Who’s the greatest fictional Cornellian in the history of TV and film? That burning question will be answered this month (March 2023), as Big Red history expert Corey Earle ’07 conducts a bespoke March Madness tournament.
Run through Twitter polling, the contest pits 64 Cornell “alumni” against each other in four divisions: characters from comedy/romance and drama, each split into movies and television.
“I love seeing Cornell in pop culture,” says Earle, the longtime instructor of a wildly popular course on the University’s history, who has more than 5,000 Twitter followers. “I’ve trained several generations of students to, whenever they see a Cornell reference, email me or tweet at me. So I’ve become a collector of fictional Cornellians.”
Patrick Shanahan for Cornell University
Valzhyna Mort, center, discusses the risks writers take to speak out in many countries, with Suzanne Nossel, left, and David Folkenflik ’91.
Jason Koski/Cornell University
Earle (left) with Ed Helms during the actor’s Convocation visit. Earle is holding Andy Bernard’s faux diploma from the set of “The Office,” which he received as a birthday gift from his brother, University Archivist Evan Earle ’02, MS ’14.
