Cornell University News Service Releases

February, 2001

Index to all months

For the full text of any story, click on the headline. Electronic queries may be made to cunews@cornell.edu.

Robert B. McGinnis, sociologist and founder of Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research, dies at 73
Sociologist Robert B. McGinnis, founder and first director of the Cornell Institute for Social and Economic Research (CISER) and a pioneer in applying mathematical principles to quantitative social analysis, died Feb. 22 in Ithaca. He was 73. McGinnis joined the Cornell faculty as professor of sociology in 1961 after appointments at Florida State University and the University of Wisconsin. He was an early advocate for the application of rigorous quantitative methods of sociology. Partly due to his efforts, the American Sociological Association established a section on methodology in 1961. (February 28, 2001)

Global Seminar to receive 2001 Excellence in Distance Education Award
Cornell University's Global Seminar 480, a course that connects students in seven countries across 16 time zones, will be given the 2001 Excellence in Distance Education Award by the American Distance Education Consortium (ADEC) March 5 in Arlington, Va. The ADEC award will be presented at the Council for Agricultural Research Extension and Teaching luncheon at the Doubletree Hotel Crystal City, Arlington, Va. The award ceremony will be at approximately 12:45 p.m. (February 28, 2001)

Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, speaks March 6
Benjamin Zander, conductor of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, is guest speaker for the Johnson Graduate School of Management's Park Leadership Series, Tuesday, March 6, from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. in Barnes Hall auditorium. Zander's talk, titled "Music as Metaphor for Leadership," is free and open to the public. Zander has been conductor of the Boston Philharmonic since its formation 23 years ago. A highly accomplished and inspirational public speaker, he employs music to convey ideas about transformation and change in the world of business. He has appeared as a keynote speaker for numerous Fortune 500 companies, the State of the World Forum in San Francisco, NASA and the U.S. Army. In 1999, he was presented with the Crystal Award for his contributions to global understanding and peace. He is the subject of a full-length BBC documentary and was featured on a segment of "60 Minutes" last year. Zander's insights were published in a new book titled The Art of Possibility, co-authored with his wife, psychotherapist Rosamund Zander, and published by the Harvard Business School last fall. (February 27, 2001)

Insect-flight theorist Z. Jane Wang receives Office of Naval Research Young Investigator award
Z. Jane Wang, assistant professor of theoretical and applied mechanics at Cornell University, has received one of 26 Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program awards to continue her studies of insect flight dynamics in Cornell's College of Engineering. The Young Investigator Program supports basic research by exceptional faculty at U.S. universities with grants up to $100,000 per year for three years. ONR Young Investigators are selected on the basis of prior professional achievement, meritorious research proposals and strong support by their respective universities. Out of 191 proposals to ONR for fiscal year 2001, Wang's was the only one selected at a New York state-based university. (February 27, 2001)

Ford Foundation supports contemporary African art exhibit in Venice in June 2001
The Ford Foundation has awarded $300,000 to Cornell University's Africana Studies and Research Center to help strengthen and sustain the presence of contemporary African and African Diaspora artists on a global scale. The Ford grant supports the second phase of Cornell-affiliated projects (Africa in Venice and Forum for African Arts), under the direction of Salah Hassan, and includes participation of several pan-African artists in the 49th Venice Biennale this June. The Ford Foundation contributed to the project's initial phase in 1999. Hassan, Cornell associate professor of African and diaspora art history and visual culture at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell, is co-curator for the upcoming show with Olu Oguibe, a prominent New York-based Nigerian art historian and art critic. The exhibition, titled "Authentic/Ex-centric: Africa In and Out of Africa," will be premiered at the Venice Biennale. In addition to the exhibit, a scholarly companion book titled Authentic/Ex-centric: African Conceptualism in Global Contexts will be published in collaboration with two major European and African publishers. (February 27, 2001)

