Soundbites

Here is a sampling of quotations from Cornell University faculty, students and staff that have appeared recently in the national and international news media:

"We must restrict scientific immigration to the United States so as to improve the chances of scientific and technical development of the broadest range of countries. ... The movement of these newly trained experts may deprive another country of its desperately needed human potential at a critical stage of development."

--Roald Hoffmann, the Frank H.T. Rhodes Professor of Humane Letters, discussing a "scientific brain drain" of students from developing countries in a commentary in the journal Science, reported by Reuters, April 16.

"It's not as difficult for low-income families because the expectation of contribution from parents is so low. In terms of the money out of pocket, for low-income families there's no difference going to an Ivy League school and a state school. For middle-income families, there's a significant difference ... there's an importance in having socio-economic diversity, so that campuses reflect the country in general rather than a campus that is upper income."

--Donald A. Saleh, dean of admissions and financial aid, discussing financial aid in The New York Times, April 15.

"Producers develop a reverence for their trees. After the storm, I spoke with men 50 or 60 years old who had to stop talking because they were choking up. We've never really seen something of this magnitude, so we don't know how long it's going to take to recover."

--Lewis Staats, extension associate in Lake Placid, describing the impact of the January ice storm on sugar maple producers, in a Chicago Tribune wire service story that appeared in the New Orleans Times-Picayune and the Indianapolis Star, April 5.

"But the Sun presumably formed out of a similar cloud five billion years ago."

--Martin Harwit, professor emeritus of radiophysics and space research, discussing the discovery by his team of U.S. astronomers of a massive concentration of water vapor within a cloud of interstellar gas close to the Orion nebula, in The New York Times, April 12.

"Just the fact of the preoccupation with her in the press and elsewhere has had an impact, because it has diverted the political discourse toward her. Someone will write a learned piece on what happens when someone from the '60s generation became president, with a different set of moral values. And that's about it."

--Joel Silbey, professor of history, discussing the lasting impact of the Paula Jones lawsuit against President Clinton, in the Boston Globe, April 5.

"I would never propose an experiment of any kind that I thought could possibly harm a whale."

--Christopher Clark, the I.P. Johnson Senior Scientist in the Laboratory of Ornithology, discussing experiments using low-frequency sounds to study humpback whales, on CNN News, March 31.

"Deregulation is an admission that no one is smart enough to create systems that can substitute for markets."

--Alfred E. Kahn, professor emeritus of economics, commenting in an article about the deregulation of California's electric industry, in the San Jose Mercury News, March 30.