Cornell University News Service Releases

May, 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.

Board of Trustees votes to close Ward Center for Nuclear Studies
ITHACA -- The Cornell University Board of Trustees today (May 25, 2001) voted to accept the recommendation of President Hunter R. Rawlings to begin the process to close the Ward Center for Nuclear Studies and to decommission the nuclear reactor associated with the Center. The decision by the trustees was taken after a 40-minute, in-depth discussion in which the trustees reviewed both the written and oral arguments that had been submitted to them on both sides of the question. (May 29, 2001)

Cornell Board of Trustees votes to close Ward Center for Nuclear Studies
ITHACA -- The Cornell University Board of Trustees today (May 25, 2001) voted to accept the recommendation of President Hunter R. Rawlings to begin the process to close the Ward Center for Nuclear Studies and to decommission the nuclear reactor associated with the Center. The decision by the trustees was taken after a 40-minute, in-depth discussion in which the trustees reviewed both the written and oral arguments that had been submitted to them on both sides of the question. (May 27, 2001)

Johnson Museum director, Franklin Robinson, reappointed for five-year term
Cornell University Provost Biddy Martin announced May 24 the reappointment of Franklin W. Robinson, the Richard J. Schwartz Director of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. The appointment, which is for five years beginning July 1, 2002, has been forwarded to the Executive Committee of the Cornell Board of Trustees. (May 25, 2001)

Robert C. Richardson elected to American Philosophical Society
Robert C. Richardson, the Floyd R. Newman Professor of Physics and vice provost for research at Cornell University, has been elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. Richardson also is a member the Laboratory of Atomic and Solid State Physics at Cornell, where he conducts research in the unusual properties of solids and liquids at temperatures closely approaching absolute zero. In 1996 he shared the Nobel Prize in physics with David Lee, the J.G. White Distinguished Professor in Physical Sciences at Cornell, and Douglas Osheroff, now professor of physics at Stanford University, for the discovery of superfluidity in liquid Helium-3. (May 24, 2001)

Cornell senior Jeremy Kubica receives Hertz graduate fellowship
Jeremy Kubica, who will graduate this spring from Cornell University with a degree in computer science, has received a graduate fellowship from the Fannie and John Hertz Foundation. The award pays tuition plus a generous stipend for living expenses for five years of graduate study. Kubica will pursue a Ph.D. in robotics at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Kubica grew up in Warwick, R.I., where he attended Toll Gate High School. His interest in computer science started in second grade when, he said, he began programming his own games on a Commodore 64 computer at his school. (May 24, 2001)

Hans Bethe awarded Astronomical Society of the Pacific gold medal
Nobel laureate Hans Bethe, emeritus professor of physics at Cornell University and one of the world's most honored scientists, has been named the winner of the prestigious Bruce Gold Medal by the Astronomical Society of the Pacĩc (ASP), one of America's oldest and largest astronomy organizations. The Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal is the ASP's highest honor, and one of the most coveted awards in the astronomical community. It is presented for a lifetime of outstanding research in astronomy. (May 24, 2001)

Cornell student race-car team triumphs for sixth time at Formula SAE contest in Pontiac, Mich.
Cornell University engineering undergraduates swept the competition at the annual International Formula SAE collegiate design competition at the Pontiac, Mich., Silverdome, which began Wednesday, May 16, and ended Sunday, May 20. The SAE (for Society of Automotive Engineers) competition, regarded as the premier and largest engineering student competition in the world, pits SAE student members against each other to conceive, design, fabricate and race with small formula-style cars. (May 23, 2001)

Love-sick teens risk depression, alcohol use, delinquency
Teenagers in love have a higher risk for depression, alcohol problems and delinquency than teens who do not get romantically involved, finds a Cornell University sociologist. And love-sick girls, especially younger ones, are at an even higher risk for depression than boys. The greater vulnerability of teen girls to romances might explain, to a great extent, why females begin exhibiting higher rates of depression in adolescence than males, says Kara Joyner, an assistant professor of policy analysis and management in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell. The analysis of almost 8,200 teens is the first nationally representative study to examine the impact of romantic relationships on adolescent depression. It was co-authored with J. Richard Udry of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is published in the Journal of Health and Social Behavior (December 2000). (May 22, 2001)

Everyday traffic noise harms health of children
Even the low-level but chronic noise of everyday local traffic can cause stress in children and raise blood pressure, heart rates and levels of stress hormones, reports a new study by a Cornell University environmental psychologist and his European co-authors. "We also found that girls exposed to the traffic noise become less motivated, presumably from the sense of helplessness that can develop from noise they couldn't control," says Gary Evans, an international expert on environmental stress, such as noise, crowding and air pollution. (May 22, 2001)