Ford Foundation grants $300,000 to support a contemporary African art exhibit in Venice in June 2001
The Ford Foundation has awarded $300,000 to Cornell University's Africana Studies and Research Center to help strengthen and sustain the presence of contemporary African and African Diaspora artists on a global scale. The Ford grant supports the second phase of Cornell-affiliated projects (Africa in Venice and Forum for African Arts), under the direction of Salah Hassan, and includes participation of several pan-African artists in the 49th Venice Biennale this June. The Ford Foundation contributed to the project's initial phase in 1999. Hassan, Cornell associate professor of African and diaspora art history and visual culture at the Africana Studies and Research Center at Cornell, is co-curator for the upcoming show with Olu Oguibe, a prominent New York-based Nigerian art historian and art critic. The exhibition, titled "Authentic/Ex-centric: Africa In and Out of Africa," will be premiered at the Venice Biennale. In addition to the exhibit, a scholarly companion book titled Authentic/Ex-centric: African Conceptualism in Global Contexts will be published in collaboration with two major European and African publishers. (February 27, 2001)

Columbia drug plan conference March 3
Luis Alberto Moreno, the Colombian ambassador to the United States, and U.S. Congressman Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.) will discuss Plan Colombia, the $7.5 billion strategy aimed at breaking the grip of drug traffickers and negotiating with left-wing guerillas in that country, at a conference at Cornell University Saturday, March 3. It is free and open to the public. "Plan Colombia -- Is It the Solution?" will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. in Call Auditorium of Kennedy Hall on campus. It is organized by the Colombian Student Association and the Latin American Studies Program (LASP) at Cornell. (February 27, 2001)

Betty Friedan: the new problem is work/family balance
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- In her classic 1963 book The Feminine Mystique, feminist Betty Friedan identified "the problem that has no name" -- the dissatisfaction many women of her generation felt at being confined to the traditional roles of wife and mother. But now, Friedan, a Cornell University visiting distinguished professor, says, "There is a new 'problem that has no name,' and that is the toll that outmoded employment models and new-economy policies such as deregulation and privatization have had on working families." According to Friedan, most jobs are still based on the model of the employee with a non-working partner who takes care of the family and the details of life. But as the global economy has drawn increasing numbers of women into the paid labor force, this model is out of step with reality. She says: "No one has moved to shorten the work week. In fact, it's getting longer. We still do not have a national child-care policy. The United States is by no means the leader, or a role model, for the world in the restructuring of work that takes seriously the equality of women and men." (February 27, 2001)

Poet A.R. Ammons dead at 75
A.R. Ammons, master of modern American poetry, died Feb. 25 at his home in Ithaca, N.Y. He was 75. Ammons, Cornell University's Goldwin Smith Professor of Poetry emeritus, was winner of two National Book Awards, one in 1973 for Collected Poems, 1951-1971, and another in 1993 for Garbage. He has won virtually every other major prize for poetry in the United States, including: the Frost Medal for Distinguished Achievement in Poetry over a Lifetime, in 1994, given by the Poetry Society of America; the Bolligen Prize for Sphere: The Form of a Motion, from Yale University; the National Book Critics Circle Award of Poetry for A Coast of Trees; the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize; as well as a Lannan Foundation Award, a Guggenheim fellowship and a MacArthur "genius award" fellowship. In 1998, he received the Tanning Prize, a $100,000 award for "outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry." In 1990 he was inducted into the National Institute and Academy of Arts and Letters. (February 27, 2001)

Bartels undergraduate fellowships will support students with a commitment to community service
Cornell University undergraduates with a passion for social change can exercise their instincts for community service and receive credits through the new Henry E. and Nancy Horton Bartels Undergraduate Action Research Fellowship Program. The Bartels program is a first for Cornell. Designed by Professor Davydd Greenwood, director of Cornell's Institute for European Studies, and coordinated by the Cornell Public Service Center, the program is a response to the growing community service movement among today's college students. Undergraduate students at Cornell are engaging in community service projects but, until now, with only limited access to faculty support, said Leonardo Vargas-Méndez, interim director of the Public Service Center. (February 20, 2001)

