In response to economic worries and budget cuts, Cornell is offering a severance package to retirement age faculty. According a credible, unnamed source, a year’s salary is offered to encourage tenured professors to retire early. No word on the number of  professors accepting this offer.

Cornell has been stepping up green initiatives around campus. Some include the removal of food trays from dining halls and exploring the banning of water bottles on campus. I think we can all see the brilliance of such ideas. I mean washing those food trays in bulk has got to take like 15ounces of water at least!

A rumor has circulated that Cornell is in the process of applying for funding from the bailout money for a new synchrotron on campus. Now, Cornell already has one high energy synchrotron but as we all know two is better than one. Little fun fact, the new synchrotron will use more than twice as much energy as the entire Cornell campus combined on any given day.

Let’s just hope the scientists running the lab are using Nalgene bottles for their water and have gone trayless to reduce their carbon footprint.

Obama Campaign Manager David Plouffe to be 2009 Convocation Speaker

At today’s Student Assembly meeting C.J. Slicklen, Chairman of the Convocation Committee and former SA President, announced that Barack Obama’s Campaign Manager, David Plouffe, will be the keynote speaker at this year’s convocation.

Plouffe, who does not hold a college degree, will speak at the event on Noon Saturday, May 23rd at Schoellkopf Stadium, one day before the class of 2009 graduates.
The announcement of this year’s speaker has come earlier than in previous years. Soledad O’Brien was not announced as the 2007 Convocation speaker until April 4th of that year, one day before she was demoted at her job as the host of American Morning on CNN, and last year’s speaker, uber-poet Maya Angelou, was not announced until March 27th.

The early announcement is possibly due to the use of an agent, the Washington Speaker’s Bureau. Slicklen could not comment as to whether the use of the agent was a result of the Committee’s inability to secure a suitable speaker on their own.

The selection of the Chief Campaign Manager of Obama for America comes as a surprise to some people seeing as Slicklen is an “out of the closet” Republican. Something he makes clear in his October 21, 2008 article in the Sun. However Slicklen justifies this by saying he “Put the needs of the committee before personal politics” adding that he thinks the audience will be “wowed by his speech” that he claims won’t focus on politics but rather his personal experiences.

Plouffe is currently “between campaigns” and is working on writing his first book: The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama’s Historic Victory.

According to C.J. Slicklen, the 2009 Convocation Chair, the speaker for the Class of 2009 will be announced at the S.A. meeting today at 4:45pm.

More to come when the news breaks.

Our own quasi-Gaza conflict which has been going on in the Arts Quad ‘strip’ the past few weeks, as well as in our classrooms and panel ‘discussions,’ (see here) has continued yet again this week.

Today on the Arts Quad, where the controversial and allegedly one-sided signs and black flags once spanned the lengths of the walkways, there is a counter-display which advocates the Israeli side of the conflict, and condemns the existence and actions of the Hamas terrorist organization. The demonstration is in the form of a little over twenty tall white signposts and the statements are backed by statistics. Walkers entering the Quad from Goldwin Smith are first greeted by a sign which says “This exhibit is dedicated to the memory of all the innocent lives lost in the Israel-Gaza conflict.” Immediately after this non-partial statement stand the rest of the signs, which clearly demonstrate an opposing standpoint to the earlier views expressed on the signs which accompanied the black flags.

The current signs generally reinforce the idea that Hamas’ battle tactics are inhumane and that the organization has no problem throwing away the lives of Palestinian citizens in order to put Israel in a negative light among the global community. According to the signs, Hamas has done this by gathering civilians at targeted areas to serve as human shields, launching rockets from residential areas, relocated military command stations into Mosques, and hiding militants in Palestinian hospitals.

On the other hand, the signs display statistics regarding Israel’s notification process used to warn Palestinian citizens of potential bombardment sites. One sign lists the number of fliers distributed and has a copy of what appears to be a text message or a phone call transcript warning Palestinians to evacuate their homes.

It appears the demonstration was sponsored in part by CIPAC, the David Project, and Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity, among two others. Other than the logos of supporting organizations, most of the signs do not indicate the source for each of the statements.

Stay updated for any new information as the Cornell Insider keeps you updated. Given the apparent short life-span of these types of demonstrations, we will updating continuously.

Here is a link to my column that appeared in the Cornell Daily Sun today about the inappropriate role many campus organizations played in last week’s “Gaza in Crisis” panel.

Hope you enjoy and I’d love to hear feedback.