04-23-12

A s Calendar Advances, Student Reps. Dissent

Faculty Senate to vote on changes in May

By ERIN ELLIS Sun Staff Wr ter

Committee will present its proposed changes to the academic calendar including two ne w vacation days in the spring and shor tening students’ exam and study periods to the Faculty Senate for a vote in May

If the changes are passed by the Faculty Senate, the University would add two vacation days in Febr uar y; condense the exam study period from seven days to four and exam week from eight days to six; shor ten Senior Week from seven days to three; and change the Wednesday before Thanksgiving from a half day to a full day off

“I

y would fall on a Wednesday, rather than a Friday

C

m

C

mittee a coalition of faculty, students and staff was established in 2010 and tasked with revising the academic calendar for the first time since 1984, according to Prof Jeff Doyle, plant biology, chair of the committee Doyle said that the committee’s primar y goal is to alleviate student mental health concerns

Both of the committee’s undergraduate members Student Assembly President Natalie Raps ’12 and Geoffrey Block ’14 S A atlarge representative said they do not suppor t the committee’s proposal Yet its other members over whelming did; the committee approved the final version of the proposal with a vote of 8 to 1 to 1

New Profs Face Tenure Review

By CAROLINE FLAX Sun Staff Writer

As the University prepares to hire

huge number of professors, candidates will face different degrees of revie w for tenure at Cornell, depending on their teaching ability, experience and the caliber of their former institution Junior faculty untenured professors at the University often have to wait about six years before they are revie wed for tenure But when hiring ne w faculty, Cornell does not have a

Time Running Out as Slope Day Searches for Volunteers

By JINJOO LEE Sun Senior Writer

The Slope Day Programming Board has five days to recruit an additional 250 volunteers for Slope Day or Libe Slope may be silent and empty of concert-goers come May 4

“If we do not have enough volunteers, then there won ’ t be a Slope Day No stage, no music, no event, no nothing,” said Dylan Rapoport 12, chair of SDPB’s POSSE people organizing and super vising slope events

The shor tage of volunteers

i s e s p e c i a l l y t r o u b l i n g t h i s year, Rapopor t said, because the number of people needed to staff the event has increased from 400 to 500 since last year

“Our recruitment ends on Friday and we have about 250 signed up so far, Rapoport said “We’ve got to double recruitment in a week ” The number of volunteers needed has increased due to a dramatic rise in attendance at Slope Day over the last few years While 13,974 people attended Slope Day in 2010, about 17,500 attended last year,

according to SDPB records “[Every year] there is more trash more water to hand out more of everything More people coming means more volunteers are needed,” said Ashwin Raja ’14, leader of the team of Slope Day volunteers responsi-

ble for environmental sustainability

This year SDPB also needs more volunteers in order to extend the area it will help clean after Slope Day The board plans to send volunteers to clean not only the fenced-off area on Libe

Slope, as it has in previous years, but also the space spanning Thurston Bridge to Collegetown Bagels Rapoport said doing so will enable SDPB to s a v e m

for

Anabel Taylor Hall

Alumnus Gives $10M To C.U. Engineering

By KAITLYN KWAN Sun Staff Wr ter

With a $10 million gift from John A Swanson ’62 M Eng ’63 the College of Engineering

w i l l e x p a n d u n d e r g r a d u a t e opportunities in both academics and student organizations

Ac c o rd i n g t o a Un i v e r s i t y press release on Thursday half of the gift will be used to fund

e n g i n e e r i n g p r o j e c t t e a m s student-r un organizations that design and build products, such as race cars and water purifica-

t i o n s y s t e m s , t h a t e m p h a s i z e practical aspects of engineering

The donation will also be used to create a director position

t h a t w i l l ov e r s e e t h e p r o j e c t teams, according to Prof Alan T Zehnder, mechanical and aerospace engineering, associate dean for diversity and faculty development

“ T h e re w o u l d b e s o m

o n e who would be able to advise the teams more closely, give more oversight in terms of safety and r e s p o n s i b i l i t y, s a i d Z e h n d

who is also a faculty advisor for t h e C o r n e l l Un i v

Au t o n o m o u s Un

t e r Vehicle team “ The overall project team program will be on firmer grounds It’ll make sure that this project team process and experience will be available for a lot more students down the line ” The decision to appoint a ne w director comes after the Formula Society of Automotive Engineers project team which

b u i l d s a n d r a c e s c a r s f o r a n annual competition in Michigan was put on a two-month probation following multiple memb e r s ’ c o m p l a i n t s o f e xc e s s i v e stress According to Prof Mark Campbell, director of mechanical and aerospace engineering, the engineering college has been

building a complex system, but the opportunity to work with others from different disciplines and to get entrepreneurial, management and financial experience that will inspire some to go on to create startups, ” Collins s

rd

release “ Thanks to [Swanson]’s incredibly generous gift, these teams will no longer have to rely on uncertain funding from companies and other sources that fluctuate year to year ”

Many project teams currently u s

y ANSYS, Inc , a company that Swanson founded in 1970 and was CEO of until it was sold in 1 9 9

and testing their projects

Swanson said that his decision to donate to the college was largely motivated by the belief that an undergraduate engineering education paired with e x p

helps create well-prepared engineers

Marching to their own beat

Yale Law School Battles Imbalance

After Study Reveals Gender Gap

By THE YALE DAILY NEWS

Men are 16 percent more likely to speak in class than women in Yale Law School courses, according findings in a study released by a Law School student group last week

“[Project] teams will no longer have to rely on uncertain funding that fluctuate[s] year to year ” Lanc e Collin s

t r y i n g t o i m p r ov e l e a d e r s h i p among project teams

Other uses for the money might include payments for project teams ’ supplies and travelling fees, Zehnder said “It’s a great thing to happen, and I’m really looking for ward to seeing how it will be implemented, said Matt Byrne 12, t h e t e a m l e a d e r f o r Fo r m u l a SAE “If money is given directly for the teams to use, that would be a huge help It would probably go towards facilities, equipment, new machines things like that ” Currently, teams receive more than $200,000 in sponsorships f r o m c o m p a n i e s e v e r y y e a r, according to the press release Swanson’s gift will give project teams which provide students hands-on experiences in engin e

Collins, dean of the college

T h e s e t e a m s p rov i d e s t udents with not only the technical c h a l l e n g e o f d e s i g n i n g a n d

“It’s a ver y good thing for us, ” Zehnder said “It demonstrates the commitment being made by the college and John Swanson to keep hands-on experience and learning available for engineering students and other students as well ” The other half of Swanson’s donation will be used to fund additional academic initiatives

Three million dollars will be used to establish the John A

according to the press release The remaining $2 million will h

helps augment student educa-

Engineering Learning Initiatives program, which enables under-

Cornell faculty members

“ E

many students to be an intense and aggressive program, ” said Prof Graeme Bailey, computer science, another faculty advisor for CUAUV and a member of The Sun s Board of Directors

“All that we can do to help students to not only sur vive but develop both the nerdy and the personal skills to carr y them forward into their careers is critically important ”

Kaitlyn Kwan can be reached at kkwan@cornellsun com

The group, Yale Law Women, replicated a study of gender dynamics it conducted at the school in 2002 The 93-page study which included interviews with 54 of 83 non-visiting faculty members, obser vations of student participation in 113 sessions of 21 Law School courses and a survey of 62 percent of the student body found that women are 1 5 percent more likely to speak up in class now than they were 10 years ago, among several other observations The majority of students and faculty interviewed by the News said gender imbalances are an endemic problem in the legal profession and are not unique to the Law School, though many were disappointed by the lack of substantial improvement over the decade

Law School professor Lea Brilmayer, who has taught at Yale off and on for 30 years after becoming one of the first female professors at the Law School, said she found the study depressing because it contradicted her feeling that gender dynamics at the school have improved in recent years Brilmayer pointed to several institutional changes she said contribute to her attitude, including the greater prevalence of women on the faculty, all of whom she described as “first-rate intellectual heavyweights ”

For the 2011-’12 academic year, 22 out of 104 Yale Law School professors were women, according to the survey

The majority of students interviewed attributed the results of the study to historic gender inequalities within the legal profession

people at Yale, she added that the issue leads some women to feel insecure

Skene added that she feels some males at top law schools are likely to be more confident than their female counterparts a reality she said is evident at Yale Law School

