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Trying Times

THE SUMMER OF OUR DISCONTENT

SUMMERTIME AT CORNELL: A RELAXING SEASON when the sun shines almost every day, there are only a few people on campus, the pace of life slows down, and--as the song says--the livin' is easy. Not this year.

Summer had not even officially begun when we were jolted by the news of President Jeffrey Lehman's resignation. Once the shock had passed and we had rushed a lastminute report into the July/August issue, there was a prolonged period of inquiry and discussion in our office. What had actually happened? How should we investigate it, and what should we report? Who were the best people to talk to? Calls and e-mails came in from alumni, faculty, and students, most of whom were just as puzzled and concerned as we were.

In the end, we decided to interview a cross-section of the Cornell community and prepare a retrospective report on President Lehman's two-year term. We knew that it could not be the last word--it's too early for that--but we wanted it to be a first step in providing a fair accounting of what he had accomplished and what his presidency may mean for the future of Cornell.We also wanted to speak with Lehman himself, so he could offer his own thoughts.We were fortunate that he agreed to talk with us, and even more fortunate to be able to assign the interview to Scott Jaschik '85, a talented journalist who was an editor at the Chronicle of Higher Education for twenty years and is one of the founders of the well-respected Inside Higher Education website (http://insidehighered.com).

In early July, as the interim presidency of Hunter Rawlings began, one ongoing controversy continued unabated: the conflict over a proposed parking lot on a West Campus site known as Redbud Woods. Our coverage of this flap stretches back to the March/April 2003 issue, where we ran an opinion piece by Kate Lunde '84 in which she encouraged the University to consider alternative plans for the lot. (The cover story in that issue, coincidentally, was "A Conversation with Jeffrey Lehman"--our introduction to the incoming president.)

Along with the Daily Sun, the Ithaca Journal, and other local media, we have reported on the controversy ever since. As we noted in our last issue, the confrontation escalated over the past few months, with students staging a brief occupation of the president's office in Day Hall and demonstrators, including faculty, blocking construction work. The stand-off was finally resolved on July 18 with the signing of an agreement in which the University made some concessions to the protestors in exchange for their departure from the site (see From the Hill, page 8).

The terms of the agreement were criticized by some "Redbuddies," who felt the University had offered too little in return for an end to the demonstrations, and also by members of the pro-Day Hall faction, who felt the protestors had gotten off too easily. In the end, the trees came down but nobody looked like a winner--and the national publicity generated by the furor was hardly the kind of coverage that Cornell needed, especially in the wake of the Lehman resignation.

On top of that, in late July a group of scientists announced that they did not believe there was sufficient evidence to prove the existence of the ivory-billed woodpecker, knocking the wind out an announcement made by Lab of Ornithology director John Fitzpatrick earlier in the year. It was threatening to be a really glum summer--but then Fitzpatrick presented recordings of the bird's characteristic "knock-knock" rapping, convincing the skeptics that the ivory-bill was, in fact, alive and well. Let's hope that was a portent of more good things to come.

-- Jim Roberts '71

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