The Uncertainty of the Greek System

25 08 2010

Add-ons to email services are wonderful things. Right now, I mostly sit in my grad office all day doing work (the rare exceptions will be my grad classes and my TA work, neither of which actually start until Monday). My email is one of my few escapes. Anyways, on my four-accounts-feeding-to-one setup, I have a Cornell newsfeed. Today, one of the top stories was the proposed changes to the Greek System, which seek to drastically alter the social environment. Quoting the article, which came from the Daily Sun:

“…Starting in the fall of 2011, freshmen will not be allowed to attend any fraternity parties in the second half of the fall semester. Three days of rush week during January 2012 will be dry. Mixers will be prohibited for the first six weeks of the new member process, and each sorority can have two mixers a week for the remaining two weeks.

Finally, in fall 2012, freshmen will be prohibited from all fraternity parties that involve alcohol. In January 2013, the entire rush week will be alcohol free. Social events between fraternities and sororities that involved alcohol will be prohibited during all eight weeks before new members are initiated.”

The intent is noble enough; to curtail underage drinking and prevent alcohol-related crime and illness. To someone in the Greek system though, it sounds a bit scary. Let’s acknowledge the not-so-secret fact that a substantial amount of publicity, and recruiting, comes from freshman visiting houses during parties, where alcohol is readily available. What other time are they going to learn about the houses before rush (and Greek Week doesn’t count because it is a collective show of Greek pride by all chapters at once)? Some are already bemoaning this latest act as the death of the Cornell Greek system (and some hope for as much).

First of all, it’s not. Cornell’s Greek system is much, much more  regulated than the chapters that exist at my grad school, which are basically like street gangs with Greek letters. The system may only limp forward, but it will persist.

Secondly, this isn’t the first time these plans have been espoused. In Scott Conroe’s book I Take Just Pride, one section details how in 1999, then-president Hunter Rawlings gave a speech to the Greek System where he espoused his belief that fully half of the houses on campus would likely close as a result of the execution of the Initiative and the establishment of a house system for upperclassmen. I have yet to see evidence that that has turned out to be the case. A similar intent was espoused by a residential initiative that Cornell launched in the late 1950s and 1960s (the goal there was to make small dorms that were like fraternities, but without all of the problems they cause).

Another date that Greeks were terrified of: December 31, 1985. It was the date the drinking age in New York State went from 18 to 21. In copies of the Daily Sun from 1985, fears were expressed that this would ruin the Greek System, for many of the same reason people fear the latest proposals. But, drinking went underground and everyone turned a blind eye. Kegs were banned from open parties after an alcohol-related death in 1989, but the Greek System still persisted.

Arguably, Cornell’s focus should be on a much larger scale. Fraternity parties are notorious for under-21 drinking, but it’s an issue kept behind closed doors. However, even more undiscussed are the house parties and club organizations, which are just as receptive to underage drinking. Sports teams, the Big Red Band, the Daily Sun, Glee Club…freshmen are going to drink one way or another. When the fraternities are prohibited, they’ll just migrate to the houses and private parties of Collegetown, which are mostly unregulated. I would suggest Cornell crack down on all organizations and do Collegetown foot patrols, but the thought of that is nothing short of Orwellian.

Do I see a whole lot coming from this? Not really. There will be much maneuvering, and some face laws, but I don’t see a whole lot of change occurring. Everyone is going to look for ways to let things slide under the radar once again. If it somehow turns out that the Greek System is incapacitated by the new rules, I suspect it will only take a little waiting and watching until other student organizations or even independent groups of people will step in to fill the void of underage drinking.


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Crazy-As-Hell Alumni Profiles: Erich Holt

17 08 2010

Cornell has somewhere around 245,000 alumni or so. It’s only fitting that an unfortunate few of our alumni err on the side of insanity. They might be acting as if they’re on crack, but most of their behavior can be attributed to them just being out of their damn minds.  This entry details one of our finer members of the batsh*t insane alumni club: Erich Holt, PhD 1914.

