Cornell Report Fall 2020

No. 1 Vo lum e 4 4 / FA L L 2 02 0

Cornell Report

COUNTERING COVID-19 PA G E 2 0

DEE ANN REXROAT ’82

Cornell’s northeast entrance a few hours after a powerful derecho swept through Iowa. See pages 3–5.

ON THE COVER: First-year student Kimberly Maitland of Bronx, New York, wears a pink mask in honor of breast cancer awareness. Cornellians are staying healthy during the pandemic through safety measures such as mask-wearing, daily symptom checks, and virus testing. Photo by first-year student Donivan Jones.

CONTENTS

No. 1

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Cornellians respond to COVID Meeting historic challenges, on and off the Hilltop

Volum e 4 4 / FA L L 2 02 0

Cornell Report EDITOR

Dee Ann Rexroat ’82 drexroat@cornellcollege.edu 319.895.4241 ASSISTANT EDITOR

Lisa Gray Giurato DESIGN

Amy Belice Graphic Design PRINTER

Lane Press CLASS NEWS CONTRIBUTOR

Maxwell Love

Cornell Report is published fall, spring, and summer for alumni, parents, faculty, staff, and friends of the college by the Office of Marketing and Communications, Box 1648, Cornell College, 600 First Street SW, Mount Vernon, IA 52314-1098

Contact Us GIFTS TO CORNELL ADDRESS CHANGE

877.MVERNON (683.7666) giving@cornellcollege.edu ALUMNI ENGAGEMENT OFFICE

Dear Earth: Get well soon How Cornellians are acting on climate change

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Carolyn Brown ’58

Mike Tressel ’96

Zackeree Kelin ’01

Travels with a camera

Coaching comes naturally

Fighting for the people

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40

DEPARTMENTS

2 You Said 3 Around the Hilltop

17 Ram Report 41 Alumni News

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REGISTRAR

319.895.4372 registrar@cornellcollege.edu ATHLETICS

319.895.4230 athletics@cornellcollege.edu ADMISSION

800.747.1112 admission@cornellcollege.edu cornellcollege.edu/cornell-report

L I F E A F T E R CO R N E L L

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319.895.4204 alumni@cornellcollege.edu

53 In Memoriam 56 Last Word

ONLINE-ONLY OPTION To opt out of the printed magazine and be notified by email when each issue is online, contact the editor at cornellreport@cornellcollege.edu

You Said

Said on campus

“I know Cornell will recover its strength and its Hilltop residents. Alums across the world, and all who care and love Cornell College, will help ‘power’ it back from these losses.”

“Your most important challenge will be understanding how to become a compassionate human, how to accept and respect the beauty of the diversity of this world regardless of your personal beliefs.”

Peter Hoehnle ’96

Claude Howard ’97 — Opening Convocation, Sept. 17

WEATHERING THE STORM CORNELLIANS RESPONDED TO THE DERECHO STORM THAT RAVAGED CAMPUS ON AUG. 10.

Jane Welgos Sidwell ’69

“As sturdy Cornellians, we need to pick up the pieces and move forward, plant new trees, nurture new students, and make new memories, building on the past. Easier said than done, but so have been a lot of the challenges that we handled in the past, like starting a college in the 1850s without much money, one building, and staff that sometimes had to use classrooms for their living space.”

GIANTS THAT STILL STAND While over 300 trees on the Hilltop were damaged or toppled, several of the largest tree specimens we wrote about in the Fall 2019 issue, “Giants of Cornell,” escaped serious damage. That includes the massive cottonwood in front of King Chapel and its neighboring white ash (seen here on the evening of the Aug. 10 derecho), which was #5 in the state in height before the Iowa Conservation Commission stopped keeping track. Also standing is the Martin Luther King Jr. tree (seen to the left of the flag post), the blue spruce that was the state’s third largest tree of its kind, a large knotted redbud, and a stand of four huge larch trees lining First Street in front of the Scott Alumni Center.

A CORNELL GIANT

DEE ANN REXROAT ’82

“I spent about 30 minutes just staring at the damaged tree yesterday afternoon.

It’s heartbreaking to see a beloved tree– one that is older than the college itself– and wonder whether it will survive. I can’t even imagine Cornell without it. This massive ginkgo, the largest in the state of Iowa, has proudly weathered every storm for 170 years on this Iowa Hilltop. Then to have its very existence compromised in under an hour–words can’t capture how I feel. That said, if there is a tree that will

BE PART OF THE CONVERSATION

We are delighted to include letters and social media mentions for publication. Tag @cornellcollege to be considered on social media. Send letters to cornellreport@cornellcollege.edu or Cornell Report, Box 1663, 600 First St. SW, Mount Vernon, IA 52314-1098. Submissions will be edited for style, length, and clarity.

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DEE ANN REXROAT ’82

Around the Hilltop

This mighty red maple was originally tagged No. 57 of more than 150 campus trees deemed unsafe or unhealthy following the powerful Aug. 10 derecho. But once a crew began working in it, they determined it has another few decades to oversee activities next to King Chapel.

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A RO U N D T H E H I L LT O P

WITH LITTLE WARNING on Aug. 10 a derecho with straight-line winds of over 110 mph tore through Cornell’s campus on a destructive path through the region.

In its aftermath more than 150 campus trees were severely damaged or destroyed, and another 160 needed extensive top-trimming and pruning.

Twenty main campus buildings sustained significant roof damage. Power was out for over four days, and with unsafe conditions on campus, the college delayed the academic year by two weeks.

Cornell’s facilities team and contractors worked overtime cleaning up and repairing everything from outdoor safety lighting to indoor mechanical systems.

The full cost of the damage is still being determined.

Recovering Cornell’s wooded Hilltop will take time. New trees of a variety of species will be planted over two to three years, but it will take generations for the trees to mature. An initial outpouring of concern and support resulted in the

Many large trees on campus were completely uprooted by the 110 mph straight-line winds.

DEE ANN REXROAT ’82

Derecho damages the Hilltop

Twenty buildings sustained roof damage, but none worse than the Small Sport Center.

creation of a new Landscaping and Trees Fund to help Cornell restore its tree canopy. Gifts to this fund are gratefully welcomed at crnl.co/treefund Two weeks after the event more than 100 staff, students, faculty, alumni, and friends spread across campus to help clear remaining debris, hang COVID-19 signs, and spread out lobby furniture throughout campus—projects that had been delayed during derecho cleanup.

Three other Iowa college facilities teams also showed up in the first weeks after

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SCOTT LADWIG

C O R N E L L R E P O RT | FA L L 2 0 2 0

the storm to help their Cornell colleagues.

Facilities Operations Manager Luke Fischer said the college views its trees like works of art.

“Each tree is unique and beautiful on its own. It can’t be duplicated and is under constant creation,” he said. “However, while many trees may look good from a distance, upon close inspection from arborists, many were damaged to the extent they were not safe to remain in place. We are looking at safety-first with all trees.”

The (Cedar Rapids) Gazette wrote a post-derecho story about Cornell’s storied ginkgo tree, believed to be planted in 1850. The once-mighty tree lost much of its mass, Fischer said, and a percentage of it will be trimmed each year for several years as staff continue to monitor and assess it.

“This massive ginkgo, the largest in the state of Iowa, has proudly weathered every storm for 170 years on this Iowa Hilltop. Then to have its very existence compromised in under an hour—words

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can’t capture how I feel,” President Jonathan Brand told the Gazette reporter.

“That said, if there is a tree that will overcome this disaster, it will definitely be our ginkgo. We treasure the beauty it brings to our campus.”

By the time classes began on Sept.

7, the campus was becoming groomed again, though lacking in the full canopy it will someday regain.

A RO U N D T H E H I L LT O P

Cornell creates senior diversity officer position

C

MEGAN CISZEK

ornell College has created the position of senior diveris pursuing his doctorate in higher education from Concordia sity officer as campus leaders take steps to create lastUniversity Chicago. ing change and address racism.

He said he wants the college to hold itself accountable and Hemie Collier, director of Intercultural Life at Cornell he wants all Cornell students to walk away at the end of their since 2016, will take on the challenge. college career saying it was one of the best experiences they Collier has advocated for this position and said that while have ever had. the college had been moving in this direction, the national “First, we need to ask ourselves how are we going to tackle environment of social unrest helped accelerate the change. making our students of color and students from traditionally The college has placed a strong focus this academic year on marginalized identities feel more comfortable on campus, racial equity. and second, how are we examining what systematic racism “My main goal is to strengthen the college’s vision and and discrimination we may have as an institution?” he said. direction for diversity, equity, and Fifty-two years ago, on Oct. 17, inclusion,” Collier said. “I believe 1968, Cornell students occupied “It will take everyone within the Cornell we already have a direction. I will Old Sem to draw attention to their be using this role to strengthen community, both past and present, to demands for a Black activities cenit throughout our campus work as one to see the Hilltop continue ter, Black Convocation speakers, community.” courses on the Black experience, to grow and provide a space where and an increase in Black staff and Collier now has institution-wide responsibilities, including sitting on everyone can learn and reach their full faculty. The college continues to the President’s Council, which pro- potential.” address those demands, includvides strategic planning and guides ing the launch this fall of our daily operations. He also maintains Ingenuity curriculum. Texts and his position in Intercultural Life courses associated with the Firstand continues to devote significant Year Seminar and the Second-Year time to student programming and Seminar are aimed at increasing educational initiatives. understanding of race and racial “Through this role, Hemie will equity. help us to strengthen our policies, Collier said this work won’t processes, and programming so be easy, and it will take the entire that we are an even more self-recommunity, including alumni. flective and thoughtful community “In order to change an environthat is focused on achieving greater ment, in order to change a culture, equity on our campus,” said Presiit takes work, it takes time, and it dent Jonathan Brand. takes patience,” Collier said. “It Collier, a Waukegan, Illinois, will take everyone within the native who attended Luther ColCornell community, both past lege, holds a master’s degree in and present, to work as one to educational leadership from Consee the Hilltop continue to grow cordia University Ann Arbor, and and provide a space where everyone can learn and reach their full potential.”

“There may be beliefs you’ve held on to your entire life, based on your upbringing, exposure, and the media.

You will be uncomfortable. It’s okay.”

A time of reckoning with racism

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he death of George Floyd on Memorial Day reset race conversations worldwide, and numerous institutions and organizations issued statements supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. One of the leading national experts on diversity Eddie Moore Jr. ’89 education, Eddie Moore Jr. ’89, said he hopes we can use this moment for real change.

Moore has been presenting on the topic of white supremacy and white privilege since founding the White Privilege Conference in 1999 (on the Cornell campus as then-director of Intercultural Life).

“It feels somewhat affirming finally, now that people are saying ‘OK, white supremacy, white privilege, that’s what Eddie was talking about,’” he said. “I just hope we don’t let this moment pass. I hope this is really an opportunity for people to be involved over time, primarily because people lost their lives so this could happen. This moment is here because of the death of somebody’s brother, sister, parent, relative.”

But he is still concerned.

“Yes, part of me is feeling like this is our time, but part of me is worried that—like the latest holiday toy—this, too, will fizzle.”

Heather “Byrd” Roberts ’09

In June ABC’s “Good Morning America” included a book Moore co-authored, “The Guide for White Women who Teach Black Boys,” as one of its eight books on race and privilege to learn how to be a white ally.

His social justice tool for the world at this time is the online 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge, which gives people a plan for building new habits to be more effective in the quest for equity and justice. There are six updated versions of the challenge, which include suggestions for readings, podcasts, videos, observations, and ways to form and deepen community connections.

How to be a white ally Cornell Senior Diversity Officer Hemie Collier said that to be a white ally, it’s important to be intentional about wanting actual change, to be active in the eradication of racism, and to do your own research on what that looks like.

“Understanding in order to be a good ally your support comes in the form of following our lead. Also understanding that this is not about what you think we want and need, it is about what we actually say we want and need,” he said. “Be sincere in what you say. Don’t just read some articles and books and spout out buzz words that stand out to you. Actually understand them and apply them into your daily life.

Understand that when talking about racism, this is not only

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A RO U N D T H E H I L LT O P

Being active, not passive

about you. It is not about how talking about racism makes you feel, it’s about how actual racism makes your colleagues, classmates, etc., feel, and how it affects their lives.”

Heather ‘Byrd’ Roberts ’09, a Chicago-based poet, educator, and author of “Mahogany: A Love Letter To Black,” says she has spent a lot of time thinking about this topic since arriving on Cornell’s campus as a student in 2005. This is how she answers the question, what do you hope or expect from white allies at this time?

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•

•

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No longer is it enough to be against racism. The ideal is to be anti-racist. But what does that mean?

“To take active actions in creating an environment that is actively trying to eradicate the system and ideology of racism,” Collier said. “Actively discussing and dialoguing about the issue of racism. Always acknowledging and calling out racism when it is in your presence and when you have knowledge of it going on.”

Times have changed, and a new level of commitment is PRACTICE ACTIVE LISTENING. There is nothing worse than a needed from allies, he said. Madi Ramírez-Tentinger ’14 person of color sharing their experiences and then being is modeling that kind of disregarded or discounted. commitment in the George Statements like “that’s not Floyd autonomous zone in what really happened” or Minneapolis. The zone, they “I’m sure you’re taking the said, “is a space of protest, situation out of context” community, and memorial speak volumes and not in simultaneously.” a positive way.

Ramírez-Tentinger, a DO NOT OVERSTEP in an Mexican American who attempt to assist a cause considers themself a without conversing with “white-passing accomplice,” the harmed individuals. lives a block from where Not asking the harmed Floyd was killed by a white party how an issue can police officer, and helps run be restored and assuming the autonomous zone. Their you know the answer is a yard originally served as a Madi Ramírez-Tentinger ’14 (right) with Marcia Howard (left) and Jeanelle part of the problem. base for a medic crew, and Austin (center) just before they sent the George Floyd Square list of Ramírez-Tentinger has done DO THE WORK! [Persons] of demands to the Minneapolis mayor and council members. security, cleaning, event color cannot be the ones organizing, and held daily stakeholder meetings—basically educating everyone. The thought of this is beyond dauntanything needed to create safety, security, and community. ing and unrealistic. Make sure to do your homework— “People are never going to stop coming here,” they said. read. Respectfully ask questions. Participate in healthy “It’s a space of Black pain and Black mourning as well as a dialogue. place of community. But this place is first and foremost a BE OPEN TO UNLEARNING. There may be beliefs you’ve held space of protest against a system that allowed the city to kill on to your entire life, based on your upbringing, exposure, a man and so many Black and Brown people before George and the media. You will be uncomfortable. It’s okay. Do not Floyd.” use this as an excuse. I live in a constant state of uneasy I Over the weeks and months since Ramírez-Tentinger cannot escape. You can muster up the courage to be in a jumped in to support what they consider a sacred space, they state of distress if it leads you toward a better understandhave listened and learned. ing. It would be best if you were open to the possibility “My eyes have been opened,” they said, “to a lot more that what you know is false. We all have our biases. As racial inequality systemically both in our country and long as we are committed to becoming a better version of hyper-locally. I’ve been doing a lot of unlearning of white ourselves, we are moving in the right direction. supremacy culture I’ve been taught—we’ve all been taught— our whole lives. Not being blatantly racist is the bare minimum and doesn’t move us toward justice.”

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CORN N E L L R E P O RT | FA L L 2 0 2 0

Cornell vs. Cornell We’d like to set the record straight: We got here first.

Cornell College was founded in Mount Vernon, Iowa, in 1853, 15 years before the similarly named university opened in 1868. How else do we compare? Let us count the ways.

1853 William Wesley Cornell 1,002 2 Mount Vernon, George Washington’s Virginia estate President Jonathan Brand holds a J.D. from Cornell University Ram The Hilltop Student residence 211 from Chicago 193 27 inches

OPENED

NAMESAKE

# OF UNDERGRADS NATIONAL TEAM WRESTLING TITLES

HOMETOWN NAMESAKE

PRESIDENTIAL COINCIDENCES

MASCOT

1868 Ezra Cornell 15,043 0 Ithaca, a Greek island Presidents David Skorton and Hunter Rawlings III lived 20 miles away in Iowa City as former presidents of the University of Iowa Bear

CAMPUS NICKNAME

The Hill

OLIN BUILDINGS

Library

MILES FROM MAJOR CITY AVERAGE SUNNY DAYS AVERAGE SNOWFALL

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223 from New York City 155 67 inches

A RO U N D T H E H I L LT O P

Class of 1970 shares tumultuous times, advice, with Class of 2020 Tom Shives ’70 read a strongly worded anti-war statement written by his roommate, Tim Willis ’70.

The Class of 1970 was supposed to be on campus for its 50th reunion this fall—just as the Class of 2020 was supposed These are sobering, if not depressing, times … The educational to return for Homecoming and its in-person Commencement institutions in America have never been in a more precarious situceremony. As the novel coronavirus pandemic raged on, ation than they are today.

Homecoming became virtual and now both classes hope for This is not the Class of 2020 message delivered during a 2021 in-person events. global pandemic. This message came a half-century earlier, In the meantime, the Class of 1970 has some words of hope from The Rev. E. Spencer Parsons to the Class of 1970. for the Class of 2020.

On May 17, 1970, Cornell graduates walked across the King “There is no question that your class is facing one of the Chapel lawn to collect their diplomas most challenging times in American hisamid national strife that forced hundreds “Be open to opportunities tory. There is no question that a strong libof colleges to close early. Two weeks eareral arts education will help you navigate lier members of the Ohio National Guard you may not have consid- and solve the formidable issues facing our shot and killed anti-war protesters on the ered, and stay connected country and the world,” said Shives, a Kent State campus and triggered nationprofessor emeritus of orthopedic surgery to your Cornell friends. In at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. wide student strikes.