Eleven Cornell Tradition students will use their awards to benefit others
Since 1989 the Cornell Tradition, an alumni-endowed student recognition program at Cornell University, has been honoring its own graduating seniors with Senior Recognition Awards. The 11 Tradition fellows who have been honored with the awards this year for their community service and leadership efforts will use their monetary winnings to benefit others. The Cornell Tradition was established in 1982 through an anonymous gift of $7 million. The program awards 600 fellowships each year to Cornell undergraduate students based on their work experience, campus and/or community service, leadership and academic achievement. (May 22, 2001)

Board of Trustees to meet May 25-26 in Ithaca
The Cornell University Board of Trustees will meet in Ithaca on Friday, May 25, and Saturday, May 26. The Executive Committee of the board will hold a brief open session at the start of its meeting at 9 a.m. Friday, May 25, in Ballroom B of the Statler Hotel on campus. The open session will include a discussion of the 2001-02 financial plan for the contract colleges. The full board will convene in open session Friday at 3:15 p.m., and in closed, executive session at 9 a.m. Saturday, in the Trustee Meeting Room of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art. During the open session, the board will hear reports from President Hunter Rawlings; from Dean of the Faculty J. Robert Cooke; from Dawn Darby, chair of the Employee Assembly; and the annual report from Robert Harris, vice provost for diversity and faculty development, on "Progress Toward Diversity and Inclusion." The 2001-02 financial plan and contract college budget also will be presented. (May 21, 2001)

Seventeen students receive NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowships have been awarded to 17 students at Cornell University. The fellowships, which provide students with an $18,000 annual stipend for three years and a cost-of-education allowance to the university, in lieu of tuition, of $10,500 per student, per year, are among approximately 900 awarded during this year on a competitive basis to outstanding graduate students in mathematics, engineering and the physical, biological, behavioral and social sciences. (May 18, 2001)

Knight Biggerstaff, who worked with Marshall trying to avert Chinese civil war and fended off McCarthyism, dies at 95
Knight Biggerstaff, a Cornell University professor emeritus of history who assisted U.S. Gen. George C. Marshall's effort in 1946 to construct a peace plan to avert a Chinese civil war, died of bronchial pneumonia May 13 in Ithaca. He was 95. Because he was a China expert at the height of the Cold War, an acquaintance of Sinologist Owen Lattimore and because of his affiliation with the Institute of Pacific Relations, Biggerstaff was falsely branded as a Communist sympathizer in the 1950s. For about two years, Biggerstaff waged a battle -- ultimately successful -- against the federal government to preserve his reputation. (May 18, 2001)

Mediation symposium to examine bitter disputes
International negotiator and former U.S. Sen. George J. Mitchell will be presented with a $25,000 award at the New York Press Club May 29 at an event tailored to show that there is hope of resolution in even the most bitter disputes. Theodore W. Kheel, president of the New York-based Foundation for Prevention and Early Resolution of Conflict (PERC), will present the award, which he has named the "Master Locksmith of Deadlock Bargaining Award." Mitchell, the first recipient, is being honored for his successful mediation of conflict in Northern Ireland. The program, which includes a high-powered symposium on "Making Mediation Work," celebrates the fifth anniversary of the founding of the joint Cornell University/PERC Institute on Conflict Resolution. The institute is directed by David B. Lipsky, who served as dean of Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations for nine years. (May 18, 2001)

Christine A. Shoemaker and Thomas D. Seeley receive von Humboldt Research Awards
Christine A. Shoemaker, professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Thomas D. Seeley, professor of neurobiology and behavior, at Cornell University have received Alexander von Humboldt Research Awards, which include 100,000 to 120,000 Deutsche marks (about $45,500 to $54,000) and six to 12 months of research time at a German university of their choice. Regarded as the most prestigious scientific honor given by Germany to foreign scholars, (May 17, 2001)

Teachers of top Cornell students are honored on campus, May 22-23
Cornell University will honor 35 secondary school teachers, from as near as Ithaca and as far away as Tokyo, May 22 and 23 on campus. They will be brought to campus and recognized for their inspirational teaching with $4,000 scholarships in their names for future Cornell students with financial need from their schools or regions. The teachers were selected by Cornell's Merrill Presidential Scholars, students who represent the top 1 percent of the university's graduating seniors. Merrill scholars are chosen by the deans of each of the seven undergraduate colleges at Cornell for outstanding scholastic achievement, strong leadership ability and potential for contributing to society. (May 17, 2001)