Erich Holt is one of several names he went by. He was born as Erich Muenter in Germany in 1871, but would adopt the aliases Frank Holt and/or Erich Holt later in his life. He moved to the U.S. and enrolled as a graduate student at Harvard (already famous for its whacko alums). In 1906 he was an instructor in German at Harvard College, living the life of a quiet and rather shabby looking married man.  His wife died mysteriously of arsenic poisoning, and Muenter felt the sudden compulsion to flee to Texas (a slight discrepancy here; Morris Bishop claims he fled to Mexico), later emerging under his aliases (which from what I’m finding, were pretty interchangeable). Holt launched into a brilliant scholarly career, doing four years of undergraduate work in only one year at the Fort Worth Polytechnic Institute before coming to Cornell to take on PhD work. Holt graduated in 1914 and took on a position as…a German instructor [1]. As you can see, he was really moving up in the world.

Well hell, if this was just about alumni who’ve killed their spouses, I could probably pull a dozen names easily. However, as those late night TV ads would say, “but wait, there’s more”.

1914 was not a great time to be a German guy living in the good ol’ U.S.A. For one, there was that whole war in Europe thing going on. Some folks weren’t too inclined to be polite towards folks who could be showing German sympathies. According to Morris Bishop, on campus alone there were rumors of tennis courts designed to serve as gun emplacements, and stories of bomb-making operations in faculty cellars (428). The professor of Latin tried to expel the professor of German (not Holt) from the “Town and Gown Club” because of German sympathies – namely, he read a New York daily that was published in German.

Well, Muenter/Holt was horrified by the war and all of the killing (not crazy). He decided that if he could stop all the munitions manufacturers, like J. P. Morgan, from selling to the Allies, he could single-handedly stop the war (kinda crazy). After realizing letters and arguments wouldn’t work, he decided to take action by bombing the Senate chambers of the U.S. Capitol (WTF crazy).

He designed a suitcase time bomb designed to work by letting acid eat through a cork, and took the next train to Washington D.C. His goal was to “wake the American people up to the damage which explosives like these were doing abroad”. Well, he went into the Capitol on July 2, 1915 at about 11:40 PM, and with bomb under arm, set it down in a reception room where it wouldn’t hurt anyone, went outside and waited for the explosion, running off to catch a train out of town when the bomb went off. The room was blown apart and a watchman was blown off his seat some distance away, but the story only merited a tiny blurb in the NY Times that attributed the explosion to “gasses”.

Step two in his grandiose plan was to take the train to Glen Cove, Long Island, home of industrial magnate J. P. Morgan Jr. Holt’s goal was to hold Mrs. Morgan and the Morgan kids hostage until J. P. agreed to stop sending munitions abroad. Well, after forcing his way into the house, J. P. stormed towards Holt and was given a warm Cornellian greeting by receiving two Big Red and bloody gunshot wounds to the groin as the British ambassador (Cecil Spring-Rice) and a butler subdued the German madman. This time, Holt earned himself the first three pages in the Times. While taken into custody, a grimmer part of his plan was revealed, as he planned to blow up several munition ships while they were at sea. It didn’t help that while he hadn’t plant any bombs yet, one munition ship (the “Minnehaha”) caught fire, and they thought it was one of his bombs,  and it returned to port in a panic.

Of course, the press had a field day with the story. While Morgan survived without major aftereffects (he lived another 28 years), Holt was exposed as Erich Muenter, the Harvard wife-killer. After trying to kill himself using by using the metal part of an eraser cap to try and cut an artery, he literally launched into a second attempt by climbing over the Mineola jail’s lattice bars and throwing himself head-down to the concrete floor 18 feet below. His second attempt turned out to be successful.

Word to the wise – you may not be the richest or most famous person to come out of Cornell, but things could be a lot worse. This is one alumni club that everyone should avoid joining.

[1] Bishop, Morris. History of Cornell. pp. 428-429


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The Hat Clubs of Cornell

13 08 2010

Cornell has always been an institution known for its academics, which is perfectly fine. However, for many years, day-to-day life was a bit of a drag. A hundred years ago, one had few options – if you were rich and/or well-connected (as well as white and Christian), you enjoyed the exclusivity of Greek life; if you were independent, then your options were pretty limited, your social activities confined to the (even then) socially conservative Cornell U. Christian Association’s social rooms, or to the cheap and rather ungainly boarding houses of Collegetown and the city.