Fred Burke ’70, a financial advisor doing so, your life will be “We wish you the very best.” based in Mount Vernon, Iowa, still recalls enriched.”

Corrie Root Grummon ’70, a clothRev. Parsons’ message. ing designer who lives near Denver, Col“My parents were very upset with the orado, said that despite the unrest and baccalaureate speech, and I was too. All I remember was it discontentment with the war, she left campus with a sense was very doom and gloom about the world we were going of great optimism and hope for the future, and she wants the out into. As I look back, probably that was supposed to be Class of 2020 to feel the same way. motivational, but it didn’t ring true that way for the people in “I would say to the graduates: Be open to opportunities the audience,” said Burke, a former longtime Rams women’s you may not have considered, and stay connected to your tennis coach.

Cornell friends. In doing so, your life will be enriched,” During their Commencement ceremony Class President Grummon said.

There are only two Cornell College graduating classes since 1853 likely to have heard these words as they prepared to leave the Hilltop:

Bob Hansen ’70 and Barb Evans Hansen ’70 wore white strands in their tassels on Commencement day to protest the Vietnam War. They married two weeks later.

WEB EXTRA

See the anti-war statement read at the 1970 Commencement by Tom Shives ’70, at crnl.co/1970Commencement

ROBYN SCHWAB AARON ’07

California composer Lars Clutterham ’70 said that their turbulent era shaped their class but didn’t stop their dreams.

Clutterham’s words for the Class of 2020: “My best advice for each of you is to look at your own strengths and your own marvelous potential as you complete your college career at Cornell—despite the circumstances—and recognize that the future is still before you, and that your own personal hopes and dreams can still be realized.”

Some students, including Barb Evans Hansen ’70 (daughter of the late music professor Jesse Evans) and Bob Hansen ’70, wore white strands in the tassels on their mortar boards to protest the Vietnam War. “The intense focus on social justice and political action is something both graduating classes, 1970 and 2020, share,” Barb said.

“This is also something that I took away from Cornell and have made a priority throughout my life. I would encourage new graduates to also stay involved and informed to make this a better and fairer world.”

Ask the Expert Assistant Professor of Psychology Chris Hagan

Suicide is growing, yet preventable problem Over the past 20 years, suicide rates in the United States have gone up about 30%. We now lose nearly 50,000 Americans of all ages, races, genders, religions, economic statuses, and regions to suicide every year.

Suicide is a growing, but preventable problem.

One of the areas of suicide risk that I primarily focus on is hopelessness. Much of my research addresses how we can better understand hopelessness and how we should be talking to patients, friends, and loved ones about feeling hopeless when we are concerned about them.

My research centers on figuring out what kinds of hopelessness are particularly risky. Of particular concern is interpersonal hopelessness, when people feel like they will always be a burden to those around them or will never have the kind of important relationships that they’re looking for.

If we can understand what makes people particularly vulnerable, clinicians like me can make this a focus in therapy. Additionally, friends and family members can feel empowered to help those that they care about by reaching out, being a support, and helping people to recognize their own important roles in the lives of their family and community.

We already know that those who feel lonely, especially those who feel like a burden to others, are at a higher risk for thinking about suicide. Helping people to feel and stay connected, especially in this time of social distancing and canceled events, is something that we can all do within our community of family and friends.

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Other important steps include the safe storage of dangerous objects such as firearms, certain medications, and dangerous chemicals. This is especially true for firearms, which are used in over half of all suicides in America. Firearms don’t need to be taken away forever, but during times of crisis, storing firearms away from the home with a friend or at a gunshop, or at least storing firearms safely (i.e., unloaded and locked up) is an important and easy step to helping a loved one, including a child, survive a crisis.

If you or a loved one are struggling or need help, please text “HOPELINE” to 741741 or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800.273.8255.

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Professor Tyler Carrington (right) with his class at the Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna.

COURSE

INVESTIGATING GERMAN PASTS AND PRESENTS

Professor of German Studies and History Tyler Carrington For every student registered for Professor Tyler Carrington’s course, Investigating German Pasts and Presents, another student placed their name on a waiting list hoping to get in. Carrington’s recently published book, “Love at Last Sight: Dating, Intimacy, and Risk in Turn-of-the-Century Berlin,” became an avenue of inquiry for his students as they visited prominent sites that figured into Carrington’s own investigation into the murder mystery central to his book.

Carrington mastered the art of walking backward while presenting his “lectures” in three cities with a rich history—Vienna, Munich, and Berlin.

“A week’s stay in each city in some ways allows us to get a feel for what the cities are like, experience their rhythms and dynamics, and explore some of the off-the-beaten-path gems each city has to offer,” Carrington says. “And the itinerary and coursework of the class essentially turns the students into historical detectives and challenges them to seek out different historical moments.”

They started in Vienna, which Carrington says represented the pinnacle of European culture before World War I; then on to Munich, which he says gives a great perspective on the turn of the 20th century and even the 1920s and ’30s; and then to Berlin, which Carrington sees as a living, breathing museum of the Nazi period and the Cold War division of East and West.

The students crafted their own podcasts, pulling historical elements into the present. One of the students searched for the building in Vienna where her U.S. Army grandfather had a photo taken of himself, and she attempted to construct stories out of what she found through her investigations.

Kat Edmond ’20 says it was the highlight of her academic career.

“I found that this trip really sparked my passion for intrinsically motivated learning,” Edmond says. “When the class would visit a museum or a monument, I found myself going back to our hotel and conducting additional research on just about everything we experienced and learning far more than I expected to.”

Carrington noted the course is possible thanks to the block plan.

“Most study-abroad programs and semester-abroad courses mostly put you in one place, one city, and deposit you there for a semester,” Carrington says.

“With this class, our students were able to get a good taste—not a full meal, but more than just a bite, for a variety of cities. And a week in each place was kind of the perfect amount.”

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“I found that this trip really sparked my passion for intrinsically motivated learning.”

—KAT EDMOND ’20

C O R N E L L R E P O RT | FA L L 2 0 2 0

Iowa trivia’s biggest fan One of the first suffrage parades in America was in Boone, Iowa. Belle Babb Mansfield, the nation’s first female attorney, studied law at Mount Pleasant, Iowa. Facts like that, and many more, are the specialty of Jessica Rundlett ’07.

Rundlett, a two-time winner of the Van & Bonnie All Iowa Trivia Bee, has vivid memories of studying the question and answer booklet from an Iowa trivia board game and getting quizzed on Brain Quest decks by her mother. Through her father, a trucker, she learned the value of getting off the interstate and discovering the road less traveled.

When Rundlett arrived at Cornell College in 2003, she delivered an extemporaneous speech at the New Student Orientation Talent Show. And the speech? All that was good about Iowa.

“It seemed like everyone else sang songs, played instruments, or did magic tricks, and there I was, imploring my classmates to love the state that would be their home for the next four years,” she says.

Among the many reasons to love Iowa, she says, is that the state has long been a leader in expanding civil rights and equality, often long before changes were adopted on a national level. This has included banning the enslavement of people (1839), desegregating schools (1868), and granting same-sex couples

the right to marry (2009).

Rundlett graduated from Cornell with majors in politics, history, and international business, and found a position with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources helping visitors to connect with historic sites and cultural resources. Through this, she learned that she was able to share history in a compelling way.

In 2012 Rundlett joined the State Historical Society of Iowa as special projects and outreach coordinator. Her primary focus for the past three years has been a traveling exhibit in a custom-built, Iowa-made Winnebago called “History on the Move: Iowa History 101.”

Every three years, the mobile museum visits all 99 counties of Iowa.

“It’s an honor for me to share Iowa history with young Iowans,” Rundlett says. “My hope is that after a visit to the mobile museum, they realize that Iowa is a special place—a place far more than just flyover country.”

When she’s not traveling with the mobile museum, Rundlett spends time traveling around Iowa, sharing the Iowa Culture Trivia Challenge, and promoting the Iowa Culture app. At Trivia Challenge events, she combines education and entertainment to share stories and teach audience members a bit more about Iowa.

Perhaps we are biased, but the Orange Carpet seems like a pretty great place to host the next Trivia Challenge.

Think you know your stuff about Iowa?

Give these trivia questions from Jessica Rundlett ’07 a try.

Q: Where is Iowa’s only National Cemetery?

A: Keokuk Q: In what hilly Iowa city will you find the Fenelon Place Elevator?

A: Dubuque Q: What famous Civil War General (and friend of President Abraham Lincoln) lived in Council Bluffs?

A: General Grenville M. Dodge Q: Two First Ladies of the United States were born in Iowa. Name them.

A: Lou Henry Hoover (Waterloo) and Mamie Eisenhower (Boone) Q: The oldest functioning county courthouse in Iowa was built in 1843. Where is it?

A: Keosauqua Q: Le Mars, Iowa, is known as the ___ _____ Capital of the World.

A: Ice Cream Q: During what war were there Prisoner of War Camps in Iowa?

A: World War I I (There were camps at Algona and Clarinda.)

Q: Where are two of the largest freestanding grain bins in the world?

A: Atlantic Q: What was the first college in the nation to promote a woman to a full professorship with the same salary as her male colleagues?

A: Cornell College Q: NASA Astronaut Peggy Whitson was the first woman to command the International Space Station and holds the record for most time spent in space by a U.S. astronaut. What is her hometown?

A: Beaconsfield

MAX ISHMAEL

A RO U N D T H E H I L LT O P

Max Ishmael at his family home in Ossining, New York, on the day of his Commencement celebration last May.

Ishmael ’20 took a chance on Cornell

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oming to Iowa from New York combined with his good humor and meant leaving his family and self-reflectiveness in doing so, helped friends. make him a quiet leader.

“They were all shocked when I said “Max is one of the most mature, that I wanted to go out to Iowa,” says reflective students I have met at CorMax Ishmael ’20. nell. He thinks deeply Yet, he took the “Max thinks deeply about about everything and leap. everything and his inter- his interests and activCornell College ities embody the libProfessor of French ests and activities embody eral arts ethos,” Wines Rebecca Wines says the liberal arts ethos.” says.

Ishmael embraced Ishmael is an athexperiences: learnlete and a musician ing to kayak and dance bélè in Martiwith interests that span criminal jusnique, delivering a monologue from a tice, creative writing, philosophy, and 17th-century French play, and composFrench and Francophone literature and ing and sharing sonnets in a class modcultures. eled on a French salon of the 1700s. She He worked as a peer consultant in says his willingness to push himself, the Writing Studio for three years, 14

played on the soccer team for which he earned Cornell’s 2020 Sportsman of the Year award, served on the editorial board for the Open Field literary magazine, and interned at the Chautauqua Institution, a non-profit dedicated to the exploration of social issues through the fine arts. Ishmael traveled overseas twice, for French courses in Aixen-Provence and Martinique. And he spent two years writing his novella, “Pockets,” that he is now seeking to publish.

Ishmael feels that his life as a student-athlete made a huge impact on his college journey.

“The sometimes harsh lessons that you learn while playing sports, whether it be about playing time, not winning enough, or even interacting with other personalities, stick with you throughout your entire life,” he says.

He also believes he is a better writer for having studied French.

“The topics that I try to write about usually discuss issues surrounding the Black community in America, and the study of different African and Antillais leaders in my French classes help me realize that these topics not only intersect but build off of each other,” Ishmael says.

He received the Eugene Elkins Award for Excellence in French.

“It meant more to me than I could imagine,” he says. “At my previous institution, they didn’t have a French department, and they hired outside professors to teach 100 level French courses so that students could only fulfill their requirements and not fully delve into the major. Through the dedicated instruction from Professors Wines and Devan Baty, rekindling the process of learning French was enjoyable and, in turn, life-altering.”

Next up for Ishmael is graduate school, earning an M.F.A. from the Writer’s Foundry at St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn.

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How 4 retiring faculty made their marks at Cornell Four faculty have retired after shaping Cornell College students, programs and the institution itself for a combined total of 112 years.

Lisa Hearne created an expectation of excellence

Martin Hearne challenged students above their abilities

Tony deLaubenfels helped build the Computer Science Department

Stephen Bean inspired nonmajors to find beauty in mathematical ideas

Former students often remember Professor of Music and Director of Choral Music Lisa Hearne for holding high expectations.

“Her goal was to stretch your mind, your voice, and your musical understanding to heights you did not believe you could reach,” said Storm Ziegler ’94, an award-winning high school choral director. He still emulates her strength, clarity, and passion for her students and her craft on a daily basis, he said.

“A professional presentation requires a lot of preparation and practice, but it gives both the performer and the audience a sense of confidence,” said Hearne, who spent 28 years on Cornell’s faculty. “Students can draw on that experience for whatever they do in life, even outside of music.”

Professor of Music Martin Hearne was known for challenging students in Cornell’s instrumental ensembles to perform works well above their abilities—with amazing results.

“On first reading the work is barely recognizable, but it slowly evolves to a performance that is polished and well received by an appreciative audience,” Hearne said.

Hearne and his wife, Professor of Music Lisa Hearne, programmed many memorable performances of masterworks for choir and instrumental ensembles.

Among his highlights over the past 28 years have been Pandemonium steel drum band tours to New Orleans and to Carnival in Nice, France, and two European tours with chamber orchestra and chamber choir.

Cornell’s computer science major was established just months before Tony deLaubenfels arrived in 1983. For the next 37 years he helped build the program from the ground up, teaching 34 different courses himself.

For five years between 1989–1996, deLaubenfels also served as director of Academic Computing. In 1996 he authored Cornell’s first successful proposal to the Mellon Foundation, receiving $300,000 for teaching with technology.

“Tony really brought the computer science industry into the classroom and made our education so much more enjoyable, as well as applicable. I was able to use the things he taught beyond graduation, and I am so grateful to him for that,” said Sarah Gilliland Korth ’11.

Associate Professor of Mathematics Stephen Bean inspired nonmathematics majors with his course Great Mathematical Ideas, which he taught more than any other class in his 19 years at Cornell. The course applied words like creativity and beauty to mathematical discoveries past and present.

“I viewed Math 110 as my chance to pay it forward. In general, when I taught the course, I stayed close to the kinds of subject matter that inspired me,” he said.

He said he enjoyed the synergy developed between faculty and students. Students, he said, can have a “profound effect on faculty” —something we usually think of the other way around.

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Read the full stories and official emeritus citations at crnl.co/emeriti2020

MEGAN CISZEK

Cornell seniors Paulina Diaz-Alton and Jack Bressett demonstrate the use of a 6-foot-and-two-hands stick, with President Jonathan Brand keeping a watchful eye on them. Behind them is College Hall, built in 1857 when the sticks were in use to keep student couples apart.

We go waaaay back with physical distancing Student life during Cornell College’s early years was heavily regulated.

Consider the infamous Rule Twelve: The escorting of young ladies by young gentlemen is not allowed.

It was the most contested of 14 rules listed in all catalogues dating from 1853 to 1869. The regulations certainly would make any current student blanch.

Students had to rise at 5 a.m. for recitations and prayers (Rule One), needed permission from a teacher before leaving town (Rule Four), and were forbidden from attending dancing parties and circuses (Rule Eight).

Rule Twelve, as it was known, was the most difficult to interpret and enforce. A standard of 6 feet was established by a professor who suggested it in response to frequent questions and objections. Legend has it that a discussion ensued, and students agreed they would get sticks 6 feet and two hands long, to make sure they were properly

distanced, “and many a smitten lover offered his stick to his sweetheart and saw her home under the legal distance rule.”

Nearly 170 years later, a global pandemic has made Rule Twelve relevant once again. As students returned to campus this fall, signs and guidelines reminded them to stay 6 feet apart for safety.

William Heywood, author of “Cornell College: A Sesquicentennial History” Volume 1, wrote that Rule Twelve could be understood in part because coeducational colleges were the exception rather than the norm at that time. Cornell College, after all, was the first Iowa college to graduate a woman.

Apparently Rule Twelve wasn’t completely hardbound. Heywood recounted an incident when about 20 male and female students took a sleigh ride to Mechanicsville, nine miles east of Mount Vernon, without permission. President 16

Richard Keeler rebuked them, but announced that students who were not involved were free to go on a sleigh ride the following Saturday.

When Cornell President Jonathan Brand welcomed the Class of 2024 at two New Student Convocations Sept. 2, he was holding a 6-foot-and-twohands-long stick and shared the story of Rule Twelve.

“This is original physical distancing at Cornell College in the 1850s,” he said, and challenged everyone to follow the college’s pandemic safety rules so the entire community stays healthy.

“If we all commit ourselves to the practices, the policies, the procedures all together, we will come through this relatively well,” he said, “and you will have those life-changing experiences that you seek and that we wish for you to have.”

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Ram Report

Meeker & Meeker By

Lisa Gray Giurato

S

enior Sydney Meeker says having her dad coach her “I think one of the reasons Sydney and I work so well volleyball team is, simply put, normal for her. Her together is because she knows that I always love her, even if dad, Head Coach Jeff Meeker, has been coaching her I am not happy with her performance or actions in the gym,” for close to a decade now, officially and unofficially, and has says Coach Meeker. been her Ram coach her entire career at Cornell College.