“There’s very much this male in-group here,” Skene said “And if you ’ re in that, you ’ re very much at the top of the world This is true in the [first-year] class I feel it’s very fratty and very insular, even more so than the Law School itself ”

Some students and faculty interviewed by the News said the study highlights differences in temperament between the genders

“What we found is that participation by women in the classroom has improved, but the rate is very slow, said Fran Faircloth, a Yale Law Women co-chair for the study “If we continue at the same rate, the gender gap won ’ t close until 2083 ”

The report, titled “Yale Law School Faculty and Students Speak Up about Gender: Ten Years Later,” assesses students’ interactions with faculty both in and out of the classroom, and compiled recommendations on how to minimize gender differences in the Law School community based on survey and interview responses

Recommendations to faculty include practicing more “conscientious classroom management for example, waiting for five seconds rather than calling on the first student to raise his or her hand while recommendations to students include being more proactive in interacting with professors

Jennifer Skene, a Yale Law student who served as a faculty interviewer for the report, said she feels legal education often perpetuates an “image of the dominant male lawyer ” Though she said the problem is systemic rather than created by a specific set of

Yale Law student Fiona Heckscher said some women might be more inclined than their male counterparts to fully process their thoughts before speaking up in class Rather than encourage women to participate more frequently in the classroom, she said, the report should prompt some male students to “ step down a little bit ”

Ron Paul Stirs Lynah Faithful

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul drew a crowd of more than 4,000 to Lynah Rink on Thursday, where he spoke to a fired-up audience in a town hall-style rally He implored supporters to join him and defeat the “ tyrants ” and “enemies of liberty” he said are destroying America

Cornell Partners With Major NGO on Global Service

President David Skorton spoke on Wednesday about the new CARE-Cornell venture, which he touted as the “firstever partnership between a major non-governmental organization and a single university The initiative will provide support for agricultural development projects aimed at impoverished female farmers

Compiled by Utsav Rai

‘I

Don’t Think There’s Much More to Discuss,’ Prof Says

While Raps said she supported the additional break in Februar y, she “doubted” that the benefits of the vacation days will offset the drawbacks of a condensed exam week

Under the proposal, the last day of spring classes would fall on a Wednesday, followe d by a fou r-day s tu dy pe riod

Ex a m s w o u l d r u n f ro m Mo n d a y t o Monday occurring over the span of six days, instead of the current eight

According to Doyle, the committee faced a “trade-off ” between adding vaca-

“There

tion days in Februar y and shortening the study and exam periods

“ We looked at ever y angle and realized we couldn’t meet the minimum required days of instruction and bring in a break in Februar y without making cuts to the exam period, Doyle said

Doyle also noted that the University

Re g i s

exams would “greatly reduce the likelihood” of students having back-to-back exams An algorithm will be used to coordinate exams based on students’ schedules, rather than on the days and times classes meet, he said

Block agreed that the new algorithm would be “effective” in minimizing some of the added stress of the condensed exam p e r i

described as an outcome in which the Calendar Committee only “ met the minimum ” of the S A members’ requests

The committee met most of the S A ’ s recommendations: a study period with a minimum of four days; at least eight days of exams; an additional break in the spring

Wednesday before Thanksgiving

However, Raps and Block expressed discontent over the committee’s refusal to accommodate some of their other recom-

break in the middle of the exam period

“I felt that students didn’t have enough of a voice,” Raps said

While Raps and Block said that the weekend currently operates as a “natural break for most students,” the proposed changes would move the weekend to the ver y end of the exam period, rendering scheduled exams largely uninterrupted

Doyle said the committee neglected to add a break in the exam period because, he said, the Registrar’s new algorithm will be able to effectively shield students from back-to-back exams

If the University schedules an uninterrupted block of exam days as proposed by the committee, students will have fewer back-to-back exams, Doyle said

Still, Block also said he was was “ ver y

Professor Amihai Mazar

Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Lecture 1: “Archaeology and Biblical History: The Current State of Scholarship”

Tuesday, April 24, 2012, 7:30 p m , Kaufmann Aud , G64 Goldwin Smith Hall

Lecture 2: “The Levant in the Tenth Century: Archaeology and the Alleged Time of David and Solomon” Wednesday April 25 2012 4:30 p m Lewis Aud G76 Goldwin Smith Hall

Lecture 3: “‘A Land of Milk and Honey:’ Archaeological Research on the Unique Apiary at Tel Rehov Israel” Thursday April 26 2012

4:30 p m , Lewis Auditorium, G76 Goldwin Smith Hall

upset ” that the calendar committee failed to allocate four days for Senior Week programming

“[Raps] and I really wanted to preser ve Senior Week We’d met with the Senior Week committee, who told us they needed at least four days of programming,” he said Raps also pointed to what she said were t w o m

Committee’s decision process: the fast pace of negotiations, and her sense that undergraduate students concerns were not taken seriously enough

“I wish we had more time and a more effective way of dealing with student feedback,” Raps said Howe ve r, Doy l e c o u n t e re d R a p s claims that the process of reaching a final proposal was rushed

“ This process started two years ago and we ’ ve been over all the arguments I know [Raps] wanted to discuss it more, but I don’t think there’s much more to discuss,” he said “ We’re not going to get a better calendar, given the constraints we have ”

However, “there was no streamlined m e t h o d o f c o m m u n i c a t i n g w i t h s t udents,” according to Raps Throughout the process, the committee relied on the S A to act as a middleman between the committee and the student body

“I wish there had been follow-up communication after the proposal had begun to be distributed and talked about seriously While targeted groups were contacted, the undergraduate students on the committee had hoped for more effective and streamlined communication to all under-

graduate students,” she said Doyle noted, however, that the group publicly aired its objectives in March 2011 and released its preliminar y recommendations this spring

“It’s not like we haven’t solicited [student] input,” Doyle said Prof William Fr y Ph D ’70, plant pathology, a non-voting member of the calendar committee, said he believes the committee’s recommendations “ are the best that we can do ”

Re c o g

stituencies and diversity of needs of those constituencies, the committee's recommendations are a compromise that creates a better calendar than our current one, ” Fr y said

Raps said she predicts that since Fr y supports the calendar committee’s final proposal, the Senate will likely follow his lead and vote to approve the recommendations

Still, Fr y said he could not forsee how the Faculty Senate would vote

“Obviously, the faculty are a diverse group of people, and I'm certain that faculty have ver y diverse reactions,” Fr y said Block said he thinks his and Raps’ dissent could play a factor in the Senate’s decision next month

“I think there is going to be significant controversy [in the Faculty Senate], espec

voted in favor of the proposal, Block said

Erin Ellis can be reached at eellis@cornellsun com

Wednesday, April 25 and Thursday, April 26

Tenure Review for New Hires O ften a

another university of comparable caliber they are guaranteed tenure Rather than undergo an extensive revie w process, they may need to simply wait for approval by a committee of faculty; the dean of the college; and the University Provost before being granted tenure

“ They know it, we know it We’re hiring them as a tenured professor,” Siliciano said “In that case, the only thing that process is doing is complying with [University] r ules It’s just a bunch of little formalities ”

But Prof Adam Smith, anthropology, who came to Cornell from the University of Chicago last fall, said he had a different experience

“ When they hired me here, it was basically probat i o n a r y, ” h e s a i d , d e s c r

University as “going through the exact same process [of revie w for tenure] all over again ”

“In effect, to come work at Cornell, you have to give up your tenure and your position,” Smith added

Sm i t h

Like Smith, Prof Tom Sider, philosophy, said that ne w hires who had tenure at their former university are likely to receive tenure once he or she has agreed to work at their ne w institution

Although one does have to be “technically” revie wed again for tenure, “I’ve moved a couple times since I’ve gotten tenure [and] it s usually ver y unlikely that you would not be successfully re-rene wed,” Sider said

In addition to hiring some faculty “laterally,” the University sometimes hires people as full professors who were considered junior faculty at their former institution

According to Prof Ron Ehrenberg, industrial and labor relations, although Cornell likes to “ grow our own talent” by promoting and encouraging the development of junior faculty, it will occasionally offer tenure to talented, young faculty from other institutions

“If there’s a young star at another university, we can tr y to pre-empt what his or her university is doing and s