$1.5M Keck grant to learn how cells communicate
A $1.5 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation has established a research/training program in biophysics to be conducted jointly by Cornell University in Ithaca and Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City. Through the program, called Cellular and Molecular Biophysics of Signal Transduction, biomedical scientists and student researchers hope to discover the chemical and physical codes in signal transduction, the exceedingly complex and incompletely understood system of cell communication through molecule-to-molecule handshakes used throughout the body to get its most important business done. (February 19, 2001)

Astronomers describe search for molecules of life
SAN FRANCISCO -- Using spectral tools for infrared and submillimeter wave observations, astronomers are looking for the building blocks of life in all the right places: where there might be oxygen and where it is wet. "We may now have the tools to find those elements that are the preconditions for life." says Martin Harwit, professor emeritus of astronomy at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. (February 14, 2001)

Tiny silicon devices measure, count and sort biomolecules
SAN FRANCISCO -- Up to now, most biologists have studied the molecules of life in test tubes, watching how large numbers of them behave. But now researchers at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., are using nanotechnology to build microscopic silicon devices with features comparable in size to DNA, proteins and other biological molecules -- to count molecules, analyze them, separate them, perhaps even work with them one at a time. The work is called "nanofluidics." (February 14, 2001)

Derivatives could have lessened California blackouts
SAN FRANCISCO -- If California energy officials had paid closer attention to mathematics and the commodities market yesterday, much of the state could be experiencing less of an energy crisis today. A systematic use of market contracts, called options, purchased before the crisis happened, might have alleviated it, says Philip Protter, a researcher at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y. Protter stresses that it is unclear why new types of options, called energy derivatives, were not used to good effect. This, he says, could have been the fault of regulators, or utilities themselves, "or the inadequacies of what is, after all, a new kind of market." (February 14, 2001)

Author's style can make a difference in selling science book
SAN FRANCISCO -- In 1962, Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, a pioneering exposure of the hazards of the pesticide DDT, became one of the most influential books in the history of science and helped set the stage for the environmental movement. But the book had modest sales. In 1980, Carl Sagan's book Cosmos, an overview of how science and civilization grew up together, based on his television series of the same name, sold 900,000 copies in its 50 weeks on the Publishers Weekly best-seller list, phenomenal for a science book in its time. (February 14, 2001)

Former Soviet biological warfare plants still pose threat
SAN FRANCISCO -- Despite recent efforts by Washington to turn pathogens into panaceas, Russia's once-immense biological weapons (BW) program continues to be a cause for anxiety. That country's research institutes and production facilities are poorly guarded and susceptible to corruption and theft, all causes for concern about the proliferation of lethal microbes and bioweapons expertise, says a Cornell University researcher. In addition, Russia continues to deny access to four Ministry of Defense biological weapons facilities. "We have no proof, but there are concerns that Russia is restricting access to retain its biological weapons capability. We hope there are other reasons," says Kathleen Vogel, a postdoctoral associate at the Peace Studies Program at Cornell, in Ithaca, N.Y. (February 14, 2001)

James Garbarino, expert on teen violence, to give Yudowitz Law School lecture Feb. 28
James Garbarino, the E.L. Vincent Professor of Human Development at Cornell University, will give the 2001 Bernard Yudowitz Lecture at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 28, in the MacDonald Moot Court Room in the Cornell Law School's Myron Taylor Hall. Garbarino will speak on "Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent," which is the title of his latest book (The Free Press, 1999). Garbarino is the co-director of the Family Life Development Center at Cornell and the author of 15 other books. Lost Boys draws on extended interviews with incarcerated teen murderers and tries to make sense of their words through the lens of the latest child development research. Garbarino has been studying violence and the impact of violence on children and youth in the United States and around the world for 25 years. He will discuss how, to vulnerable boys, violence becomes normal or even "the right thing to do," and how, to these boys, violence makes moral sense and seems necessary for survival. (February 14, 2001)