He is a nine-time Conference Coach of the Year and has “I’m glad she likes me enough to stick around,” says compiled 410 collegiate victories, highlighted by an unparCoach Meeker. “Seriously, though, alleled run of success through 18 it is a real blessing. I get to see her seasons at Cornell. His 349 wins every day and the two of us have a on the Hilltop are the most by a lot in common.”

Cornell coach in any sport.

They both love spending time They both agree that Coroutdoors, running, live music, and nell’s volleyball team stands out are fiercely competitive. They are because of the people in the proeven-keeled and laid-back in temgram. Coach Meeker says that perament despite their strong inthe student-athletes on the team clination to compete, and clearly, are great volleyball players and they love and respect each other outstanding individuals. When a lot. asked what one word describes “We get along very well and the volleyball program, he says, have a great relationship,” says “integrated.”

Sydney. “He has taught me so “Our goal is to be the most much throughout the years and complete volleyball program in Coach Jeff Meeker, Sydney’s father is one of my biggest role models.” the country; combining academClearly, Sydney was taught ics, volleyball, service, campus well. She stands out as the 2019 volleyball Midwest Conferinvolvement, international travel, and personal growth ence Player of the Year and American Volleyball Coaches opportunities.”

Association Honorable Mention All-American.

His team members give back and incorporate service into Coach Meeker says that his roles as coach and father their lives as much as possible. They conducted two youth share many similarities. His goals as a coach and as Sydvolleyball clinics and donated equipment during a May ney’s dad are to provide guidance, love, and opportunities 2018 trip to Costa Rica. They’ve volunteered at Hope Lodge for growth. for cancer patients and Relay for Life. In addition, they’ve

“I think one of the reasons Sydney and I work so well together is because she knows that I always love her, even if I am not happy with her performance or actions in the gym.”

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ROBYN SCHWAB AARON ’07

Ram Report

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worked with Angel Tree gifts, Special Olympics, new student move-in, and a reading program at Washington Elementary in Mount Vernon.

When COVID-19 interrupted Coach Meeker’s plans for his team, he quickly found new ways to continue to build up his team.

“Our nontraditional season in the spring was all virtual, and we made an unexpected amount of progress as a program. We focused on mindset training, watched videos to help process visual information on the court, engaged in anti-racism dialogue and training, and learned a great deal about each other during our Zoom sessions.

We expect to do the same this fall as COVID-19 forces us to think about volleyball, effort, attitude, growth, and being a great teammate in new and different ways,” he says.

After a bad night out on the court, Sydney says she and her dad don’t talk about it that night; instead, they discuss it the next day. She says after a good night on the court, one of the best things she likes to hear from her dad is, “I’m proud of you.”

Sydney is completing her bachelor of arts in biochemistry and molecular biology with a minor in psychology this academic year and will get one final year as a Ram on the team. But she gets to keep enjoying life as Coach Meeker’s daughter for a lifetime.

Coach Meeker says his hopes for Sydney are “that she continues being brave and amazing.”

LIFE AFTER CORNELL

CA RO LY N B ROW N ’5 8

C

arolyn Brown ’58 comfortably resides in unusual spaces. In 1969, when Brown began her career in photography, a woman trying to carve out a career in a male-dominated field wasn’t exactly the norm.

The places she traveled with a camera in hand are all the more striking, as her photographs reveal. For a young woman from the northeast farming community of Fort Morgan, Colorado, she points to her travels as the fire that helped her grow and evolve.

“The fact that she is a tall, dramatically red-haired American created somewhat of a stir as she entered mosques or monasteries, but her charm, easy way of dealing with diverse people, and energetic enthusiasm more often than not won the day, and diverse administrators, priests, and other officials allowed her to set up her tripod and spend the time it takes to arrive at a perfectly composed and calibrated photographic image,” writes Richard Brettell, the founding director of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History (EODIAH) in “Carolyn Brown, A Retrospective.”

Brown, whose photographs are on display at The University of Texas at Dallas, where EODIAH has published a retrospective on her work and career, has another book featuring her work on the Fort Worth Stockyards at the end of this year being published by A&M Press.

After graduating from Cornell with her degree in art, she pursued pottery, earning her master’s degree in studio arts from Texas Woman’s University, but took up a camera with a desire to document the places she traveled while in Cairo, Egypt, studying Islamic art and architecture. And she never put the camera down, traveling all along the Nile River.

“Egypt is rich with magnificent mosques—as well as famous Pharaonic structures,” Brown says. “The experience of photographing and studying in Egypt changed my life.”

Brown went on to photograph throughout the Middle East, building a collection of ancient architectural imagery. She moved to Dallas and focused on her architectural photography career, documenting places and people in the Southwest, and traveled for 10 years back and forth to photograph both pre-Hispanic and Spanish architecture in Mexico.

She approaches photography with a designer’s eye, which is evident in the compositions she forges with her

LYNDALL DYER

She travels with a camera

Carolyn Brown ’58 and her Olde English Bulldogge, Leroy Brown.

camera, from the squares lit up from the sun’s rays in a stained-glass dome at the Johnson County Courthouse in Cleburne, Texas, to the weathered wooden doorway of an abandoned plant in Fort Worth to the brilliantly colored Iznik star tiles at Topkapi Palace in Istanbul, Turkey.

“Design is always a part of what I do,” Brown says. “I am very conscious of design, and that’s why my work looks the way it does. When I go back and look at my work, I look at the photographs I’ve made at various times of my life and places, it’s as if I can be there for just that moment. And it is quite remarkable, because with travels without a camera, soon those experiences are gone, but if you have a photograph, you can relive it.”

— LISA GRAY GIURATO

“When I go back and look at my work, I look at the photographs I’ve made at various times of my life and places, it’s as if I can be there for just that moment.”

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THE PANDEMIC

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HOW CORNELLIANS ARE COUNTERING ITS IMPACT

A SMALL COLLEGE WITH BIG DATA A RESEARCH TEAM of faculty and students reviews

local COVID-19 testing and hospital data to create a comprehensive weekly decision-making matrix for the college

THE 1918 PANDEMIC THE HILLTOP experienced a dramatic upheaval

during the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic

THE STORY OF HOW CORNELL ADAPTED KEEPING STUDENTS, FACULTY, AND STAFF SAFE led

to our very first online courses, and now to random testing and mitigation measures across campus

TAKING CLASSES ONLINE RETHINKING COURSES and conducting them online

has caused some Cornell professors to find new and even improved ways to teach and connect with their students

MEGAN CISZEK

CORNELLIANS RESPOND

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CORNELLIANS ARE OFFERING CARE, intelligence, and

hope in response to the global pandemic that has paused life as we know it

A SMALL COLLEGE WITH BIG DATA

By Jill Hawk

so campus leaders can make informed, data-driven decisions BEHIND THE SCENES OF SOME BIG DECISIONS, a student-facabout the next steps for the college community. ulty research team is sifting through extensive amounts of COVID-19 data to provide insight to campus leaders.

THE PLAN When COVID-19 caused a shutdown of the Cornell College Cornell College is following a phased approach to resuming campus in March, Associate Professor of Chemistry Jai Pattur on-campus operations.

Shanata ’05 joined the college’s taskforce working on a process To move from one phase to the next, several internal and for the safe return of students. When he realized there would external conditions have to be met. Some examples of internal be an unmet need for understanding public health data, he conditions include having sufficient supplies of hand sanitizer, turned to two of his research students. preparing student quarantine spaces, and ensuring COVID-19 “Very quickly we realized that if we want to make the best testing is available. quality decisions for Cornell, we must have the best quality The external conditions are where the data research comes data that we can get,” Jai said. in. After some testing and a lot of literature review, the team Senior Robyn Luchesi, a biochemistry and molecular biolsettled on three domains to follow closely. ogy and philosophy major, and sophomore Gwen Paule, a bio“First, we wanted something that tells us about the spread chemistry and molecular biology and Spanish major, were of the disease in the area. Second, we ready to get started. wanted to look at the use of resources— “Neither my students nor I had the slightest idea what we were getting ourThis team’s main goal do we have the ability to handle a surge in cases? Finally, the third domain is the selves into,” he said.

They needed to recruit one more peris to present the data severity of the disease. We want to know, for example, if the disease has mutated son—lecturer in statistics at Cornell and Jai’s wife—Brandi Logan Shanata ’05. in an unfiltered way and is more severe, or if the severity of the disease goes down with better treatment Brandi agreed to volunteer her time as so that Cornell College or case management,” Brandi said. a statistical consultant to help with the The team has learned the imporproject. will know the reality of tance of using positive test rate as one of The group met seven days a week the pieces of data they are collecting to throughout the summer as part of the what’s happening answer these questions. That’s the numCornell Summer Research Institute. of positive tests in relation to the total Their Zoom sessions often lasted sevclose to home. ber number of tests, instead of just using the eral hours as they first determined what count of positive cases. They have discovdata points to follow and then located the ered that the number of tests performed every day across Linn sources of the data. Next they dug into the numbers and set and Johnson counties varies widely, making the positive test up a reporting structure. Since classes began they meet twice rate a more reliable and consistent metric. a week and the students are employed through work-study.

The team analyzes the data in their weekly report using They provide weekly reports to the COVID-19 crisis mangreen, yellow, and red zones to make recommendations about agement team with their recommendations and data findings,

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Jai Pattur Shanata ’05 and Brandi Logan Shanata ’05 at their home office in Mount Vernon, where they recorded and analyzed data and mentored student researchers online.

whether to proceed to another phase, stay in the present phase, increase campus mitigation efforts, or reverse course to a previous phase. This strategy empowers the college to move between phases in response to overarching trends in the data, rather than swinging in and out of phases because of brief spikes or dips.

information that was important to Cornell’s decision-making process. Each night they add data from various public health websites in Linn and Johnson counties, as well as the Iowa Department of Public Health.

“If I could put the amount of data that they are sorting through, collecting, and organizing in terms of books, this would be an epic novel,” Brandi said. “This is not a novella.

This is not a typical novel. This would be a Game of Thrones book.”

Despite the long nights spent deciphering data and

THE DATA From the very beginning, Brandi advised that the group needed to take ownership of the data and start collecting the

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Students Gwen Paule (left), who is studying from home, and Robyn Luchesi, who returned to campus this fall, discuss their latest data on a Zoom call.

writing reports, the students agree it’s a rewarding process.

“It is amazing to work with two professors who I really look up to. Their passion and wisdom is invaluable,” Luchesi said.

“Working on a project that has real-world applications, especially regarding public health, is something that is showing me

a lot about what will possibly concern my career in the future.

I am also lucky that I get to do something in a time where it is difficult to feel like you have an impact on something. I am glad I can do something to help, especially for my fellow students.”

This team’s main goal is to present the data in an unfiltered way so that Cornell College will know the reality of what’s happening close to home.

“We will be one of the smallest colleges to have such a large amount of customized data at our fingertips to make these very crucial decisions,” Brandi said.

They say that’s important, especially when there are so many messages about the disease and what’s happening with casecounts across the country.

Paule and Luchesi worked all summer from their homes in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Chicago, Illinois, respectively, and earned Cornell Summer Research Institute stipends.

They say each day comes filled with challenges to overcome.

Even with all of the challenges of this research, Brandi said the students have never complained.

“Their work really has highlighted what a Cornell student can do,” Brandi said. “Neither of these students is a data analyst and neither is majoring or minoring in statistics. We didn’t expect this project to be this big. The idea was just, ‘hey, we know data is in a lot of places. How do we make this easily accessible to Cornell, so Cornell can make data-driven decisions?’

These students jumped in and adapted. It was amazing. They demonstrated so beautifully what a Cornell experience will do.

They were able to very quickly learn and apply everything.”

CAMPUS RESEARCH INFORMS TESTING, PROTOCOLS Faced with a pandemic, a total of 10 Cornell students and faculty are applying their research skills to keep the campus as safe as possible.

Jai and Brandi Shanata directed a second COVID-19 research project that helped design and develop Cornell’s testing protocol. With students Skye McCormick, Ravi Parekh, and Kate Abrams, they created a novel proactive strategy of asymptomatic testing of high-contact groups, cluster sampling by residence hall floor, and random sampling of faculty and staff.

“This sampling strategy is designed so that we get an early warning of where a hot spot might be, and we can dive in to cut it off,” Brandi told a local TV reporter.

They coordinated with Pandemic Response Coordinator Nancy

Reasland, who wanted a test with rapid results administered on campus. When the Cornell Summer Research Institute ended, Brandi recruited senior business analytics major Chase Sonnemaker for the implementation.

Meanwhile, Professor of Chemistry Cindy Strong and junior Sydney Swift used a model from the University of Colorado at Boulder to estimate the risk of airborne transmission of COVID19 in campus spaces. The project was suggested by Tahllee Baynard ‘07, who is trained in aerosol chemistry and collaborated with Strong and Swift. They recommended increased air exchanges and the use of fans and filters, which were adopted prior to the first day of classes.

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HOW CORNELL SURVIVED THE 1918 PANDEMIC WITH THE NOVEL CORONAVIRUS CAME a novel way of study for Cornellians this year. Not only were classes moved online for the first time, it marked the longest period (six months) since 1853 that the vast majority of students were absent from the Hilltop.

But in 1918-19 the Hilltop experienced an even more dramatic pandemic upheaval.

The school year kicked off after a lull in the 1918–1919 influenza pandemic that would strike one-third of the world’s population before running its course. World War I was raging in Europe. Cornell classes began late, on Oct. 1, because of the formation of a Student Army Training Corps (S.A.T.C.) on campus with an Army-prescribed curriculum. By requirement of the S.A.T.C., classes switched from semesters to trimesters.

The pandemic returned the same month classes began. More than 100 of the 135 cadets contracted the flu. Fortunately, all recovered.

The Cornellian reported frequently about quarantines. In October all nonS.A.T.C. students were given assignments for study in their rooms and a quarantine was in place. In anticipation of its end, local merchants were preparing for a run on stores, since “most students are anxiously awaiting the notice that they may roam about as they please.”

On Dec. 17, The Cornellian reported that the

college (apparently not including the S.A.T.C.) had mostly been spared of the flu.

“During all this period when the influenza has raged continuously at other colleges, Cornell has been practically immune,” according to the article. “Although a few cases developed, not one death resulted either in the S.A.T.C. or among the rest of the student body.”

The lead story in that issue, however, illustrates another dark reality of that year. Roe Howard, Class of 1917, recipient of the Distinguished Service Cross for heroism, was killed in action. Other Cornellians had preceded him.

Finally, the college considered closing early that fall because of a coal shortage.

The student newspaper issued numerous complaints of frigid classrooms and the Cornell Music Conservatory canceled its “Messiah” performance because King Chapel was closed and the heat turned off.

Things improved after winter break. President Flint visited coal companies in Chicago and the Jan. 22, 1919, Cornellian reported that, “unless something unforeseen arises, and if great economy is still observed, the College will be able to get through the winter all right.”

Indeed, it did. And then, as now, the college adapted—and its students set themselves to learning despite a pandemic.

—By Dee Ann Rexroat ’82

CORNELL COLLEGE ARCHIVES

Members of the Student Army Training Corps at King Chapel. Of the 135 cadets, approximately 100 contracted the 1918 flu, but none died.

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MEGAN CISZEK

LIFE ON THE HILLTOP IN 2020

MASKS, ONLINE COURSES, AND A POWERFUL NEW BLOCK CALENDAR

By Dee Ann Rexroat ’82

extended spring break to build an infrastructure for online STUDENTS WERE SMILING BEHIND THEIR MASKS when learning. We asked every student who could, to stay home for they returned to the Hilltop this fall. After six months away, the rest of the school year. Except for a few essential employees, including two blocks learning online, most students were ready staff worked from home. to return despite a global pandemic.

Within about 18 days—because we can do anything in 18 Eight hundred seventy-five of the 1,002 Cornell College studays—our Office of Information Technology used its skills to dents enrolled during Block 1 lived on campus. Mitigation to enable students around the world to access online class content. allow for physical distancing was in place in every building Faculty reinvented their courses. We increased communicaand each classroom. Staggered class and dining schedules tions with students and their parents, were in place to minimize the size of being transparent about what we didn’t groups gathered at one time. In Block 1 know but were still working on. only five courses were offered in-person.

We needed to extend Meanwhile, faculty rethought the Another 15 courses were online, and 47 block calendar. were hybrid (online and in-person). the flexibility of the block We needed to extend the flexibility COVID-19 signage was ubiquitous of the plan for the next two years across campus. plan for the next two duringblock which we anticipated disruptions The campus was in phase 3 of a fivefrom the pandemic. Incoming Provost phase approach to returning to campus, years during which we Ilene Crawford ’92 and then-Dean Joe based on guiding principles and data provided weekly by a faculty-student anticipated disruptions Dieker brought forth a bold plan for a 10-block flex plan. Faculty approved the research team. Our ability to remain on from the pandemic plan in under a week. campus will hinge on a community-wide Two summer flex blocks were added effort, where each member signs a pledge to the eight-block academic year, offering to be invested in the health of everyone students the opportunity to drop in and out of the school year on campus. Each block, we are testing 200 to 300 asymptomas needed. The 10-block flex plan also makes it possible for atic students, faculty, and staff, as well as anyone reporting students to graduate a semester or a year early, and prepares the symptoms through our daily symptom checker or identified college to program for nontraditional and part-time students, through contact tracing. The rapid response tests provide early which has been challenging in the past. warnings of possible outbreaks.

