campus romance: she met her boyfriend, a Cornell graduate, in a Collegetown bar last year. "Cornell has a sprawling, lovely campus," she says, reflecting on her time on the other side of the hill. "It was nice to have a change."

--Megs DiDario '07

CAM editorial intern MEGS DIDARIO is a CALS student.

In 2000, Ithaca poet Bridget Meeds, IC '91, read a newspaper article about Cities of Asylum, a network of thirty-four cities around the world that offers safe haven to persecuted writers living in exile. Las Vegas had become the first U.S. city to join. Ithaca, she thought, should be the next.

At about the same time, Anne Berger was thinking the same thing. Berger, a Cornell professor of French literature, knew the director of the International Parliament ofWriters, the Paris organization that founded COA in 1994, and had talked to him about extending the network to the United States. "I suggested that we start with Cornell, not knowing that Bridget on her side had had the same idea about Ithaca," she said. "We joined forces at the beginning of 2000."

A year later, thanks to their appreciation of the written word and a desire to protect freedom of expression, Ithaca City of Asylum (ICOA) was born. Since then, two writers, from China and Iran, have participated in the program. For Meeds, ICOA is entirely in keeping with the local spirit: Ithaca was once an Underground Railroad hub, and its university campuses sheltered European scientists fleeing the Nazis during World War II. "Ithaca has a long tradition of providing refuge,"Meeds says.

Meeds and Berger worked with Cornell's Center for Religion, Ethics, and Social Policy to establish a board of directors composed of students, faculty, and staff from Cornell and IC. Both campuses serve as forums for ICOA's writers, who teach courses and give public readings during a two-year residency. Cornell pays their travel expenses, visa sponsorships, and part-time teaching salaries; IC provides additional funding, as do individual and corporate donors and Hobart and William Smith Colleges.

In 2001, ICOA hosted its first writer, Yi Ping, who was fired from his teaching post at a Beijing university after the 1989 demonstrations in Tiananmen Square. Forbidden to teach or publish, and with his previous books slated for purging, he went into exile in 1991.With his wife and son, he lived in Poland for six years, until the U.S. government granted the family political asylum and they moved to New York City. Yi Ping's ICOA tenure ended in 2003, and he and his family are now permanent U.S. residents who call Ithaca home.

Reza Daneshvar is finishing his term as ICOA's second writer. A playwright and novelist, Daneshvar studied Persian literature at Tehran University and later taught theater. After censorship and the threat of arrest and imprisonment, he fled post-revolutionary Iran in 1982 for France, where he lived until moving to Ithaca in 2004. Daneshvar is now teaching Farsi in Cornell's Department of Near East Studies, which is working with ICOA to extend his visa.

For the first time, Yi Ping and Daneshvar have seen their work published in English. IC students who took a 2003 writing class with Jerry Mirskin translated Yi Ping's latest book of poetry, The Speech of Pebbles. It was published in March 2004 by Ithaca's Vista Periodista, which also published the English version of Daneshvar's short story "Mahboobeh and Ahl," about an Iranian woman and the demon who haunts her.

The presence of these writers encourages students and the Ithaca community alike to discuss human rights and freedom of expression, Berger says."ICOA fosters communication at the global and the local levels," she says. "It brings the world into Ithaca."

--Kimberlyn David

KIMBERLYN DAVID is a journalism major in the Class of 2006 at Ithaca College.

In the late 1990s, Ithaca College's School of Music and Cornell's Department ofMusic both welcomed an influx of young faculty. The new faces discovered they had a lot in common. "We found ourselves working together so often," says CU composition professor Steven Stucky, DMA '78, "we decided to use it as a more formal bridge between the two institutions."

That bridge became Ensemble X, the new music group Stucky helped found in 1997 with ten CU and IC faculty. The ensemble has doubled in size since then, and Stucky now shares the baton with co-artistic director Xak Bjerken, who teaches piano at Cornell. According to Stucky, it's the cream of the Finger Lakes talent pool. "Basically, the best players on each instrument in town--those are the people in Ensemble X." Typically, the ensemble performs three concerts each year. Their repertoire is focused on modern composers such as John Adams and Christopher Rouse, DMA '77, along with earlier twentiethcentury works from Schoenberg and Stravinsky. Ensemble X also delves into the work of their founding director, who won the Pulitzer Prize for composition in 2005.

On paper, each institution seems to bring a different expertise to the collaboration: IC's roots are as a music conservatory, while Cornell has been home to a number of gifted music scholars and composers. But Stucky says that the two schools don't sort themselves neatly into players vs. thinkers. "That obscures how good IC's academic people are, and how good our performers are," he says. "We have an unusual situation at Cornell. Performance is taken very seriously--it goes hand-in-hand with composition."And Ensemble X, he says, reflects that. "The brainpower is on both sides."

--David Dudley

DAVID DUDLEY is associate editor of CAM and his wife is in the English department at Ithaca College.

Francille Firebaugh is a familiar name at Cornell: she earned her PhD here in 1962 and has served as a faculty member and dean of the College of Human Ecology; this summer she retires as vice provost for land grant affairs and special assistant to the president. A specialist in family resource management, Firebaugh is less well known for her second job: since 2000, she's been an Ithaca College trustee.

It was an unexpected career move for Firebaugh, who returned to Cornell in 1988 after a lengthy tenure at Ohio State. "When my husband, John, and I came back to Ithaca, we were invited to a Friends of Ithaca College event," Firebaugh says. "We attended several more and enjoyed them immensely. I was approached about serving as a trustee, but I didn't feel I could take on the job." It took prodding from IC president Peggy Williams to change her mind. "I really admired Peggy and believed in her leadership," Firebaugh says. "So I spoke to Hunter [former Cornell president Hunter Rawlings], and he thought it was a great idea."

At IC, Firebaugh serves on the Buildings and Grounds Committee and chairs the Education Policy Committee. "I like tackling really substantive issues," she says. She's particularly enthusiastic about plans for a new School of Business building and athletics center. "I love doing my part to make IC stronger."

Firebaugh holds a BS in dietetics and home economics education from the University of Arkansas and a master's in home management from the University of Tennessee. "I came to Cornell because I was interested in the work that women do," she says. "One of my minors was industrial psychology, which helped me understand workplace dynamics. I began to think about the interface of paid work and what I call family work." Ultimately, her focus expanded to include women in less-developed regions, including the Bhil tribes of India and villages in Honduras.

Firebaugh's retirement promises to be busy. "I'm going to pursue my longtime hobby," she says. "For twenty years I have been collecting information about the portrayal of women at work in paintings. I've been making lists and collecting pictures whenever I find examples." She intends to work three days a month at Cornell until 2007, when she and John hope to return to Ohio. "We live two-and-a-half miles from Cornell, and I plan on walking to the library and to my Pilates class."

--Wrexie Bardaglio

WREXIE BARDAGLIO is a freelance writer who lives in Trumansburg, New York. Her husband, Peter Bardaglio, is IC provost and vice president for academic affairs.

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