As campus buzzes over Cornell's proposed New York City tech campus, student leaders have officially thrown their support behind it.

On Sept. 8, the Student Assembly (SA) unanimously approved a resolution that will create an ad-hoc committee to "unite students in support of the NYC tech campus," according to the resolution.

"This is an amazing opportunity for the school," said SA at-large representative Geoffrey Block '14, who co-authored the resolution with Erin Szulman '12 and Adam Wolford '14. "There are currently many students who love the idea and would want to help Cornell get it, but don't have any way to organize."

Cornell will submit a proposal to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office by Oct. 28 to build a campus in the city, potentially on Roosevelt Island. The campus would consist of graduate-level programs with an emphasis on high-tech commercialization, structured around research "hubs," including mobile social interaction and technologies for healthier living.

Many Cornell students and alumni are from New York or have lived and worked there, Block said. Cornell students are invested in New York, he said, and he suspects this sets Cornell apart from Stanford University, which is also in the running to submit a tech campus proposal.

"We want to be able to say that we as students helped improve the economy of a city where so many of us grew up; and we as students want to know that we left Cornell a much stronger institution than when we got here," Block said.

Among the ad-hoc committee's activities so far: working on a video to showcase the uniqueness of Cornell students and their desire for the campus, and brainstorming ideas for op-eds, rallies on the Engineering Quad and letter campaigns.