Around the early 1900s a movement began that was purely social in nature, vestigial in purpose but attention-grabbing in activity. Hat Clubs were formed by several different student groups. Hat Clubs only existed for one remarkable purpose; they instilled upon their members the right to wear a certain, funny-looking hat [Bishop 409]. Yes, life was that boring. On a deeper level, the clubs were designed to instill a sense of camaraderie among students and to allow friendships to be built among students who couldn’t afford or were excluded from other social societies.

Well, needless to say, campus leaders (read: rich white fraternity men) were not pleased. The presidents of fraternities and the editor of the Daily Sun publicly denounced the existence of these silly groups, and in 1913 they decided to take action against them by drumming up public disapproval and by trying to force them to disband.

It’s hard to try and compare this to today’s Cornell because the idea seems far-fetched. These clubs were nothing more than run of the mill clubs; they rarely maintained a permanent house or meeting place (dues were quite low as a result) and meetings were few and far between. Dinner banquets (often at a boarding house or cheap banquet hall) and social gatherings were their only real activities. Hat Clubs occupied a sort of hazy area vaguely similar to prominent clubs on campus today.

Well, thanks to the work of the well-connected, most of the clubs succumbed to bad P.R. and ceased to exist by the end of the decade. However, two survived. Originally, these two clubs were called Mummy and Nalanda. However, to avoid some of the bad publicity, they changed their names, to Beth L’Amed and Majura respectively. They managed to not only survive the decade, the went on to exist for another forty years.

A Cornell Alumni News from December 1936 provides a little background. Mummy was founded in 1900 by the freshman class (1903). Nalanda began with the following freshman class (1904), and the Class of 1906 had a new club (Stoic) that was quickly taken over and absorbed by Mummy. Mummy and Nalanda would alternate, with Mummy pulling students from classes with even years, and Nalanda from odd years. The two changed their names in 1911 (a discrepancy when compared to Morris Bishop’s account) after their hats were outlawed. According to the article, they were an active part of Junior Week and Spring Day (the predecessor to Slope Day), and did a reunion dinner at the Cornell Club in NYC every year on the Friday before Thanksgiving.

So what happened? Well, their social gatherings did them in. In December 1949, they did a joint initiation celebration for their new members and threw a big jamboree right before the Christmas holiday. Unfortunately, one partier, a Mech E. named Harry Melton, drank for more than he could handle. According to Time Magazine:

“In about an hour, he had wolfed down more than a quart of Martinis. At that point he collapsed, was rushed to a hospital where he lay unconscious for 15 hours. For a while doctors feared for his life.”

A quart of martinis in an hour? Holy crap. Personally, I can’t stand gin. The taste of gin is like running through a pine forest with your mouth open. But, to each their own.
Well, their actions cost them big time. The acting president of the university, Cornelius de Kiewiet, immediately suspended them. Pending a faculty review and denunciation by the Sun for their foolish activity that almost had fatal consequences, the president made the ban on the last two Hat Clubs permanent. To quote the Sun’s piece:

“Cornell’s doctrine of ‘freedom with responsibility’ had clearly been abused . . . The administration will not and should not allow us to kill ourselves . . .”

…and with that, the Hat Clubs were confined to the dustbin of history.


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Hazing at Cornell: A Tradition?

12 08 2010

So, I’m sure there a couple of pro-Greek readers who are already feeling a little twinge of concern regarding the title of this article. I have little interest in pursuing current events regarding hazing (except for News Tidbits entries). I’ve graduated, and unless I get an email on my fraternity’s alumni listserve that says they’ve been suspended or kicked off campus (heaven forbid), I’m not going to pay attention to the half-hearted attempts of the current Tri-Council to police its affiliated chapters. More importantly, hazing is not just limited to the Greek system; campus clubs and intercollegiate sports teams have been guilty of hazing practices as well. According to Cornell’s anti-hazing website, the definition of hazing is very vague, and just about anything that causes physical or mental discomfort is hazing. In that vein, a pledge quiz or an extra lap for the new track team distance runners could conceivably be hazing. However, most people have a pretty good idea where the line is crossed between hazing and non-hazing.

