Enabling excellent teachers to remain in the classroom beyond retirement -- and allowing them to devote their talents to teaching undergraduates -- is a major challenge for universities today. Thanks to the generosity of two of its alumni, Andrew H. Tisch '71 and James S. Tisch '75, Cornell University is prepared to meet that challenge. The Tisch brothers have established a unique, distinguished professorship at Cornell that honors excellence in teaching and extends the undergraduate teaching role beyond retirement. (April 10, 2002)
Rob Ryan, a 1969 graduate of Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences and founder of Ascend Communications, will speak on campus Monday, April 15, at 4:30 p.m. in 155 Olin Hall on "What Goes Wrong in Start-up Companies?" The talk, sponsored by Cornell's College of Engineering, is free and open to the public and will be followed by a reception. It is geared for engineering students and faculty members who might be interested in starting their own businesses. (April 10, 2002)
BAYSIDE, N.Y. -- Civil War-era landmarks cared for by New York City's Parks Department will be protected for future generations thanks to a spring volunteer project initiated by students in historic preservation planning at Cornell University. The students and other volunteers will stabilize neglected historic buildings and battery walls at Fort Totten Battery, in Bayside, Queens, from Friday, April 12, through Sunday, April 14. They hope that preserving the structures now and improving their appearance will lead to city support for their eventual restoration and use by the public and nonprofit groups. (April 10, 2002)
A workshop on U.S.-China business relations, featuring a Cornell University benefactor who is one of China's most-successful entrepreneurs, will take place on Cornell's campus Friday, April 12. It is free and open to the puqblic. "China-U.S. Business Relations: Lessons that Stand the Test of Time" will be from 3 to 4:30 p.m. at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, B-08 Sage Hall. The event, the Moses and Loulu Seltzer Forum, is sponsored by Cornell's East Asia Program and Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise program (EPE). (April 10, 2002)
Cornell University President Hunter Rawlings announced today (April 9) that the university has decided to lift the hiring freeze for externally funded positions April 15 and for all other positions June 30. Rawlings said the decision was made, based on the recommendation of the Workforce Planning Team and in conjunction with Provost Biddy Martin and Harold Craft, vice president for administration and chief financial officer, because the freeze has achieved its three primary objectives. (April 9, 2002)
The first report on college drinking conducted by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) was released today (April 9, 2002) at a news conference in Washington, D.C.
A conference titled "International Relations in a New Key" Saturday, April 13, at Cornell University will examine whether the latter part of the Bosnian war of 1992-95 and the entire course of the war of 1999 in Kosovo saw the beginning of fundamental changes in the nature of international relations. The conference, which will have a morning and an afternoon session, will take place in G-08 Uris Hall on the Cornell campus beginning at 10 a.m. It is free and open to the public, but preregistration is required. (April 9, 2002)
Joseph Veverka, professor and chair of the Department of Astronomy at Cornell and a leading mission scientist for NASA, has been named a 2001 "laureate" by the magazine Aviation Week & Space Technology.
Social scientists are turning to their own methods in order to study themselves. The Ford Foundation has awarded $197,000 to Cornell University's Institute of European Studies for a project to enhance academic policy research and scholarship about the social sciences, a diverse area of study struggling in an increasingly competitive academic environment. The project is called "The Social Sciences at Risk: The Differential Impact of Changing University Environments on the Sciences, the Social Sciences, and the Humanities." The Ford Foundation grant will fund a workshop and a symposium through 2003, under the direction of Davydd Greenwood, Goldwin Smith Professor of anthropology at Cornell. The workshop will be used to develop, and partly execute, a long-term research agenda and to organize a symposium composed of senior scholars, university administrators and foundation officers, and policymakers. (April 8, 2002)
Every spring, the Tibetan refugee community in Ithaca celebrates its culture and history. This year Cornell University is joining the celebration with Tibet Weeks, a series of events from Monday, April 7, through Saturday April 19. The Cornell East Asia Program and Students for a Free Tibet have scheduled Tibetan-related films, guest speakers and family-oriented events. The program is designed to celebrate Tibetan culture while educating the public on the continuing political and social concerns of the Tibetan community here and abroad. (April 8, 2003)