The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Committee on Athletics Certification has approved Cornell's athletic programs for certification in Division I. The certification, announced Dec. 2.
A new book by a Cornell authority on early Islamic law shows that Muslim societies today have grown out of a rational, balanced legal tradition dating back at least to the 14th century. The book, Law, Society and Culture in the Maghrib, 1300-1500, by David Powers, professor of Arabic and Islamic studies in Cornell's Department of Near Eastern Studies, has just been published by Cambridge University Press as part of that publisher's series on Islamic civilization. Powers' book suggests that Islamic law as it was applied in the 14th and 15th century involved reasoned thought and argument by Muslim judges and jurists, who were highly sensitive to society and culture and how the law shaped, and was shaped by both. That finding refutes claims by an earlier generation of Western scholars who asserted that Islamic law lacked a body of legal doctrine and was, therefore, irrational. It also calls into question the popular assumption that Islamic legal practice can only be extremist. (November 08, 2002)
As part of Cornell's Africa Initiative, students at Weill Cornell Medical College organized a forum on neglected diseases that included some of the most important names in global health. (Feb. 23, 2007)
This weekend, the Department of Music is presenting two concerts to celebrate world music at Cornell. Both events are free and open to the public. (Oct. 14, 1999)
"Sex in the Stacks: A Zwickler Memorial Symposium on Sexuality and the Archives" will be held in Cornell University's Kroch Library Saturday, Sept. 28, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the library's Level 2B. It is free and open to the public. Phil Zwickler Memorial Research Grants, made possible by support from the Phil Zwickler Charitable and Memorial Foundation, have been awarded for the first time this year to provide financial assistance to scholars conducting research on sexuality with sources in Cornell Library's Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections. The first two Zwickler fellows -- Professor Leisa D. Meyer, College of William and Mary, and Professor William B. Turner, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee -- have done extensive research with Cornell's Human Sexuality Collection this summer. Additional funding for Meyer was provided through Cornell Law Professor Martha Fineman's Dorothea S. Clarke fund. Meyer, Turner and a panel of scholars will report on their research findings during the symposium and discuss the practicalities and theoretical considerations involved in conducting original research in human sexuality. (September 26, 2002)
Patricia Nelson Limerick, a professor of history at the University of Colorado at Boulder and one of the pioneers of the trend known as "New Western History," will deliver three Carl Becker Lectures at Cornell March 31 through April 2. She will deliver the lectures, which are free and open to the public.
Cornell's Committee on U.S.--Latin American Relations will host a 'Sweatshop Fashion Show' to highlight the treacherous working conditions of garment industry workers in the United States and Latin America.
Right now, Cornell University planners can only dream of the campus home of Big Red hockey, Lynah Rink, doubling its seating and changing the skyline with a domed translucent-fabric or peaked plastic roof that would glow in the night sky. Yet such ambitious ideas have been inspired by Cornell students -- and they have earned credits doing it. It was merely a class project when engineering professor Ken Hover assigned his students in Civil Infrastructure Design (CEE 474) this semester the task of designing a Lynah Rink renovation that would double the seating capacity (now about 3,836) of the venerable, much-loved arena without touching the ice or the bench seats already in place. But when the students in the class presented their plans recently, Hover, a professor of civil and environmental engineering (CEE), and his five fellow professorial instructors weren't the only ones paying close attention. Because an enhancement of the 47-year-old structure is on a lot of people's minds, members of Cornell's administration also came to look and listen. (May 17, 2004)
Many Cornell students who live off campus call Collegetown home during the academic year. But Collegetown is also home to year-round residents and families, private homes and large apartment complexes, and a bustling business district.
President David Skorton recently returned from a 10-day, four-city tour of India, seeking to extend Cornell's mission as the world's land-grant university by building stronger bridges between Cornell and India, and to reinvigorate ties with alumni.