Under construction for more than three years and in the
planning stage for many more, Duffield Hall is officially open for business.

On October 6, Cornell President Jeffrey S. Lehman dedicated Duffield Hall, the new high-tech landmark on the Cornell campus.

With 130 donors, alumni, faculty, administrators and staff present for an evening banquet, and then nearly 300 students, faculty and staff joining the diners for dessert and a first look at the facility, the building’s three atriums were filled for the grand opening.

The only disappointment for many was that David Duffield ’62, MBA ’64, who helped launch the nanoscale research and education building with a lead gift of $20 million in 1997, was unable to be present for the dedication. On Oct. 1, he returned to PeopleSoft, the company he founded, as chief executive officer. And, as President Lehman observed, “He felt an obligation to the 12,000 PeopleSoft families to make the company he founded his top priority at this pivotal time in its history.”

Instead, Duffield’s brother, Al, wielded an oversized pair of scissors to cut a red ribbon across doors to the new facility on Lacroute Plaza on the south side of the building, where a tent had been set up to welcome the guests for the opening banquet. “We have waited a long time for this moment,” said Lehman.

The Cornell president then ushered the guests into Baum Atrium — named for the donor, the late Dwight “Bill” Baum — connecting the new building to Upson Hall. The guests dined, accompanied by a string quartet on a bridge two stories above.

Among the more than 20 donors recognized at the banquet were John Swanson (who endowed the position of Duffield Hall facilities director and who also has an atrium named in his honor) and Chuck Knight and the Knight family. In 1979 Knight’s father, Lester B. Knight Jr., provided funding for the Lester B. Knight Jr. Laboratory, home to the Cornell NanoScale Science and Technology Facility (CNF). Chuck Knight has continued his late father’s legacy by providing funds for Duffield’s second- and third-floor Knight
laboratories.

Following dinner, NASA astronaut Dan Barry ’75 presented Lehman with a silicon chip nano-etched at CNF with a drawing of Duffield Hall. Barry recalled that when he took the chip on his August 2001 mission to the International Space Station aboard the space shuttle Discovery, he would set his alarm clock whenever the shuttle was above upstate New York and Ithaca. “Of course, it was always completely covered in clouds,” he said. Then came the moment when the clouds parted, and “I sealed the moment in my memory.”

Responded Lehman, “I want to thank you for helping make the dedication of Duffield Hall such an immense celebration of the very small.” He continued: “Dave’s [Duffield] lead gift in 1997 to support construction of Duffield Hall was one of the largest ever given to the university. A few years into the project, he then made another substantial gift to inspire others to help meet the remainder of the construction costs. And most recently, he made a $15 million challenge gift to ensure that Cornell would not only have a state-of-the-art building but also an endowment to keep it at the forefront of science and technology as those fields continue to evolve.”

Lehman also thanked John Hopcroft, currently the IBM Professor of Engineering and Applied Mathematics in the Department of Computer Science, who as engineering dean from 1994 to 2001, “planted the seeds for this building and whose hard work started it on its way.” He also thanked President Emeritus Hunter Rawlings “for embracing the promise of the new building and convincing others that it was an important initiative for Cornell.” Also singled out for praise was Clifford Pollock, director of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and faculty leader on the project, and Robert Stundtner, Duffield project director. “Thank you for your devotion to Cornell, for your commitment to cutting-edge science, and for making possible Cornell’s worldwide leadership in nanotechnology research and discovery,” he said.

Cornell News Service and staff reports