Cornell University News Service Releases

November, 1999

Index to all months

For the full text of any story, click on the filename at the end of the description. These stories are also available via anonymous FTP at cunews.cornell.edu. Electronic queries may be made to cunews@cornell.edu.

Student teams come in first and second in regional computing contest
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Teams of Cornell University computer science students took both first and second place in the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Northeast Regional Programming Contest held Nov. 7 at the United States Military Academy, West Point, N.Y. The winning Cornell teams, known as Big Red 1 and Big Red 2, will go on to the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals in Orlando, Fla., March 15-19, 2000. More than 2,300 teams of students compete in similar regional events worldwide. Of those, a total of 58 teams will advance to the international contest. The top 10 teams will be awarded scholarships and other prizes. ACMregional.99.ws.html (November 30, 1999)

College rankings DO matter
ITHACA, N.Y. -- A just-published study that used 11 years of data from 30 selective private colleges and universities shows what educators have long suspected -- where colleges and universities place in the U.S. News and World Report annual rankings really makes a difference -- affecting enrollment yield, student quality, financial aid packages and, as a result, even where institutions place in the rankings the following year. The study was published under the title "U.S. News & World Report's College Rankings: Why Do They Matter?" in the November-December 1999 issue of Change magazine. It was conducted by Ronald G. Ehrenberg, director of the Cornell Higher Education Research Institute and the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and Economics at Cornell University, and James Monks, senior economist at the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE). Ehrenberg.rankings.html (November 30, 1999)

Tipping linked to national personality traits
ITHACA, N.Y. -- International travelers confronting the age-old question of "to tip or not to tip" can find new insights in a study published by Michael Lynn, associate professor of consumer behavior at Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration. Lynn reviewed the tipping customs in 21 countries and found that tipping is more common in countries where citizens score high on personality traits associated with extroversion and sociability and low on traits indicating introversion and reserve. Lynn.tipping.html (November 30, 1999)

Cornell undergraduate is one of two nationwide chosen to intern at U.S. Supreme Court
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Yurij Pawluk, a junior in the College of Human Ecology at Cornell University, has been selected as one of two undergraduate students from around the country to take part in the Judicial Internship Program at the U.S. Supreme Court in the spring semester. Pawluk will work full time at the court. The Judicial Internship Program, named by The Princeton Review as one of America's top 10 internship programs, chooses six undergraduates (two in each of three semesters) from about 240 applicants each year to intern at the Supreme Court. pawluk.supremecourt.ssl.html (November 30, 1999)

N.Y.S. Court of Appeals dismisses Maas claim, reverses ruling on access to records
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The New York State Court of Appeals today unanimously dismissed the appeal of Cornell Professor James Maas from previous adverse court rulings dealing with his suit against Cornell University claiming $1.5 million in damages stemming from a campus determination that he had engaged in behavior that constituted sexual harassment. In a related case brought by Maas' attorney, David Stoll, the court in a 5-1 decision reversed the Appellate Division of Supreme Court's determination that Cornell's disciplinary records were accessible to the public under New York state's Freedom of Information law. Cornell Counsel James J. Mingle expressed satisfaction with the court's determinations: "These are important victories for the university. The repeated dismissal of Professor Maas' legal claims at every stage of the litigation underscores the fundamental fairness of the university's proceedings. We are particularly pleased with the court's reaffirmation of the policy that the courts should exercise 'the utmost restraint in applying traditional legal rules to disputes within the academic community.' The Court of Appeals reaffirmed Cornell's discretion to fashion internal disciplinary procedures -- and severely restricted judicial review to a very narrow set of circumstances. In addition, the court's determination that Cornell's disciplinary records ought not to be made subject to the Freedom of Information law recognizes the unique hybrid nature of the statutory colleges in which the Legislature has chosen to vest managerial control solely in the hands of Cornell, a private institution." MaasStoll.decision.html (November 29, 1999)

Natural fatty acid reduces breast cancer risk
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Butter made from milk containing increased levels of a natural fatty acid reduced the risk of breast cancer in laboratory animals, according to new research published today (Nov. 25, 1999). While pubescent rats were used in the experiments, the laboratory animal model suggests that the fatty acid, called conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, could be beneficial in reducing the risk of breast cancer in women, says Clement Ip, a researcher at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute, Buffalo, N.Y., and the lead author on the research paper. CancerButterCLA.bpf.html (November 29, 1999)

