Briefs

Mail scam warning: Cornell Police are warning the campus community about an international mail fraud that has been reported in this area recently. Federal investigators have named this fraud scheme the "Nigerian prince scam." Previous incidents of this mail fraud were reported in early 1996. Cornell Senior Investigator Scott Hamilton said that a Cornell staff person reported receiving mail regarding this scheme in late September. The scheme involves a letter allegedly from a Nigerian businessman that is sent to a targeted American. The letter asks for the name and number of a bank account into which large sums of money can be transferred; in exchange, the American is promised a large fee. Federal authorities say some unsuspecting victims have actually traveled to Nigeria, where they were in danger of arrest by authorities or of physical injury by the perpetrators of the scam. Anyone receiving copies of this letter is asked to contact Hamilton at 255-8950.

Osgood scholarship: The Cornell Law School has announced the establishment of a scholarship endowment of more than $100,000 in honor of its former dean, Russell K. Osgood. With gifts from alumni, faculty and friends supporting the scholarship named in Osgood's honor, the fund will award the first student recipient during the 1999-2000 academic year. Income from the endowed scholarship will be used to support law students. Osgood left Cornell last May to assume the presidency of Grinnell College. The endowment was announced during the Law School's Advisory Council-Faculty-Student Dinner Sept. 25. Russell and Paula Osgood were in attendance at the dinner, and remarks were provided by Dean Charles W. Wolfram, Associate Dean John Siliciano and Advisory Council member Thomas T. Adams, who also served as co-chair of the scholarship campaign with alumni Jack G. Clarke, Milton G. Strom and Allan R. Tessler.

Forest Home paving: A section of Forest Home Drive is scheduled to be closed to traffic Tuesday through Thursday, Oct. 13-15, for pavement repairs by crews from the city and town of Ithaca. The portion of Forest Home Drive affected is from the driveway entrances to the parking lots at Toboggan Lodge and Martha Van Rensselaer Hall eastward to the Plantations Road intersection with Forest Home Drive. The actual paving schedule depends on the weather.

Tower Road reopening: This Monday, Oct. 12, motorists and bicyclists on campus will finally be given the green light to use all of Tower Road, a main east-west route through campus. Since mid-June, it's been closed to traffic in several different areas at various times to accommodate road improvements and utility work. With the completion of its last segment, a steam and chilled water reconstruction project between East and Garden avenues, Tower Road will now be completely open to the public.

"We were able to open up right on time thanks to our contract putting in a lot of overtime and coordination," said Frank Perry, a project engineer in the Planning, Design and Construction Department at Cornell. He added that "while all of Tower Road will be open to traffic, there will still be some additional finishing touches such as landscaping and clean-up work throughout the week." All of the Tompkins Consolidated Area Transit (TCAT) buses that have been detoured onto Garden Avenue during the reconstruction work will go back to their regular routes on Tower Road beginning Monday, Nov. 2.

For TCAT bus information, call 277-RIDE or see <www.tcatbus.com>.