Historically speaking though, Cornell’s tradition of hazing in its more recognizable forms goes back virtually to the founding of the university (and on a larger scale, back to the times of ancient Greece). The first hazing death at Cornell (and the first Greek hazing death in the country) would occur in October 1873, only eight years after the university’s founding.

Mortimer N. Leggett was a member of the class of 1877, a freshman who had arrived on campus only a month prior. He was well off, the son of General M. D. Leggett, the U.S. Commissioner of Internal Revenue. He wrote home nearly every day and spoke very highly of Cornell and its students. He received an offer to join the Kappa Alpha Society (up until the middle of the 20th century, freshman could join fraternities as soon as they arrived on campus), which he regarded highly for its abstinence from strong drinks and prohibition of foul language among members. Well, one night in early October, Leggett was blindfolded and transported into the countryside, and told to find his way home. After some time wandering, two sophomores of the society met up with him, removed his blindfold, and they began to walk back in what they thought was the right direction. Tragically, as they were unfamiliar with the topography, all three stumbled off a gorge cliff near modern day Giles Street in Ithaca, and fell into Six Mile Creek below. Mortimer Leggett succumbed to the injuries sustained in the fall, and the two sophomores were seriously injured. While obviously upset over the incident, General Leggett concluded no real hazing had taken place, just some “hocus-pocus” that went horribly wrong. He later accepted honorary membership into the fraternity [Bishop 132].

Twenty years later, another death from a hazing prank occurred. This one requires a bit of a background explanation. Up until about the late 1930s, the sophomore class always battled the freshman class as a rite of passage. Basically, the two classes were to beat the living crap out of each other as a way to attain/maintain dominance. Formally known as rushes, the brawls were so bad in some years that the Ithaca police had to break it up, akin to a massive riot.

Well, after the frosh won a sporting event in early 1894, the sophomores devised a scheme to pay them back. While the frosh were attending a formal dinner at the Masonic Temple in downtown Ithaca, several sophomores drilled a hole into the floor above the party, inserted a tube and attached it to a chlorine generator [Nuwer 105] . However, they misdrilled, and instead of pumping gas into the banquet hall, the chlorine was pumped into the kitchen, near a stove. It was suspected the the chlorine chemically reacted with small amounts of carbon monoxide to produce phosgene, a compound made famous as a chemical weapon during WWI (basically, it destroys the body’s ability to carry oxygen from the lungs and into red blood cells, leading to choking fits and suffocation). The freshmen began to have coughing fits and breathing difficulties and promptly evacuated the premises. It wasn’t until about 3 AM that the body of cook Henrietta Jackson was discovered in the kitchen. Cornell turned the matter over to police, but the police nor private detectives not a hefty reward from faculty could draw out the culprits of the crime. In the Book Wrongs of Passage by Hank Nuwer, at least two other hazing deaths occurred in the late 1800s, but these are not explained in detail.

Notably, these are just some of the higher-profile cases. Times change, and there haven’t been fatalities at C.U., but hazing continues in its dangerous forms.

Fast forward a century. Prior to the late 1990s, the house at 409 Elmwood Avenue in Collegetown was the house of Alpha Phi Alpha, a very-well respected, historically African-American fraternity. In the fall of 1994, an Alpha pledge named Sylvester Lloyd was beaten so badly that he needed skin grafts to repair the damage and blood transfusions to limit infection. The fraternity lost recognition and Cornell attempted to sell the house (based off later university maps, it seems they were successful, as it’s not listed as a campus property). Lloyd sued the fraternity and Cornell for several million dollars, but the case against Cornell was dismissed (can’t seem to find how much he got from the fraternity; but his linkedin profile is one of the first things that comes up in google). The fraternity closed, reopened and struggled from about 2003-2006, and closed only to restart again about two years ago. It’s a messy history and their hazing incident is a big reason why.

Then of course, there’s the expose Adam Zwecker wrote, “Hazed and Confused”, which was published in Spring 2004. The house involved has its identity kept a secret, but it seems folks have a pretty good idea who it is. I’d discuss this work more, but I’ve already profiled it in previous entries; it’s a really good read if you have a half hour of time to read through it all.

