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Last Stand PARKING LOT BATTLE ENDS

ABOUT AN HOUR AFTER INTERIM PRESident Hunter Rawlings announced that the University intended to proceed with the razing of Redbud Woods, Jeff Purcell '05 lay belly-down in the dirt, his arm locked into a steel pipe buried in the ground. "We did everything we could to avoid this," he said.

In July, the battle over a 176-space parking lot to be built on two acres of a wooded slope along University Avenue reached its conclusion, with the studentled Redbud Woods Working Group extracting a series of concessions aimed at reshaping Cornell's parking and transportation policy. In return, the University would get its new parking lot.

The agreement, signed by Rawlings on July 18, ended years of escalating legal conflict over the disputed territory, once the back lawn of the Robert Treman estate. The City of Ithaca Planning Board had attempted to block Cornell's plans by denying approval for the lot in 2001, but the University successfully appealed the decision in court. A redesign that incorporated more extensive landscaping and an improved storm-water retention system failed to stem a growing tide of student and community opposition, a movement that climaxed in this summer's standoff between the University and dozens of determined protesters. Using tactics borrowed from West Coast environmental activists, students erected tree stands and fastened themselves to "lock boxes" sunk into the earth in an effort to stymie construction. Some 380 faculty members joined the fray by adding their names to a list assembled by the Redbud Woods Faculty Working Group, and more than 500 alumni signed a petition of support during Reunion weekend.

The confrontation entered its endgame on Wednesday, July 13, when plastic fencing was erected around the woods in anticipation of an announcement from Rawlings, who was then meeting with faculty members. The area soon filled with students, faculty, residents, and onlookers, and Cornell was faced with a public relations nightmare as camera crews arrived and protesters dug in. By Friday, police began ticketing individuals for trespassing, and a chain-link fence was erected to seal off the perimeter. Negotiations between student leaders and administrators continued over the weekend.

An accord was reached on Monday that incorporated a number of the Working Group's demands, including the formation of a faculty advisory committee on environmental issues and the continued hire of an intern to work on sustainability issues. Cornell also agreed to provide free bus passes for all new students who do not request parking permits and granted legal amnesty to student signers of the agreement, including those charged with trespassing in an April occupation of the president's office. But the student group's key request--a six-month moratorium on construction while alternatives could be explored--was rebuffed.

After the amnesty deadline passed on Monday, a handful of activists continued their vigil, but by the end of the week it was all over: both the trees and the treesitters had been taken down, and about forty of the site's eponymous redbud shrubs sat in pots, free for the taking, by the side of University Avenue.

Committee Named DIANA DANIELS '71 TO LEAD PRESIDENTIAL SEARCH

ON JULY 1, HUNTER RAWLINGS MOVED BACK INTO THE corner office in 300 Day Hall, taking over as Cornell's interim president. Rawlings, who had served as president from 1995 to 2003, subsequently issued a statement noting that he had met with senior administrators and trustees, and they had "agreed upon the need to maintain and indeed to enhance Cornell's current academic priorities during this interim period, and to build momentum for Cornell's coming capital campaign."

Four days later, Peter Meinig '61, chair of the Board of Trustees, announced the formation of the search committee that will nominate a successor to Jeffrey Lehman '77. It will be chaired by Diana Daniels '71, who is vice president, general counsel, and secretary of the Washington Post Company. She has been a trustee since 1995. The other trustee members are Ezra Cornell '70; C. Morton Bishop III '74; Robert Blakely III '63, BME '64, MBA '65; Elizabeth Earle (faculty-elected trustee);Michael Esposito, MILR '03 (employee-elected trustee); Samuel Fleming '62, BChemE '63; Blanche Savin Goldenberg '74; Paul Gould '67; Robert Harrison '76; Myra Maloney Hart '62, MBA '81; Joshua Katcher '06 (student-elected trustee); Robert Katz '69; Peter Meinig; Doug Mitarotonda '02, MEng '03 (student-elected trustee); Elizabeth Moore '75; Edwin Morgens '63; and Jan Rock Zubrow '77. The non-trustee members are Antonio Gotto Jr. (dean of the Weill Cornell Medical College); Susan Murphy '73, PhD '94 (vice president for student and academic services); Juris Hartmanis (Read Professor Emeritus in Engineering); and Laura Brown (Anderson Professor of English). One-third of the members served on the search committee that selected Lehman, which was chaired by Morgens, while the others are new to the role. The committee has three advisors--former board chairs Harold Tanner '52 and Stephen Weiss '57, and trustee emeritus Sanford Weill '55, who is also the chair of the Weill Cornell Medical College Board of Overseers--and will be assisted by the national executive- search firm Korn/Ferry International. Information about the committee and its work is available at www.cornell.edu/ presidentsearch. The committee encourages all alumni to send recommendations and suggestions; messages may be sent to: Presidential Search Committee, P.O. Box 4380, Ithaca, NY 14852- 4380; e-mail: CU-pres-search@cornell.edu.

