Taking on the Big Apple New York City: Cornell’S Urban Lab
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CORNELL’S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE WINTER 2010 TAKING ON THE BIG APPLE NEW YORK CITY: CORNELL’S URBAN LAB 14 - CU IN THE CITY MAP 17 - SEEKING DISTANT PLANETS 20 - LAB OF O ASSISTS MAYA LIN CORNELL’S QUARTERLY MAGAZINE THE ESSENTIALS Remembering an eagle named Ithaca, ovary 2 images as art, ‘Romeo and Juliet’ tagging, Ezra’s homestead site and more. CONTENTS COVER STORY 4 Students take on the Big Apple – Cornell’s urban lab FROM THE PUBLISHER 6 Campus to Campus: Five years down the road by At the center of this issue of luxury bus Ezra is artist Jim Houghton’s fanciful look at Cornell’s 9 Weill Cornell center brings research physical footprint in New from bench to bedside York City, which spans Manhattan Island and extends 10 Cornell Wall Street enhances alumni into the other four boroughs. connections But there is nothing fanciful about Cornell’s New 13 VIEWPOINT York City campus, as the cover story in this issue Th e Cooperative Extension that never makes abundantly clear. Cornell in New York City sleeps. Q&A with Don Tobias is an active, creative and organic reality that for too long hasn’t been fully appreciated. It stretches 14 CENTERSPREAD from the College of Human Ecology’s student CU in the City: An illustration mapping internships to classrooms in the Architecture, Art Cornell’s physical footprint in NYC and Planning facility to outreach spearheaded by Cornell Cooperative Extension. ARTS & HUMANITIES Collaborative team to uncover a civilization in ancient cities There are 45,000 Cornell alumni living and 16 working in the New York City metro area, hundreds on Cyprus of students in many colleges and programs, as well RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT as many faculty members and staff. It is an ever- Jamie Lloyd hunts for new planets, seeking clues on solar expanding universe of Cornelliana embracing many 17 system’s origin academic courses and visiting lecturers, as well as more than 300 events a year, including headliners CAMPUS LIFE like the biennial Big Red parade down Fifth Avenue 18 Service learning takes students into the streets and back to the and this year by the excitement of the Nov. 28 classroom Cornell hockey game against Boston University at Madison Square Garden. These are just a few PEOPLE Robert Langer ’70 fi ghts disease with biomedical engineering examples of how, together with Weill Cornell 19 Medical College, Cornell’s bustling Cornell New OUTREACH York City “campus” is involving students, faculty Lab of O helps Maya Lin realize her dream to create an arts and alumni in education, research and outreach. 20 series on species loss This issue of Ezra reveals how Cornell is melding this disparate, cosmopolitan and highly eclectic CORNELL BOOKS community. In the months ahead we will bring you 22 Musings on physicians, an ex-president’s legacy and family even more evidence of the engagement between tragedies the Ithaca and New York City campuses. WORTH SUPPORTING I hope you enjoy reading about the exciting Hotel school students get big boost from Helmsley Charitable activities and programs featured in this issue’s 24 Trust; Harrison endows Bethe House deanship in Corson’s name cover story. And I hope it will encourage you to become engaged in Cornell events and even to BIG RED ATHLETICS become an organizer yourself. College sports fi elds and arenas build on decades of tradition, 26 notoriety CAMPAIGN UPDATE 28 Within reach, without limits: Scholarships create opportunity Thomas W. Bruce END NOTE Vice President, University Communications 29 Academic entrepreneurship in New York City EZRA WinterWinter 20102010 UPDATE RECOMMITTING TO IDEALS DURING A PERIOD OF GREAT CHALLENGE BY PRESIDENT DAVID SKORTON AND PROVOST KENT FUCHS early a decade into the 21st century and just a few short • Classical and contemporary inquiry that balances scientifi c years away from Cornell’s sesquicentennial in 2015, we and technical literacy with history, politics and language studies. Nmust recommit ourselves to the ideals and mission of our Expansive and pragmatic, this pillar requires students to acquire great university while reshaping Cornell for the challenges of knowledge and think critically about it. This is the most useful and contemporary times. the most versatile education of all. The past 18 months have held particular challenges. Most urgent • Faculty who think “otherwise.” In the Cornell tradition of promoting has been to reduce what was expected to be a $215 million and protecting academic freedom and independent thought, we annual budget defi cit by 2015, while simultaneously “Reimagining must ensure that our efforts to build the faculty of the future follow a Cornell” as a stronger, more focused university. We have worked faculty-driven trajectory and are not imposed from the top down. to streamline support operations and implement other signifi cant • Education for the