News Tidbits 3/6/12: From Orthodox Greek to Christian

7 03 2012

…and by Orthodox Greek, I mean your normal Cornell Greek house. But I enjoy a little bit of word play.

I had come across a piece in my Cornell feed about a Christian house at Cornell on The Knoll called “Chesterton House”. I thought it was unusual that I had never heard of it, but I wrote it off as being some low key residential organization, like many at Cornell are (for example, Telluride, the Co-Ops and a few of the professional fraternities). I noticed its location was 115 The Knoll, which failed to ring a bell – I thought it was a rowers’ house or home to some of the Big Red Band. I’ve been vaguely aware that there were five houses on the Knoll, so there was bound to be some non-Greek component.

Then I glanced at their website – it’s Alpha Xi Delta’s old house. The one I profiled a couple years ago.

According to their website, the house is named for Gilbert Keith Chesterton, an early 20th century writer and “defender of the Christian faith”. The house holds 15 and is all-male, with the female equivalent being Sophia House at 315 Thurston, the house with a stucco finish and the extremely high-pitched tile roof. Apparently that house is being rented, so it is not under the organization’s possession. Now, the house on the Knoll is owned by Delta Phi Epsilon sorority, the last I checked (for the record, they’ve owned it since 1962). So I’m going to venture that this is a fairly recent endeavor, and a big step for an organization that was established only 12 years ago. Although a relatively young organization, it’s certainly garnering its share of alumni support.

I for one welcome them to establish themselves as one of the many opportunities afforded to students at Cornell. In my mind, I see it as something similar to the Jewish Living Center on West Campus. My one encouragement is that they adopt a policy similar to the Jewish Living Center and encourage freshmen to live with the other freshmen. I’ll willingly admit that as the brother of a fire-and-brimstone evangelist, I’ve been wary of religious groups in general (one tends to be that way when your sibling tells you you’re going to hell at every Thanksgiving dinner, for being a secular  Christian). But it’s also addressing a niche group at Cornell and offering more for some individual’s Cornell experience.





The Rejuvenation of Gannett Health Center

28 02 2012

A while back, I mentioned that the plan for Gannett Health Center was to tear down the current structure and replace it on the same parcel of land with a new 90,000-130,000 sq ft building. While the project is still in the pipeline, a massing proposal suggests one rough idea of the future Gannett:

From HOLT Architects’ portofolio section comes this little nugget of information:

“…the 2007 HOLT Master Plan developed a comprehensive building space program for a 119,000 gsf replacement facility. Concept designs tested the full program fit on the existing central campus site and including substantial new parking requirements. Massing models, single and multi-phase construction sequencing, project costs, and schedules were outlined to assist the university with strategic planning.”

In other words, its a proposal for a new building, but it’s just one possible solution that may or may not be pursued by the university for the new Gannett. The proposal offers up a 119,000 sq ft 5-story (+1 more floor for mechanicals) structure whose massing suggests a curved face to maintain context with Campus Road to its southwest.

A couple of things stand out in the massing concepts. One, the ground textures were not updated to reflect the massing proposal. Two, the revised Hollister Hall can be seen at right (southeast). I’d be inclined to say that that would be based off of the master plan, but the master plan also calls for a demolition of the Cornell Store and Day Hall, which are not included in the imagery. It could be a saved time and effort on behalf of the company, or it could mean that the plans for Hollister are a little more solid than the other master plan suggestions. Either idea is plausible.

Since Gannett is currently only 39,000 sq ft, a building three times larger would leave an indelible impression on the intersection of Campus and College, arguably one of the most prominent on campus. Whether Cornell goes with this massing model, the tiered building in the master plan, or another design (not a hypermodern box, I can hope) remains to be seen in the university’s long-term plans.





News Tidbits 1/31/2012: The Big Red Bandhouse Will NOT Be Open This Summer

31 01 2012

Image Property of Cornell University

http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2012/01/31/new-building-big-red-band-will-open-summer

Dear Cornell Daily Sun – If a building starts construction in June 2012 with a tentative completion date of January 2013, in no feasible terms will the building be open by the summer of 2012.

