The Essentials

Five Cornell professors have been named to “The Best 300 Professors.” The book takes data from RateMyProfessors.com, a website on which students rank professors on helpfulness, clarity, easiness and “hotness.”

“The professors in the book are not ranked (nor are their colleges ranked in this book) but each professor profiled received high ratings from their most important audiences, beneficiaries and critics: the students they teach and inspire,” writes the publisher.

Cornell winners are Gerald Feigenson, professor of molecular biology and genetics; Karl J. Niklas, the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Plant Biology; Cindy Van Es, senior lecturer in the Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management; George Hudler, professor of plant pathology and plant-microbe biology; and Shalom Shoer, senior lecturer in Near Eastern studies.

In connection with her new novel, ”The House of Velvet and Glass,” in which the sinking of the Titanic figures, Katherine Howe, a lecturer in American studies at Cornell, spoke to CBS This Morning‘s Mo Rocca April 9 about Americans’ obsession with the Titanic.

“One of the reasons is that there was as much celebrity culture in 1912 as today,” Howe wrote in a subsequent email about the interview. “[The public] just paid attention to socialites and industrialists rather than actors. The response to Titanic in 1912 was as if everyone at the Vanity Fair Oscar party was all on a boat together, which went down.”

Howe, author of the best-seller ”The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane,” continued: “[The] Titanic is also about hubris and our faith in technology. We talked not only about the design of the ship, but also about the role that wireless technology played both in the rescue and in the dissemination of news while it was still happening. Titanic is really the first time that newspapers were able to learn about an event while it was still under way.”

Howe’s interview will air in the 8 a.m. hour April 13 – two days before the 100th anniversary of the ship’s sinking.

In his book “Run To Failure: BP and the Making of the Deepwater Horizon Disaster,” Abrahm Lustgarten ’96 digs into the history of the company behind the disastrous 2010 Gulf Coast oil spill.

“The story, though, is not about what happened in the Gulf, but why it happened and who allowed it,” says Lustgarten, an Ithaca native and investigative reporter for ProPublica.

The narrative draws on leaked internal BP documents, court records and interviews to demonstrate how BP consistently placed profit and cost cutting ahead of safety and environmental protection.

“As a result, over two decades, more than 45 people have died, BP has faced three criminal convictions, but no individual BP employee or manager has yet been held accountable for their actions,” Lustgarten says.

The journal Nature says the book “… reads like a thriller, complete with whistle-blowers and double agents … . Lustgarten paints a picture of neglect, hollow proclamations about safety and environmental stewardship, and draconian cost-trimming going back two decades.”

— Susan Lang

The spring 2012 issue of Ezra, Cornell’s quarterly magazine, features the planned CornellNYC Tech campus and a look at how graduate students’ multidisciplinary research in Ithaca set the stage.

Also in this issue: Ezra Cornell’s legacy of innovation and entrepreneurship lives on; checking in on Cornell’s financial aid programs; Cornellians aim for the Summer 2012 Olympic Games; a Milstein Hall montage; Q&As with new faculty members; and a look Cornell’s Shoals Marine Laboratory and its connections to the new marine biology concentration.

Subscribe to the print edition of Ezra magazine.

– Joe Wilensky

Physics senior lecturer Robert Lieberman has been touring the East Coast attending sold-out screenings of his film, “They Call it Myanmar – Lifting the Curtain.” The New York Times has also taken notice.

Lieberman writes: “I’ve been doing a show of hands and it looks like about a third of the audience in Philly and even more in NYC were Cornell related –  these are large numbers of Cornell alums and parents of Cornell students. It seems to me that this is an incredible opportunity for Cornell to illustrate its alumni concern in world affairs, to leverage their commitment to Southeast Asia, and to link to a larger community to spread the word about Cornell.”

Screened at Cornell in May 2011, the film captures the heart of Burma and puts a human face on one of the most isolated countries on the planet. It  includes a rare and revealing narration by Aung San Suu Kyi, newly released after 15 years of house arrest.

Cornell University Press has published a revised paperback edition of “Serling: The Rise and Twilight of TV’s Last Angry Man,” the 1992 biography of “The Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling, by Gordon F. Sander ’72.

The Cornell edition includes a new foreword by Ron Simon of the Paley Center for Media and new illustrations, including photographs of Serling landmarks by the author.

Sander will give an illustrated reading from the book Thursday, March 8, 5:30-7 p.m. at Tammany Coffee House in Risley Hall.