Building molecules one at a time
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Researchers are interested not only in what happens when you combine two chemicals, but also in how the bonds between these chemicals are formed. That understanding might lead to better control over chemical reactions and perhaps even the creation of complex molecules with unusual properties. Cornell University physicists now have shed new light on chemical bonding by combining a single molecule with a single atom to form a new molecule. molecules.ws.html (November 23, 1999)

How a gene tells plant to reject its own pollen
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Over a century ago, scientists discovered that some plants don't permit fertilization by their own pollen. And for the past quarter-century, scientists have known that cellular communication exists between the female stigma and the male gamete, or pollen, it receives. But no one knew how the stigma could tell the difference between the plant's own pollen and that from other plants. Now, Cornell University researchers have unlocked this basic, long-standing botanical mystery in a report in the Nov. 26 edition of the journal Science. They have discovered that the answer lies in a gene that tells the stigma-based receptors which pollen to accept or reject. Pollenstigma.bpf.html (November 23, 1999)

Celebrate cow lighting and free ice cream at the Dairy Bar
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Once again, it's the luminescent-bovine event of the holiday season. Those clopping sounds emanating from the Cornell Dairy Bar's rooftop belong not to reindeer but to Cornell cows. And that means just one thing: It's time for the Cornell Dairy Bar's fourth annual "Lighting of the Cows" ceremony Monday, Nov. 29, at 3:30 p.m. at the dairy bar on Tower Road on the Cornell University campus. Daryl B. Lund, Cornell's Ronald P. Lynch Dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Dennis Miller, chair of Cornell's Department of Food Science, and Kim Bukowski, manager of the Cornell Dairy, will kick off the holiday season by flipping the switch that turns on the display's lights. CowLighting2000.bpf.html (November 23, 1999)

McMillin shares Sohmer-Hall theater prize
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Scott McMillin, Cornell University professor of English, has been awarded the Sohmer-Hall Prize for outstanding work in early English theater and staging. McMillin shares the honor with Sally-Beth MacLean at the University of Toronto for collaboration on their book, The Queen's Men and Their Plays (Cambridge University Press, 1998). The prize carries a cash stipend of £5,000 and will be awarded at lectures to be given this spring by McMillin and MacLean at the Globe Theatre in London. The prize is intended to further the pursuit of new information or ideas about the original staging of Elizabethan plays. McMill.fac.html (November 23, 1999)

Entomologist Hoffmann succeeds Tette as director of NY IPM program
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Michael P. Hoffmann, Cornell University associate professor of entomology, has been appointed as director of Cornell's New York State Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program. He succeeds the first director, James P. Tette, who has retired after 26 years in the position. For a quarter century, Tette educated and encouraged agricultural producers to grow crops and raise animals using environmentally sound methods that reduce or replace synthetic or organic pesticides. These techniques pose minimal risk to human health and maintain a supply of high-quality, safe, and economical foods for consumers, while providing growers with a reasonable return on their investment. IPM.Hoffmann.bpf.html (November 18, 1999)

State-of-the-art Marketplace Eatery is getting campus and industry raves
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Imagine the freshest food prepared to order right in front of you as you converse with the chef about your sauce preferences. A five-star restaurant in New York, San Francisco or Hong Kong? Close. But wait. Imagine, further, your choice of five or six such restaurants, five or six kinds of meals, all within one bright, light, wood, brick, slate-and-ceramic contemporary space. With fresh flowers on the tables. Movenpick Marchˇ, the marketplace eatery in Toronto and Montreal? Close. But even better. It's the new, award-winning Robert Purcell Marketplace Eatery, run by Cornell University Dining, in the newly renovated Robert Purcell Community Center on the university's North Campus. It represents a whole new vision and direction for campus food services and may signal changes for Cornell Dining elsewhere on campus, said Nadeem E. Siddiqui, the new director of Cornell Dining. Marketplace.jp.html (November 18, 1999)

