c1-c4CAMma12_c1-c1CAMMA05 2/8/12 3:17 PM Page c1 March | April 2012 $6.00 Corne Alumni Magazine A Night to Remember Four Cornellians sailed on the Titanic. Two survived. cornellalumnimagazine.com 01-01CAMma12toc_000-000CAMJF07currents 2/8/12 2:32 PM Page 1 March / April 2012 Volume 114 Number 5 In This Issue Corne Alumni Magazine 40 2 From David Skorton Tech touchdown 4 The Big Picture CALCulations 6 Correspondence Watering holes, redux 8 From the Hill Fracking fracas continues 12 Sports Soccer’s great match 14 Authors Liberal evolution 24 Summer Programs and Sports Camps 32 Wines of the Finger Lakes Heart & Hands 2009 Pinot Noir 34 Unsinkable 50 Classifieds & BRAD HERZOG ’90 Cornellians in Business Almost exactly a century ago, four Cornellians boarded the Royal Mail Steamship 51 Alma Titanic on its maiden voyage; they included a railroad designer, two engineers, and a young man trailing a girl he fancied. As the world marks the centennial of the tragedy Matters that struck that “unsinkable” ship—and took more than 1,500 lives—CAM looks back 54 Class at the experiences of that fateful quartet of Cornellians. Two of them perished—while Notes two lived to tell the tale. 93 Alumni 40 Home Front Deaths BETH SAULNIER 96 Cornelliana Psyched out 18 War photographer Danfung Dennis ’04, BS Ag ’05, has captured images from conflicts around the world. In the summer of 2009, he shifted his focus to film: embedded with Marines during the Afghan troop surge, he shot footage that would become the docu- mentary Hell and Back Again. His freshman effort—in which Dennis not only chron- Currents icles the war, but follows one Marine’s struggle to assimilate back into civilian life— has garnered major honors, including an Oscar nod and the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. “I wanted to weave those two worlds together to show that they’re just one 16 All-Age Home experience,” he says, “that the fighting doesn’t stop when these men return home.” Designs for life 44 Writing Dangerously All Abuzz Bee bio EDWARD HOWER ’63 Against the Grain Novelist Edward Hower ’63 teaches writing in the Cornell Prison Education Program, Gluten-free marketing whose students have perpetrated serious crimes—but whose educational achievements and behavioral records make them the “best of the best.” In an essay, he reflects on his Call the Cops “Blue Bloods” scribe experiences teaching at Auburn Correctional Facility, where artistic expression can Ed Zuckerman ’70 become both a lifeline and a way to a better future. “Auburn, a maximum security insti- tution, has broken my heart repeatedly,” he writes, “but it’s also given me the most The ’H’ in HIV exhilarating teaching experiences I’ve had anywhere.” AIDS expert and activist Plus | Questions & Answers Website Songstress Jenn Grauer ’04 cornellalumnimagazine.com Cover: images.google.com 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 $30 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. March | April 2012 1 02-03CAMma12skorton_000-000CAMJF07currents 2/8/12 2:33 PM Page 2 From David Skorton Cornell’s Tech Campus: A Great Opportunity fter an intense, year-long competition, the City of New York has chosen Cornell, in Apartnership with Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, to create a new campus—in fact, a new kind of campus—dedicated to technology and enterprise on Roosevelt Island. We are honored to have this opportunity and are on a fast track for the project, with the first students to begin working with faculty in leased, offsite space in the city by next fall. A critical factor in Cornell’s success was the very vocal (and visible) enthusiasm of alumni and students. Nearly 50,000 alumni live in the New York metropolitan area and, as Deputy Mayor for Economic Development Robert Steele quipped, it seemed that all of them called his office to express their support for Cornell’s proposal. President Skorton Many of our trustees, overseers, and other with Technion alumni used their considerable networking skills President to make the city aware of alumni support for Peretz Lavie Cornell’s proposal, signing up for all sorts of city-sponsored events just so they could talk JASON KOSKI / UP about Cornell. Other distinguished alumni with expertise in technology and enterprise provided strategic guid- less exposure and demand for more of what Cornell has to offer ance to Provost Kent Fuchs, deans Dan Huttenlocher of Com- in Ithaca. puting and Information Science and Lance Collins of Engineer- There will also be more opportunities for Cornell’s entrepre- ing, and associate engineering dean Cathy Dove, MBA ’84, who neurial alumni in New York City and beyond. Over the