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:

"Norman Podhoretz once wrote this book explaining that the way to become well-known was to attack people who are well-known. But if you limit yourself to attacks, after a while you look around and there's nothing but smashed lumber and broken stones, and you haven't built anything. There you are standing in the debris and nobody's interested anymore."

--Alison Lurie, professor emeritus of English, discussing her latest novel and other works, in The New York Times, Sept. 5.

"The worst sound on the island is adolescent gulls begging their parents for food."

--James Morin, the Bartels Director of Shoals Marine Laboratory, describing life on Appledore Island, where Cornell offers summer courses in marine biology, in a feature article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, Sept. 4.

"The bottom line will be down the road, when we see how many employees opt for pay for performance. If the company can convince people that pay for performance will mean they can get higher pay, you will see a lot of employees going for it."

--Richard Hurd, professor of labor studies in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, discussing wage contracts in the wake of the settlement of the recent US West strike, in The New York Times Online, Sept. 1.

"What makes Indians Indians is the dream of living on communally held lands. The issue of land is very, very strong in all indigenous communities."

--Jose Barreiro, associate director of the American Indian Program, explaining the importance of land issues in treaties between Native Americans and governments, in The New York Times, Aug. 31.

"It creates an interesting contract between employer and employee.... The company is saying, 'Join us, take on some of the risk and perhaps you'll make out great.'"

--John Boudreau, director of the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, explaining the increasing practice of companies offering stock options in addition to salaries to employees, in The New York Times, Aug. 30.

"Then you feel [the sound] better than you hear the sound and I remembered the experience as a choirgirl."

--Katy Payne, visiting fellow, Laboratory of Ornithology, comparing the infrasonic vibrations of a pipe organ to the long-distance calls of elephants, on NPR's All Things Considered, Aug. 24.

"I don't think there's any great rhyme or reason to this."

--John E. Saidla, director of continuing education in the College of Veterinary Medicine, discussing the question of why some cultures eat certain animals that are considered pets in other cultures, in The New York Times, Aug. 23.

"With the G.I. Bill and the great influx of veterans, the bars came down."

--Professor Emeritus Milton Konvitz, describing limits and quotas on the admission of Jewish students in many American universities before World War II, in the Asbury Park Press, Aug. 8.