Undergrads salute Sagan and technology by building bridge from new, lightweight material
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Ingenuity and education will come together next spring when one of the nation's most unusual bridges is put in place across a creek in Ithaca. The pedestrian bridge deck, 8 feet wide and 42 feet long, will contain no heavy steel bars but instead will be constructed from concrete reinforced with plastic-and-carbon bars so light in weight they can be lifted with a finger and thumb. Appropriately for a space-age bridge, the new structure will be called the Carl Sagan Bridge, for the late David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences at Cornell University. petrina.fibers.deb.html (November 18, 1999)

Creativity, dissidence and autobiography are topics for Egyptian authors Nawal el Saadawi and Sherif Hetata in Nov. 29 talk
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell University Lectures Series will present a symposium, "Creativity, Dissidence and Autobiography: Two Egyptian Voices," with Nawal el Saadawi and Sherif Hetata on Monday, Nov. 29, at 3 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium of Goldwin Smith Hall. The presentation by the Cairo-based couple is open to the public, free of charge. El Saadawi, a novelist and psychiatrist, will speak on "Dissidence and Creativity." Her husband, a novelist and medical doctor, will speak on "Autobiography: How Did My Experience Write Itself?" An open discussion will follow their presentations. U_lectures.hrs.html (November 18, 1999)

Desert bees hedge their bets, wait for the wet
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The northern tip of the Chihuahuan Desert juts from northern Mexico into the southern parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. It is where black-tailed jackrabbits scurry, roadrunners sprint and diamondbacks slither. For the continent's largest desert, punctuated by mountains, the monsoon rains end sometime in late summer. Then the flowers bloom, and the desert bees come out. And like the desert's floral seeds waiting for their season in the sun, scientists have learned that the desert bees have adopted a patient reproductive strategy. Desert bee larvae patiently lie in wait in the desert soil for a chance to emerge, usually after a year or more. Scientists call this process "diapause," a bet-hedging strategy that results in the survival of the best-rested. But according to new research by Cornell University entomologist Bryan N. Danforth, not all the viable larvae emerge in any one year of diapause, and their "coming out" is triggered by rain. Writing in the October issue of The Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Danforth notes that by spreading reproduction over several years, desert bees can keep catastrophic losses of their kin to a minimum in very bad drought years. DesertBee.bpf.html (November 16, 1999)

'Bioavailability' is the real test for DDT hazard
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The tests currently used to detect old DDT and other organic pollutants in the soil may overestimate the risk to living organisms, according to Cornell University researchers who say the real issue for government regulators at toxic cleanup sites should be "biological availability" of aging toxins. A report to be published in the Dec. 15 issue of the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science & Technology finds new tests for this so-called "bioavailability" -- the amounts of toxing available to harm organisms -- to be a more realistic reflection of the potential harm of organic pollutants to humans, animals, plants and ecosystems. bioavailability.hrs.html (November 15, 1999)

BTI scientist to receive Silverstein-Simeone Award for Outstanding Research in Chemical Ecology
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The International Society of Chemical Ecology will present Alan Renwick, a senior scientist at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research Inc. (BTI), with the Silverstein-Simeone Award for Outstanding Research Chemical Ecology at its international meeting in Marseille, France, on Nov. 16. The Boyce Thompson Institute is located on the campus of Cornell University. In accepting the award, Renwick, who is also an adjunct professor of entomology at Cornell, will present a lecture, "Variable Diets and Changing Taste in Plant-Insect Relationships." BTI.Renwicklocal.bpf.html (November 15, 1999)

For each student who goes to free wrestling matches at Cornell, money will be donated to the United Way
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Here's an easy way Cornell University students can contribute to the United Way of Tompkins County without spending a dime: Go to a free Cornell wrestling match. Alfred E. Kahn, the R.J. Thorne Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Cornell, has pledged to donate $1 to the United Way of Tompkins County for each student who attends the Saturday, Nov. 20, Black and Decker Wrestling Invitational tournament, from 3 to 5 p.m. in Newman Arena of the Field House on the Cornell campus. UW.wrestling.ssl.html (November 15, 1999)

