Stuck in the Fast Lane

Sunset Park

2010-06-05T15:36:00.002-04:00

The phrase is the dedication to Sunset Park, a small lookout point in Cayuga Heights. While it's a great place year-round, the best time to go would be a tolerably warm evening in late fall or early spring, when you have perfect views of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca High School, Routes 13 and 34, parts of downtown, and Ithaca College. In other words, everything except Cornell.

Graduation

2010-05-30T11:00:00.003-04:00

I've put my hockey-related thoughts over on eLynah, so I'll focus more on other areas here.

For many, graduation is the culmination of four years spent at Cornell. While my Big Red experience began earlier, with Cornell reunions, hockey games, and two years of Summer College, graduation still represented a clear end. An end to what has been the four best years of my life.

My Cornell experience was transformative. I came to campus after a senior year of high school in which I was, like many other Cornellians, a big fish in a small pond. It took me months to develop a new sense of purpose and determination at Cornell. To my aid came the fraternity, the newspaper, the Lynah Faithful, the job with a professor, and the other organizations and activities of which I became a part. Together, these aspects of my life enabled me to stay busy while learning and having fun. In essence, the goal of college.

At Saturday's convocation, each of the student speakers opted for the rhetorical strategy of trying to name various activities which are common for many Cornell students: studying in Olin Library, going to the bars, attending sporting events. As each speaker presented a new list, I began to think about my own varied experiences over these years. Traveling to an ungodly number of hockey games in eight different states, staying up until 5:00 am to finish piecing together a newspaper, driving to a medium-security prison each week to teach a class, putting in 60-hour weeks at Uris Library to finish my thesis, talking to annoyed cops on weekend nights in my capacity as fraternity president. While I was joined in each of these activities by other people, the combination of all of them together is certainly unique.

So, too, is the combination of activities for every Cornellian. Some of us may seem to be more involved than others, but no two of us spent our time in Ithaca the same way.

I wrote a few weeks ago that there was "no broad sense of the Cornell community." I may have been wrong. You have to wait four years, but on graduation day, there is an undeniable sense of community. With everyone in the black robes, with the packed stadium, and the perfect sunshine, it was a strikingly positive final memory of Cornell.

Cornell is an anonymous place. Of the 130 people who shared my major, I had never spoken to half of them. But Cornell works because it allows each person to create a distinct experience. What binds us together is the realization that we each passed through this place and came out as a different person. Sometimes, as students travel along these solitary paths, they lose their direction and tragedy ensues. For most, though, this journey is immensely rewarding.

My one graduation wish for Cornell is that I hope that my alma mater will seek its own identity in the higher education community. Stop obsessing about being one of the Ivies, and start being Cornell. Stop worrying about the rankings, and celebrate the large student body and our lack of extreme exclusivity. Stop worrying that we are located so far from major metropolitan areas, and celebrate all that Ithaca and its miserable winters have to offer. Stop worrying that our name is associated with tragedy, and celebrate that our name is associated with unprecedented athletic success.

Just as students at Cornell seek their own paths, so may Cornell diverge from what is expected of it. As this happens, perhaps Cornell will move away from the unfortunate combination of grade inflation and the hook-up culture. It's hard to gain much from Cornell when you're scraping out a 3.5 while never leaving Collegetown and its bars.

But I don't want to end on a negative note. I am a proud Cornellian, and I will forever be one.

Thank you for reading this blog. When I started, I vowed that I wouldn't invest any time in publicity. For the first few weeks, I put a link on my Facebook page. And I posted links on eLynah to a couple of posts. But truly, that was it. My father found this blog by reading eLynah. My mother found it almost a year later when she searched in Google for the Cornell hockey schedule and one of my posts came up first. Many of my friends have no idea that I blog.

Regardless, I continued to write because people continued to end up here. Some of you have asked what the future holds. I am certain that I will not be able to update this blog as frequently. Moreover, I will no longer be living in Ithaca, and I hate to rely on my daily dose of Google news alerts for material. Still, I will continue to write when I feel like writing, whether about Cornell University, Cornell hockey, Teach For America, or anything else which arises. Please continue to check back and write comments. I also hope to begin contributing to MetaEzra on an occasional basis, although Matt's superior knowledge of all things Cornell means that my posts may center primarily around sports.

I will conclude this post with a quotation from a certain place in Ithaca. Prize to the person who guesses correctly. And please don't answer if I took you there this weekend.

Here may you too find beauty - goodness - truth.

The Problem With Politicians

2010-05-29T19:02:00.002-04:00

I've written each of the last two years about why the convocation committee should not choose a politician as the keynote speaker.

By most accounts, David Plouffe, who never graduated from college, gave a weak speech last year.

And this year, Nancy Pelosi was just miserable.

She gave a rambling speech, the first part of which was an attempt to establish her credible connections to Cornell (and "Tompkin County"), and the second part of which was the typical Democratic stump speech disguised in the context of the need for science education and research. Her inspiring personal story was a self-deprecating anecdote about why she ran for Congress: her teenage daughter wanted her out of the house. When Pelosi ended by telling the graduates that we always had a friend in the speaker's office, it was clear that this was one of those lines which she delivers to every college. Indeed, a look at Pelosi's recent address to lowly Mills College in Oakland, Calif., indicates that her speech today was not original.

With 20-something people on the convocation committee, you'd think they could have come up with a more sincere, engaging, and thoughtful convocation speaker. (At least now they can all brag that they were "instrumental" in bringing Pelosi to campus.)

Why not one of Cornell's famous alumni, someone whose Cornell "cred" does not require 10 minutes of rambling to establish? If you want a government figure, why not Ginsburg? What about someone internal? Is Charles Walcott still alive? He's a great speaker. Ted Lowi spoke at my ceremony this afternoon; he would have been more enjoyable to listen to. I'm sure there are professors, authors, philanthropists, physicians, and musicians who could all give an excellent address.

Why the obsession with the big name? Look smaller, and look better.

Next year provides another opportunity to move away from the political mold.

Athletic Scholarships

2010-05-29T18:29:00.003-04:00

I've never been particularly impressed by lacrosse announcers. Too much chitchat about the players' hometowns and the inbred hotbeds of lacrosse. Too much Lacrosse 101 type stuff, even though you wouldn't be watching unless you had some idea about what was going on. And not enough actual commentary about what's happening on the field, unless someone scores.

But today was something else. The announcers loved the underdog story of Notre Dame, a program which - as was mentioned repeatedly - did not give out its maximum allowed number of lacrosse scholarships until 2006. Never mind that this meant that all of the players on the current team would have benefitted from this full complement of scholarships.

Funny that they didn't mention that Cornell has never given out a lacrosse scholarship, and never will. Nor will any other Ivy program. It's ludicrous to view Notre Dame as the underdog because it took them until 2006 to give out the MAXIMUM NUMBER OF SCHOLARSHIPS ALLOWED BY NCAA RULES, when Cornell gives out ZERO.

Later in the broadcast, one of the talking idiots mentioned that Cornell Coach Jeff Tambroni always puts aside some scholarship money in case a quality kid pops up late in the process. Once again, this shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Ivy League sports.

I suppose that it's a testament to Tambroni and the Cornell recruiting program that the announcers seem to believe that Cornell gives out scholarships. At least the announcers noticed that Cornell never seems to recruit high school All-Americans, but instead turns overlooked players into great players.

Cornell lost to Notre Dame, 12-7, in the NCAA lacrosse semifinal. Make that three of the last four seasons that Cornell has made it to the Final Four, with a 1-3 record in those appearances.

Human Interest Stories

2010-05-26T17:08:00.002-04:00

For all of the wealthy tri-state area Cornell students for whom attending Cornell simply meant that they were rejected by the schools above Cornell in the rankings, or that the reduced in-state tuition persuaded their parents to buy them a new BMW, there are a few like Jordan Davis and Josh Knight.

Timeline of Four Years at Cornell

2010-05-26T16:15:00.002-04:00

The Daily Sun has a nice look back at four years of newsworthy events.

Intihar, Nickerson, and Wittman Share Top Award

2010-05-26T15:37:00.003-04:00

The award for the top senior athlete at Cornell went to softball star Alyson Intihar, wrestler Troy Nickerson, and basketball player Ryan Wittman.

Although Colin Greening received the leadership award, I'm surprised that goalie Ben Scrivens didn't receive one of the top awards. Scrivens was a first-team All-American this year. Ryan Wittman was an honorable mention All-American.

Of course, especially this year, there are plenty of deserving Cornell athletes. I'm wondering, though, whether NCAA tournament success was the deciding factor. Scrivens is better at hockey than Wittman is at basketball, but Wittman's underdog team won two NCAA games and energized Cornell students and alumni. Scrivens' team was blown out in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Nickerson, a former NCAA champion, helped his team to a surprising runner-up finish at the NCAA championships. Intihar, as the Ivy player of the year, is certainly deserving of a spot as well, although her team was blown out in its two NCAA tournament games.

Weather.com Anticipates Cornell Weather Machine

2010-05-22T15:15:00.003-04:00

This almost seems too good to be true...

70 degrees with no chance of rain?

The Cornell-Educated Trilingual Bar Trivia Host

2010-05-20T17:57:00.003-04:00

Interesting piece on Forbes.com:

I may be one of America's only Ivy League-educated, trilingual trivia hosts with a master's degree.

Note also:

I graduated from Cornell University in 2002 with a degree in Industrial Labor Relations, a de facto pre-law program...

Switzerland Soccer = Cornell Basketball

2010-05-20T16:44:00.002-04:00

This is a great blog post which compares each of the World Cup soccer teams to an American sports team. Which team is closest to Switzerland?

Not a great team, but they’ll beat you if you’re not careful. Fundamentally sound, if lacking great athleticism. Also, they all probably have rich parents.

Switzerland = Cornell Big Red basketball

Has Anyone Ever Won $100 From the Cornell Store?

2010-05-19T12:45:00.004-04:00

I received yet another email from the Cornell Store today. As usual, it mentions that we should swipe our Cornell IDs at the Store so we are entered in a drawing to win a $100 gift card every day.

You can read full details of this "daily drawing" on the Store website.

Here's my question: Has anyone ever won this? Has anyone heard of anyone winning this?

It seems very strange to me that in four years at Cornell, I have never heard of anyone winning the daily drawing. We're talking about 1000+ daily drawings, and I've never heard of anyone winning. I realize that the odds are that I wouldn't win it personally, but one would think that I would know someone who has won.

So, has anyone won the drawing? Can someone assure me that they actually give out $100 each day?

Update: I have been assured by employees of the Store that they do, in fact, choose a winner each day.

Oops...

2010-05-19T12:26:00.001-04:00

C.U. Enters Into Transfer Agreement With N.J. College

Students matriculating at these two-year institutions are guaranteed admission so long as they meet five transfer criteria, which include having at least a cumulative grade point average of 3.0 and demonstrating a solid interest and fit in the CALS major these criteria have been mentioned earlier...could we mention the other three? might be more interesting. If applicants meet all five criteria, then they are guaranteed admission to certain CALS majors such as Information Science, International Agriculture and Rural Development and Nutritional Science.

Academic Dishonesty

2010-05-18T18:50:00.002-04:00

If you missed it, there's been a big story in the news about a former Harvard student who essentially lied about his entire academic record in order to gain admission to Harvard, win awards there, and receive scholarship money.

When these stories come out, I always wonder: When people lie on this type of scale, are they almost always caught? Is there really no way for someone to succeed by doing this? Or is this case just the tip of the iceberg because there are plenty of others who have gotten away with it?

What makes this story more intriguing, of course, is that it involves Harvard, that bastion of academic excellence. Hockey fans may remember that Crimson goalie Kyle Richter sat out his sophomore season because of an academic integrity violation, which we assume to be cheating. (Richter returned this season and did not play nearly as well as he did as a freshman.)

The only student from my high school class to matriculate to Harvard was also a bit of a trickster. She routinely lied (to us at least, hopefully not to colleges) about her academic record, saying she got a perfect score on her SAT. She continued to brag about her perfect score even as she went to take the test a second time. She also lied about which colleges she was applying to and which ones had accepted her.

Lest I be accused of being overly negative about Harvard, I should also mention the recent case of the woman who falsely inflated her Cornell GPA from a 2.5 to a 4.0 to win dental school scholarships.

And cheating, of course, does occur at Cornell. The Sun ran a feature on this last fall. I've heard of multiple cases involving students plagiarizing on papers, including on some honors theses last year. And smaller forms of cheating - copying homework, collaborating on take-home exams, writing things on hands/arms - are quite common. For one of the Organic Chemistry prelims this spring, students cheated by writing answers on the soles of their shoes. (All footwear was inspected for the next exam.)

Put people in a high-stress setting in which grades are important, and some are bound to cheat. Administrators and professors can warn students not to cheat, but in the end, there will always be a few who choose to break the rules. I was amused to hear about an engineering professor who informed students that he would not report them if they cheated, but would instead "personally beat the shit out of them."

Of course, dishonesty isn't limited to academia. Recall the case of the former Notre Dame coach who lied on his resume. Just last night, the Times broke a story about my attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, who stated falsely that he served in Vietnam.

I worry that this Harvard story is like the movie Catch Me If You Can. On the one hand, it's a terrible thing and the criminal will be punished. On the other hand, it's cool that he got away with it for so long.

