RELATED: Photos from the Big Red in the Big Apple Party

The Cornell Dairy Bar, identified by its red awning with white lettering, served cups of French vanilla ice cream with a “Big Red apple swirl.” Across the way, the Hot Truck, a food cart usually stationed outside the dorms, was serving pizza. Meanwhile, it looked like someone had raided the laboratories. People were sipping cocktails out of beakers.

Even the life-size cow that moves around the Cornell University campus in Ithaca, N.Y. found its way to Cipriani 42nd Street on Friday night, and for good reason: to celebrate the $2 billion raised toward the university’s $4 billion Far Above campaign.

“Cornell has an exceptionally generous group of people. We’re here to thank them and congratulate them for helping us reach this milestone,” the president of the university, Dr. David Skorton, said.

No expense seemed to have been spared for this party, which included video screens, projections, faculty demonstrations, and life-size re-creations of statues of Cornell’s founders, Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White, which grace the campus.

A co-chairwoman of the campaign, Jan Rock Zubrow, called the event “spectacular” and a fitting way to mark a milestone in a “stretch campaign.”

As to how they will complete the campaign with a recession possibly on the horizon, Ms. Zubrow, a venture capitalist, showed the utmost Big Red confidence.

“This is about investing in our future, so I’m not worried about it at all. People are making sure Cornell is a priority,” Ms. Zubrow said.

The former chief of Citigroup, Sanford Weill, after whom Cornell’s medical college is named, admitted that raising the rest of the money would be hard, but had some advice for getting it done. “You’ve got to think globally. Lots of parts of the world are still doing well,” Mr. Weill said, noting that Cornell is educating people internationally for careers in thriving industries such as health care and engineering.

The Friday night event was part of a weekend-long “Big Red in the Big Apple” program held at various locations in New York City. The goal was not just to bring Cornell to Manhattan for the weekend; Dr. Skorton said he wanted alumni in New York City to realize how large a presence Cornell has here, mentioning the medical school, two extensions, and a studio for architecture students.

Outsider Art in an Inclusive Setting

RELATED: Photos from the Outsider Art Fair Preview

Some art fairs have become so big they lose their sense of purpose. The Outsider Art Fair, which had its 16th edition over the weekend at the Puck Building, defies this trend.

Despite its name, which evokes a sense of alienation, the Outsider Art Fair was inclusive. At the fair’s opening night Thursday, collectors, dealers, and curators reveled as much in established artists such as Henry Darger and Martin Ramirez, as the newcomers.

“This is when the whole community comes together. It’s always exciting to walk around and see artists we haven’t seen before,” the senior curator and director of exhibitions at the American Folk Art Museum, Stacy Hollander, said.

The fair was divided into three sections representing low, medium, and high price points — just one way the fair is accessible to collectors of varying experience levels.

“It’s the premier fair of outsider art in the world,” the editor of Raw Vision magazine, an international magazine about outsider art, John Maizels, said.

A trustee of the American Folk Art Museum, Selig Sacks, acquired a series of postcard drawings by the English artist Madge Gill. “So much of it is a commentary of her inner psyche. It conveys angst,” Mr. Sacks said.

The director of the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore, Rebecca Hoffberger, declared the fair “one of the strongest and the best I’ve seen.”

Not all the work looked strong to collectors. “There’s some great stuff and some very ordinary stuff,” Alyce Rose, who described herself and her husband, Roger, as “well-known collectors of schlock, etc.,” said.

Preview attendees included a designer of men’s neckwear for 30 years, Barbara Blank; the architects who designed the American Folk Art Museum, Billy Tsien and Tod Williams; Upper East Side art dealer Mary-Anne Martin, and an American Folk Art Museum trustee, Taryn Leavitt, who said she prefers the term “self-taught art” to “outsider art.”

“It’s more intuitive. It’s from the heart,” Ms. Leavitt said.

agordon@nysun.com