Can Cornell Alumni Steer Their University Away from Campus Madness?

For reputation-tattered Cornell University, 2024 was a bad year — the pain self-inflicted. As the school prepares for late-February elections of alumni members to the Board of Trustees, one wonders: Will 2025 deliver another (self-infliction encore!) Ivy League black eye?

Some concerned graduates are refusing complacency while the university board relentlessly rubber-stamps the administration’s ideological obsessions, tarnishing the once-prestigious brand. They have grabbed an opportunity — the formal, annual election of two new alumni trustees — to put two fresh-thinking, independent, and unendorsed (more on that below) candidates on the ballot.