Cornell Connection of the Day

2010-05-18T09:00:00.000-04:00

One of the co-founders of AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com is Doug Chernack '96.

Potential NCAA Rule Changes Will Mostly Hurt Cornell

2010-05-17T20:00:00.000-04:00

As happens every two years, the NCAA hockey standing committee on rules will meet this summer to debate potential rule changes. Here's a look at a few of the possible changes, and some speculation on how they will affect Cornell.

-Tampering with overtime; mandating that overtime be played 4-on-4 (as in the NHL), followed by a shootout if no one scores. Right now, each conference decides how overtime games will be played. (The ECAC is 5x5 with no shootout.) I don't like this change at all. I've written before that I think it's stupid to play a decisive overtime period with different rules than those which are used during regulation, whether that means changing the number of players on the ice or calling penalties differently. Plus, Cornell tends to favor good positioning and physical play over skating virtuosity, which means that 4x4 hockey isn't conducive to success for Cornell. If 4x4 is implemented, look for the Big Red to do their best to play good defense and settle for a tie instead of taking the puck to the net. Shootouts are simply stupid, in my opinion. I have no problem with ties. Cornell has done pretty well in shootouts in Florida over the last few years, but remember also that the Big Red haven't converted a penalty shot opportunity in over 20 years.

-Requiring half-shield face masks instead of full-shields. I don't exactly follow the logic of proponents of this shift, who say that players will give more respect to opponents who have half-shields, which means they won't hit them as hard, which will reduce injuries. But apparently "nearly 100 percent" of coaches are in favor of the change.

-Eliminating the ability of shorthanded teams to ice the puck. This is an exceedingly stupid idea and I really hope the coaches aren't asking for this change. Cornell is very good on the penalty kill, and they are almost always content to shoot the puck down the ice and use the opportunity to change lines. If this rule were to be changed, Cornell couldn't ice the puck, but would instead be forced to try to carry the puck past the red line before shooting it down-ice, or else only clear it part of the way down the ice sheet. Either way, it would be more difficult to put fresh penalty killers on the ice.

-Penalizing players for shooting the puck over the glass. The NHL already does this. I'm not personally opposed, but I recall vividly the game at Quinnipiac this year, when Brendon Nash kept sending the puck over the boards when he tried to clear it. The boards are shorter at Q than at Lynah, but still, it was pretty bad. Two people in the stands were injured. This might be a good rule overall.

-Keeping the faceoff in the offensive zone if the puck hits the crossbar and goes out of play. This rule is logical and seems likely to be implemented.

The problem here is that the college game, like the NHL, is looking for ways to boost offense. Cornell is a somewhat anachronistic team in that they like to play low-scoring games. The majority of the proposed rule changes (see some more here) are intended to increase scoring. This hurts Cornell.

One major non-gameplay potential change is the reconfiguration of the NCAA tournament. Currently, four regional sites each host four teams for a total of three games over two days. The winners from each regional advance to the Frozen Four.

There is some support for making the first-round games a best-of-three series at the home rink of the higher seed. This rewards better teams by making it easier for them to advance. Certainly the increasing parity of college hockey has led to a higher number of situations - like RIT over Denver in Albany this year - in which a #1 seed has been stunned by a team which was arguably less talented. I really think Cornell would have beaten UNH in a best-of-three series at Lynah, even though UNH won the single game played in Albany.

Under the proposed change, the eight winners of the first-round series would play their quarterfinal games at one of two "super regional" sites, with the four winners of the games advancing to the Frozen Four.

I'm in favor of this change. The shift to a best-of-three series properly rewards the higher seeds, and it'll be a much better atmosphere than the often-dead atmospheres at distant regional sites. (See: Grand Rapids Regional, March 2009). There's also more revenue for the host schools.

As Adam Wodon points out, the major problem with this change is that the Pairwise system for seeding teams in the NCAA is still quite flawed. Until that is resolved, it doesn't make sense to give the #8 seed such a huge advantage over the #9 seed.

Cornell to Play Colgate in... Newark

2010-05-16T17:32:00.003-04:00

After selling out Madison Square Garden in 2007 and 2009 for highly anticipated Thanksgiving weekend match-ups with Boston University, Cornell hockey will be moving slightly south this fall to play Colgate at the Prudential Center in Newark.

It's easy to see the logic here. Cornell's two games with BU have been sellouts, highly profitable for both schools and for the venue. Cornell and Colgate have substantial alumni bases (as well as student fans) in the NYC area. And Cornell certainly earns more money over Thanksgiving by sending the team to play in a big arena instead of shipping them (via Canada) to North Dakota for two games, as they did in 2008. Perhaps Athletics is trying to start an annual tradition of Thanksgiving hockey games in the NYC area. It is anticipated that Cornell and BU will face off in MSG again in 2011.

However, this is a disappointing decision in terms of hockey. The Cornell-BU rivalry is fueled by all of those years in the 1970s and 1980s when the two teams battled for supremacy in the ECAC. Moreover, both Cornell and BU have continued to battle for their respective conference titles and NCAA appearances in the years since. Colgate, aside from its geographic proximity to Cornell, is a mediocre hockey program with little emotional significance to Cornell fans.

Over the past few years, Cornell has had the misfortune several times of playing ECAC teams in a neutral venue. In December, Cornell lost to Princeton in Florida in a terrible game. The previous year, they tied Colgate in Florida. The previous year, they tied Clarkson in Florida.

The key is this: as an Ivy team with a responsibility to schedule home games to earn revenue, Cornell has few opportunities to leave Ithaca to play a significant non-conference game. The few high-level non-conference opponents over the last couple of years, such as North Dakota, BU, and UNH, have provided entertaining hockey and a good challenge for the Big Red. You don't want to waste these opportunities by playing mediocre teams which you play twice each year anyway.

Assuming the Red Raiders once again finish in the middle of the ECAC and fail to qualify as a Team Under Consideration, this matchup has little benefit to Cornell. Winning or losing this game in Newark isn't going to have much of an impact on Cornell's season.

I really hope that Cornell was trying to schedule a big game for Thanksgiving -- maybe Boston College, or Northeastern (as was rumored), or another eastern team with a lot of NYC alumni -- but that the arrangement fell through and they had to turn to Colgate. Given the scope of the opportunity, the result is disappointing.

Update: After thinking some more, there is a way this may work to Cornell's advantage. If the Big Red consider the Newark game to be their "home" game against Colgate, and they move the game in Hamilton to a Tuesday (as was done this past year), that frees up a weekend on the schedule. Cornell could bring in (or travel to) a quality opponent at that time, or else have more flexibility to schedule some sort of home-and-home across two different weekends. But this is probably just wishful thinking on my part.

Cornell Rising Freshman Looks Forward to "Not Having Parents"

2010-05-14T23:00:00.000-04:00

Maybe the word "around" was supposed to be at the end of the sentence.

Cornell Plans Senior Housing on West Hill

2010-05-14T19:40:00.003-04:00

Sounds like it would be a cool opportunity for hotel students to gain experience in running the hospitality and food for a senior center. I'm sure the pre-meds would love to get some experience there as well. And of course, the development of the land would make Cornell some money.

Ithaca Journal via Ithacating

Ithaca: Hotbed of Underwater Hockey

2010-05-14T19:30:00.002-04:00

Interesting article about the sport, which is played twice weekly at Teagle.

At first, the idea of a game of hockey played at the bottom of a pool seems absurd, and seeing it played for the first time is similar to watching sharks feeding. Since the action takes place underwater, not much can be seen from the pool deck. The water churns, fins slap the surface and water blasts from snorkels. The pack of eight to 12 players moves quickly, travelling from one end of the pool to the other and back in seconds. After several minutes of this frenzy, the players finally stand up, remove the snorkels from their mouths and congratulate each other on the play.

Yearbook Embarrassment

2010-05-13T17:11:00.009-04:00

Just started flipping through this year's Cornellian, which costs around $100.

Who proofreads the yearbook? From glancing through the pages, not even seriously trying to read any of the articles, my eyes kept hitting obvious typos.

Also, there's this gem from the timeline on page 107:

1990: Cornell University's football team wins the national championship.

Between these errors, and the incident a couple of years ago when "Cornell University" was spelled wrong on the cover, I'm wondering whether anyone actually reads this thing before it goes to print.

Edit: Wow. Here's the "recap" of the men's varsity ice hockey season. I realize this had to go to print before much of the season had taken place, but this paragraph is simply terrible. It reads like a middle-schooler wrote it.

This year men's hockey has started with a strong beginning to the season. So far, the team has played seven games, losing only two of the games. The season opened against the University of Windsor, with a 7-0 win. The second game, against the U.S. Under-18 Team, finished with a 2-3 loss over the Big Red. However, this game did not count for the season record. The conference record, to date, for ECAC, stands at 3-1. The first game in the Ivy League Conference was a successful outing against Dartmouth College. Cornell finished the game with 5 goals, letting in only one of Dartmouth's attempts. One of Big Red's biggest accomplishments was the dramatic defeat against Harvard University. Fans came out in full force to support the hockey team's performance against our biggest rival here at Cornell. The Sun printed newspapers for the occasion, and almost every single fan was adorned with Cornell apparel. Cornell also prevailed over Brown University, with a 6-0 loss in Providence. However, one disappointing loss this season was against Yale University. It was the first loss in the ECAC league for Cornell. Cornell will also host Princeton University, Quinnipiac University, and Colgate University. Over Thanksgiving Break, Cornell will face Boston University at Madison Square Garden in New York City. This year, Cornell will also play in the Florida College Classic at the end of December. The first opponent they will face is Colorado College, and the second opponent is to be announced at a later date. The season closes here in Ithaca, against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on February 27. The ECAC Tournament begins on March 5, 2010, and finishes on March 20, 2010.

What's wrong here, aside from the bad English? (Seriously, this isn't meant to be an offensive comment, but these yearbook articles read like the New Haven Advocate when they outsourced an entire issue to India.)

This year men's hockey has started with a strong beginning to the season. So far, the team has played seven games, losing only two of the games. The season opened against the University of Windsor, with a 7-0 win. The second game, against the U.S. Under-18 Team, finished with a 2-3 loss over the Big Red. However, this game did not count for the season record.

Right, and nor did the Windsor game. At the time of writing, Cornell had only played five games.

The conference record, to date, for ECAC, stands at 3-1. The first game in the Ivy League Conference was a successful outing against Dartmouth College.

There is no Ivy League Conference.

Cornell finished the game with 5 goals, letting in only one of Dartmouth's attempts.

So they won, 5-1?

One of Big Red's biggest accomplishments was the dramatic defeat against Harvard University. Fans came out in full force to support the hockey team's performance against our biggest rival here at Cornell. The Sun printed newspapers for the occasion, and almost every single fan was adorned with Cornell apparel.

Surprisingly enough, the Sun prints every weekday during the semester. The Sun had a two-page graphic which was meant to be waved during the introductions. Also, surprising that Cornell fans would wear Cornell apparel to a hockey game.

Cornell also prevailed over Brown University, with a 6-0 loss in Providence.

Wait -- did they prevail, or did they lose? Or both?

However, one disappointing loss this season was against Yale University. It was the first loss in the ECAC league for Cornell. Cornell will also host Princeton University, Quinnipiac University, and Colgate University.

Also the University of North Dakota, Clarkson University, St. Lawrence University, Union College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Yale University, and Brown University.

Over Thanksgiving Break, Cornell will face Boston University at Madison Square Garden in New York City. This year, Cornell will also play in the Florida College Classic at the end of December.

Unlike every other year, when they play in the Florida College Classic at the end of December.

The first opponent they will face is Colorado College, and the second opponent is to be announced at a later date.

Like after the games on the first day.

The season closes here in Ithaca, against Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute on February 27.

Cornell somehow misses the ECAC playoffs, which involve all 12 teams.

The ECAC Tournament begins on March 5, 2010, and finishes on March 20, 2010.

Which is useful information for fans because the yearbooks are distributed in May 2010.

Headlines Which Stretch the Truth

2010-05-12T20:26:00.000-04:00

Here's one.

Cornell Seniors Love Cornell

2010-05-12T19:39:00.002-04:00

The results from the 2010 Senior Survey look pretty good for the University. Here's the .pdf with the pretty charts and graphs.

Keep in mind, though, that just under 50 percent of seniors completed the survey. My gut feeling is that the people who did complete the voluntary survey were probably disproportionately calm, not stressed, and generally satisfied with their time at Cornell. Some of the numbers simply seem too good for Cornell.

Note that advising within the major, class size, and ability to acquire broad knowledge in the arts and sciences were among the categories with the lowest numbers of students reporting satisfaction. Students love the libraries and their services, with 98 percent satisfied.

Jim Calhoun

2010-05-12T02:57:00.002-04:00

I think few people at Cornell would have had a problem with giving Steve Donahue a generous raise after this past season. Yes, Cornell is slashing budgets, eliminating positions, and taking on more debt. But his success has brought recognition, pride, and certainly revenue to a university which went through a tough year.

On the other hand, there's Jim Calhoun. After missing the NCAA tournament this season, he enters into "negotiations" with UConn and wins a huge salary increase, from $1.6 million to $2.3 million. This with UConn deep in the red and the athletic department spending hundreds of thousands to defend Calhoun's program against an NCAA investigation.

Take it away, Colin McEnroe.

