“When we got married 10 years ago, we pledged to create a Jewish home committed to peace and deeds of loving kindness, a warm and welcoming home to all,” says Edsell-Vetter.
“If you think running 26.2 miles is hard, try being homeless,” says Edsell-Vetter’s husband, Jesse.
As Ronald Reagan’s surgeon general 1981-89, C. Everett Koop, M.D., became a household name. Koop, who was among the first public health officials to speak plainly about AIDS and was a crusader against smoking, died in Hanover, N.H., Feb. 25 at age 96.
A 1941 graduate of the Cornell Medical College, Koop joined the Reagan administration in 1981 following a career as a pediatric surgeon and professor.
Despite his interest in art, Artschwager studied mathematics and chemistry at Cornell. He was drafted into the Army in 1944, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and finished his degree in 1948.
The Whitney’s catalog of the exhibition notes:
“For nearly 60 years, Richard Artschwager (b. 1923) has undertaken an unrelenting investigation of art’s ability to mediate contemporary experience and perception. Although his work, which includes sculpture, painting, prints and drawing, is often characterized as having elements of Pop Art, Minimalism and Conceptual Art, his practice defies easy categorization and his oeuvre is not entirely understood. In Richard Artschwager! the breadth of the artist’s idealistic, diverse work and unconventional materials, such as Formica, rubberized hair and Celotex, is fully illustrated and explored for the first time.”
According to the Whitney website: “Richard Artschwager’s first solo exhibition was in 1965 at the age of 42 at Leo Castelli Gallery. Since then his work has been shown throughout the world … This exhibition is a comprehensive review of Artschwager’s remarkable creative exploration of the mediums of sculpture, painting and drawing and the first retrospective exhibition of Artschwager’s work since one organized at the Whitney in 1988.”
Tim Squyres ’81, who studied psychology at Cornell, is nominated for an Academy Award for best film editing of best picture nominee “Life of Pi.” The 3-D adventure film is the 11th Squyres has edited for director Ang Lee (“The Ice Storm,” “Sense and Sensibility”).
Squyres says he and Lee rarely talk, and Lee often accepts Squyres’ edits without discussion. He was nominated for best editing in 2000 for “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”
His older brother is Steve Squyres, Ph.D. ’81, Cornell’s Goldwin Smith Professor of Astronomy.
Dyer Brainerd Holmes ’43, NASA’s director of Manned Space Flight Programs in the early 1960s, died Jan. 11 in Memphis at age 91.
Holmes graduated from Cornell in 1943 in absentia while serving in the U.S. Navy. He designed missiles and radar systems at Bell Labs and RCA before joining NASA in 1961.
That same year President John F. Kennedy set the daunting goal of “landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the Earth” before the end of the decade. Holmes’ two years at NASA were in the crucial early days of the manned space flight program. During his tenure, John Glenn became the first U.S. astronaut to orbit Earth and the Apollo program and the 1969 moon landing were developed.
Holmes appeared on the cover of Time magazine Aug. 10, 1962, for the cover story “Reaching for the Moon.”
In 1912 The New York Times reported that 24-year-old Cornell “co-ed” Elsie Scheel of Brooklyn Heights was the “perfect woman” whose “very presence bespeaks perfect health.”
How standards of beauty have changed, the Times noted Jan.1: “At 5-foot-7 and 171 pounds, she would, by today’s medical standards, be clearly overweight. (Her body mass index was 27; 25 to 29.9 is overweight.)” (Scheel was invoked in connection with a new study that finds those at the lowest obesity level of 30 to 34.9 were not more likely to die than normal-weight people.)
Scheel “was a person who valued being active and athletic, had a strong and confident attitude, and, as a daughter of a doctor and a mother of a doctor, may have been steeped in healthy habits that were much more relevant to her survival than her weight,” the Times reports.
“I have eaten only what I want and when I wanted it,” Scheel told one newspaper.
Whether or not she was perfect, Elsie Scheel was hardy: she died three days before her 91st birthday in 1979.
U.S. Marine General John “Jay” Paxton ’73, M.Eng. ’74, received his fourth star and became assistant commandant of the Marine Corps Dec. 15 in a ceremony at the Marine Barracks in Washington, D.C.
According to Kevin Bruns ’79, president of the Cornell Delta Upsilon Association, about a dozen Cornellians, including nine Delta Upsilon alumni, were among the 200 attending the ceremony. Paxton’s wife, Debbie, is also a Cornellian (Class of 1975).
Bruns said that Paxton spoke at the ceremony about the four greatest influences on his life – one was his deep friendship with his DU brothers and his experience at “6 South Avenue” during his Cornell years. Paxton was president of DU, a member of the 1971 NCAA lacrosse championship team and also played football.
President Barack Obama nominated Paxton in October and his nomination was confirmed by the U.S. Senate.
“Since then,” writes Jeremy “Kinetics” Dussolliet ’09, ”I’ve continued to pursue music full-time, which has led me to tour around the country (and even to China) and release a full-length album with my writing partner Tim [One Love] Sommers ’10, which charted on both iTunes and Billboard… We recently released a music video entitled ‘Sign Language’ which touches upon the issue of teen suicide and was written in early 2010, partly triggered by the string of suicides at Cornell that winter.”
The duo began writing and producing music together after meeting at Cornell in 2007 and have written for Eminem, B.o.B and Nicki Minaj.
Howard Milstein ’73 donated $2.3 million to the FDNY Foundation and the New York City Police Foundation. His gift is earmarked for first responders whose homes have been damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Two thousand rescue workers will receive a check of $1,000 just in time for the holiday season.
“These are the people that risk their lives to save others. They get paid something but when your life is saved, it’s invaluable. And when they get devastated, nobody helps,” Milstein told the Wall Street Journal. “I thought the best thing to do in these circumstances is send money to the first responders. I hoped that this donation might well stimulate others into giving, and I know that that has been the case.”
Today is President David Skorton’s birthday, and among the gifts he will receive is one that honors Cornell’s graduate teaching assistants.
In his campaign for student-elected trustee in 2006, Mao Ye, Ph.D. ’11 (above, holding daughter Cornelia at 7 months, with wife Xi Yang, Ph.D. ’10), said he would create an award to support Cornell graduate teaching assistants. “I do what I say I’m going to do,” says Ye, an assistant professor of finance at the University of Illinois.
Ye, who hails from Yangzhou, China, promised Skorton and Robert J. Katz ’69, vice chairman of the Cornell Board of Trustees, that he would become an engaged alumnus. Following through, he has made a $25,000 gift to create a campuswide graduate teaching assistant award to recognize outstanding teaching, to which Katz has also lent his support.
“As a former international teaching assistant, Mao Ye wanted to give something back to the programs that had supported him at the Center for Teaching Excellence. … the CTE [now] will be able to recognize the hard work and exemplary teaching of two graduate students each year,” said CTE director Theresa Pettit.
This year’s award recipients are Darrick Evenson in the field of natural resources and Sinja Graf in the field of government. Each will receive $500.
“My mom told me to tell people what you are going to do and then do it,” Ye says. “A promise is a promise.”
Carolyn Edsell-Vetter ’98, her husband and her son, will run the Boston Marathon April 15 to fight homelessness. Their goal is to raise $20,000 for the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership.
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