“By adopting this plan we have been proactive, rather than BOLD STEPS reactive, and have begun to reimagine Cornell in a future that would forever be changed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Thanks The changes on campus since the pandemic emerged in to our 42 years on the block plan, we’ve been able to do what March are unprecedented—beginning with a pivot to online virtually no other school can do. And, as other schools explore learning for the first time. models like the block plan, we are able to benefit from our During the initial days and weeks of the pandemic, Cornell 26

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42-year head start,” wrote President Jonathan Brand and Senior Marketing Director Jen Visser in a presidential white paper.

Cornell became a resource for other schools, a number of whom adopted a modified block schedule for fall 2020. It turns out the block plan is a powerful and nimble mode of education in a pandemic—students can be on or off campus as the situation dictates, and hands-on courses can move to blocks when students are in the classroom. And, students are with just one cohort per month, usually 14 other students, based on our average class size. At a large university students take classes with hundreds of others in an average week.

Several faculty even were able to refocus their courses to address the pandemic.

The investments made in 90 days in response to a pandemic ultimately strengthened Cornell.

college’s first Virtual Commencement, which reached a larger audience than could an in-person commencement. Professor of Theatre Scott Olinger created an outdoor show that featured the faces of every member of our graduating class projected on College Hall or Norton Geology Center. “I just hope that they understand that we really do miss them,” Olinger told KCRG, the local ABC-TV affiliate. “That the faculty and the staff and the administrators miss them terribly. We care about them.

We want to celebrate their achievements.”

Over the summer approximately 15 task forces and subcommittees worked to develop plans and contingencies. We significantly modified how we safely learn, live, work, dine, socialize, and compete on campus (the Midwest Conference suspended all league competition through 2020).

“Cornell has been educating students since 1853 and has weathered many difficult times throughout our history. We will also weather the current pandemic,” wrote Brand and Visser in their white paper. “It has been exhilarating, joyful, and, yes, a bit exhausting for the entire campus. There are many uncertainties ahead, yet we feel prepared to meet them—we know we are a community of Cornellians who will rise to the challenge of changing conditions and keep our Cornell spirit, and quality of education, alive.”

COSTS AND CELEBRATIONS The college lost over $1 million in refunds to students for room and board in spring alone, while costs to upgrade technology initially totaled $121,000. We secured just under $4.5 million in a forgivable loan from the federal Small Business Administration, and received about $422,500 in CARES emergency funding for students. An additional $422,500 of CARES funding was awarded to Cornell for operations costs.

We also created our own Cornell Cares fund, supported by alumni and other donors, to help mitigate the financial burdens to our students and families as they studied remotely.

The community celebrated the Class of 2020 with the

WEB EXTRA

MEGAN CISZEK

Read the full story on how Cornell responded to the onset of the pandemic, in the white paper “One Course At A Time as a pandemic response”: crnl.co/pandemic

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CLASS DELVES INTO THE SCIENCE OF COVID-19 Professor Barbara Christie-Pope was faced with doing something she’d never done before—teach a biology class completely online—when she realized she had a unique opportunity.

Instead of teaching a course about genetics, she could make the class relevant to students displaced by the global pandemic.

She surveyed her students and they agreed.

Because Cornell offers classes One Course At A Time on the block plan, she was able to completely revise the Block 8 course, retitled The Science of COVID-19.

Christie-Pope arranged online visits from six healthcare experts confronting the pandemic in various fields and in different parts of the country.

“These experts included a Cornell graduate, doctors, a nurse, professors, and an epidemiologist,” said junior Molly Nyberg, from Castle Rock, Colorado. “Being able to hear their stories about how the pandemic has affected hospitals in terms of the number of patients, patient care, and the impact due to the lack of personal protective equipment was eye-opening as they shared their experience with patients and the pandemic as a whole.”

Mastering their understanding of the pandemic gave the students a small sense of control over the unexpected turn their lives had taken.

“Being able to have a class focused on an event that is currently impacting the world was helpful during this time full of unknowns,” Nyberg said. “The class allowed me to learn more not only about the current pandemic but about other pandemics, epidemics, and infectious disease in general.”

Christie-Pope said she was grateful the flexibility of the block plan opened the way for this course: “Our calendar allows me the flexibility to take the current pandemic and turn it into a teaching moment that is relevant to our students’ lives.”

Junior Molly Nyberg took the Block 8 course The Science of COVID-19, from home in Castle Rock, Colorado.

ONE ONLINE CLASS AT A TIME Cornell moved quickly to establish distance learning last March in response to the looming novel coronavirus pandemic. Faculty retooled their Block 7 and 8 courses, and they continue to teach mostly online and

REENACTING THE RENAISSANCE THROUGH TECHNOLOGY

hybrid courses this fall—even with most students back on campus.

By shifting her class to the virtual realm, Professor Michelle Herder found a better way to teach Renaissance history.

Her course, Trials and Transitions of the Renaissance, uses role-playing games to explore politics in 15th-century Italy and 16th-century England. Each student is assigned the role of a historical individual in each era, and the course typically spills out of the classroom for negotiation, politicking, and deal-making.

When the course moved online, Herder’s challenge was to recreate that immersive environment. She met the challenge by using Slack, a free chat platform used in many workplaces.

Students posted their speeches as text in the main discussion

During the process, some Cornell professors found new and even improved ways to teach and connect with their students online.

Here are a few of their stories.

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channel, and debate followed in those channels. Students could use private channels with each other to negotiate in smaller groups or comment on what was going on in the main channel.

In addition, studying only one course created an immersive environment that perfectly suited their role-playing.

Eli Craig had taken another of Herder’s role-playing classes and was able to compare the in-person and online approaches.

With Slack, he said, it was much easier to contact people through messages than it was to find them on campus.

“One of the things I appreciated most about the course was that Professor Herder adapted the class to work well within the online medium, instead of attempting to replicate the classroom in digital form,” he said.

networks to bring expertise from museums around the country to her students.

Senior Fiona Dwyer said the course actually was more expansive as an online offering.

“As much as I miss life on campus and having classes in person, this class expanded and grew because of remote, digital learning,” said Dwyer, of Indianapolis, Indiana. “Due to the course being moved online, it spanned the entire country.

We had weekly Zoom calls with experts all across the U.S., we watched tour videos of all sorts of museums and memorials, and we explored online exhibits.”

Professor Stewart discovered that Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson, was offering free live digital tours for educators while the site is closed to the public. She engaged a guide to focus on slavery at Monticello to fit with the course’s emphasis on African American history.

After that, she used her network to recreate a course that kept the component of field trips through Zoom tours while also giving students the opportunity to learn directly from public history professionals. Her guests included the

BRING ON THE EXPERTS

MARIO TAMA/GETTY IMAGES

When the pandemic temporarily shuttered the region’s museums, History Professor Catherine Stewart knew she had to move fast to keep her Public Memory and Public History class relevant.

She quickly called on her personal and professional

Fiona Dwyer, Elizabeth Byland, and David Navarro prepared an online exhibit on the National Archives controversy over the altered photograph of the Women’s March that was featured in their exhibit on the women’s suffrage movement.

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coauthor of “Civil Rights Memorials and the Geography of Memory,” the creator of the computer simulation model of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, and staff at the Library of Congress and the Newberry Library in Chicago.

“I came to the realization that virtual learning makes geographical distance meaningless, and that inspired me to think about how I might turn the limitations that came from teaching online into opportunities,” Stewart said. “I realized that I could ask experts in the field, regardless of their location, to join my class and take my students on a personal, virtual tour of a historic site or archive.”

to solidify what he called “tough-to-grasp” course material.

As he was wondering, Professor of Physics Derin Sherman was spending his extended spring break doing just that—reconfiguring his final two block courses of the year to an online format.

“To my amazement, in the matter of a few weeks, Professor Sherman was able to take the whole lab component and transfer it to an online, at-home lab,” said Plotkin, who graduated Phi Beta Kappa. “This class exceeded all of my expectations of not only what could be accomplished in 18 days but, more importantly, what could be accomplished in 18 days in an online format.”

Sherman sprung into action by assembling and mailing take-home lab kits to each student, then continued to come into West Science Hall daily to create online demonstration videos, record lectures, and locate resources such as opensource materials.

TAKE-HOME LAB KITS When Adam Plotkin ’20 first learned he’d be taking Introductory Physics II online from home due to the global pandemic, he was curious how his professor would attempt

Closeup of the components of the Physics II lab kit, provided by Yumeng Tao ’20. Labs included measuring the focal point of the lens, using the lens to form images, and testing the lens equation; measuring the wavelength of laser light with a diode laser module; and measuring the behavior of reflected light rays and image formation on a mirror.

30

C O R N E L L R E P O RT | FA L L 2 0 2 0

Cornellians are offering care, intelligence, and hope in response to the global pandemic that has paused life as we know it.

CORNELLIANS RESPOND TO CORONAVIRUS Dr. Garrett Feddersen ’08, who implemented many changes at his hospital at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis, said that in a pandemic, we help ourselves by helping others.

“It’s been a long time in the United States since we’ve seen anything like this,” he said.

“The more we can look out for each other and help each other, the better off we can be.”

Many Cornellians are first responders. Others are involved in building temporary medical facilities, conducting research, and serving on a national vaccine consultation panel. In a myriad of ways these alumni offer direct and indirect support as we navigate the pandemic.

Do you have a story to share about responding to COVID-19? We invite you to send it to cornellreport@cornellcollege.edu

INTELLIGENCE

HUMAN SERVICES

As chief of staff for the New York City-based global intelligence and advisory firm Ergo, Katy Banks ’15 focused on efforts to provide early intelligence and bold predictions on COVID-19. Partnering with government officials, leading epidemiologists, policy makers, and economists, Banks and her colleagues launched the COVID-19 Intelligence Forum to help decision-makers understand what is coming before it comes.

Rhonda Lieberman ’83 was determined to find a way all 65 of her essential personnel social workers could work from home instead of meeting clients in the Bronx. “Our clients are among the most vulnerable, but my staff is human and were equally worried about their own situations. I am happy to say that within a week, all of my staff were fully equipped to work remotely.”

Emily Zimmon ’12 is the support services director at Willis Dady Homeless Services in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “Our Homeless Prevention team is working to support individuals and families who are fearful of losing their housing due to job loss,” Zimmon reported. “Street Outreach is checking in on clients regularly, while also providing basic necessities such as water.”

A former deputy general counsel at the paper and medical supplies manufacturing corporation Kimberly-Clark, Tamra Thompson Toussaint ’86 was tapped for her knowledge of legally compliant ways of breaking regulation roadblocks, and helped Georgia obtain personal protective equipment (PPE) to keep its citizens safe and healthy.

INFRASTRUCTURE

FIRST RESPONDERS

When Seattle became an early hotspot for the pandemic, John Wilkinson ’90, a superintendent for Prime Electric, oversaw the construction of eight temporary medical facilities. Prime joined forces with other trade unions to bring nearly 1,000 hospital beds to the area by adding temporary trailers and large tents to vacant lots and soccer fields and retrofitting existing buildings.

In March Dr. Perry Cook ’72, an oncologist in New York City, predicted “this is both a medical and administrative crisis with poor planning and limited response. Routine misinformation … is further infuriating.” He provided expertise from the field and answered questions from students in Cornell Biology Professor Barbara Christie-Pope’s Block 8 online course, The Science of COVID-19.

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As director of emergency services for Buena Vista Regional Medical Center in Storm Lake, Iowa, Dr. Garrett Feddersen ’08 implemented many changes as COVID-19 was discovered, such as restricting visitor access and limiting nonessential visits. “If it looks like we overreacted, then we succeeded,” Feddersen said.

Dr. Jeff Kinyon ’98’s hospital in New Jersey is the third busiest ER in the United States on a normal day. When the epicenter of the pandemic struck the region last spring, they moved their ER to the waiting room and set up tents in the parking lot. “What’s been frustrating is how this pandemic has exposed the health disparities in this country and the risk factors for bad outcomes–asthma, diabetes, cardiac disease–being most prevalent in our most vulnerable and underinsured populations,” he said.

Dr. David Hilmers ’72 is deeply dedicated to working on global health initiatives, having served on disaster relief teams and missions in more than 50 countries. In March he decided it was time to return to the U.S. to help fight the coronavirus pandemic in Houston where he serves as a professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine.

TESTING Prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, Jennifer Nielsen Elwood ’98 worked at the State Hygienic Laboratory in Coralville, Iowa, tracking and identifying antimicrobial resistance in patients throughout Iowa. Now she’s testing the COVID-19 specimen swabs during the night shift to keep up with the demand.

MEGAN CISZEK

At the start of the pandemic, Sean Thomas ’96, an emergency room patient care technician in Phoenix, Arizona, reported dwindling supplies. “We started out with what we thought was a plentiful supply of masks, visors, gowns, and gloves, but we’re now starting to see shortages,” he said in late March. “We now have staff making their own masks, so they know that at least they’ll have some level of protection for themselves.”

Mehrdad Zarifkar ’09 has volunteered for the Mount Vernon Fire Department since 2005 when he arrived in town as a Cornell student.

First responder treats emergencies, plans parades Mehrdad Zarifkar ’09, a captain on the Mount Vernon, Iowa, all-volunteer fire department, said the department was pleased with Cornell College’s quick response to the pandemic in March. Cornell students, with the exception of a very few who needed to stay on campus, stayed home Blocks 7 and 8.

“Not having all those people in close quarters helps limit exposure in Mount Vernon. And we are doing all we can to limit exposure and ensure our availability to respond to emergencies,” he says, adding that the downside was losing four Cornell student firefighters.

Zarifkar says everyone in the 32-person department checks in daily to provide their temperatures and fill out a health questionnaire. Those who don’t, can’t go on calls that day. They also are coordinating with the ambulance service to limit the number of responders potentially exposed to patients.

“If you’re inadvertently exposed and in a truck with five people, you just lost five people’s ability to respond for a period of time,” he said.

As a parent of a first-grader, Zarifkar was inspired to come up with programs to keep kids entertained every week while school was out. He hosted a popular Facebook Live online fire station tour and drive-by parades with the new fire truck.

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Chronicling the pandemic for national media As a photojournalist Will Widmer ’04 is drawn close to his subjects. That has made photographing the pandemic especially difficult.

“For photojournalism the normal format is to walk toward it, to get closer. I have to be there. I have to get to know things intimately to tell the story,” says the New Orleans-based photographer who is covering the pandemic for major media outlets including The New York Times Magazine, Washington Post, The New Yorker, and Rolling Stone.

“The stress of covering this, even if not in high-risk situations, is a very different thing than hurricanes or riots or protests, because when I normally assume risk in my work, it’s my decision and I’m making it for myself.

What has felt so different ... is that I bring it (possible exposure to the virus) straight home to my family. Then there’s also a possibility that I’m the risk factor, the super spreader. I keep asking myself, is it worth it to do this work?”

WILL WIDMER ’04

Will Widmer ’04 photographed a mostly deserted Bourbon Street in downtown New Orleans on March 18 for the New York Times. Local and state law enforcement vehicles patrol the area using loudspeakers to encourage locals to go home, and tourists to return to their hotels.

PUBLIC HEALTH Steve Anderson ’75 was named by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to serve on the COVID-19 Vaccine Consultation Panel. A critical component is ensuring public understanding, acceptance, and participation in any vaccine campaign, he said. Anderson is the president and CEO of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.

Darren Rausch ’99, health officer and director of the Greenfield Health Department in Greenfield, Wisconsin, led the efforts of 11 municipal health departments to coordinate their response across sectors, including healthcare, emergency medical services, fire, police, municipal government, and more.

Michael Baca ’13 is part of the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics emergency management team involved in coordinating a statewide community response. He is the clinic administrator for the Center for Disabilities and Development (CDD), part of the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital. Like clinics around the world, CDD transitioned to more virtual and telephonic visits.

LIFE AFTER CORNELL

MIKE TRESSEL ’96

MICHIGAN STATE ATHLETICS

Coaching comes naturally

M

ike Tressel ’96 appeared destined for a career coaching football like his grandfather, father, and uncle. But when it came time for Tressel to enter college, his family encouraged him to pursue other passions.

“The truth is, my dad, uncle, and grandfather all pushed me not to think of coaching as a profession,” he said.

“They wanted me to pursue something else I was interested in, knowing that in the long run I still could go into coaching since it requires no specific major.”

Tressel, who excelled in football and wrestling, ultimately chose Cornell College because of its strong academics and wrestling program.

He became a decorated four-year starter for the Rams in the defensive backfield, a five-time Academic AllAmerican (twice in football, three times in wrestling), an NCAA Postgraduate Scholar, and a three-time Midwest Conference wrestling champion, earning all-America honors in 1994.

In addition, he graduated first in his class and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.

Because of the focus of One Course At A Time, he said, he was able to complete his math major in two years. Only then did he consider pursuing education and exploring coaching.

“Had I been in a traditional program I might not have done that. That’s one neat thing that really benefited me,” he said. “Coaching is teaching, so having a lot of coursework in education is a huge advantage over someone going into coaching just from playing the game.”

“You develop relationships and learn to work with people a lot more at Cornell than you would at a big state university.

You’re working directly with professors, as opposed to passively listening to lectures.”

34

After graduation he earned a master’s degree in sports administration from the University of South Dakota and continued the family legacy.

He’s currently in his 14th year on the defensive staff with Michigan State University, which ranked in the Top 10 Football Bowl Subdivision (the most competitive subdivision of NCAA Division I) in total defense and rushing defense six times during his tenure.

Since the pandemic began he has been meeting on Zoom with about 10 Cornell friends.

