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:

"Deregulation did essentially what we hoped it would do. It has been a success, a great success. But it has also brought problems the great increase in congestion and delay [at airports]. What I find most amazing is the total concentration on the supply side and the neglect on the demand side. Prices are too low. ... Charge what is proper to charge when demand exceeds supply."

--Alfred Kahn, the Robert Julius Thorne Professor Emeritus of Political Economy, in comments made at the Airports Council International-North America's October regional conference, during which he advised airlines and airports to work together to solve capacity and delay problems, reported in World Airport Week, Nov. 2.

"Putting in more butlers is not necessarily the answer, because Americans aren't used to that. But better service is."

--Chekitan Dev, associate professor in the School of Hotel Administration, comments on new luxuries offered by top hotels, in USA Today, Oct. 22.

"The original plan was just to have a party, for her. Then we both sat down and realized that this would be a much better idea."

--Yael Nagler, student in the Hotel School, describing her effort to arrange a meaningful 50th birthday for her mother, in which family and friends gathered at the John F. Kennedy Recreational Center playground on a desolate lot in Washington, D.C., and cleaned the place up, in the The Washington Post, Oct. 21.

"Time is not on our side. The thing that makes this problem more difficult is the speed of change today, not just the fact that more time is passing and there's more data out there."

--Thomas Hickerson, associate University Librarian and president of the Society of American Archivists, describes Cornell's efforts in digital data preservation funded by a $2.27 million grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities in a feature article for Knight Ridder Newspapers published in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Detroit News, among other newspapers, Oct. 15.