Dear CALS Student,

I’m genuinely sorry to hear about your experience with your advisor. If your advising relationship is not helpful or supportive, please come to CALS Student Services in 140 Roberts Hall or visit the advising coordinator in your major so we can find an advisor who will support and guide you toward your academic goals.

Please understand that you are not alone at Cornell. Many students struggle in their first semester, that’s why it’s called a transition semester. It sounds like your first semester was a good learning experience. You adjusted what works for you and successfully increased your semester term average (congratulations!). In the excitement of being a student, it’s very easy to get distracted by your GPA and to focus your entire undergraduate experience on ways to increase it. Although GPA is important, so are connections with faculty, students, and staff as well as the learning experiences in and out of the classroom. Students at Cornell tend to have exceptional drive and may focus on goals without appreciating the journey. Take time to slow down, pause, and reflect to experience the here and now of your educational career.

Staying longer at Cornell has the potential to increase your cumulative GPA, but when you apply to graduate schools they will see that your degree took 5 years when many students graduate in 4. What would be the best use of your time and resources? It may benefit you to graduate and take graduate level courses that can be applied towards your higher degree. Talking with our pre-health advisor Catherine Thompson in the CALS Student Services office might help you decide your best option, especially how it relates to your dental school goal.

Delaying a degree to add majors and/or minors is not encouraged in CALS and is approved on a case by case basis. Students may complete an Application to Delay Graduation (available in 140 Roberts Hall) where the individual circumstance will be reviewed by both the advisor and the CALS Student Services team.

The CALS Student Services team is here to help you. If you need guidance about career or academic goals, or would like more clarification on CALS policies please come visit us in 140 Roberts Hall. Best, Torrey Jacobs

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Nephew,

Checking with the Provost’s Office, the following is learned:

“We have a CornellNYC Tech Public Forum planned for the campus community on Friday, February 3, 12:15 to 1:15 p.m. in G10 Biotech.  Provost Kent Fuchs and Deans Lance Collins and Dan Huttenlocher will give a short presentation followed by Q&A.  The session will be taped for later viewing on CornellCast.  The website Nephew cited is the place for staying in touch with news about the campus on a regular basis.”

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Student,

Thank you for participating in Panhellenic sorority recruitment. I am sorry you were not able to join a chapter yet. There is still an opportunity to see if there is a chapter for you: Informal Recruitment.

The chapters that are eligible for informal recruitment have access to a list of women from formal recruitment that did not join. If you would like to further make your interest known you can do so by contacting them directly. The chapters that are eligible as of today are Alpha Xi Delta, Kappa Alpha Theta and Phi Sigma Sigma. Kappa Alpha Theta has decided not to recruit further but Alpha Xi Delta and Phi Sigma Sigma will be conducting recruitment. They may each conduct their recruitment, if they choose to, in any manner they see fit. They may have events and invite women, they may call women, or they may choose not to have informal recruitment.

Informal recruitment may continue throughout the semester until the chapter fills or the deadline for initiating members in April. You can always contact chapters as well if you would like to further express your interest. The recruitment person’s contact information is listed below: Alpha Xi Delta, contact Rachel Shangraw rgs224@cornell.edu Phi Sigma Sigma, contact Amy Yu ay93@cornell.edu For more information check the Panhellenic website: www.cornellpanhellenic.org Please let me know if there is anything more with which I can help you.

Best of luck, Laura Sanders

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Thoughtful,

Based on evaluation from student callers and walk-ins to EARS, we know EARS is a valued resource on the Cornell campus.  Still we imagine you are quite right that they may well be other students who would appreciate having the option of an on-line chat service.  For that reason, EARS is happy to know the our local crisis counseling line administered by Suicide Prevention and Crisis Services is hoping to pilot an on-line chat service this spring (days and hours yet to be determined).  

