Cornell leaders, donors, faculty and students gathered Oct. 24 to officially dedicate the new building for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.
The four-story Computing and Information Science Building - totaling 135,000 square feet of additional classrooms, Ph.D. labs, communal spaces and more - opened in August, on time and on schedule. Located south of Gates Hall, the building provides space for faculty, students and staff from all three Cornell Bowers departments - computer science, information science, and statistics and data science.
Provost Kavita Bala speaks at the dedication of the Computing and Information Science Building.
"In 1999, Cornell launched a new way of studying, teaching and advancing new technologies, one that has now become pretty much the standard," President Michael I. Kotlikoff said at the event. "The speed of our progress and the vision that drives our innovation have been the work of bold and visionary leaders."
Ever since launching the Department of Computer Science in 1965 - one of the first of its kind - Cornell has "made decisions that have looked beyond the current horizon, not at how technology is being used now, but how it could be used 10, 20, 30 years down the road," Kotlikoff said.
That vision continues in the college's present form: as the degree-granting Cornell Bowers, established in 2020 with a gift from the late Ann S. Bowers '59, a Silicon Valley pioneer.
"Ann S. Bowers' career and her legacy at Cornell have been all about creating new possibilities through education and innovation," Kotlikoff said. "Ann was a Cornell champion for Information Age disciplines when CS and IS were just taking off, and the evolution of Cornell Bowers to where we are today has been made possible, not only by Ann's remarkable philanthropy, but also by her incredible advocacy around the importance of the information disciplines over decades."
Kotlikoff added that Provost Kavita Bala, who served as dean of Cornell Bowers from 2020 through 2024, kept the building project on time and on budget.
The exterior of the Computing and Information Science Building.
During her time as dean, Bala boosted college faculty by 30% to meet high student demand for college courses, secured funds for what would become the Computing and Information Science Building and positioned Cornell Bowers as a world leader for AI innovation.
Once Cornell Bowers' three departments were brought under one roof, "we knew that we'd get new types of integration, collaboration and interdisciplinary work that's needed for the future," Bala said. "I'm so glad we can realize that vision of collaboration here."
Bala also acknowledged Steve Conine '95 and Alexi Conine '96, and Niraj Shah '95 and Jill Shah, whose support helped build momentum during fundraising. Kotlikoff thanked the Cornell alumni whose gifts "helped to advance our excellence and turn our aspirations into reality.
"The excellence of Cornell Bowers and the impact it's having throughout Cornell and beyond is made possible through the magic combination of your support and our tremendously talented students and faculty working together and across disciplines to discover, innovate and create," he said.
Louis DiPietro is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.
