In his column today, President Skorton urges university citizens to engage in debates and discussions about political conflicts, particularly that in Israel and Gaza. While we agree with Skorton that an academic setting is the best place to foster such political engagement, we hope that he and the University do more to encourage these dialogues.

Cornell architects can finally rest easy. Pending the final approval of a building permit request, the University will at long last be able to construct Milstein Hall. This news is long overdue.

The proposed $40-million building, which will house the University’s architecture program, has been forced to cut through years worth of red tape on its path to approval — first from Cornell and later from the City of Ithaca. The process has been frustrating and complex but, when all is said and done, Cornell will likely be able to give its top-ranked architecture program the building it deserves.

Rarely does the scope of a class extend beyond its required reading or the duration of a semester. For students in Prof. John Weiss’s, history, class, however, th curicullum serves as a springboard for more far-reaching global aims.

The goal of History 2161: Iran and the World is to foster relations between Cornell students and Iranians through dialogue at a time when relations between the U.S. and Iran are volatile and fears of a nuclear-armed Iran are growing.

Class periods often include speakerphone interviews with leading Middle East policy experts and students are assigned to establish contact with Iranians. Furthermore, many students who have taken the class remain committed to working on the project even after the semester has ended.

Last May, the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Rabigh City, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia awarded Cornell a grant to fund the KAUST-Cornell Center for Energy and Sustainability. Through the grant, Cornell receives $5 million dollars every year for five years from KAUST for sustainability research.

According to Prof. Lynden Archer, chemical and biomolecular engineering and a co-Principal Investigator of the of the center, KAUST is a university that the Saudi Arabian King Abdullah commissioned and is now in its early stages of construction. The university felt that it was important to develop research partnerships with leading schools around the world, using the Singapore-MIT alliance as a model.

Hear anything raunchy or ridiculous? Submit your eavesdroppings to

overheard@cornellsun.com

State St. Diner Waitress: She’s about as useful as tits on a nun.

— State Diner

Flamboyant Boy on Cell: I need to black out tonight. I totally deserve it.

— Outside Olin Library

Math Lecturer: So I can do orthogonal vectors in 2-D ... I can't do it in 3-D ... Not without being obscene anyways ...

— Engineering Quad

Rebel Freshman: I slept through my first class today ... I feel like a badass ...

— Goldwin Smith

(In line for the Decemberists tickets)

Exasperated Girl: And so I was home over the weekend, and my sisters were back home as well, which I'm not used to. It was like when we were growing up, except now we're huge, and I had to sleep with my mom!

[video]

The most important type of science is the kind that “everybody gets,” that students “can go home and discuss with their families,” remarked Prof. Francis DiSalvo, the co-director of the Cornell Fuel Cell Institute. With the Institute’s focus on a deceptively simple technology ultimately capable of solving America’s fuel crisis, the CFCI represents exactly this type of science.

It was move-in day and he was a 30-minute walk from Central Campus. His window opened up into a cement wall. His room was located one floor below ground level. Living in the basement of graduate housing was not what Kyle Doebler ’10 was expecting when he transferred to Cornell from East Stroudsburg University.

Technically, Schuyler House, where Doebler lives, is “on-campus housing” because it is owned by Cornell, although it is located just beyond lower Collegetown. The closest dining hall where he can use his meal plan is on West Campus.

Like most other transfer students, Doebler submitted his housing application in June before the July 1 deadline. But unlike the other transfers, Doebler is living with graduate students.