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:

"Getting published comes up embarrassingly often. It's a distraction if you're just trying to work with the art of the story and then you have agents coming around. It makes students start thinking, 'My publication.' 'My profession.'"

--William Lamar Herrin, professor of English, discussing academic writing programs in an Associated Press wire story, June 5.

"It's not like this is the solution to some old problem. It's more like the start of a whole new set of questions."

--Stephen Strogatz, professor of theoretical and applied mechanics, discussing the mathematical idea that a few random connections added to a network of people, power stations, nerve cells or almost anything else quickly creates a "small world" where everything is close to everything else, quoted in Fox News Online, June 3.

"This is one of the greatest experiments we've ever had. To lose this case study in local custodianship would be a tragedy and a tremendous loss to the world."

--Charis Cussins, visiting professor of science and technology studies, commenting on controversy that might end the community-based conservation policies of the Kenya Wildlife Service, which is responsible for protecting the nation's game preserves from poachers and ecological disasters, quoted in the June issue of Outside Magazine.

"We have an archaic system for harvesting crops, and it all falls on the backs of migrant workers. There's no other group of workers forced to sleep in cars or tents. It's a very strange phenomenon that we haven't brought agriculture into the 20th century in this regard."

--Herbert Engman, director of the Cornell Migrant Program, discussing the living conditions of migrant workers in New York state in The New York Times, May 31.

(After this item appeared in the Cornell Chronicle,we were advised that Engman's statement to the Times referred to the general working conditions of migrant workers in the United States, and not specifically to conditions in New York State.)

"It's never been easy for women who don't complete high school to get a job, but today it's a recipe for disaster."

--Francine D. Blau, the Frances Perkins Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations, commenting on the need for technical skills in today's job marketplace, in the May 31 edition of the San Jose Mercury News.

"When we deregulated the airlines, we did not intend that there not be a vigorous antitrust policy. When you have deregulation, the antitrust laws bcome very important.... I'm a strong advocate of competition, and I don't want to go back to regulation. But you've got to distinguish legitimate competition from what is intended to drive competitors out and exploit consumers."

--Alfred Kahn, the R.J. Thorne Professor of Political Economics, discussing new Department of Transportation draft guidelines on anti-competitive activity, which he helped develop, in an interview in USA Today, April 6.

"Why should anyone talk to a respected scholar, and how could this type of research be done, if they know an employer can simply start a defamation lawsuit and have all those notes of their conversations turned over?"

--Nelson E. Roth, associate university counsel, discussing issues involved in a lawsuit against Kate Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research, by a nursing home company that was seeking to have her turn over her research notes to its lawyers, in The New York Times, April 1.