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The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/2000/10/27/ben-affleck-hillary-clinton-visit-cornell-tomorrow/)

October 27, 2000

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Ben Affleck, Hillary Clinton Visit Cornell Tomorrow

By ryan | October 27, 2000

Senate candidate and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton will address the Cornell community tomorrow on the ag quad.

The rally, featuring actor Ben Affleck and musical group Nine Days, is set to begin Saturday at 9:45 a.m. Free and open to the public, the event will proceed rain or shine.

“This rally is sure to be the biggest event of the year at Cornell,” said Josh Roth ’03, publicity director for the Cornell Democrats. “We are expecting thousands of people to fill the ag quad in support of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s candidacy.”

The Cornell Democrats are sponsoring the visit, which is Clinton’s fifth to the University.

Clinton will proceed from Ithaca on a bus tour that concludes Monday in Albany. The campaign will then wind down toward Election Day on Nov. 7, the conclusion of Clinton and U.S. Rep. Rick Lazio’s (NY-2nd) race to succeed Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the U.S. Senate.

Archived article by Matthew Hirsch

Angela Oh Addresses University Race Relations

By ryan October 30, 2000

In light of the bias-related incidents that have struck the University campus this month, last night’s lecture, “Be Proactive,” by Angela Oh, an expert on race relations, struck a chord with the Statler Auditorium audience. Tim Huang ’01, president of the Chinese Student Association, co-sponsor of the event, called Oh a “constructive and fruitful” voice for America, as well as pertinent voice now as the University continues to try to improve race relations. J. C. Park ’01, president of the Cornell Korean Student Association, co-sponsor of the event, hoped that Oh’s speech would help to achieve “the true sense of racial harmony.” Dean of Students John L. Ford introduced Oh in the context of Cornell’s commitment to racial diversity. “By establishing a diverse community, all are challenged intellectually and interpersonally,” Ford said. “Cornell’s campus climate must be committed to a statement of diversity. Angela Oh is one of the many steps on the path to accomplishing our mission.” Oh began by addressing the role of race in her own community of Los Angeles. “You have to think deeply about your community,” she said, describing her personal struggles with racial identity as a Korean woman. “I do not see through rose colored glasses. I know how tough it is.” She discussed her role as the spokesperson for the Korean American community in the 1993 L.A. race riots, which she attributed to “double digit unemployment, shifting demographics, social services and the public’s lack of confidence in the police.” Oh emphasized the importance of developing awareness of racial inequalities in a community. “People need to speak up, they need to mobilize,” she said. “People need to pay attention to poverty in the community.” Oh also described her role as a member of the race initiative advisory board to President Clinton. “Race initiative was an attempt to try to say ‘Wake up,'” she said. “It took somebody in leadership and authority to move us.” Oh specifically addressed racial equality in terms of economic equality. “The challenge is about equality in the year 2000,” she said. “The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, bottom line. The more you have, the more you have to give.” “Racism becomes dangerous when it becomes violent and it becomes dangerous when we shut up,” she concluded. “It takes little steps to move people to a different place.” Following the lecture, Oh took questions from the audience. Students in attendance were moved by the speech. “Her message was one that Cornell needs to hear,” Angie Hunter ’01 said. “We wanted someone who could use more than rhetoric — someone who could tell us something concrete,” said Jason Choy, vice political chair of the Korean Student Association. “Angela Oh was an expert on the subject.”Archived article by Colin Ilgen
Students, CIT Struggle With CoursEnroll Problems

By ryan October 28, 2000

Besides the common reasons for pulling an all-nighter, the recent problems students have had accessing the University’s CoursEnroll service are adding one more, according to many Cornellians. Since the CoursEnroll period has begun for upperclassmen, students registering for their spring semester courses have run into problems that that arose from outdated software and low-capacity network servers. “I didn’t get into one of my classes for my major even though I stayed up until 1:45 in the morning,” said Gretchen Poulos ’03. As a result, Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) is monitoring the registration program to alleviate the burden students face. CIT is also continuously adding servers to mitigate the difficulties that have come up. The early hours of Oct. 21 brought a considerable surge in usage of CoursEnroll, mainly because both sophomores and juniors were first allowed to access the program on that day. “Between midnight and 3 a.m., 1,365 students enrolled in 6,721 classes,” said Rick MacDonald, director of CIT information technologies. “There was an enormous load on the servers.” As a result of the problems with the current software, CIT has steadily increased the number of network distribution servers in order to help handle simultaneous connections. On Oct. 14, the University service provider had one server; on Oct. 21 it was functioning with six. This Saturday, when freshmen begin registering for their courses, CIT will offer 21 servers to the campus community. “We were aware of the delays and difficulties that people were having,” MacDonald said. “And we had a large staff [at CIT] tuning the system in response to the load.” He added, “The program staff has been working to alleviate potential bottlenecks. It’s an ongoing effort and a high priority.” According to CIT staff, the continuing problems encountered by students using CoursEnroll are mostly load-related. These concerns deal with a specific type of commercial software that CIT is trying to modify, but the modifications will not be complete by freshman course registration. CIT stated that students may encounter a “create socket failed” error that indicates system overload. CIT suggests that if students receive this error, they should try enrolling later. The reduced number of students using the system combined with steps taken by CIT to lessen the load on the servers should significantly improve the registration process tomorrow. Still, CIT believes that the network servers could suffer if all eligible students use CoursEnroll at midnight tomorrow. “CoursEnroll has been changed to a Java-based application,” said David S. Yeh, assistant vice president of student academic services and University registrar. According to Yeh, CoursEnroll was designed with significant feedback, testing and the validation of numerous students. The advantages of the program this year are its navigability and accessibility through a web browser. “The performance, which everyone is working on, is not a result of the new design,” said Yeh. “Rather, the culprit may be the Student Information System itself, which is old and will likely need significant modifications.” Student leaders say they are aware that CIT is working hard on fixing the computer glitches associated with CoursEnroll and are trying to encourage patience. “CoursEnroll has been revamped since last year, and aside from the three hour delay we all experienced this past weekend, is apparently working better than ever before,” said Karl Johnson ’03, chair of the Student Assembly (S.A.) Committee on Information and Technologies. “CIT has been working hard on the CoursEnroll program and server, so the S.A. has had no reason to give them a hard time about it,” Johnson said. “[A large number of] simultaneous log-ins to any server are going to be difficult to handle.” For technical support regarding CoursEnroll, students can contact the CIT HelpDesk from midnight on Friday, Oct. 27 to 2 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 28, or call 255-8990. The Office of the University Registrar will also be available to answer questions about CoursEnroll during the same hours at 254-4795.Archived article by Ritu Gupta