2026 New Student Convocation Address
by President Michael I. Kotlikoff
As prepared for presentation
August 18, 2026
Ithaca, New York
Welcome everyone. Like Dean Love, Provost Bala, Eeshaan, and Vice President Lombardi, I want to welcome all of you, our new first-year and transfer students, to Cornell!
Whichever your college, whatever your graduating class, whatever your goals and plans, wherever you come from, and wherever you go from here —
All of you are now Cornellians.
You are entering a community that includes thousands of faculty and staff across our colleges and campuses; tens of thousands of students across hundreds of programs of study; and hundreds of thousands of alumni, each making their own contribution, in every corner of the world.
Today, we welcome each of you, and look forward with you to everything you will learn, and everything you will become, here at Cornell.
Every single one of you is here, because we saw something special in you that meant you belonged at Cornell.
So if, at some point, in the months ahead, when you’re wrestling with a problem set, or a paper, and you start to wonder if maybe somebody in Admissions made a mistake — I can tell you right now, they did not.
You are a Cornellian. And this is where you belong.
There are only two times the president of Cornell gets to speak to an entire class of Cornellians, all at once: when welcoming a new class at Convocation; and when sending off a graduating class at Commencement.
These just happen to be the exact times when each of you is likely to be maximally distracted: with too much on your minds, not enough sleep the night before, and ready to get on with it.
So even though the only things that are standing between you and everything you can’t wait to get started on, are me and the next six minutes — this is my last and only chance to speak to all of you at once before you graduate. So I want to take that time to help you understand the place you’ve come to and the community that is now your home.
The story goes that a few days after Cornell was chartered, in April of 1865, Ezra Cornell and a few members of the newly assembled University Board of Trustees drove their horses up the hill east of town to figure out where they should put the new university the state legislature had just approved.
They drove all the way to the top, where the trustees looked down at what is now West Campus, and saw a reasonably flat ledge of land to build on. The trustees thought it would do nicely for a few academic buildings and the other requisites of a future university.
Ezra Cornell disagreed. So they asked him where he wanted to put the university that would carry his name.
He swung his arms around the entire much larger hilltop and said, “Here.”
The trustees thought he was crazy. There were no roads, there were no bridges, and sure, there was a great view, but was it really necessary to put the university all the way on top of a hill that high?
You will probably ask yourselves the same question in the future, as you hike up the hill to an 8 a.m. class in the snow.
But Ezra was sure. Not only because he was planning a far larger university than the one the trustees had in mind — but because he planned a different one.
The first truly American university, built on the aspirational principles of our democracy.
An institution where any person could find instruction in any study: that would admit women and men of every race, religion, nationality, and background, regardless of their ability to pay — and educate them together.
And for a vision that radical to be successful, it had to be set just enough apart from the world to create a new model for American education — by building a new community of academic discovery.
A community profoundly committed to our land-grant and public impact mission of building a better future for the people of our state, this nation, and the world;
A community anchored in the beauty of this region, with bridges of collaboration spanning disciplines and continents;
A community that would unroll the map of human knowledge, without fear or favor — and invite generations of Cornellians to explore it, to its edges and beyond, together.
You are now a part of that institution — and you are now entering that community.
The Cornell historian Carl Becker once observed that universities don’t have souls, but they do have personalities. And he called the Cornell personality one of freedom and responsibility.
At Cornell, you will find unprecedented freedom to explore, inside and beyond your classrooms.
You’ll meet people passionate about ideas and disciplines, and develop interests and purpose of your own.
You’ll create your own communities within this larger community, through the shared bonds of your colleges and residences, clubs and interests — from athletics to astronomy, politics to Pandora dance, bioethics to the Big Red Band.
And you’ll interact with people with all kinds of opinions, all kinds of convictions, and all kinds of perspectives — learning from them all. Agreeing, disagreeing, and forming your own opinions.
That’s the freedom part.
The responsibility is the responsibility each of us takes on to this community: to protect and respect the freedom of expression and exploration for everyone around you.
Even, and especially, for the people with whom you have the least in common, and the ideas with which you most disagree.
That shared commitment to listening and learning, to civil discourse, to open and free inquiry, is the key to your intellectual growth and discovery.
It is how you will develop the knowledge and expertise to understand the world, tackle new challenges, and solve complex problems — and the ability to have an impact throughout your lives.
My advice to you on your first day as Cornellians is to embrace this community and all its diversity. And by community, I mean your fellow students, our faculty and staff, and also the wonderful people of our beautiful, rural upstate town. Interact with everyone you meet in ways that build this community, while expanding yourselves.
And one more suggestion: Do it in person — not online. Because your years at Cornell will offer you unparalleled opportunities to learn from and work with people who are not like you. And the more you take advantage of and learn from those opportunities in this community — the more ready you’ll be to enter, contribute, and thrive, in every community that will become yours, throughout your lives.
Cornellians, welcome. We are delighted to have you and look forward with you to everything that lies ahead.