Who knew

2010-05-11T00:58:00.002-04:00

that Cornell offered an undergraduate degree in winemaking?

Presented Without Comment

2010-05-10T21:15:00.003-04:00

Another Painful Lacrosse Loss

2010-05-10T10:58:00.003-04:00

For a game which tends to be significantly higher-scoring than hockey, lacrosse seems to produce a disproportionately high number of games which go down to the final seconds. Unfortunately, over the last few years, it seems like Cornell is nearly always on the losing side of these affairs.

It wasn't always this way. As recently as the spring of 2007, en route to a 15-0 start, Cornell won a couple of nailbiters. Up in Syracuse, a great inbounds play by then-sophomore Max Seibald put the Big Red up 16-15 with 4 seconds to play. Seibald's game-winning goal landed him on SportsCenter's Top 10. Then, in the NCAA quarterfinal game, Cornell beat Albany, 12-11, after a goal with 4.8 seconds remaining in sudden-death overtime. You can see this exciting finish here.

Quickly thereafter, the tide turned against Cornell. In the Big Red's next game, at the 2007 NCAA final four in Baltimore, Duke scored the game-winning goal with 3 seconds left to win 12-11. This came after the Big Red rallied from a 7-goal deficit with 18 minutes remaining.

After a comparatively uneventful 2008 season, the gods of lacrosse again turned their wrath on Cornell in 2009. The end of the national championship game was one of the most painful things I've ever seen in person. You know the story: Cornell has possession in the final seconds with a one-goal lead, turns over the ball, Syracuse ties the game with 4.5 seconds remaining, and then wins the game in overtime. Goodbye NCAA title.

Finally, this season. Last month, Cornell lost to Syracuse again, this time with less than one second remaining on the clock. (In fact, from the replay, it seems like time may have already expired). Then, yesterday, Cornell blew a four-goal third quarter lead, squandered two opportunities in overtime, and surrendered the game-winning goal in the final seconds of overtime. Another rough way to lose.

What's going on here is anyone's guess. Perhaps Coach Tambroni, an excellent coach overall, needs to do a better job of calming down his players at the end of games. Or maybe this is a cyclical thing, and we'll soon see a few close games with Cornell as the victor.

At 10-5, Cornell is seeded #7 in the NCAA tournament and will host Loyola on Saturday at 2:30. The game will also be on ESPNU. The winner will travel to Princeton for the NCAA quarterfinal game, where they will most likely face Syracuse.

Hollywood Meets Lynah Rink

2010-05-09T17:00:00.001-04:00

Katelyn Pippy, a high school senior from the Pittsburgh area , is both an outstanding hockey goalie and a up-and-coming actress. Pippy has a regular role on the TV show Army Wives, which airs on Lifetime. She's also an excellent goalie, and balances trips to hockey tournaments and development camps with trips to California to film.

As of next fall, Pippy will play hockey at Cornell:

She will attend and play hockey at NCAA Division I Cornell University. Part of what appealed to Pippy about the school was its size (13,000) and the fact it has a traditional campus with a traditional college atmosphere.

"With all the traveling, I didn't really get to do the whole high school thing, so I wanted to do the college thing right," Pippy said. "Cornell just had a great campus and the school is great and then the hockey program, too. It kind of all came together."

In the meantime, Pippy will take a year off to play on a traveling U-19 team. She's only 17, and she doesn't feel quite ready to make the jump to the NCAA.

However, it's not clear whether Pippy will be focusing more on hockey or acting during the interim year.

"I want to go to college but I might take a hiatus for a year and go to L.A. and see what it might be like," she said. "I want to do this more as a livelihood than as a hobby and since moving to L.A. is what I'll probably have to do, I want to take it for a test drive."

I'm also a little unsure of whether Pippy will be able to continue to pursue her acting career while playing for Cornell. She currently attends an arts high school which seems pretty flexible about letting her leave for stretches of time. Cornell, with its more rigorous academics and athletics, might not be so accommodating.

The parent of a prospective Cornell women's hockey player tells me that she is very down-to-earth for someone who's already a bit of a celebrity. We'll see if she's willing to sacrifice some of her Hollywood success to play at Lynah Rink.

Spreading an Idea

2010-05-09T10:31:00.002-04:00

Sun editorial on Thursday:

One change that could decompress the current campus climate is to make a change to the academic calendar. The eight-week period between the end of Winter Break and the beginning of Spring Break is the longest stretch of uninterrupted classes at any Ivy except Columbia — the others get vacations on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day or President’s Day, or they start Spring Break earlier.

Dean of the University Faculty William Fry that same day:

One possibility that the University Faculty will consider is to adjust the academic calendar. In that regard, one possibility is to reduce the time between the start of the spring semester and spring break. Now it's eight weeks without a break and almost the darkest time of year in Ithaca. A faculty committee will look at everything next year: the spacing and length of breaks, whether or not we have classes on federal holidays, when we start, when we end.

Krueger and Gotovets Play in World Championships

2010-05-08T21:22:00.005-04:00

I'm a few days late with this, but Cornell senior defenseman Justin Krueger was named to the German team for the IIHF World Championships. Krueger got a lot ice time (19:14) during Germany's OT win over the U.S. on Friday. Here's one shot of him:

With an announced attendance of 77,803 (roughly 18 times the capacity of Lynah Rink), it's safe to say that was the largest crowd Krueger's ever played for.

Still waiting to see if Krueger will sign with the Carolina Hurricanes, who drafted him. Or, he can wait until August 15 and become a free agent.

Also, incoming Cornell recruit Kirill Gotovets was named to Team Belarus for the tournament. Belarus plays its first game tomorrow, against Kazakhstan.

Images of Slope Day from the Journal

2010-05-08T01:46:00.002-04:00

Let's just say some of these don't paint Cornell in the most flattering light. All photos by Simon Wheeler. Full gallery is available here.

Happy Slope Day

2010-05-07T00:00:00.001-04:00

Enjoy the "last day of classes," which for most students is a day without classes.

The music begins at 1:30, and runs until around 5:30.

The Sun had a nice piece yesterday about Slope Day history:

Throughout the 1990’s, Slope Day continued to remain an open, relaxed event with little planning or administrative intervention: Cornellians simply congregated on the Slope to drink. In fact, some of the more industrious and ambitious students even took the trouble to bury kegs on the slope the night before Slope Day in order to maximize their potential alcohol consumption during the concert. Such stunts were mostly the result of fraternity ingenuity and thus new members would be sent out at night to bury kegs. The next day frat members would carry couches over to the slope, put them on top of the buried kegs and run the tap up through the couch.

Have fun and be safe.

The 1979 ECAC Quarterfinal

2010-05-06T23:25:00.000-04:00

The brief game highlights from the LynahRink.com video have been posted to YouTube:

The box score is here.

Some may recall that Providence upset Cornell in the quarterfinal in 1978, so this win was vindication for Cornell fans.

Remember that there are plenty of other Cornell hockey videos on YouTube to help you pass these long summer months.

McKee Will Stand Trial for Rape

2010-05-06T19:39:00.004-04:00

Former Cornell hockey goalie Dave McKee '07 will, in fact, have to stand trial for rape. Although the case against him was dismissed earlier this year, the charges against McKee have been resurrected.

Judge Richard J. Beacom sided with the prosecutor, and said the evidence "strongly suggested" that Jane Doe was asleep when McKee entered her bed.

"I don't see consent here in any way, shape or form,'' the judge said.

Meanwhile, McKee's season just ended as his Allen Americans were eliminated from the CHL playoffs. McKee was the backup goalie.

Update: This article has more detail on recent developments in McKee's case.

Uncle Ezra Urges Students to Leave Campus

2010-05-06T19:33:00.004-04:00

Interesting that DUE used a relatively simple question about finding potting soil as a jump-off point to instruct readers to see more of Ithaca:

Taking a trip to downtown Ithaca is a wonderful thing. I know that it is hard to imagine, but you are surrounded by real people of all different ages, babies and old folks, and people who have nothing to do with Cornell.

This is similar to what I wrote a couple of weeks ago:

With so much to offer on campus, and the relative isolation of North Campus, most freshmen hardly ever venture more than a couple of blocks off-campus, much less to the more economically and racially diverse sections of Ithaca. Perhaps they'll go to the Ithaca Mall, or to the Commons a handful of times, but that's about it. Cornell upperclassmen necessarily interact with Townies to sign leases and things like that, but they're not forming any sort of relationships with the typical Ithaca resident.

A Good Idea

2010-05-06T18:24:00.002-04:00

Today's Sun editorial suggests that the administration should consider moving Spring Break a week earlier:

One change that could decompress the current campus climate is to make a change to the academic calendar. The eight-week period between the end of Winter Break and the beginning of Spring Break is the longest stretch of uninterrupted classes at any Ivy except Columbia — the others get vacations on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day or President’s Day, or they start Spring Break earlier.

There is also precedent for such a change. In the fall of 1977, after a string of three suicides, students gathered on West Campus and collectively yelled the catchphrase, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!” In response, the University declared a mental state of emergency and began emphasizing suicide prevention — a process that included a mid-October respite from classes, or as it is known today, Fall Break. The intensity of the grueling eight-week stretch at the beginning of spring semester can be remedied by a similar change to our current academic calendar.

Such a change would only be part of the ultimate solution, but it might ease the stress levels of students who look to spring break as an oasis in the middle of a busy spring semester.

The Sun's editorial from Wednesday about discrepancies in granting honors also deserves the attention of someone in the administration.

The Sun Explores Student Blogging

2010-05-06T18:15:00.002-04:00

In today's Red Letter Daze section, Munier Salem (who gave this blog a shout-out in his farewell column last week) provides a nice overview of the world of Cornell student blogging.

I agree with the basic conclusion of the article, that we bloggers bring a welcome variety of perspectives and viewpoints to the online world. And interesting that we all dislike (did I really use the word 'hate'?) Slope Media.

I don't consider myself anti-Greek, which is what Salem implies. I strongly support the Greek system at Cornell; I just wish it could eliminate some of the hypocrisy and bad decision-making which continues to imperil its existence.

Regardless, as Salem notes at the end, the Big Red blogosphere could look quite different next year. I don't think this blog will continue in the same way, if at all, and I'm unsure what will happen with Ithacating. Hopefully there will be some fresh faces looking to jump into the fray.

Kappa Sigma Will Also Close

2010-05-05T17:53:00.004-04:00

In addition to Pi Kappa Alpha, the Cornell chapter of Kappa Sigma will close at the end of the year.

You know you're in bad shape when you're holding parties which are not only unregistered, but also in violation of your agreement with your national organization. What did they think was going to happen?

According to their website, Kappa Sig had nearly 50 active members going into this semester. We'll see whether the fraternity will start from scratch, or choose a few current brothers to head the rechartering effort.

Cornell Hosts First Ivy Lacrosse Tournament

2010-05-05T00:58:00.002-04:00

I haven't written much about lacrosse this spring, mainly because I've been too busy to make it to many games. But the Cornell men's team has had a pretty remarkable season.

Despite losing a lot of talent from last year's team which really, really should have won the NCAA title, this year's team is right back at the top. They've had disappointing losses to Brown and Dartmouth, another devastating last-second loss to Syracuse, and a blowout loss to Virginia at home. But they've beaten everyone else and currently sit at No. 6 in the RPI rankings.

Their most significant victory came on Saturday at Princeton. With the win, Cornell secured home field for the inaugural Ivy lacrosse tournament, which takes place this weekend. (Under the previous years' system, Cornell would have earned the Ivy automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.) Here are the highlights from Saturday:

Cornell plays Brown in the semifinal at 8pm on Friday. It's Slope Day, so expect a light student turn-out. I think I went a couple of years ago on Slope Day to see Cornell play Hobart, and there weren't many students. The final is Sunday at noon.

This season, Cornell has struggled to get past some easy teams, and they've nearly blown some late-game leads (including on Saturday). And the final-second loss to Syracuse probably set the team back pretty far in their process of recovering from last year's game. Don't expect to see Cornell in the national championship game this year. But the ability to turn what was expected to be a down year into another highly competitive, Ivy-winning season speaks to the talent of Coach Jeff Tambroni and to Cornell's status as a lacrosse powerhouse.

Can't say we're not living in a great time for Cornell athletics. If only I could erase that nightmare at Foxboro from my memory.

PHC to Vote on Expansion

2010-05-04T22:47:00.002-04:00

At their meeting Wednesday night, the Panhellenic Council will vote on whether to allow another sorority to come onto campus. As stated earlier, it seems unlikely that the existing chapters will vote for extension. But who knows.

Duff Ball King & Queen Nominees Announced

2010-05-04T22:27:00.004-04:00

"Duff Ball," held in Duffield Hall, is essentially the senior class prom. If prom were held in an academic building for $40 a ticket. Not sure what the selection process was, but ticket holders can vote here.

Duff Ball King
Mitch Fried
Alex James
Jeff Katz
Eddie Rooker
Ryan Wittman

Duff Ball Queen
Rachel Bloom
Alison Ewing
Kathy Houng
Danielle Oliver
Stephanie Rigione

All of the nominees are caucasian, except for Kathy Houng, who is of Asian descent.

Photos from Iceland

2010-05-04T14:28:00.002-04:00

(mail train, 1911)

With Iceland in the news for the volcanic eruption, the Cornell library has posted many of its photos of Iceland on Flickr. The images are from the early 20th Century, with Iceland "on the edge of modernity." You can browse the collection here.

