Whereas The Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory was created in 1932 by the first dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Science;

Whereas The Conservatory is a landmark structure on the campus and the embodiment of Cornell’s strength in the exploration of tropical plants, primarily palms for which Professor Bailey is best known;

Whereas The Conservatory is the home of a vast collection of rare and exotic plants and has served for the past 78 years to teach students the biodiversity and the ecological complexity of Earth’s plant life;

Whereas The Conservatory is used for faculty scholarship and recruitment;

Whereas The University has declared itself to be an institution fostering sustainability and diversity with an unbreakable commitment to teaching;

Whereas The University has declared itself to be a caring community that provides resources for fostering emotional and mental well-being and the Conservatory provides such a resource, particularly in the winter, where people go to nourish their emotional and mental well-being;

And whereas The Conservatory has been designated to be demolished and its collection of plants to be dispersed into less satisfactory greenhouses because of a lack of funds and insufficient long-term planning;

Be it resolved That the University Assembly supports the College’s efforts to restore, renovate, or replace in equal or larger kind the Liberty Hyde Bailey Conservatory so that future generations of students have access to the study of Earth’s plant biodiversity and complexity and to allow students to maintain a physical connection to the University’s long and distinguished history.

Respectfully Submitted,
Randy Wayne