Anyway, semantics aside, the design of the Big Red Bandhouse (or as I like to think of it, Fischell Hall) has been released. It’s a whole lot of Big Red Boring, but I suppose its purpose is more functional than aesthetic. It fits the general theme of ultramodern buildings that the university has more than happy to construct in the past several years.

Image Property of Cornell University

With the extra large front doors open, it kinda resembles a “Dust Buster” portable vacuum.The architects are the same folks responsible for the Plantations Welcome Center.

To allay the fears of the budget-conscious, the building is expected to be paid for entirely by private donations from Big Red Band alumni (in what I imagine will be a veritable inundation of pleas to their alumni to donate). The site is the current location of a small maintenance building (the Schoellkopf Garage), which will be removed and most likely rebuilt somewhere nearby.

I’m not a fan of the design (which should come as no surprise to frequent readers of this blog), but I figure this building was meant to be functional more than anyone else.





News tidbits 1/6/2012: If You Screwed Up Once, You Can Screw Up Again

6 01 2012

As time has gone on and I become more removed from my days at Cornell, this blog focuses less and less on student-specific events, such as Greek Life. But then, news articles like this pop up:

http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2012/01/06/after-hospitalization-tke-may-lose-recognition

After Hospitalization, TKE May Lose Recognition

January 6, 2012
By Jeff Stein

Cornell will revoke its recognition of Tau Kappa Epsilon following reports of an alcohol-related hospitalization of a freshman unless the fraternity succeeds in its appeal of the decision, according to multiple sources.

In a memo obtained by The Sun on Thursday, University administrators faulted TKE for reportedly failing to ensure the safety of a highly intoxicated individual — the same oversight that officials say led to the death of George Desdunes ’13 last spring. Sixteen former pledges of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the fraternity in which Desdunes died, joined TKE a few months later.

The freshman, who had been consuming alcohol before attending TKE’s event, arrived at a recruitment dinner hosted by TKE at the China Buffet on Nov. 11. While it “remains unclear if he continued to consume alcohol at the dinner,” TKE did provide both beer and hard alcohol at the event, the report states.

But as early as September, the University had reason to believe “rumors that SAE has been operating through TKE,” according to the report, when administrators learned of plans for the “White Party” — an event “historically hosted by SAE [as a] social activity attracting hundreds of community members.”

“Out of great concern for the safety of attendees, considering that TKE would not be prepared to host a large event such as this, due to their inexperience, we placed the chapter on interim suspension,” the report states.

The memo then notes that, in a meeting with administrators, fraternity leadership agreed to cancel the event, terminate plans they had to “induct ‘little sisters’” and work with the TKE national organization toward building TKE “traditions that the community could support, as opposed to adopting SAE traditions.”

Despite these promises, “it became clear in that meeting that SAE’s former members, those who were fully initiated and have no affiliation with TKE, have significant influence on TKE as an organization,” the report states.

***

I read stories like this and I cringe. I’m a fairly avid supporter of Greek Life at Cornell. But stories like this make me rethink my stance. I understand that the person may or may not have consumed beverages at their recruitment dinner. Okay, innocent until proven guilty. But you’d think for a group of pledges that watched some of their pledgebrothers be indicted for killing someone, they’d use a little more precaution than “we’ll just drop him back off at his room and hope he’ll be fine”.

But that seems to merely be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The administration was bothered by how the chapter became SAE with a different set of letters. I couldn’t agree more. I am strongly bothered by the open flaunting of the SAE connection, and figuratively (maybe literally?) pissing on TKE’s original brotherhood and traditions (not that it wasn’t expected). I don’t know how much of the comments on the article to believe, but I don’t think they’re far from the mark. Calling yourself “Epsilon” because you feel the fraternity that took you in is so inferior you still have to tie it in to SAE (stating the obvious here, but it’s a nod to the fact that both Tau Kappa Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Epsilon share that letter). It just disgusts me. You’re not SAE. SAE of Cornell was doomed the moment George Desdunes died due to alcohol poisoning administered during a pledge kidnapping.