Faculty members will study computer science and dance under Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships
Two Cornell University faculty members, Joseph Y. Halpern, professor of computer science, and Rebecca Harris-Warrick, associate professor of music, have received fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to conduct research abroad during their sabbatical years. Guggenheim fellowships are designed to help fellows secure a block of time, free from other duties, in which to pursue their own scholarly or creative work. The stipends are small, representing living expenses for the year, but the fellowships carry high prestige. (May 17, 2001)

Former attorney general Janet Reno, an alumna, will give Convocation address at 133rd Commencement
Cornell University will celebrate its 133rd Commencement Sunday, May 27, with President Hunter Rawlings presiding over the ceremony at 11 a.m. on Schoellkopf Field. Rawlings will present the commencement address and confer degrees on more than 6,000 eligible candidates, capping two days of celebratory activities. Former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno will speak at Senior Convocation Saturday, May 26, which will be held in Barton Hall at noon for graduates and their families and guests. Rawlings will introduce Reno, a Cornell alumna. Also speaking will be Claire Ackerman, senior class president, convocation chair Nageeb Sumar, and Class of 2001 alumni co-presidents Joanne Schleifman and Jamie Aycock. (May 17, 2001)

Harold G. Craighead is named interim dean of College of Engineering
Harold G. Craighead, director of Cornell University's Nanobiotechnology Center (NBTC) and professor of applied and engineering physics, has been named interim dean of the College of Engineering, according to Cornell Provost Biddy Martin. Craighead, who will assume the interim deanship July 1, succeeds John Hopcroft. (May 16, 2001)

Three students in the humanities awarded prestigious Mellon fellowships
Three Cornell University students are among 85 students nationwide honored with prestigious Andrew W. Mellon Fellowships in Humanistic Studies for 2001, awarded by the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation. They are seniors Justin Schwab, majoring in classics, and Andrew Rabkin, majoring in English, and May 2000 Cornell graduate Jesse James, who majored in classics. Each will receive a fellowship that covers tuition and required fees for the first academic year of graduate school, including a stipend of $15,000. (May 16, 2001)

Heinz Foundation names five Cornell graduate students as environmental research scholars
Five graduate students at the Cornell University Center for the Environment are among 16 nationwide to receive 2001 Teresa Heinz Scholars for Environmental Research awards. The awards from the Teresa and H. John Heinz III Foundation provide $10,000 to Ph.D. candidates and $5,000 to master's degree candidates to pursue critical environmental research. Also receiving Heinz Scholar awards are graduate students at Yale, Princeton, Carnegie Melon, Florida A&M and Texas A&M universities. (May 16, 2001)

Joint Training Program in Chemical Biology
This summer, a new joint graduate program in chemical biology will open its doors to welcome nine students in its entering class to the world of biomedical science in New York City. The program, announced last summer by the Cornell University and Weill Medical College of Cornell University in New York City, The Rockefeller University and Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, also in New York City, permits students to pursue Ph.D. research in the laboratories of any participating faculty member at the institutions. Known as the Training Program in Chemical Biology (TPCB), the new graduate program offers a unique opportunity to gain fundamental training in the core chemical sciences that underlie biology and medicine, while subsequently pursuing doctoral training in some of the leading chemical biology, molecular biology and cancer biology laboratories in the United States. (May 16, 2001)

Downtown office building project moves forward
Cornell University officials announced today that the search for a developer for the proposed downtown Ithaca office building has led to detailed negotiations with Ciminelli Development Company Inc. of Buffalo, N.Y. The university will be a major tenant in the mixed-use facility, to be located on or near the Ithaca Commons. John Majeroni, director of Cornell's Real Estate Department, said Ciminelli was selected for its outstanding qualifications and experience, as well as its vision for the project. "While all three of the developers we were talking to are great firms and any of them would have done a fantastic job, Ciminelli was best qualified for this particular project," Majeroni said. He added that the project will support other recent economic, cultural, and civic investments by the public and private sectors in the downtown area, and hopefully stimulate new interest as well. (May 16, 2001)

Community and Rural Development Institute hosts upstate and canal corridor conference June 4-6
Community development professionals, government officials and citizens who want to improve the economic vitality of New York's municipalities are invited to a conference, "Social Trends and Outlook 2001: Building Economically Healthy Communities in New York State," June 4 to 6 at the Statler Hotel on the Cornell University campus. Hosted by Cornell's Community and Rural Development Institute (CaRDI), the conference will feature 17 sessions focusing on economic renewal, policy analysis, healthy families programs and development efforts in New York state's Erie Canal corridor. (May 16, 2001)

