Cornell University students taking part in an international competition to build a state-of-the-art solar-powered house will hold an Earth Day Celebration in the Sage Hall atrium, April 22, from 6 to 8 p.m. The celebration is free and open to the public. Booths and posters will provide a sneak preview of the Cornell entry in the fall 2005 competition, the National Solar Decathlon. During the Earth Day event, Ithaca Mayor Carolyn Peterson and New York State Assemblywoman Barbara Lifton (D-125th) will comment on environmental policies. (April 13, 2004)
Noted Haitian novelist Edwidge Danticat will be reading from her latest book, The Dew Breaker, Friday, April 16 , at 7 p.m. in Kaufmann Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall at Cornell University. Danticat's reading is part of a two-day conference on campus titled "The Haitian Revolution in Global Context: A Bicentennial Commemoration," April 16 and 17. In addition to being a featured reader during the conference, Dandicat also is the final guest in the Black Authors/New Books Series sponsored by Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center. The reading is free and open to the public, and a book signing and reception will follow. (April 13, 2004)
Student members of the Cornell University Powwow Committee will host the biggest powwow and smoke dance to date at the university in Barton Hall Saturday and Sunday, April 17 and 18, beginning at 10 a.m. on both days.
Mark Polking, a junior in the College of Engineering at Cornell University, has received a 2004 Barry M. Goldwater Scholarship, considered the premier undergraduate award in mathematics, science and engineering.
At least two dozen physical and psychosocial environmental risk factors can profoundly compromise the health and welfare of children in low-income families in the United States and could affect a child's life as an adult, says a noted Cornell University environmental and developmental psychologist. "Low-income children are disproportionately exposed to a daunting array of adverse social and physical environmental conditions," says Gary Evans, a professor of design and environmental analysis and of human development in Cornell's College of Human Ecology. "The fact that so many environmental risk factors cluster in the environments of low-income children exacerbates their effects and most likely have debilitating long-term effects on the physical, socio-emotional and cognitive development of children living in poverty." (April 9, 2004)
A student team from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management was the first-place winner April 2 in the second MBA Stock Pitch Challenge. The team from Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management, which hosted the competition, came in second. The two winning teams competed for two days against teams from nine other top U.S. business schools and were judged by a blue-ribbon panel of Wall Street stock analysis experts on the buy and sell sides. The Kellogg team won a cash prize of $3,000, and the Johnson School team won $1,500. (April 9, 2004)
'Biodiversity, Sustainability and Cornell' is the topic for Missouri Botanical Garden Director Peter H. Raven in the 2004 Jill and Ken Iscol Distinguished Environmental Lecture.
"Labor and Election-Year Politics" is the title and theme of this year's Union Days at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), April 13-16. Most events are free and open to the public. "The annual Union Days program is designed to raise awareness among students and others about the struggles of working people to better their lives and their communities," said Jefferson Cowie, assistant professor of collective bargaining, labor law and labor history at the ILR School and the event's organizer. "This year the focus will be on the central role that labor plays in electoral politics, making the week's events of interest to anyone concerned with justice in the workplace or the fate of the 2004 presidential elections." (April 8, 2004)
As pump prices for gasoline set record highs in the United States and crude oil becomes more expensive than it has been almost at any time since the 1991 Gulf War, Cornell University is hosting an engineering conference April 15-17 on Energy Demand and Sustainable Development. The conference will feature talks on the applications and business potential of new technologies in energy and sustainable development by Cornell alumni who are leading energy industry figures and faculty members who are leading the research at the Cornell campus. They will discuss a range of issues involved in formulating national energy policy, including the role of advanced technologies, providing low-cost electricity and the use of ethanol as a fuel. The conference also includes a research poster session by students. (April 8, 2004)
Lauren Jacobs, a junior psychology major in the College of Arts and Sciences at Cornell University, is one of 77 students selected from a national pool of 609 candidates to win a prestigious Truman Scholarship.
Top business leaders will convene for a summit on the transformation of business at Cornell University's Johnson Graduate School of Management Wednesday, April 14, and Thursday, April 15. The summit marks the 20th anniversary of the $20 million endowment gift to the school from university alumni Samuel C. Johnson '50, Imogene Powers Johnson '52 and the Johnson family. The school, which was founded in 1946, added "Samuel Curtis Johnson" to its name in 1984 to recognize the extraordinary generosity of the Johnson family. Sam Johnson is now chairman emeritus of the Johnson Family of Companies, familiarly known as Johnson Wax. The school's name honors Johnson's great-grandfather, namesake and the founder of the company. (April 8, 2004)
Jeffrey R. Immelt, chairman of the board and CEO of General Electric Co., the world's most profitable industrial company, will give the 2004 Hatfield address, April 15 at 4:30 p.m. in Call Alumni Auditorium of Kennedy Hall on the Cornell University campus. There will be overflow seating, and closed-circuit television viewing of the talk, in PepsiCo Auditorium, 305 Ives Hall. The talk is free and open to the public. (April 8, 2004)