It’s sad. Sad that TKE was so desperate for social status and growth that they sold out everything their brotherhood was. Sad that SAE let someone die. Sad that one organization is gone completely and the other one is about to be kicked off campus. Sad that this reflects on the whole system, which is in a percarious enough position as it is.

What an ignominious way to go. I hope as a Greek alumnus that if my fraternity was ever in TKE’s position that they would just close instead of selling out.

 

 





The Loyal Opposition to the Tech Campus

19 12 2011
Image Property of Cornell University

Image Property of Cornell University

Congratulations to Cornell on winning the bid for the NYC Tech Campus.

However, to be honest, sometimes I feel like the only alum who doesn’t support the project.

By no means do I not want Cornell to succeed as an institution and give a strong education to those that earn entrance into the university. Plus, it seems unusual given my predilection for the development of physical facilities related to Cornell. It’s just…well, it has to do with Cornell’s identity.

Take Weill for example. Most Cornellians in Ithaca are vaguely aware of Weill’s existence. Certainly, the folks are aware of Cornell being based in Ithaca. But they both function independently. They’re separate institutions that just happen to be under the same Big Red umbrella. From a bureaucratic standpoint, that’s probably for the best. I expect something similar to shape up in the operation of the new Engineering Graduate Campus in New York City.

But some disparities between the two have been troubling. For instance, fund-raising in the “Far Above” campaign. As described in this Metaezra post from June 2010, the campaign was immensely successful for the medical school…but not for the main campus in Ithaca. One line has always stuck out in my mind:

“…so apparently wealthy New Yorkers care more about life-saving research and services than basic research and education a five hour drive from Manhattan.”

This has, in some sense, been my concern with the new campus in New York City. Yes, it will inspire entrepreneurship and innovation and all those other cute buzzwords they like to toss out in brochures. People are also free to donate their money as they choose (as it should be). But to what degree does this development of a new campus affect to the main campus in Ithaca? I’m concerned that so much attention will be paid to this new program that many of our alumni (of which 23% live in the NYC area) will donate to the school in their backyard rather than the one five hours away. By establishing another campus, I also worry that there will be less of a sense of a Cornellian – in my wildest imagination, I fear some future New York City campus alumni will self-segregate themselves – the “I’m a Cornell-New York Campus alum, I don’t associate with Cornell-Ithaca alumni and want nothing to do with THAT Cornell”. At least you can take classes in different undergraduate colleges. I see the mixing of Ithaca and New York activities as fairly rare events. Maybe Stanford was afraid of something similar happening, since the campuses would be 1000s of miles apart.

Maybe I’m being overprotective of the Ithaca campus, or this post will be written off as whining because I don’t like New York City or I don’t support Cornell’s global mission or whatever other reason that floats their boat. But I get nervous when the emphasis seems to be displaced from the campus that Ezra demanded be on his farm on the hills overlooking Cayuga. At the very least, I’m adding my voice to a silent minority that have concerns regarding the proposal.





A Nominal Nod to Cornell

18 12 2011

Whether or not one likes or dislikes Cornell and its environs, the university has been around long enough and produced enough graduates to have a fairly recognizable name as colleges and universities go. I happened to hear from a friend recently who had moved out to Colorado after graduation, and their experience in the Collegiate Peaks of Colorado. When I checked Wikipedia, I was dismayed to find that their were mountains named in those peaks named for Oxford, Harvard, Princeton, Yale and Columbia, but not Cornell. For what it’s worth, it appears they were named in the late 1860s and 1870s, when Cornell was still a fledgling school. But, I decided to do a google search for a “Mt. Cornell”.

While there wasn’t a “Mt. Cornell” anywhere in the world, there is a Cornell Peak named in honor of the university. The 9,750 ft. mountain is part of the San Jacinto Mountains in Southern California.  The mountain earned its name from a USGS topographer camping in the valley below with a geologist friend who was a graduate of Cornell, and remarked how the peak resembled McGraw Tower in appearance. Personally, I don’t see it, but the topographer named the mountain in honor of the university. Of much lesser note, there is a 3,860 ft. “Cornell Mountain” in the Catskills that is named for Thomas C. Cornell, a distant relative of Ezra.

