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Far Above CORNELL RESPONDS TO KATRINA

WHEN HURRICANE KATRINA CRASHED into the Gulf Coast on August 29, it forced millions of residents to flee-- including more than 75,000 college students. Cornell responded, along with dozens of other colleges and universities across the country, by opening its doors. Within days, 208 students from New Orleans, mostly Tulane undergraduates, had enrolled at Cornell. They met with advisors, signed up for meal plans, posed for ID photos, picked up loaner computers, and started attending classes. The academic diaspora was unprecedented, says University Registrar David Yeh. "In my twenty-three years at Cornell, we've not had this kind of experience, where universities have suffered such a large loss that they could not operate for such a long time."

The arrival of the students was only one of many Katrina relief efforts. The Vet college sent supplies to Louisiana State University's veterinary school, and student groups held fundraisers such as the "Storm This" dance party. Students, faculty, and staff collected money and supplies to aid people who had fled the afflicted area. And University researchers developed a website that provides reconstruction workers details about the status of infrastructure along the coast.

The good deeds were accompanied by some controversy. Critics on campus accused Cornell of bias when it initially extended its invitation only to Tulane, which has a mostly white student body. The University subsequently sought out students from Xavier, a historically black university, and the University of New Orleans. And a snafu erupted when twentyfive Tulane students were evicted from their temporary home in a vacant fraternity house after only a week. The alumni association of the fraternity, Theta Chi, reportedly asked Cornell to assume liability for the students, which the University refused to do. They were all housed elsewhere on campus.

Many of the affected institutions, including Tulane, hope to open early next year. Until then, the Cornell community will continue to provide shelter from the storm. "We all feel very badly for them," says Yeh. "There are seniors who really want to graduate. It's their last year--and look what has happened to them." For more information on Cornell's efforts to aid the hurricane victims, go to: www.cornell.edu/katrina/.

Searching PSC ADDS FACULTY MEMBERS

FACED WITH A RISING TIDE OF FACULTY CONCERN OVER the search for Cornell's next president, in September the Board of Trustees agreed to add two more faculty members to the Presidential Search Committee (PSC), increasing faculty representation to five. The new members are Richard Schuler, a professor in the Department of Economics and the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Rosemary Avery, chair of the Department of Policy Analysis and Management. Also, a small group of faculty representatives will be allowed to meet with the final candidates near the end of the search process and present their recommendations to the PSC.

These changes came after a contentious August 30 open meeting between seven PSC members, including board chair Peter Meinig '61 and search chair Diana Daniels '71, and a large group of faculty members, many of whom expressed frustration with both the secrecy regarding the resignation of President Jeffrey Lehman '77 and the larger issues of University governance raised in the wake of the controversial Redbud Woods agreement. "How do you speak to people about the future if you don't talk about the past?" asked history professor Steven Kaplan. In response, Meinig stated that the legal agreement that binds Lehman and the trustees from discussing the resignation will be lifted for the presidential finalists, and that he will "encourage the candidates to have a conversation with Jeff."

The PSC has released a twenty-four-page statement, "The Cornell Opportunity,"which outlines the major challenges and preferred characteristics for potential candidates. It can be found, along with updates on the search process, at www. cornell. edu/presidentsearch/.

Lucky 13 CU ADVANCES IN ANNUAL RANKING

AFTER SPENDING FOUR YEARS AT NUMBER FOURTEEN IN U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking of national universities, this year Cornell moved up to thirteenth place. Once again, Harvard and Princeton were tied at the top of the list, followed by Yale, Penn, and Duke. Among the other Ivies, Columbia and Dartmouth shared ninth place and Brown placed fifteenth.

Cornell fared better in a new poll published by the Washington Monthly. The editors of that publication explained their system this way: "We came up with three central criteria: universities should be engines of social mobility, they should produce the academic minds and scientific research that advance knowledge and drive economic growth, and they should inculcate and encourage an ethic of service.We designed our evaluation system accordingly."Using those standards, they ranked Cornell fourth in the nation, behind MIT, UCLA, and UC Berkeley.Harvard was sixteenth and Princeton a distant fortyfourth. In yet another poll--an evaluation of the best "global universities" prepared by the editors of the Economist--Cornell landed in the number twelve spot, just behind Yale. The top three on that list were Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Cambridge.

Human Touch URIE BRONFENBRENNER, 88

URIE BRONFENBRENNER '38, THE RUSSIAN- born psychologist who did groundbreaking work in early childhood development and helped found the Head Start program for low-income preschoolers, died at his Ithaca home on September 25. Bronfenbrenner, the Jacob Gould Schurman professor emeritus of human development and of psychology, taught at Cornell for more than fifty years. He pioneered the interdisciplinary field of human ecology, which was built on a theoretical model that outlined a complex interaction of familial, cultural, and environmental factors in the process of developing into adulthood. First presented in The Ecology of Human Development in 1979, the theory transformed the research of social and behavioral scientists and has proved to be an influential force in social policy thinking. Bronfenbrenner's last book,Making Human Beings Human: Bioecological Perspectives on Human Development, was published in 2004. In its foreword, Richard Lerner, the director of the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development at Tufts University, called Bronfenbrenner "the foremost theoretician of human development over the past half century." Bronfenbrenner is survived by his wife, Liese, and six children, including his daughter Kate Bronfenbrenner '76, PhD '93, the director of labor education research at the ILR School.

Revolutionary ROBERT MOOG, 71

ENGINEER AND INVENTOR ROBERT Moog, PhD '65, who designed and built the first commercial analog synthesizer, died at his home in Asheville, North Carolina, on August 21; he had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor in April. Moog was a graduate student in engineering physics when he began working with composer Herbert Deutsch on transforming the unwieldy electronic synthesizer technology of the era into a viable musical instrument by designing a system of compact modules, connected with patch cords and playable via a piano-type keyboard. The result was the first Moog synthesizer, which debuted in 1964. Built at the R.A. Moog Company's storefront headquarters in Trumansburg, the Moog was capable of an endlessly mutable range of sounds. "Bob wanted it to be as expressive as a violin," says composer-keyboardist David Borden, former director of Cornell's digital music program and an early collaborator.

The Moog synthesizer triggered a revolution in electronic music and was quickly embraced by rock, jazz, and even classical musicians in the late 1960s. But the Moog itself was quickly eclipsed by competing brands and, in the 1980s, by the solid-state digital synthesizer. Its singular tone and unmatched versatility, however, have continued to resonate with contemporary adherents. In September, a nonprofit foundation was set up to "support individuals who embody Bob's spirit and creativity," says Borden, "and have a little fun with music and technology." Contributions may be sent to: The Bob Moog Memorial Fund, c/o WNC Community Foundation, P.O. Box 1888, Asheville, NC 28802.

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