In 1921, he became the fourth president of
Cornell University. Under his leadership, Cornell's enrollment and endowment increased rapidly. He also expanded Cornell-in-China with the
University of Nanking and in 1931 saw the arrival in Ithaca of students from the
Soviet Union. The unified
College of Engineering was created as was the
College of Home Economics. In 1929, he declined to intervene on behalf of two students who had been denied residency in the women's dormitories at Sage Hall on the basis of their race. In reply to a letter from the mother of one of these women, he wrote, "... while I have great sympathy for your feeling, I cannot order a change in the procedure of the Dean of Women, under whose jurisdiction the matter falls". ==Family==