The Essentials

Some students organize bake sales to raise funds for social causes; others seek sponsors to run a marathon or climb a mountain. Ilya Brotzky ’10 is doing both and much more. He and eight other Cornell students (more are welcome) plan to climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania this January to raise money and awareness for obstetric fistulas.

As leader of the Fistula Free Climb, Brotzky, originally of Siberia, says the group hopes to raise $100,000 for OperationOF.org.

The students also will volunteer in Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center’s fistula ward before and after the climb.

“Obstetric fistulas are lesions that occur during child labor that cause the mother to lose control of her bowels and constantly leak urine and stool. She ends up living alone because no one can tolerate the smell and must beg for a living,” says Brotzky, who says he was inspired by a July 26, 2007, Cornell Chronicle article about Seth Cochran ’00, M.Eng. ’01, who climbed Mount Kilimanjaro to help raise $40,000 for cleft lip surgeries in the developing world.

(Cochran also is involved with ending obstetric fistula worldwide.

Most of the students are either Cornell Tradition or Meinig Family Cornell National Scholars, who can each use up to $2,000 from the programs to help cover trip costs.

So far, the group has raised $1,200. Upcoming fundraisers:

Level B Event: Wednesday, Oct. 28, 9 p.m.

Concert: Friday, Nov. 6, at Theta Delta Chi fraternity, 7 p.m.

Auction: Saturday, Nov. 14, at Phi Kappa Psi fraternity, 7 p.m.

For more information, check out Brotzky’s blog.

- Susan S. Lang

Crispy? Sweet? Maybe with a hint of sour? The Cornell Orchard Store is now selling Honeycrisp (going fast), Sweet 16 (just a few), Gala, Ginger Gold, Jonamac, Macoun, McIntosh, NY 674 (now named Autumn Crisp), Shizuka – and coming soon are Cortland, Empire and more.

The Orchard Store also has a good crop of wine grapes available, including Finger Lakes Riesling, Seyval Blanc, Foch, Pinot gris, Chardonnay, Lemberger, Cabernet franc and Concord, as well as some hybrids that could go into a blended white or red. The store will even press the juice for you.

The store also sells:

• cider;
• such heritage apple varieties as Blue Permain, Chenango Strawberry, Maiden Blush, Northfield Beauty;
• grapes, pears, plums, potatoes, squash, sweet corn, gourds and pumpkins;
• Cornell maple syrup from Cornell’s Arnot Forest and Uihlein Sugar Maple Research and Extension Field Station;
• wool blankets from the Cornell Sheep Program, maple products, local honey;
• T-shirts, sweatshirts, caps, aprons, totes and mugs with the orchard’s logo; and
• Finger Lakes and New York state-produced specialty food and gift items.

The store sells apples usually until mid-April. In the winter, choice apples are preserved in a Cornell-developed controlled atmosphere (CA) room – a sealed cold room where the oxygen level is dramatically reduced to slow fruit aging and preserve fruit firmness, acidity, sugars and vitamin C.

Fruit with the CA label has higher nutritional and sensory quality than regular cold-stored fruit of the same age, according to Cornell pomologists.

Questions? Call or e-mail: 255-4542 or orchards@cornell.edu.

Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 8:30 a.m.-5 p.m.

Location: Rt. 366 (709 Dryden Road) across from the Vet School.

– Susan S. Lang

The Solar Decathlon is in the homestretch on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and Cornell’s Silo House is getting its moment in the sun with photos in The Washington Post and The New York Times. The house was also the location for Newsweek’s interview with Secretary of Energy Steven Chu.

Now the team is angling for the People’s Choice award, and they’re asking for your vote.

To help make the Cornell team No. 1, send a text message to 99503 with the message “House10.”

The People’s Choice award will be given on Oct. 17; and the decathlon ends Oct. 18. Check out the team’s blog to track their progress.

- Lauren Gold

Unpacking in Ithaca but wishing you were in Hawaii instead? Join members of the Cayuga Outrigger Canoe Club at Stewart Park Aug. 29 at 3 p.m. for a Hawaiian luau featuring Hawaiian music, cuisine (including kalua pig, lomi lomi salmon and poi) and hospitality.