Cornell Student Arrested for C-town Robberies

2010-05-03T23:44:00.003-04:00

The student is Charles Wagner '12, who is originally from the Portland, Ore., area and is enrolled in CALS.

The Sun reports that the items stolen included electronics, alcohol, and prescription drugs.

MetaEzra dug up a picture of Wagner here.

Vice President of Sitting Around and Blogging

2010-05-03T13:00:00.003-04:00

Something I can't stand is the tendency of student organizations at Cornell to toss the word "president" into every executive board officer position. Your typical student organization will have a president, perhaps an executive vice president, and then 2-7 vice presidents of some sort. Forget being treasurer, you're the Vice President for Financial Management. Forget being social chair, you're the Vice President for Events. I wish these titles were jokes.

I understand that students want to make their resumes looks good. Including the words "vice president" makes it seem like the officer is a heartbeat away from being in charge, even if he or she holds one of the less important positions. Consider the InterFraternity Council, which has seven vice presidents. Or the laughably incompetent Slope Media, which doesn't post its organizational chart anymore, but at last check had ten vice presidents.

Last night, one of my student organizations held elections. In typical Cornell style, all of the officers have "president" somewhere in their title. At the end of the meeting, we installed the new officers. To no surprise, the script from our national organization had the word "secretary" instead of "Vice President of Records," thereby proving that the transformation of the position into a vice-president-ship was a Cornell invention.

Hazing Updates

2010-05-03T12:49:00.004-04:00

Apologies for the lack of updates this weekend. I'm a few days behind on this, but the Sun ran a couple of stories at the end of last week on the ongoing hazing investigations.

According to this article, the investigation of Alpha Delta Phi fraternity (see here) is ongoing. I would tend to agree with B.C.'s thoughts; given the strong alumni presence of Alpha Delt at Cornell, I don't expect them to get hit with anything too severe.

It was fun to see this picture on the front page of the Sun.

The Sun also confirmed what I heard a couple of weeks ago: that Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike) will be shut down. It appears that Pike is facing stricter consequences than did Sigma Pi when it sent underage freshmen to the hospital during a Thanksgiving dinner a couple of years ago. Sig Pi's existing members were allowed to continue to live in the house, but they could not recruit for a year. (I know they did continue to have parties during this time.) Pike's guys might actually lose their physical house.

Final note: I could have sworn that Dean of Students Kent Hubbell was quoted in one of those Sun articles from last week, maybe the one giving an update about Alpha Delt. I know this because I made a mental note to write about the glaring conflict of interest -- Hubbell is an Alpha Delt alum, after all. But his quote doesn't appear in any of the current online versions. Weird.

IvyGate Also Reports That Pike Will Be Shut Down

2010-04-30T02:02:00.003-04:00

Confirming what I wrote two weeks ago, IvyGate cites an anonymous source that the Cornell chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha (Pike) will be shut down at the end of the school year.

Post-Graduation Career Trends

2010-04-29T00:49:00.003-04:00

Someone posted a friendly comment yesterday which stated, in part:

...in other [posts], such as your career comments, you're not exactly referencing the actual statistics, just reciting the cliche angry points that make it easy to simplify what you think Cornellians in certain schools are doing and how they view their school.

Okay, fair enough, here are some numbers.

Overall Cornell, class of 2009: 33 percent (that's 1 in 3 graduates surveyed) went into either financial services or consulting. Compare that to 23 percent total who went into the public sector.

School of Industrial and Labor Relations, most recent data: 18 percent went to law school (slightly lower than I expected). BUT, among those with jobs, 42 percent went into human resources and 31 percent went into financial services or some sort of business. Only 4 percent went into labor relations, and 4 percent worked for labor.

School of Hotel Administration, class of 2009: More students went into banking and financial services than the actual administration of a hotel or resort.

College of Human Ecology, most recent data: Of those accepting job offers, 42 percent went into business management.

I'm not going to take the time to go through the other colleges.

On the other hand, here's a cool feature on someone who's availing herself of what Cornell's specialty majors have to offer.

Riley Nash Getting Hate Mail From Oilers Fans?

2010-04-29T00:39:00.001-04:00

Not sure if this is legitimate or not, but interesting nonetheless.

Nash:

"Ya, I've been taking a beating in the media there and getting some nice hatemail. I speak very highly of the Oilers organization and feel that their future is very bright for them, this is only a tough time that all organizations go through. I haven't decided what I will be doing next year due to many factors. I think a lot of people are assuming things that I have never said, due to the fact that I haven't signed with them yet. There is still a good possibility I end up in Edmonton or with their farm team."

Cornell Expert Debunks Noah's Ark Discovery

2010-04-28T22:55:00.001-04:00

Ha...

Hong Kong-based Noah's Ark Ministries said the structure had been found on Mount Ararat at about 14-thousand-700 feet.

Wood from the structure has reportedly been carbon-dated to reveal it to be about 48-hundred years old.

[...]

A Cornell University archaeologist, Peter Kuniholm, wanted to know if the carbon dating was conducted accurately. He also wanted more data on whether the mountaintop showed any geological signs of flooding.

Kuniholm said, quote, "There's not enough H2O in the world to get an ark that high up on a mountain."

Greening Uses Signing Bonus To Repay Loans

2010-04-28T22:51:00.002-04:00

Here's a nice article on Colin Greening from his home town paper.

You can take time to reflect on it and be happy," Greening said, "but reality has to set back in and you have to realize this is where the real work begins. My dream has been to make it to the NHL and it's going to be a tough couple of months or even years to get there."

"When I go into camp, I'm gonna have to knock some people out of their positions and that's a very difficult thing to do."

The Sens have already indicated he'll most likely be going to Binghamton of the AHL to get a feel for pro the game.

"If I end up starting in Binghamton, I don't see that as a step back," Greening suggests. "It's just an opportunity to get more ice time at the AHL level to learn and prepare so I give myself a chance at moving up."

The article also discusses Greening's age. At 24, he's a little older than the other players hitting the pros for the first time.

Scrivens Signs With Toronto

2010-04-28T15:01:00.004-04:00

Cornell senior goalie Ben Scrivens has signed a one-year contract with the Toronto Maple Leafs. No word yet on salary. I don't follow pro hockey closely enough to know what the goalies are like who are currently ahead of Scrivens on the depth chart.

Update: Scrivens will earn $67,500 AHL and $690,000 NHL. Recall that these amounts are prorated based on the number of games with either the AHL or NHL team.

Uncle Ezra Scrubs the Record

2010-04-28T00:45:00.004-04:00

Now:

***edited for confidentiality*** From talking to upperclassmen, they have all informed me of what they did to their pledge class. I am certain that forcing the new pledge class to drink and stay up all night is considered hazing by the university. I just think it is so ironic that an IFC leader allows this to happen... Do you see something incongruous here? What steps has Cornell taken to ensure that there is a crackdown on hazing? Because clearly, IFC is run by corruption.

Admittedly, it can be considered libel to print an allegation of hazing without any evidence beyond hearsay. However, the edited version indicates that all upperclassmen at Cornell haze their pledge classes. I'm not sure this is better.

Regardless, it will be a fun waiting game to see what happens. As I see it, OFSA is in a difficult situation. Here are the options:

A. Do nothing, or release no public response, which sends a great message about taking hazing allegations seriously.

B. Investigate, and conclude that there is no evidence of hazing. The report will be laughed at, and OFSA will look mighty stupid when further evidence inevitably comes to light.

C. Investigate, conclude that hazing occurs, and figure out how to explain that Eddie and Svante are great people when their fraternity engages in this kind of behavior.

Should be interesting.

Speaking of, what's going on with Alpha Delta Phi? Funny that Kent Hubbell's fraternity hasn't had anything happen to them.

Community College Students Get Automatic Transfer

2010-04-28T00:31:00.004-04:00

Raritan Valley Community College, located in Branchburg, N.J., has reached a deal with the College of Human Ecology. If a student graduates from RVCC with a GPA of 3.5 or higher, he or she is guaranteed an automatic transfer into HumEc for the final two years of the B.S. program. The student will start at Cornell with 60 credits.

Maybe I'm just being an elitist here, but to me this deal seems like it's cheapening the value of a Cornell education. I have no problem with students transferring to Cornell from a two-year school, but I like to think that they've excelled at that school in order to gain admission to Cornell. A 3.5 in community college classes, with no further considerations for extracurricular activities, disciplinary record, or anything else, is a pretty low threshold.

Moreover, the agreement essentially means that two years of study at Cornell (at least in HumEc) is equivalent to two years of study in community college in New Jersey. The agreement sends a message to HumEc students from New Jersey that they should have saved a lot of money and effort by spending their first two years at Raritan Valley and then jumping to Cornell via the automatic transfer.

I don't think this deal has gotten much publicity around Ithaca, but if I'm a HumEc upperclassman, I'm pretty pissed that my college doesn't think my first two years of college are any more impressive than the two years of a B+/A- student at community college.

Update: Here's the official announcement from RVCC (.pdf)

Eight Things You Won't Hear During Cornell Days

2010-04-26T23:42:00.005-04:00

Readers of this blog know that I truly love Cornell. To blog about the university, you have to either really love it or really hate it. And I fall into the first category.

That said, there are always ways in which our fine college can improve. Over these last few weeks, I'll be pointing out some of these areas and offering some suggestions.

In this post, I look at eight facts about life at Cornell which you wouldn't hear about if you attended Cornell Days over these last two weeks.

1. There really is no broad sense of the Cornell community. 'Community' is a buzz word these days, with the 'caring community' and all which is supposed to prevent suicides. But there are very few occasions on which the whole student body actually comes together. Slope Day might be the one exception, but the focus of the day is drinking, and the architects have final exams or presentations or something that day which prevents them from having too much fun. Aside from that, your choice of major, religion/ethnicity, and Greek (or not) affiliation are the factors which dictate what you do. There are always exceptions, but if you're a Hotelie, you'll be living in and around the Statler. An engineer, and you'll be stuck in labs and up late finishing problem sets. An architect, and you'll be in studio.

2. Many of Cornell's teaching assistants are sub-par. This hasn't affected me too much, since the humanities TAs are generally Ph.D candidates who are highly qualified to grade papers and lead a discussion section. The situation at Cornell is still better than at Harvard, where professors do very little to interact with students and teach courses. But you don't have to stop too many Cornell students before you find someone with a TA horror story. Simply put, many TAs for engineering and science courses are not proficient in English and speak with very heavy accents. They may be some of the smartest graduate students in the university, but their undergraduates cannot understand what they say and feel uncomfortable about asking them to repeat things or approaching them for help. In my four years of taking mostly Arts courses, I had only one TA with an English problem. But even in a history course, I suffered for a semester with a 19th Century specialist who had been assigned to TA a course on classical Greece and Rome.

3. Town-gown relations are not strong. There isn't really a strong sense of a Cornell community, and there is even less of a sense of an inclusive Ithaca community. With so much to offer on campus, and the relative isolation of North Campus, most freshmen hardly ever venture more than a couple of blocks off-campus, much less to the more economically and racially diverse sections of Ithaca. Perhaps they'll go to the Ithaca Mall, or to the Commons a handful of times, but that's about it. Cornell upperclassmen necessarily interact with Townies to sign leases and things like that, but they're not forming any sort of relationships with the typical Ithaca resident.

4. The Greek community exercises tremendous influence over most aspects of life at Cornell. It's not just that the entire campus social scene revolves around alcohol-centric fraternity parties. The most influential campus leaders are almost exclusively Greek. Most troubling, Greek politics makes its way into areas of Cornell life like the tour guide selection process. Greeks will choose members of their own houses for these types of jobs over more qualified members of other houses or (gasp) non Greeks. Similar trends can be seen for new student orientation, with Greeks choosing members of their own houses to serve as orientation supervisors. And don't get me started about the types of things the most prominent and wealthy fraternities can get away with.

5. The specialty majors which make Cornell a unique university have become hijacked by students who use them as springboards to popular and generally unethical jobs. More and more Hotelies want to go to law school or work on Wall Street. ILRies also want to go to law school or work on Wall Street. Liberal arts majors want to go to law school. PAM majors want to go to law school or work on Wall Street. Majors like Biology and Society and Human Biology, Health and Society are used as easier pre-med majors.

6. Cornell students are generally ill informed and don't care about what goes on around them. Just look at the embarrassingly low turnout for things like SA elections. Hell, voting for SA takes about 90 seconds of reading and clicking. And only a small fraction of students take the time to do that. Although the Sun does a fantastic and diligent job of putting together a handy daily report for students about what's happening on campus and in the community, few students actually peruse the newsy sections of the paper.

7. Yes, budget cuts are affecting academics. You can't cut hundreds of millions of dollars by buying fewer paper clips and letting the grass grow on Libe Slope. Whole academic programs have been cut, and departments like Theatre are facing crippling budget cuts. Smaller, upper-level classes, which are often the most rewarding academically, have been cut because departments have difficulty justifying the cost of holding these classes.

8. The weather here really sucks sometimes. Not much can really be done about this, but it should be said. Try walking out of your 2:55-4:10 class during the winter as it's already nearing darkness, the icy wind whips your face, and you have a prelim in three hours. Think the weather doesn't affect students' moods? I came to Ithaca from New England, where the weather isn't much better. But at least in high school, when the weather was bad, I wouldn't have to trudge 15 minutes uphill through ice and snow to get to class. I know tour guides are supposed to talk about the "four seasons" in Ithaca, but the Cornell winter seems to last forever. Unlike some other schools which have underground tunnels or glassed-in walking areas, Cornell lets us experience Mother Nature at her best and worst.

