Editing Syracuse University (section)

===Founding===
[[File:Genesee Wesleyan Seminary in 1870 (Lima, New York).png|thumb|[[Genesee Wesleyan Seminary]]]]

The institution's roots can be traced to the [[Genesee Wesleyan Seminary]]. The seminary was founded in 1831 by the Genesee [[Annual conferences within Methodism|annual conference]] of the [[Methodist Episcopal Church]] in [[Lima, New York]], south of [[Rochester, New York|Rochester]].<ref name="genesee_wesleyan_collection" /> In 1850, it was resolved to enlarge the institution from a seminary into a college, or to connect a college with the seminary, becoming [[Genesee College]]. However, the location was soon thought by many to be insufficiently central. Its difficulties were compounded by a new railroad that competed with the [[Erie Canal]] and reconfigured the region's primary economic conduits to bypass Lima. The trustees of the struggling college decided to seek an alternate locale whose economic and transportation advantages could provide a surer base of support.

The college began looking for a new home at the same time that Syracuse, ninety miles to the east, was searching to bring a university to the city after having failed to convince [[Ezra Cornell]] and [[Andrew Dickson White]] to locate [[Cornell University]] in Syracuse rather than in [[Ithaca, New York|Ithaca]].{{sfn|Galpin|1952}}{{sfn|Greene|2000}} Syracuse resident White pressed that the new university should relocate on the hill in Syracuse (the current location of Syracuse University) due to the city's attractive transportation hub, which would ease the recruitment of faculty, students, and other persons of note. However, as a young carpenter working in Syracuse, Cornell had been cheated of his wages by an employer there.<ref name="reminiscences" /><ref name="cornell_syr" /> Instead he insisted Cornell University be in [[Ithaca, New York|Ithaca]] on his large farm on East Hill, overlooking the town and [[Cayuga Lake]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Goldwin |url=https://archive.org/details/reminiscences0000gold_l3c9/page/370/mode/2up?view=theater |title=Reminiscences |date=1911 |publisher=Macmillan |others=Internet Archive |pages=370}}</ref>

Meanwhile, there were several years of dispute between the Methodist ministers, Lima, and contending cities across the state over proposals to move Genesee College to Syracuse.<ref name="Syracuse v Genesee" /> At the time, the ministers wanted a share of the funds from the [[Morrill Land Grant Act]] for Genesee College. They agreed to a ''[[quid pro quo]]'' donation of $25,000 from Senator Cornell in exchange for their (and their Methodist constituents') support for his bill. Cornell insisted the bargain be written into the bill and Cornell became New York State's Land Grant University in 1865.{{Citation needed|date=May 2019}} In 1869, Genesee College obtained New York State approval to move to Syracuse but Lima got a court injunction to block the move, and thus Genesee stayed in Lima until it was dissolved in 1875.<ref name="found" /> By that time, however, the court injunction had been made moot by the founding of a new university on March 24, 1870.<ref name="Syracuse v Genesee" /><ref name="New University in Syracuse" /><ref name="Methodist resolves october 1870" /> On that date the State of New York granted the new Syracuse University its own charter independent of Genesee College.<ref name="found" /> The Methodist church subscribed an endowment of $400,000 and the City of Syracuse offered $100,000 to establish the school.<ref name="founding_endowment" /><ref name="found" /> [[Jesse T. Peck|Bishop Jesse Truesdell Peck]] had donated $25,000 to the proposed school<ref name="dickinson" /> and was elected the first president of the Board of Trustees.{{sfn|Greene|2000}}<ref name="Peck" />

Daniel Steele, a former Genesee College president, served as the first administrative leader of Syracuse until its Chancellor was appointed.{{sfn|Greene|2000|p=2}} The university opened in September 1871 in rented space downtown.<ref name="found" /><ref name="first years" /><ref name="A&S-150" /> Judge [[George F. Comstock]], a member of the new university's board of trustees, had offered the school {{convert|50|acre|m2}} of farmland on a hillside to the southeast of the city center.<ref name="comstock land" /> Comstock intended Syracuse University and the hill to develop as an integrated whole; a contemporary account described the latter as "a beautiful town ... springing up on the hillside and a community of refined and cultivated membership ... established near the spot which will soon be the center of a great and beneficent educational institution."{{sfn|Gorney|2006}}

The university was founded as coeducational and racially integrated: "open to men and women, white and black."<ref name="first years" /> President Peck stated at the opening ceremonies, "The conditions of admission shall be equal to all persons... there shall be no invidious discrimination here against woman.... brains and heart shall have a fair chance... "<ref name="coed" /> Syracuse implemented this policy with a high proportion of women students for its era. In the College of Liberal Arts, the ratio between male and female students during the 19th century was approximately even. The College of Fine Arts was predominantly female, while lower ratios of women enrolled in the College of Medicine and the College of Law.<ref name="coed" /> Men and women were taught together in the same courses, and many extra-curricular activities were coeducational as well. Syracuse also developed "women-only" organizations and clubs.<ref name="coed" />