A hardware failure on Sunday, June 15, has caused a major disruption of e-mail service at Cornell (and at Cornell Alumni Magazine). According to CIT, incoming messages are being queued and will be delivered as soon as the problem is resolved. For the Daily Sun report, click here. CIT updates are posted here.

Update, Wednesday, June 18: most service has been restored; queued messages are being sent.

Statement from Polley Ann McClure, VP of information technologies

An eighteen-year-old freshman drowned Thursday evening in Fall Creek Gorge, near the suspension bridge. Douglas Lowe '11 of Shelton, Connecticut, was a student in the ILR school.

It took state police divers two hours to recover Lowe's body from a 20-foot hole at the base of the waterfall. It is a hazardous place for swimmers, especially ones who are unfamiliar with the area. Overhanging underwater ledges, carved by centuries of erosion, can trap swimmers, and treacherous currents in the fast-moving water go in all directions, including up and down, according to an Ithaca Journal report.

Lowe was one of some dozen people swimming in the gorge, which is accessible from a stone staircase at the Phi Gamma Delta parking lot off McGraw Place. That section of the gorge has a tragic history of drownings, including Sabartomo "Danny" Sastrowardoyo '87 in 1986 and visiting student Navin Parthasarathy in 2007.

During Reunion 2008, ABC News senior correspondent Claire Shipman presented her assessment of the current presidential race to a large and attentive audience of alumni -- all of them grateful to be escaping the oppressive heat in air-conditioned Bailey Hall. Shipman's light-hearted talk, "The Road to the White House 2008," was peppered with humorous anecdotes and enlivened by accounts of her personal encounters with Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain, as well as President Bush. After the talk, she attended a reception in the Memorial Room of Willard Straight (not air-conditioned) where, between gulps of water, she said she was grateful that the attendees hadn't confused her with ABC News colleague Kate Snow '91, a Cornell alumna and recent CAM interview subject.

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Cornell Alumni Magazine has a booth in Barton Hall during Reunion. Please stop by during the All-Alumni Affair, from 11AM to 2PM on Friday and Saturday, to meet members of the staff and tell us what you like and dislike about the magazine -- and this website. I'll see you there!

Jim Roberts '71

Editor & Publisher