25th anniversary of first attempt to phone E.T.
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Twenty-five years ago next week, humanity sent its first and only deliberate radio message to extraterrestrials. Nobody has called back yet, but that's OK -- we weren't really expecting an answer. The message was sent during the dedication of a major upgrade to the Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico on the afternoon of Nov. 16, 1974, and contained some very basic information about the human race. It included representations of the fundamental chemicals of life, the formula for DNA, a crude diagram of our solar system and simple pictures of a human being and the Arecibo telescope. Arecibo.message.ws.html (November 12, 1999)

Unlocking the mystery of human taste: U.S. scientist to lecture in Marseille
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Alan Renwick, a senior scientist at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, Inc., located on the campus of Cornell University, will lecture in Marseille, France, Nov. 16, on how plant chemicals change the taste sensation for insects. His talk will offer potential biochemical insight into how human taste develops and deteriorates over a lifetime. BTI.Renwick.bpf.html (November 11, 1999)

Committee recommends substantial improvements for first-year students
ITHACA, N.Y. -- A committee charged with improving the first-year experience at Cornell University has recommended significant changes in programs and approaches, including a new welcoming annual event for arriving students with all the pomp, circumstance and festivity of Commencement. The 27-member Residential Initiative North Campus Program Committee, in its final report released Oct. 28, identified three areas on which to focus: faculty-student interaction, upperclass and alumni mentoring and small group activities. In the context of those focus areas, the committee -- which includes students, faculty and staff -- identified four areas for further study and made recommendations in those areas. They include faculty involvement, orientation, freshman resource center and alumni interaction. (A full text of the report is available at ) North.Campus.jp.html (November 11, 1999)

Agribusiness Economic Outlook Conference slated for Dec. 14
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The annual Agribusiness Economic Outlook Conference at Cornell University will be held Tuesday, Dec. 14, from 10 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. On-site registration will begin at 9 a.m. Sponsored by Cornell's Department of Agricultural, Resource and Managerial Economics, the conference will feature forecasts for agricultural and economic issues. AgBizOutlook2000.bpf.html (November 10, 1999)

A teachers' teacher, geneticist Rita Calvo receives top biology award
ITHACA, N.Y. --The National Association of Biology Teachers' (NABT) 1999 Four-year College and University Teaching Award has been conferred on Rita A. Calvo, director of the Cornell Institute for Biology Teachers and a senior lecturer in molecular biology and genetics at Cornell University. The award for innovative teaching was presented Oct. 29 at the national meeting of the 7,500-member organization in Fort Worth, Tex., and includes a $1,000 prize. calvo_award.hrs.html (November 10, 1999)

Philips invests in Cornell invention of flat-screen video displays
ITHACA, N.Y. -- A three-year-old company, Rainbow Displays Inc. (RDI), created to develop color flat-screen television and video technology invented at Cornell University, has signed a joint development agreement with a unit of Royal Philips Electronics of the Netherlands, one of the world's largest consumer electronics companies. As part of the agreement, Philips, through its Flat Display Systems subsidiary in San Jose, Calif., will invest a minority stake in RDI. The Philips subsidiary is among the world's largest suppliers of active matrix liquid crystal displays (AMLCD), or flat-panel video and television screens. cu.philips.deb.html (November 10, 1999)

Improved biodegradable hydrogels
ITHACA, N.Y. -- A Cornell University fiber and biomaterials scientist working with a trio of graduate students has developed novel biodegradable and biologically active hydrogels that can be used for delivering many kinds of medications inside and outside the body. The jellylike substance can be used for anchoring biological substances such as skin and vascular tissues and might even be able to deliver viruses into the body for gene therapy. "These new biomaterials not only contain enormous amounts of water, which make them more biocompatible with the human body, but also have greater mechanical strengths, integrity and stability than other hydrogels," says C. C. Chu, professor of fiber science in the textiles and apparel department in Cornell's College of Human Ecology and the university's Biomedical Engineering Program. Chu and his graduate students can manipulate various properties of the hydrogels, including how much they swell. Their hydrophilicity (the ability to attract and absorb water) and their hydrophobicity (the ability to repel water) are the chief means by which they control drug release. Strength and biodegradation rates also can be changed over a wide range. hydrogel.advances.ssl.html (November 10, 1999)