“You develop relationships and learn to work with people a lot more at Cornell than you would at a big state university,” he said. “When you’re in 20-person classrooms—and a lot of my math was five to six person classrooms—it’s about relationships. It’s not like sitting in 150-seat classrooms taking notes. You’re working directly with professors, as opposed to passively listening to lectures.”

When asked how else he benefited from Cornell, Tressel related a story about meeting a classmate because she was celebrating her birthday—on his birthday.

“The very first time I ever noticed Megan was in the cafeteria. She was being delivered birthday balloons— probably from a boyfriend—and I thought, ‘oh cool, she has my birthday too,’ ” he said. “We started dating our sophomore year and we’ve been together every minute since.”

He and Megan Frankel Tressel ’96 married six weeks after graduation and have two children.

— DEE ANN REXROAT ’82

DEE ANN REXROAT ’82

C O R N E L L R E P O RT | FA L L 2 0 2 0

Cornell is cutting energy use by 20%.

Faculty are conducting federally funded climate change research. Students initiated reusable to-go meal containers. Alumni are contributing professionally and personally.

Now more than ever, Cornellians are acting on climate change.

Message posted on the doors of Thomas Commons.

By Lisa Gray Giurato and Dee Ann Rexroat ’82 35

DEE ANN REXROAT ’82

Cornell students held a climate strike, marching and chanting through campus and downtown Mount Vernon.

I

n ways large and small, Cornellians are responding to climate change.

Administrators are cutting campus energy use, students mounted a climate strike, and a Cornell professor and his students are part of a federally funded climate change research team. Across the nation, alumni report they are taking action.

Last fall Cornell’s Delta Phi Rho Lecture featured Nobel prize-winning physicist and former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu speaking on “Climate Change and Innovative Paths to a Sustainable Future.” Chu laid out the scientific basis for climate change and showcased its effects: melting glaciers, rising seas, more frequent heat waves, and stronger hurricanes.

Chu argued that no single solution exists to solve the problem of climate change, but instead it must be attacked from many angles simultaneously, from the production and storage of clean energy to the development of plant-based meat substitutes, to decreasing the growth of world population.

WEB EXTRA

See video of the student climate strike at crnl.co/strike

36

C O R N E L L R E P O RT | FA L L 2 0 2 0

Students creating change Cornell students are expressing their concerns.

Cali Pfleger ’20 worked through the college’s Sustainability Task Force and campus food service vendor Bon Appétit to provide reusable to-go containers for campus diners.

“I have taken classes that have provided me with the knowledge and power to implement the goals of environmentally conscious people here on campus,” Pfleger said. “I want to make a lasting impact here at Cornell and help guide a path for those who have the same goals as me.”

In the fall of 2019 students led by then-junior Erin Hosto and the Eco Club held a climate strike. They chanted and marched with posters from the Thomas Commons through downtown Mount Vernon and back to campus where local leaders gave speeches discussing climate change, what can be done to help, and why it’s important to act. In the spring signs showed up on campus to bring awareness to the issue. They said: Dear Earth, Get Well Soon!

Because of Greta Thunberg’s inspiring presence, my wife Susan and I are weaning ourselves off paper towels and plastic containers. We’re

Cornell’s mitigation and awareness efforts

moving to one car, less heating,

Over the decades the college’s central heating plant that once served all of the main campus has evolved from coal-fire to fuel oil to natural gas, but its underground lines were prone to breaking and leaking. It has come offline completely through a bold $5.9 million infrastructure improvement plan that will result in a 20% energy reduction after the first year. The program, which will pay for itself over 18 years with no upfront costs for Cornell, includes installing widespread LED lighting, energy-efficient windows, and heating and cooling systems.

less clothing and processed foods, and we are becoming more consciously aware of the interrelatedness of all

Other ways Cornell reduces energy consumption: • Providing high-efficiency washing machines in all residence halls.

• Placing timers on showers to reduce water consumption.

• Providing natural mosquito control by establishing nesting sites for bats.

• Prioritizing plant-based proteins, sourcing food locally, and reducing food waste by our food service.

creation, including every being on the face of the earth.

David Wilkinson ’64

Faculty contributions The late Professor Emeritus of Geology Herb Hendriks ’40 started one of the first environmental studies programs in the country at Cornell in 1975. For the past decade William Harmon Norton Professor of Geology and Chair of the Environmental Studies Program Rhawn Denniston has researched climate change with Cornell students. They are currently part of a global research team that was awarded a $676,000 National Science Foundation climate change grant.

“Droughts and floods are likely to become more extreme 37

in a warming world, and the area near the Mediterranean Sea appears to be a hotspot for climate change,” Denniston said.

“By studying past climate variability in this region, we hope to better understand what climates may look like there in the future as our planet warms.”

Another longterm faculty-student research project involves studying how fire coral react to warmer oceans. Students of biology professors Craig Tepper and Barbara Christie-Pope collect the coral during courses in Belize and the Bahamas, and students on campus use DNA analysis to determine if specific algal symbionts provide coral with the ability to cope with thermal stress.

Former U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu argued during a

Alumni doing their part David Wilkinson ’64 and his wife Susan of Tucson, Arizona, felt inspired to make changes because of teen climate activist Greta Thunberg.

“Because of her inspiring presence, Susan and I are weaning ourselves off paper towels and plastic containers. We’re moving to one car, less heating, less clothing and processed foods, and we are becoming more consciously aware of the interrelatedness of all creation, including every being on the face of the earth,” he wrote in a spring 2020 class news note.

Cornell Delt Lecture that no single solution exists to solve the problem of climate change, but instead it must be attacked from many angles simultaneously, from the production and storage of clean energy, to the development of plant-based meat substitutes, to decreasing the

JILL HAWK

growth of world population.

Huong Quynh Anh Nguyen ’19 is one of many students who have assisted Geology Professor Rhawn Denniston with National Science Foundationfunded climate research.

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DEE ANN REXROAT ’82 ROBYN SCHWAB AARON ’07

Nobel prize-winning physicist, former U.S. Energy Secretary, and Delta Phi Rho lecturer Steven Chu speaks in King Chapel on “Climate Change and Innovative Paths to a Sustainable Future.”

Jim Schmidt ’70, five-term mayor of Crested Butte, Colorado, took action in 2019 with a goal to have zero emissions, powered by 100% renewable energy, by 2030. In a public meeting to introduce the plan, he explained why his small town was taking on the major endeavor: “The town feels we need to lead in this area,” he said. “If we don’t, who will?”

Due to the global pandemic and the town’s plunging sales tax proceeds, parts of the program have been curtailed but Schmidt says they installed three electric vehicle chargers and started the engineering for a solar farm with the hope they will have the money to construct it in the future.

county, which includes Seattle’s large port,” Eller said. “We were ultimately successful. As a proud Cornell alumna, I’d love to see the college divest its endowment from fossil fuels.”

Look at that beautiful Earth Last fall, Chu ended his talk in King Chapel by showing a photo of Earth taken from Apollo 8 in 1968.

“The astronaut said, ‘We came all this way to explore the moon, and the most important thing is we’ve discovered the Earth.’ It’s pictures like this that put us in the proper perspective,” Chu said. “People say we need space exploration because we can go to Mars after we’ve trashed this planet. No. Look at that beautiful Earth. It’s not too late, but it’s getting later and this is the only place we have to go.”

Amelia Brandt Eller ’06 works with sustainability professionals at corporations to support their communication efforts on the climate crisis, environmental issues, and social justice issues. In her personal life she volunteers with 350.org, a climate action organization.

“Most recently I testified to the King County council in support of a moratorium on new fossil fuel development in our

If you’re working in climate change mitigation or adaptation fields, tell us about it by sending an email with the subject line Dear Earth to cornellreport@cornellcollege.edu

39

LIFE AFTER CORNELL

ZACKEREE KELIN ’01

Fighting for the people

R

“We don’t represent big corporations or the government; we represent people.”

esearching the reconciliation process between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians occupied half of Zackeree Kelin’s ’01 junior year, all under the mentorship of someone who helped reunite some of Australia’s Stolen Generations with their families. A desire to understand how the law impacts Indigenous peoples in Australia and the United States drove Kelin to earn his doctorate in jurisprudence from the University of Iowa College of Law after graduating from Cornell with a bachelor of special studies in inequality and public policy—an interdisciplinary pursuit in the departments of politics and sociology.

Kelin is a member of the Caddo Nation of Oklahoma, as were both of his parents. He grew up in Denver, Colorado, and developed an interest in politics working as a high school student in Washington, D.C., for the first female U.S. Representative elected in Colorado, Pat Schroeder.

Today Kelin serves the public interest at Davis Kelin Law Firm, which he says means that he works for people, and he works toward systemic change so people receive equitable and fair treatment. He was recently appointed to the New Mexico Civil Rights Commission.

“We don’t represent big corporations or the government; we represent people,” Kelin says.

Kelin has dedicated his career to fighting on behalf of those who are not always given a seat at the table.

He’s worked with the Native American Rights Fund, DNA-Peoples Legal

40

Services and, early in his career, he worked as a poverty lawyer on the Navajo Reservation.

“In Indian law you have to have a good grasp of the history when you’re writing briefs,” Kelin says. “Your assigned cases are oftentimes from a long time ago, and you really have to understand ways in which Indian law comes up. Its roots are historically racist, and it’s important to understand that, the paternalism behind it, and the treatment of tribes and Indian people.”

As a trial lawyer Kelin’s work focuses on litigation, and he considers himself blessed to be able to do the kind of work that involves diving deep into research. “We get into the medicine or the science that’s at the root of our cases and we really have to understand the subject matter that we are litigating, which can be complex.

Whether we are dealing with engineers or other expert witnesses, we are constantly learning new things,” he says.

“It’s like liberal arts; you learn a little bit about a lot. We do all kinds of different things.”

At Cornell, Kelin studied sociology because he wanted to understand people—how people work in groups and in society. He was curious about people, interested in political science, and wanted to study Indigenous issues.

And today Kelin finds great meaning in his work, knowing he is helping the people he cares so much about. He sees a future where he continues to assist people whose voices are not being heard and where justice and accountability need to be delivered.

—LISA GRAY GIURATO

Alumni News

Ursula Purwin ’04, Meredith Pope ’04, and Lauren Kocher ’04 (from left) reunited at Homecoming 2019 for their 15th reunion.

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ALUMNI NEWS

CONTRIBUTE

We love receiving updates.

Submit your news by email to classnews@cornellcollege.edu

1940s

were short on money. “As we were wondering what to do next, a traffic cop came over to us and asked what our problem was,” he writes. “We told him our trouble and to our surprise, he offered us four free tickets to the show!

We enjoyed the show and shared two bags of popcorn, arriving back at Cornell late that night!”

Luman Colton ’43, Cedar

Rapids, Iowa, writes that he shall always be grateful for his four years at Cornell, adding, “They made me a better teacher and person than I might otherwise have been.” At age 98, he reports, he is relatively active and ambulatory.

Jim Hardin ’56, Bellingham,

Washington, recalls being required by upperclassmen to wear his beanie under his football helmet during practice.

“Having never played football prior to college, it was even more fun as a freshman,” he recalls.

1950s

Herb Heberling ’52 , Fairfield,

California, still plays tennis, is involved in a bocce league, horseshoe competition, and a duplicate bridge group. He had a major stroke but with immediate emergency response has completely recovered with no therapy needed.

Craig Sidles ’56, Flagstaff,

Arizona, was dean of men at Cornell from 1959–1966. He recalls that both Coach Paul Scott ’29 and Professor Toppy Tull could beat him at pingpong.

Russell Cole ’22 and Arland Christ-Janer were presidents, Howard R. Troyer was dean, and Jean Tompkins was dean of women. He still corresponds with Marilee Dam and Kay and Professor Emeritus of Physics Cot Graber in Mount Vernon.

Gib Drendel ’58 was his Cornell roommate.

Marcia McKeag Hawker ’53, Manchester, Iowa, moved from her home of 40 years into a condo just before the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “I am very happy in it and will be even happier when I am able to have visitors again,” she writes.

Carol Hills Linder ’55 writes she is living happily in Tucker, Georgia, in suburban Atlanta, and always looks forward to reading updates from classmates and others.

Ken McKinley ’57, Kirkwood, Missouri, was widowed for the second time and lives near his five grown kids. He still plays golf, trying for his fifth hole in one.

Wayne Bicknese ’56, West

Union, Iowa, is a retired veterinarian. After successful cancer surgery he developed complications and spent seven months in the hospital, a swing bed, and respite care. He is now at home with kids and grandkids checking in every couple of days.

Gary Wulf ’58 splits his time

between Maine and Mendota, Illinois. His labor relations practice has had unprecedented challenges due to COVID-19.

“Makes me humble and glad, in a way, that there are still things to learn, even for an old dog,” he writes.

Kermit Dirks ’56, Ames, Iowa,

recalls a trip to Chicago with roommate Jim Hardin ’56 and two others during their sophomore year to see a car show.

They stayed in a downtown hotel, enjoying a dinner and big breakfast before starting out for the arena in the morning.

Once there they discovered they

Marion Eustis Noe ’59,

Vancouver, Washington, became a great-grandmother for the second time.

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1960s WEDDING Donna Day Dvorak ’66 to Richard Schimmel ’66, May 1, 2020

Ann Archer Harsh ’61 and David Harsh ’61 , Sturgeon

Bay, Wisconsin, traveled to Conrath, Wisconsin, on July 4 to attend their daughter’s garden wedding. David officiated at the ceremony. One hour before the ceremony a true Wisconsin thunderstorm broke loose, which lasted right up to the ceremony, causing the bride to walk barefoot down the grassy “aisle” through four-inch puddles on the arm of her son.

Carolyn Memler McNee ’62 ,

Littleton, Colorado, lost her husband, Gary McNee ’61 , on Feb. 14, 2020. She is thankful for the love of learning acquired at Cornell and still takes online courses. Her granddaughter Kelsey Jamison—the daughter of Matt Jamison ’89 and Jody McNee Jamison ’89 —plans to enter Cornell in the fall.

Ernest Norris ’63, Pittsboro,

North Carolina, and his wife Ann sold their mountain home, rented a condo, started building a new retirement home just south of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and spent a few months in Europe while it was built.

“COVID-19, as horrible as it is, has provided some respite from the feverish pace and allowed time to contemplate the importance of friends, old and new,” he writes. “My time at Cornell was among the best years in my life. I thank you, my friends and classmates, for that.”

Kenneth Phillips ’63,

Grayslake, Illinois, traveled to Taiwan twice and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, once this past year to speak at learning and development conferences.

C O R N E L L R E P O RT | FA L L 2 0 2 0

Cornell College proudly honored these alumni during Homecoming 2020

Rupert Kinnard ’79

Jay Justin ’89

Eddie Moore ’89

Distinguished Achievement

Leadership & Service

Leadership & Service

Longtime president and CEO of

A sought-after diversity consultant,

Cartoonist and graphic artist who

Big Brothers Big Sisters of the

educator, author, activist, scholar,

Mississippi Valley who

and lecturer on social and racial

originated the Brown Bomber, the oldest continuing Black gay comic character in the U.S.

has dedicated his life to

issues; founder of the White

supporting children.

Privilege Conference in 1999.

Tim Zimmerman ’84 Leadership & Service A pioneer in the development and implementation of technical standards for Wi-Fi; his work has five patents and a revolutionary impact on inventory management.

Lindsay Bachman ’11 Young Alumna

TaSheena CunninghamRimmer ’06

Education coordinator at Hope

Young Alumna

Academy in South Carolina,

Assistant general counsel to the

where she values learning among students with special needs, especially those with autism.

Nakyda Dean ’08

Richard Small ’50

Young Alumna

Athletic Hall of Fame

OB-GYN physician serving patients

Chicago Housing Authority, with a passion for the pursuit of

in Malawi and in the Navajo Nation,

Member of the legendary 1947

dedicating her career

national championship wrestling

to bringing quality health care to

team and 1949 MWC champion at 165

underserved populations.

pounds; a giant in Cornell’s history who has made a widespread and

justice and equality.

lasting impact on campus through leadership and philanthropy.

WEB EXTRA

Read more at crnl.co/2020awards 43

ALUMNI NEWS

In mid-June Dennis Bark ’64 reported that there was not a single case of the novel coronavirus where he and his wife live, which is one of three campuses of a retirement community in Portola Valley, California, with 788 residents and staff.

David Wilkinson ’64 , a

retired Methodist minister in Tucson, Arizona, wonders if we can in some ways be grateful for the pandemic, particularly with how we are becoming a planetary family awakening to our oneness with all of creation.

“I’ve already experienced the impact this crisis has had in our neighborhood. We are not shaking hands, nor hosting large gatherings, but there is a feeling of solidarity, concern, and compassion that is genuinely having an impact on our hearts.

We are talking more with each other. Our bodies are six feet apart, but our hearts are increasingly intertwined,” he writes. “If it can happen in our neighborhood, it can happen on planet Earth. Maybe that is cause for gratitude.”

Donna Johnson Wright ’64 , Chicago, Illinois, retired

in 2017 after 30 years working as a Chicago public schools social worker. She and her late husband shared 32 years of marriage and two children. She has an 18-year-old grandson. “I still live in Chicago’s south side and enjoy all that the city has to offer. I was part of the group of Cornellians that became Peace Corps Volunteers. I served in Togo, West Africa, as a teacher, an experience that influenced the direction of my life.”

After teaching and coaching at Cedar Rapids Jefferson High School for 34 years, Robert Becker ’65, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, was inducted into the Jefferson Athletic Hall of Fame. In 2007 he was inducted into the Teachers’ Hall of Fame. “I attribute such honors as an indication of the education I received at Cornell,” he writes.

