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c1-c4CAMja13_c1-c1CAMMA05 6/13/13 1:00 PM Page c1 July | August 2013 $6.00 Alumni Magazine CorneOWNED AND PUBLISHED BY THE CORNELL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION Glass Menagerie Film project brings sea creatures to life Inside: CU joins MOOC movement A doctor at the Boston Marathon cornellalumnimagazine.com c1-c4CAMja13_c1-c1CAMMA05 6/13/13 1:00 PM Page c2 c1-c4CAMja13_c1-c1CAMMA05 6/13/13 1:00 PM Page 1 02-03CAMja13toc_000-000CAMJF07currents 6/18/13 3:03 PM Page 2 July/August 2013 Volume 116 Number 1 In This Issue Corne Alumni Magazine 4 From David Skorton Regaining our faculties 6 The Big Picture Reunion 2013 8 Correspondence A wish for 2015 12 From the Hill The graduates 16 Sports Nation’s best laxer 20 Authors Playing by heart 96 32 22 Big Red Writers 40 Wines of the Finger Lakes 42 Forward Into the Past Silver Thread 2012 Dry Riesling JIM ROBERTS ’71 56 Classifieds & Cornellians in Business America has gone mad for MOOCs—the “massive open online courses” that prom- ise to bring higher education to all, regardless of finances or geography. This spring, 57 Alma Matters Cornell announced that it was jumping into the MOOC movement, joining a nonprofit founded by Harvard and MIT to create four initial courses. Despite the 60 Class Notes potential benefits, though, some on campus and elsewhere are wary—seeing 92 Alumni Deaths MOOCs as a possible threat to academic quality and professorial careers. CAM speaks to the architects of Cornell’s foray, offering MOOCs 101. 96 Cornelliana Fashion mavens Legacies 46 Beyond the Sea To see the list of under- graduate legacies who BETH SAULNIER Currents entered in fall 2012, go to cornellalumnimagazine.com Photographer David Brown ’83 was working at the Johnson Museum when he came across a collection of undersea creatures made entirely of glass. As he soon learned, they were a century and a half old, made by German master glassmakers and 26 Doomed to Repeat It acquired by A. D. White as teaching specimens—and there were hundreds more on Vietnam book wins Pulitzer campus or in storage. The discovery inspired Brown, a former videographer for Defender of the First Jacques Cousteau, to team up with a Cornell marine biologist to bring the collec- Amendment tion to life. Now, the two are at work on a documentary that pairs the fragility of Floyd Abrams ’56 the glass animals with that of the ocean that begat them. Storms Ahead Climate change and the elderly 52 The Amazing Race American Dreamer BETH SAULNIER Citizen activist Ilir Zherka ’89 Take a Taste Physician Kathryn Ackerman ’94 has long attended the Boston Marathon, often vol- At lunch with a Times food critic unteering in the medical tent near the finish line. That’s where she was last Patriot’s Day when two bombs went off, killing three people and injuring dozens. Two and Face Time a half weeks after the event, Ackerman talked to CAM about her experiences, the Building a beauty empire mood in Boston—and her resolve to be back next year. “It was a good feeling to Mental Health know that when something traumatic happened I was able to act and do the best Can emotions cause heart disease? job I could,” she says. “That part has given me a lot of peace.” Plus | Pole Position Antarctica Marathon champ Website Cover photograph of David Brown ’83 with a Blaschka The Running Dead cornellalumnimagazine.com glass sea cucumber by Robert Barker / UP. Zombies invade the Hill Cornell Alumni Magazine (ISSN 1548-8810; USPS 006-902) is published six times a year, in January, March, May, July, September, and November by the Cornell Alumni Association, 401 East State Street, Suite 301, Ithaca, NY 14850. Subscriptions cost $33 a year. Periodical postage paid at Ithaca, NY, and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Cornell Alumni Magazine, c/o Public Affairs Records, 130 East Seneca St., Suite 400, Ithaca, NY 14850-4353. 2 Cornell Alumni Magazine | cornellalumnimagazine.com 02-03CAMja13toc_000-000CAMJF07currents 6/13/13 12:12 PM Page 3 BY JULIE FEATHERSTONE After viewing Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, my best friend and I sat through the closing credits discussing the ways in which the Civil War had defined America with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery. To my great surprise, that Monday morning I was asked to paddle-wheel the Mississippi with a group of Cornellians as the host of their Southern Culture & Civil War experience. We kicked off our nine-day adventure in Memphis, Tennessee, with a tour of the Shiloh Battlefield. The following days included expertly guided tours of battlefields, quaint river towns, lush plantations, and Antebellum estates. Aboard the riverboat American Queen it was easy living. Suitably outfitted with Antebellum décor and antiques, it moved at an almost imperceptible pace of 8 m.p.h. Dinnertime entertain- ment