THE ARCHIVE

So it all comes down to this. Five years at Cornell, ten design studios, countless exams, and one tightly rolled piece of parchment with my name on it. Done and done!

(my housemates: benn, travis, & jamie)

Eons ago, it seemed like I’d be at Cornell for eons. Then five years passed and the grand finale shot off in a blur. Life at Cornell as I had known it sputtered to an end and I finally felt prepared to move on. Classes done, parties thrown, pictures taken, and car packed to the brim with the nuclear fallout of college life. It was all finally over.

Graduation is not an end in itself; it is more of a transition. Many of us have no idea where we are headed, but the family pictures, long goodbyes, and funny hats remind us that we must be going somewhere.

Like an engaged couple whose first challenge together is planning their wedding, I was given the responsibility of orchestrating my own graduation weekend. Several relatives announced their intention to come to Ithaca for the festivities and I set out to find them adequate food and shelter. Four years as a campus tour guide and I thought I’d be prepared for this challenge, but the task of organizing one’s own family can never be underestimated. Keys, maps, schedules — all prepared neatly for their arrival, all somehow misplaced or discarded within hours. Four generations of Liddells roamed around campus — running up hills and darting between receptions without rhyme or reason.

On Saturday afternoon, the architecture department hosted a classy reception at the AD White house with enough wine on hand for conversation go down smoothly. Parents and professors confronted each other for the first time and swapped stories — hoping, perhaps, that their combined insight might paint an accurate portrait of their graduate.

A reception for campus tour guides followed shortly afterward, and I was impressed once again by the noise and energy generated by multiple tour guides in a single room. Volume must be an inherited trait, because the parents in attendance were no less boisterous than their offspring.

On Saturday evening, we retreated from the mayhem of campus to a beautiful enclave at the bottom of Cascadilla Gorge. The Director of the Rome program (a friend and Italian speaking-companion over the past couple years) opened her home to us and prepared an Italian meal with her husband for the entire group. The garden, the food, and the company couldn’t have been better.

Sunday morning finally arrived. I pulled on my newly acquired cap and gown and joined the pilgrimage of strangely clad graduates onto central campus. The architects huddled together in a small group on the Arts Quad in preparation for the big parade into Scholkopf stadium. I must have been nervous because I chomped down an entire box of Wheat Thins and moved onto a bag of Entenmann’s cookies (both purchased at the school store minutes before).

Students retrofit their mortar boards with colors and creatures while Beth Kunz, our fearless leader, draped purple stoles over our shoulders in recognition of the B.Arch (professional) degree. The Dean of our college, impressed by a multicolor boa on one girl’s head, found some feathers for himself and attached them to his hat — where they remained all day.

The ceremony went smoothly with thoughtful remarks by president Skorton, much applause from parents, and conferring of degrees by the deans. Our Dean joked that his boa flew in the face of hundreds of years of academic tradition; but he may not have expected it to blow into his own face during the ceremony. As he invited us to stand to receive our degrees, the strands of colorful feathers blew forward, obscuring his script and forcing him to pause to sheepishly readjust.

(at my best …and worst… with dean kleinman)

Shortly after the University event ended, the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning held its own ceremony in a big tent on the Arts Quad. We listened to a few more comments from our administrators, then scampered across the stage as our names were announced. As I recieved my hard-earned diploma from Dean Kleinman, he said cheerfully, “I’m glad to see that you’ve stayed out of trouble Tim” — an apparent reference to my run in with the law last spring. I wonder if he knew that by handing me that diploma, he officially cleared my disciplinary record at Cornell. In any case, the diploma and handshake were appreciated.

In short order, family and friends dispersed across the country and I returned home to unpack, unwind, and start the next phase of life as a college-educated adult. Thanks to all who made it possible for me to go to Cornell, and all who made it painful to leave. It has been an incredible five years on the hill and I’m going to miss it.

The new barriers flanking the bridges at Cornell present a serious dilemma. While they are intended to prevent impulsive suicides,  they invariably provoke a sense of dread among those who pass them every day. As many have already stated in their own way, the natural beauty of Ithaca has been hastily exchanged for chain-link reminders of death.

In the past few days, opinions concerning the significance of the new barriers have plastered on the pages of the Daily Sun and on the fences themselves. Some students have sought to turn the chain-link partitions into memorials by covering them in flowers, while others have sought to undermine the solemnity of the whole affair by attaching bras. The fences along the footbridge in Collegetown received a fresh coat of colorful paint last night and the fasteners on the suspension bridge fence have been repeatedly clipped.

Among the student body, ideas for changing the fences have run wild. In the short term, there is a strong desire to deface them, to cut them down, and to make them into something which they are not. In the long run, students are beginning to imagine viable (in some cases ironic) architectural solutions to the so-called ‘bridge problem’ at Cornell.

Dean of Students Kent Hubbell revealed his own feelings about the suicide fences in a recent email, stating frankly: “As an architect, I look forward to the day when we have much more pleasing, permanent approaches for enhancing safety while preserving the natural and man-made beauty of our campus.”