The luau, which is sponsored by the Kiwanis Club of Ithaca-Cayuga, will top off the club’s first annual “Cayuga Ho’e” (pronounced HO-ay) – a seven-hour, 39-mile paddle from Cayuga Lake State Park in Seneca Falls to Stewart Park.

Luau dinner tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for children, and are available online and from Cayuga OCC and Kiwanis members.

The ho’e and luau are designed to raise awareness of outrigger canoe paddling and to raise funds to help the club develop youth paddling programs through the Ithaca Youth Bureau and local schools. They also celebrate the club’s one-year anniversary.

“There’s something very unique about paddling in a six-person canoe,” said P.J. Rusello, club founder and president and a Cornell civil engineering graduate student. “You really need to work together. The sport is very much a finesse sport. If you go in thinking you can muscle your way through, you’re invariably very humbled.”

A long paddle is quiet and contemplative, said Cynthia Brock, who grew up in Hawaii and started paddling at age 9 or 10. “At the same time, it’s a team sport,” she said. “The exhilaration that comes from that – it’s really quite special and unique. It’s very addicting.”

- Lauren Gold

Prints based on sea ecology by Cornell students and faculty members are on display at the Sirens’ Song Gallery in Greenport, N.Y., until June 29 as part of an exhibit inspired by Long Island’s plant life.

The exhibit, “On the Edge: Coastal and Barrier Plants, Their Friends and Some Enemies,” is a collaboration among Cornell faculty, gallery director Carolyn Waloski and Long Island artists; Robert Kent, New York Sea Grant senior extension associate, organized the effort.

“The idea was to bring together art and ecological issues,” said Cornell art department chair Patricia Phillips, who participated along with faculty artists Elisabeth Meyer and Gregory Page and more than a dozen printmaking students.

New York Sea Grant, a partnership of the State University of New York, Cornell and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, helps protect and restore coastal ecosystems through research, extension and education.

A portion of all sales will go to New York Sea Grant and Cornell’s Long Island Research and Extension Center.

For more information, call Robert Kent at 631-727-3910, ext 3.

Wilderness Reflections, Cornell’s oldest student pre-orientation program, has changed its name to Outdoor Odyssey. Trips leave Ithaca prior to official university orientation for three to six days of outdoor experiences such as Adirondack canoeing, Catskills rock climbing and Finger Lakes backpacking. The new name, inspired by Homer’s “Odyssey,” was created by students. Outdoor Odyssey is training 60 upperclassmen to guide 21 trips.

On June 16 Amanda Flaim (far left in photo above), a Cornell doctoral student in development sociology and member of the Southeast Asia Program, participated in a press conference at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Thailand to discuss the findings from her dissertation research on statelessness among highland minority groups in Northern Thailand. The panel, which included politicians and other officials, was funded by the British Embassy in Bangkok and co-sponsored by UNESCO and convened to discuss the findings of Flaim’s analysis of the largest survey ever conducted on statelessness. It also addressed the Thai Nationality Act, which fails to resolve the issue of statelessness for hundreds of thousands of Thai highlanders. “It was a pretty fabulous experience, and I was so honored to be invited to be a part of this panel and to have my research highlighted as something that can contribute in any way,” said Flaim.

A new Summer Session distance learning course offered this year, “Caribbean Dialogs,” will explore themes such as new world history, colonialism, diaspora, trauma, violence and tourism, while using art from the Caribbean as a case study. The four-credit course grew from a group blog, then a wiki, into a class offered entirely online. Visit Summer Session or call 607-255-4987.

Cornell University invites wine enthusiasts to the Finger Lakes this summer for a weeklong program exploring the science of grape growing and wine making. The Cornell University Viticulture and Enology Experience (CUVEE), July 20-25, pairs Cornell faculty members with leading wine professionals to help participants increase their wine appreciation and knowledge. Information 607-255-7259 and registration.

A six-week course in American Sign Language (ASL) will be offered at Cornell during the 2008 summer session, June 23-Aug. 1, through the Department of Linguistics and the School of Continuing Education and Summer Sessions. To encourage staff enrollment, the class runs from 8:30 to 9:45 a.m. five days a week. Listed as LING 111, the course will be taught by Teresa Galloway, who has been teaching ASL at Cornell since 1999. Information: trg1@cornell.edu.