About

Any person.
Any study.
Any Cornelliana.

An alumni
blog about Ezra's
University. (more)

Contact

Comments?
Suggestions? Tips?
Leads?

editor(at)metaezra.com

Links

-- WVBR

[+] Cornell News

[+] Higher Ed News

[+] Campus Pubs

[+] Alumni Interest

[+] Diversions

[+] Blogs

[+] Sports

[+] Other Places

Archives

[+] By Month

[+] By Author

March 2008




Cornell's New CyberLibrarian

Not to rain on Matt's dork brigade, but today Cornell announced that its interim university librarian, Anne Kenney, would (pending approval from the Board of Trustees' executive committee) be officially named the Carl A. Kroch University Librarian.

Why is this significant? University libraries have long been ahead of the game when it comes to developing new technologies for scholarly research. Kenney is "an internationally respected expert in digital library development," and that means extending Cornell's already formidable leadership among research libraries to the kinds of information technologies that will redefine what it means to "go to the library" in the coming years.

A quick glance at Kenney's publication record makes it clear that her expertise in digital collections will serve Cornell well. I'm not sure if Cornell's deal with Microsoft (instead of Google) to digitize many of its holdings will matter all that much to the library's innovation efforts, since I think in the long run, it will be university collaborations and open-source tools that will drive a lot of this development ... as it has so far.


Andy Guess | March 31, 2008 (#)

Uncle Ezra On Jepoardy!

So I'm sitting here, aimlessly going down the blog roll and watching Jeopardy in the background, when Alex Trebek asks the following $2,000 question under the category, 'Books of the Bible':

Few were "better than" this Cornell, who founded a university in 1865.

The answer was correctly questioned, thank goodness.

So one might think that this would be the first time Ezra's University would have ever been referenced on Jeopardy, but think again. Cornell has actually been referenced 29 previous times in questions, twice in Final Jeopardy.

The answers seem to be pretty well-rounded, most referencing Cornell in the Ivy League and as a land-grant university, but some deal with such topics as Keith Olbermann, Bill Nye, and the colors of a Campbell Soup can.

The hardest question I found?

Older than his classmates, Cornell football player & future coach Glenn Warner got this nickname

Which stumped me.

What's a bit harder to track down is how many Cornell alums, students, staff, or faculty have appeared on the venerable quiz show. The J! Archive indicates that at least one individual has appeared on Jeopardy as a Cornell graduate student, and one teenager indicated he would like to attend either Cornell or BU. Let's hope he chose the school with the better hockey team.

And for those of you keeping track at home, here's how Cornell stacks up against the other Ivies in Jeopardy references:

Harvard -- 154 Questions, 25 Contestants
Yale -- 136, 8 Contestants
Princeton -- 76 Questions, 6 Contestants
Cornell -- 30 Questions, 2 Contestants
Columbia -- 24 Questions, 8 Contestants
Dartmouth -- 16 Questions, 2 Contestants
Brown -- 12 Questions, 5 Contestants
UPenn -- 10 Questions, 10 Contestants

Penn and Brown might be a bit harder to identify in the archive due to the somewhat generic nature of their names and the need to also search for 'University', and it's impossible to know how many contestants have appeared without referencing their alma mater.


Matthew Nagowski | March 31, 2008 (#)

Going Dancin': Ivy League History Made

The Cornell Women's Basketball team made history today, securing our school's first ever trip to the women's NCAA basketball tournament by beating Dartmouth convincingly, 64 to 47, in a playoff.

With the win, Cornell became the first school in the Ancient Eight to send both their men's and women's team to the tournament in the same year.

And the men just got seeded to play against powerhouse Stanford in Anaheim this Thursday, who apparently have two seven foot monsters that are known for getting into academic trouble. We all know who the team of true scholar athletes is.

Somehow, Cornell got a 14 seed, whereas fellow Upstate team Siena drew a 13 seed, even though we beat Siena. Why does the NCAA always shaft Cornell? First the miserable No. 4 seed in lacrosse last year, now this.

But what with the hockey team's advancement to the ECAC semifinals last night with a win over Union, it's still a good time of year to be a Cornell sports fan.


Matthew Nagowski | March 16, 2008 (#)

Burn The Dragon!

Dragon Day 2008. The Sun adds an entertaining article about the affectionately named 'Nerd Walk' that the Architecture students use to poke fun of the engineers in the days leading up to the parade:

The Nerd Walk officially began with one solitary girl, Jae Hee Lee ’12. Lee had been wearing her outfit — a blue jumpsuit, sleaves and pant legs rolled up, rainbow-colored socks, gigantic dome-shaped earphones resting around her neck, goggles on top of pig-tailed hair, an iPod securely clipped to her belt — since she arrived at the design studio earlier that day. And understandably so; she was the focal point of the architects’ initial assault. She needed to be in character.

Lee skipped through the atrium, music blaring through her headphones, pumping her fists in the air and squealing with glee. When she reached the main sitting area, she stopped, looked around and began dancing uncontrollably, complete with the occasional pelvic thrust.

The room, which mere seconds earlier had been buzzing with conversation, was absolutely, completely, 100-percent silent. So much for blending in.


Matthew Nagowski | March 16, 2008 (#)

Cornell's Newest Trustee?

What with Spitzer's fall from grace, it's may be time to turn our attention to who will presumably be Cornell's newest ex-officio trustee:

David Paterson

At first glance, he seems to be a rather impressive individual. Born legally blind, he attended Columbia and Hofstra Law. He's the highest ranking African-American to serve in New York State. Interestingly, his daughter attends Ithaca College. So maybe he'll pay more visits to New York's land grant university than Spitzer did.


Matthew Nagowski | March 10, 2008 (#)


Other Recent Posts


-- WSJ: Cornell Wins NYC Tech Campus Bid (EBilmes)

-- Barrier Update: City Approves Nets (DJost)

-- Big Red Cymbal Guy (Nagowski)

-- New York Times Survey on Campus Recruiting is Flawed (KScott)

-- Barrier Update: Legal precedent suggests City of Ithaca will not be held liable for gorge suicide (DJost)

-- Despite MSG Loss, Big Potential for Big Red Hockey (EBilmes)

-- City Council Will Vote on Suicide Nets (DJost)

-- An Encounter on the Upper East Side (Nagowski)

-- Showing Off Your School Spirit (Nagowski)

-- Chipotle Ithaca? (KScott)

-- Cornell at the ING NYC Marathon (KScott)

-- Crossing Over a Fine Line: Commercial Activity on Campus (KScott)

-- Milstein's Downfall (Nagowski)

-- Can any Cornell-associated organization really be independent of the University? (Nagowski)

-- Slope Media Revisited (EBilmes)

-- Slope Media Group Approved for Byline Funding (KScott)

-- Occupy AEM? (KScott)

-- New campus pub to be good for both Greeks and non-Greeks (Nagowski)

-- Gagging the Election (Nagowski)

-- The Changing Structure of Rush Week (Nagowski)

-- Ivy League Humility in the Midwest (EBilmes)

-- Of Median Grades and Economics Minors (Nagowski)

-- Homecoming Recap (Nagowski)

-- My Cornell Bookshelf (Nagowski)

-- The Sun's Opinion Section Has Suddenly Gotten Good (Nagowski)

-- Remembering the 11th (Nagowski)

-- Cornellian Tapped as Top Economic Advisor (Nagowski)

-- Cutting Pledging, and the Good Which Comes With It (EBilmes)

-- Why Cornell Should Not Close Fall Creek Gorge (Nagowski)

-- Welcome to the Class of 2015 (Nagowski)