康奈尔大学（Cornell University）是由企业家埃兹拉·康奈尔和学者安德鲁·怀特两人携手合作创办的一所独具特色的大学，它成立于1865年（获得州长签署的特许状）。其首任校长怀特曾留学法国和德国，后任当时最富改革精神的密执安大学教 授，1864年当选为纽约州参议员并任参议教育委员会主席，恰逢康奈尔在同一参议院任农业委员会主席。康奈尔是一个依靠自己的勤劳的技术致富的企业家和农 场主，西部联合电报公司股票的最大拥有者。当时莫里尔法案已通过，纽约州议会正在考虑建立一所适当的农工学院。于是怀特说服康奈尔捐资（共50万美元及校园田地），连政府赠地资金建立了这所新型大学。康奈尔大学从一开始就兼具公立和私立双重性质，具有“公私合营”的特点，在目前它的13所学院中，私人捐助 建立9所，州政府资助建立4所（农业与生物学院、人类环境学院和工业与劳工关系学院是公立学院），这在美国是独一无二的。康奈尔大学汇集了公立与私立学院 的优点，张开双臂欢迎来自四面八方的学子们。
康奈尔大学在纽约市附近的小镇绮色佳，那里景色优美，气势开阔。康奈尔的校园位于山顶，在图书馆凭窗远眺，只见苍苍茫茫，一派辽阔气象。校园面积有3000多英亩，与美国东北部典型的较为拥挤的大学相比，呈现出一派宏大气度。
康奈尔大学的校色是大红，鲜艳热烈，热情奔放。当年老康奈尔创立这所大学的目的，就是“让任何人都能在这里学到想学的科目”。似乎，任何人的青春都能在康奈尔这里燃烧。
康奈尔大学拥有学生18000人。教师2150人，其中教授905名。图书馆系全美十大图书馆之一，拥有600多万册书籍及6万多本期刊。
康奈尔大学目前设有下列13所学院：农业和生命科学学院（州立），建筑队、设计和规划学院，文理学院，工程学院，研究生院，旅店管理学院，人类生态学院（州立），工业和劳资关系学院（州立），法学院，管理研究生院，医学院（校址在纽约市区内），医学研究生院（校址在纽约市区内），兽医学院（州立）。此外还有大学图书馆、生物科学部、营养科学部、暑期班及校外学习部等机构。
康奈尔大学的旅馆管理学院是全美首屈一指的。为了训练学习，康奈尔自设了酒店。农业学院在全国同类大学中也数一数二，从这里出来的学生很多都进了兽医学院继续深造，攻读硕士和博士学位。此外，康奈尔大学还有耗资3500万美元的康奈尔国家超级电脑中心。
康奈尔大学有6个国家研究中心，即高能同步加速器研究中心、科学、工程理论和模拟中心、弗洛伊德·纽曼核研究实验室、数理科学研究所、国家天文学和电离层研究中心（在波多黎各），以及国家纤细结构研究中心。
康奈尔大学的著名校友不少。到1983年为止，该校毕业生中先后有18人获得诺贝尔奖，其中文学奖得主1位，和平奖得主1位，物理学奖得主6位，化学奖得主5位，医学和生物学奖得主5位。1931年毕业于康奈尔大学（博士学位）的威尔斯·比德尔是著名的遗传学家，获诺贝尔奖，还曾任芝加哥大学校长。
康奈尔大学几乎从它一诞生起，就以其创新精神影响了整个美国高等教育，也为世界各国培养了不少有影响的人物，比如我国的胡适、茅以升、赵元任、任鸿隽、杨杏佛、戴芳澜、唐钺、邹秉文、张心一、金善宝、曾威、唐振绪、赵祖康、谈镐生等名人都曾就读于康奈尔大学。

Once called "the first American university" by educational historian Frederick Rudolph, Cornell University represents a distinctive mix of eminent scholarship and democratic ideals. Adding practical subjects to the classics and admitting qualified students regardless of nationality, race, social circumstance, gender, or religion was quite a departure when Cornell was founded in 1865.
Today's Cornell reflects this heritage of egalitarian excellence. It is home to the nation's first colleges devoted to hotel administration, industrial and labor relations, and veterinary medicine. Both a private university and the land-grant institution of New York State, Cornell University is the most educationally diverse member of the Ivy League.
On the Ithaca campus alone nearly 20,000 students representing every state and 120 countries choose from among 4,000 courses in 11 undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools. Many undergraduates participate in a wide range of interdisciplinary programs, play meaningful roles in original research, and study in Cornell programs in Washington, New York City, and the world over.
In his first inaugural address, at the Weill Cornell Medical College campus in Qatar in October 2004, Jeffrey Lehman, the first Cornell alumnus to become its president, articulated a vision projecting Cornell as "the transnational university of the future."
Cornell is a learning community that seeks to serve society by educating the leaders of tomorrow and extending the frontiers of knowledge.
"I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study."
Ezra Cornell, 1868
In keeping with the founding vision of Ezra Cornell, our community fosters personal discovery and growth, nurtures scholarship and creativity across a broad range of common knowledge, and engages men and women from every segment of society in this quest. We pursue understanding beyond the limitations of existing knowledge, ideology, and disciplinary structure. We affirm the value to individuals and society of cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit.
Our faculty, students, alumni, and staff strive toward these objectives in a context of freedom with responsibility. We foster initiative, integrity, and excellence, in an environment of collegiality, civility, and responsible stewardship. As the land-grant university for the state of New York, we apply the results of our endeavors in service to our alumni, the community, the state, the nation, and the world.

Cornell's opportunities are as wide as your imagination. Here, Rhodes scholar Brian Finucane examines a pre-Inca Peruvian mummy. His work was featured in National Geographic's The Mummy Road Show.
The First Transnational University

Noor Sulieman (left) and Sajeda Azad (right) in the Biology Lab on the Qatar campus
"Cornell -- birthplace of the integration of theory and application within American higher education, champion of the equal dignity of humanism and science, exemplar of openness to all peoples and to the critical examination of ideas -- has a special duty to nurture a transnational perspective on the human condition. We believe that Ezra Cornell himself would be proud of the way that his American university has matured into the transnational university of the future....A transnational perspective is different from a global perspective because it transcends nationalism without insisting on a unitary global substitute."
-- Jeffrey S. Lehman, 11th president of Cornell University, in his inaugural address in Doha, Qatar