Richard Chambers ’65 still works and divides his time between Barrington, Illinois, and Naples, Florida, with his

1970s

significant other, Pamela Schiewe. In recent years they have been able to tour Europe and make an annual trip to a Scottish golf club. He was married for 40 years before his wife died in 2008 and has two daughters, one son-in-law, and two grandchildren. “I look forward each year to spending several fall days with Delt brothers in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, playing golf and re-re-re-telling stories about our time at Cornell.”

WEDDING Pamela Rechel ’72 to Deborah Brown, Sept. 22, 2018

Tom McKay ’70, Hampton,

Illinois, appeared on WHBFTV’s “Living Local” to share information about how he is using his most recent novel, “The Old Guard,” to help independent bookstores during the pandemic. He also explained a one-on-one telephone tutorial he is giving titled “Introduction to Writing Short Stories.”

After almost 15 years as a CASA (court-appointed special advocate) volunteer representing the best interests of abused or neglected children in court, Tom Herbert ’66, Hopkinton, New Hampshire, called it quits. This was partially due to his Parkinson’s and also the difficulties caused by the pandemic.

Jackie Lockridge Wallace ’71 , Mount Vernon, Iowa, was

selected as one of the 9 Who Care sponsored annually by ABC-affiliate KCRG-TV. She has volunteered at Miracles in Motion, a therapeutic horseback-riding program, since 1989.

She also volunteers through Cedar Valley Humane Society as a pet therapy visitor to care centers and adult daycare facilities.

Paul Lubenkov III ’67,

LaGrange, Illinois, retired from college teaching to devote time to the promotion of his poetry collection “Tap Dancing on the Razor’s Edge,” as well as to work on a book of interlocking short stories. “Or as the classic rock group The Who so perceptively sang, ‘Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss,’” he writes.

Following retirement from Disney’s legal department after almost 40 years, Lee Schmudde ’72 , Celebration, Florida, plans to complete his family’s 50-state vacation goal and 50-country travel goal this year. He has been asked by Disney to become president of a subsidiary supporting military families but will continue traveling with his wife, children, and grandchildren. He writes that “experiential education is key in this time where liberal studies are de-emphasized in schools.”

Aleta Grillos Trauger ’68,

a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee in Nashville, became the first woman to receive the American Inns of Court Professionalism Award in the Sixth Circuit. “Judge Trauger has demonstrated extraordinary industry, character, and intellect in every position she has held in her distinguished career,” her nominators wrote. “Even more remarkable is the fact that, throughout her career, she has been the first or one of the first women to hold each position.”

Jane Stave-Viemeister ’72 ,

Carmichael, California, retired in July after 45 years of teaching piano and music classes. At her most recent position at Sierra College, she was chair of the music department for six years.

Her plans are to create a website and populate it with a backlog of a variety of pedagogical levels of original piano pieces.

She’s also downsizing her large collection of scores and books, childproofing for visits from her grandson, and enjoying pool time in the afternoons. “My wife and I enjoy our two yappy dogs and large black cat and look forward to what’s next!” she writes.

Michele Merrell Bryan ’73,

St. Louis, Missouri, retired from private practice in marriage and family therapy in November of 2019. Along with her recently retired husband, she planned a number of trips for 2020 that were canceled when the pandemic arrived, but she writes that they are blessed to be healthy, financially stable, and have their three grown children and two grandchildren in St. Louis. She was able to have a physically distanced get-together with Cornell roommate Ann Carbee Jones ’73. They phoned Chris “Jenna” Hanus Hiratzka ’73 while together.

William Rapier ’73, Plano,

Texas, and his wife Melanie were exposed to COVID-19 by their daughter and son-in-law, who traveled to Arizona to look for a house, leaving their two boys with grandpa and grandma.

Everyone survived, but until there is a vaccine or immunity booster enhancement, they won’t be able to travel to Arizona for a visit.

Andrea Baker Banning ’74 and her husband began

the pandemic in self-isolation at home in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, after a trip to Maui. She reports that Canada was proactive with early closures and feels fortunate that they have an excellent health care system.

Mike Conklin ’69, Highland

Park, Illinois, is teaching a summer class, “Reel News: Journalism as Depicted in Hollywood Films,” at Lake Forest College via distance learning. Since the class goes for one month, he says it’s similar to the block plan.

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Richard Bentley Jr. ’74 , Haci-

enda Heights, California, spent most of the last 45 years as a United Methodist pastor, mainly in Southern California. For the past 20 years, he has been involved in building international bridges between progressive Methodist churches in the United States and not-so-progressive Methodist churches in other countries. He is married to Ruth and has a daughter named Hope, who is following her father’s footsteps as a minister in Minnesota. He plans to remain active in establishing global connections for peace and social justice.

Wendy Buresh ’74 , Cedar

Rapids, Iowa, recently retired from her solo family medical practice and, pre-pandemic, planned to spend as much time as she could traveling. She has two children and, in Wendy’s words, one of them, unfortunately, followed her into the medical profession.

Linda Chin ’74 , Concord,

Massachusetts, has been practicing international trade and business immigration law.

She has four children, is an avid vegetable and flower gardener, and even more avid world traveler. Before the pandemic she traveled about four months of each year.

Ann Edmonds ’74 , Rye, New

York, worked for a bank for over 40 years and has retired. She spends time gardening, sewing, and traveling.

Susan Even ’74 attended

medical school and has been practicing family medicine in Columbia, Missouri. She served as director of student health for the University of Missouri. She has two sons and one grandson.

Jerry Gale ’74 , Brooklyn

Park, Minnesota, volunteers for Democratic political campaigns in Minnesota and occasionally posts to a blog at mndemsvolunteer.com

Lisa Gillis-Keating ’74 ,

Darien, Illinois, has worked as a real estate agent for over 35 years. She also works as a fundraiser for a real estate political PAC that protects homeownership rights. Lisa is married and has one son and three grandchildren.

Nancy House-Winiecki ’74 ,

Dyer, Indiana, retired about 10 years ago after working for 33 years as a teacher, coach, and guidance counselor. Nancy reported that she, Wendy Buresh ’74 , Barbara Bartlett Spalten ’74 , and Jennifer Nielsen Erbes ’75 took a vacation in April to Paris and London. She has two children.

William Maxson ’74 , St.

Louis, Missouri, coached swimming after Cornell, then got married and decided he needed to earn more money. He entered the financial planning business and has been with the same firm for 37 years. He became a managing partner in 1996. During this time, he stayed active in swimming. He has been on the USA Swimming board of directors for more than 30 years and was president of USA Swimming for four years. For the last eight years, he has served on the board of the USA Swimming Foundation. Bill spends time in Fort Myers, Florida.

Following graduation, Marcia Radosevich ’74 , Wellington, Florida, earned a doctorate and taught sociology on the East Coast for a few years. Then she went into the private sector and started a health care IT company. She ran it, took it public, and then sold it after nine-and-a-half years. For the past 20 years she has been busy riding horses, sitting on corporate boards, and investing in health care IT start-ups.

Regarding the next 45 years, Marcia said she is investigating several opportunities, including starting a living seed cooperative to help prevent the extinction of certain seeds.

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ALUMNI NEWS

Barbara Bartlett Spalten ’74 , Uniontown, Ohio, is retired after spending over 27 years working at Paychex. She has two children and two grandkids. Prior to the pandemic she spent her time volunteering, going to the gym, visiting friends, and traveling.

After Cornell Elizabeth

Marbach Thompson ’74 ,

Elmhurst, Illinois, taught briefly, then went to graduate school and started at the futures market in Chicago. She was there during an exciting time as the market expanded into other commodities. She retired about 20 years ago and has focused on raising her stepson and traveling with her husband.

After many successful years working in business, education, and government, Mark Weston ’74 retired to Estes Park, Colorado, where he hikes in the mountains three times a week. He posts pictures from his hikes on Facebook to make everyone else jealous of what he sees outside his front window.

Steven Anderson ’75, McLean, Virginia, was named by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to serve as a member of the COVID-19 Vaccine Consultation Panel. Producing a vaccine is one piece of the task, but another equally critical component is ensuring public understanding, acceptance, and participation in any vaccine campaign. Steve was also selected to serve as chair-elect of the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) and as chair of the ASAE Research Foundation board.

Ronald Farrier ’75, Columbus Junction, Iowa, retired from the John Deere business after 20 years but still farms around 2,000 acres. He and his wife celebrated 43 years of marriage and have five grandchildren.

Jane Griesy ’75, Two Harbors, Minnesota, reports that her grandkids are such blessings and joys.

Nancy Wickersham Haaheim ’75 and Gary Haaheim ’75, Chaska,

began a COVID-19-related leave of absence from the local bakery in mid-March while Gary’s substitute teaching job also vanished. They are strictly quarantining due to their high risk status. They report enjoying their time at home and keeping in touch with their four kids via Facebook video chats. Nancy is deeply involved with a local political campaign for the Minnesota Senate.

Three years ago Bob Pierce ’75, Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, was reacquainted with a widowed high school friend—and last summer they enjoyed a honeymoon in Paris, with side trips to Monet’s garden as well as the Normandy beaches.

He retired in February and is enjoying more control over his schedule, home projects, catching up on reading, and spending time with his wife.

“During my visits to Florida to see Pam, I was privileged to get reacquainted with [the late] Charles Milhauser. I am glad I got the chance to thank him for all he did for me. His response was: ‘So, I didn’t ruin your life?’ Most assuredly he did not.”

Bruce Hillner ’75, Richmond,

Virginia, is 90% retired with lingering involvement in a research project. Following a 2018 kitchen renovation, Bruce continues to be delighted each day at home with fresh coffee from the Miele built-in coffee maker that complements his three-newspaper habit. He still runs regularly and travels domestically and internationally with friend Tricia. Bruce has two grandchildren.

Bill Smale ’75 sold his

dwellings, landed in Thailand to go scuba diving, got locked down in Thailand, and then banned from entering his country of residence, Japan.

After all hotels closed in his area, he found a hotel in the next province where he became the only customer and was granted a huge discount for the suite room with private patio, free use of a motorcycle and free dogs and cats to enjoy, not to mention the short ride to the beach. His stay enabled the owner to eat and pay basic bills.

Thailand is granting refugees visa amnesty until Sept. 26, “which should give me time to plan the great escape to Japan, Croatia, or any other country that will accept an old American with two backpacks, now my only possessions,” Bill writes.

He is keeping a travel blog at folksytravel.com

Kent Knopp ’75, Monticello,

Iowa, is retired and still working on his old house and caring for aging parents.

Yvonne Bauer Livingston ’75, Aurora, Colorado, is

semi-retired and self-employed doing property management and FCC licensing. Her two girls are now in their 30s, and she has one grandson.

Molly McMahon ’75,

Rochester, Minnesota, is an endocrinologist at the Mayo Clinic, specializing in caring for critically ill patients who require intravenous nutrition or tube feeding. She is president of the Mayo physician staff and of the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. She enjoys summer and winter sports at their family cabin in northern Wisconsin near Hayward.

John Guthmann ’76, St. Paul,

Minnesota, writes that Cornell prepared him for an unpredictable world. He recently called upon his history degree to write an article, “Clara Anderson vs.

City of St. Paul: A Woman’s Fight To Save Her Job in the Face of Discrimination” for the Ramsey County History magazine.

Robert Obst ’75, Roswell,

Georgia, works as a psychologist in Atlanta. Along with his wife Carol, a psychiatrist, they run a clinic in Atlanta. He enjoys trail running, tennis, music, books, and reflecting on fond memories from the Cornell years.

Minnesota, report that Nancy

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In 2013 Ann ScholtenSampson ’76 began a one-person business to provide editing of college and university-level papers, proposals, and articles written in English by non-native speakers in the Netherlands. Joining a countrywide association of other expats doing similar work helped in many ways. “But thanks to the basis of liberal education followed by medical technology and medical geography (and 34 years with a physicist), I can tackle nearly any subject. The fun part is learning something from every assignment!” she writes.

Richard Harris ’77, McLean,

Virginia, is working in his third “career.” After 26 years in the U.S. Marine Corps and 13-plus years in the Department of Homeland Security, he is currently working for the MITRE Corporation helping the U.S. and foreign governments increase their cybersecurity capacities.

This work has taken him to Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe over the last couple of years. He and his wife of 35 years have lived in the same house for 15 years, which is the longest he’s lived in one place since his four years at Cornell.

Harley Newell ’78, Minneap-

olis, Minnesota, welcomed his fourth grandchild in March. He still enjoys taking family and friends out on Lake Minnetonka, golfing, reading, and staying ahead of house projects. He also reports that the pandemic precluded the Boyz of Tarr Hall from attending their fourth annual Get Down Days celebration at the Iowa farm of Karl Kost ’77. While sheltering in place, Brian Tyndall ’78 has been hosting a Zoom call so a few of the fellows (including Harley and Rob Lothrop ’78, Gordy Hellwig ’78, John Day ’78, Jay Burhans ’77, Dan Morse ’77, and “Dandy” Don Fraker ’77 ) can keep in touch and share their stories, book, and movie or show reviews, and family happening updates. He reports: “We are all doing well and in good health (maintaining our sanity may be another thing though).”

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Victoria Martin Phipps ’79, Houston, Texas, retired

from her partnership at Littler Mendelson in Houston and started working as a hearing officer at Texas A&M University.

She and Darryl Phipps ’77 celebrated 42 years of marriage in December. Both of their children are lawyers in Houston.

They love to babysit their two grandchildren.

1980s

Jeff Etienne ’81 , Richfield,

Minnesota, retired in 2017 after 32 years teaching and coaching in Richfield. In retirement he works as an educational and health-wellness consultant.

Laurence Kinsella ’81 , St.

Louis, Missouri, was featured in the online Bicycling Magazine article “Why This Neurologist ‘Spin Doctor’ Wants You to Keep Riding: Physician Laurence Kinsella Believes Movement is Medicine—and Teaches Spin Classes to Prove It.”

In addition to his law practice, Kevin Drendel ’82 , North Aurora, Illinois, is on the board of directors of Administer Justice, a national faith-based legal aid organization; serves on the local advisory board for Administer Justice in the northern Illinois region; and operates the Aurora Legal Aid Clinic. Any Cornell attorneys who would like to open clinics in their areas may contact Kevin at kgd@batavialaw.com: “We will provide $5,000, all of the forms and protocols to open a clinic, training, resources, and ongoing support from the home office in Elgin, Illinois.”

877.MVERNON (683.7666)

Sean Minear ’84 , Weld,

Maine, has taught in a culinary arts program at the Foster Career and Technical Education Center for 27 years, and he’s been executive chef for Camp Kawanhee for Boys for 22 years.

He’s also been president of the Weld Historical Society for 26 years, writing and publishing three books relating to Weld history while volunteering for the society. However, his longest position of employment has been as sexton of the 210-year-old Mountain View Cemetery. He mows, paints fences, rights stones, sells plots, and digs graves by hand. “I have come to realize that my PAAC co-president training at Cornell taught me well in terms of organizing and being involved in one’s community,” he writes.

Jackie Clark ’83 is retiring

from her long and successful teaching and coaching career in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, area. Coach Clark has 22 published books with several publishers covering a wide range of topics, and a bestselling book of poetry in Japan. She will devote more time to writing books.

David Arvidson ’88 and Sue Caponi Arvidson ’88, West

St. Paul, Minnesota, celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary while quarantined together.

Their daughters—Clare, 26;

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Catherine, 23; and Mary Cecilia, 19—helped make the celebration special. Sue was elected to the board of the American School Counselor Association and will serve a three-year term supporting school counselors around the country. She is one of the lead school counselors for the St. Paul Public Schools. Dave recently celebrated over 30 years with Wells Fargo.

David Hanses ’88, San Diego,

California, is executive director of development at Scripps Institution of Oceanography on the University of California San Diego campus. Its research and other programs took him across the country and around the world. Now with COVID-19 he began working remotely March 11. Cornell Zoom happy hours and game nights with friends have been a great way to keep connected.

ALUMNI NEWS

Mary Jo Huebner ’88 joins

Kalamazoo College in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on Sept. 8, 2020, as vice president for admission and financial aid. She recently served as interim vice president of enrollment management at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa.

Janene Panfil ’89, Iowa City,

Iowa, writes that red wine and dark chocolate have been among the keys to surviving COVID-19 in the Panfil-Stumbo household.

Their son kept them well stocked with sourdough bread through the spring, and they’ve been brewing their own kombucha.

1990s WEDDING Kristin Morgan ’95 to Victor DiPrizio ’96, June 20, 2020

Ilene Crawford ’92 and Robert McGuire ’92 moved to

Mount Vernon, Iowa, where Ilene now serves as Cornell College’s provost and vice president for academic and student affairs.

She is Cornell’s first chief academic officer to study under the One Course At A Time curriculum. Robert is an independent marketing consultant. Though a cross-country move during the pandemic was challenging, they love being back after 28 years away, and they’re looking forward to getting to know the region and their new neighbors better.

Ari Maduff ’92 , Flossmoor,

Illinois, reports that since 2015 he’s had some interesting court cases. He argued the case of Pension Litigation to the Illinois Supreme Court, which ruled 7-0 to strike the Illinois pension fix as unconstitutional, and got the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to reinstate a $120,000 sexual harassment jury verdict after one of the most exciting oral arguments he had ever had. He argued U.S. v.

