Correction Appended

In the wake of substantial budget cuts for Cornell’s libraries, the University signed a deal this past weekend to sell a 95,000 volume duplicative collection in Uris Library to Tsinghua University in Beijing, according to Anne Kenney, University librarian for the Carl A. Kroch Library.

Cornell has been collaborating with Tsinghua on research projects, faculty exchanges and student work and study options for the past decade. In 2004, former Cornell President Jeffrey Lehman '77 visited Tsinghua to initiate a “strategic partnership,” which laid the groundwork for future cooperation in the fields of engineering and physical sciences, according to the Cornell website.

Correction appended.

Last Thursday, the Student Assembly rejected Cornell Cinema’s appeal of a 22-percent cut in their byline funding over the next two academic years. This decision, which will seriously compromise one of our University’s most important cultural institutions, was a triumph of bureaucratic ineptitude and willful narrow-mindedness.

Sunday will be a long day for the rowing teams — rowers will wake up before dawn, load into buses, drive four hours to the Princeton Chase race in Princeton, N.J., race, then load the buses and head home. Previous visits to the Princeton Chase included an overnight stay at a hotel in Princeton, but economic conditions necessitate reductions in varsity team travel, among many other areas.

The traditional Swedish lawn game of kubb, complimentary apples and cookies, and Swedish music on the Arts Quad yesterday helped spark dialogue among faculty and students regarding the Dutch and Swedish programs, which are slated for termination by the end of this academic year.

As students headed home for Fall Break last Thursday night, the University boasted some good news: By centralizing the process of buying goods and services, Cornell could save up to $40 million annually. We are pleased that the administration has found the means to cut $40 million from the procurement budget, but the University must take further steps to maintain that these cuts do not affect academic spending.

To the Editor:

Re: “Intramural Hockey Axed in Budget Cut,” Sports, Sept. 1.

Playing intramural ice hockey and then downing our nightcap — a Ruloff’s pitcher — was one of our favorite pastimes in college. So you could imagine our dismay when we discovered that the Athletics Department axed our beloved sport.

More than the disappointment that Cornellians will no longer have the privilege of playing on Lynah’s legendary sheet of ice, the end of intramural ice hockey shatters the heart of a revered Cornell institution.

Faculty salaries at major universities across the nation remain unaffected despite widespread budget and general economic woes.

Salaries for professors across the country rose by 3.9 percent last year, well above the inflation rate, according to the American Association of University Professors. According to USA Today, Weill Cornell Medical College Prof. Zev Rosenwaks, obstetrics and gynecology, allegedly earned a paycheck of $3.1 million last year, the fifth highest salary at any U.S. college.

The median salaries at the endowed colleges during the 2008-2009 school year were $93,500 for assistant professors, $109,800 for associate professors and $154,300 for full professors, according to data from the AAUP.

To the Editor:

Re: “Future Turkish Classes Available Only on Video,” News, April 15.

In these challenging economic times, difficult decisions must be made to streamline and cut costs wherever possible. In making these decisions, however, it is crucial that policies to put Cornell in a stronger position in the short term are not to the detriment of the long-term interests of the University and its students. The campus recently learned of the Dutch, Swedish and ESL language programs being terminated entirely and Turkish being curtailed. This will serve a severe blow to the long-term interests of the University, but most importantly, its graduates.

The University has recently terminated on-campus instruction in Dutch, Swedish and Turkish, as well as an English as a Second Language writing course titled English for Academic Purposes. Given President Skorton’s March 26 comments advocating cautiousness when eliminating programs that attract new students, these cuts denote nothing less than a broken promise.

Lately, many staff cuts have been justified as necessary to insulate students’ academic options from the repercussions of the budget crunch, but these course cuts suggest otherwise. Although staff and program reductions are inevitable, by first announcing that jobs were sacrificed for the sake of academics, and then watching courses get cut wholesale, makes us skeptical.

Although the announcement for the closing of Edna McConnell Clark Physical Sciences Library came over a month ago, the administration is still feeling reverberations of ill sentiment from affected students and academics. The full brunt of this bitterness came directly to a head in yesterday’s forum in Clark Hall, where Janet McCue, associate University librarian, headed a small cadre of librarians to field questions and address confusions regarding the closing.

“We don’t want to have your research suffer, and we really don’t want there to be obstacles to your work,” McCue said to the audience of about 25, mostly graduate students. “We also don’t want to diminish the collection support we’re giving you.”