INSIDE THIS ISSUE: 3 AWARDED Two MFA students and five faculty 5 CREATED Weill Cornell Medical College members earn prestigious honors. establishes stem cell research center with gift. Chronicle Volume 35 Number 36 May 20, 2004 Life science building could get its start early next year, architects say By David Brand two-story extension branching from the building’s west-facing side toward the Bio- Construction of Cornell’s Life Science technology Building. The extension will Technology Building on the most westerly house a learning center, meeting rooms and precinct of Alumni Field, could begin early a café. In the spaces between the extension next year, and substantial completion of the and the Biotechnology Building will be new four-story building is expected in the forecourts – public open spaces. summer of 2007. That is the latest word The entire building “will be crisp and from architects at the building’s design firm, modular, reflecting the order and organiza- Richard Meier and Partners, New York City. tion of the way it is put together,” said archi- After a two-day working session on cam- tect Renny Logan, describing the building’s pus, architects and consultants met with cladding of flat, white metal panels. “The members of the Cornell administration and building will have clear glass windows to researchers from across campus on May 11 reinforce the transparency and lightness of in Corson-Mudd halls to present their latest the building – and so that everyone can see plans and ideas for the dramatic new build- the activities inside,” he said. The intent ing that will rise alongside Corson Hall and also is to have the building flooded with as Richard Meier and Partners the Biotechnology Building. much natural light as possible, a hallmark of An architectural impression of the planned Life Science Technology Building The $140 million project, the most ambi- buildings designed by Richard Meier ’56, shows Tower Road in the foreground and a portion of Corson Hall at right. The tious scientific facility yet planned for the whose work includes the Getty Center in Los new building’s two-story extension branches from the west-facing side toward campus, will be rectilinear in aspect, with a Continued on page 2 the Biotechnology Building. Second West Campus Way to bee residence named for revered CU historian By Franklin Crawford The second of five West Campus Residential Initiative (WCRI) houses has been named in honor of Carl Becker, distinguished Cornell historian. President Jeffrey S. Lehman announced the naming of the Carl Becker House during a ceremonial groundbreaking held on West Campus, May 17. Becker, a prominent cultural and intellectual historian, taught in Cornell’s Department of History from 1917 through 1941 and served as the university historian from 1941 until his death in 1945. While active as a faculty member, he held two named chairs: the John Stambaugh Professor of History (1922-40) and the John Wendell Anderson Professor (1940-41). The president linked the WCRI’s “faculty-led, student- run” program philosophy to Becker’s famous definition of the Cornell character as combining “freedom and responsibility.” “The freedom to do what one chooses, responsibility for what it is that one chooses to do,” said Lehman, quoting Becker. The president re-emphasized the fundamental impor- tance of the WCRI, saying it strengthens undergraduate education in two mutually reinforcing ways: by creating Frank DiMeo/University Photography smaller communities and by integrating intellectual activity The float from the Department of Biological and Environmental Engineering (BEE) moves down Tower into the daily lives of student residents. Road during the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ centennial parade, May 12. The float won the Dean’s Award for best overall float. More photos from the day’s events are on Page 7. The entire five-house residential system, including a community center, is scheduled for completion in 2010. The Continued on page 4 Latest edition of Epoch celebrates life and artistry of poet A.R. Ammons By Franklin Crawford was aboard the USS of a Guggenheim for his upcoming critical admirers is Harold Bloom, noted literary Gunason in 1945; 21 work on Ammons, the book-length volume critic and Yale professor, who, in a short A.R. Ammons, Cornell’s legendary remarkable watercol- is the longest issue in the 57-year history of critical piece on “Quibbling the Colossal,” bard, is celebrated in an unprecedented ors by the poet, plus Epoch. All of the prose pieces and new writes: “I go on mourning for Archie 480-page issue of Epoch magazine, letters, conversations poems were culled from the Ammons archive Randolph Ammons, and I keep re-reading Cornell’s literary journal. and other Ammons in Cornell’s Division of Rare and Manu- his