Rev. James M. Lawson to deliver Martin Luther King address Feb. 22
The Rev. James M. Lawson Jr. will deliver Cornell University's second Martin Luther King Jr. lecture this month at 4:30 p.m. in Sage Chapel on Thursday, Feb 22. Lawson's talk is titled "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community?" It is free and open to the public. Lawson was a close friend and colleague of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and a key thinker in non-violent social strategies, said Robert Johnson, director of Cornell United Religious Work, which is sponsoring the talk. (February 13, 2001)

Engineering Day to be held at Pyramid Mall, Feb. 17
Make a molecule out of candy, produce ooze or dissect a floppy disk. All three activities will be possible at Engineering Day at Pyramid Mall, Lansing, Saturday, Feb. 17, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Other activities will include: constructing a truss from tinkertoys, toothpicks and marshmallows; and exploring working solar cells, wind turbines, a double-hinged pendulum, a backwards fan cart, and a ping-pong ball suspended by air. (February 13, 2001)

Proposals requested for 2001 community-project grants
The committee for the 2001 Robert S. Smith Award for community progress and innovation is calling for proposals from local community organizations and agencies. Proposals are due by April 13, 2001. An award or awards of up to $3,500 will be given to a sponsoring program using a Cornell University student or students to help carry out a community development project. (February 12, 2001)

How rock-derived nutrients and toxic elements accumulate
How do rain, sea salts, dust, plants, climate and time affect the chemistry of soil? At what threshold, for example, does the role of rain dramatically change the soil chemistry? What is the nature of the relationships between soil development and ecosystem change? These and similar questions relating to the behavior of rock-derived nutrients and the accumulation of toxic elements in relation to ecosystem age and climate will be explored at the Hawaii Ecosystems Project, thanks to a three-year, $500,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Louis A. Derry, assistant professor of geological sciences at Cornell University, will receive $150,000 of the half million dollar award and will work in collaboration with Oliver Chadwick, a geologist at the University of California-Santa Barbara, and Jon Chorover, an agronomist at Pennsylvania State University. (February 9, 2001)

Finding the 3-D structure of human cancer proteins
ITHACA, N.Y -- Cornell University and Harvard Medical School are collaborating to decipher the structures of proteins associated with human cancers. The goal, says Dan Thiel, Cornell assistant professor of molecular biology and genetics, "is to determine the three-dimensional structures of gene products associated with human cancers, starting with breast cancer." As the Harvard research group identifies and purifies specific proteins, samples will be sent to the Macromolecular Diffraction Facility (MacCHESS) at the Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS), an X-ray diffraction laboratory where the protein's three-dimensional structure will be calculated. Thiel is director of MacCHESS. (February 8, 2001)

How deadly foodborne Listeria bacterium travels
Cornell University food scientists and veterinarians have won a four-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to investigate how Listeria monocytogenes -- the deadliest of all foodborne bacteria -- evolve and travel in food, humans, animals, water and soil. "Listeria is everywhere. It's in the food processing plants, it's in animals, it's in the soil, it's in the water," says Martin Wiedmann, Cornell assistant professor of food science and the primary investigator on the project. "And because it can be found in so many places, it provides the ideal model for studying the evolution and ecology of bacterial pathogens." (February 8, 2001)

