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 over the past 78 generations of students as a tool with which to teach biodiversity and the ecological complexity of Earth’s plant life;

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 find sufficient funds 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