Anatomy of a Campaign | 'FAR ABOVE' STRESSES CORNELL'S PUBLIC MISSION

tHE UNIVERSITY'S $4 BILLION CAPITAL CAMPAIGN HAS many ambitious goals, not the least of which is transforming Cornell into the "land-grant institution to the world." This vision was articulated by President David Skorton on October 27 in his State of the University address, in which he said the campaign "will permit us to realize the overarching goal that has guided Cornell since 1865: to serve the needs of the world whether in Ithaca, Upstate New York, the cities of our country, or any area around the world where the talents and courage of higher education can provide a solution to the problems and challenges of everyday life."

Achieving this, Skorton explained, will require five years of intensive fundraising focused on three priorities: students ($640 million), faculty and programs ($1.885 billion), and facilities ($1.175 billion). In addition, the University seeks to raise $300 million in unrestricted funds. Student support will take the form of undergraduate financial aid as well as fellowships and other assistance for graduate and professional students. Funds are also needed, Skorton said, to "recruit, support, and inspire the next generation of faculty," as Cornell faces the retirement of about onethird of its professors in the upcoming decade. This is especially challenging because many other institutions are facing a similar scenario--so competition for talented candidates will be intense. The facilities component includes both new construction--such as the Life Sciences Technology Building in Ithaca and a biomedical research center in New York City--and renovation of the Johnson Museum, Helen Newman Hall, and other structures.

Identifying these priorities was a lengthy process driven by academic concerns, says campaign director Jim Mazza '88. "They were determined by conversations that Provost Biddy Martin had with the faculty and deans and vice provosts," he says. "They have set an agenda for what they imagine Cornell will be in the year 2015--and beyond." The "wish list" was assessed for feasibility and refined to a set of objectives that was presented to the Board of Trustees. The Board approved the goals in September, and "Far Above . . . The Campaign for Cornell" was launched at an October 26 press conference at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

The campaign's co-chairs are Stephen Ashley '62, MBA '64, and Jan Rock Zubrow '77; the chair for Weill Cornell is Robert Appel '53. All three are "seasoned fundraisers," says Laura Toy, associate vice president for alumni affairs and development. "We really look to them as we think about strategy," she says. "They help us as we think about our campaign message and how we approach individual donors."

One of the challenges for a campaign of this scope is finding new donors.While Cornell has a loyal cadre of supporters who are "rabidly red," as Mazza puts it, reaching new fundraising heights requires gifts from alumni who previously may not have been major contributors. "There are a lot of alumni who five or ten years ago might not have been in a position to make a significant gift," says Toy. "But they are now at points in their lives where they can, maybe because their career has advanced or their children have finished college--any number of reasons. I think we did a good job in the last campaign engaging the classes of the Fifties and Sixties, and now we need to look to the Seventies and Eighties."

Cornell's fundraisers aren't the only ones looking for new donors eager to support their alma mater. Yale has set a $3 billion goal for its capital campaign; Columbia, like Cornell, is seeking to raise $4 billion; and Stanford's effort--the most ambitious so far--seeks to raise $4.3 billion. Penn and Harvard are expected to follow suit before long.While it seems clear that advancing higher education is a worthwhile social endeavor, some have sounded cautionary notes about fundraising oneupsmanship. In "Endowment Envy," an article by Scott Jaschik '85 at the Inside Higher Ed website, development consultant John Butler said he's fearful that "size has become something of a game--a competition that I'm not sure is healthy."

Not so, says Ronald Ehrenberg, the Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics and director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute. "I don't think it's just responding in kind because your peers are doing it," he says. "I think it's an effort to get the resources you really need." Ehrenberg cites the example of Harvard and Princeton eliminating loans from their financial aid packages--a move made possible because of their much greater endowment-per-student resources--as a legitimate reason for Cornell to emphasize fundraising to assist lower-income students. "If we want to maintain this as a diverse campus," he says, "we desperately need to raise money for financial aid."