Currently EARS counselors are exploring how we might help to support this service in the coming year with hopes that some of our counselors may opt to volunteer with EARS and with SPCS in this special outreach effort.  We hope to announce more details about this service later this spring.
Janet Shortall
Director of EARS (Empathy, Assistance, and Referral Service)

Uncle Ezra   

 Dear Frustrated Cornell Fan,

That would have been the perfect question for W. Barlow Ware, the longtime voice of the Big Red whose announcing still echoes through the rafters of Lynah Rink.  Regrettably, Mr. Ware died Dec. 19, 2011, at age 86.  Luckily, his friend and colleague, Cornell Director of Athletics and Physical Education J. Andrew Noel Jr., has a great sense of history and tradition, and responds:

“With the incredibly high standards for admission and the significant financial aid advantages that our Ivy peers enjoyed until last September, it seems a miracle that Mike Schafer, staff and team currently reside at #1 in the Ivy League, #1 in the ECAC and #9 in the NCAA. This level of performance is fueled by excellent coaching and leadership and an outstanding recruiting class that benefitted from the new Ivy League financial aid match policy. Cornell men’s and women’s ice hockey programs deserves praise indeed and the loyalty that continues to pour forth from the Lynah Faithful and Big Red fans nationwide. Cornell Ice Hockey is a credit to the campus community and popular because of the tradition of excellence and the sheer excitement of the game. Winning an NCAA championship is certainly a pinnacle of competitive achievement but not required to preserve and advance the great Cornell tradition.”

Granted, Barlow Ware would have been more succinct —probably mentioning “consistent championship caliber” and “playoff potential year after year.”  Check out Barlow’s life story (Hint: his first job at Cornell involved wrestlers’ laundry) at this Cornell Chronicle site: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Dec11/ObitWare.html.

Or attend the memorial service Sunday, Feb. 5, from 3:30 to 5 p.m. in the Hall of Fame Room in Friends Hall — right across the road from Lynah.

Uncle Ezra   

dear Curious Cat,

Carl A. Kroch '35 transformed the bookselling industry as owner of Kroch's & Brentano's, which was once the largest privately owned bookstore chain in the country. His stores emphasized outstanding customer service and knowledgeable sales clerks, and Kroch pioneered concepts in book display and store design that have since become common. His philanthropy provided the principal gift for the construction of Cornell's Carl A. Kroch Library, which houses the Division of Rare & Manuscript Collections.

You may be able to find more genealogy information at family tree resources like Ancestry.com. Carl's father, Adolph Kroch, was an Austrian immigrant who opened a German-language bookstore in Chicago in 1907. The store eventually switched to English-language books and became the biggest bookstore in the Midwest.

Thanks to Corey Earle for doing the research on this question!

Uncle Ezra   

Dear Albert,

Without asking what you’ve come up with (although Your Uncle is mighty curious) let’s transfer that question to Alan Paau, vice provost for technology transfer and head of the Cornell Center for Technology, Enterprise, and Commercialization (where they invented the acronym CCTEC, pronounced See-tech, to conserve commas).  Dr. Paau says:

“The key determination factor of ownership is not when and where the invention is fully conceived and made but how ‘related’ it is to the graduate work Albert is doing under his PhD Program.  The ‘relatedness’ is basically a common sense judgment whether one who is active or skillful in the art of the subject matter of the PhD work is likely or expected to come up with the invention or similar inventions.

“Very unrelated subject matter is easy to define.  For example, if a graduate student in biomedical engineering comes up with an invention on how to better open the garage door automatically while playing in his family's garage and the student did not use any of the facilities at the university to prove the improved garage door opener works, then it is clear that the graduate student and not the university should be the owner of the invention.

“So, without knowing what is the subject matter of Albert's research at Cornell for his PhD work and what is his invention, the determination of ownership cannot be made simply based on when and where the invention is created.  For example, if an Electrical & Computer Engineering graduate student is working with his advisor on how to make a computer works faster and then one evening, during his dinner, an idea popped up and he quickly played with his own computer at home and tested out his new idea.   Wow, the idea worked.  Although he came up with the inventive idea at home, during dinner, and reduced it to practice at home using his own computer, the invention is likely to be owned by the university since it is related to the subject matter of his graduate work at the university.”

Thanks, Dr. Paau, for that.  And for PhD Candidate Albert and all the other inventive students, you’re welcome to pursue these matters through CCTEC (http://www.cctec.cornell.edu/, phone 254-4698) or with your department chair.

Uncle Ezra