By wpengine
The inaugural Dump & Run sale took place two weekends ago at the newly-named Rawlings Green in front of Appel Commons on North Campus. The event was a large yard sale of items collected last May, when students moved out of their residences for the summer. Seventy percent of the proceeds raised by the sale went to Loaves and Fishes, a local organization that feeds hundreds of underprivileged people every week. The remaining 30 percent of the proceeds were recycled back into Dump & Run, Inc., a national non-profit organization, so that similar collections and sales can be set up at other university campuses. Dump & Run, Inc. is currently at about 20 schools, including Bowdoin College, Clark University and Brown University. Dump & Run was brought to Cornell by Lauren Jacobs ’05. “When I moved out of my freshman dorm, I was overwhelmed and disgusted with the stuff that was being thrown away. I saw someone put a mini refrigerator in the dumpster just because she didn’t have room for it in her car,” remembers Jacobs. “I heard about Dump & Run from a friend at Tufts, and I started working on it at Cornell the following fall.” Jacobs’ work came to fruition in May, when collection bins were placed in all the campus dormitories, fraternity and sorority houses and coops. Donations were collected with help from Campus Life employees who moved the items to warehouses, where they were later sorted and stored over the summer. Jacobs worked closely with Loaves and Fishes, which was the main beneficiary of the sale. “When Lauren Jacobs asked us to help, we helped a lot with the coordination of the sorting and presale pricing, and we got a lot of the volunteers for the sale,” said Jai Khalsa, administrative assistant at Loaves and Fishes. Over 50 volunteers turned out for the sorting and pricing stage of the project, and another 30 worked at the sale. “The sorting volunteers were mostly community members, including some area youth groups, the Retired Senior Volunteer Program (RSVP) and regular Loaves and Fishes volunteers, among others,” Khalsa said. Many of the 30 volunteers at the sale were students. For the sale, there was a “tremendous turnout,” said Dale Walter, general manager of facilities operations for Campus Life. “There were many new and returning students at the sale, as well as a group of Ithaca townspeople. I was very impressed by the Cornell support for the sale,” Walter said. The sale also helped reduce the strain on local landfills that often occurs in May. “To give an idea of the volume of the sale, we trucked in seven large loads to the sale, and were left with fewer than three,” Walter said. The leftover items were collected by Loaves and Fishes at Boynton Middle School, where a community giveaway was held the following day. All those items were free to less fortunate members of the community. The sale was not only environmentally friendly, but it also raised nearly $8,000. Jacobs was “very happy with the sum raised.” Khalsa “had no idea what they would make,” and was very pleased with the $5,200 of the proceeds that went to Loaves and Fishes. “We learned a lot of logistical things, and will definitely be able to improve for next year,” Khalsa said. All involved were enthusiastic about Dump & Run’s future at Cornell. Walter said the program “exceeded expectations,” and he would “definitely be working with it again next year.” Jacobs hoped that there would “be multiple beneficiaries next year” and that Cornell’s Dump & Run start “working with campus life to institutionalize it.” Students who attended the sale also had a positive reaction to the project. “I think it’s great that instead of throwing all sorts of things out, people have a chance to recycle their usable items. It was clear that there was a lot of stuff, and I guess it’s a good sign that so much of it was gone by the time I got there,” said Jessica Rounds ’04.Archived article by Tony Apuzzo
By wpengine
As the Internet replaces the need for a repository of books, journals and periodicals, Mann Library is keeping up with this trend and reinventing library services to create an atmosphere for modern research and education. Yesterday’s New Student Welcome and a program entitled, “Everything you need to know about Mann Library … in About 15 Minutes” were part of an effort to “get people to realize that there is stuff you can take advantage of by actually going to the library,” said James Morris-Knower, Mann Library publicity and public relations coordinator. New services include things like book talks, exhibits and additional technologies. In all, the goal is to reshape the library experience so that it can provide an environment conducive to successful research, Morris-Knower explained. The New Student Welcome featured baked goods, a band, door prizes and guided tours of the library. According to Morris-Knower, the Welcome was “to catch students when they first get here [by hosting] events they would be interested in coming to.” The Welcome aimed to develop awareness of library services and increase the number of library visits by students. A visible step towards this goal of drawing people to the library is the appearance of many new technological devices. Mann is now home to 40 wireless laptops that can be checked out for two-hour time blocks, and will soon house over 20 new desktops. The new computers were provided by Cornell Information Technologies (CIT) to comprise a ‘virtual lab’ to make up for the lack of physical lab space in the library. Some other computing technologies include a color plotter for printing posters and banners, CD and DVD burners, scanners with Optical Character Recognition which allow scanned documents to be treated as Word documents, Assistive/Adaptive Technology that aids visually and aurally handicapped users and a digital projector used for practicing Power Point presentations. “Basically everything we do is in response to feedback we get from students and staff,” said Michael Cook, public access computing coordinator. For example, when lots of students are trying to complete assignments that require new programs and applications, the library tries to accommodate, he explained. Hopefully as library-goers see more of their needs being met, they will make use of all that Mann has to offer. For now, student supervisor Peter Liebling ’05 said that not only do students recognize the technologies as new but also that the computers are, “really becoming used more and more.” “The old AD White-style rooms might make you feel good about going to an Ivy, but when it comes to working you need something a little less stuffy,” said Charles Bradley ’05. If this sentiment is shared by many others, than Mann Library will always be full of students, researchers and other community members looking to learn. tion] would be worth it to make certain improvements with Bailey Hall, although I don’t think they should totally modernize it; its pretty nice the way it is now,” said Christian Coerds ’05. Though students generally felt the lack of performance space in Bailey Hall would not be too great of an inconvenience, many did feel that it will make an impact on daily life at Cornell. “Although I only visited Bailey Hall once last year, I was impressed with its facilities. I think it will be missed by the Cornell community for its ability to bring lectures and musical guests to our university,” said Jamil Lawrence ’06. “The atmosphere won’t be the same,” Hai-Ching Yang ’06 said. “Psych 101 would not be Psych 101 without Bailey Hall