W. Icers to Face ECAC Foes

By wpengine | December 5, 2003

As the men’s hockey team gears up for its long-anticipated showdown with rivals Brown and Harvard at home this weekend, the women’s team will be facing arguably a more formidable challenge: defeating those same two teams on the road. After beginning the season with a frustrating 0-4 record, the lady icers bounced back and built up an impressive three game unbeaten streak against Sacred Heart, Quinnipiac, and Clarkson. Yet, following an extraordinarily close loss to the Colgate Raiders last Sunday, the Red will be looking forward to the opportunity to resume its winning ways in what may be the most significant weekend series of the season.

Cornell will enter Friday night’s grunge match in Cambridge with a thirst for revenge and more than a little something to prove. Last season, the Crimson rolled over a feeble Red squad, 8-0, at the Bright Hockey Center and embarrassed Cornell at Lynah in a 7-1 pounding. The 2003 ECAC playoffs proved to be more of the same, as Harvard showed no mercy against the overmatched Red, outscoring the team 20-1 in two playoff meetings.

The Red then travel to Providence, RI on Saturday night to meet the Brown Bears — a team which has also not exactly given away wins to Cornell in recent years. In two games last season, the Red was outscored by the Bears 18-2, including a 9-1 loss at Meehan Auditorium in Providence. Brown is returning 19 players from its active roster last year, and there is little doubt that a repeat of last season’s blowouts will be on their minds.

Yet, the Red is not the same team from last year. At 2-4-1, Cornell has shown many signs of consistency on both offense and defense, and head coach Melody Davidson has the squad playing a tighter, more disciplined game. After being outscored 13-1 in the first four games, the players have turned up the offensive heat in the last four, notching 22 goals to their opponents’ 10. 14 different skaters have registered at least one point, and the squad is averaging three goals a game in scoring. The Red has also been peppering opponents’ goaltenders with a plethora of shots, averaging 27.9 shots on goal per contest.

Such a strong team effort has been supported by a number of outstanding individual efforts. Freshman forward Halina Kristalyn has been the surprise sensation of the season, currently leading the team in goals (5) after a dominating five-point performance last weekend in the win at Clarkson. For her efforts, Kristalyn was named the ECAC Rookie of the Week, the first Cornell player to be honored individually by the conference this season. Kristalyn is tied for the team lead in points with junior forward Pearle Nerenberg (both have nine), who has recorded three goals and six assists in eight games thus far. Junior defenseman Jamie Ramenofsky has also been getting involved offensively, leading the team’s defensemen with five points, all assists. Meanwhile, sophomore goaltender Flora Vineberg has persevered through an oftentimes heavy workload with poise and consistency, having compiled a .903 save percentage despite a 1-5-1 record. Currently the netminder boasts a 2.85 goals against average, and coupled with the team’s three goal scoring average, the trends seem to be pointing towards more wins for the Red.

Coach Davidson and her players are hoping that these positives will translate into victories this weekend against the No. 3 Crimson (8-0-0 overall, 2-0-0 ECAC) and the highly skilled Bears (3-4-0, 0-0-0). Yet there is no denying that the Red’s work will be cut out for them. Harvard puts one of the most talented teams in the country on the ice every game, led by high-flying junior Nicole Corriero (14 goals, 10 assists) and speedy sophomore Jennifer Raimondi (five goals, six assists). Vineberg and the Red defensive corps will also be on the lookout for bruising defenseman Angela Ruggiero, who is averaging nearly two points and a penalty per game. The senior is also a commanding force on the Crimson’s power play, having already notched three power play goals.

“We definitely have respect for their players,” junior defenseman Lara Kelly said. “But we can’t be intimidated by them. If we go out of our way to key in on one or two of their players, that takes us off our own game and that’s not the way we play.”

The Bears are anchored by senior goaltender Katie Germain, winner of three games for Brown and this week’s ECAC Goalie of the Week. Sophomore forward Keaton Zucker leads the Bears with four goals and four assists, and the gritty team has averaged over 32 shots per game at this point in the season.