Mazza agrees. "It's not about competition with other universities," he says. "If you look at what Cornell's trying to accomplish, it's about the aspirations that the president and provost have articulated, which are essential to Cornell continuing to be the kind of institution that it is and the kind of institution that it will be ten or fifteen years--or 100 years--from now."

That institution will be one, as Skorton explained, that must expand its public mission. Research universities are uniquely equipped, he said, to confront such problems as "poverty, hunger, and lack of access to health care . . . challenges which are global and shared." Addressing those issues is the real reason for embarking on a capital campaign, and thus Cornellians must "secure the resources necessary to guarantee students' access to Cornell, to provide a first-rate education when they get here, to meet the challenge of retirements in our professoriate, and to renew our aging physical plant. These are the foundations that enable the contributions we want to make to the world."

-- Jim Roberts '71

Crime Pays | MICHAEL CHERNUCHIN, JD '81, ON WRITING, (NOT) LAWYERING, AND WORKING FOR A LITTLE TV SHOW CALLED 'LAW & ORDER'

CAM: "Law & Order" is famous for ripping its stories from the headlines.

MC: Our bible is the front page of the New York Post. But typically I use the headline just for the teaser. So people go, "Hey, I recognize that--they're doing Martha Stewart, they're doing John Gotti." Then we go in other directions. So it's the headline, not the body of the article that we use.

CAM: Does anyone ever get mad at you for it?

MC: Oh, it happens. Joel Steinberg [who was convicted of beating his illegally adopted daughter to death in 1987] threatened to sue. Now there's a disclaimer that runs at the beginning of each episode.

CAM: One of the show's defining elements is that the main characters' personal lives don't figure into the plot--to the extent that no one remains from the original 1990 cast.

MC: If you watch one show, you don't know anything about the characters--but if you watch a dozen, you know a lot about them. Character comes out in an eyedropper, not a ladle, which bothered the actors for a while. Jerry Orbach would always say, "Give me a scene where my partner dies in my arms so I can emote and win an Emmy."

CAM: "Law & Order" runs so often on cable, sometimes the original and its two spin-offs ("Special Victims Unit" and "Criminal Intent") compete in the same time slot.Why is the show so addictive?

MC: It's the ripped-from-the-headlines aspect, and the fact that you don't have to have seen the previous episode to enjoy it.Most important, we don't just tell a murder mystery; there's that moral mystery in the legal half. "Law & Order" makes people think-- which, most of the time, is a good thing. With the constantly changing cast, the show always feels new. And the stories are unlimited, because we're not dependent on characters--unlike, say, Sipowicz on "NYPD Blue." I mean, you can only do so much to the poor guy. His kid died, his wife died, he's a drunk.What else can you possibly do to him?

CAM: Of the hundred-plus episodes you've written, do you have a favorite?

MC: It was called "Chosen." It started out like a very prosaic crime--one bookie killed another--but the defense was that he stole the victim's money so he could send it to Israel. I got letters the same day from the Jewish Anti- Defamation League and the Arab Anti- Defamation League, both complaining about the show. I used to tell my writers, "I want to piss someone off with every episode," so we did a great job.

CAM: You were editor of the Cornell Law Review. So how did you end up in TV?

MC: I never really wanted to be a lawyer; since I was eight, I wanted to be a writer. I was miserable working at a law firm. So I did a study: what's the quickest way to become a professional writer? Television needs the most product. So I wrote a spec script, moved to L.A., and thirty days later I had a job on "Law & Order."

CAM: You were with the show for its first six years, rising to executive producer and head writer, then left for six years and came back for two more. What else have you been up to?

MC: I created a show called "Bull," starring Stanley Tucci. I was executive producer and writer on "Michael Hayes," starring David Caruso. And I was a consulting producer for the first season of "24."

CAM: But you still write for "Law & Order."