Hazing continues today; several organizations have been punished (I use that term lightly) for hazing in the past few years, the latest being Alpha Delt’s “Ivygate Affair” (fun fact – I edited the article on that incident because one pledge’s father would not leave me alone until I did). It’s not right and it’s hardly justifiable, but it still happens and it will continue to happen. Even if we had no Greek system, hazing would still exist on campus. Even if you took away the sports teams, and the service frats and the clubs, it would still exist. Sadly, I think the university can try its damndest to control it, but it will never go away completely. But it doesn’t hurt for the university to try to do what it can to protect the students’ well being.


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Whatever Happened to the CU ERL Project? (UPDATED)

14 07 2010

Renderings have been released through the Ithaca Journal’s website:


For reference, Riley-Robb Hall is in the upper level. This rendering is looking to the northeast. The cryogenic facility is to the upper right. More renderings can be found in the document attached to the main article.

***

About two years ago, I wrote an entry discussing the proposal of the Cornell University Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) X-Ray machine and how it was sechduled to start operation in 2011. Well, things kinda stalled when the Great Recession reared its ugly head far above Cayuga. In between compiling at my work computer, I decided to look at the the town of Ithaca’s latest planning board agenda. Lo and behold, it appears the project is back on. From the agenda:

Consideration of a revised sketch plan for the proposed Cornell University Energy Recovery Linac (ERL) project located north of the Pine Tree Road and Dryden Road (NYS Route 366) intersection, Town of Ithaca Tax Parcel No.’s 63-1-8.2, 63-1-2.2, 63-1-12, 63-1-3.1 and 63-1-3.3, Low Density Residential Zone. The proposal involves construction of an underground accelerator tunnel (14-foot diameter and +/- 1 km long), a cryogenic facility, and an extension to the existing Wilson Laboratory (+/- 185,000 gross square feet of building space). The project will also involve new stormwater facilities, parking, outdoor lighting, and landscaping. The Planning Board may also discuss the draft scoping document for the Environmental Impact Statement.

Now, long story short, the project consists of a massive extension to the Wilson Synchrotron and a large addition to the Wilson Lab, illustrated in the diagram (which I am virtually certain sure was designed by Munier Salem, as it shares similarities to his previous works and it’s part of an article he wrote for the Daily Sun back in the fall of 2008):

The article also goes into much greater detail about how it’s supposed to work; much more detail than I am going to go into here. Economically speaking, the project has considerable potential for the region: the University and project affiliates estimate over 200 jobs would be created and the facility would bring nearly a billion dollars in economic contribution in the five years of construction and ten years of operation. It’s certainly much better than the alternative, which would be the Synchrotron unit shutting down and taking away 200 jobs.

So, it’s good to see things are moving forward once again. Let’s hope that things can stay on track from here on out.


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(UPDATED) Cornell’s Library Shutdown Count Up to Three

23 06 2010

So, I log into facebook and find this page being posted into my news feed.

So, this comes as a bit of surprise. But I don’t buy into it. First of all, there’s nothing online — nothing on the Daily Sun, nothing on the engineering website, no data to back this up at all. Secondly, decisions like this are usually made over the span of months, even years (for example, the physical sciences library’s shutdown was formalized in March 2009 (an attentive reader of this blog actually told me about it before the Sun even had published the story); the library did not shut down until nearly a year afterwards (and no offense to Munier, but that library was definitely one of the lesser-used and therefore more expendable library facilties on campus). Decisions like this aren’t just “made” without a great deal of debate beforehand.

The one grain of truth I can throw into this is that the master plan indicates that the facilty to replace Hollister and Carpenter is under way — but that would suggest Carpenter getting demolished, not reappropriated. Plus, that’s still in the planning phases. Maybe a library would be in the Gates Hall plans, which are currently at the very beginning of the funding and approvals process; but I doubt it at this time.

I call bullcrap on this one until some information is published that indicates otherwise (see update). If there is any truth to it, going all alarmist  and calling the office staff (like the page suggests) is just going to make matters worse.

