"Time and a Chair," an exhibit of historic photographs depicting ordinary Americans posing in chairs in remote parts of the country from 1840 to 1940, is on display until Aug. 29.
Archaeologists from the Binghamton University Public Archaeology Facility, hired by Cornell University to study the proposed site for new athletic fields off of Game Farm Road in the town of Ithaca, recently identified a handful of artifacts tied to the Early Woodland phase of the Finger Lakes' Paleo-Indian culture. Site inspections identified three small areas with prehistoric artifacts, and a projectile point, chert flakes and shatter were recovered. A Phase 2 site examination will focus on the areas where artifacts have been identified, and more test pits will be dug to determine the site's significance. A related report is expected to be completed in mid-June. (May 30, 2003)
Thomas O'Rourke illustrates the effects of the World Trade Center destruction with a quote from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land: "The awful daring of a moment's surrender/ Which an age of prudence can never retract/ By this, and this only, we have existed." For O'Rourke, the Thomas R. Briggs Professor in Cornell's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, the poet's words sum up the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001: a moment of unforeseen catastrophe that society will pay for with "an age of prudence." O'Rourke and Cornell colleagues have spent the past two years analyzing the impacts that brought down the twin towers. By studying this and other disasters, O'Rourke says, engineers will be able to give valuable advice to a society still struggling with how best to avoid future tragedies. (May 29, 2003)
The Cornell Public Service Center currently is seeking applications for the third annual Cornell Civic Leaders Fellowship Program. This initiative enables the Public Service Center to initiate collaborative relationships between Cornell and the local community, and it allows the center to award $5,000 to each selected fellow. (May 29, 2003)
Tiny blood vessels, viewed beneath a mouse's skin with a newly developed application of multiphoton microscopy, appear so bright and vivid in high-resolution images that researchers can see the vessel walls ripple with each heartbeat – 640 times a minute.
Cases of listeriosis, the food-borne bacterial disease that kills one of every five of its victims, are not as isolated as once believed. Using DNA evidence to track bacterial strains, a Cornell food scientist and his collaborators have concluded that nearly one-third of the 2,500 U.S. cases annually might occur in geographic clusters at generally the same time.
To explain why there is hope in the adversity of today's world, political strategist James Carville carried 5,000 Cornellians, their families and friends to the magical world of A.A.Milne's Hundred Acre Wood on Saturday, May 24. Speaking at the Senior Convocation in Barton Hall during the university's 135th Commencement weekend, Carville told of once pondering the advice he should give to graduating seniors, and suddenly deciding to draw on the wisdom of children's literature. He had been watching a "Winnie-the-Pooh" movie with his two-year-old daughter, and there was a crisis in the Hundred Acre Wood. Christopher Robin told Pooh, "You're braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think." (May 24, 2003)
Ross Brann, the Milton R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies and chair of the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Cornell University, has been named house professor and dean of the Alice H. Cook House for upper-level students on West Campus, Cornell President Hunter Rawlings announced today. Alice Cook House is the first house being built as part of the West Campus House System for sophomores, juniors and seniors. The groundbreaking and naming for the late Alice H. Cook, a noted professor in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations and Cornell's first ombudsman took place at a ceremony April 28. (May 27, 2003)
Cornell Public Affairs Society (CPAS) is leading a wide-scale computer donation campaign to benefit the people of Africa. Society members are asking the greater Ithaca community to donate fully functioning, used computers with a Pentium I -or greater processor, or its equivalent. They have set an ambitious goal of acquiring 200 units by May 31. The computers are destined for African nations, with an emphasis on institutions supporting women in schools, agricultural organizations and training centers, and health agencies. Monitors, mice and keyboards are the only peripherals that can be accepted with the computers. All donations must be in working condition; all software, including the operating system, should be removed prior to donation. (May 19, 2003)
The Cornell University Board of Trustees will meet in Ithaca Thursday, May 22, through Saturday, May 24. The Executive Committee of the board will hold a brief open session at the start of its meeting Friday, May 23, at 7:30 a.m. in Taylor A&B Room of the Statler Hotel on campus.