Every morning, as I hurry past the statue of Andrew Dickson White on my way to the Temple of Zeus, I wonder what our founding father would say about the current state of affairs at Cornell. Usually, it’s just a fleeting thought. Sometimes, however, the question lingers on my mind while I flip through The Sun between my morning tea and croissant. Lately I’ve been having serious doubts about one aspect of his legacy.

With the recent blizzard of noise citations issued by Ithaca Police Department in connection with Cornell student parties in Collegetown, relations between the staid burghers of Ithaca and boisterous Cornell undergrads have hit new lows. Despite the best efforts of our Student Assembly president and the student member of the Ithaca Common Council, the current dispute continues to simmer and could boil over.

Ithacans have turned a deaf ear while Cornellians loudly complain about the stricter enforcement of noise violations. It seems to me that both sides are shouting past each other. The students, perhaps with some justification, can point to a degree of overkill in enforcement of noise standards. Yet, we seem to have forgotten that Collegetown is not an extension of the University. Students living on campus have to respect certain rules of conduct. Those living off campus have to respect Ithaca’s own rules. We are guests of Ithaca and, always, representatives of Cornell.

The prevailing attitude among the student denizens of Collegetown was brought home to me by one cynical Cornellian: “Students are the life blood of Ithaca … where would this town be without Cornell?” The reactions to the noise citations reflect a deeper problem. Clearly, we have a serious breakdown in town-gown relations.

The current dispute has its roots in Cornell’s early history. A.D. White strongly believed in the integration of the student body with the surrounding community. Accordingly, for many years Cornell male undergraduates were not provided with housing on campus. Instead, they were expected to find accommodations in Ithaca. Given prevailing prejudice, women were exempted from White’s policy; they were sequestered in the protective environs of North Campus. To this day, Cornell can house only around half its undergraduates on campus, with a majority of the remainder settling in Collegetown.

With all due respect to Andy, his legacy with respect to student residential life has left a heavy burden, albeit unintended, on town and gown alike. I am convinced that having a large number of Cornell undergraduates live off campus is profoundly detrimental to the formation of a strong, cohesive student community. To foster our identity as Cornellians, we need ties that bind us together. The unfortunate reality is that the Cornell student body is far too fragmented; our sense of community and identity is weak and diffuse.

OK, as president of the Residential Student Congress, I’ll admit to being biased. Of course, the weak sense of community and the strained town-gown relations are unintended consequences of A.D. White’s original housing policy. What’s to be done?

Cornell’s master plan should make student residential housing, with the College House system as its centerpiece, an urgent priority. Rootless students in state of the art academic buildings create a soulless campus. The goal must be to provide attractive on-campus housing for all undergraduates. A number of our peer institutions — Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford — already do so. Not surprisingly, they have a strong sense of community and identity. In that respect, Cornell has a long way to go.

Providing a majority of undergraduates with an on-campus housing option will help to reduce town-gown tensions significantly. The existing friction is the result of Cornellians having turned Collegetown into our near abroad. We have overwhelmed the community by our sheer numbers. Yet A.D. White’s goal of engaging the community must not be abandoned. Creative ideas such as the one to develop a community center around Collegetown Bagels should be implemented. More importantly, there must be greater formal, institutional effort to reach out to the community in a substantial, long-term way. The specific areas of cooperation should be identified by Ithaca, and Cornell could respond with a planned, endowed program. Perhaps a generous alumnus might be willing to have such a community outreach program named after A.D. White.

Sooner or later, the current dispute over noise levels will subside. Maybe the Ithaca police will be less zealous in handing out multiple citations. Perhaps, the desire of Cornellians to host raucous parties will wane under the pressure of accumulated fines. But the root cause of this tension will remain, and new conflicts will arise, so long as a large number of undergraduates continue to live off campus. I wonder whether A.D. White, if faced with this situation, would have changed his mind about his original student housing policy. Somehow, I think he would.

Sanjiv Tata is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. He can be contacted at stata@cornellsun.com. The Vested Interest runs alternate Tuesdays.