VISION TO REALITY
The Carol Tatkon Center was the dream of a committee of students, faculty and staff who took the lead in planning a universal living/learning experience for first-year students.  Conveniently located in the south wing of historic Balch Hall, the Center was designed to connect the academic heart of the University with the residential center of first-year student life on North Campus.

Administered by the Office of the Dean of Students in collaboration with the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and the Department of Campus Life, the Carol Tatkon Center encourages student-faculty interaction in this comfortable new space.  From a browsing library stocked with books by Cornell professors to corridors lined with cases that display art, the Center—named in memory of an alumna and Cornell trustee—reflects much of what Cornell's first-year experience is about.

WHO WAS CAROL TATKON?
Carol Clark Tatkon '59 was president of Balch Hall and managing editor of The Cornellian in her senior year. An economist, she attended the New School for Social Research [now part of the New School University] and went on to a remarkable career in the oil industry. Ms. Tatkon was a loyal alumna who served as a university trustee. After she died in 1997, her daughter, Heather Tatkon Powers '91, M.P.A. '93, and son-in-law, Eric A. Powers '86, M.B.A. '93 worked with the university to find a fitting use for her bequest to Cornell. They settled on a facility dedicated to improving life on campus for students of today and for future generations, the Carol Tatkon Center.