If you tried to sum up the 2008 Senior Class Campaign with two words, you'd have a close battle between "promise kept" and the unlikely alternative, "more cowbell."

Cornell's graduating seniors set an ambitious goal of having 50 percent of their classmates make a gift or pay class dues. When the class blew right by that benchmark, they revised their goal and ended up garnering donations from a record-breaking 53 percent of the class, with a total of $66,402 raised.

The check was presented to President David Skorton during Senior Convocation in Schoellkopf Stadium May 24 by alumni co-presidents Manuel Antonio Natal and Sarah Elizabeth Snider.

Natal, who is also co-president of the class council, helped to organize the campaign. He was among hundreds of class members who worked more than 20 phonathons to solicit more than 1,700 gifts from friends, acquaintances and classmates they had never met. Volunteers came from all over campus -- Greeks, athletes, honor societies, multicultural organizations, you name it -- and if they got a gift, they rang a cowbell.

"When you ring the cowbell, people get excited," Natal says.

He should know, having scored a hat trick with one call that set the whole room rocking.

He called a classmate, who made a gift. Ding!

"Then I said, 'And I know you have a twin,'" he says. She got on the line. Ding! Ding!

And that twin had a boyfriend. Ding! Ding! Ding!

The campaign was backed by a challenge gift from Presidential Councilor Abby Cohen '73 and husband David Cohen '73, whose daughter Lauren is a member of the Class of 2008 (and also a participant in the campaign). The class has already raised enough to endow an undergraduate scholarship -- a resource that will help fund the expanded financial aid offerings Cornell announced in January.

"We were delighted to help keep that bell ringing," David Cohen says. "The great Class of 2008 will be known both for its generosity and humor."

Every gift to the Senior Class Campaign (and to the concurrent Reunion campaigns being run by classes ending in 3 and 8) counts toward Far Above ... The Campaign for Cornell and its goals to support students, faculty, facilities and programs. The bond between Cornellians and their alma mater has everything to do with its success.

Throughout the year, Natal and the other Class of 2008 officers found themselves reminded of this time and again while meeting alumni of all generations at events in Philadelphia, New York City and on campus.

"We realized that Cornell is not about being here for four years and that's it," he says. "When you meet the president of the Class of 1937 who is still fighting for Cornell and still fighting for his class, it gives you a greater sense of things. There's so much more to Cornell, and the tradition continues."

What Natal and his fellow officers sensed is what connects one generation of Cornellians to the next. It is a promise to make Cornell stronger and more accessible to the generations that will follow.

So far for the Class of 2008, it's a promise kept.

Bryce T. Hoffman is a writer for Cornell's Alumni Affairs and Development.