Up, Up, and Away BETTER DAYS AT THE ITHACA AIRPORT

LESS THAN A YEAR AGO, AIR TRAVEL TO and from Ithaca seemed on the verge of a crash landing. US Airways, then the city's only carrier, had entered Chapter 11 for the second time in twenty-five months and cut its daily flight schedule at the Ithaca Tompkins Regional Airport. Faced with few choices and high ticket prices, Ithacans headed for airports in Syracuse, Binghamton, or Elmira about two-thirds of the time, according to the Tompkins County Air Service Task Force.

Since then, the picture has brightened considerably. Northwest Airlines began service to Ithaca in May, with direct flights to and from its hub in Detroit. This immediately boosted daily traffic by 17 percent, but the real advantage is better access to the West Coast and Pacific Rim, says airport manager Robert Nicholas. And US Airways, now on more solid financial footing, continues to offer flights to Philadelphia and New York City's LaGuardia Airport.

To further enhance customer service, a new website--www.flyithaca.com--was established to help travelers search for and book the lowest fares. The site also provides comparisons to out-of-town flights, calculating the mileage expense, parking fees, and other costs associated with driving to competing airports.

The flying public seems to be responding. During the first month of service, Northwest's flights were 72 percent full, exceeding projections by 17 percent-- and in June passenger traffic at the airport was up by 30 percent compared to the previous year.

Justice at Last LONG-AWAITED CONVICTION CLOSES A PAINFUL CHAPTER

FORTY-ONE YEARS AFTER MICHAEL "MICKEY"SCHWERNER '61 and two other civil rights workers disappeared on a summer night, a Mississippi jury convicted Edgar Ray Killen of manslaughter for orchestrating their deaths. Killen, an eightyyear- old sawmill operator and preacher, was sentenced in June to sixty years in prison, twenty years each for Schwerner, James Earl Chaney, and Andrew Goodman.

In 1964, Schwerner and his wife, Rita, moved from Manhattan to Meridian,Mississippi, to join the effort to register African-American voters. Chaney was one of Schwerner's colleagues and a close friend; Goodman--the son of Carolyn Drucker Goodman '36 and Robert Goodman '35--had arrived in Mississippi the day before they disappeared.

Local police arrested the trio, allegedly for speeding, and jailed them while Killen gathered twenty other Ku Klux Klan members and directed them to kill the men after they were released. Forty-four days later, FBI agents found their bodies buried in an earthen dam.

In 1991, the Class of 1961 dedicated a stained-glass window in Sage Chapel that honors the men for their sacrifice. Schwerner's widow, Rita Bender, as well as relatives of Chaney and Goodman, joined Schwerner's classmates at the ceremony. After the Killen trial, Bender emphasized that the conviction only begins to address the State of Mississippi's complicity in decades of race-based crimes. "The Klan, law enforcement, and government officials were often one and the same," she says. "It is a horrifying example of government run wild.We need to understand what occurred if we hope to prevent repetitions." Killen is appealing the conviction.

I Hear You Knocking IT'S OFFICIAL: THE IVORY-BILL LIVES

THREE PROMINENT ORNITHOLOGISTS WHO CHALLENGED the rediscovery of the ivory-billed woodpecker announced by Cornell researchers in April (see "One Rare Bird," July/August 2005) have changed their tune. After listening to audio recordings made in January and provided by the Lab of Ornithology, the dubious experts acknowledged that they had heard a pair of birds exchange characteristic double-knocks and nasal "kent" calls and were therefore convinced that at least two specimens of the ultra-rare woodpecker still lived in Arkansas's White River National Wildlife Refuge and Cache River Refuge. "We were very skeptical of the first published reports and thought that the previous data were not sufficient to support this startling conclusion," Yale ornithologist Richard Plum said in a statement. "But the thrilling new sound recordings provide clear and convincing evidence that the ivory-billed woodpecker is not extinct." Plum withdrew a critical paper he had been preparing with Jerome Jackson of Florida Gulf Coast University and Mark Robbins of the University of Kansas. "It's all moot at this point," he told the New York Times. "The bird's here."

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