From here to fraternity: a glance at Cornell's streamlined home page

By Blaine P. Friedlander Jr.

Want to know tonight's menu at The Ivy Room, join the Indian student dance troupe Bhangra or apply to any college at Cornell? Help is two mouse clicks away on the new, streamlined university home page www.cornell.edu.

Seeking something to see or do? The campuswide events calendar is easy to use. Look up university tour schedules, art exhibit dates and Cornell Cinema show times. In just two clicks, you'll learn that François Truffaut's "Fahrenheit 451" will be shown Sept. 1 at the Willard Straight Hall theater and Robert Greenwald's "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" screens the next night.

Getting from here to there is a lot easier now. Thanks to new easy-to-read online maps, campus visitors no longer need to fumble their way from Uris Library to the Dairy Bar. (Can anyone resist Sticky Bunz, the cinnamon flavored ice cream with a caramel swirl and roasted pecans?)

Campus newcomers can open an interactive map to locate dining halls and residence halls, and those wishing to visit Cornell can access a New York state map with clearly marked highways. The site provides written directions to the Ithaca campus as well as a link to an interactive map on the site of the Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

Surrounded by the ghosts of glaciers, visitors can click to find information on Ithaca's gorgeous gorges, reputable restaurants and marvelous museums. The beauty of the campus and its architectural landmarks are a prominent feature of the new site.

Don't put up with parents, put those parents up -- at a local hotel. Using the new search feature, find hotel or bed-and-breakfast rooms in close proximity to campus.

Cornell offers nearly 4,000 courses of study and about 70 formal majors from about 100 departments. How long will it take you to find them? Two or three clicks under "academics" on the new site's menu bar moves you from entomology to French. The university's magnificent libraries and collections are far from ignored. Get a glimpse of the Cornell Costume and Textile Collection, which includes more than 9,000 items of clothing dating from the 18th century to today. Twirl around a1925 Eissner beaded dress or the 1783 Montgomery dress, each available in a three-dimensional, 360-degree view.

As you'd expect, students can enroll in courses, find new classes, obtain exam schedules, order transcripts, and pay tuition and meal plans online. Students also can click to learn that Cornell offers one of the oldest and strongest Greek systems in the country, with 45 fraternities and 18 sororities enrolling nearly 30 percent of the entire undergraduate student body.

So if you're hungry after a long day, it takes just a click to discover chefs at the Robert Purcell Union dining facility make hearthstone-baked pizza, prepare Ancho chili pesto and sautéed carbonara to order, and serve up delicious char-grilled portobello mushroom sandwiches and Spiedies. Oh, did we mention the hot Italian paninis and Cuban sandwiches? You have to hike to North Campus for those, but don't fret if you can't spare the time. You'll find that the Cascadeli at Willard Straight Hall delivers.

Time to get clicking!