MC: Every now and then they ask me to write an episode. I have one on this Friday, actually. A script didn't work out, and I got a call that said, "Can you write one over the weekend?" I was busy Saturday, so I wrote it on Sunday.

CAM: What are you working on now?

MC: I'm in development, trying to sell new shows. One is called "Fort Pit." It's a cop show about the worst crime district in New York, which is in Brooklyn, and the cops are all crazy or screwed up. The other one I'm pitching is a remake of the old Angie Dickinson show "Policewoman."

CAM: You also wrote the original story for the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie Eraser. Did you come up with the part where Arnold shoots an alligator in the mouth and says, "You're luggage"?

MC: I didn't write the line, but the alligator-- that was me.

-- Beth Saulnier

Enchanted Forest | SCULPTURE TRANSFORMS TREES INTO WHIMSICAL WORKS OF ART

it's part Tim Burton, part Dr. Seuss. Along the sidewalk outside Sheldon Court residence hall in Collegetown, six unassuming honey locust trees have been transformed into fanciful sculptures by North Carolina-based artist Patrick Dougherty. For three weeks in September, Dougherty and a team of volunteers crafted the temporary works of art, winding and weaving locally harvested willow and sugar maple saplings around the existing trees. The resulting sculptures have an enchanted quality, reaching as much as twenty-nine feet high and featuring oval holes resembling ghostly faces. The works are hollow, allowing passersby to enter and peer out of the openings.

Over the past twenty-five years, Dougherty has created more than 200 installations around the world, each composed entirely of natural materials. His Cornell piece, abstractly entitled "Half a Dozen of the Other," will be on display until next fall as the first entry in the Cornell Council for the Arts' "5 Years /5 Contemporary Installations" program. "Like a normal tree, it will change color and look different in the sunlight, cloud, and snow conditions of Ithaca," says architecture professor Milton Curry, the council's director. "That's part of the beauty of it--to see it transform."

--Ben Kopelman '07

Against the Grain | SCIENTISTS DEBATE ETHANOL'S PROMISE

eTHANOL HAS BEEN HAILED AS A GREEN FUEL MIRACLE and decried as an environmental scourge. Critics call it a political concession to Midwestern agribusiness, while proponents extol its potential to boost the earnings of imperiled family farms. Does it enhance national security by reducing America's voracious appetite for foreign oil--or does it contribute to global malnutrition?

Like most debates at the intersection of science and politics, the facts depend as much on how you ask the questions as on who answers them.With the national Farm Bill--which sets corn subsidies-- expiring this year, and Americans growing increasingly concerned about energy independence and greenhouse gases, expect the debate over ethanol to intensify.

At Cornell, scientists have staked claims on both sides of the divide. As one of five Sun Grant Initiative Centers of Excellence, the University has received $8.2 million in federal funds for research into energy and chemical products derived from plant and animal sources. "With our global community entering a less certain oil future, there will be a major transition to agriculturalbased bio-industries," says principal investigator Larry Walker, a professor of biological and environmental engineering who coordinates two dozen faculty researchers in various engineering specialties as well as plant breeding and nanotechnology. "Our vision is to rethink how many of society's needs can be met using renewable, agriculturally based raw materials."

Ethanol comes from two sources: easy-to-ferment simple sugars found in grain and sugar cane, and complex carbohydrates extracted from cellulose-rich feedstocks like perennial grasses and the woody corn stalks usually discarded as agricultural waste. Cellulosic ethanol entered the national lexicon in January 2006, when President Bush highlighted the alt-energy potential of sawdust and switchgrass, a perennial native to North America, in his State of the Union address.