Lisa Harris is new director of career services in College of Arts and Sciences
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Lisa Harris has been named director of career services for Cornell University's College of Arts and Sciences. In her new position, she manages the college's career planning and advising program, which serves about 4,000 undergraduates. Her appointment became effective Oct. 1. Harris, who was associate director of career services for the college before being promoted to her new position, follows Jane Levy, who is now the senior associate director for Cornell Career Services. Lisa.Harris.html (November 10, 1999)

Hotel students earn, learn from net start-up
ITHACA, N.Y. --Internet start-up RealTime Hotel Reports LLC sells a unique product that may make its partners rich some day. It collects and sells sophisticated information about the lodging industry via the World Wide Web -- making it a single source of information designed specifically to enhance hotels' success in the highly competitive industry. Just as important: the financial prospects of the 35 students who work at RealTime have already improved. Nearly half of RealTime's 67 employees are students, most of them from Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration. With better-than-average hourly wages and a real opportunity to learn about the hotel industry, it's a great part-time job to have when you're preparing for a career in the industry, says Phil Auerbach. A junior in the Hotel School, from Lexington, Mass., he has been working for RealTime since January 1999. RealTime.hotel.html (November 10, 1999)

National Chemistry Week event at Pyramid Mall is Saturday, Nov. 6
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Floating bubbles and disposable diapers, both the products of chemistry, will be part of the annual Chemistry Fair, in celebration of National Chemistry Week, at Pyramid Mall in Lansing, Saturday, Nov. 6. The event, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., is being sponsored by the Cornell-Ithaca section of the American Chemical Society. All booths will be near the Ames entrance to the mall. chem.week.event.Deb.html (November 8, 1999)

Studying how people juggle family and work
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Any day now, 350 Syracuse families will be tapped for a Cornell University research project on working families. It is hoped the Cornell Community Study will glean insight into the challenges people face as they juggle work and family responsibilities. The researchers hope to determine how communities and companies could be structured to help working families meet their many responsibilities. Randomly selected residents in the Syracuse area will receive a letter in the mail in the next few weeks, explaining the study in greater detail. Researchers will follow-up by telephone to discuss the study. Eligible volunteers will receive $25 each for completing an interview that involves a series of questions about their work and family life. Participants are guaranteed full anonymity, and no individual will be identifiable in any of the study reports. Participants also will receive occasional updates on study findings. families.Syracuse.ssl.html (November 8, 1999)

Science teachers get a taste of space
ITHACA, N.Y. -- This month, science teachers in middle and high schools from across the Northeast will get the chance to be part of the exploration of space. Cornell University and the Ithaca Sciencenter are hosting a NASA-supported workshop that will take advantage of Cornell's involvement in the space agency's Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR) mission to explore a distant asteroid. astronomy.teachers.deb..html (November 5, 1999)

James Severson named to head Cornell Research Foundation
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The Cornell Research Foundation Inc. (CRF), which puts much of Cornell University research to commercial use, has a new president. He is James A. Severson, previously a marketing director at the University of Minnesota. The announcement was made by Cornell Senior Vice President Frederick A. Rogers. As CRF president, Severson also is Cornell's director of patents and technology marketing. CRF, a wholly owned Cornell subsidiary, is responsible for protection and commercialization of inventions made at the university. Severson.5.l.deb.html (November 5, 1999)

Vertical split keyboard lowers injury risk
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Tomorrow's computer keyboard might be played more like an accordion than a piano, says a Cornell University ergonomist. This, he says, is because a prototype vertical split keyboard (VK) allows two to three times more typing movements to stay in safe, low-risk positions for carpal tunnel syndrome compared with a traditional keyboard. In fact, in a Cornell study published in the Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 43rd Annual Meeting last month, Cornell ergonomists found that wrist angles and forearm movements stayed in the lowest risk zone for carpal tunnel syndrome 71 percent and 78 percent of the time, respectively, using the VK compared with only 44 and 25 percent using a traditional keyboard (TK). Wrists were put in the highest risk zone only 2 percent of the time using the VK compared with 12 percent with TK. vertical.keyboard.ssl.html (November 5, 1999)