was staged in the two-deck-tall Grand Salon, modeled after Ford’s Theater—complete with plush velvet chairs and overhanging boxes. After a few nights of big band, ragtime, blues, and jazz, I concluded that the “Mighty Mississipp” should perhaps be renamed the “Musical Mississipp.” The voyage down the river, with forty alumni and friends, reminded me that I have much to be proud of and thankful for, both as an American and as a member of the Cornell community. It wasn’t only the rich history and culture of the South that captivated me; I found myself admiring the rich history and charm of the people I was with. One evening I dined with seven alumni couples who were celebrating more than 360 collective years of marriage. Two Alpha Zeta fraternity brothers unexpectedly reconnected for the first time in fifty-eight years. And in yet another twist of fate, three Cornell alumni celebrated their connection as members of the Super Class of ’56. As one couple later wrote me: “These are the things that turn a good trip into a great trip!” JULIE FEATHERSTONE, Senior Director of Administration for Alumni Affairs and Development, and recent host for the Cornell Alumni Association Travel Program For more information about the Cornell Alumni Association Travel Program visit: www.alumni.cornell.edu/travel 04-05CAMja13skorton_000-000CAMJF07currents 6/13/13 12:13 PM Page 4 From David Skorton Faculty Renewal: A Critical Priority for Cornell hat is it that makes Cornell so unforget- tive ECE majors between their freshman and sophomore years. table? As I listened to alumni at Reunion • In the College of Arts and Sciences, Ishion Hutchinson, the 2013, it became clear that the Univer - Meringoff Sesquicentennial Fellow and an award-winning poet Wsity’s magic is some combination of outstanding faculty, extraor- and essayist, teaches courses in creative writing, including the dinary students, wonderful facilities, and opportunities to grow MFA graduate seminar in poetry. as human beings through activities outside the classroom. • In the College of Human Ecology, Nathan Spreng, the Alumni especially remember the professors who awakened an Rebecca and James Morgan Sesquicentennial Fellow, directs the interest, ignited a spark, and set them on their life’s path. Laboratory of Brain and Cognition. He is investigating the link By virtually every measure—works published, awards between autobiography and imagination by examining the received, students inspired, global challenges addressed—Cornell dynamics of large-scale brain networks and how they change over the lifespan, as well as teaching students about using JASON KOSKI / UP functional MRI analysis for human neuroimaging. • In the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Julio Giordano, the St. John Family Sesquicentennial Fellow in Dairy Cattle Management, translates his research on dairy reproductive physiology and management into courses where students analyze and solve problems observed on commercial dairy farms. • In the ILR School, Elena Belogolovsky, who earned her doctorate in 2001 from Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, is the Ken DiPietro ’81 Faculty Fellow and assistant professor of human resource studies. An expert on “pay secrecy” and its implications for organizations, she is helping to guide the development of appropriate pay communication policies through her research. • Among the new faculty at Weill Cornell Medical Col- lege is Lewis Cantley, PhD ’75, one of the world’s top can- cer researchers, who in February was named a winner of the inaugural $3 million Breakthrough Prize in the Life Sci- ences. Professor Cantley, who came to us from Harvard, is leading efforts to employ precision medicine for cancer diag- nosis and treatment as the Margaret and Herman Sokol Professor and director of the newly established Cancer Cen- faculty today are at the top of their game. But, like all of us, they ter at Weill Cornell and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital. are getting older. A decade ago, roughly 30 percent of the fac- • Our first professor at Cornell Tech in New York City is ulty were fifty-five or older. By last fall, more than 43 percent Deborah Estrin, who is also a professor of public health at the were fifty-five or older, and many of them were past the age of Medical College. She is a pioneer in networked sensing, which sixty-five. uses mobile and wireless systems to collect and analyze real-time We are making faculty renewal our first priority as we pre- data about the physical world and the people who occupy it. She pare for the sesquicentennial, and during the past two years we came to Cornell Tech from UCLA to help create a new model have hired roughly 320 faculty. Some of our new professors are for graduate education that removes barriers between research rising stars; others are distinguished scholars who left senior posi- and application.