Student-designed spandex sculptures will be suspended over Ithaca City Hall Plaza until May 21
What do you get when you give a lot of free white spandex to design students at Cornell University? Five months of negotiations with the city of Ithaca, and then a complex array of abstract illuminated fabric sculptures suspended 17 feet over Ithaca City Hall Plaza until May 21. The project, called LightPassage, started with an assignment for students to collaborate in two fall courses to design and fabricate constructed projects using electric lighting as a delineator of spatial experience. The two courses are Design and Environmental Analysis (DEA) 201, sophomore design studio taught by Jan Jennings, and Theatre Arts 362, a junior theater lighting course taught by senior lecturer and resident lighting designer Ed Intemann. (May 15, 2001)

Cornell Chorus and Glee Club are Venezuela bound, May 28
Graduates in the Cornell University Chorus and Glee Club won't have much time to dwell on their accomplishments. On Memorial Day, May 28 -- the day after Cornell Commencement -- the Glee Club and Chorus will hop a 5 p.m. flight from New York to Caracas, Venezuela, for an unprecedented 10-day concert tour. "It's going to be a little hectic," said senior Ryan Scarsfield, Glee Club tour coordinator, who graduates May 27. "But we're all very excited about performing our music in Venezuela, as well as collaborating with Venezuelan ensembles. It should be pretty spectacular" (May 15, 2001)

Higher education conference addresses funding issues
With predictions of a 20 to 30 percent increase in enrollment at colleges and universities in many states in the decade ahead, higher education institutions face unprecedented funding challenges. This is especially true given current economic downturns, state cutbacks to public universities, the growing inequality of wealth among private schools and the disparities in salaries between public and private faculty members. The Cornell Higher Education Research Institute (CHERI) will address these and other issues during its annual policy research conference, titled "Financing Higher Education Institutions in the 21st Century," on the Cornell University campus. The conference will be Tuesday, May 22, and Wednesday, May 23, in 115 Ives Hall in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. All presentations are free and open to the public. (May 15, 2001)

CD-ROM reference on American dresses 1780-1900
With almost a century of experience, 93-year-old Elsie Frost McMurry, professor emerita at Cornell University, played dress detective for 16 years, researching and writing in longhand thousands of manuscript pages for her study of American dresses from the 1800s. But at long last, she is the proud author of the first comprehensive reference volume on such dresses. American Dresses 1780-1900: Identification and Significance of 148 Extant Dresses is a 810-page encyclopedic reference with more than 300 photographs and illustrations, available only on CD- ROM. The work is based on comparisons of a representative sample of 148 period day dresses drawn from 17 collections and places each dress in its historical context. It is intended for a wide audience: scholars, museum curators, textile and costume dealers and collectors, buyers, appraisers, theater and reenactment costume designers, social and human services scientists, and anyone interested in historical fabrics and textiles or documenting a family history. (May 15, 2001)

Undergraduate Action Research Fellowships link students with community groups
ITHACA, N.Y. --Seven Cornell University students have been selected to participate in the inaugural Henry and Nancy Horton Bartels Undergraduate Action Research Fellowship Program. The program offers Cornell undergraduates the opportunity to pursue public policy research in collaboration with leaders from local community-based groups and human service organizations as well as city and county governments. (May 15, 2001)

Four from Cornell and Weill Medical College named to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Four members of the Cornell University and Weill Cornell Medical College faculty have been elected fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. They are Jonathan Culler, senior associate dean of arts and sciences and professor of English and comparative literature; Thomas Seeley, professor of neurobiology and behavior; Eva Tardos, professor of computer science; and Antonio M. Gotto, Jr., the Stephen and Suzanne Weiss Dean of Weill Cornell Medical College. (May 9, 2001)

Gov. Pataki announces plans for major genomics center
New York Gov. George E. Pataki has announced that Cornell University's proposed genomics technologies research center will be designated as a Strategically Targeted Academic Research (STAR) center. The governor has made clear his intention to seek funding for the new center during forthcoming budget negotiations in Albany. The announcement of the new center was made as Pataki, through the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research (NYSTAR), made awards totaling $102.5 million for eight STAR centers and five Advanced Research Centers (ARCs) in New York state. Only five of the STAR centers will receive immediate funding. (May 9, 2001)

Book wanders through a subterranean wonderland
David Wolfe sees the forest for the trees ... and the earthworms for the soils, the prairie dogs for the grasslands and the Rhizobium for the nitrogen. In his first book, Tales From the Underground: A Natural History of Subterranean Life (Perseus Books, May 2001), Wolfe, Cornell professor of horticulture, wanders through a subterranean wonderland explaining how all the pieces of nature's puzzle fit together. (May 9, 2001)