Novel insect eye could be an old way of seeing
ITHACA, N.Y. -- An unusual type of eye -- resembling a tiny raspberry and possibly following a design principle that vanished with the extinction of trilobites hundreds of millions of years ago -- lives today in a parasitic insect, Cornell University biologists report in the Nov. 5 issue of the journal Science. The compound eyes of most insects have many hundreds of lens facets, each sampling only one small point in the insect's visual field, but the composite lens eyes of strepsipteran insects have no more than 50 facets. new_eye.5.1.hrs.html (November 4, 1999)

Community meeting to offer support following death of graduate student
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Friends and colleagues of Lynn Shannon Proctor, a Cornell University graduate student in applied and engineering physics, will hold a community gathering and support meeting Thursday (Nov. 4) at 3 p.m. in 701 Clark Hall on campus. Proctor, whose hometown is Tallahassee, Fla., died last week at her residence in Ithaca. She was 22. The cause of death is under investigation, according to Cornell University Police. proctor.obit.html (November 3, 1999)

Stanley Fish to deliver Law School's Robert S. Stevens Lecture on 1st amendment
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Stanley Fish, a prominent public intellectual who is a renowned scholar in both law and literature, will deliver the fall 1999 Robert S. Stevens Lecture at Cornell University Law School this Friday, Nov. 5. His talk is titled "The Persistence of Theory: The First Amendment at the End of the 20th Century." It will take place in the MacDonald Moot Court Room in Myron Taylor Hall at 3 p.m. and is free and open to the public. Fish is dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago and the author of There's No Such Thing as Free Speech, and It's a Good Thing Too (Oxford, 1994) and the forthcoming The Trouble with Principle (Harvard, Dec. 1999). Stevens.talk.Fish.lm.html (November 3, 1999)

Texas energy expert to discuss disposal of U.S., Russian nuclear weapons
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Dale E. Klein, the Bob R. Dorsey Professor of Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin and vice chancellor for special engineering programs in the University of Texas system, will visit Cornell University next week to present a lecture on "The Disposition of 50,000 American and Russian Nuclear Weapons." The lecture will be Wednesday, Nov. 10, at 4:30 p.m. in Schwartz Auditorium of Rockefeller Hall. It is free and is open to the public. A Nuclear Science and Engineering Seminar, it is sponsored by Cornell's Ward Center for Nuclear Sciences, the Peace Studies Program and the Department of Science and Technology Studies. klein.weapons.deb.html (November 2, 1999)

Connecting to the ultrasmall is a challenge
ITHACA, N.Y. -- Push a number on a palm-sized cell phone and the signal travels to an interior chip with physical features some five orders of magnitude smaller than the number button. That connection is called "electronic packaging," and the challenges presented by this huge discrepancy in size are becoming a serious problem for microelectronics. One of the largest industry-financed research efforts to find answers to this packaging dilemma is under way at Cornell University, headed by J. Peter Krusius, professor of electrical engineering. His goal is to bridge the growing gap between the world of human dimensions -- the finger or the eye -- and the world of the ultrasmall -- the microchip. Recently Krusius was awarded a $330,000 contract by the Semiconductor Research Corp. (SRC), an industrial research consortium, to continue his investigation into so-called electronic packaging interconnect sciences, which it has supported with awards to Cornell totaling $6.4 million over the past 15 years. The research is part of the Electronic Packaging Program at Cornell, which also is supported by funding from the National Science Foundation and the Industry-Cornell University Alliance for Electronic Packaging. krusius.chip.deb.html (November 2, 1999)

$1.35 million fellowships to train K-12 teachers
ITHACA, N.Y. -- The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded Cornell University a three-year, $1.35 million grant to provide high school teaching fellowships for college graduate students and advanced undergraduates in the sciences. This first round of grants totaling $13.4 million, will be distributed among 31 colleges and universities nationwide. Known as the NSF Graduate Teaching Fellows in K-12 Education (GK-12) program, the Cornell fellowships will be administered through the Cornell Environmental Sciences Research Partnership (CERP), part of Cornell's Environmental Inquiry program. NSFGrant.bpf.html (November 2, 1999)