Ehrenberg told The Sun in March

For instance, Sider said his wife, Prof Jill Nor th, philosophy, was “coming up ” for tenure at the college she worked at last spring when she was both hired and given tenure by Cornell

“She didn’t have tenure previously, and so that’s a bigger deal,” Sider said, adding that the tenure process was “done before we got here ”

The University offers faculty from other institutions tenure upon being hired if they are identified as a “ target of oppor tunity,” said Prof Charles Brittain, classics, chair of the Depar tment of Classics

Cornell on the condition that they be revie wed again for tenure assume that the process will be a relatively smooth one, assuming they meet the University’s standards “ You already made it through the hiring process, so the process of tenuring and promotion shouldn’t be all that difficult ” Smith said

Slope Day Organizers: More Volunteers Means More Money for Performers

spent on hiring people to clean these areas

If we clean it ourselves, we can put this money into bringing better artists,” he said Additionally, according to Rapoport, volunteers will man a new “Eagle Outpost” in the overlook of Uris Librar y that faces the slope where they will spot students on the slope who are sick, injured or need medical attention Volunteers will also distribute water to Slope Day attendees using special backpacks that can hold between 40 and 50 water bottles Slope Day may have evolved over the years

for instance, 2003 was the first year that the fences were erected around the slope but volunteers have been crucial to making Slope Day

Benhaim ’12, vice chair of SDPB

As SDPB runs out of time, Rapoport emphasized the importance of community involvement What makes Slope Day such a special event is that it exists only because of the collective efforts of students, staff and faculty across campus, ” Rapoport said

“If we identify that person as the best person in the search, when we offer them a job, it [also] means that we want to offer them tenure ” Brittain said

Siliciano said, however, that the decision to offer early tenure to a faculty member remains under the discretion of the depar tment in which that candidate would teach

“ Those [decisions] are always based on the depar tment ’ s assessment of whether the person is ready to come up under Cornell standards, he said

For instance, according to Siliciano, a candidate who comes from a university with lower standards can “fall backwards” and have to undergo a more extensive revie w to be granted tenure at Cornell

“ The amount of process you ’ re typically going to see is propor tional to the amount of uncer tainty we have about [the hire],” Siliciano said

One of the most common examples of such a tenure process, according to Siliciano, involves candidates who focus primarily on research and have less teaching experience Although the candidate may be hired, he or she will only be considered for tenure once their depar tment has evaluated their teaching abilities

“ We want to see them up close,” Siliciano said

Although some professors may find an extended tenure process ner ve-wracking or fr ustrating, Brittain said that waiting to give tenure especially for candidates who primarily focus on research is beneficial for the University

“ That’s a good way of getting the best people [and making] sure they put effor t into teaching,” Brittain said

HELENE BEAUCHEMIN ’13

Business Manager

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Editorial

Treating the Root Causes For Mental Health

THE UNIVERSITY IS CURRENTLY WORKING to find permanent sources of funding to maintain levels of spending at the Gannett Health Center that were increased in the wake of the string of student suicides in 2010 In March 2011, a year after the suicides, Cornell increased Gannett’s funding by $1 million through a combination of onetime donations and University funding The added funding is quickly running out

Rather than letting the added funding expire after nearly a year and a half without a gorge-related suicide, Cornell is continuing to make this issue a priority by finding sources of permanent funding for counseling services At an institution like Cornell with so many competing demands, it is commendable that the University is making this effort to ensure that a cluster of deaths never happens again

This money will go toward maintaining counseling positions that will help the University better serve students in distress With the $1 million, the University created six counseling positions These counselors provide crisis intervention, counseling, outpatient psychiatric care outreach and referral services to Cornell students These positions are important, especially since there has been a surge in demand for these services in the past several years

However, expanding counseling services, while necessary in the short term, only deals with the symptoms of the root problems Until the University can address the underlying problem of stress, it will always be looking for more money to finance these expensive programs At the same time that the University looks for sources of alternative funding for these counseling positions, it must strive to create a climate where there is less of a need for these positions in the first place

The University has taken several steps that aim to address underlying causes of stress

The Faculty Senate passed a resolution that encouraged professors not to assign work over breaks, and the University has been working to redesign the academic calendar to add more breaks These moves, if successful, will bear the largest results, not result in substantial costs, and do not come with the cost of compromised academic quality However, these steps are still incomplete

Another way to change the climate that is still not finalized is creating a curriculum where the quality and relevance of coursework is stressed above the quantity A year ago, Provost Kent Fuchs Vice President of Student and Academic Services Susan Murphy ’73 and Dean of Faculty William Fry Ph D ’70 asked deans and chairs to look at curricula and majors and determine appropriate academic workloads There s a place for actually reducing stress yet increasing how much the students learn,” Fuchs said However, we question to what extent faculty and deans have been held accountable to this charge

The availability of counseling services and support that the community has provided to those in distress are steps towards changing the climate, but they deal largely with the symptoms While searching for more funding for these mental health problems, the University cannot lose focus on the underlying problems pervasive at Cornell

With Apologies To Don Marquis

This is going to be my last column for The Sun I hope that my columns have been enjoyable, thought-provoking and not excessively insufferable over the course of this year I had originally intended to close out the year with some big profound statement about the meaning of life or the purpose of education or something like that, but when I opened up my computer today I found that my column was, bizarrely enough, already written

What greeted me was a page of uncapitalized free-verse poetry, followed by a short note reading simply “ see if the university crowd

likes this a iii I have no idea who or what this piece’s mysterious author is, but it somehow felt wrong to not let them get their work out into the open If the author is who they say they are, it’s somewhat unlikely that they will be able to read their work in print, but still, I hope their message can reach someone who needs it

does the poetic urge lie in the genes or does it in the soul my soul has been passed around bandied about bartered

i once was a vers libre bard so were my dad and my granddad my granddad s soul was transmitted to the body of a cockroach and so was mine i don t know what happened to my dad s maybe a wood louse

this green ivy league life is not what a roach is used to though there are plenty of crumbs you college kids and your cheetos doritos and the like not as if i m complaining the air is fresh and the soil is damp and there are plenty of dark warm places to crawl into

today i met a caterpillar who said to me that he was a person of some importance that there was no low hanging leaf safe from his incisors that the trees of ithaca were scarred forever from his culinary adventures but he also confided in me he was worried all of the caterpillars who had previously held his title had mysteriously disappeared was there some sort of caterpillar killer on the loose

some young upshot jealous of fortune and fame perhaps i hadnt the heart to tell him the day before i d met a butterfly who had told me in her youth she used to fancy herself queen of all the leaf eaters

butterflies and you folks may be drawn to fluttering around high places but not me i prefer to stay where the soil is moist and the crumbs are plenty

i couldnt tell you why i thought it would be a good idea to hop among all these keys or to think that a poor little roach had anything to a bunch of educated types but here i am

archy iii

Could it have been that a cockroach crawled up to my room in the middle of the night and, by jumping on the keys, typed out a work of free-verse poetry? It certainly isn t unheard of In the 1910s and 20s a New York Evening Sun columnist named Don Marquis published what he claimed was the poetry of a cockroach that typed by jumping on the keys of his typewriter a cockroach who, curiously enough, was named Archy Perhaps that original Archy was the granddad that our mysterious poet spoke of, and the “archy iii” that left this poem on my desktop was simply following in his ancestor ’ s footsteps All I know is that the little fellow was much more eloquent than I ever could be I think it’s good, then, that I close out my time as a columnist with a message from someone like Archy III It’s good to remember that, no matter how big we think we are, we aren ’ t far from being insects Furthermore, if we realize this, maybe we can realize that insects have something to tell us, even if they can t work the shift key on the keyboard

It’s been wonderful writing for The Sun over this past year, and I hope everyone has a great summer! And next time you see a cockroach, take a minute before breaking out the Raid to ask him if he s written any poetry lately

Aidan Bonner is a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences He may be reached at abonner@cornellsun com The Weather Report appears alternate Mondays this semester

JO IN TH E OPINION SECTION

Do you have unique and well-for med opinions? Do you like to write?

Then we want you to lend your talents to The Sun!