poems.” Fresh off the press is Epoch Vol. 52, ephemera. script Collections. Ammons was born near Whiteville, N.C., No. 3, titled, This is Just a Place: The Life Ammons, Cor- The book is divided into five sections: in 1926 and graduated from Wake Forest and Work of A.R. Ammons (Cornell Uni- nell’s Goldwin Smith New Poems, Early Writings, Painting and College in North Carolina, where he re- versity, $12.95). Ammons Professor of Poetry, Music, Exchanges and Reminiscences. The ceived a bachelor’s degree in biology. He “It’s all previously unpublished,” said died in February 2001 at age 75. During his watercolors appear courtesy of Emily Wil- began writing poetry while serving onboard Michael Koch, Epoch’s editor since 1989. career, he won virtually every major prize son, a close friend of Ammons. According the USS Gunason during World War II. “Ninety-five percent of the material in here for poetry in the United States, including to Gilbert, Ammons produced hundred of Before coming to Cornell in 1964, he at- has never appeared in print before.” two National Book Awards – one in 1973 paintings in the 1970s and 1980s. tended graduate school at the University of The new Epoch volume includes 30 pre- for Collected Poems, 1951-1971, and an- The 30 new poems are accompanied by California-Berkeley, worked as an elemen- viously unpublished poems, prose pieces other in 1993 for Garbage. short comments from distinguished friends, tary school principal in Cape Hatteras, N.C., from all phases of the poet’s career, entries With an introduction by Roger Gilbert, colleagues and admirers of Ammons, as and worked as a real estate salesman, an from Ammons’ Navy diary, logged while he Cornell professor of English and recipient well as members of his family. Among the Continued on page 2 2 May 20, 2004 Cornell Chronicle Building continued from page 1 Student athlete Looking forward to graduation Angeles and the Jubilee Church in Rome. He is the 1984 Pritzker laureate. The award is dead at 19 is the highest honor in architecture. Possibly the most dramatic aspect of the new building being considered by the archi- after car crash tects is the building’s north-end elevation: a James H. “Jaime” McManamon, 19, a stair tower with a giant glass block wall. “It freshman at Cornell who was a defensive would be full of light, acting as a lantern on lineman on the varsity football team and a Tower Road,” said Logan. shot-putter on the men’s track and field Underground, the new building will be team, was killed in a car accident May 13 on connected to adjacent research buildings by a Interstate 86 in Chautauqua County, N.Y. series of tunnels. One will run under Tower McManamon was Road to the Plant Science Building; another traveling with his will connect to the Corson-Mudd/Biotech mother, Kerry Mc- tunnel, and another will connect to the Bio- Manamon, 41, and technology Building and its loading dock. Kelly Smith, 41, to his Josh Meyer, a laboratory and vivarium home in Westlake, consultant with GPR Planners Collaborative, Ohio. According to described how materials, from gases to police reports, his chemicals, will move from the new building’s 2000 Chevrolet Sub- loading dock via a service elevator and along urban left the road and McManamon dedicated corridors to the research areas, Frank DiMeo/University Photography rolled over several Cornell Dean of Students Kent Hubbell, right, meets with Benjamin K. two-thirds of which will be wet labs, as differ- Addom, a graduate student in international agriculture and rural develop- times. He was airlifted to the Hamot Medi- entiated from computer rooms. Each of the ment from Ghana, during the annual President’s Reception for Graduating cal Center in Erie, Pa., and pronounced four laboratory floors also will have corridors International Students, May 10, in the Schoellkopf Hall of Fame Room. dead upon arrival. Kerry McManamon, who that will be free of materials. “There is no was in the rear seat, was ejected from the reason for people to come into contact with vehicle and suffered injuries. She remains anything that might be an issue,” he said. hospitalized at Hamot Medical Center. Kelly The central goal of the building is interac- Smith, in the front passenger seat, suffered tion, said Logan. “People will be fairly densely minor injuries. packed into an efficient working area, with CU Commencement weekend A 2003 graduate of St. Edward High corridors leading to what might be called a School in Lakewood, Ohio, Jaime town piazza-like space in a sky-lit central road and parking lot closings McManamon was an applied economics atrium at the heart of the building. The princi- and management major in the College of pal point to make is that this will be a central The Cornell Commencement Commit- and Tower Road; Agriculture and Life Sciences.