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The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 135, No. 25
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2018
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20 Pages – Free
ITHACA, NEW YORK
News
Arts
Sports
Weather
Tracy Mitrano
Kanye West Wing
Road to Providence
Partly Cloudy HIGH: 42º LOW: 33º
Congressional candidate Tracy Mitrano J.D. ‘95 speaks about campaign finance reform at Statler. | Page 3
Nick Swan ‘19 breaks down Kanye’s visit to the White House.
A crucial match with Brown awaits Cornell football on Saturday.
| Page 13
| Page 20
Fatal Crash Puts Company Under Scrutiny Big Red Bullet riders tell of ‘dangerous’ trips
Aftermath |
A Cornell alumna was killed and several passengers were injured when a Big Red Bullet bus veered off a highway on its way from Ithaca to New York City on Sunday night.
By SARAH SKINNER Sun Assistant News Editor
COURTESY OF WNEP-TV
Bus driver tells police he ‘fell asleep’ at wheel before crash By SARAH SKINNER and NICHOLAS BOGEL-BURROUGHS Sun Assistant News Editor and Sun City Editor
The driver of the Big Red Bullet bus that crashed in Pennsylvania on Sunday night, killing a Cornell alumna, told investigators that he “fell asleep at the wheel,” police said Wednesday. Pennsylvania state Trooper Robert M. Urban said there were no signs of vehicle failure. He said the driver was cooperating with police and that they have not filed any charges in connection with the fatal crash, although the investigation is ongoing. The driver “stated in an interview that he fell asleep and left the roadway,” Urban told The Sun. He said police were trying to determine if there was “a black box” inside the bus that may have recorded data from the bus before it crashed. The male driver has not been identified. He was taken to a hospital for a blood test after the crash, which is required by federal regulations, Urban said. Results from that test are not yet in. Also this week, a U.S. Department of Transportation agency said it had opened an investigation into the Ithaca-
based bus company’s compliance with federal regulations. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will review Big Red Bullet’s driving records, licensing and insurance information, drug and alcohol testing protocols and other data, said agency spokesperson Duane DeBruyne. The FMCSA, which seeks to reduce truck and bus casualties, will share the results of its probe with state police, which is leading the investigation into the crash. Rebecca Blanco M.B.A. ’17, of Vacaville, Calif., died from multiple traumatic injuries sustained when the bus, headed from Ithaca to New York City, veered off the side of Interstate 380 in Lackawanna County just after 9 p.m. Sunday. The Prevost-brand bus crashed into several
In the wake of an Ithaca charter bus crash that killed a Cornell alumna this week, five people who took trips with the company in recent years said drivers’ behavior — which they said included swerving across roads and using phones while driving — made BLANCO M.B.A. ’17 them feel unsafe. Two of the people interviewed filed complaints with the bus company, Big Red Bullet, one of which resulted in the company terminating a bus driver, according to an email from Big Red Bullet’s general manager obtained by The Sun. Andre Hook M.B.A. ’18 M.H.A. ’18 and Jessica Hook described two trips with Big Red Bullet that made the married couple decide to never use the service again. See RIDERS page 6
See INVESTIGATION page 6 COURTESY OF THE ITHACAN
Spotlight | Big Red Bullet is under investigation after a fatal crash.
Professors Urge Cornell to Release Results of Wansink Investigation By MARYAM ZAFAR Sun Staff Writer
A letter signed by over 30 professors from around the world is calling on Cornell to release its investigation report of food scientist Brian Wansink, who resigned in September after the University’s investigation into his academic misconduct The investigation, which was conducted for over a year, found COURTESY OF CORNELL UNVERSITY
Wansink woes | The letter, signed by over 30 professors, urges Cornell to publicly release its findings.
that Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab’s founder “committed academic misconduct in his research and scholarship,” The Sun previously reported. Wansink has also retracted a total of 13 published research papers and issued multiple formal corrections. The authors started drafting the letter after Provost Michael Kotlikoff announced the conclusion of the investigation, and that Wansink will not be permitted to teach or research
at the University, and will retire at the end of the academic year. Cornell alum Prof. Todd B. Kashdan ’96, psychology, George Mason University, is among the signatories of the letter but did not respond to The Sun’s request for comment. There are no current Cornell professors who have signed onto the letter, which is being shared via Google Docs. The University was unaware of the letter as of Wednesday afternoon, according to spokesperson John Carberry. On the day after the publication of Cornell’s investigation, Wansink said his mistakes didn’t change the outcome of his papers, “with only one debatable exception.” It is unclear which paper the food scientist was referring to. Wansink’s response to the investigation was surprising, according to co-author of the letter Prof. Nicholas Brown, medical sci-
ences, University of Groningen, who talked to The Sun on the phone from Strasbourg, France. The signatories accuse Wansink of not accepting responsibility for his errors and of characterizing his mistakes as trivial. “I find it hard to imagine that an Ivy League school would require an endowedchair professor, whose picture used to be on the front page of the business school’s web site, to resign on that basis,” Brown said. Given that Wansink has nearly 500 published pieces, the University’s lack of transparency has caused collateral damage to other researchers in the same field, according to Brown. “I’ve seen online reactions to Dr. Wansink’s case [with] people using it to suggest that researchers working on vaccines See WANSINK page 6