College Madras
Cornell University is a celebrated university around the world, renown for its academic and research excellence. Certainly, it has been one of the most applied schools, with 71,064 applicants for the Class of 2026, which places it highest amongst the Ivies and higher than even Harvard’s 61,220. The draw, according to its most popular majors, seems to be in computer sciences, engineering, biology, business, and agriculture, most of which are housed in its three most prominent schools: The College of Arts & Sciences (AS), Engineering, and Agriculture & Life Sciences (CALS).
However, Cornell is also home to five other separate colleges, including the more obscure and often-overlooked College of Human Ecology (CHE), which only has 218 of the 3,574 incoming students in 2024, far lower than the 1,183 in AS and 658 in CALS. Unlike other colleges, CHE specializes in different dimensions of human health, integrating not just science but also design, sustainability, and fashion. These offerings lend themselves to dynamic disciplinary intersections that push the boundaries on how we think about and shape human and environmental health, making CHE uniquely positioned to foster the next generation of innovators.
Originally initiated by Martha Van Rensselaer to teach home economics in 1900, CHE has stayed true to its roots in economics, human development, nutrition, and textiles. Besides economics, which is integrated into its other majors, CHE offers majors in the other three, which have evolved beyond the domestic setting to teaching students how to effectuate social-wide change in those areas. Furthermore, as sustainability is a cornerstone of Cornell as a whole and a critical facet for human health, it undergirds CHE’s offerings like Design + Environmental Analysis and Human Biology, Health, & Society. In merging its historic and modern dimensions, CHE naturally weaves together disciplines to give students multiple dimensions of insights into their fields.
As an artist, aspiring designer, and environmentalist, I was intrigued by CHE because of its Fashion Design & Management (FDM) and Fiber Science (FS) majors, which stitch together fashion, sustainability, and human health, a unique blend I have not found anywhere else. I know how important this major is, as despite my interest in the aesthetics of clothes, I also know of the fashion industry’s dark side—it is the “second-biggest consumer of water and is responsible for about 10% of global carbon emissions.”
The production process also leaves marginalized communities in developing countries with a host of health and environmental problems, such as azo dyes burning workers’ skins, burrowing into their lungs, and polluting their waterways. In fact, one-fifth of all industrial water pollution stems from fashion production. Obscured by the allure of each new trend, our obsessions with the way we look are destroying the environment and communities.
This is why I believe CHE to be seminally important; the school aims to shed light on and boldly tackle issues like fashion sustainability, and give students the tools to positively re-shape our lives. For example, FS allows students like me to explore how new materials can be developed and used for mass production. As FS teaches students to investigate the chemical composition of fibers, their environmental impact, and how to harness their structures for different uses, students can experiment with sustainable yet practical materials like milkweed for winter clothing (milkweed has thermoregulatory properties) and bamboo for athletic wear (bamboo is extremely sustainable, moisture-wicking, and thermoregulatory).
With expert guidance like Professor Denise Green’s, who specializes in Native American textiles, students can pursue research to test their theories. Then, through CHE’s network, including Nike and Calvin Klein, students can learn the possibilities of real-world integration.
This vibrant curriculum and opportunities, combined with active communities within the school like the Cornell Fashion + Textile Collection, has molded industry pioneers. For example, Jessica Couch ‘16 has founded Looks.Clothing that utilizes artificial intelligence to tailor clothes to individual needs, helping cut fashion waste that amounts to “$64 billion in returned items, $50 billion in unsold inventory and 17 million tons of discarded textiles in the U.S. alone.” Elizabeth Esponnette ’10 introduced 3D weaving to eliminate waste in the production process and Professor Heeju Park has created numerous smart clothing to monitor and assist health conditions.
The list goes on, but the common point amongst these alumni achievements are that they are products of the CHE’s brilliant integration of disciplines that were and are otherwise not integrated. In doing so, they’ve allowed their students to devise novel ways to approach the human and environmental costs of what we wear.
Thus, Cornell’s College of Human Ecology stands as an eminent example of an institution whose name value does not match its importance for society. Lesser favored amongst Cornell’s other schools and amongst other elite schools, CHE’s history, vision, and complement of majors trains a small cohort of students each year to have outsized impact for our collective future.
By: Jayden Kang
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