11 Percent of Cornell Seniors Applied to TFA

2010-04-25T22:10:00.003-04:00

No official word on the total number of 2010 corps members from Cornell, but 11 percent of Cornell seniors applied to Teach for America. The national acceptance rate was around 10 percent this year, but I believe it was higher at Cornell.

Hazing, Continued

2010-04-25T20:53:00.004-04:00

Well, yes, SAE hazes, as do most of the fraternities on the IFC. Today was Greek Awards. To the OFSA's credit, since I've been at Cornell they've been pretty good about sending the right awards to the right houses. Specifically, the houses which really don't haze tend to take home the awards for new member education. Most of the individual and chapter awards, at least from my knowledge of the IFC realm, also tend to be well deserved.

Yet, the blatant existence of hazing didn't stop SAE from receiving a prestigious Outstanding Chapter award. Go figure.

Another moment of levity, at least for me, came when a brother of Lambda Chi received an Outstanding New Member award for, in part, writing the Valentine's Day song and dance for his pledge class. This type of activity, of course, is defined as hazing by the OFSA.

I'll probably write about the Greek system a lot over the next couple of weeks. Lots to think about.

Greening Signs With Ottawa

2010-04-25T20:37:00.003-04:00

As expected, senior forward Colin Greening has signed a contract with the Ottawa Senators. Like fellow Big Red senior Brendon Nash did with Montreal, Greening signed a two-way deal which pays differently if he's on the organization's AHL or NHL roster.

Greening: $62,500 AHL and up to $735,000 NHL
Nash: $67,500 AHL and up to $640,000 NHL

Note that Nash signed for two years, while Greening signed for one. With both Ottawa and its AHL affiliate Binghamton eliminated from postseason play, I assume Greening will remain in Ithaca through graduation before starting more intensive training over the summer.

Hotelies Make the Dough?

2010-04-25T14:25:00.002-04:00

Not the first article about Cornell grads struggling to pay off debt, but this time it's a hotelie.

Recent university graduate Amy Horwath has grasped the golden ring in this weak economy: a job in her chosen field.

Just one problem: She's $50,000 in debt, mostly student loans.

"Sometimes it seems overwhelming," said Horwath, 23, sitting in her small apartment, where her Cornell University diploma for hotel administration hangs on the wall. "I feel like I'm barely treading water."

Casey Jones Passed Over for OSU Job

2010-04-24T18:49:00.002-04:00

I wrote earlier in the week that Cornell's associate head coach might be leaving for the Ohio State job. Although he was a finalist for the position, Casey Jones was not hired.

Wisconsin assistant Mark Osiecki is the new head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes.

A Cornell Love Story

2010-04-24T18:41:00.004-04:00

Ah, the magic of the Big Red.

Ms. Matsis and Mr. McCready met on the first day of college classes in the fall of 2000. Later that year, he took her to a formal fraternity dance.
“I thought it was a date,” he said.
She didn’t.
“I thought we were just friends,” Ms. Matsis explained.

They didn't "date" after that, but met up again over 7 years later.

They lost touch for several years, but in March 2008 reconnected at a Cornell alumni charity event in Manhattan, with Mr. McCready joining Ms. Matsis on the same dodge-ball team. “She was still the beautiful girl, and we were still friends, but this time it was different,” Mr. McCready said. Ms. Matsis was feeling much the same.

How adorable. And what a great plug for that nyc.cornell.edu site the university has been pushing.

Colin Greening to Sign With Senators

2010-04-24T16:08:00.002-04:00

Senior captain Colin Greening is expected to sign a one-year, two-way contract with the Ottawa Senators today.

The Senators drafted Greening back in 2006, but if he didn't sign with them before August 15, he would become an unrestricted free agent.

Many of us expect Greening to have a solid career in the NHL.

DUE Takes on Hazing?

2010-04-23T12:36:00.003-04:00

See Question 1 today.

The person referenced is no longer IFC president, but both he and a fellow SAE alum serve on the Ithaca Common Council.

Between things like this and the recent Alpha Delt hazing allegations, have we begun to see signs that hazing will no longer be tolerated at Cornell's most influential fraternities? Or will these allegations be quietly swept aside?

The official list of campus hazing violations has not been added to since Spring 2009.

Could Cornell Lose Casey Jones?

2010-04-21T13:46:00.003-04:00

He's one of three finalists for the Ohio State job. Jones is a Cornell alum, but worked as an assistant coach at OSU for 13 years.

Jones is currently the associate head coach, and it's clear that he'd move up if Coach Mike Schafer '86 leaves. But if Schafer doesn't seem like he's going to leave anytime soon, I'm sure Jones wants the Ohio State job.

Thesis, Continued

2010-04-20T23:40:00.003-04:00

In response to my post over the weekend about my honors thesis, B.C. over at Ithacating enlightened us a little about his thesis.

The differences between our respective theses are about what you'd expect from a liberal arts thesis and a scientific, "technical" thesis. Mine is much longer, but that's what we're expected to produce in A&S. His has more of an emphasis on numbers, and avoids a lot of background discussion, but that's what he's expected to do in his field. His has 31 citations; mine has 157.

It seems that the science types have an easier time breaking into the world of academia. B.C. presented his thesis at a conference last week, and my friend who's writing about geology is traveling to Calgary next month to present his thesis to a group of experts. As for my thesis, I think it's of the same quality as a lot of the published studies on incarceration, but as an undergraduate I'm powerless to publicize my findings. My only hope is for a benevolent and tenured professor to become interested and offer to publish it as a co-author in some third-tier journal if I edit it down to article length. Alternatively, I could wait 5 or 6 years until I get a J.D., hope my thesis is still relevant, and try to market it then. I've considered emailing some of the people who have published similar studies to share the results of my thesis, but I don't know if that's acceptable practice.

The real story here isn't the difference between liberal arts and technical theses, but between colleges like A&S and the ones which hand out honors like Halloween candy (or Harvard?).

Remember this Sun editorial from last spring?

There is a difference between spending a senior year slaving away over an 80-page research summary and achieving the necessary combination of B+s and A-s required to secure a 3.5 GPA — both of which are enough to merit Cum Laude in different colleges.

That's right, the Latin honors which I've worked so hard to earn are the same ones which other schools at Cornell give away for attaining a certain GPA. We're not even talking 3.9 here.

The Sun again:

These variances are too great to exist within a single university. And these discrepancies diminish the worth of the honors award.

[...]

A Cornellian should have to go above and beyond to walk away with an extra distinction. Conferring a Cum Laude on someone who meets only the most basic requirements of the school — completing distribution requirements and receiving fairly good grades — undervalues what should be a real honor.

Of the 20 or so of us who slaved away over Gov theses this year, we'll probably be divided roughly 4-8-8 among summa cum laude-magna cum laude-cum laude. But all of us worked exceptionally hard, and produced a work more significant than anything our Latin-honored Hotelie classmates have produced during their four years on the hill.

I'm sure the Latin honors discrepancy is brought up every year as graduation approaches, but it deserves the attention of someone in the Cornell administration.

Kot Found Guilty on All Counts

2010-04-20T23:07:00.002-04:00

It's been a while since I wrote about the Kot case. This afternoon, a jury found Cornell graduate student Blazej Kot guilty on all counts: second-degree murder, third-degree arson, and tampering with physical evidence.

It's hard to believe it's been almost a year since we were shocked to hear that a graduate student had interrupted the peaceful Ithaca summer by killing his wife, leading police on a high-speed chase, and seemingly attempting to kill himself.

In some ways, that news set the tone for this rough year for the Big Red. The themes which emerged from the Kot case -- that of a bright tech guy with a promising future who was driven to kill by academic-related stress and perhaps medication -- are similar to what we've seen with the recent string of suicides. The questions the Kot case left us -- why would he do something like that? -- are similar to those we've been asking about the suicides.

In this difficult year, a series of negative storylines were replaced by ones which were successively worse. Cornell was losing a ton of money in the bad economy, then Cornell was perplexed after the Kot murder, then Cornell was coping with H1N1 flu and a tragic student death, then Cornell was coming to terms with multiple student deaths over winter break, then Cornell was on the front page of the New York Times for a pattern of suicides.

Perhaps the one savior for Cornell this year was Steve Donahue and his basketball team. For as many people as there are who now associate Cornell with suicides, there are millions more who associate Cornell with a miracle run to the Sweet Sixteen. Although Donahue moved on to a huge contract and tremendous career opportunity at Boston College, his Cornell legacy is more extensive than the sum of his accomplishments on the court. He was the public relations gift to the Big Red, keeping the Cornell name in the news for something other than tragedy.

The Kot verdict will bring another round of attention to Cornell. Today after the class I TA in prison, one of the inmates asked me whether the jury from "the big murder trial in Ithaca" had reached a verdict.

It will be a couple of months at least before we get admissions statistics from the Class of 2014. Perhaps then we'll know which Cornell storyline won out: tragedy, or basketball.

Thesis Thoughts

2010-04-17T23:19:00.002-04:00

I still have a couple of hours of editing and pagination to finish, but my thesis is essentially done.

I came back to Ithaca on the Wednesday of Spring Break, drove directly to Mann Library, and stayed there until it closed that evening. This first day of my thesis home stretch set the tone for what the last few weeks have been like. I've been ID'd more often at Uris Library (they check after 2am) than at bars in Collegetown. I averaged around 8-10 hours at the library every day. I started to scare myself when I would hear the bell to signal that parts of Uris were closing and realize that I hadn't moved from my chair between 8:30pm and 1:30am. My thesis ballooned from 45 pages as of April 1 to 131 pages as of tonight. You can do the math to figure out how many pages I averaged per day.

Of course, I brought a lot of this upon myself. Knowing that I would be a part-time student this semester, I left all of the heavy lifting until after Winter Break. A longer-than-expected stay in Florida stymied some of my plans for making progress in January, and then I didn't exactly hit the ground running this semester. Between traveling to hockey games, taking care of things for TFA and the fraternity, and spending a lot of time being a second-semester senior (read: going to bars), I didn't leave much room for thesis work. I took my time compiling data and figuring out exactly what I was going to write. It wasn't until late March when I realized that I needed to get my ass moving, and that began my period of library shut-in.

That said, writing a thesis has been an incredibly rewarding experience. For the first time in my academic career, I believe that I am a legitimate expert in an area. I had the very cool experience of working closely with faculty members on an academic project. I took workshops to learn to use Stata, taught myself ArcGIS, and wrote the longest paper I'll probably ever produce. (My AP Government final paper was 67 pages; my friend Liz wrote 90-some pages. Coincidentally, we both wrote Honors Government theses at Cornell this year.)

I missed some of the camaraderie of partying and relaxing with senior friends these last few weeks, but with every hour I spent in the library, I grew closer to the other Gov thesis survivors. Maybe I missed out on some memories, but I created something tangible of which I believe I can be proud.

Oh, and if you're interested in these types of things, I've pasted a summary of my findings below.

If you've drifted away from this blog over the last couple of weeks of inactivity, come back. I'll be posting every day for the next few weeks, at least.

My thesis makes five significant contributions to the existing scholarship on the growth of incarceration in the U.S. in the 1980s and 1990s. First, it disproves the idea of partisan convergence after the 1988 election on a common set of tough-on-crime ideas; in fact, a Republican governor effect emerges in the 1990s. Second, my results indicate that a more liberal and Democratic citizenry is correlated to higher rates of spending on corrections; this is surprising, since conservatives and Republicans have acquired a reputation for being willing to increase spending to maintain a large prison population. Third, my thesis counters the claim that the political exceptionalism of the Southern states is to blame for the national corrections boom; removing the Southern states from the picture has only a negligible effect on regression models. Fourth, I show that the scale of incarceration increases by a smaller amount after a close gubernatorial election; I hypothesize that these governors lack a mandate to push for significant changes. Finally, I created unique data sets with information on state spending on corrections which may prove useful to future scholars.

[...]

My hypothesis is this: By the 1980s, a combination of the forces described in Chapter One conspired to turn the national sentiment in favor of a stronger government response to rising crime rates. This sentiment was particularly acute in states with large urban populations, which explains the positive correlation of population density, Democratic vote share, and citizen ideology with changes in corrections outcome metrics. By the 1990s, perhaps due to a leveling off of crime rates, these states had walked back slightly from their anti-crime stances of the previous decade, and this shift explains the changes in direction for these variables. Meanwhile, Republican governors like Tommy Thompson and Kirk Fordice seized upon the Dukakis defeat of 1988 as evidence that their party had the upper hand on fighting crime, and they bolted to the right on this issue during the 1990s. Some Democratic governors, such as Zell Miller, also moved right in an attempt to negate the Republican advantage on crime, but the gap between the two parties widened and gubernatorial partisanship became significantly correlated to corrections outcome metrics.

Pike to be Shut Down

2010-04-16T11:42:00.003-04:00

That's the report this morning from a service technician who does work for their house at 17 South Ave. Recall they sent freshmen to the hospital during rush week.

Lack of Respect for Fellow Cornellians

2010-04-13T14:52:00.003-04:00

I apologize for interrupting my period of inactivity with a rant.