A pply for a bi-weekly opinion column for Fall 2012

A pplications can be found at co rn ells un.co m/ joi n/ opi nio n. Deadline is August 1

There are fe w insults worse than

b e i n g c a l l e d “ n i c e ” No t t h a t I don’t want people to think I’m kind; what I mean is that if someone were asked to describe me and they responded he s nice, it would sting worse than being called a callous misogynistic asshole Because “nice” is the bland default opinion you have of loose acquaintances and people you haven’t ever met a general, b a r e l y - v a l e n c e d , n o n - d e s c r i p t i v e , m i n imally approving, almost, if not entirely, uninsightful descriptor Maybe not terrible if said by someone who barely knows you But uttered from the lips of a closer acquaintance, friend or confidant, nothing could be worse

Yet, at times, I think we are all too quick to be exactly this nice

Bill Maher ’78 has a r unning gag on his show where he describes Mitt Romney as the “least interesting man in the world ”

Perhaps par ticularly acute in Romney, I t h i n k t h i s n e a r l y c o m i c a l s t r a t e g y o f adopting the most acceptable opinion, equivocally backing out of it if need be, being terrified to embrace any opinion too extreme and too scared to make any strong definitive statement aside from ones so obvious as to be meaningless is a terrible illness which afflicts not only Romney but a great many politicians And what d o e s Ma h e r a t t r i b u t e a s t h e c a u s e o f Romney’s and by extension other politicians’ glorious blandness? It, he says, is “what you get when you place a premium on never offending anyone and only saying what’s safe ”

This to me is the essence of the behaviors that would lead us to be described as “nice ” It is the outcome of the easy and comfor table process of taking the sum of ever yone ’ s opinions and attitudes, averaging them and then adopting all the resultant averages, with perhaps some slight

modification, as your own attitudes and opinions So what it really means to be “nice” is to be boring Bland Uninsightful and uninteresting And it makes us unproductive and unconstr uctive

It chokes us, constrains us, limits us and confines us within an ever shrinking n e a

a r

o f a c c e p t a b i l i t y Venture outside it and who knows what the punishment might be

In fact, I can ’ t help but think that the student leaders on campus today who will be the politicians of the future are going to be the most bland, boring, nice ones who were active but never took an extreme, interesting, radical or definitive stance on any major issues, tip-toeing around, never deviating from the group average by more than half a standard deviation How else would you sur vive your Senate confirmation hearings?

Aside from an objection to this, in principle, as fundamentally dishonest to oneself and disingenuous to others, there are two problems with this behavior in consequence First, when we become so concerned with being nice we often end up with a collective vie w that is a distor ted version of all our individual private vie ws And second, it means we end up wasting a lot of time debating the wrong issues and asking the wrong questions

The most concrete illustration of this first problem is evident in a study done by D e b o r a h Pre n t i c e a n d D a l e

Princeton They examined students attitudes in a setting in which we are par ticularly concerned with niceness A social one Specifically, they studied students’ attitudes about drinking They had students rate their own comfor tability with a

friends and (b) the average Princeton student would put down as their comfor tability with alcohol What they found was

Lthat their overall estimate of the average Princetonian’s comfor t level was higher than their overall estimate of one ’ s friends’ comfor t level, which in turn was higher than self-ratings of students’ own comfor t levels Of course, only this last categor y is t h e a c t u a l a v e r a g e Pr i n c e t o n s t u d e n t ’ s comfor tability with alcohol However, a concern with niceness leads us to misperceive each other s attitudes Doubtless, this is tr ue in a host of other domains (In fact, social psychologists have a name for this phenomena: pluralistic ignorance )

This misinformation is a problem in itself, but it in turn leads to a second larger problem If our concern with niceness makes us misperceive people’s real vie ws, then we have a fundamentally distor ted perception of reality, making our debates, discussions and behaviors distor ted too With drinking for example, it means we argue over whether to go to Pixel or Chapter House, instead of whether we want to go out drinking at all More broadly, it leads to policy debates and conflicts which aren ’ t wide enough and are often about the wrong thing entirely

For example, in the aftermath of the Desdunes tragedy, there was a lot of discussion about how to change the Greek system, but little discussion was had in the way of whether we wanted it at all

On an even larger scale, before the subs e q u e n t w a r s i n t h e Mi d d l e E a s t , we

Ron Paul R evolution

ast Thursday, I sat in Lynah rink with a few friends, and had a typical Lynah experience Anyone who has ventured to those sacred wooden bleachers has heard and seen a lot of the same things I heard and saw

The pep band played a rousing rendition of some songs I didn’t recognize, the crowd started an “asshole” chant in response to an outsider’s presence, people who are otherwise calm and reserved were jumping up and down screaming at the top of their lungs and (perhaps most familiarly) my butt

fell asleep Remarkably enough, I was not at a hockey game; I was at a political rally for Congressman Ron Paul

Dr Paul (the program made sure to inform us that he’s a doctor who has delivered over 4,000 babies, pointing out how no other major presidential candidate has the babydelivering skills necessary to lead the free world) is running for the Republican nomination Dr Paul will not win the nomination battle, and I don’t believe he will run as a third par ty candidate The official Republican National Committee delegate count has Dr Paul with 26, compared to Mitt Romney s 573 Furthermore, Ron Paul s son, Rand Paul, is a Senator from Kentucky with national ambitions of his own If Dr Paul runs as a third party candidate, he will almost certainly act as a spoiler to Mr Romney (think what Ralph Nader is alleged to have done to Al Gore in 2000, only on a larger scale) The implications for Rand Paul’s future ambitions would be calamitous if Dr Paul were perceived as responsible for President Obama defeating Mr

Romney

I’ve been to a lot of political events in my time One can always expect a mix of passion and curiosity in the crowd That was certainly the basic dynamic for Dr Paul I saw a lot of people in the crowd who seemed to be curious Cornellians interested in what a Ron Paul rally looked like We hear about him on The Daily Show, why not check it out in person? That was more or less my rationale for attending the event

What surprised me was the rest of the crowd, the passionate Ron Paul supporters They wore shirts with slogans like Ron Paul Revolution” written on them, varying from students to grandparents, and everything in between By and large, the crowd seemed respectful However, there was an unmistakable air of hostility that permeated Lynah Before the speech started a man holding up an anti Ron Paul sign became the victim of the aforementioned “asshole” chant I chuckled at the typical Lynah atmosphere transitioning so seamlessly over to the Republican nomination race

That s when things got weird A Ron Paul supporter ripped the sign out of the hands of the protester, and violently tore it up The crowd roared its approval

One of Dr Paul’s core principles is restoring the Constitution I had hoped that Dr Paul’s loyal supporters would pause to think about that whole “freedom of speech” thing in the document they’re so quick to fawn over Yes, this was Ron Paul’s event, and if he didn’t want a protester there it’s completely within his right to have him removed Having said that, the howl that went up in the crowd as the sign’s remnants were strewn about gave me pause

debated whether getting involved in them w a s a r e l e

September 11th attacks However, fe w people I can only remember David Foster Wallace asking it in an ar ticle in 2007 debated whether any kind of retaliation in response to these attacks was logical or justified He made the point t

domestic highways as the price of having them So, he wondered, would it be equally monstrous to regard those killed in the atrocities of 9/11 not as victims but as

democratic mar tyrs, sacrifices on the altar of freedom’” what if we “chose to a c

, despite all reasonable precautions, some hundreds or thousands of us may die in the sor t of ghastly terrorist attack that a democratic republic cannot 100-percent protect itself from without subver ting the ver y principles that make it wor th protecting?”