brightest students, regardless of their ability cuts without compromising our ability to grow in the future. to pay. This pillar remains more relevant today than ever. In 2015, We approach our challenges with a profound sense of confi dence, the university will welcome a hugely diverse array of students, bolstered in part by the participation of eight of Cornell’s most as it has from its beginning. Even during the extended global distinguished faculty members, with reputations among their fi nancial downturn, Cornell increased fi nancial aid, which remains colleagues for being strategic thinkers and doers, who are helping one of the highest priorities in our universitywide campaign, and create a clear vision and plan for Cornell’s future. The work of this this year enrolled the most racially diverse fi rst-year class in the Strategic Plan Advisory Council, which is being carried out through university’s history. four working groups, is being informed by recommendations from • Public engagement that continues to expand in depth and breadth. 20 academic task force reports as well as by plans from the colleges Cornell Cooperative Extension, for example, will diversify its local and schools and will result in a draft strategic plan for the university. and regional programs in areas such as energy, the environment, More meetings will be held next semester with the campus nutrition, fi nances and personal health. And with 3,300 of our community to get feedback and reaction to the emerging 20,000 students already coming from other nations, Cornell will strategic plan’s key concepts. A public draft of the full plan will continue to serve as the land-grant university to the world. be released in March, followed by another period of public This is where we come from. This is the path we must follow. And commentary. The fi nal plan will be issued in May. in all this, our New York City-based faculty, students and facilities During this process, we have found that we need to shift our must and will play a vital role. Collaborations between Weill focus from the physical structure of the university – from bricks Cornell Medical College and the activities in Ithaca and elsewhere and mortar – to the people who make Cornell great. The faculty will multiply, and our network of alumni around the world will is the soul of our great university, and we must return as soon as continue to lead and contribute to the solution of the world’s possible to a healthy pace of faculty hiring, which we attenuated pressing challenges. in order to address our pressing fi nancial diffi culties. And we must We aim to create, on the solid foundation of our four pillars, an continue to invest in our students so that Cornell can remain the ever more exciting and innovative future for Cornell. We ask you nation’s original “opportunity university.” to continue to be part of it. Throughout this comprehensive planning effort, we have never lost sight of the fact that the path to Cornell’s future is through Above: President David Skorton, left, and Provost Kent Fuchs at one its past. We will get to our future by remembering Cornell’s ideas of several strategic planning discussions held with students, faculty and ideals. These are the four pillars on which Cornell University and staff this past semester. was built: EZRA: Cornell’s quarterly magazine Copy Editor: Karen Walters Produced by the Cornell Chronicle 12/09 44.8M CP Vol. II, Issue 2, Winter 2010 Designer: Robin Zifchock All photography by Cornell University ON THE COVER: Photography unless otherwise indicated. Left to right: Ariadne Buff ery and Danielle Publisher: Th omas W. Bruce Contributors: Daniel Aloi, Gary E. Frank, Lauren Gold, Julie Greco, Bryce Cornell University is an equal opportunity, Sanchick, both fourth-year architecture, Managing Editor: Joe Wilensky T. Hoff man, Emily Hopkins, Anne Ju, affi rmative action educator and employer. art and planning students, and Chrissy Senior Editors: David Brand, Anne Ju, Krishna Ramanujan, Beth Saulnier, Bill Subscription information: ezramagazine@ Fazio, a master’s of architecture student, cornell.edu or call 607-255-3630. stroll West 17th Street in Manhattan. Susan S. Lang Steele, Joe Wilensky Photo by Robert Barker/University Contributing Editor: Bryce T. Hoff man Circulation Manager: Alicia Wilcox http://ezramagazine.cornell.edu Photography http://ezramagazine.cornell.edu 1 FLORA & FAUNA RIP Ithaca; 1972-2009 SUSTAINABILITY Friends, family, ornithologists and bird lovers across the coun- try are mourning the passing of a golden eagle named Ithaca. 50 trees greener The eagle, who hatched at Cornell on May 13, 1972, was the Cornell just got greener. Fifty trees were planted Oct. 22 near second of three eagle and on the Arts Quad, Libe Slope and near Schoellkopf Stadium, chicks bred through artifi - a gift from the Arbor Day Foundation and Toyota as part of cial insemination by then the one-year anniversary to celebrate the foundation’s Tree Cornell graduate student Campus USA program.