In each of my years at Cornell, I have participated in the fraternity intramural tennis tournament. Having reached the semifinals last year, with the other semifinalists having graduated, I had high hopes for how I might do this year.

We were supposed to have played our second-round matches by this morning. I emailed my opponent, Andrew, from a house we can call JIFI, on Thursday and suggested we play on Monday (yesterday). Andrew replied amicably to say that he would prefer to play on Friday or Sunday, although Monday might work as well. I suggested some times on Sunday, and said I was free all day on Monday and could play then if he had a little time.

Andrew did not reply. I waited three days, and then emailed him again on Sunday to remind him that we needed to play by Tuesday morning, and asked about times he was free on Monday. Andrew said he was not free at all on Monday, and asked if we could play on Tuesday. I reminded him that we needed to send in a result by 9:00am on Tuesday, but suggested that if he really could not play until Tuesday, he should email the intramurals director, Jeremy Hartigan, to ask for an extension.

Andrew informed me that he secured an extension until 9:00am on Wednesday, but did not suggest any times to play. I told him I could play any time Tuesday (today) before 3pm. Andrew replied that he had classes until 4:10 today, and then a meeting at 5, so he did not think he could play.

Having run out of time and options, I suggested to Andrew that we could play at 7am on Wednesday in order to finish by the 9am deadline. Otherwise, I said, he could just default. Andrew responded, "Yea I dont think I'll be able to do that. unfortunately the timing didnt work out."

Frustrated, I emailed Jeremy Hartigan last night to inform him of the situation and ask that I be credited as the winner, since Andrew had not made himself available to play before the deadline. Jeremy replied at 11:30 this morning to say that if we did not get him a result by 2pm today, he would flip a coin to decide who would advance.

At 12:15, when I got out of class, I emailed Andrew to ask him what he wanted to do. I wrote, "I think I've made a pretty reasonable attempt to play, but you just haven't been free at all. I don't want to 'lose' the match because of your schedule." Andrew did not respond, but I found out later that he had emailed Jeremy at 11:45 to tell him to flip the coin because "a mutual time didn't work out."

At 12:45, Jeremy emailed to inform us that he had flipped a coin and that Andrew would advance. Livid, I emailed Jeremy to stress that Andrew had not suggested ONE time he was free to play, that I had done my best to schedule a match, and that it was bullshit that Andrew got to advance. Jeremy responded, in part, "It is not my place to say which player tried or didn’t try to schedule times."

I don't blame Jeremy Hartigan for not wanting to take sides. I blame a fellow Cornellian and sportsman, Andrew, for cowardly refusing to play a tennis match and then stealing a victory because "a mutual time could not be agreed upon." The honorable move would have been to default. I made myself available to play all day Saturday, most of Sunday, all day Monday, and most of Tuesday, and Andrew refused to suggest one time which worked for him. Yet, in the end, it is he who advances and me who loses, without having the fair opportunity to let my skills determine my fate.

It is times such as this which make me ashamed of some of the people I call my fellow Cornellians.

The "Fence in the Students" Campaign Continues

2010-04-09T21:54:00.003-04:00

Today, workers took down the wooden fence along the stairs heading down to the suspension bridge, but only on the side facing the gorge. They've been putting in taller metal poles secured by Quickrete. My guess is that they want to install a higher, metal fence on that side so that there is absolutely no way anyone can get close to the gorge. We'll have to wait to see if faux barbed wire is installed as well.

Blogging Hiatus

2010-04-04T20:04:00.003-04:00

My senior thesis is due in 15 days; expect little or no blogging until that time.

This blog is not gone for good, at least not yet.

21-9-4

2010-03-28T22:17:00.007-04:00

Last year's.

Every Cornell hockey fan wants to see his team win something during his four short years on the hill. As much fun as it would be to travel to games as an alum, reconnect with fellow fans, and see the team succeed, I don't think the games would have the same importance to me.

I can't exaggerate the importance of Cornell hockey to my life over the last couple of years. As I traveled to 82 of the last 85 games, often driving hundreds of miles in one weekend, often alone, it became harder to keep my emotions from reflecting what was happening on the ice. As I missed friends' birthdays and parties, fraternity formals and pledge events, and everything else Cornell and Ithaca has to offer, the people I saw on the road -- the parents, the traveling townies and Faithful -- became a group of familiar faces whom I would look forward to seeing in Hanover, Estero, Grand Rapids, or anywhere else the team played.

I don't regret doing all the traveling, although it was in some ways a big relief when this season ended. Finally free from the burden of planning my life around the Cornell hockey schedule, I have more time to devote to finishing my senior thesis, planning for my future, and getting the most out of my final weeks in Ithaca.

I freely admit that I have been among the fortunate of the Lynah Faithful in that I've been a fan for some very good seasons. My first years of seriously rooting for Cornell hockey, in 2002 and 2003, featured some of the best teams to play at Lynah since the 1970s. I continued to follow the team in high school, agonizing over the close NCAA losses of 2005 and 2006, and traveling to upwards of 10 games a season as I neared the time at which I would become a legitimate Cornell student.

My own four years at Cornell have at times seemed almost scripted. As I adjusted to life as a freshman, the team struggled, ending the season at home with a playoff series sweep at the hands of ECAC newcomer Quinnipiac. The next year's team was a notch better, besting Dartmouth in a quarterfinal round series, sweeping Union in Schenectady, and making it to Albany.

Last year, by which point my fandom and willingness to travel had reached the point of obsession, the team took another step forward. Cornell made it all the way to the ECAC tournament final before losing to Yale, and then won a thrilling NCAA contest against Northeastern before falling to Bemidji State, one game short of the Frozen Four.

This year, my senior year, 2009-2010, was going to be the year. Sure, this team didn't have as much talent as the 2002-2003 team. And the ECAC has certainly gotten stronger since then, which makes it harder to run the table in conference play. But with the core of last year's team returning, it seemed likely that they could make it one game further than last year's team and get back to the Frozen Four for the first time in seven years. With Riley Nash, Colin Greening, and Justin Krueger, this year's team had three players with a legitimate chance of a establishing themselves in the NHL. Add goalie Ben Scrivens, who holds nearly every Cornell goaltending record, and a talented freshman class with John Esposito, Braden Birch, and Nick D'Agostino. Add Cornell's toughest non-conference schedule for many years, with games against BU, Colorado College, UNH, and North Dakota (twice), and everything seemed set for another strong run.

All of the yappity yap over on eLynah seems to be about whether the team met expectations, failed to meet expectations, or exceeded expectations. In my own view, the team met expectations prior to Friday's game. Everyone expected Cornell and Yale to fight over first place in the ECAC; Yale finished first, with Cornell a close second. Cornell continued to rank among the national leaders in defense and special teams.

In the ECAC tournament, a surprising early exit by Yale opened things up for the Big Red, who didn't look back en route to winning four games by a combined score of 11-1. The 2010 ECAC tournament title was the first for Cornell since 2005.

In the NCAA tournament, however, there is no doubt that Cornell performed below expectations. The game against UNH was, to be blunt, a total piece of shit. It was opposite day on the ice for the Big Red. Hobey Baker finalist Ben Scrivens gave up one goal and collapsed, reverting to the painful form we saw from him in big games against North Dakota, Yale, and Bemidji State during the 2008-2009 season. Scrivens would let in five goals total that night, most on the glove side, after giving up three goals in his six previous games.

Our highly regarded, productive top line of Nash, Greening, and Patrick Kennedy was nearly completely ineffective. Every pass seemed off by a few feet, our defense couldn't clear pucks, and we lost almost every battle around the boards. Meanwhile, Tyler Roeszler and Dan Nicholls -- who came into the game having scored a total of seven goals in their collegiate careers -- were the only ones who found the back of the net.

Why did nothing go right for Cornell? After the game, captain Greening seemed as confused as everyone else, admitting, "I can't for the life of me figure out why we didn't bring it tonight."

We'd seen this kind of team-wide, terrible hockey earlier in the season. It first surfaced in the Florida tournament over Winter Break. After losing the first game to Colorado College, I was talking to one of the most dedicated of the Lynah Faithful -- someone whom I'd never heard speak badly about the team. She was livid, and suggested that Coach Schafer switch in all of the reserves who'd sat out the first game, to send a message to the team. Well, Schafer didn't do that, and team played the same way against Princeton that next night, losing to the middling Tigers for the first of two times this season.

We saw the same awful hockey during the third period at Dartmouth, when a late-game lead evaporated after the team (including a shaky Scrivens) imploded.

We were able to shake off these previous performances with a little shrug of the shoulder. What happened in Florida? Oh, the team must have been out of shape from the long wait since their last game, and they certainly recovered nicely by beating UNH, 5-2, in Durham the following weekend. What happened at Dartmouth? Oh, just a fluke, and it didn't help that Dartmouth was playing on their senior night. In the end, everything worked out; with Cornell at #2 and Yale at #1, the Yalies had to face a hungry Brown team in the ECAC quarterfinal round. Everything was okay.

I fail to understand why some Cornell fans are so willing to write off Friday's debacle in similar fashion. This was the fucking NCAA tournament. Lose, and the team goes home. Win, and they're one game away from the Frozen Four. Okay, so maybe something goes wrong for Cornell. Perhaps Scrivens has a sub-par game. Maybe we lose a lot of faceoffs. Maybe some calls go the other way. Maybe UNH gets a couple of fortuitous bounces and steals a close game.

Everything went wrong on Friday.

Folks, this was not a close game. UNH out-played Cornell for the entire first period, and the Big Red were lucky that Roeszler put them ahead 1-0. Cornell had three shots on goal in the first 17 minutes. Cornell did show some signs of life early in the second period, and had a couple of very nice chances on the powerplay, but didn't score.

Once the UNH goal was reviewed and called a goal (the right decision), this Cornell hockey team folded like a deck of cards. Twenty-six seconds later, another goal. Then two more goals early in the third period.

This was not another close, hard-fought, respect-building loss for Cornell in the NCAA tournament. Remember all those compliments we got from Minnesota fans in 2005, and Wisconsin fans in 2006, about how much respect they had for the Big Red after Cornell nearly beat them in their home states? This loss was a blowout, and it hurt even more because it was to New Hampshire. This was the same UNH team which we beat in January on their home ice. And the same UNH team we'd lost to in 2002 and 2003 in the NCAA tournament.

Looking back on the season, it looks more like the ECAC tournament was a fluke performance. Yale was out of the way, Scrivens and the defense played out of their respective minds, and everything seemed to work. Before the ECAC tournament, we saw a devilishly inconsistent Big Red team which couldn't win four games in a row at any point during the season, and which lost big games to Yale (twice), Quinnipiac (when they were good), Colorado College, and BU (may as well have been a loss). After the ECAC tournament, Cornell followed up on its success by playing its worst game of the season during its most important game of the season.

Credit the team, the coaches, and everyone else involved, for winning another ECAC title. It will be great to be able to return to Lynah, point out the 2010 ECAC Tournament Champions banner, and talk about how I was there for that championship during my senior year. Cornell continues to have impressive success in the ECAC, and again, much credit is due for that.

But to end the season on such a pathetic note... I just don't know. It doesn't make sense. Almost all of these guys had been to the NCAA tournament before. Many of them were playing in their final game in a Cornell uniform. They had been playing so well recently. They had just won a championship on that ice surface six days earlier. Why the sudden shift? Why the terrible performance?

Was it a lack of motivation by the coaching staff? Had the players been fucking around for the whole week of vacation before the Friday game? It's maddening because because no explanation is evident.

Who knows what might have been. Thanks for the ECAC title, and all of the memories, but it hurts. It hurts to watch your team, to whom you have dedicated so much time, let themselves be embarrassed on the final game of your time at Cornell. I simply do not understand what happened on Friday. And as I leave in May, I will be clutching my ECAC Champions t-shirt, looking back fondly on the team's successes over these four years, and trying to forget how much they sucked during the last game of my time on the hill.

Awful

2010-03-27T01:20:00.004-04:00

Once the score was 3-1, the team looked ready to get off the ice. It was hard to blame them. What a listless, sloppy, and uncharacteristically timid performance from a team which had just played two outstanding weekends of hockey. It's a shame that the collegiate careers of Greening, Scrivens, Gallagher, Scali, Krueger, and B.Nash came to an end on such an astonishingly low note. It's not clear what the team did this week in practice, or off the ice, and it certainly defies logic that they simply did not come to play tonight. Wow.

The Other NCAA Tournament

2010-03-25T19:21:00.003-04:00

Cornell fans are still in basketball mode tonight, with the team set to face #1 Kentucky at the Carrier Dome at 9:57 pm.

There is also hockey this weekend, as the Big Red travel to Albany to begin their quest for an NCAA title. #2 Cornell plays #3 New Hampshire at 6:30 pm; the winner will play the winner of the game between #1 Denver and #4 RIT for a spot in the Frozen Four.

I haven't been doing much hockey analysis recently, and it's worked -- the team has given up one goal in the month of March. So I'll keep it that way, for now at least.

Here's what some other people are saying.

UNH is pissed off that most observers expect Cornell to win the game.

"We won the Hockey East regular season and they're writing us off like we're not a good team," UNH senior captain Bobby Butler said. "I think guys noticed that and were surprised, and it was definite motivation for a lot of us, and hopefully all of us. No respect for UNH. ... I think we feel like that happens a lot to UNH, so hopefully a couple wins this weekend will put us back on the map."

