Make your contribution to the Klarman Hall time capsule

Imagine you could talk with a Cornell student, Class of 2065. What would you tell them about our life today?

The College of Arts & Sciences hopes to capture life at Cornell today – especially the role of the humanities in our lives – as it assembles a time capsule to be buried May 26 during the formal dedication ceremony for the university’s new humanities building, Klarman Hall.

The dedication is the culmination of the college’s New Century for the Humanities campaign, a series of marquee events, speaker presentations and panel discussions. The events highlight emerging areas of research and scholarship in the arts and humanities and showcase the college’s diverse faculty. They will also explore intersections of the arts and humanities with the sciences and social sciences at Cornell.

The Klarman Hall time capsule will include a number of items, all selected with the help of a faculty committee, that tell the tale of life as we know it in 2016. Some of those items will include:

• Posters and programs from various campus events
• Musical compilations created by undergraduates that represent 2016
• A list of majors and departments offered by the college this year
• Photos of Klarman Hall construction
• Some examples of today’s technology, from cell phones to I-clickers to iPads
• Short stories from our creative writing students, with endings that will be revealed when the capsule is opened
• And, perhaps most importantly, the voices of students, faculty, staff and alumni today, who are asked to send in their answers to the following question:

If you could talk to a Cornell student 50 years from now, what music, movies, shows, books and art do you love today that you’d want to make sure they know about? Why are these works so important to you? (In 200 words or less.)

The College will collect responses to this question and compile the responses for inclusion in the time capsule. The deadline for submissions is May 1, 2016.

There are multiple ways to add your voice to the time capsule:

• Click on the link on our New Century for the Humanities web page to fill out our Google form.
• Visit Olin Library April 4-15 to add your suggestions to our display there.
• Tweet your response to us @CornellCAS using #CornellHumanities.