The college's principal resource is its outstanding faculty, comprising teachers, extension educators, and researchers who have expertise and wide experience in the domestic and international aspects of the agricultural, life, and environmental sciences. Among agricultural faculties in the United States, the faculty of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences consistently ranks first. Students in the M.P.S. program have access to the faculty of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and to faculty in other colleges throughout the university.
The graduate fields offering M.P.S. (Agriculture and Life Sciences) programs have extensive common facilities—biotechnology, bioclimatic, computer laboratories, greenhouses and research land—and numerous special facilities and field buildings. The complete facilities, libraries, and field resources of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences are available to the M.P.S. student.
The Cornell University library system is among the finest in the world. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is served by the Albert R. Mann Library, the largest academic agricultural library in the United States. Mann's collection includes materials in biology and agriculture and in economics, sociology, and education. Hundreds of computerized databases are also available on public access computers in the library and, through the campus computer network, at workstations in offices and laboratories.
Graduate students have access to extensive university computer resources, including qualified personnel to assist in data analysis and development of models, and linkages to the World Wide Web, electronic databases, newsgroups, and electronic mail services.
About 14,200 acres of land are used in the college's instructional and research programs. Cornell Plantations, the university's arboretum, botanical garden, and natural preserves, maintains more than 3,000 acres of plant collections and natural areas for study and use in M.P.S. projects. College departments operate the modern Animal Science Teaching and Research Center, the 389-acre Biological Field Station on Oneida Lake, the 4,000-acre Arnot Teaching and Research Forest, and the Marine Biological Field Station on Appledore Island off the coast of Maine. The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, with faculty members conducting research on fruits and vegetables, represents another important college resource. The station has 850 acres of land available for experimental fieldwork, as well as branch research stations for fruit study in the Hudson Valley and for the study of grapes at Fredonia. In addition, college research farms are located at Riverhead on Long Island for ornamental crops, fruit, and vegetable studies; at Lake Placid and in Steuben County for potato studies; and at Aurora and Ithaca for agronomic research.