These are the types of questions we a re n t a

No

thinking them, but because we re all being too damn nice

Sebastian Deri is a junior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations He may be reached at sderi@cornellsun com Thought Crimes appears alternate Mondays this semester

As the rally continued, and the crowd jeered the tyrants ” and “enemies of liberty,” against whom revolution needs to be waged, I detected that same sense of hostility The people sitting around me hung on every single one of Dr Paul’s words, and his amiable delivery began to contrast more and more with the escalating passion of the crowd

Dr Paul is a curious political character As a bleeding heart liberal, I disagree strongly with his views on economic liberty especially the deregulation of our economy That being said, his views on personal liberty, like repealing the Patriot Act, appeal to me in a way that has always made me think quite fondly of Dr Paul

His passionate campaigning has held a mirror up to both the Democratic and Republican parties Liberal-Democrats like myself have been forced to consider just how willing we are to ignore President Obama’s, at best, shaky record on domestic civil liberties Conservative-Republicans have had to consider just how passionately they should continue advocating for smaller government, all the while defending the seemingly endless money-pit that is the national defense budget

As I got up to leave I tapped on the shoulder of the middle-aged man who sat quietly next to me through the course of the rally I asked him if he would support either Mr Romney or President Obama if Ron Paul was not on the ballot this November He quickly responded “No ” He then took a pause, and politely told me, they re both clowns Looking at the farcical and contradictory nature of the current state of electoral politics, it is hard to fervently disagree with him However, watching Thursday’s crowd lose its shit in response to the rare sight of a solicitous politician, it’s hard to say that we deserve much better

Noah Karr-Kaitin is a junior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations He may be reached at nkarrkaitin@cornellsun com Plain Hokum appears alternate Mondays this semester

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT

When the Avett Brothers announced that they would be adding the State Theatre to their spring tour, as a special thanks to the town that had always been there for them, tickets were sold out months before the show

The venue might be small for a band that is currently headlining music festivals like Bonnaroo alongside with Radiohead and occupying concert halls like New York City’s Terminal 5 On Saturday night, however, the Ithacan crowd did not seem in any way unworthy of the band nor did the Avett Brothers seem too grown up for the venue

The only thing that was missing, unfortunately, was their bassist, Bob Crawford

The brothers, Scott on banjo and Seth on guitar, kicked off the show with “ The Lowering,” one of the more heart wrenching numbers off the album Four Thieves Gone It was a good choice for an adoring audience that could appreciate both an older song and a slower start However, the band quickly showed off its versatility by transitioning into two of its more upbeat and catchy numbers,“Paranoia in B-Flat Major” followed by “Tin Man ”

What is most apparent live, and what makes the Avett Brothers stand out, is its dedication to its audience, which may largely be due to the brothers’ small town beginnings Before either hit album, Emotionalism or I and Love and You, the brothers were known for staying for hours after their concerts, until they had talked to every waiting fan

They still bring this singular ardor to the stage today, and this could be seen in songs like “Salina” and “Ballad of Love and Hate,” both off

of the Emotionalism album The audience sang every word of both songs, and jeered playfully when Scott despairingly sang the lyrics, “New York quit calling / New York leave me be ”

The audience was truly diverse There were beer drinking college kids standing next to daughters sitting on their father’s shoulders But old or young, locally grown or not, they were all united in their love for the band When Seth started performing “Ballad,” as a solo acoustic act, audience members hushed one another, until the theater was almost magically silent All that could be heard was Seth’s voice, practically at a whisper, and the crowd singing in turn The only interruption was when someone screamed, “I love you Seth! causing the audience to cheer for seconds straight, and forcing Seth to vamp This song was definitely the emotional highlight of the evening I saw many a tear and slow dance, and my heart stopped a little when

Keeping It Real

GINA CARGAS Sun Staff Writer

Here in the West, we are constantly flooded with images of a conflict-ridden Africa Film after film portrays the continent as a land of war and disease a place that we privileged Westerners must aid and pity It’s a clichéd and massively false representation, yet films of this nature remain the status quo

Kimi Takesue’s 2011 documentary Where Are You Taking Me? is not one of these films Rejecting almost every traditional element of documentary filmmaking Where Are You Taking Me? is a stunning and accurate portrayal of daily Ugandan life On Tuesday night, Takesue will bring this award-winning documentary to Cornell Cinema for a screening and discussion with Prof Iftikhar Dadi, History of Art Commissioned by the Rotterdam Film Festival, Where Are You Taking Me? seeks to explore and understand the nation of Uganda, as well as the alienating phenomenon of cross-cultural travel Between the long, static shots, dialogue in an untranslated local language and the near-invisible hand of the filmmaker, this experimental documentary brilliantly disorientates the audience to an extent that would make Brecht proud

“The film is a journey of discovery and surprise,” Takesue said “It has a certain jarring aspect which is that you never really know where you are going I m trying to recreate the disorientation of cross-cultural travel and I’m trying to address some of the issues involved in creating cross-cultural representations ”

A film lacking a protagonist, a narrative and even a specific purpose, Where Are You Taking Me? remains strictly observational, placing the viewer in a position of constant uncertainty Familiar shots extended close ups of emotive faces, chaotic urban streetscapes, crowded flea markets are completely decontextualized with incredible success In a sea of documentaries that beat you over the head with a moral or call to action, Where Are You Taking Me? is a breath of fresh air

“I went into this piece without an agenda or a set of expectations,” Takesue said “I knew I didn’t want to make a film

Seth blew the crowd kisses as the song ended Directly after Seth’s solo, Scott came out so that the brothers could duet on the songs, “Bella Donna,” “Sanguine” and “Just a Closer Walk They whispered surreptitiously to each other, and then started playing in sync, still facing one another Each took turns at melody and harmony, with Seth laughing when he messed up and Scott coaxing out solos from his banjo It was like observing one of the brothers personal jam sessions, and it seemed as if they were no longer aware that the audience was there It was touching that band could, and would, share this moment of brotherly enchantment with the audience

The band returned with cellist Joe Kwon, opening with the upbeat song Go To Sleep, followed by “Gimmeakiss,” and the titular, “I and Love and You ” Seth took a turn at the piano for this song, and Scott, for the first time without an instrument, held three fin-

that focused on the horror of war or atrocities or AIDS I had been inundated with these kinds of images in relation to Uganda and Africa but that’s not to say I went in trying to create a positive representation I just didn’t want to focus on any sensational subject matter ” This approach is particularly successful in the invisibility of Takesue’s part in the film Where Are You Taking Me? is not a tale of a Western filmmaker’s triumphant discovery of Uganda, nor is she set up as the benevolent savior revealing the horrors of African life Instead, Takesue remains a distant traveler whose only goal is an honest portrayal of Uganda It s this approach that renders the film so evocative

gers up, one by one, at the lyrics, Three words that became hard to say / I and Love and You ” The audience followed suit to which Scott tantalizingly yelled, “We love coming here and we love coming back,” and later, “ see you guys soon ”

They closed with Kick Drum Heart, which they performed on electric guitar and bass The audience saw a glimpse of Seth’s ability to rock, and of all of the band’s songs, this one had the greatest disparity between the live and album version not to knock the recorded track But there is nothing like feeling the kick drum echo around the theater and through your chest after the lyrics, “My, my heart’s like a kick drum ”

Of course, the audience saw right through the band s planned ending, but it played along, screaming for five minutes straight, until the brothers came back for an encore They played four more songs, including “Januar y Wedding” and “ Talk On Indolence ” The latter was electrifyingly empowering, especially when they started to scream the lyrics, Because we had to!” Seth, who started out with a tambourine and guitar, threw both backstage to a crew member so that he could concentrate on screaming

The images of a guitar flying across the stage in wild abandon, Scott standing on a drum to sing and Joe Kwon playing his cello high in the air (which, being a cello player myself, I know is no small feat), is the best I can do to capture the energy of the song that ended a two-and-a-half hour, phenomenal and magnetically charged night

Clio Chang is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences She can be reached at cchang@cornellsun com

Filming everything from a hair salon to a weightlifting competition, Takesue explores everyday scenes that are surprisingly familiar and relatable after all, is there anything less extraordinary than a young boy in a Harry Potter shirt watching his peers breakdance? Yet she also addresses Uganda’s local film culture, creating a friction between reality and fiction that further disorients the viewer In one scene, we see people breaking rocks in a quarry in what appears to be a standard documentary scene Yet as the scene progresses, we realize that a Ugandan filmmaker is present and the quarry is simply the setting for a local fictional film that uses a real place and real people By providing context at the end of this and several other scenes, Where Are You Taking Me? superbly plays on the audience’s sense of reality as well as its expectations

“There are these multiple layers of a film within a film,” Takesue said “It also plays upon our own stereotypes You see that scene and consider it one way, but in fact there’s this whole other layer this creative enterprise with filmmakers and artists as well ”

Her frank portrayal of the local art and film scene is largely effective The average viewer does not associate Uganda with artistic endeavors or filmmaking; he or she sees the country as a nation rife with disease and war Takesue seeks to

replace these sweeping generalizations and horrific images with familiar realism that tells its own story