years led the Cornell effort. our university has nurtured many individuals who have turned One of the most remarkable aspects of alumni involvement ideas and inventions into thriving businesses. In the past five was the leadership of younger alumni in exploiting the power of years alone, Cornell alumni have created more than 2,600 com- social media to spread the word about our bid. Danny Stein ’92, panies—employing over 34,000 people and raising over $10.6 Gus Warren ’94, Keith Grossman ’02, and Jeremy Snepar ’01 billion in new capital—and we expect an even higher rate of mobilized more than 20,000 alumni, parents, and friends to sign company creation, thanks to the new campus’s focus on tech- an online petition in support of our proposal through Twitter, nology innovation and entrepreneurship. Some 2,500 alumni Facebook, and e-mail. The group also collaborated with a current have already expressed an interest in mentoring student projects undergraduate, Jesse McElwain ’13, to garner support in Ithaca. connected to the new campus and in making investments in com- Cornell students passed resolutions in support of the New panies started by students and faculty there. And once the new York City campus, and the Student Assembly, under the able campus is up and running, there will be space available for leadership of Natalie Raps ’12, made a video endorsing the pro- alumni events and activities. posal that was shown in Schoellkopf Stadium during the Home- More than a year before an applied science and technology coming football game. And, with perfect timing, students in Cor- campus in New York City was on anyone’s radar, the Univer- nell University Sustainable Design organized a conference in New sity had endorsed an expanded commitment to public engage- York City for the day after our proposal was submitted. Then, ment in its strategic plan: “Cornell has a unique capacity to on December 16—at a crucial moment in the review process— interweave public engagement with its educational and research the Atlantic Philanthropies and its founding chair, Chuck Feeney programs for students, given its status and history as a private ’56, made an extraordinary $350 million gift to support Cor- university with a land-grant mission. An integration of funda- nell’s development of the tech campus, calling it “a once-in-a- mental science with application of that knowledge and its use generation opportunity . to create economic and educational for the public good should be a distinguishing feature of Cor- opportunity on a transformational scale.” nell programs.” Today, as Cornell expands its public engage- In creating the tech campus, there will be no diversion of ment with this new land grant on Roosevelt Island, those exhor- resources from Ithaca. Instead, there will be many more oppor- tations seem prophetic. tunities for faculty and students in Ithaca-based programs and I thank you for your part in this game-changing venture for faculty and students in New York City to participate in mutu- New York City and Cornell and invite your continued involvement. ally beneficial collaborations as called for in our strategic plan. — President David Skorton In fact, I believe that, in time, the tech campus will generate price- [email protected] 2 Cornell Alumni Magazine | cornellalumnimagazine.com 02-03CAMma12skorton_000-000CAMJF07currents 2/8/12 2:34 PM Page 3 04-05CAMma12bigpic_000-000CAMJF07currents 2/8/12 2:35 PM Page 4 The Big Picture The Big Event: Nearly 1,000 alumni attended the Cornell Alumni Leadership Conference, January 27–29, in Washington, D.C. On Saturday after - noon, they all gathered for a lunch meeting (top) that featured an inspiring address by President David Skorton. Another headline event PHOTOS BY JASON KOSKI / UP was a panel co-hosted by PCCW and Cornell Mosaic (left), which featured top women jour- nalists (L to R) S. E. Cupp ’00, Sheryl WuDunn ’81, Kate Snow ’91, Sheryl Hilliard Tucker ’78, and Cathy Merrill Williams ’91. Other notable attendees included Touchdown the Bear (bottom left) and Charles Wu ’91 (above), seen here explaining how social media works. 04-05CAMma12bigpic_000-000CAMJF07currents 2/8/12 2:35 PM Page 5 06-07CAMma12corresp_000-000CAMJF07currents 2/8/12 2:36 PM Page 6 Correspondence Bo Burgers and Beer, Part 2 The wave of nostalgia continues Ed. Note: In our last issue, we published where I would go for milk and molasses two letters inspired by “Last Call” (Cor- cookies at 11:00 at night. Anyone remem- nelliana, November/December 2011) and ber the name? noted that many readers had posted com- — Mary Steinmetz LeDonne Cassidy ’67 ments to the online version of the article at the CAM website.