Alex Haley and Cornell

It turns out that Alex Haley, the author of "Roots" was born in Ithaca, NY, while his father Simon was getting his Masters in agriculture at Cornell.

Over the first hundred years of Cornell's existence it educated some African-Americans, though a man from Haiti was the first student of African descent in 1869.

IMO because of its different colleges, partly due to its land-grant status, Cornell had an easier time with diversity than did its competitors over that period.  For blacks the record was tokenism, a few students every year at best.  Cornell did better with Asian students, enrolling its first in 1870 along with its first woman. But notoriously, when the civil rights movement started impacting colleges in the 1960's, it didn't do any better than other schools.

A Good Cornellian

Being lazy, I'm stealing from Vox:

"Charles F. Feeney, who made a fortune from duty-free stores and prudent investments in technology companies, last year successfully completed his goal of giving away $8 billion. Over years of giving, he aggressively avoided the spotlight and asked recipients not to publicize the donations. Feeney has kept about $2 million — with an “m,” not a “b” — to continue his modest retirement. What a nice dude. [The New York Times]

 There's something to be said, however, for not hiding one's light under a bushel--publicizing one's donations helps establish a norm that this is the proper thing to do.