Former principal Joe Clark, subject of the movie 'Lean on Me,' to speak at Cornell Tradition convocation
Popular and controversial educator Joe Clark will be the keynote speaker for the sixth annual Cornell Tradition convocation on the Cornell University campus, Feb. 23. Best known as the bullhorn-toting, baseball-bat-wielding principal of the rough Eastside High School in Patterson, N.J., from 1983 to 1990, Clark was the subject of the hit movie Lean on Me, starring Morgan Freeman. A former Army drill instructor with a bachelor's from William Paterson College and a master's in administration supervision and doctorate equivalence from Seton Hall University, Clark sees education as a mission. After only two years of his hard-nosed leadership at Eastside High, the formerly raucous institution was declared a model school by New Jersey's governor, and Clark himself was named one of the nation's 10 "Principals of Leadership" in 1986. (February 8, 2001)

Cornell community members can enter a contest for the best business ideas and possibly get their ideas funded
Cornell University students, faculty and alumni are invited to enter the first annual Business Idea Competition sponsored by the Big Red Venture Fund, a student-managed combined fund and business incubator for start-up ventures. The deadline for entering the competition is March 31. The competition winners will not only win cash prizes -- first place is $10,000, second is $2,500 and third is $1,000 -- but also a thorough evaluation of their business ideas by the Big Red Venture Fund (BRVF) for potential funding and the opportunity to draw on the resources of the fund's incubator to help bring the businesses to life. However, contestants are under no obligation to pursue their business idea. (February 8, 2001)

Report looks at the 'new media' workers
ITHACA, N.Y. --- Workers in the burgeoning Internet/digital design industry jockey for survival in one of the fastest growing employment sectors in the United States. Confronted with rapid changes in "new media" markets and technology, these highly-skilled professionals -- as well as their employers -- face serious labor challenges, according to Susan Christopherson, a professor of city and regional planning at Cornell University. She is one of four co-authors of a new report called "Net Working: Work Patterns and Workforce Policies for the New Media Industry." "Net Working" is a landmark survey of a highly accomplished group of new media workers in New York City's "Silicon Alley." Published by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington, D.C., the report finds that new media professionals are largely self-taught, remain with an employer for an average of six months and spend more than half of their work week sustaining employment. The authors offer strategies to improve formal training and certification programs, hiring procedures, employees' compensation and job security for these workers. (February 7, 2001)

New York City Schools Chancellor Harold Levy to speak on teaching fellows program
Harold Levy, chancellor of the New York City public schools and a Cornell University alumnus, will be on campus Feb. 13 to speak about the field of teaching and to recruit Cornell students for the New York City Teaching Fellows program. Cornell Career Services is sponsoring Levy's visit to campus for the purpose of introducing students to career opportunities in the New York City public schools. The talk, in 105 Ives Hall beginning at 5 p.m., is open to the public, but priority will be given to Cornell students. (February 7, 2001)

Walter Cohen will step down as Cornell Graduate School dean
Walter I. Cohen, vice provost and dean of the Cornell University Graduate School, is stepping down after eight years as dean, Cornell Provost Biddy Martin announced today (Feb. 7). Cohen will step down as dean effective June 30, Martin said. He will remain as vice provost and will continue to serve on the Graduate School faculty as a professor of comparative literature. (February 7, 2001)

Book helps parents and youths navigate 'coming out'
Every person's odyssey to sexual awareness is different. But for a gay, lesbian, transgendered or bisexual teen-ager, disclosing his or her sexual preferences to parents is a particularly difficult milestone. How to navigate this issue, whether a parent, adolescent or therapist, is the focus of a new book., Mom, Dad. I'm Gay. How Families Negotiate Coming Out (American Psychological Association, 2001) by Ritch C. Savin-Williams, Cornell University professor of human development and a licensed clinical psychologist. The author takes a three-prong approach to the experience of "coming out of the closet." He not only draws on interviews with 164 young men and women, but also discusses his perspectives and experiences as a clinical and developmental psychologist who specializes in sexual minority issues. In addition, he incorporates insights derived from empirical studies as he documents the wide variety of experiences that young people have when they reveal their sexual orientation to their parents. (February 6, 2001)