“I’m interested in letting the images speak for themselves,” she said “I wanted to recreate the experience and rhythms of travel by immersing the viewer in a place where they’re asked only to observe There are points where you re excluded from the action ”

Only once does she delve into one of the heavier aspects of Ugandan life Near the end of the film, Where Are You Taking Me? features zoomed-in shots of faces that stare directly into the camera as the subjects discuss their experiences with war It’s a rare moment of clearly directed action and its uniqueness makes it all the more affecting

In all, Where Are You Taking Me? is less of a driven examination of Ugandan culture, and more a meditation on its representations It’s not a film for everyone the lack of narrative and protagonist may well prove too jarring for some audiences yet Takesue achieves her goal of reflecting the nature of cross-cultural travel while providing a realistic portrait of Ugandan culture This is an excellent and refreshing film from a director you won ’ t soon forget

Gina Cargas is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences She can be reached at gcargas@cornellsun com

Final Show at Castaways

9:30 p m on Sunday at Castaways

Well, this is it One final blowout at Castaways will close out the venue for good And what better bands than t w o C a s t a w a y s v e t e r a n s , Jo h n

Brown’s Body and The Sim Redmond Band J B B has been touring the world since 2003 with their “Future Roots Music” or reggae rhythms with hip hop, dubstep, electronic, ska and funk influences

Like wise, S R B ’ s unique blend of roots-rock, Afro-Caribbean and reggae music continues to rise on the global front since their inception as a band ten years ago While both bands have toured and reach people from all over the world, they return to their base of Ithaca for one final headlining show

Alice

Wang

Finger Lakes Comedy Festival

Thursday to Saturday, Various Locations

T h r e e d a y s , f o u r v e n u e s , s i x

shows, 20 comedians and unlimited laughter This three-day festival features 20 of the best up-and-coming comedians in Nor th America as they joke it out for the title of the Finger L a k e s Fu n n i e s t C o m e d i a n a n d a national headlining feature show

Not only will you be able to watch each set, you’ll also be able to vote for your favorite comedian, count your votes among those of the judges and the comedians to find the countr y ’ s ne west talent

Alice Wang

Last Call Straight Up XVII

Friday at 8 p m

At Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts

When was the last time you were serenaded by a group of fellows so dashing and pretty-sounding that you blacked out from happiness? On Friday, the men of Last Call will perform their annual spring show, Straight Up XVII, complete with original music arrangements, boy-band choreography, flashing lights and a silly, silly comedy

script The Callboys, as fans affectionately call them, will make all of your wildest a capella dreams come true Join hundreds of screaming fans as they perform hits spanning from “ We Are Young” and “Stereohearts” to “Bye Bye Bye” for a night of music, laughter, and fun!

Addy Davidoff

Ithaca Ballet Presents Swan Lake

Saturday at 7:30 p m and Sunday at 3 p m

At the State Theatre

For a triumphant close to their 50th season the Ithaca Ballet graces the State Theatre with two per formances of the stunning masterpiece, Swan Lake The first ballet of esteemed Russian composer Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake is tr uly a visual symphony blending sumptuous choreography a commanding score and the age old stor y of forbidden love for a gorgeously poignant result

Composed in 1875, the ballet tells the stor y of Odette, a princess cursed to remain a swan for the rest of her life by an evil sorcerer The lush musical score, familiar to most, and the intricate footwork makes this ballet one of the most beloved of all times

Most of the time, I do not show my emotions This is blatantly untrue: I have the worst poker face of all time and it is very easy to discern what I am thinking about based on my facial expressions That said, it is true that I rarely am brought to the point of tears by anything: especially not movies I think I am the only person on the planet who does not cry at the end of A Walk to Remember However, there have been a few rare moments in my life when something I watch does cause me to have a powerful emotional response during which I start crying like a small child Not all of them are sad tears, and some of them are really silly and I have no explanation for why they affect me so much but here they are: the five moments on screen that make me want to curl up in a ball on my bed with a bucket of cookie dough and sob

1 Up Literally the second that movie starts playing, I tear up After the opening sequence I sniffle and calm down a bit, but then about three quarters of the way through, the old man flips through the second half of the photo album, and the waterworks resume Sometimes even the thought of the movie gets me going In high school, my friend Bre would start describing the plot of Up just to elicit my tearful response She would say “and then they look up at the clouds and they all look like babies, but ” Before she could finish, my face would be all contorted, my nose red and lower lip quivering

As Tajwar Mazhar 13, Marcela Cabello ’13, Michael Cirillo ’13, Suzanne Donovan ’13 and Chris Cassano ’14 all said in unison, “I cry everytime I watch Up!” So apparently it’s not just me

2 Wall-E Pixar just gets to me apparently Wall-E doesn ’ t affect me the same way that Up does I only cry at the part when EVE is reviewing the security tape footage of Wall-E taking care of her It s just so cute Senior year of high school, we watched Wall-E as a class, and of course I was unable to

prevent myself from doing an unintentional impression of the girl from Mean Girls who just has a lot of emotions There are consequently a number of really attractive pictures of me crying my eyes out at a children’s movie at the age of 18 that I am sure will come back to haunt me at some point when I am off doing something important in the world

3 Waitress If you haven’t seen this movie, you need to Immediately It s an adorable tale about a waitress (Keri Russell) who makes the most amazing looking pies and is trapped in an abusive relationship with Elton from Clueless or Detective Cyrus Lupo from Law & Order ( Jeremy Sisto) The pies in the movie are enough to bring one to tears I get so hungry watching that movie, hearing her recite the recipes for “Marshmallow Mermaid Pie,” “Falling in Love Chocolate Mousse Pie” and “Baby Screamin’ Its Head Off In the Middle of the Night & Ruinin’ My Life Pie Anyway, at the end of the movie (I m not spoiling it because everyone knows there s going to be a happy ending), there is a happy ending Specifically, Keri Russell kicks Earl (Elton) out of her life, and it just delights me And I start crying I get a really creepy weird look on my face that is a combination of smiling and crying at the same time So I just end up looking really confused and conflicted and again just not terribly attractive

Brought to Tears by Old People, Robots and Pie Arts Around Town

case you ’ re wondering I did not do this any of the three times

I saw Bridesmaids in theaters last summer I’m not that weird)

4 Bridesmaids I love Chris

O Dowd a lot in that movie He is actually my perfect man He is so nice to Kristen Wiig, and he is funny and Irish I love him and I have no qualms about saying that It is therefore unbelievably painful for me to watch Kristen Wiig say that their night of fun was a mistake when all he wanted to do was help her rediscover her passion for baking (apparently desserts trigger a lot of emotions for me) At that point in the film, which I have probably seen upwards of eight or nine times, I both start crying angrily and yelling at the screen, What s wrong with you Kristen Wiig? He s so perfect! (In

5 The Michelin commercial in which the Michelin man finds his dog I’m not quite sure what this says about me, but every time that commercial comes on the air, you can count on me to start sobbing The plot of this commercial, if it can be called a plot, is that the Michelin Man off-roads it on a dark and stormy night looking for his dog (complete with white fat rolls just like his owner ’s) He gets out of the car looking worried but then the dog runs up into the Michelin man ’ s arms, licking his face I don’t really know if the commercial can be called a success, because it doesn’t really make me want to buy Michelin tires, but it does make me want to hug my dog, or any dog I think that they should replace the Sarah McLachlin SPCA commercials with this one – probably more people would donate to the SPCA because they won t have that annoying song stuck in their heads forever

Julia Moser is a freshman in the College of Arts and Sciences She can be reached at jmoser@cornellsun com

3 N OTICES

26

26 A PARTMENT FOR R

com pjapartments@gmail com

Summer Starts Early for Sedins; Kings End Canucks’ Playoff Run

VANCOUVER British

Columbia (AP) Jarret Stoll beat

Cory Schneider with a wrist shot at 4:27 of overtime to give the Los Angeles Kings a 2-1 victory over Vancouver on Sunday night, knocking out the top-seeded Canucks in five games in the Western Conference first-round series

Stoll scored from the left wing after a turnover at Vancouver blue line

The forward skated in on a 2on-1, but took the shot himself, picking the top-left corner above Schneider's blocker

Brad Richardson tied it for Los Angeles at 3:21 of the third period, and Jonathan Quick made 26 saves

