Dozens of stakeholders responsible for the new building for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science penned their names onto a 20-foot steel beam that will soon buttress the building’s fourth floor at an April 23 event celebrating the ongoing construction.  

At four stories and totaling some 135,000 square feet, the Cornell Bowers CIS building, located south of Gates Hall, is on schedule for completion in spring 2025. Construction began in spring 2023.

Credit: Sreang Hok/Cornell University

“This new space will support critically needed expansion of our faculty, with the environment and facilities for innovative, cross-disciplinary research and education at the highest level,” said President Martha E. Pollack. “It’s impossible to overstate the importance of these new spaces for the future of Bowers CIS, and I am incredibly grateful to everyone who is helping to make our new building a reality.” 

First among them, Pollack said, is the college’s namesake, the late Ann S. Bowers ’59, a Silicon Valley pioneer whose gift established Cornell Bowers CIS in 2020. Pollack also acknowledged Steve ’95 and Alexi ’96 Conine, and Niraj ’95 and Jill Shah, “whose generosity helped accelerate fundraising progress.” 

On top of additional instructional and research spaces, the building will add office space and a variety of meeting and informal study spaces. The new building will also bring together the college’s three departments – computer science, information science, and statistics and data science – into one complex. 

The new building’s arrival won’t be a moment too soon.  

With more than 2,200 undergraduate majors in Cornell Bowers CIS and a top college priority placed on faculty growth, the need for space is critical, said Kavita Bala, dean of Cornell Bowers CIS. 

“We are on schedule to complete the project just one year from now, in spring of 2025,” she said. “Each beam and each bolt has brought us closer to our shared vision for the college.” 

Members of several stakeholder groups took Sharpies to the beam. Among them were Provost Michael I. Kotlikoff, Cornell Bowers CIS leadership, faculty and staff serving on project and planning teams, representatives from building architects Leers Weinzapfel Associates Architects, P.C., LeChase Construction Services, LLC, and naturally, the Cornell President. 

“Any color I want?” Pollack asked. 

She chose red. 

Louis DiPietro is a writer for the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science.