Looking northward to a place even colder and less inviting than Ithaca in winter, on the west coast of Greenland there exists a “Cornell Glacier“. Similarly to the Collegiate Peaks, there is a collegiate set of glaciers in Alaska that Cornell was not a part of, the set consisting of the four aforementioned Ivies and Johns Hopkins.

On the more civilized end, the town of Cornell, Wisconsin (population 1467 as of the 2010 census) is named for Ezra and the university, due to its placement on the lands that the university once held as part of the Morrill land-grant in the late 19th century. The university has given this some light attention to this connection by writing an article referring to a blog written by a Cornell alum and his fact-finding adventures in the small community in northern cheesehead country. Apparently, the town was originally named Brunet Falls and is famous for having the only surviving pulpwood stacker, and like many other small towns with minor claims to fame, they make a festival out of it (considering my hometown’s claim to fame is the method a hose is laid on a fire engine, I have no right to be critical). Although it’s hard to tell whether communities named Cornell are named after Cornell U. or someone who happens that surname, at least two unincorporated communities are named for the school far above Cayuga, one in the U.P. of Michigan and one in Southern California north of Malibu (and a fair 100 miles from Cornell Peak). Cornell, Illinois and Cornell, Ontario are not related to the university.

Lest one try to limit themselves to the Earth, an asteroid was named in honor of Cornell in 1999 (8250 Cornell). I guess the next astronomical goal should be a large crater somewhere.

If it’s any consolation to the folks associated with Cornell College, they have a species of tropical fly named for their school.





The ILR School Almost Invaded Hoy Field

10 12 2011

As would be expected for any major university, Not every plan for a new buildng at Cornell came to fruition. Sometimes, it was because the plan didn’t have funds, or the demand for space had ebbed. With the original plans for Cornell’s Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR) school, it was all about the location.

The ILR school is quite young, having opened its doors on November 1, 1945. The original facilities were in temporary wooden lodging on Sage Green (the western and southern grounds next to Sage Hall, in the days before the loading dock/drive for the Cornell Store and the parking lot south of Sage Hall).  The school had originally been conceived a decade or so prior, and by 1944 the state gave Cornell its monetary blessing, foregoing counter-offers for a labor college at Syracuse University or Union College in Albany (Bishop, 568). On the other end, the president of Cornell at the time, Edmund Ezra Day, had to contend with unamused industrialists and farmers among its alumni who felt that such a school was unnecessary.

The state was proud of its newest educational creation (in the days prior to the massive proliferation of modernist/brutalist SUNY campuses), and drew up plans for permanent housing for the ILR school. The original plans were produced at a cost of $80,000 at the time, but never came close to construction due to some very angry Cornell alumni and students.

The issue wasn’t about the architecture (being the late 1940s, early modernism or stripped Collegiate Gothic were likely), but the location. The site for the new school was on Campus Road. To give you an idea of how the area looked at the time, here’s a map from a years later in 1954 (click the link for a larger version):

Phillips Hall and Teagle Hall were not yet built (both were completed in the early 1950s), so the area was really only Barton Hall and the athletic facilities. The Buildings and Grounds Committee at Cornell picked a site on Campus Road, where Phillips Hall was built a couple years later, but with a larger footprint that would’ve required the removal of Hoy Field (which is aligned directly south in this map – it was redone to face southwest about five years ago).

A tempest of outcries ensued. It was firmly believed that Hoy Field had been donated by the alumni to be used in perpetuity for athletic purposes. Suddenly, different alumni groups were protesting “The invasion of Hoy Field”, and the Association of Class Secretaries filed complaints and letters of concern with Cornell, along with written protests from 53 undergraduate student groups. President Day and the committee gave up on the plan.

The state was not pleased by the reception, and so the ILR school was kept in the dreary wooden temp buildings until the Vet School’s new Schurman Hall was built in the late 1950s, and ILR could move into what used to be the Vet School buildings at the corner of Tower and Garden Road. The rather pretty if utilitarian ca. 1896 James Law Hall was demolished to make way for Ives Hall. But, In the long run, the administration was rather glad it hadn’t built the ILR school on that plot of land, as it allowed the full build-out of the Engineering Quad.