(UPDATED) So the author of the facebook page attached several official-lloking documents detailing the removal of the library’s book to Olin and Uris. IT would appear that the ACCEL computer labs would be kept and the labs would be made into a 24-hour unit (but isn’t that the lab in Upson exists?). Meanwhile, Munier has posted onto their page a link from Mann Library saying that the Entomology Library will be shut down and merged with Mann. So it would appear Cornell’s cost-cutting will shut down two more libraries they consider “less-used”.

I hope Cornell doesn’t release any more ads touting their expansive library system anytime soon.


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The Alma Mater

4 06 2010

According to the greatness that is wikipedia, Alma Mater is Latin for “nourishing mother” — appropriate to its modern reference of being the institute of education where one receives their degree. I and perhaps 5,000 others joined the ranks (numbering 245,000 or so) of individuals who can call Cornell their alma mater. But it’s still strange to think that I’m an alumnus now.

So the experience of one class is different from another. If showcasing some of Cornell’s historical figures has proven anything, it’s that times change, as do the experiences change with time. Stuck in the Fast Lane delivered the message that although we are all Cornellians, no one has the same experience. If this blog has proven something, if anything, it merely emphasizes the point that Elie makes; although experiences vary, we all contribute some small amount to the long and finely woven Big Red tapestry.

A student in 1903 was subject to a typhoid epidemic that sickened over ten percent of the city and killed 29 Cornell students (about 1.5% of the school population — comparable to about 300 or so students today; and although directly caused by polluted water, some have indirectly linked the illness to Typhoid Mary Mellon). In contrast, a student in 1969 wondered if the campus would devolve into anarchy and violence, the tension culminating with the infamous Willard Straight Takeover in April of that year. A student this past year will probably remember the sheer number of tragedies that befell the Cornell community, especially the campus suicides. Perhaps on a lighter note, they’ll also remember it as the year the basketball team went to the Sweet Sixteen.

Point is, they’re all vastly different events, but they all still make up a part of Cornell history. As alumni, we’ve all lived through at least some part of that history as students, and hopefully many more years ahead as alumni.

Ca. 1990. Note the street traffic on the lower right, where Ho Plaza is today.

I have nothing that needs to be said about my experiences as a student. I made use of my four years. I felt like I contributed to Cornell’s history, not by writing about it, but my living it, breathing it, being a part of this institution and contributing in some small but personally meaningful way. That’s the most I could ever want.

Although my time at Cornell is over, this blog is not. It will operate in a reduced capacity, certainly. But history is still being made, new buildings are still being erected and new plans being conjured and proposed and maybe even approved and undertaken. History’s flaw and beauty is in its perpetuity. Life at Cornell isn’t ending because I graduated — it goes on for as long as Ezra’s and Andy’s institution remains Far Above Cayuga’s Waters.

That alone will provide me with the inspiration and the motivation to write for some time yet.


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The 2010 Cornellian Yearbook

2 06 2010

So, my time at Cornell is wrapped up. It would seem fitting, not only as a graduating student, but for historical reference, to invest in a copy of the 2010 Cornellian yearbook.

Problem is, they suck.

First of all, if someone wanted to preorder, they make it pointless by offering no discount or advantage whatsoever. Not one dime, no personalization of the cover, nothing. There’s no incentive to order early so many people don’t. Of course, they print hundreds upon hundreds of copies anyway because they know over 3500 undergrads are about to graduate.

As Elie already noted, the historical accuracy and the writing are nothing short of atrocious. It would be one thing if they seemed to try at historical accuracy. But the mistakes are glaring, appalling, and most unfortunately, frequent.

I guess what I get hung up on are the photos of the students. Okay, so they sorted them by college (not done in older yearbooks). That’s cute. Rather pointless since everyone has friends spanning all schools and it makes them difficult to look up, but I digress. But it’s just a photo and a name. Could they at least make a half-hearted attempt to capture the glory of the old yearbooks?

