Here is a sampling of quotations from Cornell University faculty, students and staff that have appeared recently in the national and international news media:
"In the 21st century, a great university is a transnational university. A great university sees its constituency as the entire world. ... For the United States, higher education has long been a strong part of our export economy. So, all of these opportunities for collaboration and exchange serve to strengthen the position of American higher education in the international market. In addition, we also know that, as economies progress and develop and acquire greater technological sophistication, their ability to participate in systems of international trade is enhanced."
--President Jeffrey S. Lehman, discussing the increasing number of international partnerships and programs being established by American universities, in an interview with the Voice of America, July 23.
"It's unlike anything on the West Coast. ... If there's anything there, we're going to find it."
--George Hudler, professor of plant pathology, discussing efforts to discover whether a devastating tree disease, sudden oak death syndrome, is infecting trees in a nature preserve on Long Island, in The New York Times, July 29.
"The orchestra would be invisible, but it would mark the boundary between the reality of the audience and the fantasy on stage."
--Neal Zaslaw, the Herbert Gussman Professor of Music, discussing why opera composers began to sink orchestras in pits in the late 18th century, in The Los Angeles Times, July 19.
"All of us can agree that people who play by the rules and work hard should not live in poverty. On the surface, it would seem that raising the minimum wage paid to workers would help them out. But statistics tell a different story, one that should be considered by state legislators who plan to consider whether to raise the minimum wage in New York to $7.10 an hour from $5.15 when they go back into session this week."
--Richard Burkhauser, professor of policy analysis and management, in an opinion piece on minimum wage policies in The New York Times, July 18, in which he discusses why the minimum wage won't help most of the people living in poverty.
"These data indicate that a large distinction needs to be made between the risks for women who start hormone therapy around the time of menopause and those who wait until they are older."
--Edwin E. Salpeter, professor emeritus of physics, discussing a recent survey he co-authored that found that the benefits of hormone replacement therapy outweigh the risks for women under age 60, in WebMD Medical News and carried by MSN.com, July 15.
"As a field, we can make the smallest of electronic devices and have them perform very well. Now the big question is -- what are they good for?
--Paul McEuen, professor of physics, speaking about a carbon tube, or nanotube, about 10 atoms wide, developed by scientists at General Electric Co., that the company hopes will someday operate as the standard semiconductor in computers and other electronics. The article was carried on the Reuters wire service, July 7.
"The five-second rule is really a myth ... Bacteria are always looking to adhere to surfaces and obviously looking to sustain themselves. So clearly, if an organism is present, you touch something to that particular surface, the organism will be transferred to it."
--Bob Gravani, professor of food science, commenting about the so-called "five-second rule" on whether it is safe to eat food after it has dropped to the ground or the floor and then quickly picked up. He spoke on National Public Radio's "Morning Edition," July 5.
"CEOs have the same relationship problems and life-stage issues as the rest of us."
--Robert Michels, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at Weill Cornell Medical College, in "CEOs not shrinking from the couch," a Wall Street Journal article picked up in the June 28 edition of The Reading (Pa.) Eagle and elsewhere. Michels has clients among top executives in financial services and other industries.
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