One hundred years ago this fall, the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry found a home in the basement level of Lyman Hall at Syracuse University.

Returning to its roots, ESF and SU held the first in a series of centennial celebrations in Lyman at 4 p.m. Thursday.

‘We have come home again,’ said Robert French, Centennial Committee co-chair, as he welcomed the gathering of ESF and SU faculty and staff.

Holding the meeting in Room 132 of Lyman Hall — the room one floor above where the initial 52 forestry students learned — was very important and symbolic, French said. Members from ESF’s Board of Trustees, Alumni Board and College Foundation, along with members of the SU administration, were present.

A presentation by ESF’s professor Hugh Canham on the history of ESF and how the school came to SU kicked off a year of celebrations on Thursday. The Centennial Committee has a $100,000 budget to celebrate the collaboration between the schools, French said. The presentation on ESF’s history was given again Friday on the ESF campus and open to students.

Canham first visited ESF and SU in 1955, when he was a senior in high school and his math teacher told him to visit the campus. The two toured through ESF’s Bray and Marshall halls, but Canham also spent time at SU.

‘I came to realize that day how closely interrelated the two places are,’ Canham said. Today, ESF and SU students continue to share housing and classes.

SU Chancellor Nancy Cantor and ESF President Cornelius Murphy were both present for the gathering commemorating the 1911 partnership between the schools.

‘ESF is steeped in some very rich history,’ Murphy said. ‘Much of that history is characterized by our relationship with Syracuse University.’

The New York State College of Forestry was originally located at Cornell University, but after a dispute concerning how forestry was being taught, the college lost funding and left Cornell in 1898. It was re-established at SU in 1911.

Today, ESF has a closer relationship with SU than with any institution in the state of New York, Murphy said.

In addition to Canham’s history given at the event, Edward Galvin, director of SU’s Archives, made a brief presentation and announced the ESF display that was assembled with the archives. A case commemorating the centennial is on display in the Goldstein Alumni and Faculty Center, and a more extensive virtual exhibit is available online.

Cantor said she and the administration were ‘all thrilled’ to mark the anniversary. Both institutions are ones that individually and collectively work to help the environment, and students from both schools work together on programs such as Say Yes to Education, Cantor said.

‘We’re still joined at the hip in so many ways,’ Cantor said of the relationship between the two campuses, adding that ESF and SU students both always graduate in the same ceremony.

Though reaching the century mark is an impressive record, Cantor said the campuses must prepare for another century.

‘If we are to have another century,’ Cantor said, ‘it better be a century that’s careful about the planet.’

dkmcbrid@syr.edu

 

 

Published on January 22, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Dara: dkmcbrid@syr.edu | @daramcbride