Bales (the Kandahar Massacre) to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals. He writes that he is

working from home and doing well, “though my 9-year-old is very frustrated with what must seem to him like being on house arrest for the last four months.”

In June Johnnie Johnson ’97 was named vice president for admission at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, after serving as interim vice president for a year.

He has worked at Transylvania since 2011 and is immediate past president of the Kentucky Association for College Admission Counseling. Johnnie began his admission career as a Cornell student tour guide and, after graduation, as an admission counselor at Cornell.

Kaitlynn Lewis Griffith ’93, Coralville, Iowa, is beginning her life as an empty-nester as the last of her four children is off to Northeastern University in Boston in the fall. She will be looking into new hobbies and volunteer activities.

Chae Couser Rice ’94 , Cedar

Rapids, Iowa, taught private vocal lessons for 30 years and retired last year to care for her mother. She homeschooled all her children (ages 23, 21, 18, and 11) and enjoyed her mom role immensely.

Cheyenne McClure Martin ’97, Mountville, Pennsylvania,

Lisa Kruis Pavalon ’95,

Plainfield, Illinois, had an awesome time attending the small wedding of Kristin Morgan ’95 and Vic DiPrizio ’96 on June 20, 2020. Others in attendance included Adam Lindenlaub ’96 and Kim Bever Alles ’95. stead, Iowa, taught history classes at Cornell during Blocks 3 and 4 this past year. He is a park ranger at the Herbert Hoover National Historic Site in West Branch.

Jack Lumanog ’96, Atlanta,

Georgia, was promoted to 4th Degree Master Black Belt in the Korean martial art of Tang Soo Do Moo Duk Kwan, a discipline he has studied since he was in sixth grade. For two consecutive years Jack has held three Top 5 world titles in the North American Sport Karate Association as a competitive martial artist under his own organization, Lumanog Martial Arts.

Michael Helgens ’05 to Josh Molitor, July 4, 2019

Christina Lorraine Brady ’07 to Chad Everett Stone, Sept.

21, 2019

Lydia Brock ’07 to Joel Richardson, Oct. 11, 2019

BIRTHS & ADOPTIONS Aubrie Allard, May 1, 2020, to

In 2019 Wendy Miller ’98, Byrnes Mill, Missouri, went on a northern Europe trip with her mom and 9-year-old, visiting nine countries: England, Scotland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Estonia, Russia, and Finland.

Sadie Mae Parizek, Oct. 3, 2019, to Trisha Parizek ’04 and Chuck Gent

RJ Holmes-Leopold ’99,

Millie Rose Lienemann, April 11, 2019, to David Lienemann ’05 and Sydney Lienemann

Kathleen Megonigal ’99,

Fort Worth, Texas, accompanied her mom on a trip to Hawaii last year. “Mom’s getting older, so a trip together is a special memory experience I’ll treasure—even though I told a security guard not to find my lost mom!” she writes.

48

WEDDINGS

published a novel, “Onyx:05” under her pen name W. C. McClure.

Eagan, Minnesota, was elected to serve as an inaugural co-chair of the Voice of the Liberal Arts Committee of the Liberal Arts Career Network (LACN), a consortium of 41 top U.S. liberal arts colleges. He will also begin the executive doctorate in higher education management program at the University of Pennsylvania in August. He and his husband, Marvin Holmes-Leopold ’11 , live with their four-legged kids Tazz and Carlee.

Peter Hoehnle ’96, Home-

2000s

Tara Drollinger Allard ’04 and Mark Allard

Amelia James and Miles Amir Bangura, March 27, 2020, to

Andrea Arzuaga Bangura ’05 and Yusuf Bangura

Logan Olivier Brock-Richardson, June 18, 2020, to Lydia BrockRichardson ’07 and Joel Richardson Caleb James Knorr, Jan. 16, 2020, to Kristin Krile Knorr ’07 and Michael Knorr Robert Sebastian Mosetick, May 23, 2020, to Kate Mendenhall Mosetick ’09 and Ben

Mosetick ’11

Terri Sonnek LeBlanc ’00,

Marion, Iowa, is co-owner of Swamp Fox Bookstore in Marion.

Their goal with the independent bookstore is to open in a larger space in Uptown Marion when it becomes available. “But for now, we are finding our footing and talking to the community about the kinds of books they want to see on our shelves,” she writes.

Star Simmons ’12 married Shawn Wall in July 2019, and they celebrated their marriage on Nov. 2, 2019, in Dubuque, Iowa. Cornellians present, from left, were Robin Dye Wall ’87, Chris Dean ’08, Kara Federow ’09 with Jace, Star Simmons Wall ’12, maid of honor Katie Walusiak ’10, bridesmaid Tara McConohy ’12, and Hannah Garvey ’15.

Phi-O sisters reunited in Florida in February 2020. From left are Louesa Runge Fine ’80, Ann Parker Foote ’79, Darlene Harbuziuk Melton ’80, Karen Smith Sumner ’81, Lori Zippe Ford ’81, and Chris Stahl Rebora ’81.

49

ALUMNI NEWS

Heather Carmichael Scoville ’00, Ladora, Iowa,

was appointed to the 2020-21 Iowa Science Leadership Team, made up of science teachers, curriculum consultants, and administrators who shape the future of science education in Iowa. Her son, a high school senior, planned to attend Cornell’s One Course Summer Institute that was canceled because of the pandemic, but is considering making the Hilltop his college home.

Cornell College Trustee Harper Reed ’01 , Chicago, Illinois, has been named as one of the Tech 50 in Crain’s Chicago Business, which says its 10th edition of the list is mostly for all-stars. The article says, “Reed, 42, is one of Chicago’s most celebrated technologists. He went from chief technology officer at T-shirt company Threadless to Barack Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign before launching mobile-commerce startup Modest, which sold to PayPal in 2015.”

Anna Norstedt ’02 , St.

Paul, Minnesota, lost her grandmother at age 95, exactly 21 years after her grandfather’s death. Once the pandemic arrived her work with homebound teaching and banquet serving was shut down, although she was able to continue work with other tasks, and was hired for summer school. “I am currently getting to know the Little Free Libraries, C-SPAN, public access channel, Hallmark Christmas specials, and any murder shows,” she writes.

Ryan Devereux ’03 has been named principal of the 7-12 grades at Belle Plaine, Iowa, Community Schools.

Tara Drollinger Allard ’04 ,

Stacy, Minnesota, and husband Mark welcomed their third child, Aubrie Esther Allard, May 1. Tara continues to enjoy her job as a special education teacher at Roseville Area Middle School.

Elizabeth Ashe ’04 works as

Chelsea Yates Sims ’06,

the exhibit and events technician for American University in Washington, D.C. She is lead curator for “Not So Concrete,” an exhibition that went online with a custom-built viewing room at ashe-and-norton.com, supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Iowa City, Iowa, was a student worker in Cole Library when Jean Donham was director, studied and collaborated with Jean in graduate school, and now is coauthor of the fourth edition of Jean’s “Enhancing Teaching and Learning: A Leadership Guide for School Librarians” (2020). “I approached updates from the point of view of a new or practicing librarian and asked myself what I would have wanted to know that wasn’t already included in the text,” she reports. “Diversity and inclusion were among the essential elements to expand in this edition, as well as an articulation of the connection between makerspaces, coding, and other recent trends to the mission of school libraries.”

Chelsea is a teacher librarian at South East Junior High in Iowa City, Iowa, and an active presenter at conferences locally and nationally. She has served in leadership roles within the American Association of School Librarians and American Library Association affiliate organizations.

Trisha Parizek ’04 , South

English, Iowa, welcomed Sadie Mae Parizek on Oct. 3, 2019. She joins siblings Karlee, Jacob, and Mason.

Andrea Arzuaga Bangura ’05, Chicago, Illinois, and her

husband Yusuf welcomed twins on March 27. “Both babies are healthy and thriving, and we are spending lots of quality time together due to giving birth during a pandemic,” she writes.

Addy Free ’05, St. Paul,

Minnesota, became registrar at Amherst College.

David Lienemann ’05,

Albuquerque, New Mexico, and his wife moved to Alaska from Washington, D.C., in 2017. While there he freelanced and worked in the governor’s office. In April 2019 they welcomed baby Millie, and then immediately moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to enjoy some sunshine. David’s book, “Biden: The Obama Years and the Battle for the Soul of America,” recounting his eight years as White House photographer for Vice President Joe Biden, is slated for release Sept. 8.

Ryan Taugher ’06 lives in

Alexandria, Virginia, with his wife Corinne Porter-Taugher, and is director of the Office of Cooperative Threat Reduction at the U.S. Department of State, which implements international training to prevent proliferator states and terrorist groups from developing weapons of mass destruction.

Darius Ballard ’07 was

Nikki Bonar Hinton ’06 and Dustin Hinton ’07 moved

named interim principal of Washington High School in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. “Many of the skills I honed at Cornell have positioned me to get to this point,” he writes. “My education and life science were critical. And, I would be remiss if I didn’t give a special shout-out to Megan Hicks and John Harp. Their investment in me was huge.

And, Marty Condon has spent so much time with me, long

with their four children (Keira, 12; Kiefer, 11; Kealah, 10; Keo, 8) to Fairfield, Iowa, in 2017, where Dustin took a job as an associate enterprise scrum master at Cambridge Investment Research. In June 2020, Dustin was promoted to scrum master manager, responsible for managing a team of 10 scrum masters servicing around 25 teams in the technology organization. Dustin and Nikki were married in 2006 while students at Cornell. Next February, they will celebrate 15 years of marriage.

50

after my undergrad experience had concluded. I was definitely shaped by my experience on the Hilltop.”

Lydia Brock-Richardson ’07, Houston, Texas, was married in 2019 to Joel Richardson and had a baby boy, Logan Olivier, on June 18, 2020.

Kristin Krile Knorr ’07,

Moorhead, Minnesota, gave birth Jan. 16 to Caleb James Knorr. She reports that “returning” from leave during quarantine to work from home with an infant was interesting, but she treasured their bonus three months together before heading back to the office.

Caleb is popular during Zoom meetings. She leads the N.D. Afterschool Network, working to increase access to highquality, safe, and affordable out-of-school programming for Pre-K-12 students.

Gabrielle Read-Hess ’07 and Matt Roberts ’09 bought

a home on an acre of land in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, at the end of July. They have dreams of one day starting a small organic vegetable farm. In the interim, they’re just excited to expand their own gardening and give their fur baby more room to run. Matt is in his 10th year in marketing with Premier Media and Premier Guitar magazine.

Gabrielle is approaching her seventh year working in operations with the Office of Alumni & College Advancement at Cornell, where her career is taking another step forward as she recently took on many new responsibilities.

Jennifer Rutt ’07, Lincoln,

Nebraska, received her doctorate in educational studies (educational leadership in higher education) in May.

Nicholas Creal ’08, Bozeman, Montana, continues to serve Petra Bozeman as associate pastor while also working as a construction project estimator and marketing manager at Golden Eagle Woodwork until he’s asked to be in full-time

C O R N E L L R E P O RT | FA L L 2 0 2 0

ministry. He and his wife have three children and recently closed on their first house—and are trying to grow gardens and raise chickens.

2010s WEDDINGS Twila Zoerner ’11 to Casey Cotter, Dec. 20, 2019

Star Simmons ’12 to Shawn Wall, July 23, 2019

Jacob Fields ’14 to Adrianne Isaacson, Oct. 6, 2019

Haley Severance ’15 to

Matthew Howard, Oct. 27, 2019

BIRTHS & ADOPTIONS Robert Sebastian Mosetick, May 23, 2020, to Kate Mendenhall Mosetick ’09 and Ben

Mosetick ’11 Charlotte Tanguay-Ward, May 14, 2020, to Julia Tanguay ’11 and Christopher Ward Junia Grey Bailey, April 17, 2020, to Calla Holmes-Robbins Bailey ’13 and Peter Bailey Marie Katherine Randall, April 4, 2020, to Olivia Cotton Randall ’13 and Joshua

Randall ’14 Amelia Grace Latow, July 9, 2020, to Alex Latow ’15 and

Kelsey Boss Latow ’15 Greyson Charles Moen, March 11, 2020, to Alexander Moen ’17 and Kayla Moen

Abbey Bavley Kobylinski ’11 , Roeland Park, Kansas, started an Etsy shop called Bleach Bae, featuring acid wash sweatshirts, crops, and tanks. She adopted a chiweenie (dachshund-chihuahua mix) that is “the cutest good boy who ever did chase a squirrel.”

Benjamin Thompson ’12 ,

Melissa Mannon ’13,

Durham, New Hampshire, writes that his sanity depends on Zoom calls with old friends long absent.

Arlington, Virginia, transitioned into state government in December 2020 to be the senior policy manager for value-based purchasing in Virginia’s Medicaid agency. “I know that title sounds like 100% jargon (because it is).

My job boils down to designing economic and nonmonetary incentives to ensure high quality care for members and sustainable costs for the program,” she writes.

Diego Verdugo ’12 , Phoenix,

Arizona, was chosen as a member of the 2020 class of 40 Under 40 by InvestmentNews, a list of top young professionals in the financial planning industry.

Born in Mexico and growing up near the border as the child of Mexican immigrants, Verdugo arrived at Cornell College with $60 in his pocket and some food packed by his mother. At Cornell, Diego relied on both academic and need-based financial aid in order to complete his studies— something he’s very grateful for. In his role at Principal, Diego provides consulting support to financial advisors and their clients around advanced financial planning needs such as retirement, education, and estate planning. He now serves as leader of the corporate affairs team for the Phoenix chapter of the Association of Latino Professionals for America and teaches financial literacy as a volunteer director of Junior Achievement, all while studying for his Certified Financial Planner (CFP) designation and spending time with his family.

David Zabner ’13, Cambridge, Massachusetts, received a master’s degree in computer science from Tufts University, got engaged, and will be teaching computer science as a lecturer at Cornell College this fall.

Narda Aldaco ’14 , Phoenix,

Arizona, enrolled at Thunderbird School of Global Management to pursue her executive master’s degree in global leadership this fall—in pursuit of becoming a foreign service officer and, one day, a diplomat. She bought a house and continues to work for the city of Phoenix as a re-engagement coordinator.

Jacob Fields ’14 , Mine Hill,

New Jersey, is the vice principal at Achieve Community Charter School.

Calla Holmes-Robbins Bailey ’13, Valparaiso, Indiana,

Liane Olson ’14 , Minneapolis, Minnesota, purchased her first home.

and her husband Peter and son Levi welcomed Junia Grey Bailey into the world and quarantine on April 17. She notes that Junia has been in COVID-19 quarantine her entire life.

Kelsey Boss Latow ’15 and Alex Latow ’15, Deltona,

Florida, welcomed a baby girl, Amelia Grace, on July 9. Alex is moving the gym he owns to a new location.

Victoria Johnson ’13, Inkster,

Michigan, completed her Peace Corps service in Tonga in 2019.

She served as an English teacher and facilitator in a small village and worked on community development. “What I am most proud of are the strong friendships I made in different communities and the remodel of my primary school, which included a water tank to provide fresh water to my host village,” she writes.

Roman Meyers ’15, Solon,

Iowa, began his duties as finance officer with the City of Solon in January 2020.

Tianzi Zhang ’15, Seattle,

Washington, successfully defended her dissertation in chemistry from the University of Washington. She was a founding graduate student of the lab where she investigated asthma and kidney disease.

51

Laurel Fraser Capesius ’16,

Los Angeles California, was commissioned as provisional clergy in the United Methodist Church. She was also published in a new devotional called “Speaking Truth: Women Raising Their Voices in Prayer,” which centers on marginalized voices and features clergywomen under the age of 40.

Muriel Grubb ’16, Stillwater,

Minnesota, completed her master’s degree in anthropology with a certificate in geographic information science and technology at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.

Sarah Johnson ’16, Chicago,

Illinois, joined the firm Foran Glennon Palandech Ponzi & Rudloff PC. Sarah earned her juris doctor from Loyola University Chicago School of Law in 2019. She will focus her practice on litigation, with an emphasis on coverage and other insurance-related cases.

Previously Sarah worked as a law clerk for the Chicago Court of Claims under Judge Neil Hartigan, served as a legal extern at Shirley Ryan AbilityLab, and performed research for Professors Cynthia Ho and Jordan Paradise.

Bethany King ’16, a second-

year student in the doctor of osteopathic medicine program at Des Moines University, received the 2020 Bioethics Discipline Award during the College of Osteopathic Medicine Dean’s Award Program. She received the award for demonstrating excellence in intent and performance in the college’s two ethics courses. Bethany was a teaching assistant in ethics for first-year students, was the

Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing

treasurer of the Geriatrics Club, and an educator for a mobile app developed to help pregnant women monitor the well-being of their babies during the third trimester of their pregnancy.

Since 2017 Hana Martin ’16, Duluth, Georgia, has taught Spanish at a large high school outside Atlanta, Georgia, where she lives with her two cats and many plants.

Kaitlyn Christensen ’17, Fort

Collins, Colorado, finished law school at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, Illinois, where she was president of the International Law Society and an editor for the DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal. She worked part time at the global law firm that has hired her, Alvarez & Marsal.

Low-Residency Program UPCOMING RESIDENCY DATES Dec. 30, 2020–Jan. 7, 2021 (online) July 1–9, 2021 cornellcollege.edu/mfa

Gregory Hill ’17, Phoenix,

Oliver Vale ’18, West Des

Arizona, bought a house and has been rewatching “Star Trek: Voyager” for the 100th time between enjoying “Dark,” a German sci-fi time travel show, on Netflix.