Serling was a successful New York-based scriptwriter for such TV dramas as “Playhouse 90” before creating “The Twilight Zone,” which aired from 1960-64. “Serling” traces his life from his upstate New York roots (he was born and raised in Binghamton, which inspired the settings of many “Twilight Zone” stories, and he had a home in Interlaken) through his tumultuous Hollywood career, until his death in 1975 at age 50.

Sander met his subject only once, by chance, at an Ithaca restaurant when he was a Cornell architecture student and Serling was teaching at Ithaca College. The biography is an unflinching portrait of the man as well as a close look at TV’s early years. Sander interviewed more than 220 people who knew Serling, including Robert Redford, Kim Hunter and William Shatner.

Sander is a photographer, Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist, historian and author of several nonfiction books including “The Frank Family That Survived.” He is a former two-term Risley Residential College artist-in-residence.

–Daniel Aloi

In Ithaca, March may come in like a lion but it’ll go out like a spider. E.B. White, Class of 1921, is all over town. His classic, “Charlotte’s Web,” is the pick for The Big Family Read March 1-April 1.

As part of the celebration, Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections will display a replica of the original “Charlotte’s Web” manuscript and E.B. White’s papers and photos at the Tompkins County Public Library.

The exhibition runs between March 10 and April 14, and it will also include art and writing from local kids.

Also:

• New readers will get to know Charlotte, Wilbur and the rest of the gang: All second- and third-graders in Tompkins County will get a copy of the book at school, and, while supplies last, free copies will be available at the public library starting March 1.

• The State Theatre presents a production of “Charlotte’s Web” Sunday, April 1.

• Cornell University Press publishes “In the Words of E. B. White: Quotations from America’s Most Companionable of Writers” edited by his granddaughter Martha White and described in a new video.

And keep an eye out for a large spider web on the tennis court fence at Ithaca High School. A message will magically appear on the web one morning, as if Charlotte herself had worked through the night.

– Gwen Glazer and Susan Lang

The winter 2012 issue of Ezra, Cornell’s quarterly magazine, features a look at the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and the faculty who work at its global effort to understand and provide workable solutions to the planet’s urgent environmental, ecological and energy challenges.

Also in this issue: the “Cornell Now” campaign expands to fuel access, opportunity and solutions; a new humanities building will offer a gateway to the Arts Quad; Cornellians who gave back in unique ways; the new Center for Community Engaged Learning and Research; the Marriott Foundation supports a student learning center; engineers gain a business minor; and after a half century, the Einaudi Center looks ahead.

Subscribe to the print edition of Ezra magazine.

– Joe Wilensky

A Cornell professor’s take on communism will soon be published by Communists.

In fact, interest in Bruno Bosteels‘ 2011 book, “The Actuality of Communism,” is galloping across Asia and Europe.

“The idea of communism is rising from its grave once again — but what does it effectively amount to? Bosteels confronts this issue with no illusions, in a critical dialogue with today’s Leftist thinkers, as well as with radical political practices such those of the Morales government in Bolivia. A beautifully written work which is a must for everyone interested in what’s left of the contemporary Left,” reads a blurb for the book.

Bosteels, a professor of Romance studies dubbed “one of the rising stars of contemporary critical theory” by his English-language publisher, has signed translation deals with publishers in China, Korea and Germany.

Henry Herz ’82 and his sons, Josh and Harrison, have written an illustrated fantasy tale, Nimpentoad. The boys, who are elementary school students, discuss the project on YouTube.

An excerpt:

A long time ago, all kinds of fantastic creatures lived in the ancient, shadowy, and mysterious Grunwald Forest. These creatures came in various shapes, sizes, and colors. Unfortunately, most of them were not very nice. They would tease each other, play tricks on each other, fight with each other, steal things from each other, and sometimes, if they were really hungry, even eat each other (yuck)! This was really bad for the smaller creatures, because the larger creatures would boss them around, take their toys, or have them for dinner!

The smallest of the creatures in Grunwald Forest were called Niblings. Niblings are skinny and short – about waist-high to an adult human. I don’t think they picked that name – I think the Goblins picked it for them. Because Niblings were the smallest and weakest, they didn’t have a lot of toys or even clothes. They had no armor to defend themselves, and not much in the way of weapons either – mostly sticks and rocks. So, to avoid getting picked on (or picked up), the Niblings would spend a lot of time hiding under bushes, and growing their own food to eat. They loved berries and mushrooms. When they had to go somewhere, they would travel in groups to look out for each other.