Cornellians to Lovers Alumni tell stories of romance on the Hill

LOVE Continued from page 3

They then became good friends, and Ms. Bittner began to reap the benefits of Mr. Bittner’s role as manager of the Cornell hockey team. He was allowed two tickets a game, which he would always allocate to her.

“After the hockey games, we would actually go with the hockey players to some of the different bars. We loved to eat at the Cabbagetown Cafe,” Ms. Bittner said. “We attended a lot of concerts at Barton Hall at that time. In fact, I still have some of the ticket stubs in our scrapbooks.”

They began dating on-andoff by the end of their first year. They made their relationship official when Mr. Bittner visited Ms. Bittner when she was taking classes over the summer on July 23, 1977. The couple married in Anabel Taylor Hall on Aug. 25, 1979 with a wedding party full of Cornellians. They continued to attend classes and live in Cornell’s married student housing on North Campus for another semester.

Two major lines, routes 83 and 92, have been cut from TCAT’s Spring 2023 schedule, and many students have toiled with the disruptive delays and general unreliability of the public transportation service as a result.

Divya Raina ’23 said that she has been particularly devastated by the loss of route 83. Living on West Campus, Raina relied on this route to get to campus every day, which she said was very consistent. As a business major, she needs to get to Warren Hall each morning, a 15-minute walk up the slope.

“This is a service that pretty much everyone I know living on West uses a lot. Pretty much everyone I know on North uses it,” Raina said. “Cornell is very, very hilly. Especially when the weather gets bad, no one wants to be climbing up the slope.

Scot Vanderpool

“Our main concern right now is just to get the service back to where we were in 2019. I feel like we’ve let down people. It hasn’t been our fault, necessarily, but I just feel bad that we’re in this place,” Vanderpool said.

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Jimmy Jordan can be reached at jjordan@ithacavoice.com.

Sofa Rubinson can be reached at srubinson@cornellsun.com.

“One of the things we started back then was we would buy the same t-shirt and wear the same Cornell shirt,” Ms. Bittner said. “Now we’ve been married 43 years. We just got back from a cruise vacation and we actually buy matching clothing. Still to this day.”

Instant Chemistry

Tonya Engst ’89 and Adam Engst ’89 met one of their first nights as first-year students. Ms. Engst was getting ready for a dance at Noyes Lodge with a group of students that she knew from Ithaca High School. But the large group also swept in some students who weren’t from Ithaca, one of which was Mr. Engst.

“We felt from that very first night that we had seen each other before, you know how sometimes you feel that way with someone? We tried to put it together, but we never figured it out,” Ms. Engst said. “So maybe it was just a spark.”

Ms. Engst was dating her high school sweetheart at the time, so the two were just friends during their first semester at Cornell. But Ms. Engst knew she had feelings for Mr. Engst when he became closer to one of her friends.

“The first day of chemistry class, he did not sit next to me. He sat next to this friend of mine named Christine. And I was upset about that,” Ms. Engst said. “So we had a conversation, and it became clear that I needed to break up with [my high school sweetheart].”

They have been together ever since. Ms. Engst recalled one of their best dates together at the Cornell Botanic Gardens on an abnormally warm March day. They set up camp outside a large oak tree and decided to stay the night.

“At some point, maybe 3 a.m., we woke up and we were so cold. It was really not summer, and we were just so freaking cold,” Ms. Engst said. “So we walked all the way back to Collegetown to get into his dorm and warm up.”

Ms. Engst now works in the Industrial and Labor Relations School at Cornell, and the couple’s son Tristan graduated from the University in 2021. As Ithaca residents, the Engsts are still very involved on campus, specifically with the Finger Lakes Runners Club.

“Adam is the president of the club, and I’m on the board. So right now we’re on campus every Tuesday night in Barton Hall because we do club track practice there,” Ms. Engst said. “I don’t think we realized just how often we would be at Barton Hall, but that’s our spot.”

Long Walk to Love

Tina Atwell ’98, M.I.L.R. ’00 and Andy Atwell Ph.D. ’02

Although Tina Atwell ’98, M.I.L.R. ’00 completed her undergraduate degree at Cornell, it wasn’t until she was back for her masters that she met her husband, Andy Atwell Ph.D. ’02, at West Hill Community Church.

“I think we were one of four single people from Cornell that went to that church,” Ms. Atwell said. “So that’s where we met.” Ms. Atwell finished her degree before Mr. Atwell, and the couple decided to break up. Nine months later, when Ms. Atwell visited campus for a recruiting event, they met up in a parking garage and walked around campus together, and have been a couple ever since.

In 2003, the Atwells decided to get married in Sage Chapel, where Mr. Atwell frequently sang while pursuing his degree, with their reception in the A.D. White House.

“I’m originally from Missouri, and Tina’s originally from Wyoming, so we have family all over. And she was at the time living in Connecticut. And then I was here in Virginia. So when trying to decide where we would want to get married, someone would be traveling,” Mr. Atwell said. “We just decided that we really like Cornell. And that’s where we met. And we really wanted to just get married at Cornell and then whoever could show up could show up.”

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ILI PECULLAN STAFF WRITER

The 2023 Grammy Awards were exciting for some, but many music lovers felt underwhelmed and disappointed with the results and the show itself. The Grammys have produced some baffling wins in the last few years and this year’s show was no exception.

Trevor Noah returned to host the show for the third year in a row, this time in Los Angeles after being held in Las Vegas the year prior. Noah has definitely proved himself. The show featured a star studded lineup of presenters, including Jennifer Lopez, Olivia Rodrigo, James Corden and even first lady Jill Biden.

The show opened with a performance by Bad Bunny, whose album Un Verano Sin Ti was the first Spanish language project to be nominated for Album of the Year. Although he did not win, the album did receive Best Música Urbana Album. His performance was a strong open number, with many stars getting out of their seats and dancing along.