University Releases Strategic Planning Task Force Reports
On Nov. 6, Provost Kent Fuchs made public summary reports from the 20 task forces that formed as part of the Reimagining Cornell initiative to think deeply and creatively on how to reduce costs and enhance the University’s academic excellence. Along with task forces for each college, there are others for the Cornell Library, the Graduate School, Student and Academic Services, student enrollment, and several cross-cutting areas.
Susan A. Henry, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences, led a Strategic Advisory Committee comprised of the college leadership, faculty leaders, and senior department administrators to provide recommendations to the Provost for restructuring CALS and enhancing its core academic missions of teaching, research, and extension. View an executive summary of the CALS task force recommendations at http://www.cornell.edu/reimagining/docs/cals-summary-1109.pdf. Read more about Reimagining Cornell at http://www.cornell.edu/reimagining.
Cornell Forensics Society Finds New Home
The Cornell Forensics Society (CFS), an organization that offers students the opportunity to participate in intercollegiate speech and debate competitions, is moving from the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) to the College of Industrial Labor & Relations (ILR).
“Having the Cornell Forensics Society at ILR is a good fit programmatically,” said Susan Henry, the Ronald P. Lynch Dean of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Students all across Cornell participate in forensics, particularly ILR students. We are glad the program has found such a willing and supportive home.”
“Having forensics in ILR fits well with our curriculum,” said Harry Katz, the J. Sheinkman Professor in Collective Bargaining, and ILR Dean. “ILR students need to know how to debate, argue, and articulate their ideas in a persuasive manner. Oral communications is an extremely important skill in the workplace.”
“CALS helped launch the Cornell Forensics Society in the mid-’80s and made it one of the foremost programs in speech and debate in the United States,” said Sam Nelson, assistant professor, who has directed CFS for five years. “We are optimistic that our move to ILR will continue Cornell’s long and rich tradition of excellence in speech and debate.”
According to Nelson, over 100 students from across the university participate in CFS, which makes it the largest intercollegiate forensics program in the U.S. With the move, the team will have access to a new and larger practice debate room in the recently renovated Ives Hall.
For the 2009-10 season, the CFS Policy Debate Team is ranked third in the U.S. The society will send three teams to Turkey for the world championships in Worlds Format Debate. Students who participate in the speech portion of the forensics program attend the American Forensics Association National Tournament. As well, three students just returned from Qatar for the first-ever debate between the Cornell/Ithaca and Cornell/Qatar campuses.
Two CFS alums, Cameron Jones ’89 and Chris Langone ’89, are helping Nelson coach this year’s team.
For more information about the program, visit www.forensics.cornell.edu
New Center to Bring Cornell Agricultural Innovations to China
A new center may help make Cornell agricultural advances in China. A Sept. 24 Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between Cornell and the Department of Science and Education of China’s Ministry of Agriculture facilitated the creation of the Sino-U.S. Ray Wu Agricultural Technology Innovation Center at Cornell.
An initial project may include Cornell researchers helping Chinese scientists to engineer drought- or salt-tolerant rice that were developed by Wu, the late Cornell professor of molecular biology and genetics, who was widely recognized as a father of plant genetic engineering. The new center is named after Wu to honor his career and efforts to help China improve life sciences education standards, among other things.
USDA Grant to Cornell Supports Beginning Farmers
A three-year, $750,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture will help Cornell’s Small Farms Program (SFP) work with a coalition of groups to broaden its support for new farmers. “Growing demand for local foods has created new markets for farmers,” says Erica Frenay, coordinator of the SFP’s N.Y. Beginning Farmer Project. “Many new farmers with little or no agricultural experience want to tap this growing market, but face daunting barriers.”
The funding, from the USDA’s Beginning Farmers and Ranchers Development Program, will help the project draw on the strengths of diverse partner organizations to break down those barriers, including limited access to training, capital, and land.
New Online Course Explores Bird Behavior
Why does a red-winged blackbird flare its colorful wing patches? What does it mean when ducks bob their heads? Is the way a bird arranges its feathers significant?
Answering these questions gets to the heart of bird behavior, which is all about sex and survival. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology invites the public to explore fascinating patterns of bird behavior in a new five-week online course, “Investigating Behavior: Courtship and Rivalry in Birds.” The course goal is to help people observe and interpret some of the ways birds communicate, often as a means to survive or attract a mate.
“It’s not your typical text-heavy, lecture-based tutorial,” says course instructor and content co-author Colleen McLinn. “It’s packed with multimedia and interactive activities that make this course unlike anything else available.”
The five-week course is taught on a rotating basis, and enrollment is open now for classes that begin January 6, 2010. Tuition is $295 for the five-week course. Cornell Lab members can enroll for $255 by calling 866-326-7635. Visit the course web site for more details.
Conference on Cooperation, Cheating, Group Decision-Making Yields Insights
Better understanding of honeybee interactions could have implications for understanding why people act selfishly in a communal system, said CALS Professor Kern Reeve, one of the presenters at the conference “Cooperation: Self Interest and Mutual Interest,” held at Cornell Oct. 16.
The conference, organized by Cornell, SUNY Buffalo, and SUNY Binghamton with funding from the SUNY Conversations in the Disciplines Program, brought together almost 100 researchers to examine issues relating to cooperation that are common to the fields represented, which ranged from evolutionary biology, ecology, and plant science to molecular biology, anthropology, psychology, economics, and even English, said conference organizer Angela Douglas, professor of entomology. The meeting attracted colleagues from across the SUNY universities and beyond, including California and Germany.
Greeting Cards Warble, Tweet to Recipients
A new line of greeting cards lets senders mail an elegant piece of bird art and bring it to life with accurate sounds of the species depicted. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology collaborated with an English company, Really Wild Cards, to create them.
Each card features a bird painting taken from the Cornell Lab’s own art collection. When the card opens, it plays about 15 seconds of calls and song for that species, drawn from the comprehensive archives in Cornell’s Macaulay Library. Currently, there are 14 species available, with more cards slated for release about every six months. View the collection.