Researchers Cool and Gouldin receive Defense Department awards for equipment
Cornell University researchers Terrill Cool, professor of applied physics, and Frederick Gouldin, professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering, have been awarded research instrumentation grants from the Department of Defense (DoD)/U.S. Army. The awards are among 242 to 99 academic institutions, totaling $45 million, announced by the DoD. The grants are made under the Defense University Research Instrumentation Program, which supports the purchase of state-of-the-art equipment that augments or develops university capabilities to carry out cutting-edge defense research. (February 6, 2001)

Cotton clothes carry fungal spores into hospitals
Clothing, particularly cotton, worn by both visitors and patients in hospitals are a leading source of transmission of spores of Aspergillus fungus, according to a study by two Cornell University textile experts. The common fungus has long been known to pose a potentially deadly threat of infection in hospital patients with damaged or impaired immune systems. Cotton was found to harbor and disperse the spores of Aspergillus more than other fabrics in the study. Aspergillus is a term that refers to a group of airborne mold fungi that are commonly inhaled in all environments worldwide. (February 5, 2001)

Telemetry and geometry capture distant asteroid images
Will this be the gang that could shoot straight? For the past year, engineers and computer programmers from Johns Hopkins University's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL), assisted by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the imaging team at Cornell University, have been figuring out how to slew a spacecraft precisely and aim its camera perfectly for the final act of its mission: alighting on an asteroid. On Feb. 12 the Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft, known as NEAR Shoemaker, will attempt to land on Eros, an Earth-crossing asteroid about 196 million miles from Earth. In mid-descent, an onboard camera will point toward the surface and hopefully send back the best images ever from a small, solar-system body. The navigational prowess of APL and JPL will be complemented by the imaging expertise of the Cornell research team. (February 5, 2001)

Asteroid landing may solve puzzles of Eros geology
As NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous spacecraft, known as NEAR Shoemaker, closes in on asteroid 433 Eros, Cornell University astronomers hope that surface details as small as a hand-size rock will be captured by the camera before the spacecraft bumps down on the boulder-strewn surface Feb. 12. Since last October, the NEAR imaging team has been puzzling over strange surface features of Eros seen in new, high-resolution images. There is the hope that the close-up images taken in the final few minutes before the spacecraft drops onto the surface will help to answer their questions about the geology of the 22-mile-long asteroid more than 196 million miles (316 million kilometers) from Earth. (February 5, 2001)

Business experts converge at Feb. 16 symposium to discuss the future of start-up ventures
To give the Cornell University community an opportunity to hear from a wide range of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists from around the world, the Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club, a student-run organization, is sponsoring the Entrepreneurship Symposium Feb. 16 at Cornell's Johnson Graduate School of Management. About a dozen speakers, including successful entrepreneurs, young Cornellians running their first start-up companies, venture capitalists, intellectual property lawyers and business incubation specialists will be on hand from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to discuss pressing issues central to the development of high-growth ventures. Teo Dagi of Cordova Ventures will discuss the state of the industry and an optimal market structure. Howard Lee of Crystal Internet Ventures will discuss the continued dominant role of the Internet in the market for start-up ventures. (February 2, 2001)

Citigroup grant supports minority business education
To strengthen the pool of minority executive talent available to corporate America, the Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University has launched the "Pipeline to the 21st Century" initiative. Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney has presented the school with $80,000, the first installment of a two-year $160,000 commitment, to help fund the initiative's events. The gifts will help support three important programs of the Office for Women and Minorities in Business at the Johnson School. The first program, Johnson Means Business, will consist of weekends at Cornell for underrepresented minority students who are within one to two years of applying to business school. Hosted by current MBA students, the prospective minority MBAs will learn how to prepare and apply for MBA admission at Cornell, how to finance an MBA education and the careers available to people with MBA degrees. It will also offer prospective students the opportunity to interact with Cornell faculty and students. For each weekend, the prospective MBA students, whose transportation and meals will be covered by the grant, will stay with current MBA students. (February 1, 2001)