In the 2011 fiscal year, Cornell's endowment increased by 15.5% to $5.1 billion, according to the annual survey of endowment returns by the National Association of College and University Business Officers and the Commonfund Institute.

Overall, according to the survey, endowments rose by 19% in 2011, representing a strong performance recovery over the past two years. In 2009, endowments fell by an average of –19%. Cornell's increase placed it in the middle of the pack for the Ivy League: Columbia had the largest percentage increase, 19.5%, followed by Princeton at 18.9% and Yale at 16.3%. Dartmouth had the smallest percentage increase, 13.8%.

The largest endowments in the Ivy League—and the country—are held by Harvard ($31.7 billion) and Yale ($19.4 billion).

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Thanks — we hope this makes life a little easier for you!

— Jim Roberts '71, Editor & Publisher

Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of President David Skorton and many members of his administration, the extraordinary generosity of Chuck Feeney '56, and the nearly unanimous support of faculty, students, staff, and alumni, Cornell received the best year-end gift it could hope for — the go-ahead to build a science and technology campus on New York's Roosevelt Island in partnership with the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology. As the Cornell Chronicle reported, "the news was met with cheers from live-streamed supporters on two continents."

How did Cornell pull it off? Read the back story -- and more about the Cornell-Technion alliance.

Watch for more news here as the NYC project moves forward. Happy Holidays from everyone at CAM!

According to the New York Times, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has selected Cornell to build a new science and engineering campus on Roosevelt Island. Last Friday, Stanford unexpectedly withdrew from the year-long competition and Cornell subsequently announced an anonymous $350 million gift to support the project. Events moved swiftly from there, and an announcement at Weill Cornell Medical College is scheduled for 2:30 p.m. today, with a video on Cornell Cast: http://www.cornell.edu/video/?videoid=1810