Speaking to the Concord Monitor, Ben Scrivens expects a challenge against UNH.

"We're definitely not going to be able to prevent UNH from getting scoring chances," the goalie said this week, "and I highly doubt we're going to be able to keep them off the scoreboard for an entire game."

Does it even matter? The Ithacan speculates that basketball has replaced hockey as the big-time Big Red sport.

I wasn’t too sure about how much enthusiasm there would be, especially given Cornell’s history and prowess in ice hockey. But even with the Big Red hockey team set to make a run at a national championship, it seems like basketball is generating more excitement.

“In the past it’s mostly been about hockey,” Cornell senior Murli Gupta said. “But basketball is huge right now.”

After USCHO.com columnist Brian Sullivan's description of Cornell's playing style ("soul-devouring juggernauts") became so popular among the Lynah Faithful that you can now buy the t-shirt at the Cornell Store, it appears that the race is on to pen the next magical phrase.

This is a team that is as systematically thorough and precise as anything seen since perhaps the 1980s Soviets. They’re big, they’re strong, they’re very well conditioned and they’re smart to boot.
Watching Cornell hockey is like watching a plant die of thirst: It’s slow, but it’s inevitable.

CHN editor Adam Wodon has been watching too much LOST. Looking back on heartbreaking Big Red losses in 1996 (to Lake Superior in Albany) and 2003 (to UNH in Buffalo), Wodon decides that after seven more years, the stars are doubly aligned for a Big Red loss at the hands of UNH in Albany.

CHN also named Ben Scrivens to their All-CHN second team. Denver goalie Marc Cheverie was on the first team. Hopefully Scrivens will have a chance to show them the error of their decision on Saturday.

With basketball tonight, thesis obligations, and Albany this weekend, this will be my last post until Saturday or Sunday.

More Fences Make Happier Students?

2010-03-25T14:29:00.002-04:00

Spitzer, Edwards, Massa, Arcuri

2010-03-23T22:40:00.005-04:00

One of the themes of the last couple of years of my college career has been a steady march towards political disillusionment. I knew I wanted to major in Government when I applied to Cornell, and I will get my diploma in May. But whereas I might have said three years ago that I would love to be a campaign manager one day, that is certainly no longer the case.

During the fall of my freshman year, I spent a lot of time campaigning for Democratic candidates in our area of New York. There were many of us involved in these efforts. I canvassed in the towns near Ithaca, asking people questions and dropping off literature for Hillary Clinton, Eliot Spitzer, and Mike Arcuri. I also phone-banked for Eric Massa and Arcuri. Arcuri won his race in 2006 and is still serving; Massa lost a close race in 2006, but won in 2008.

I stayed very interested in politics for a couple of years after that. During the summer of 2008, I worked for a campaign finance watchdog group. The highlight of the summer was probably when we received a call from Rick Davis, who was at that time John McCain's campaign manager. Davis told my boss to go fuck himself.

The 2008 cycle was also the first time I donated to a campaign, and the first time I voted in a presidential primary. Both were for John Edwards.

I should also note that I was still young and stupid in 2006 and voted for Joe Lieberman. Twice.

Maybe you can see where I'm going here.

Eric Massa, for whom I campaigned and had the pleasure of meeting in person, has had a... fall from grace.

Mike Arcuri, for whom I campaigned heavily and almost accepted an internship in his DC office, was the first Democratic Congressman to announce his opposition to the health care bill.

Eliot Spitzer, for whom I campaigned, had his own issues.

John Edwards hasn't turned out too well, either.

Lieberman, we in Connecticut don't speak of him.

Some might say that I've just had back luck with the people I've chosen to support. As for me, I've just about had enough. I'm happy to cheer from the sidelines, and I'll certainly keep voting, but I'm not getting back in the game.

Update on McKee Case

2010-03-23T10:33:00.003-04:00

According to the Orange County DA's office, former Cornell goalie David McKee has another court date scheduled for the end of April. It doesn't seem like the charges have been dismissed.

Cornell Store Not Optimistic About Basketball

2010-03-23T10:21:00.003-04:00

The Cornell Store is selling a whole line of Sweet Sixteen-themed items. I don't think there will be much of a demand for these items if Cornell happens to beat Kentucky on Thursday night.

Personally, I'm waiting until the team loses (if they lose...) to buy a shirt. Then, I'll be able to get the combined Cornell Big Red NCAA Champions in Hockey and Basketball shirt. Perhaps we'll be able to beat Wisconsin in both tournaments.

Looking Back on Doomsday Predictions

2010-03-23T00:00:00.000-04:00

If my blog had a public editor, this might be a post for that person.

For much of this season, this blog was pretty down on the Cornell hockey team's chances of making a big splash during the post-season. Sitting now, with an ECAC tournament trophy and a #2 seed to the NCAAs (in Albany, of all places) in hand, it would appear that I may have been too negative on the team's chances.

While I am unbelievably happy that the team won an ECAC title in my senior year, and I think they have a good chance to make the Frozen Four, I don't think my earlier predictions were unreasonable.

Consider this: If Cornell had lost both games this past weekend, especially if one loss came to Union, then the Big Red would likely be done for the season. The Pairwise this spring was very volatile, and there were a lot of NCAA berths riding on results from Friday and Saturday nights. Two losses in two games for Cornell, and that would be it.

Similarly, heading into the series against Harvard the previous weekend, Cornell was only two games away from the end of its season. Two losses, and that would be it.

It was difficult to predict that great things would happen when the team sat six periods away from extinction.

Hell, there was even a scenario (albeit, one with a lot of upsets) in which Cornell could have lost to Union in the ECAC final and still missed the NCAA tournament.

Going back to earlier in the season, it was difficult to believe that Cornell could do anything in March when it kept losing Saturday night games. As it turns out, the Big Red were able to piece together two beautiful weekends of hockey, but who saw that coming? Recall that Cornell sat 19th in Pairwise as recently as January.

Also, who saw Yale losing in the quarterfinal round? This was a team which beat Cornell both times they played, and was routinely putting up 6 and 7 goals in ECAC games. As long as Yale stood between Cornell and the ECAC title, it was difficult to believe that the Big Red would prevail.

In contrast to some of the great teams earlier in the decade (2002-3, 2004-5), this team was inconsistent for most of the year. Uncharacteristically blowing third-period leads, struggling to get four-point weekends, following up a dismal performance in Florida with an inspiring win at UNH. When the team can't win two games in a row, it's not reasonable to expect them to win championships.

In the end, Cornell reached this point with the help of three factors.

First, and most importantly, they started looking like the Big Red Defensive Machine we've come to expect. With the exception of the game at Princeton, Ben Scrivens has played unbelievably well in 2010. The defensemen are cutting down on mistakes and doing a better job of keeping the puck away from the net, and Schafer has found some guys (Collins, Esposito, Scali, Nicholls) who know how to shut down opposing team's top lines. Scrivens' shutout streak (almost four games and counting) is ridiculous.

Second, Yale lost. Yeah, yeah, a Cornell team playing well would have been able to topple Yale in Albany. But instead of heading to Albany with the prospect of playing a dangerous Yale team which has had Cornell's number for two years, the Big Red were looking at three teams (Brown, Union, St. Lawrence) to whom they hadn't lost all season (4-0-2, and 9-1-2 if you go back two years).

Third, a lot of the teams around Cornell in the Pairwise began to struggle. Union was tied with Cornell before they played at Lynah in February; the Dutchmen kept falling after that. Minnesota-Duluth and Maine played themselves out of an NCAA bid. Bemidji State hit a wall in their tournament and dropped below Cornell. Colorado College, which had been one of the best teams in the country when they beat Cornell in Florida, plummeted all the way to 20th in Pairwise. As a result of so many other teams struggling, Cornell's loss at Dartmouth didn't hurt the Big Red too much, and Cornell's wins helped them to win some comparisons on the basis of RPI.

It's great to see Cornell rising to its potential and playing such good hockey. But we shouldn't forget how close they were to being done for the season, with no NCAA bid in hand.

Ammunition for the Game Against Kentucky

2010-03-21T21:11:00.001-04:00

From Jon Jaques' blog post two years ago:

We changed and waited for Billy Gilespie’s Kentucky squad to finish their 40-minute workout. As we left the locker room and headed out the tunnel towards the court, we walked past the Kentucky players. Apparently our team made an impression on the Wildcats; many of us overheard one of Kentucky’s players remark, “They look like a high school team.”

To be honest, I wasn’t completely surprised. Most Ivy League teams look no bigger than a lot of teams I played in high school. That doesn’t mean we can’t play. What I’m sure Kentucky didn’t understand was that our team does a lot of things well, things that a lot of N.B.A. teams would be jealous of. For instance, going into the tournament, Cornell is the only team in the top 10 in the country in field goal percentage, 3-point percentage, and free throw percentage. Plus, if the stars align, we could find ourselves playing Kentucky in the second round. That would gives us an opportunity to show them how a “high school” team plays.

Let's go, red.

Submarine Commander Drank With Cornell Students

2010-03-21T20:31:00.002-04:00

He was dismissed for his actions during a March 10 visit to Cornell's Navy ROTC program:

The submarine officer who was relieved of his command of the Pearl Harbor-based USS Chicago this week had been out drinking with Navy ROTC cadets at Cornell University.

The U.S. Pacific Fleet submarine force said Tuesday that Cmdr. Jeff Cima was found guilty of drunkenness and conduct unbecoming an officer.

Update: More info here.

Capt. Larry Olsen, professor of naval science and commanding officer of Cornell's NROTC unit, told the Star-Bulletin that Cima was at the Ithaca, N.Y., campus on March 10 to talk about the nuclear power program.

After the talk, Cima and a lieutenant junior grade from the Chicago joined about a dozen Cornell cadets for a pizza and alcoholic drinks, said Olsen, also a submarine officer.

"The commander and the lieutenant had way too much to drink," Olsen said.

As midnight approached, the cadets were unsure what to do.

"They (the cadets) did the right thing and called my staff lieutenant, who took the two officers back to the hotel," Olsen said.

Olsen said the lieutenant reported the incident to him the next day, and he turned the matter over to officials at Pearl Harbor.

Report: Riley Nash's Agent Playing Hardball

2010-03-21T20:07:00.004-04:00

Some disclaimers: it's a post on the internet, and I haven't found a link to corroborate the information. But for Cornell hockey fans, it might be of interest.

Post on the Hockey's Future boards:

Bob Stauffer just mentioned that Riley Nash's agent told an Oilers coach that they don't expect him to ever play in the minors. For him to leave school they want it in writing that he goes straight to the NHL.

Make of it what you will.

Cornell Women Lose In Triple Overtime

2010-03-21T19:37:00.003-04:00

There really isn't too much to complain about this weekend if you're a Cornell sports fan, but here's one thing.

If you're going to play a sudden-death overtime period to decide who wins, then it seems logical that this period should be played according to the same rules as the first part of the game. Otherwise, the victor is not determined by who is better at hockey, but rather who is better at the particular version of hockey which is played during overtime.

For this reason, I think it's incredibly stupid to play 4-on-4 in overtime, or decide a victor based on penalty shots.

Today, as the NCAA women's hockey championship game went into overtime, we saw an expected change in officiating. The refs put away their whistles and called three penalties in 59 minutes. A Cornell powerplay in the first OT was allowed to last about 36 seconds before a make-up call came along and switched things to 4-on-4. Nothing else was called until the end of the third OT, when Cornell's Lauriane Rougeau went off for tripping. After some pressure, Minnesota-Duluth scored six seconds after their powerplay was over, and the game was finished.

During the 59 minutes of overtime hockey, there were plenty of additional penalties which could have been called. Tripping, body checking, cross-checking, hooking, you name it. But the game was called differently than it was during regulation. Cornell, with the No. 1 penalty kill and No. 4 powerplay in the NCAA, might have benefited if penalties were called as penalties.

But, such is life, and Big Red fans were handed another heartbreaking victory. Similarities can be drawn between this game and the men's team's triple OT loss to Wisconsin in the NCAA regional final in 2006. Fans can take solace in looking back at a great season -- this was far and away the best season ever for Cornell women's hockey -- but that doesn't do much to change the more poignant thoughts of what if. As with the men's lacrosse team's nightmarish loss in the NCAA final last year, fans and players can be proud of the team's accomplishment just to get to that point. But they will certainly spend time pondering what might have happened, if things had gone just a little differently.

Sports

2010-03-21T12:23:00.003-04:00

Sorry for the lack of posts; I've been preoccupied with Cornell sporting events.

Second-seeded Cornell hockey plays third-seeded UNH in the first round of the NCAA tournament, 6:30pm Friday, back in Albany at the Times-Union Center.

The women's hockey team is playing this afternoon (1pm, CBS College Sports) for the national championship.

The men's basketball team plays at 2:50pm against Wisconsin for a spot in the sweet sixteen.

Congratulations to the wrestling team for a phenomenal (if overshadowed) performance at NCAAs, winning second place!

Much more to come later today and in the days head. What a great time for Cornell sports.

Unclear When Suicide Watch Will End

2010-03-18T02:16:00.003-04:00

Two guards, two different opinions. One security officer told me tonight that they were going to stop patrolling the bridges after Saturday, which would make sense given that it's the start of spring break. However, ten minutes later, another guard told me that Cornell has asked them to stay for two more weeks. So, who knows.

