Cornell Bowers College of Computing and Information Science
students in lounge

How to Support CIS

Your gift helps Cornell advance its mission of teaching, research, and public service, and prepare our students to become tomorrow's leaders.

For more information about how you can support CIS, please contact Danielle Bluey, associate dean for alumni affairs and development for CIS, via email at danielle.bluey@cornell.edu.

CIS Annual Fund

Ezra Cornell's vision established a scope of learning and opportunity that is unmatched by any other university. Gifts to the CIS Annual Fund keep that vision alive by supporting a unique student experience, advance new research in a broad mix of fields, and expand our outreach mission. The CIS Annual Fund has provided critical support to such initiatives as undergraduate students clubs and research projects, labs and research groups, including the Social Media Lab, Interaction Design Lab and the Natural Language Processing Group. In addition, the Fund has enabled us to offer competitive "startup packages" that allow us to recruit the finest new faculty and help them launch their careers.

Give to the CIS Annual Fund. Please note: when filling out the online Annual Giving form please choose "Computing and Information Sciences" in the drop down menu.

Bill & Melinda Gates Hall

Critical to our efforts to increase collaborative ties among our students and faculty was a physical space that unites our core departments, inspires creativity, enables team-based project work, and fosters cross-college interactions. Our new space – Bill & Melinda Gates Hall – reflects the essence of the information age through its integration of technology and architecture in its open and outdoor spaces, classrooms, labs and offices. Gates Hall offers opportunities to name building spaces, including collaborative work spaces, labs and public spaces, starting at $75,000.

Undergraduate Financial Aid Endowment Funds

An endowed gift of $100,000 provides partial support for one Cornell student every year.

Undergraduate Research and Teaching Assistantships

Supporting the undergraduate Teaching Assistantship program and increasing support for undergraduate research assistants are key to engaging undergraduates more deeply in their fields of study. The skills they learn through teaching and research are important keys to helping students apply the knowledge they acquire at Cornell after they leave campus.

Graduate Student Fellowships

Our goal is to provide fellowships to all first year students in CIS Ph.D. programs so that they have the opportunity to experience the breadth of their doctoral field before diving deeply into sponsored research and teaching in the remaining years of their degree program. First year fellowships are also important for competing with other schools for the best students.  Ph.D. fellowships provide competitive stipends, tuition, and health care benefits.

Faculty Renewal and Endowed Professorships

Overall, CIS faculty are younger than many other colleges. Nevertheless, retaining faculty who are top in their fields and attracting new, younger faculty in computer science, information science and statistics that broaden Cornell's reach in these disciplines is key to achieving our vision to be a national model for information age education. Continued investments in this area will keep CIS on the cutting edge of computing and information science education.

Dean’s Discretionary Fund

Gifts to the Dean's Fund provide CIS with the flexibility to support the changing and emerging needs of CIS faculty and students. By creating such a pipeline, these funds can be used in a variety of ways. As a dynamic college-level unit with ties across the university, our faculty and students benefit greatly from our ability to contribute to special projects and initiatives – both university-wide and externally – that expand opportunities for our students to engage in and present their research, develop their entrepreneurial skills or gain access to a variety of employment opportunities.