Now, fast-forward to today, and consider the positioning of the soon-to-be Gates Hall, and the master plan’s removal of Hoy Field. I wonder if such an outcry would arise today, as it seems once again that the end of Hoy Field as we know it is drawing near.





All Ivies Make (Architectural) Mistakes

28 11 2011

Somewhere during my crappiest Thanksgiving ever, I was reading through the online Daily Sun and came across some comment where the individual suggested that Cornell has the worst architecture in the Ivy League. I spent a little while mulling over that critique – sure, some of our halls are quite ugly, but the worst Ivy?

Curious, I decided to look at some  of other schools. I don’t have some chip on my shoulder over the lack of “pretty” buildings at Cornell, and certainly “ugly” is a subjective term. But Cornell is not the only school that has designed buildings that have earned harsh rebukes from certain audiences.

Harvard people have been criticizing themselves for years. One of the first things that came up in my search was a polite criticism of the modern architecture that took over Harvard’s campus starting the late 1950s (the Quincy and Leverett Towers). The article was published in the Crimson, the Harvard student newspaper, in the early 1990s. If you really want to go in depth, someone wrote an entire book dedicated to reviewing Harvard’s architecture. Today, Harvard is putting up modern buildings such as a science buildinga new graduate housing complex, and Tata Hall (I’m still wondering if Cornell plans on naming a building for Ratan Tata ’59) The take away could be that Harvard, like Cornell, builds in the style of the times; but it would be worth noting that Harvard has buildings 130 years older than Cornell.

Down in New Haven, Yale is no stranger to “ugly” architecture either, with such structures as the Art and Architecture Building and the Beinecke Library to its credit. Their newest set of dorms are designed in a Collegiate Gothic style that has mass appeal, but they decided to demolish several historic buildings to build it.

Going down the list, I didn’t see one campus that was “unscathed”. Princeton, U Penn, Brown, Columbia, even Dartmouth, which lacks your usual Science and Engineering building culprits. It seems most of them entered the 60s and threw cohesion out the window for daring departures that have, for the most part, not aged well. Even now, many of these schools are still trying some avant-garde edginess to further their names.

Would I venture support or denial of the “ugliest Ivy” claim? I am forced to stay neutral. I’ve only been to four of their campuses, not to mention it’s a matter of opinion. But, considering some of the college campuses out there, I know things could be much worse:





Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

10 11 2011

So, this is a question that I often wonder about when I play the role of armchair architecture critic. Cornell has pontificated that “each new building should reflect the spirit of Cornell as a pioneering institution and should represent an awareness of its time and place”. Back in the day, that was symbolized by A. D. White’s passionate desire to develop the campus into a New Yorker’s version of Oxford, hence his well-documented derision of red-brick buildings such as Morse Hall and Lincoln Hall, as these were very un-Oxford-esque. Lincoln Hall was built while White was overseas as the U.S. ambassador to Germany (effectively, they sneaked it in when he wasn’t looking), and it’s been said that White smiled when he first heard Morse Hall was destroyed by fire back in 1916. I’m guessing he never counted his own house, but maybe he considered that to be tucked away from the main campus, which it was back in the early days.

Cornell’s architectural preference has evolved with the times. By the 1920s, the fashion was Collegiate Gothic, as seen in buildings like Willard Straight. By the 1950s and 1960s, function was deemed more important than form, and we eneded up with buildings like Clark Hall, and Hollister et al. on the Engineering Quad. Today’s buzz is about “Starchitects” like Rem Koolhaas (Milstein Hall), Richard Meier (Weill Hall) and Thom Mayne (Gates Hall), who designed ultramodern structures that are meant to represent Cornell’s forward-thinking.

My question lies in what is interpreted as forward-thinking. It seems college campuses these days follow two rather discordant trains of thought – one of the modern or ultramodern designs as we have seen lately at Cornell (I was tempted to call them avant-garde, but I don’t think they’re radical enough to merit the term), and then a second line of thinking that delves into the Neoclassical and Gothic themes that conjure images of the romantic colleges of our grandparents’ youth.

