Should Cornell Leave the Ivy League and Jump to the Big 10?

What would you say to the idea of Cornell playing round robin basketball games against the likes of Michigan, Indiana and Purdue? Football against Ohio State? Should Cornell join the Big 10? Think about it. While we are not advocating a divorce from the Ivy League, Cornell and the Big 10 potentially could be a perfect marriage. And The Cornell Basketball Blog is not alone in this thinking.

Cornell Professor Issac Kramnick once wrote:

I have come to love this place in my thirty-six years of teaching here, to love this Ivy League school with its Big Ten soul, this university that since its birth has played such a rebellious and innovative role in American higher education.

Others have noticed the "Cornell-Big 10" connection. Cornell Basketball Head Coach Steve Donahue once said, "We have a Big Ten-type of campus." Coach Donahue is definitely onto something.

But the similarities go far beyond the campus.

Most of the Big 10 schools are large public universities set in collegetowns. The Big 10 schools not only excel in athletics, but they are also regularly ranked among the top national academic universities at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Cornell is very much all of the above.

Like most of the Big 10 schools, Cornell (a part private, part public institution) has a very public oriented mission with land-grant status. Cornell also has membership in the State University of New York (SUNY) system. And it also goes without saying that Cornell is regularly regarded academically as one of the top dozen or so national universities in the country.

Like most Big 10 schools, Cornell is massive both in physical size and in student body. Home to 20,000 students, Cornell's Ithaca campus is over 5,000 acres when including the University's gardens and natural areas and 745 acres of academic, athletic and residential areas. Cornell also maintains extended campuses in every county of New York State, not to leave out campus centers in Washington, D.C., Maine, Puerto Rico, New York City, Rome, Peru/Amazon River, and Qatar.

All taken together, the public mission, the grande size of the campus and student body, the stellar academic reputation and the setting in idyllic little Ithaca, Cornell has a whole lot more in common with Wisconsin in Madison and Indiana in Bloomington than it does with Penn in Philadelphia, Harvard in Boston or Columbia in New York.

Finally, there are also numerous historical connections between Cornell and the Big 10. Cornell's co-founder Andrew Dickson White was educated at the University of Michigan. Indiana's beloved 7th president, David Starr Jordan was a Cornell alumnus and Cornell's last two presidents were recruited from their presidencies at the University of Iowa.

And by the way, the Big 10 needs a 12th member in Cornell. Northwestern is the lone "private school" member, while Penn State is sitting by itself out in the east. Cornell is a piece that fits the puzzle. Cornell would add a second campus post for the conference in the east, joining Penn State, while also giving Northwestern some company as another elite private institution with an esteemed academic history.

As for athletics, Cornell is a national power in several major sports, including indoor and outdoor track (men's and women's), wrestling, ice hockey, and lacrosse. Even the Cornell men's basketball team made two consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament and finished 2008-2009 with an RPI better than a pair of Big 10 teams (after finishing 2007-2008 ranked ahead of five Big 10 teams).

Joining the Big 10 would only improve the basketball program's ability to compete on a national level.

What do you think? Ivy or Big 10 for Cornell?