By the time switchgrass hit the evening news, Cornell researchers had already formulated techniques for isolating cellulose-- a complex sugar molecule--from lignin, the robust macromolecule that makes woody plants woody. They had explored strategies to expedite fermentation and to power ethanol production facilities with leftover lignin. "The future of biofuels is not in corn, it's in these lignocellulosic plants," says James Gossett, director of Cornell's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and a collaborator with Walker on studies of switchgrass pre-treatments that facilitate fermentation. "In any responsible models for lignocellulose-based ethanol production, you burn byproducts as the fuel needed for distillation." Yet because of its molecular simplicity, corn is used in most domestically produced ethanol--and most processing plants are powered by fossil fuels. According to the American Coalition for Ethanol, 109 facilities in the U.S. convert high-starch plant materials into liquid fuel; another sixty-two are under construction. Last year, American processors churned out 5 billion gallons of ethanol, buying up 19 percent of the corn grown in the heartland and boosting prices by five to eight cents per bushel.

Unlike the golden ears featured at picnics, the commodity corn diverted to gasoline tanks requires substantial processing for human consumption, making its way to the table as high fructose corn syrup and other derivatives. Critics have long considered the crop (also used as animal feed) a culprit in global hunger, arguing that land used for its cultivation could instead supply nutritionally rich, plant-based diets for humans. Feeding the stuff to SUVs has only fueled their ire--and the criticism doesn't end there. "Corn production causes more soil erosion than any other crop in the nation," says ecology and agriculture professor David Pimentel, PhD '51, a long-time critic of ethanol. "It also uses more nitrogen fertilizer, more insecticides, and more herbicides, which are getting into our air and soil." The beef industry says that ethanol's effect on corn prices has pushed up costs at the butcher's counter by $1 billion a year. Pimentel highlights the ubiquity of corn in processed foods and livestock feed, and blames ethanol for higher milk, meat, and egg prices nationwide.

In July 2005, Natural Resources Research published Pimentel's comprehensive critique of ethanol production, including corn, soy, sunflower, and lignocellulose- based processes. The work was his latest in a thirty-five-year effort to reveal the high cost of ethanol production. When his first analysis was published in 1973, incensed corn-belt legislators had him investigated by the Government Accountability Office. "It was a form of harassment," says Pimentel. "The GAO spent twenty times more money investigating us than we spent preparing our report--and they published a report twice as long as ours, confirming we were correct."

In the 2005 paper, co-authored with Berkeley engineer Ted Patzek, Pimentel again cast his net wide, considering the price of seed, irrigation, fertilizer, equipment maintenance, fuel to power processing plants, industry subsidies, even the cost of cleaning water dirtied during production. "For every gallon of ethanol produced," says Pimentel, "there's six to twelve gallons of effluent that have to be run through sewage treatment plants." Ultimately, they conclude, ethanol--regardless of its source--is a boondoggle. In the intervening year the pair has faced a storm of criticism, tagged as stooges of the oil industry and criticized for using stale data. The Natural Resources Defense Council called Pimentel "about as credible as the scientists who say climate change isn't a man-made problem."

Pimentel's Cornell colleagues say his calculations overestimate the energy costs associated with ethanol production, and while they agree that corn-based ethanol has significant shortcomings, they see potential in agricultural waste--especially if they can refine the process to maximize the energy locked inside each sugar molecule. Like Gossett, biological and environmental engineering professor Norm Scott, PhD '62, sees switchgrass ethanol as a viable option. "These are perennial grasses, so they don't need the same fertilization and machinery," says Scott, who teaches a course on sustainable energy systems.  "They're planted once and they're in the ground for years. You don't even need much herbicide and pesticide."

Perhaps more important in evaluating gasoline alternatives, says Scott, is the fact that almost any liquid fuel process yields less energy than its raw materials. "You're already in the business of net negative energy when you produce gasoline," he says. "There's no process that's 100 percent energy efficient." Pimentel has advocated conservation and efficiency, a stance his Cornell colleagues support. Yet for a nation of suburbs with spotty public transportation and extensive, truck-based supply chains, demand for liquid fuel isn't likely to ebb anytime soon. "There's clearly an opportunity to reduce dependence on foreign oil by introducing ethanol and biodiesel production," says Scott. "It won't be the whole answer, but it is significant."

-- Sharon Tregaskis '95