Take for instance Princeton and their new Whitman Residential College, or Notre Dame’s new Eck law school building:

Image Property of Notre Dame University

Granted, comparing the new STEM buildings to Dorms and Social Science buildings is a bit like apples to oranges. But what are the pros and cons for the new Houses on West Campus? Were we better off with new and contemporary, or should we have revived the original 1920s era plan and constructed new Gothics?

The original West Campus Plan. Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

Any casual reader of this blog probably recognizes that I fall more into the traditionalist point of view. I guess my concern lies with the aesthetically pleasing value of a campus. Cornell has some tremendously wonderful natural spaces both in the confines of the main campus and surrounding it (the many gorges and waterfalls throughout the area assure that much). The built environment can either enhance that or detract from it, and I’d venture at Cornell it’s been hit-or-miss over the years.  I wonder though, if the increasing traditionalism of some of our peer institutions gives them a recruiting advantage for top students. I think the West Campus structures are quality constructions, but they don’t quite garner the same level of fondness as the arches and turrets Collegiate Gothic.

So I’m going to go out on a limb and throw the question out there for debate. What role does architectural style play in prospective students’ decision-making? Is Cornell being bold and progressive in its current architectural plans, or are we foregoing traditional architectural styles at a detriment to the physical appeal of the university? I’m really curious to hear others’ take on this, so please leave a comment if you’d like to contribute your opinion.

P.S. I don’t want to downplay the importance of interior design, which is important from a livability angle. But I am more interested to hear about opinions about building exteriors, since they often set the first impression.





The Keyword Bar XIV

5 11 2011

Honestly, I had not realized so much time had passed since my last entry, so I figured I’d cobble something together based off of my stalwart “Keyword Bar” entries.

1. “johnson boatyard ithaca zoning” (11-5-11)

Actually a fairly good question given the recent proposals for townhouses, and later additions, to the area in the the boatyard’s immediate vicinity. Conveniently, they city of Ithaca offers a zoning search tool based on address. The zoning in the 700 block of Willow Avenue is I-1 (light industrial), M-1 (a general clearing house for just about everything on a waterfront and up to 5 stories),  or P-1 (parks & rec) depending on the property.I am not aware if rezoning is required for the project, but it looks like that it will not be necessary if it falls into the marine zoning.

2. “gates hall expected date cornell” (11-5-11)

According to Cornell Facilities Services, tentative opening will be December 2013. When the official ceremony will be, probably sometime afterwards.

3. “cold stone creamery ithaca” (11-4-11)

Actually, this has come up no less than a dozen times in the past week or so. That actually worries me a little bit. I have fond memories of trips to Purity, even if I’d but ice cream for home, leave in my freezer six months, and then throw it out when it was badly freezer-burnt. But anyways, the new Cold Stone/Tim Horton’s  drive-thru is  in the southern part of the city near Buttermilk Falls (407 Elmira Road, to be specific). Not that I have a problem with Cold Stone itself, but I am a little cautious about the homogenization of Ithaca. I’d like to see the right combination between local flavor and well-known chains, but there’s not exactly a chart that says what the right combo is.

4. “cornell law school building renovations 50 million 2011” (11-4-11)

I’ve been lax about mentioning this one, but not without reason. Cornell is planning significant renovations to the Law School, with a gross addition of about 43,000 sq ft, which for comparison’s sake, is similar to the size of Milstein Hall. However, most of it appears to be in below-street-level additions, with the most notable changes being a new entrance onto College Avenue, and a pronounced addition in the courtyard. Also, construction won’t start until summer 2012, and will go through to December 2014, which is only a few months before my five-year reunion. So, it’s largely hidden and way down the line, but it is on the drawing board.

5. “ithaca november snow” (11-2-11)

It happens. Frequently. 5.9 inches worth, on average. The past ten years were, going back in time, 0.0″, 0.0″, 6.6″, 1.2″, 0.6″, 2.3″, 1.6″, 1.0″, 9.6″, and 0.0″.  So, it’s an average with a rather spread-out distribution.