Henrik Sedin opened the scoring for Vancouver with a power-play goal in the first period

Schneider made 35 saves in his third straight star t after Rober to Luongo lost the first two games

The Kings will play the secondseeded St Louis Blues in the second round

The Canucks dropped out in the first round after leading the NHL in regular-season points for the second straight year Last season, they lost to Boston in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals

Vancouver's new second line of Ryan Kesler, Alex Burrows and Max Lapierre made a quick impression

Burrows fed Kesler from behind the net about a 90 seconds in, but Quick stopped the center ' s shot from the slot

The Canucks then ran into early penalty trouble and didn't get another shot for 6 minutes before Lapierre put one on Quick Vancouver killed

penalties to Dan Hamhuis and Sedin but couldn't get its power play going on its first advantage

However, with Sedin doubleshifting, the Canucks capitalized on the second when the Vancouver captain put in a cross-ice pass from twin brother Daniel Sedin with 5:56 left in the period

The oppor tunity came after Hamhuis kept Mike Richards' clearing attempt in at the blue line

Schneider preser ved the lead when he stopped Anze Kopitar on a breakaway in the dying seconds of the first period Kopitar put the rebound off the post as time expired

Both goaltenders stole the show in the second period as neither team could score

In the early going, Schneider stopped Kopitar's first shot and Dustin Brown on the rebound as the Kings outshot the Canucks 6-0 in the first 4:11

Later Schneider robbed Richards on a rebound, snaring the puck with his catching glove With just over 2 minutes left in the second, Quick stymied Daniel Sedin on a breakaway lowering his right pad to block a snap shot Sedin slammed his stick against the glass in frustration as he went to the bench

Richardson drew the Kings even in the third, tapping in a pass from Drew Doughty Doughty deked and circled around the Canucks' Keith Ballard and passed the puck back to Richardson from the end line It was the first goal of the series for Richardson, who missed the first three games while recovering from an appendectomy

No. 16 Red Falls To Bears in FirstEver Dunn Bowl

By GINA CARGAS Sun Staff Wr ter

The women ’ s rowing team met mixed results against No 10 Brown and No 18 Columbia on Saturday in its last home race of the season In the first-ever Dunn Bowl, the No 16 Red fell to the Bears in three of five races and topped long-standing rivals Columbia in all but one

In the varsity eight race, the Red started out strong, initially taking the lead over both the Bears and the Lions However, Brown pushed ahead about halfway into the race, taking advantage of its position on the inside of a turn to get in front of Cornell According to senior Anna Psiaki, the Red may have been surprised by the Bears’ early advantage

“We were ahead of them and we were a little thrown off,” Psiaki said “Even though we went into the race with the mentality that we would beat Brown, we needed a little more confidence and drive ”

Senior captain Steph Lohberg says Brown’s competitive mindset and drive ultimately gave the Bears an edge over the Red

“Brown knew we were going for them,” she said “They just decided not to let that happen I definitely respect the amount of heart they put into the racing ”

Though the Red finished just 2 3 seconds behind the Bears, Cornell left Columbia in the dust Despite a history of surprise defeats to the Lions, the varsity eight came in a hefty 8 2 seconds ahead

I think that everyone was just over losing, in a way, Lohberg said “A lot of our boats had never beaten Columbia and we realized that this was one of our last shots ”

A tight race in the second varsity eight ended with Cornell in a close third, just 3 4 seconds behind Brown Meanwhile, the second varsity four led its sole competitor Brown by 29 seconds, while the third and fourth varsity eight boats fell to Brown

In the varsity four race, Cornell topped both Brown and Columbia by a massive margin Clocking in 10 2

seconds in front of the Bears and 20 5 seconds ahead of the Lions, the Red cruised to a victory that Lohberg hopes will help the Red’s chances at NCAA qualification

“The margin the varsity four has was awesome, ” she said “That will definitely help us a lot in the rankings

The fact that we beat Columbia shows that it’s anyone ’ s game and most boats were closer to Brown that we ’ ve ever been before ”

Both women hope that this weekend s results will increase the Red’s confidence going into the first-ever Ivy League Championships in May Due to a recent change in the NCAA qualification system, this is the first year that an Ivy League Championship will take place The NCAA plans to instate a new conference qualifier system wherein the winning team from each conference will automatically advance to the tournament Remaining schools will battle for at-large invitations

“This race gave us the confidence that we are definitely faster than Columbia,” Psiaki said “It shows that we can be in the top three, if the not the top two or even the best Ivy

The squad also celebrated its 13 graduating seniors

Red Splits Series; Onyon Earns Shutout Against Penn

By SCOTT ECKL Sun Staff Writer

Heading into the final weekend of Ivy League play, Cornell’s softball team is tied atop the Southern Division after dropping three of four games to Penn on Friday and Saturday Next weekend’s series against Princeton is pivotal, as the Red is on the hunt to win its third straight division championship

Despite dropping the first three games, the Red (20-20, 11-5 Ivy League) salvaged the final game of the

series Saturday afternoon with a 5-0 victory In the first three games, the Quakers (27-15, 11-5) managed to maintain the upper hand, winning 5-2, 9-6 and 9-2, respectively

“We saw exactly what we were expecting from Penn,” said senior captain and infielder Erin Keene “They were a great team and I think we battled hard the whole weekend ”

Sophomore pitcher Alyson Onyon earned her 10th win of the season Saturday afternoon while

scattering five hits and striking out six in the complete game shutout

“Onyon pitched a great game for us in the final game, ” said senior captain and outfielder Katie Watts “Her performance was key in holding up our offense ”

The three-run first inning provided the Red with enough offense fire to last the entire game Sophomore Jenny Edwards was threefor-four in the game, with one homerun and two runs

scored

“With a win in the last game, we ’ ve kept ourselves in the race for the southern division, Keene said So, next weekend should be exciting ” At 11-5 in the Ivy League, Cornell and Penn are in a dead tie for the lead Cornell plays at Princeton (14-27, 8-8) next weekend, while Penn plays Columbia (12-29, 6-10)

“We had put ourselves in a great position by having an 11-1 Ivy record going into this weekend,” Watts said “We will need to be able to get our offense going early again next weekend and have

consistent defense to keep our hopes of a title alive ”

The Red has experienced a successful campaign up until this point in the season, featuring offensive standouts Overall, Cornell leads its division in team batting average with a 270 clip Cornell also leads the Ivies in homeruns (41), coming in second only to Harvard in total hits (299) Edwards is tied for the league-lead in homeruns with eight, and junior catcher Kristen Towne leads the league with doubles (12)

Before the final Ivy showdown against Princeton, the Red has its final tune up series on April 25 against neighbor Ithaca (20-11)

“As always our mid-week games are a good opportunity to work on our mechanics and just play solid softball in preparation for the weekend, Keene said At the same time, we ’ ve struggled to win during the week, so it is going to be especially important for us to focus on playing to win against Ithaca ”

Scott Eckl can be reached at seckl@cornellsun com

with a post-race ceremony in which their junior teammates prepared speeches, cupcakes and a rap According to Lohberg, a large number of senior parents also traveled to Ithaca for the Red’s last home race

“Our class is really tight and a lot of us came in together as walk-ons, Lohberg said “We were just this bunch of girls that didn’t know how to row at the beginning, so we all feel this sense of a bond that you share starting from scratch together, even with the recruits We re a pretty big class and a lot of the girls live together, so it was kind of a sad day afterwards ”

Despite a bittersweet day and mixed results, the Red is looking ahead to its last regatta of the regular season, the Ivy League Championships, and, hopefully, the NCAA tournament, Lohberg said Cornell will take on No 19 Dartmouth in Hanover N H on Saturday before traveling to Camden, N J for the Ivies on May 13

We need to have absolute confidence and more drive for the rest of the season ” Psiaki said “We need to know that we can make the NCAAS and that we really are more secure in that spot than in past years ”

Gina Cargas can be reached at gcargas@cornellsun com

Dake Wrestles Friend In Consolation Match

WRESTLING

Continued from page 16

Having had lost to the gold medalist last June in the quarterfinals of the U S World Team Trials, the wins may be indicative of Dake’s improvement in competitions outside of collegiate wrestling More improvement might come with more experience with freestyle wrestling, which is somewhat different from collegiate folkstyle wrestling