The old yearbooks used to give a form to graduating seniors, usually when they had their photo taken, or sometimes submitted separately. The senior would give a very brief summary of their activities and accomplishments, no more than two of three printed lines. It usually went along these lines (and it varied depending on how much the person wanted to include):

HUXLEY, Martha. Ag. Ho-Nun-De-Kah. Cornell United Religious Work. Dean’s List.

HYMES, John.  Arts. Lambda Chi Alpha. Navy ROTC. Scabbard & Blade. Dean’s List. Graduate, Moorestown High School.

In earlier years, they were included in the space next to the photos. In later years, this section was moved to the back of the yearbook. In the past few years, it has been done away with completely. Which is a real shame. One of the things your yearbook should be memorable for is the inclusion of your accomplishments as well as those of your friends and classmates. Take that away and the yearbook loses a lot of its importance (especially to me, someone who would depend on those little bios for historical analysis of individuals).

On that note, the fraternity section — crap. The staff couldn’t get a group photo from each house as they have in almost every year prior? Bullcrap. Photos of the house are token, and all can be collected with a good set of wheels and a good camera within two or three hours at most. At least attempt to get a list of seniors from each house.

The yearbook tries to offset it’s cost (which, since it costs nearly $100, must not be working) by selling back pages to the parents of students seeking to lionize their children. I for one am not a fan of public displays of adulation. I have no desire to see full page ads of your son at ages 3, 8, 12, 17, and now and read about how proud you are. Couldn’t you have just bought a nice card instead? Back in the day, the Cornellian was more reliant on donations for ad space from companies in Ithaca – clothing and other retail stores, restaurants, B&B’s and the like. It was less egocentric and, in my humble opinion, more professional.

The photos in the Cornellian? Nice, but not nearly enough to make up for the steaming pile that comprises the rest of the book. Arguably, they can’t control the lack of hundreds of seniors from the yearbook either (which I felt uncomfortable looking through and not seeing their faces, but it’s their choice whether to get their photo taken or not).

I love history and I believe yearbooks are a valuable historical tool. Cornell has a fine tradition of quality yearbooks that are a great resource for research or even just the merely curious. But this was pathetic and shameful. This yearbook does not deserve to be associated with Cornell University and has diminished historical value.

In conclusion, the 2010 Cornellian Yearbook is absolute crap.


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Cornell Proposes Further Development for West Hill

14 05 2010

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20100514/NEWS01/5140326/1126/news/Cornell-proposes-senior-center–hotel-school-institute-on-West-Hill

Cornell University is developing plans for a major new project on Route 96 that could include senior housing, offices, small-scale commercial, and an institute for its hotel school.

Town planners have been discussing the idea with Cornell for several months, and Thursday afternoon, Ithaca’s town planning committee voted unanimously to recommend the town board consider re-zoning the parcel to accommodate the development.

Cornell owns 35.86 acres on Route 96 between Overlook apartments and the West Hill fire station. Though plans are still preliminary, Cornell is looking to partner with developers Conifer LLC to build 72 senior living apartments and 60 assisted-living units for low-income seniors, Town Supervisor Herb Engman said.

“And this would be Medicaid eligible, which we badly need in this community because we have lots of places where people can age in place … but none that I know of for those who are Medicaid-eligible,” he said.

Link to site proposal options:

In late 2007 and early 2008, developers Paul and Chris Vitale asked the town to rezone a parcel they purchased across from Robert H. Treman State Park to accommodate a Medicaid-eligible assisted living center, but town board members declined. The Vitales will likely operate the proposed West Hill assisted living center, Town Planning Director Jonathan Kanter said.

Cornell Real Estate Director Tom LiVigne said the hotel school has not yet been decided on the exact size and shape of a new institute building, but it would study issues related to seniors in terms of food service and housing, and likely interact with the on-site senior housing.

To maintain “maximum flexibility,” LiVigne said he hoped the town would rezone based on the maximum possible build-out. John Caruso, senior vice president of Passero Associates, presenting Cornell’s plans, suggested a planned development zone should allow 130 to 170 senior and multi-family units, up to 90,500 square feet for the Hotel School institute, 10,000 to 15,000 square feet of office space, and 20,000 to 28,000 square feet of small-scale commercial and retail development.