Obama Picks Cornell to Beat Temple

2010-03-17T14:52:00.001-04:00

Cornell really is the trendy first-round upset pick. Hopefully we'll back it up this year.

A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard law school, Obama stayed loyal to the Ivy League and picked Cornell University, a No. 12 seed, to squeeze past Temple, a No. 5, in the first round of play.

“I like Cornell, which gave Kansas a run for its money,” he said, referring to a narrow Cornell loss earlier in the season. “I think they have a terrific team.”

Still, he has the University of Wisconsin defeating Cornell, the Ivy League champion, in the second round.

NYT Comes to Ithaca

2010-03-17T02:57:00.001-04:00

One of the fairest articles written yet this week.

Must-Read Article About Suicides at Cornell

2010-03-15T18:01:00.002-04:00

Head over to the Huffington Post to read Rob Fishman's article about suicides at Cornell.

Fishman is a former editor of the Daily Sun, and the article is adopted from his master's thesis for the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.

His research answers a lot of the questions people have been posting on my blog, and I'm sure you'll learn something. I won't parse any of it here; just go read.

Cornell and Temple Both Screwed

2010-03-15T16:00:00.002-04:00

This year's NCAA basketball bracket provides yet another example of Cornell getting screwed in NCAA selections.

The Big Red lost four times this season -- twice to #1 seeds Kansas and Syracuse -- and played a tough out-of-conference schedule which was mostly on the road. There wasn't much Cornell could do as its RPI plummeted as a result of the weak Ivy schedule.

Temple racked up 29 wins and the A-10 regular season and tournament titles, and went 7-3 against the top 50 in the RPI.

Yet Temple is seeded lower than it should be -- at #5 -- and Cornell is seeded lower than it should be -- at #12.

I agree with Temple coach Fran Dunphy who stated yesterday that he thought the matchup was a conscious choice by the committee to make him play his former assistant at Penn, Cornell coach Steve Donahue. It's certainly a compelling storyline, but it does not justify the two teams' low seeds.

Temple is a tougher team than the Big Red wanted to play in the first round, and vice versa. Neither team is happy, and one of them will be going home after one game.

For Big Red fans, we must immediately think back to years of getting screwed in NCAA lacrosse seeding and hockey seeding.

Such is the struggle for a team coming from a conference known more for its brains than its brawn.

Brown

2010-03-14T21:09:00.001-04:00

shocks Yale by winning game 3 tonight. Yale is out of the ECAC playoffs. Brown plays Cornell at 4pm next Friday, Times-Union Center.

Alpha Delt Hazing Revealed

2010-03-14T12:19:00.004-04:00

It hasn't been a great semester for Cornell Greeks. First we had the Pi Phi dress code incident, which was essentially a non-story as far as Cornell was concerned, but attracted a lot of national attention. (Sororities caring about appearances? Who knew?)

Next was the Pike rush week incident, in which a combination of dangerous drinking games, cold weather, and terrible leadership resulted in brothers' driving underage freshmen to the hospital to be treated for various amounts of alcohol poisoning, hypothermia, and cuts to hands and arms.

On Friday, IvyGate posted an email (titled "Lineup Tonight") from Alpha Delta Phi's pledge class president to his fellow new members in which he asks them to bring things like dog food, tabasco sauce, and goldfish to the house that night. (There has been no statement from Alpha Delt refuting the validity of the email, so I'll assume for now that it's accurate.) The person who leaked the email reported that the pledges were:

* Forced to chug a slurry of dogfood, tabasco sauce, and sour cream;
* Run relay races, while blackout drunk, through the great halls of the ADPhi manor–filled with flour, beer, and water–while being pelted with dodgeballs;
* Jog naked laps outside the house in the below-freezing Ithaca winter;
* Stand outside in a “lineup” for two hours, with only a shirt, jacket, tie and slacks.

In contrast to other recent hazing incidents at Cornell, which involved chapters with less than stellar reputations and histories, this is a hard one for Cornell to shrug off. As B.C. pointed out, Dean of Students Kent Hubbell '67 is one of many prominent Alpha Delt alumni in positions of power in the Cornell community. For example, John Dyson '65 is one of four trustees (.pdf) of the Fraternity and Sorority Advisory Council, and he sponsors a citizenship award every year.

Alpha Delt is one of the big, wealthy, West Campus houses which Cornell's Office of Fraternity and Sorority Affairs loves to showcase. I'm not going to take the time to dig up links, but OFSA likes to hold speeches, dinners, award receptions, and things like that at Alpha Delt's house.

Hazing is not something which occurs unbeknown to a chapter's leadership or alumni. The same people who are treated like royalty by Cornell are the ones who help to organize this kind of silly, dangerous crap.

There's a pattern of this sort of hypocrisy. The IFC VP Judicial from a couple of years ago was from Pike, a chapter which, as we've seen, doesn't exactly follow the rules. Alpha Delt has sent people to the IFC executive board in recent years.

We'll see what happens. There isn't just a disciplinary issue here, but also a political one. Any sanctions against Alpha Delt are a slap in the face to that house's illustrious alumni. But obviously something has to be done. Unfortunately for Cornell, we're not talking about some on-again-off-again animal house on the outskirts of campus, but one of the wealthiest, most prestigious fraternities.

Today's Victim Is Matthew Charles Zika '11

2010-03-12T23:27:00.004-05:00

The name was just released in an email by President Skorton. Zika was a junior in Engineering. Yesterday's victim, William Sinclair '12, was also an engineer. No doubt this will spark another round of debate about whether changes to the Engineering program should be implemented to reduce students' stress levels.

Zika's most recent Facebook status update:

My hope in living life is that if one day someone told me it would be my last, I could smile and nod knowing full well that I did all I could with the time I was given. Never put off until tomorrow what you'd be okay having never done.

Zika graduated high school in 2007 but his Facebook says Cornell '10; perhaps he planned to graduate early.

As stated earlier, Cornell is under suicide watch, with all bridges under constant surveillance.

The Cornell homepage now has prominent links to a Gannett-associated page titled "notice and respond."

Skorton pleads for an end to the tragedies:

As a doctor, teacher and father, I, too want to reach out personally to each one of you - especially our students. I want you to know that it is normal to feel sad or anxious at times, particularly when such tragedies occur. Roommate conflicts, relationship problems, financial challenges and especially academic stress are just some of the pressures that can make us think that things are too difficult. Your well being is the foundation on which your success is built. You are not alone. Your friends, your family, your teachers, your colleagues, and an array of counselors and advisors are ready to listen and help you through whatever you are facing. If you learn anything at Cornell, please learn to ask for help. It is a sign of wisdom and strength.

Another Possible Suicide

2010-03-12T23:12:00.003-05:00

Yesterday, the body of William Sinclair '12 was recovered from beneath the Thurston Avenue bridge.

This afternoon, it appears that another person jumped off a bridge. This time, it was the suspension bridge a little further down the gorge.

Cornell is now under suicide watch, with police stationed on every bridge on or near campus.

Gorge Victim is William Sinclair '12

2010-03-11T20:00:00.002-05:00

Email from Skorton. Note the acknowledgment of the number of student deaths this year. It is interesting that Sinclair's body was found in nearly the same spot as Brad Ginsburg's '13 a couple of weeks ago. The University response was different this time, with an email sent out to the Cornell community within a couple hours of discovering the body, followed by another one later in the day with the name of the victim. This is a much shorter timeline than last time, which may indicate a change in University policy over the last couple of weeks.

Dear fellow Cornellians,

This morning we learned with deep sadness that we have lost a member of our community whose body was found in the Fall Creek gorge. I am saddened, as I know you are, that another life with unfulfilled promise has been lost.

On behalf of the entire Cornell community, I wish to convey my heartfelt condolences to the family of our student, William Sinclair, a sophomore in the College of Engineering, and to his many friends who will always carry the memory of happier times in their hearts. Please join me in keeping them foremost in your thoughts in the days ahead as we mourn this tragic loss of life. For understandable reasons, and out of deference to the family, you will understand that we will not be able to comment on the circumstances of this tragedy until the investigation has been completed by the Ithaca Police Department.

I do want to acknowledge the toll we all may be experiencing from repeated losses already this year. I sincerely hope that you will join me in reaching out to your classmates, roommates, colleagues and friends to cherish the memories you have of those who have departed us, and to renew your commitment to each other. It is important to take the time, regularly, to reflect on the many things for which we should be grateful and on how best to overcome, together, the daily challenges we must face.

[...]

Sincerely,

David Skorton

President

INCH Predicts Cornell To Win ECAC Tournament

2010-03-11T16:03:00.004-05:00

Perhaps in response to the news that Yale star forward Sean Backman is out for the season with some sort of foot injury (Update: He broke his heel while horsing around in a pool), Inside College Hockey now predicts that Cornell will receive the automatic bid.

The hypothetical run through the ECAC tournament will bump Cornell to a #2 seed; INCH projects them to play #3 New Hampshire in the first round in the Albany regional. All things considered, a pretty good draw for Cornell.

Yale, meanwhile, drops to a #3 seed and plays North Dakota in the first round of the Worcester regional.

Even without Backman, Yale is a very strong team and I think INCH overreacted by making these predictions. By dropping Yale all the way to a #3 seed, they seem to think Yale will lose before the final.

Lest we lose sight of things, Cornell still needs to win this weekend's series against Harvard to get into position to make the NCAA tournament.

Law School Clarifies Andy Bernard's Role

2010-03-11T15:57:00.002-05:00

Associate Dean Richard Geiger offers an explanation for why they chose to use Office character Andy Bernard to promote the law school's image:

Geiger said Wednesday night that he has been quoted accurately as saying that he can't explain the magnitude of the increase, but that a handful of applicants responded to the question about why they were applying to Cornell by citing the Andy Bernard character.
"So we decided -- let's have a little fun with this," Geiger said, and the character started to appear in the rotation on the law school's site. He went up last week, but it was only this week that the blogosphere took note. Reaction has been mixed. "About half the people love it and half the people say 'What is this about?' "
But internally, Geiger said that people hope they are sending a positive message -- not about the character, but about the need for perspective. "Here's a law school that's not taking itself too seriously," he said.

Another Body Found Below Thurston Bridge

2010-03-11T12:11:00.002-05:00

The Cornell Insider is reporting that another body was found beneath the Thurston Bridge this morning.

According to the Sun, it is a male victim. The university sent out an email around 1:30 informing students of the situation and, as per usual, providing an overview of counseling services.

Cornell's Media Blitz Continues

2010-03-11T00:14:00.003-05:00

Let's go, red! Clearly Politico is rooting for us to beat Harvard this weekend.

Thanks MA

The Face of Cornell Law: Andy Bernard?

2010-03-10T16:10:00.004-05:00

I agree with pretty much everyone else that the Law School made a mistake in choosing Office character Andy Bernard to promote their image on their home page. Regardless of the fact that Bernard attended Cornell undergrad, not law, he is essentially a moron who claims to have spent his Big Red days engaged in drinking and a cappella antics.

(On the plus side, the controversy has increased traffic to the Law School homepage, thereby increasing the chance that people will read about the prison class for which I'm a TA.)

HuffPo got in on the discussion (but referred to AboveTheLaw as "legal scholars"?!?), as did gossip site TMZ.

The promotion is now off the Law School site.

I'm guessing that someone didn't like having to read the 52 percent more applications this year, and decided that the Andy Bernard promotion will make sure that fewer people apply next cycle.

AHL Referee Wears In-Game Mic

2010-03-08T14:09:00.002-05:00

I don't care at all about the AHL, but this should be pretty cool for any sort of hockey fan:

Harvard

2010-03-07T21:20:00.001-05:00

comes to Lynah next weekend. Let's go red.

Riley Nash: Leaving After This Season

2010-03-07T13:21:00.004-05:00

Last year, we didn't have official confirmation that Riley Nash and Colin Greening were staying for another season until August, when they showed up on campus.

But in the weeks and months before then, many sources reported that both players were leaning towards staying. Blog reports and word of mouth are not particularly reliable sources, but in this case they were unanimously correct in expecting Nash and Greening to stay.

With that in mind, I'm starting to hear from sources that Riley Nash will be departing Cornell after this season. For example, here's a report from an expert on Oilers prospects:

Obviously I'm not going to say where I heard [that Nash is leaving Cornell], but I have heard it from a few people. I think Nash was ready for the AHL this year. Of course lots can change between now and next year though.

As I've said before, I'd be shocked if Nash stays for his senior season. Most of what he could have learned by playing at Cornell -- penalty killing, defense -- he's learned in his first three years. Nash has looked great over the last three weekends, but overall he's had a pretty disappointing junior season. His production is down from his first two seasons. Fact is, Cornell's light schedule and low-scoring offense means that Nash simply isn't getting that many opportunities to practice putting the puck in the net.

We've seen how well Nash plays with Greening, and how badly he plays with forwards who are not Greening. If Nash heads to professional hockey, he'll be playing on a line with players of a higher caliber than Patrick Kennedy and Greg Miller; I think he'll come a little closer to meeting the lofty expectations people have for him.

That said, Nash still has plenty of work to do to get to the NHL, including gaining a lot of weight. For many reasons, I think that Greening will get there before Nash. But expect both Nashes to depart Cornell after this season.