Provided

Anthropologist Magnus Fiskesjo, in red shirt, at an outreach event at the Syracuse zoo.

The College of Arts and Sciences has no official mandate to do public outreach, unlike Cornell's four state-assisted colleges, but you wouldn't know it from the wide-ranging activities within the college that touch many in the local community and beyond.

Outreach initiatives in the Latino Studies Program and the departments of mathematics and astronomy offer educational support to local schools and community groups. The math department gets students excited about math with everything from T-shirt design contests to puzzle nights. The astronomy department hosts an "Ask an Astronomer" website that fields thousands of questions each year, and offers programs like "Afterschool Universe" that gets kids enthusiastic about science with a simulated journey through the universe.

The Latino Studies Program's Community Engagement Initiative includes a lending library of more than 4,000 books and films for adults and children, as well as partnerships with the Cornell Farmworker Program and ¡CULTURA!, a community organization that offers arts-based educational experiences like storytelling at Tompkins County Public Library.

The Africana Studies and Research Center has been involved in community outreach since its inception, working for years with local organizations like the Greater Ithaca Activities Center and the Southside Community Center. This connection has given rise to collaborations such as the community forum "The Ithaca Black Community: Challenges and Opportunities."

Many faculty members are involved with outreach in their areas of expertise, such as history and Near Eastern studies professors who recently lectured at Ithaca High School. Others contribute through the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies, such as anthropologist Magnus Fiskesjo, who spent a sweltering day in the sun last summer at the Asian Elephant Extravaganza at Syracuse's Rosamond Gifford Zoo to talk about elephants' role in Asian culture and religion and the dangers of habitat destruction.

Christopher Miller, director of the Cornell Gamelan Ensemble, and Kaja McGowan, associate professor of art history, have often offered Indonesian music and cultural enrichment activities to the community. Most recently, they helped area teachers develop curricula to educate students about Javanese shadow drama and a Gamelan performance scheduled for March 14 in Bailey Hall.

The physics booth is a popular feature of the annual Ithaca Festival, exciting children (and adults) about physics through hands-on, interactive activities. And lecturer Phil Krasicky takes physics on the road with his "Favorite Physics Lecture Demonstrations"; he recently presented the show to preschoolers at the Ithaca Community Childcare Center.

Each year MFA poetry students help inspire New York City public school students to appreciate words by working with their professor to produce a chapbook of their poems. The chapbook is distributed free at the annual "Poem in Your Pocket" celebration in Bryant Park.

The highly successful Cornell Prison Education Program was founded by College of Arts and Sciences faculty and administrators, many of whom continue to be involved, such as government professor Mary Katzenstein and Knight Institute for Writing in the Disciplines director Paul Sawyer. Sawyer's service-learning course, one of many in the college, includes a requirement that students tutor prison inmates weekly.

Some outreach efforts reach farther than others. Every other year during winter break, associate professor of music Cynthia Turner brings the Cornell Wind Ensemble to Costa Rica to work with disadvantaged music students. This year, the group also raised more than $2,900 at a benefit concert to help impoverished Costa Rican schools purchase instruments and improve security.

As these examples demonstrate, the College of Arts and Sciences has enthusiastically embraced the land-grant mission of the university, reaching out to benefit the citizens of New York state and the world.

Linda B. Glaser is staff writer for the College of Arts and Sciences.