The parcel is currently zoned medium-density residential, which allows approximately 3.5 homes per acre, Kanter said. That’s roughly 122 units.

The northern entrance to the development would join the traffic-signaled light that intersects Overlook and Cayuga Medical Center, plans show. A southern entrance road would be built just north of the West Hill fire station, directly across from the road proposed to enter the 106-unit Holochuck Homes development. That development is still undergoing environmental review with the town’s planning board, Kanter said.

Cornell’s plans also include a 106-space park-and-ride lot, “which, again, we feel is badly needed for West Hill, so people coming in from Trumansburg, as well as people who might live on this site and nearby people could park their cars there and then take the bus down through town, rather than clogging up the Route 96 corridor from there on down,” Engman said.

The small-scale commercial component is very important to the town, and the town board could make that piece of the development a requirement, Kanter said.

Cornell’s proposal is scheduled to come to the full town board June 7 at 5:30 p.m. in Town Hall, 215 N. Tioga St.

***


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Kappa Sigma Closes its Doors

6 05 2010

…and the Greek sh*tshow continues.

Kappa Sigma fraternity will be shut down at the end of the academic year by their national governing body, according to Associate Dean of Students for Fraternity and Sorority Affairs Travis Apgar. He added that the chapter would cease to be recognized by the University. The fraternity will be closed after violating sanctions that were imposed on them by their national organization just over a year and a half ago.

Apgar said that approximately a year and a half ago, Kappa Sigma was found in violation of their national organization’s “risk management policy” and were told that they could no longer host events with alcohol, among other sanctions. When they violated this order sometime afterward, their national organization placed them under a “trusteeship,” which required them to have any events approved by a regional manager from the national organization, according to Apgar.

Apgar said that the fraternity, however, violated this sanction too. He said that a couple of weeks ago, Kappa Sigma hosted a party with alcohol without alerting their regional manager or registering it with the Interfraternity Council — in violation of both their national’s sanctions and IFC regulations. When the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs found out, they alerted the chapter’s national, who decided to shut them down.

While leaders in the chapter do not dispute these facts, they did express disappointment at how their national governing body found out about the incident.

At their most recent party, a fire alarm went off and the fire department came to investigate. Rather than allow the OFSA to learn about the incident themselves, the fraternity came forward and told the OFSA. Kappa Sigma President Eduardo Garcia ’11 said that he was assured by Assistant Dean of Students Kara Miller that the OFSA would not alert the national governing body about the party unless a judicial hearing was held.

Though no hearing was ever scheduled, Garcia received an e-mail shortly after from the chapter’s national governing body that they would be closed down.

“We were blindsided,” Garcia said. “The OFSA didn’t even have the decency to send us an e-mail telling us that they were planning on alerting national.”

Apgar, however, denied that the agreement ever took place, adding, “It was not something I was ever aware of.” Miller could not be reached for comment.

In any case, the fraternity will likely remain closed for at least the next few years, though Apgar said that he believed the fraternity would be back, just “not in the immediate future.”

“This chapter has been around for many years and there are a lot of people who have put a lot of time and money into it, I think it will eventually be back,” he stated.

***

This one came almost out of the blue. I began to suspect something was up when I began to see facebook statuses yesterday from Kappa Sigs I know expressing sympathy for the chapter (my first thought was that there was a casuality of some sort). But this…Kappa Sigma was to my knowledge a fairly well-respected, low-key chapter. I don’t think anyone would’ve seen this coming.

Speaking as someone from a chapter whose national and local always seemed to have had strained relations, I am strongly sympathetic towards the Kappa Sigs sudden shutdown, but it doesn’t seem it came without its warnings. The decision to throw a party when you could be shut down for doing so is incredibly irresponsible. But I’m also appalled by the OFSA though. While Travis Apgar is head of the office, Kara Miller is usually the primary contact for houses. For her to give her word and for Apgar to notify the national either means there was horrific miscommunication or someone just got the shaft. Whatever the case, this has been handled poorly and is a big breach of trust between chapters and the OFSA. I wonder if they did it anyway as a show of force to prove that they could put the hammer down on unruly chapters. Regardless, poor display of authority, and poor decision-making on Kappa Sigma’s part.


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