Moth larvae would rather starve than switch
The larvae of Manduca sexta, a moth nicknamed the tobacco hornworn, can become so chemically dependent on one of their favorite foods -- the leaves of eggplant, potato or tomato plants -- that they would rather starve to death than eat leaves from other plants. "They can eat anything you put in front of them. But when they grow up eating only the leaves of [solanum, or nightshade family] plants like potato and tomato, the larvae reject everything else," says Marta del Campo, whose Cornell University doctoral research appears in the latest issue of the journal Nature (May 10). She now works as a post-doctoral researcher at the State University of New York at Binghamton. (May 8, 2001)

Students to hold back traffic to protect frog crossing
Yield: Frogs crossing. On warm, rainy nights over the next few weeks, Cornell University biology students and members of the campus Herpetology Society will gather along a stretch of road in the Ringwood Preserve, about six miles from campus. Their mission: to stop and slow down automobile traffic, giving frogs and salamanders right of way to cross from the forest to a mating pond. (May 8, 2001)

Closing of Ward Center and its nuclear reactor announced
The Cornell University administration has announced its decision to decommission the TRIGA Mark II nuclear reactor and to phase out activities at the Ward Center for Nuclear Sciences, where the reactor is housed. The small, 500-kilowatt reactor has been used for research and teaching. The decision, by Cornell President Hunter Rawlings and Provost Biddy Martin, will be forwarded to the Cornell Board of Trustees for approval. The action follows a Feb. 6 recommendation by a committee of the University Faculty Senate, composed of faculty from a variety of fields, that the reactor and center, located on campus, be closed. In March, a Faculty Senate vote overturned that recommendation and sent the matter to the administration for a final ruling. (May 4, 2001)

Wendy Williams receives APA award for psychology research
Cornell University Associate Professor Wendy M. Williams is the 2001 recipient of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Robert Fantz Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology. The Fantz, which is a national APA-wide, early-career award, is given to one individual each year for "outstanding contributions to research in psychology during the first decade following receipt of the Ph.D." (May 4, 2001)

Hunger linked to poor health in low-income U.S. children
Hunger is associated with poor health among low-income children in the United States, conclude nutritionists from Cornell University and the University of Michigan in the first national study to determine if the level of food deprivation that occurs in the U.S. is severe enough to affect children's health. Specifically, the authors find that preschool and school-age children whose families sometimes or often go hungry are up to three times more likely to have reported poorer health and to have more stomachaches and headaches than children in well-fed families. Preschool-aged children who do not get enough food to eat also have more frequent colds. (May 3, 2001)

Statement regarding break-in at Duck Research Laboratory
EASTPORT, N.Y. --Early Sunday morning, April 29, at the Cornell University Duck Research Laboratory in Eastport, N.Y., trespassers forcibly entered an animal-holding area and removed 247 Pekin ducks. The trespassers vandalized portions of the facility by spray-painting slogans that identified them as the Animal Liberation Front (ALF). Cornell University and the staff of the Duck Research Laboratory are troubled by this incident because of the potential for the trespassers to contaminate these very susceptible animals with disease-causing bacteria and viruses frequently found in wild birds. The Duck Research Laboratory is dedicated to the production, testing and distribution of vaccines used to protect the domestic duck population. Over 15 million doses of vaccine were made and distributed from the lab last year. The efficacy of these vaccines must first be proven to satisfy rigid U.S. Department of Agriculture standards. This requires vaccination of disease-free ducks and later challenging them with the disease agent to demonstrate protective immunity associated with the vaccine. (May 3, 2001)

Symposium on child welfare and protection slated for May 5
A free symposium, open to the public, on child welfare and child protective policies over the past 50 years is slated for Saturday, May 5, at Cornell University. The symposium celebrates Child Abuse Prevention Month and the career of James Cameron, a long-time leader in the field of child protection and child welfare in New York state. Sponsored by the Family Life Development Center (FLDC) at Cornell, the program will run from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. in the amphitheater (Room 265) of Martha Van Rensselaer Hall on the Cornell campus. It will feature presentations from Cornell professors of human development John Eckenrode, chair of the department of human development, and James Garbarino, director of FLDC; Deborah Daro of the Chapin Hall Center for Children at the University of Chicago; and Karen Schimke, president and chief executive of the Schuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy in Albany, N.Y. (May 3, 2001)

Lee Teng-hui's visit to Cornell postponed a second time
The visit of former Taiwan President Lee Teng-hui to Cornell University planned for May 29-31 has been postponed. A new date for his visit has not been determined. (May 3, 2001)