Brett de Bary, Cornell University professor of Asian studies and comparative literature, has been appointed director of the Society for the Humanities (SHC). She replaces Dominick Lacapra, Cornell's Bowmar Professor in Humanistic Studies and professor of history, who has served as SHC director for the past decade. "The distinction of Cornell's Society for the Humanities has become almost synonymous with the distinction of its former director," said de Bary of her predecessor. "Dominick Lacapra's wide-ranging concerns as an intellectual historian, especially with the ethical challenges posed to humanistic inquiry by the Holocaust, led the society to probe profound issues of late 20th century thought and conscience. I hope to maintain this tradition of scholarly intensity and engagement." (October 30, 2003)
This summer Cornell will be the epicenter of a major national initiative to diversify humanities departments called the Future of Minorities Studies Research Project (FMS) Summer Institute.
Jason Koski/University PhotographyPeter Meinig, chairman of the Cornell Board of Trustees, center, presides over the installation of David Skorton as Cornell's 12th president. Vice Provost Michele Moody-Adams presents Skorton…
Science-based information on the relationships between breast cancer and environmental risk factors -- including pesticides and diet – is offered at a Cornell University-based web site. In time for October's national Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the web site from the Program on Breast Cancer and Environmental Risk Factors in New York State has been expanded with several features.
Legislators, politicians, educators, governmental agencies, business leaders, judges and others regularly attempt to make decisions based on sound scientific research. Translating that research to sound policy decisions can be challenging.
Two years ago a 14-year-old boy in Genoa, N.Y., stood atop a mound of corn while unloading a tractor-trailer on the family farm. Suddenly the truck's unloading trough opened and he was engulfed by grain, and sank as if in quicksand. John Ducey, chief of the Genoa Fire Department, recalls that the boy "had swallowed and breathed in corn" and it appeared that "his time was about done."
The Cornell University Public Service Center has been awarded AmeriCorps funding by the Federal Corporation for National Service, the New York State Commission on National and Community Service and the New York State Office of Children and Family Services, for the 2000-01 program year.
"The born-to-dechlorinate bug" is what Cornell researchers called Dehalococcoides ethenogenes Strain 195 when they found the bacterium obligingly detoxifying the pollutant PCE, or perchloroethylene (a chlorinated solvent used for dry cleaning), in sludge from an Ithaca, N.Y., sewage treatment plant.
James E. Turner, the founding director of Cornell's Africana Studies and Research Center, was reappointed to the post for a five-year term by the provost, effective July 1. A professor of Africana Studies whose first stint as director lasted 17 years, Turner is a political sociologist specializing in African-American social movements and is a leading expert on Malcolm X.