Little Red; Cornell Wins Lawsuits; The Search Is On; Student Drowns in Gorge; Princeton Bound; New Leader for AAP; Mathios Steps Up; Looking for Ladybugs; Opening in October; Give My Regards to Davy; Baby, You Can Drive My Car; Good Neighbor; Prom Nights
Cornell Wins Lawsuits
A federal judge has dismissed Kevin Vanginderen's $1 million libel suit against the University. Vanginderen '83, a lawyer in California, claimed an article in the online archive of the Cornell Chronicle from March 1983 was damaging to his professional reputation. The item in the paper's police blotter reported that Vanginderen had been charged with third-degree burglary. He later pleaded guilty to petit larceny. "This is a real victory for the library in terms of being able to make documentary material accessible," says University librarian Anne Kenney. "I do share concerns that individuals might have about potentially embarrassing material being made accessible via the Internet, but I don't think you can go back and distort the public record."
And in June, a jury awarded Cornell $184 million in its six-year-old patent-infringement suit against Hewlett-Packard. The judgment, which followed a two-week civil trial in Syracuse, involved the company's use of a method to increase microprocessing speed invented by H. C. Torng, professor emeritus of electrical and computer engineering. University attorneys claimed that HP earned $36 billion in sales of equipment that included the technology, which Torng patented in 1989. Now retired and living in California, Torng will receive 25 percent of the settlement.
The Search Is On
A search committee has been formed to choose a successor to Provost Biddy Martin. In the meantime, Deputy Provost David Harris is acting provost. Martin stepped down in August to become chancellor of the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The committee, chaired by astronomy professor Martha Haynes and comprising faculty, staff, and students, will follow Cornell's tradition of appointing an internal candidate as the University's chief academic and operating officer.
Student Drowns in Gorge
Eighteen-year-old Douglas Lowe '11 drowned while swimming in Fall Creek gorge in mid-June. Lowe, of Shelton, Connecticut, had just completed his freshman year in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations and was taking a summer course. Located under the suspension bridge on West Campus, the swimming hole where Lowe died is a popular location despite its grim history. It has claimed the lives of at least two other swimmers: Sabartomo "Danny" Sastrowardoyo '87 in 1986 (a memorial to him is posted on a nearby trail) and twenty-three-year-old graduate student Aravind Lakshmanan, who died in 2006. The spot is especially dangerous because of a twenty-foot hole at the base of the falls, which can trap swimmers underwater when the current is strong.
Princeton Bound
Vice president for planning and budget Carolyn Ainslie has accepted a position as Princeton's vice president for finance, beginning in October. Ainslie has been at Cornell for twenty-two years, overseeing fiscal processes that have resulted in a decade of balanced budgets. She was one of the architects of the new financial aid policy that will make the University more affordable for lower-and middle-income students, and has worked on initiatives including life sciences expansion, capital campaign planning, and faculty recruitment and retention. Starting as a budget analyst in 1986, she worked her way up Cornell's ranks and was named vice president in 1998. Her deputy, Paul Streeter, MBA '95, has been named interim vice president for planning and budget.
At Princeton, Ainslie will oversee six offices: asset administration; budget; controller; operations; payroll, payables, and taxation; and risk management. She steps into the job in the midst of Princeton's largest fundraising campaign ever, an effort launched last fall to raise $1.75 billion over five years.
New Leader for AAP
The College of Architecture, Art, and Planning met its new dean on September 1. Dean Kent Kleinman is an architect and former chair of the Department of Architecture, Interior Design, and Lighting at Parsons the New School for Design in New York City. He follows Mohsen Mostafavi (2004-07), now dean of Harvard's Graduate School of Design. One of Kleinman's first projects in his five-year term will be to move forward with Paul Milstein Hall, the new AAP building, whose design has been a point of contention among faculty and alumni.
Mathios Steps Up
Professor Alan Mathios began a five-year term as dean of the College of Human Ecology on July 1; he had been interim dean since Lisa Staiano-Coico became provost of Temple University more than a year ago. A professor of policy analysis and management, Mathios has been at Cornell since 1992 and served as senior associate dean for academic affairs and undergraduate education from 2004 to 2007.
Looking for Ladybugs
Where have all the ladybugs gone? Cornell scientists are hoping kids around the country will help find the answer. The Lost Ladybug Project, funded by $2 million from the National Science Foundation, aims to help scientists understand why some species of ladybugs have proliferated while others have declined. The nine-spotted ladybug, the official New York State insect, hasn't been seen in the state in sixteen years. The project's website will give children instructions for proper collection and photography along with materials on biodiversity and other topics. The goal is to create one of the largest, most accurate, and most accessible biological databases ever developed by a citizen-science project—and get some 10,000 kids excited about science.
Give My Regards to Davy
Back in 1922, registrar David Fletcher Hoy 1891—a bench coach and devoted supporter of Cornell baseball—threw out the first pitch when Hoy Field was inaugurated and named in his honor. Since then, the ball had been locked in a safe in the family home in Camden, Maine. But in July, grandson David Fletcher Hoy III returned it to campus, where it will be displayed in Kroch Library. Says Hoy: "I think it belongs here."
Baby, You Can Drive My Car
Ithaca Carshare is finally motoring along after two years of planning. Six fuel-efficient Nissan hatchbacks are available to members of the program who pay annual or monthly fees, as well as hourly and per-mile fees when they use the cars. The program has received support from the City of Ithaca, the Tompkins County Transportation Council, EcoVillage, and Ithaca College, and Cornell made a major contribution by purchasing 2,000 memberships and offering discounts to students and faculty who are part of other University transportation programs. The cars are available by reservation at spots in Collegetown, on the Cornell and IC campuses, and at EcoVillage.
Good Neighbor
President David Skorton has announced that Cornell will provide more than $1 million for initiatives to improve Ithaca's transportation and infrastructure, and expand affordable housing. The projects, ranging from the development of housing on University land to funding for rideshare programs, are part of Cornell's ten-year, $20 million initiative (announced in 2007) that aims to increase University support for the Ithaca community. In 2008-09, Cornell will fund 24 percent of the projects, while federal and state governments pay for 56 percent and local sponsors put up 20 percent.
Prom Nights: 'Jameelia Ricks and Marielle Evangelista, Ithaca High School, 2008' is part of Mary Ellen Mark's "Prom Series," on view at the Johnson Museum through late October. Mark photographed students at twelve dances across America; the museum is showing thirty images from the series, all black-and-white Polaroids.