Agriculture & Life Sciences
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
CORNELL UNIVERSITY AGRICULTURE & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS November 1993 For Alumni and Friends of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Lassoie's On the Inside Restless Spirit Keeping Food Safe Helping Farmers with Disabilities 3 Takes on Endowing the College 6 Real-World Donor Roster 7 Problems Center for Environments New Director Believes in Fto/ver of Individuals with Common Vision iven the tales he tells, James P. Lassoie wasn’t what you’d think of as an easy kid. In fact, he ___ admits, “I drove my dad crazy” when,G for example, he lost all interest in the models he was building before they were even finished. “I never would put the last bits on, Lassoie explains, “because once I saw what it was going to be, I just wanted to move on to the next thing.” Then there was that little problem with reading. By the sixth grade, Lassoie, the new director of the Cornell Center for the Environment (CfE), hadn’t finished a single book. As a respected educator and public school administrator his father was “baffled” by this, Lassoie recalls, because a battery of tests had found intelligence aplenty. We’ll leave to your imagination his dad’s response to the letter requesting that Lassoie withdraw from the University of Washington at Se attle because of low academic standing. The story of Lassoie’s near ouster from college and the adviser whose faith, trust, James P. Lassoie, the Center for the Environment's new director, says the opportunities for the and support saved him is the one he liked center are “phenomenal." ______________ (Continued on page 1) CORNELLUNIVERSITY AGRICULTURE & LIFE SCIENCES NEWS ______ For Alumni and Friends of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences November 1993 Soup Kitchen or Supermarket, Eating Safely When You're Sick Food Safety Is Essential Bob Gravani can picture the young man In the front row quite clearly. He stood out, because he'd asked more Food Science Extension Program Teaches the People Who Keep New Yorkers' Food Safe than the usual numtier of questions during the Safety and Food Excellence (SAFE) workshop Gravani and Donna State Police investigators, milk truck Scott held in Ithaca last fall. Why he was so keen became clear only later drivers, importers of Oriental foods, peo Likethe others in the audience, he'd ple who run soup kitchens, and airline come to learn how to safely prepare caterers—not to speak of supermarket food lor people with a greater than deli employees and food inspectors— usual risk ot foodbome illness. But his would seem to make strange bedfellows. stake in the day s activities had a more Yet each plays a hand in seeing that New personal edge than that of the dieti York State's food supply is safe and whole tians, food service managers, exten some. In doing so, all use the services of sion agents, home health aides, and the college's Food Science Extension hospice volunteers sitting around him. Program HIV-positive, the man could envision The very diversity of these constitu the day when—should he develop ents, and many others, makes the pro AIDS—he'd become 20 times more like gram such an effective safety net lor 18 ly than other people to become in million fork-wielding New Yorkers. fected wit h Salmonella bacteria and six times more Ukely to develop a poten "My colleagues at other universities tially life-threatening blood infection register surprise that we can work equally as a result At the end of the day. he explained to Gravani that he was a volunteer with While ux? can't claim any Tompkins County AfDSWORK. an orga nization that provides education and credit for the quality, or lack support services to area residents with thereof, of airline meals, we'd acquired immune deficiency syndrome like to think that because of us Teaching professionals and volun teers how to prepare and serve food so and food safety professionals that It can be an ally In the healing from several airline catering process rather than a further threat to Chilling Out Gravani feels at home in a supermarket cooler-and m the rest ot the store someone already weakened by cancer, operations, they're a bit safer." Grocery store employees, especially those who work in prepared-food departments, improve diabetes, liver or kidney disease, or —Gravani their knowledge of food sanitation practices by taking a home-study course written by program otherchronic illness is the idea behind staff the program, developed by Gravani and Scott, along with Patricia Kendall well with the Food and Drug Administra Up until then, this regulatory agency When New York became the first state and Cooperative Extension staff at Colo tion, which is a regulatory agency, and and the retail food industry were at log to legislate a Consumer Product Tamper rado State University. with trade groups like the Oriental Food gerheads; the former contending that ing Program, the Bureau of Criminal In Participants are expected to return Importers Association," says Robert B. there weren't sufficient safeguards to as vestigation of the New York State Police to their organizations and share what Gravani. a professor of food science sure the safety of prepared foods and asked program staff to give their investi they've learned with others there who who's been with the program 15 years accouterments on salad bars, while the gators a primer on tamper-evident [jack prepare and serve meals to the ill and "But to us." he says, “they're all friends latter claimed that indeed they could sell aging. Joseph Hotchkiss, a toxicologist elderly in nursing homes, adult day and packaging expert in the college, and care facilities, hospices, and shelters, of the family." such items safely. Each looked to the as well as through meals-on-wheels Working both sides of the street, as it college s program to support their point Gravani planned and conducted the programs and chronic-disease support were, can pay substantial dividends. Take of view. program. “The police knew a lot about crime, but groups. This multiplier effect can have the case of the great salad bar debate. "Instead of taking sides we suggested dramatic results. The six SAFE work not necessarily much about food." Gravani Although it's hard to imagine the days that we all sit down together, look at the shops held in the state last year trained problems and concerns, and see if we recalls. The four-day technical training when supermarkets didn't offer ready-lo 474 people from organizations that couldn't come up with a solution satisfac course for investigators held at the State go salad fixings, so it was until 1984 when serve 86 billion meals annually. tory to everyone." Gravani explains. So Police Academy in Albany. N.Y., covered the New York State Department of Agri “Even if 1 percent of the persons they did. And so began salad bars in the culture and Markets lifted its statewide eating these meals on one day out of state's supermarkets (continued on page 2) ban. the year avoid foodbome illness as a result of SAFE training, illness would have been prevented in 2.360 people." Gravani points out. Metta Winter Lassoie's Restless Spirit (continued from cover) Lassoie worked all the way through to a motes the independence of people all gether by developing a common vision. to tell to students during his 17 years in PhD. who. he says, "kept me from making working toward a common end, that he Then all of the rightfully independent ac the Department of Natural Resources. fatal errors while allowing me to educate brings to his new position as director of tivities (“1 don't want people marching in -Freshmen think college professors line," he says) will succeed in producing myself" It was the right touch for a young CfE. have had some kind of special life where concrete answers to the multitude of prob man who had, at first, transferred out of “At Cornell it’s easy to get caught up everything came really easily and you lems ensuing from worldwide environ the field because the curriculum was too with all of the things: all the money we get. were a Rhodes scholar from the day you the number of courses we teach, the mental degradation. were bom." Lassoie says. "The truth is "rigid.” grants, the research projects, and too He's keen for the job. Remember this is And Scott was the model for how to that most people have had to work hard the guy who. once, when nearing comple bring out the best in people that has easily forget that these are all generated and have had periods when somebody tion of one model felt compelled to move served Lassoie so well, first in working by a wide variety of creative people, not has really helped them educationally just tenure-track faculty anymore, by the onto the next. with the public as the New York State Lassoie's college adviser was actually way." he says “My role at CfE will be to “I'm addicted to a steep learning curve,” Coo|>erative Extension Forester (the po the third person who saw his potential serve and assist the constituency of the Lassoie says as he embarks on this new sition that brought him here in 1976) and despite a somewhat checkered academic center because it's from those talented stage in his career. "After five years as the then with faculty and staff as department career. Sixth and ninth grade science people that everything else follows" department chair, I need some tough new chair.