Archived article by Kyle Sheahen

String of Break-ins Plague Cascadilla

By wpengine December 15, 2003

A series of break-ins has upset life in Cascadilla Hall, where three female students’ rooms were broken into over Thanksgiving break, sparking anger and fear among residents. According to an e-mail sent to the Cascadilla community by Scott Helfrich, the residence hall director, there is no evidence that the rooms were forcibly entered, and very little was taken from the rooms. In a subsequent e-mail sent to Cascadilla residents and obtained by The Sun, Helfrich reported that one of the women whose room was entered, Marsha Lien ’04, requested that certain information about her case be shared. The e-mail explained that although “almost nothing was taken from the room,” Lien “found that her bed and pillow had been urinated on and the comforter pulled back over the mattress to conceal this situation.” According to Lien, she first noticed that something was wrong as she came back to her room Sunday night after break. Lien said that she saw that the door was crooked, and when she entered her room she found that the door had been unlocked and the lights turned on. When she asked her resident advisor if anyone had been in her room, her R.A. — who had heard of two similar cases — asked her to check her bed. Lien lifted her comforter to find a “huge stain.” “First I did not know what the hell it was,” Lien said, explaining that the previous cases had included instances where the perpetrator had ejaculated in the room. Because the Cornell University Police Department is conducting an investigation into the break-ins, information is limited. Helfrich warned in his e-mail that “some information will remain confidential and not be inclusive of the full situation.” Linda Grace-Kobas, interim vice president for communications and media relations, did say however that “it doesn’t appear that robbery was the prime motive.” Adam Brown ’04, whose friend lived in one of the invaded rooms, said that residents in Cascadilla continue to remain frightened by the break-ins. He said that one of his friends, an R.A., moved out for about one and a half weeks and only recently moved back in. “Once R.A.s start moving out of dorms, it’s a really bad sign,” Brown said. Brown reported that his friend whose room had been entered went home because of the incident. His friend, whom he said was “pretty shaken up about it,” asked not to be contacted. Brown and Lien both expressed extreme disappointment with the authorities’ response to the incidents. “I’m not very happy with [the response],” Lien said. “They’re very hush-hush.” She also said that the CUPD in particular were very unclear to her in regards to the other incidents. “I think that everyone should know,” she said. “Many of my friends that live there are worried that the police are doing little to protect them and to protect the evidence, and many feel they are not safe staying there,” Brown wrote in an e-mail to The Sun. The CUPD continue to conduct an investigation and “have asked that people keep their eyes open” for suspicious behavior, according to Grace-Kobas. She added that authorities are working with Campus Life, but both she and Helfrich said they cannot comment on the investigation because it is ongoing. Helfrich wrote in one of his e-mails that authorities were not yet sure how the perpetrator entered the rooms, but that “no master keys for the community have been reported missing to the knowledge of Cornell University Police or Community Development.” Helfrich said that although residents in Cascadilla are more cautious of letting strangers into the hall, he felt that the general atmosphere “is not that different from last year at this time.” Lien, however, said that she and many of her friends are “scared shitless” and will not sleep in their rooms over the weekends. She said that her floor is especially cautious both because it is the first floor — a high traffic area — and also because most of the residents there are female. Lien expressed frustration that Campus Life would not let her or other residents install deadbolts in their rooms, but said that she plans on installing one anyway. She also said that many of her friends push furniture against their doors at night as an added precaution and that she has taken to going to sleep with a knife. According to Grace-Kobas, the CUPD have not yet identified any suspects. She also could not predict what punishments the perpetrator would eventually face if caught, as that would largely depend on charges brought. Grace-Kobas further explained that because new evidence and information from questioning often arises once a criminal has been apprehended, it is too soon to know yet what the charges will be. Helfrich and Kobas have asked anyone with information about the break-ins to contact the CUPD at 255-1111.Archived article by Yuval Shavit
Schwab Named Dean of Law School

By wpengine December 12, 2003

Last Friday, President Jeffrey S. Lehman ’77 announced that Prof. Stewart J. Schwab, law, has been named the new Allan R. Tessler Dean of Cornell Law School. Schwab, replacing Lee Teitelbaum who resigned last winter after serving since 1999, inherits an “extraordinarily healthy” institution, according to Kevin Clermont, the James and Mark Flanagan Professor of Law and a member of the committee that recommended three candidates to Lehman. The committee was formed last spring and has met weekly this semester, looking for a candidate who had administrative experience, ambition, character, scholarship and commitment to teaching and students, Provost Biddy (Carolyn A.) Martin told The Sun earlier this summer. A list of five finalists was released in early October, and that list was then whittled down to three recommendations from which Lehman chose from. Before that final list, however, each finalist took part in a two-day interview process, allowing two non-University based candidates get a feel for the campus and Cornell in general. “I was honored to have been chosen as a finalist,” Schwab said, the last of the five to be interviewed. Schwab is now responsible for 45 full-time faculty members and about 600 students in the school’s J.D. degree program and another 60 additional students in the masters of laws degree program. “I am confident that, with his strong leadership, the Law School will make ever greater contributions to our understanding of the law and legal institutions and will continue to prepare our students for lives of accomplished service within a rapidly changing profession,” Lehman said. Schwab’s credentials indicate a range of experience and knowledge suitable for the position. He earned an M.A. in labor economics and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan, after which he clerked for the Hon. J. Dickson Phillips of the U.S. Court of Appeals and U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor before joining the law school faculty in 1983. At Cornell, Schwab has taught courses on subjects ranging from comparative labor, contracts in a global society and corporations to empirical studies of the legal system, torts and law and economics. He’s also moonlighted at various other positions, serving as distinguished visiting professor at the University of Nebraska Law School this spring and a Fullbright senior scholar at the Australian National University’s Centre for Law and Economics in 1998. He’s also been a visiting fellow at Oxford University’s Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, and has served in various other positions at Victoria University, University of Virginia Law School, Duke University and the University of Michigan. Schwab has also written widely, authoring with Samuel Estreicher Foundations of Labor and Employment Law and also writing Employment Law: Cases and Materials alongside such legal luminaries as Steven L. Willborn and John F. Burton, Jr. His writings have been featured in the law journals of Yale University, University of Chicago, New York University, William and Mary, University of Michigan and Cornell. He currently is the co-editor of the Journal of Empirical Legal Studies. He has also served as a consultant for the World Bank on reform of labor and employment laws throughout the former Soviet Union and has been called upon for consultation for ERISA, ESOP and Title VII litigation. “Stewart brings to the position 20 years of teaching and scholarship in areas that have enormous significance and breadth. He is one of our most productive and distinguished legal scholars and is widely respected by his colleagues. I look forward to working with him,” Martin said. The members of the search committee were Martin; Walter Cohen, vice provost; Stephen Crane, chair, Law School Advisory Council; Prof. Theodore Eisenberg, the H. A. Mark Professor of Law; Prof. Stephen Garvey, law; Prof. Barbara Holden-Smith, law; Prof. Sheri Lynn Johnson, law; Prof. Annelise Riles, law; Prof. Faust Rossi, the S. S. Leibowitz Professor of Trial Technology and Prof. Carol Grumbach, senior lecturer and director, Lawyering Program. Archived article by Michael Morisy