"Things Fall Apart" is bringing people together. Nearly 5,000 students from 59 high schools in 17 New York counties and New York City will read Chinua Achebe's masterful novel "Things Fall Apart" as part of a statewide pilot program coordinated through Cornell Cooperative Extension and the 2005 New Student Reading Project at Cornell. In addition, 24,000 Cornell alumni from 31 class years also will join what has become an annual rite of passage for incoming freshman and transfer students at Cornell.
Conventional measures of economic well-being -- the unemployment rate, for example -- suggest that U.S. citizens are doing well, but beneath the surface is much anxiety and concern.
'I'm so proud and very, very humbled to have the chance to be a part of the leadership of this great jewel of international higher education,' said David J. Skorton, Cornell's newly named 12th president.
Catherine M. Oertel, a doctoral candidate in chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University, has been named a new Discovery Corps postdoctoral fellow by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study corrosion in Baroque-era pipe organs and to develop lesson plans about the physics, chemistry and materials science of musical sound for middle and high school students. Oertel is one of the first six fellows in the new Discovery Corps, an NSF pilot program that is exploring innovative ways for scientists to combine their research expertise with service to society. (July 19, 2004)
John W. Fitzpatrick, the Louis Agassiz Fuertes Director of the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology and professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, has been elected president of the American Ornithologists' Union (AOU).
Higher-paid and better-educated workers are much more likely to use medical flexible spending accounts (FSAs) than are lower-income and less-educated workers, conclude researchers from Cornell and the University of Minnesota.
Poor rural women who don't always have enough food in their homes exhibit binge eating patterns and are only about half as likely as other women to consume daily the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables. Therefore, these women are less likely to consume adequate vitamin C, potassium and fiber.
As the Bush administration seeks new ideas for strengthening international education in U.S. schools, Cornell is among the leaders in the effort with rich foreign language offerings and new programs, such as the China and Asia-Pacific Studies curriculum.
Ossie Davis, the actor, writer, director and producer, will appear on stage in Cornell's Statler Auditorium at 8 p.m. Nov. 1, for a program entitled "In Other Words. . ." Tickets -- $13 for students and $15 for all others -- are available at the Willard Straight Hall box office.
More than half of American high school students don't go on to college and often flounder in "dead-end" jobs. They - as well as college-bound students - would benefit dramatically from planned workplace experiences, according to a Cornell expert.