The Plantations’ Mundy Wildflower Garden has the most variety of early-blooming wildflowers in the area and is a must see in early spring. To celebrate National Poetry Month this April, graduate student Emily Oliver matched her favorite poems to many of the garden’s wildflowers. Look for signs throughout the garden providing a number to call for information about each plant and a poem recited by the author.
Members of the Cornell Global Law Brigade traveled to rural Darien, Panama, to provide pro bono legal consulting and immerse themselves in the local culture. Undergraduates from the Classes of 2016 to 2013 participated on the service trip March 16-22.
“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.
Fiber Science & Apparel Design students Megan Rodrigues ‘15 and Lily Wolens ‘15 are among finalists in the national City Bag Challenge by Stitch Collective. A New York City-based luxury accessory line founded by Loni Edwards ‘06, Stitch Collective accepts sketches from up-and-coming designers, chooses finalists for public voting, and produces the winning bag.
Students in FSAD 2660: Product Development, taught by Susan Ashdown, the Helen G. Canoyer Professor, sketched handbags and entered them into Stitch Collective’s national competition for an accessory practical enough for city adventures and stylish enough for the cosmopolitan lifestyle.
The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies announced Jan. 30 three winners and 11 honorable mentions in its annual photo contest. Graduate students studying or conducting research abroad submitted 37 photos; all photos are exhibited in the Big Red Barn in February and will be featured on the Einaudi Center website.
First prize: Development sociology student Kasia Paprocki’s “On the Char.” She took the photo in Rajshahi, Bangladesh, where she conducted research with landless people.
Second place: Comparative literature student Kavita Singh’s “A Slaver’s Shipwreck,” featuring a triangle of somber statues facing the sea in L’Anse Caffard, Diamant, Martinique.
Third prize: regional planning student Angela Previdelli’s “The Unit.” The image was taken in Valparaiso, Chile, of a women’s military unit.
A short documentary on how Cornell’s AguaClara engineering research team is bringing clean water to Honduras was commissioned by AguaClara’s Honduran partner, the nonprofit Agua Para El Pueblo. The 9-minute video, with English subtitles, describes AguaClara’s impact on rural communities that now have access to safe, clean drinking water.
The site collects sounds and photos of those fast-talking, carnival-style barkers who rope in crowds with breathless promises for their merchandise (think ShamWow or the Pocket Fisherman). The site is by Trevor Pinch, professor of science and technology studies, who has also studied the role of sound in market pitching (or “grafting”), with his colleague Colin Clark.
In England, retail empires were built by top pitchers, but the profession is dying. Fortunately, Pinch and Clark traveled around England from 1984 to 1994 photographing and recording the sales wizards at work.
“We quickly realized we had stumbled upon a bunch of spellbinding orators and ‘patter-merchants’ who employed a highly sophisticated form of grass-roots marketing rarely found in academic textbooks,” they write on the website.
Seven students in Cornell’s Urban Semester program in New York City have written about the impact of living and studying in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, collected here.
Urban Semester immerses students in New York City through classes, internships and community service. Many of them work with hospitals, churches and other community agencies, which has given them a firsthand look at how Sandy affected some of Manhattan’s most vulnerable populations.
Sixty alumni and friends attended this year’s meeting of the Cornell Hotel Society Asia Pacific Regional Conference, Nov. 1-4 in Siem Reap, Cambodia. At the conference, Ben Justus ’08 showed off the EGBOK (Everything’s Gonna Be OK) Mission that he founded in 2007 to help alleviate poverty in Cambodia by teaching hospitality training and life skills to underprivileged young adults.
During a tour of the EGBOK Mission by conference attendees Nov. 3, EGBOK Mission students Sawat (far left) and Not (far right), and donor Pam Mariani, who attended the conference with her husband John Mariani ‘54, look on as Regan Taikitsadaporn ’93, president of the Cornell Hotel Society, “folds” a lotus flower.
Conference attendees included alumni from South Korea, Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, the Philippines, the United States, Thailand and Europe. The EGBOK Mission has 50 students, ages 18-22, in its third intake class for 2012-13.
Bruce Pfann ’59, a two-time lacrosse midfield All-America and football letterman, and leading ’58 running back Terry Wilson ’59, an All-Ivy, were in a Maine ice cream shop when they noticed a diner wearing an Eighth Air Force cap.
The man in the cap was the former Lt. John Richard (Dick) Welch, a 92-year-old U.S. Army Air Force veteran of the 91st Bomb Group who had been based in England before D-Day in 1944. Welch told them about his career as a 24-year-old bombardier shot down over Berlin.
Welch was imprisoned at Stalag Luft III, in Sagan, Germany, a prisoner of war camp for airmen – the camp from which British soldiers tunneled out in the film “The Great Escape.” As Russian liberators drew near Sagan, Hitler ordered the Sagan POWs moved in a death march to another camp in Nurnberg in heavy snow.
The camp was liberated April 29, 1945, by Americans including Gen. George S. Patton. Bruce Pfann’s father, George Pfann ‘24 – Big Red’s quarterback 1921-23 who was elected to the College Football Hall of Fame, a Rhodes scholar and Cornell trustee – was on Patton’s staff.
Welch told Pfann and Wilson that he’d like to see the World War II memorial in Washington and the Air and Space Museum at the National Mall. Pfann and Wilson enlisted Chi Psi brothers to make the trip possible, and they visited the capital together Oct. 27.
The donors created a certificate reading: “In Recognition of Your Service, Dedication and Sacrifice to the citizens of the United States of America and as part of the Greatest Generation, this certificate is awarded to Lt. John Richard Welch by the 1959 Class of Alpha Psi of Chi Psi, Cornell University and others who are so profoundly proud and humbled by your efforts during WWII as a B-17 Bombardier. Having been shot down on your 18th mission, spending a year in a German POW camp and surviving it all to return to your country, the United States of America, you are an example of what America is all about. As Americans, we could never repay you enough for your commitment to our country, freedom and mankind. You are a credit to your heritage and this recognition comes with our gratitude, our love and our heartfelt thanks. God Bless You.”
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Around Campus, Cornell People, Created@Cornell, Field Trip, Flora & Fauna | Tagged: Mundy Wildflower Garden, Plantations | 
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Posted by George Lowery