Moines, Iowa, is employed by the U.S. Probation Office for the Southern District of Iowa as a U.S. probation and pretrial officer.

Andrew Hanson ’19,

Alexander Moen ’17, Mount

Escondido, California, is the product development engineer at Microtek Inc.

Vernon, Iowa, married his wife Kayla in 2015, transferred to Kirkwood Community College for a nursing degree and, on March 11, their son Greyson was born.

Ryan Wiley ’19, Batavia,

Illinois, works for Woofbeach as a certified dog trainer, teaching pups all sorts of things from basic and advanced obedience to working through behavioral issues such as aggression and anxiety.

Marikate Murphy ’18, Albion,

Michigan, is associate head cross country coach and assistant track and field coach at Albion College.

After graduation Sydney Pratt ’18, Irwin, Iowa, landed a long-term choir substitute teacher position at North Cedar Junior-Senior High School.

Now she’s in her second year of teaching music and talented and gifted at the IKM-Manning School District. She also adopted her first cat.

52

2020s

Morgan Barnard ’20 got a job as a high school English teacher at Pekin High School in Pekin, Iowa, and is moving to a new house in Brighton, Iowa.

C O R N E L L R E P O RT | FA L L 2 0 2 0

In memoriam

Jerry Savitsky

Charlotte Vaughan

Carol Wightman

Jerome “Jerry” Savitsky, Cornell College professor of economics and business who was renowned for challenging students to think deeply and work diligently, died on May 28, 2020, at age 62.

He had just completed 31 years of teaching at Cornell.

Professor Savitsky taught Labor Economics, The Economics of Women and the Labor Market, Industrial Organization, Economics of Sports, and Economics of Crime, as well as Microeconomics and Macroeconomics. His Intermediate Microeconomics course was regarded as the most difficult in the major, and among the toughest in the college.

He brought rigor and passion to the economics classroom. His senior seminars integrated research, writing, and empirical skills. His insistence on excellence motivated many Cornellians to pursue graduate studies in economics, business, and other areas. In recent years, as his interest in applied economics broadened, he developed popular courses in the economics of sports and the economics of crime.

Savitsky earned his doctoral and master’s degrees in economics from Virginia Tech, and his bachelor’s degree in economics and political science from Mercer University. Prior to Cornell he was an instructor of economics at James Madison University and Virginia Tech.

His next-door neighbor in Mount Vernon was a stock car racer and Savitsky began assisting him, eventually becoming his crew chief and spending summers on the race circuit.

He is survived by three sisters and two nephews. A celebration of life was held Oct. 22 on campus.

Cornell College Professor Emerita of Sociology Charlotte Vaughan died Sept. 5, 2020, in Kankakee, Illinois, at age 95.

Vaughan earned her bachelor’s degree from Northwestern University and, in midlife, briefly became a secondary school teacher. She then earned a master’s degree from Illinois Institute of Technology and a doctorate from the University of Chicago, while teaching at Indiana University Northwest and University of Chicago. She was hired in 1972 to chair Cornell College’s Department of Sociology.

Vaughan would ultimately serve the college as assistant dean, director of the Office of Institutional Research, and affirmative action officer before retiring 18 years later in 1990. In 1983 she convened a faculty committee that led to the establishment of the women’s studies program.

One Course At A Time began during her tenure and, in 1992, Vaughan and Professor Chris Carlson conducted a study and found that One Course had engaged the faculty deeply in issues of teaching and learning and had increased student engagement in their coursework.

Her contributions to the field of sociology include co-editing a textbook for introductory courses, chairing the section on undergraduate education of the American Sociological Association, and serving as an on-site evaluator of undergraduate sociology programs. In 1987 the association recognized her with the Hans O. Mauksch Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Sociology.

Survivors include a daughter-in-law, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

Carol Wightman, a lecturer in theatre and communications studies at Cornell College for 25 years, died July 5, 2020, in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She was 68.

Wightman directed the Cornell Speech Team from 1987 to 2012. She coached multiple students to the two major national championships— American Forensic Association National Individual Events Tournament and the National Forensic Association National Championship Tournament—throughout most of the 1990s. And among the team’s accomplishments was having two students in 2001 represent Iowa at the Interstate Oratory Competition, then the oldest and most prestigious intercollegiate speech championship. The persuasive speaking contest accepted two competitors from each state, and Cornell was one of only three colleges nationwide sending both competitors.

She served as officer-at-large in the Mid-America Forensics League, making Cornell the smallest college with representation on the League’s governing board.

Wightman earned a bachelor’s degree in education from the University of Nebraska and a juris doctor from the Nebraska College of Law. She practiced law in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and later taught high school English. She and her husband adopted two babies from Korea before moving to Iowa, where she began her career at Cornell.

Survivors include her husband, Terry, their two children, and extended family.

53

ALUMNI NEWS

Robert “Bob” Reade ’54

James Berry McWethy ’65

College Football Hall of Fame member Robert “Bob” Reade ’54 died July 5, 2020, in Geneseo, Illinois. He led the Augustana College Vikings football program to four straight NCAA Division III national championships from 1983–1986.

Reade, a three-year letter winner in football and captain in 1953, majored in elementary education at Cornell, and was a member of Delta Phi Rho. After graduation he served in the Army. He later received his master’s degree in education from the University of Iowa.

In 1962 Reade was hired at Geneseo High School. His program went 146-21-4 in 17 years and was coming off three straight Class 3A state titles when, in 1979, he accepted the head football coaching position at Augustana. In 16 years at Augustana, Reade compiled a record of 146-21-1. His teams were in the NCAA Division III playoffs 11 times, including 10 straight appearances from 1981-90.

From 1983 through 1987 Augustana won 60 games in a row without a loss. That streak still stands as an NCAA Division III record and is the second longest in NCAA history, regardless of division.

He is a member of the College Football Hall of Fame, Cornell’s Athletic Hall of Fame, and was awarded the Amos Alonzo Stagg Award by the American Football Coaches Association.

He is survived by his wife, Mary Jo, 10 of their 11 children, and their 16 grandchildren.

James “Jim” Berry McWethy ’65, one of Cornell College’s most enthusiastic and generous supporters, died at age 76 on June 22, 2020.

McWethy helped shape the future of Cornell as a Cornell Trustee from 1995 to 2004, and through his ongoing and energetic involvement until his death. He and his wife, Susan, invested in programs across the curriculum, most notably with leadership gifts to the Science Facilities Project; the fine arts, including McWethy Hall, home of the art department; the Berry Lobby in Youngker Hall, home of Kimmel Theatre; and the Berry Career Institute.

McWethy majored in economics and business and mathematics at Cornell and earned a master’s degree in economics from Indiana University, where he also taught economics. He was involved in management of his family’s business, Berry Bearing Company, for 23 years and later operated as an independent businessman in Downers Grove, Illinois.

His business interests included agriculture, golf facilities, restaurants, charity, real estate development, and local politics. McWethy received the college’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 2007.

Shortly after his death the Cornell Board of Trustees passed a resolution honoring him, which stated, in part, that “Jim represented the highest values of Cornell College through his kindness, honesty, generosity, wisdom, unpretentiousness, and loyalty.”

He is survived by his wife, Susan, their two children, and four grandchildren.

54

James S. Cutsinger ’75 Religious studies scholar and author James S. Cutsinger ’75 died Feb. 19, 2020, in Aiken, South Carolina.

He earned his bachelor’s degree from Cornell College in political theory and Russian language and literature, and a doctorate in theology and comparative religious thought from Harvard University. He was a professor of religious studies at the University of South Carolina in Columbia from 1980–2018, where he earned three teaching awards including the university’s highest honor, the Michael J. Mungo Distinguished Professor of the Year award.

Cutsinger was widely published, primarily on comparative religion, the modern Traditionalist School of perennial philosophy, Eastern Christian spirituality, and the mystical tradition of the Orthodox Church. He was a secretary to the Foundation for Traditional Studies and was an authority on the Sophia Perennis, the traditionalist school, and comparative religion. He is best known for his work on Swiss philosopher and traditionalist Frithjof Schuon.

He was a spiritual man himself, one who found incomparable beauty and inspiration in the liturgy, iconography, and music of the Eastern Orthodox Church. He was a man of strict routine, he was a man of humor, and he was a man who liked to eat.

His parents, Madonna and Everett Cutsinger, established Cornell’s highly regarded academic Madonna Cutsinger Award. His survivors include his wife, Carol Prestegaard Cutsinger ’77, two daughters, a son, five grandchildren, and sister Margery Cutsinger Pabst ’66.

C O R N E L L R E P O RT | FA L L 2 0 2 0

Deaths Charles Field ’42, Rochester, Minnesota, March 12, 2020

Lloyd Mueller ’56, Crystal Lake, Illinois, Jan. 17, 2020

Elizabeth Laschanzky ’42, DeWitt, Iowa, May 13, 2020

Janyce Meggers Stephenson ’56, Frankfort, Kentucky, Jan. 31, 2020

Virginia Blocher Kouba ’43, Anamosa, Iowa, Jan. 1, 2020

James Appleton ’57, Mooresville, North Carolina, Jan. 13, 2020

John Tudor Jr. ’43, Nashville, Tennessee, June 5, 2020

Jerome Onan ’57, Zion, Illinois, Feb. 14, 2020

Julina Gylfe ’44, Blue Hill, Maine, March 17, 2020

Wanda Sietmann Smith ’57, Laurel, Iowa, May 25, 2020

Maxine Surry Wasson ’44, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, May 23, 2020

Grey Jewett Jr. ’58, Pensacola, Florida, May 22, 2020

Donald Struchen ’45, New York, New York, June 28, 2020

Thomas Mikelson ’58, Belmont, Massachusetts, April 17, 2020

Phyllis Putnam Minard ’46, Montgomery, Illinois, March 19, 2019

Richard Steiner ’58, Kingwood, Texas, June 26, 2020

Carolyn Neal Palmer ’46, Mount Vernon, Iowa, April 29, 2020

James Craigmile ’59, Glenwood, Iowa, Feb. 20, 2020

Marian Casten Schutte ’46, Postville, Iowa, July 6, 2020

Joann Stuhr ’59, Davenport, Iowa, June 15, 2020

Marian Schueler Siegfreid ’46, Austin, Minnesota, Dec. 17, 2019

Darlene Specht Kellogg ’60, Morro Bay, California, Jan. 14, 2020

Jean Winter Woodburn ’46, Prescott, Arizona, Feb. 19, 2020

James Overley ’60, Rockford, Illinois, May 25, 2020

Mary Christensen Garner ’47, Moline, Illinois, Feb. 7, 2020

W. Kurt Kuker ’61, South Barrington, Illinois, Jan. 30, 2020

Claire Distelhorst Gregory ’47, Bloomington, Indiana, Jan. 2, 2019 Velma Fanning Lawrance ’47, Marion, Iowa, July 5, 2020

Gary McNee ’61, Littleton, Colorado, Feb. 14, 2020

Marjorie Olson Andrews ’49, Durham, North Carolina, April 25, 2020

Jon Andersen ’62, Las Cruces, New Mexico, May 24, 2020 David Arends ’62, Hardy, Virginia, Jan. 24, 2020

Virginia Reeder DeLong ’49, Charlotte, North Carolina, March 25, 2020

Linda Curtis Cuneo ’62, Hickory Corners, Michigan, April 28, 2020

Allen Eliason ’49, Sauk Rapids, Minnesota, May 18, 2019

William Batchelor ’66, Bellevue, Nebraska, May 1, 2020

Jerry Meyer ’62, Manhattan Beach, California, Oct. 18, 2019

Josephine Laible Horst ’49, Waunakee, Wisconsin, March 20, 2020

William McCormick ’66, Tucson, Arizona, March 22, 2020

Georgia Retsinas Sakas ’49, Dubuque, Iowa, Jan. 18, 2020

Duane Schultz ’67, Grants Pass, Oregon, Dec. 14, 2019

Margaret Benner Achuff ’50, Scottsdale, Arizona, April 19, 2020

David Ecoff ’69, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, May 27, 2020

Jeanne Patrick Schoppe ’50, Rockford, Illinois, Feb. 28, 2020

Irwin Tucker Jr. ’69, Woodstock, Illinois, March 9, 2020

Laurel Presnell Upshaw ’50, Tulsa, Oklahoma, June 30, 2020

Terence Bernier ’70, Sarasota, Florida, July 10, 2019

Thomas Wier ’50, Denver, Colorado, July 19, 2019

Ann Hinkhouse ’71, Tipton, Iowa, May 5, 2020

Ruth Drake ’51, Forreston, Illinois, Feb. 4, 2020 Emil Kouba Jr. ’51, Florissant, Missouri, Nov. 25, 2019

Candice Weaver Ruppert ’73, Summerville, South Carolina, June 29, 2020

Charles Kreeb ’51, Coralville, Iowa, June 13, 2020

Nancy Kurz Wood ’74, United Kingdom, Jan. 21, 2020

Ernest Larsen ’51, Jacksonville, Florida, June 7, 2020

Ronald Hardy ’75, Pontiac, Illinois, Jan. 9, 2020

Loraine Todson Moyer ’51, Lexington, Massachusetts, March 5, 2020

Janice Hedemann ’76, Halethorpe, Maryland, April 1, 2020

M. Joseph Pearson ’51, Ann Arbor, Michigan, Dec. 16, 2019

Craig MacMurray ’78, Lake Villa, Illinois, Feb. 28, 2020

Ann Pegram ’76, Bella Vista, Arkansas, May 11, 2020

Mary Jane Proctor ’51, Waterloo, Iowa, July 7, 2020

Elaine Burnet ’80, Des Moines, Washington, June 5, 2020

Emney Igram Shousher ’51, Toledo, Ohio, June 2, 2020

Julie Cruise ’80, St. Louis, Missouri, Feb. 21, 2020

Robert Anderson ’52, Freeport, Illinois, Aug. 17, 2019

Craig Parkinson ’80, Rocklin, California, Dec. 20, 2019

Ruth Anderson Erickson ’52, Folsom, California, April 10, 2020

Raymond Dochterman ’83, Marion, Iowa, May 16, 2020

Barbara Jackson Tade ’52, San Diego, California, Jan. 1, 2020

Jamal Abdullah ’88, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Jan. 12, 2020

Harold Eakes ’53, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, Nov. 27, 2019

Alan Voecks ’90, Mundelein, Illinois, Jan. 10, 2020

Joyce Olson Barrett ’54, Folsom, California, Jan. 8, 2020

Tracie Gibson ’91, Northampton, Massachusetts, Oct. 16, 2019

Ann R. Hemken ’54, Alden, Iowa, July 14, 2020

Jason French ’99, Denver, Colorado, June 25, 2020

Dorothy Cox Stewart ’54, Boulder, Colorado, Jan. 17, 2020

Meghan Powers ’15, Wilton, Iowa, Jan. 13, 2020

Betty Harper Williams ’54, Hobe Sound, Florida, June 1, 2020

Robert Lloyd, faculty, Lynchburg, Virginia, June 19, 2020

55

L A S T WO R D

AN EXPRESSION OF LOVE: The BLM movement and America By

Clanton C.W. Dawson Jr. ’76

T

o be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time. I love America more than any other country in this world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.

—James Baldwin

BLM movement is an interracial, intergenerational movement, while the civil rights movement was generally Black.

I am not discounting white Americans who stood with civil rights activists. I am simply positing that when people think of the civil rights movement, they think of it as Black. That cannot be said of BLM. Why is the name Black Lives Matter? Do not all lives matter? Of course, all lives matter. The problem is that the history of America is one that poignantly states Black lives do not matter other than for the economic gain. For 400 years Black lives were used to build the American economy and protect American interests, but were simultaneously regarded as little more than animals. The chronicle of slavery, lynching, segregation, and discrimination is undeniable. So, to assert that Black Lives Matter is to powerfully posit that all lives cannot matter until Black, Brown, and Indigenous lives matter.

The Black Lives Matter movement is a movement that unequivocally states that we who are people of color love America. This is our home. We have tears in the bricks and prayers in the mortar of America. Our love for America demands a change in America: a change that fulfills the ideals of America. There can be no love without justice, for injustice toward some is injustice toward all.

This is a difficult time in America. We are confronted by three world-changing phenomena: A worldwide pandemic that presents us with a new normal; an unemployment rate that has devastated our livelihoods; and a cultural shift that calls for justice and an end to police brutality. It is the third of these I wish to briefly address.

The call for justice and an end to police brutality is being led by the Black Lives Matter movement. It is a movement that is both similar to and different from previous American movements for social justice. It is like previous social justice movements in that it makes all Americans reevaluate how systemic racism is part of the fabric of American life. Like the Black Lives Matter movement, the civil rights movement of the 1960s caught the attention and imagination of America. The methodology of nonviolent direct action proved that right was superior to might, and that a change in law was fundamental to creating a better America.

The Black Lives Matter movement is different in that it is not dependent on “charismatic” leadership. It is impossible to think about the civil rights movement without thinking about The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at its leadership.

The BLM movement is truly a grassroots movement with various organizers throughout the U.S. and the world. The

Clanton C.W. Dawson Jr. ’76 is adjunct professor of philosophy and religion at Columbia College in Columbia, Missouri, Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, and Moberly Area Community College Columbia Campus. He is the first African American to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Missouri-Columbia.

56

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Comet Neowise appeared over King Chapel for a few weeks in 2020 before departing Earth’s orbit for another 6,800 years. Go to crnl.co/comet to download this image

by Assistant Professor of Engineering Niloofar Kamran.

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