If the fences are to be re-designed, as the University suggests, what should they look like? How should they feel? What message should the convey?

Considering these questions, a few architecture friends and I decided to initiate a University-wide ideas competition to “Re-Think the Fence.” The goal of this project is to visualize the many ideas people have for the future of Cornell’s bridges and review them as an entire community. Perhaps, in doing so, we might develop a better understanding of what we want (and don’t want) our campus bridges to look like in the coming years.

To participate in the competition, submit at least one 8.5”X11” landscape image of your vision to rethinkthefence@gmail.com before April 16th. Additional details can be found on our Facebook page Re-Think the Fence.

The Cornell men’s basketball team has reached the sweet sixteen in the NCAA tournament and will face off against #1 seeded Kentucky at 10:00pm tonight.  Cornellians are gathering across the globe to watch this game and cheer the Big Red to victory. If you want to join the fans at one of these locatioins, click here for more information.  Otherwise, watch the game anywhere on CBS or online at www.ncaa.com.

If I may borrow the words of vice president Joe Biden, “This is a big f—ing deal.”

GO BIG RED!!!!!

(image from ESPN)

Five years at Cornell and five Dragon Days.

My friends and I dressed as a green psychedelic marching band and did our best to make noise and lead chants during the parade. The fire on the Arts Quad this year was smaller than ever before, but the freshmen’s dragon and upper-classmen’s costumes were as impressive as ever.

Check out additional footage online of Dragon Day 2010!

After pretending to be engineers during the Nerd Walk on Monday night, the freshman class returned to Rand Hall and focused on being architects – slightly deranged, questionably sober, and extremely spirited architects.  That’s how it’s done at Cornell.

As the dragon began to take shape downstairs in the shop, a couple first-year students started offering “studio” haircuts to their classmates. When all was said and done, the majority of the freshman class sported impressive hairdos, such as the Mohawks pictured below. A wall in the first-year studio exhibits some of the most prized specimens of clipped hair.

On Wednesday, the freshmen stripped down for the traditional Green Streak to announce the imminent arrival of their dragon at the end of the week. As you can see, the dress code for this particular event was casual—comprised mostly of underwear and green paint. Despite the questionable garb (or because of it?), the entire group felt no qualms about entering hallways and lectures across campus. Here are a few pictures provided by the freshmen:

Spring Break is just around the corner and spirit is beginning to surge in Rand Hall where first-year architects are preparing for Dragon Day. Aside from the formidable task of building a dragon for the parade on Friday, the freshmen perform a series of traditions (and pranks) throughout the entire week. On Monday night, they kicked things off with the “Nerd Walk.”

On this particular evening, architects dress like nerds in mockery of our department’s rivals in the College of Engineering.  Granted, it’s no easy task to dress up like an engineer (it takes years of hard work to perfect that look).  But the freshmen were not deterred, and they gathered outside Rand Hall sporting short sleeve button-down shirts, thick-rimmed glasses, and awkardly parted hair.

With graphing calculators in hand, they ventured across campus to visit several busy libraries where engineers (and many other students) have been studying intensely for prelims.  I think it proved to be an amusing experience for everyone involved… except perhaps the librarians who called security. No major problems, however. The nerds returned safely to Rand Hall to prepare more pranks for the coming days.

Every semester Cornell’s tour guides participate in a staff retreat to learn more about some aspect of our school and/or community. In this vein, we woke extremely early on Sunday morning and headed east to the graduate school of Veterinary Medicine to learn about animals and the people who spend their lives taking care of them. At the outset of the retreat it seemed that we were doomed to another day of admissions statistics, but things got interesting when we ventured outside for a bit of hands-on learning.

Enter the cows.

Our first stop was the teaching and research barn along Campus Road where they keep a handful of animals for classroom demonstrations and events. I hoped to see the camel that is rumored to be living at the vet school, but she was nowhere to be found. Instead, we were introduced to a large cow named Rose.

As we approached, it appeared that Rose was a typical cow chomping on hay like typical cows do. Indeed, there was nothing particularly wrong with her; she just happened to have a big hole in her side with a plastic plug covering up the partially digested contents of her stomach. When this cap, or “cannula” was removed, hot air streamed out of her side like a chimney – billowing steamy and putrid gas at a surprisingly quick and constant rate.

Rose is a “fistulated” cow, which means that one compartment of her stomach (the “rumen”) was surgically opened and sutured to her skin to provide easy access. This process is relatively quick and painless for the animal and allows researchers to understand the digestive process of cows more precisely. For example, they might give Rose a certain type of feed and take samples directly from her rumen to see its effect.

To my delight, we were given the opportunity to reach into Rose’s stomach to feel around and get a sense of its size and contents. With a long plastic glove on my arm, I took the plunge into this previously unchartered biological territory. I recognize that few have had the opportunity to see the partially digested food of a cow’s stomach (nor would they necessarily want to), but I can attest that it resembles something between the pile of hay at Rose’s front end, and the other pile behind.  It certainly smelled more like that later.

