Our History & Traditions

Cornell College was founded in 1853 by George Bryant Bowman, a Methodist minister from North Carolina with a passionate belief in higher education. Originally known as the Iowa Conference Seminary, the school was renamed in 1857 after William Wesley Cornell, a prosperous merchant and devout Methodist whose distant cousin, Ezra Cornell, founded Cornell University a decade later. Today, Cornell College maintains an affiliation with the United Methodist Church, but the college welcomes people from all religious traditions and from all non-religious perspectives.

Over years, the college established a number of rich traditions and distinguished itself as a visionary leader in higher education. Cornell was the first college west of the Mississippi to grant women the same rights and privileges as men, and in 1858 was the first Iowa college to graduate a woman. In 1870, the college resolved “… that color and race shall not be considered as a basis of qualification in the admission of students …”

The college was among the first to recognize the science of education in 1872, when it began offering education courses. Sociology was added to the curriculum in 1899, only six years after the University of Chicago established the first academic department of sociology in the United States. Cornell's department of geology is the oldest in Iowa, with course offerings dating to 1855.

In 1978 Cornell became the second college in the nation to adopt the block plan, or One-Course-At-A-Time, an academic calendar in which students devote themselves to just one subject for three-and-a-half-week course terms.

Today, Cornell College is a thriving liberal arts institution firmly ensconced on several influential “best colleges” lists. Students here choose from more than 40 academic majors and pre-professional programs, or design their own major. In small classes, Cornellians immerse themselves in the exploration of knowledge and understanding—one course at a time.