“It’s kind of like switching from baseball to cricket,” Dake said While Dake still needs to continue to improve in the ranks of freestyle wrestling if he hopes to make the 2016 Olympic team, some might now consider his dominance in the world of collegiate wrestling unrivaled after having beaten David Taylor of Penn State on Saturday Both wresters went undefeated this season and were the NCAA champions in their respective weight classes, 157 and 165 pounds respec-

tively Yet Taylor, who also won the Hodge Trophy given to the most dominant college wrestler of the year was dominated by Dake in a consolation round match-up at the Trials Dake took the first period, 5-0, before pinning Taylor at 1:28 in the second to win the match What made the match-up even more compelling was the fact that the two have been friends for a long time “ We talked a little before, wished each other good luck and then after we talked a little bit and just said good job, congrats, ” Dake said The two first met on the mat in the 2000 Ohio Tournament of Champions, and their most recent meeting was a freestyle championship match-up at Cadet Nationals in 2006 which Taylor won

Brian Bencomo can be reached at bbencomo@cornellsun com

Spor ts

Tig ht Loss Spoils Senior Day, Home Win Streak

By LAUREN RITTER Sun Sports Editor

Rain clouds threatened to spoil Senior Day at Schoellkopf Field on Saturday afternoon, as the men s lacrosse team hosted the Brown Bears In hopes of defending its nation-best 15-game win streak, Cornell appeared to struggle offensively throughout the contest, eventually losing to Brown, 10-9 According to head coach Ben DeLuca ’98, the Red made mistakes across the board, which contributed to the team ’ s second loss of the season

“[We are] disappointed in the effort that we put on the field tonight for our seniors,” he said “Don’t think that we came out with a lot of energy We certainly weren t very focused and made some foolish mistakes across the board defensive end, offensive end Some of our stick work wasn ’ t very sharp ”

Despite having the upper hand in shots, ground balls, won faceoffs and balls cleared, the Red (9-2, 4-1 Ivy League) struggled to find the back of the net in the first half of the game, recording only three goals compared the five that Brown (6-7, 2-3) managed to put away

According to senior midfielder Chris Langton, Cornell was having trouble mastering the basics on the field

“We just didn’t do the little things that we do day to day off the ground, he said It s a very important aspect of the game and it did-

W R E S T L I N G

n ’ t go our way ” Langton put the Red on the board less than a minute into the game, scoring his first of two unassisted goals for the day Junior attack Connor English responded a seven minutes later, notching his first of two goals for the day Brown answered with a four-goal run before junior attacker Steve Mock responded with his first of two goals for the Red Earning Cornell’s only hat trick for the day, junior attack Max Van Bourgondien scored his first goal in the third period, bringing the Red within one point, 6-5 Mock evened the game out, 6-6, two minutes later, before Brown pulled ahead for the second of five times in the contest

Despite a late fourth-quarter goal by Van Bourgondien, which tied the game, 9-9, Brown secured the 10-9 win with just four seconds remaining on the scoreboard The loss against Brown marks only the second time that Cornell has lost this season

I talked to the guys in the locker room afterwards; this is a feeling that we haven’t felt in a quite while and it’s going to be one that I hope our guys keep in a portion of their hearts and understand that it s not something that we are going to dwell on, ” DeLuca said “It’s a bitter taste and it’s very disappointing, especially knowing the potential of our team and what we re capable of doing Learning from the mistakes made in the

Wrestlers Fall Short at Olympic Trials

By BRIAN BENCOMO Sun Senior Writer

None of the Red grapplers looking to wrestle at this summer ’ s Olympic games in London managed to earn spots on the U S National Team this past weekend; however, junior Kyle Dake certainly made his presence felt Dake along with Red teammate, senior Frank Perrelli, earned wildcard spots to compete at the U S Olympic Wrestling Team Trials in the Freestyle division this weekend at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa Also looking for a bid was Mack Lewnes ’11 who had qualified by virtue of his performance at the Men’s Freestyle Olympic

Trials Qualifier last December

While Perrelli and Lewnes each only won one match, Dake won four But with only one spot in each weight class up for grabs, Dake’s four wins only earned him a third place finish in Saturday’s challenger’s bracket and fourth overall at 74 kg (163 pounds) After winning his first two matches of the day, Dake lost in the challenger’s semifinals to veteran World Team member Trent Paulson 0-2, 1-0, 6-0 Paulson then lost to Andrew Howe the eventual runner-up at 74 kg this weekend Howe won the challenger’s bracket, but lost a best-of-three match-up to reigning world freestyle champion Jordan Burroughs, who

will represent the U S in London at 74 kg and is considered the best chance the U S has to win a gold medal in wrestling

I was a little bit disappointed I didn’t really accomplish what I wanted to, but it was a good experience, and I’ll definitely be ready in the future, said Dake, who now has his sight set on the 2016 Olympics

In the consolation bracket, Dake beat Nick Marable for the second time on Saturday to earn a third place finish in the challenger’s bracket Marable was a gold medalist at 74 kg for the U S at the Pan American games last May

game against Brown will help the Red as it begins to prepare for this weekend’s game against Princeton the last of the regular season

“The bottom line is that I don’t think our team deserved to win today and that’s disappointing and certainly squarely on my shoulders as head coach,” DeLuca said “Moving forward this is a very motivated group getting ready for the Princeton Tigers ” One area that Cornell will need to focus on is creating more scoring opportunities by the

W O M E N ’ S L A C R O S S E

net According to DeLuca, there is some concern about the Red’s defense I think we are concerned about a lot of things,” DeLuca said “I think we are concerned about the way we defended I’m very disappointed by the way we defended There were some scrambled and unsettled, broken plays that [Brown] took advantage of ”

Strong Second Half Results In Win Over Visiting Bulldogs

By NICK RIELLY Sun Staff Writer

After a tough first half, w h e r e t h e w o m e n ’ s lacrosse team witnessed a

s t a n d o u t p e r f o r m a n c e from Yale goaltender Erin Mc Mu l l i n , C o r n e l l d u g deep and used its speed and quickness to score 12 goals in the second h a l f , o v e r c o m i n g t h e

s t r u g g l i n g B u l l d o g s with a score of 17-9

T h e g a m e h a d e x t r a

s i g n i f i c a n c e f o r t h e Red, as the team honored i t s s e n i o r s f o r p l a y i n g their last game in Ithaca, as well as members of the 2002 Final Four team The win over Yale puts the Red in an excellent position to clinch a ber th f o r t h e Iv y L e a g u e

C h a m p i o n s h i p s , a s t h e

t e a m h a s o n e g a m e remaining against Brown If Cornell can defeat the Bears, the Red will most likely be the No 3 seed in

t h e t o u r n a m e n t

S a t u r d a y ’ s w i n w a s t h e fifth in a row against Yale, w h i c h g i v e s C o r n e l l a winning record at home

“ We k n e w t h e Ya l e game was a must-win for us, ” said senior midfielder

Shannon McHugh We came out of the gates a little lethargic, but we defin i t e l y s t e p p e d u p o u r game in the second half

A l t h o u g h C o r n e l l d o m i n a t e d i n t h e f i r s t half, the team could not find a way to score, and

h e a d e d i n t o t h e l o c k e r

room with a 5-4 lead

“It was a combination of a great goalie and us just not playing to our potential,” McHugh said

“ We w e r e n ’ t c o n v e r t i n g any of our shots ” I n a d d i t i o n t o a n i n a b i l i t y t o s c o r e , Ya l e p r ov i d e d s o m e p r e s s u r e for Cornell on the defensive end, as the Bulldogs

c o n v e r t e d o n a l l f o u r shots they took in the first 30 minutes of the game, l e a d i n g t o j u n i o r g o a lt e n d e r C o u r t n e y G a l l a g h e r e n t e r i n g t h e game

However, as fr ustrating as the first half was for Cornell, the second half fared much better, as the

Red saw a strong per formance from senior attack

Je s s i St e i n b e r g w h o , i n h e r l a s t g a m e a t Schoellkopf Field, scored five goals and had one a s s i s t I n a d d i t

midfielder Sarah Hefner and sophomore mid-

Amico

We just took better shots in the second

attack Olivia Knotts “ We came out with a ton of energy in the second half, and, because of that, we had more chances