There is a good deal of air in the rumen, so I was able to reach my hand into the upper portion of the compartment without much difficulty. After probing a bit, I recomposed myself and pushed directly through the center of the foodstuff toward the compartment’s base. If you intend to do this someday, I would warn that it is a squishy proposition – not for the fainthearted. But since it doesn’t hurt the animal at all, and is awesome, I highly recommend giving it a shot.

After visiting Rose, we headed to another barn to see a couple brood cows and a three-day-old bull calf. Here’s a photo of the little fellow.

Tomorrow afternoon, my department is hosting a party in honor of two recently acquired 3-D printers. Here is the announcement that I received today by email:

The Architecture Department is hosting a reception in celebration of the two new 3-D printers the department has recently acquired. Please join us for light refreshments in the East Sibley Hallway, 4:30 – 5:30 p.m. tomorrow, Friday, March 5th. Everyone is welcome to attend. If anyone has printed a 3-D model please bring them to show. We would love to see them.

Strange? I would say so.

3-D printers swept into our department last year and have been attracting a lot of attention throughout the school. There was even an article discussing the merits of these new machines in today’s issue of The Cornell Daily Sun. Several recent studio classes in our department have gone entirely digital and rely on these “printers” to construct physical three-dimensional plaster models of their work. The new technology makes it possible to quickly (and precisely) prototype nearly any shape imaginable.

I doubt that students a hundred years ago could have ever imagined that a few highly sophisticated machines would become the main production engine of architecture schools around the country. At that point they were still using pen and paper on drafting boards to demonstrate their architectural designs.

Back in the 19^th century, there definitely weren’t any 3-D Printer parties. Someone had just invented the first mechanical cash register so maybe they had parties to celebrate those. It’s interesting to imagine what new technological innovation they’ll be celebrating at Cornell 100 years from now…

In the words of Bob Dylan, the times they are a-changin’

It’s not too often that our university gives anything away for free, but this semester I’ve been eating meals each week on Cornell’s tab rather than my own.  The secret is to speak a foreign language, or attempt to do so, and to arrive each week at the appropriate dining hall at the appropriate time.  Despite appearances, these free language dinners are neither secretive nor exclusive; they are completely open to anyone willing to forego English in favor of an evening of linguistic (if not always culinary) immersion.

The “Cene Italiane” or Italian dinners are held every Monday night at Okenshields at 6:00pm*. French, Japanese, Spanish, and Arabic dinners also occur on a weekly basis and are hosted by The Language House at Alice Cook House on west campus. In each of these cases, people from throughout the community are encouraged to participate, whether or not they have a meal plan. (*that’s Italian time, so you can expect that people will be late)

The Italian dinners attract an eclectic crowd of native speakers, professors, and students at all levels of study — from absolute beginners to doctorate candidates. This, of course, makes for amusing conversation brimming with diverse accents and, in some cases, wildly contrived vocabulary. In my opinion, the most interesting thing is that, aside from speaking Italian, the participants have little in common; they hale from nearly every undergraduate and graduate college at Cornell  – so there is always a lot to talk about.

I’ll be honest that it feels a bit odd to speak Italian while eating dining-hall food in the midst of a few hundred English-speaking Cornell students.  But, after the initial shock, this is hardly a concern. The natives among the group slip easily into their native tongue and the rest of us play along as if Okenshields were a bona-fide Italian trattoria (which it is not).

With Italian on the mind, and a few free pieces of fruit tucked into my jacket pockets, I always feel pretty good after attending one of these meals. If you’re willing to venture away from English for an hour or so each week, I encourage you to check out the dinners yourself!

I dropped in at the Oxley Equestrian Center last week to watch the Cornell women face off against Harvard  in Polo. By the middle of the first chukker (“period” in polo-speak), the stands were packed with fans cheering wildly for their respective teams. Picture a raucous Cornell-Harvard hockey game, add horses and a stiff scent of manure.

To be completely honest, there were only about twenty of us in the stands and everyone acted quite civil; Oxley Arena doesn’t attract the same droves of students that pack into Lynah Rink each week. But collegiate polo is no garden party. The action on the field in front of us was as physical as hockey and much faster paced.

Indoor polo is a condensed version of the outdoor sport, with a smaller field and only three players per team. In collegiate play, the home team provides all the horses for the match and these are rotated to prevent the unfair advantage of a “stacked” line-up. Strict right-of-way rules give privilege the horses moving toward the ball so as to prevent most major collisions.

As careful as they may be about safety, polo is – without a  doubt – a contact sport. If two players are chasing the same ball, they will drive their horses sideways into the opponent to push them away. This maneuver resembles a “check” in basketball with a lot more weight in the hips.

As a novice spectator, it was difficult to understand all the rules and strategies associated with Polo. At first, the spectacle in Oxley Arena looked more like a civil war reenactment than a collegiate sport. But, from beginning to end, I was entertained. Even as the Big Red took a definitive lead over the Crimson, a solid battle continued to rage with girls from both teams enthusiastically clobbering each other.

If you haven’t made it out to the East Hill to see a Cornell Polo match, I encourage you to do so. There won’t  be any sunhats or cucumber sandwiches – just a few hardy fans and a whole lot of grit.