By March 28, 2006
Mao Ye grad was elected Cornell’s newest student trustee, the Office of Assemblies announced yesterday.
“I see it as a success not just for myself, but of Cornell’s multicultural policy,” he said. “Not only can a person find instruction in any study here, but they can reach their potential.”
Ye, who is studying for a doctorate in economics, is a native of Yangzhou, China. His two-year term as a member of the Board of Trustees will begin in June and he will serve his first year alongside Doug Mitarotonda grad, meaning no undergraduates will serve on the Board for at least a year.
Two of the four trustee candidates, Joe Rudnick ’08 and Rayon Taylor ’07, were disqualified. They both expressed dissatisfaction with the way the Trustee Nominating Committee handled the election process.
“I’m extremely happy for Mao, I think he deserved it,” Rudnick said. But Rudnick also said that he felt the committee and its rules against running on student tickets were discriminatory against undergraduates. For the first time this year, trustee candidates were not allowed to run with Student Assembly candidates. Both Rudnick and Taylor were disqualified for being too closely associated with S.A. tickets.
“We were guinea pigs this year,” Rudnick said. “One of the challenges had to do with an e-mail sent by Tory Lauterbach [’06] over the SAGE listserv, without my knowledge or consent, asking for people to vote for me.”
“I was disqualified for something I had no control over,” he said. “That’s why I’m really upset.”
Taylor also had high praise for Ye, but deep concerns over the process that elected him.
“I don’t want to detract from Mao, but I think overall the process could have been handled much better,” he said. “To this day, I still haven’t sat down with the committee and explained my side of the story.”
Taylor said that the day he received the challenges, he had only 90 minutes to write up a written response to them.
“I’m not going to cry out conspiracy, but something doesn’t feel right,” he said. He also said that it was odd that the TNC has not yet released election numbers, while last year they released the numbers just days after the election.
Dave Kurczewski ’08 said that he was sure Ye would do a great job.
Amid the controversy, Ye has already expressed a heady agenda for his term.
He said he would work closely with the S.A. to keep in touch with the desires of undergraduate students.
He also said that the school should investigate multiple insurance options for students, especially in allowing students with families to seek cheaper insurance for their spouses.
He said he would seek to coordinate an anti-waste campaign, pointing to poorly placed televisions in Appel as an example of valuable resources being misused. He said that money should instead be focused on getting more students “free rides,” saying that money spent now is an investment in future support from alumni.
He said he learned a lot from the other candidates in the election and especially thanked Kurczewski for his support. He also thanked his campaign advisors and his wife for her support throughout the campaign.
By March 28, 2006
Although Cornell sent a small delegation of just two swimmers to the men’s NCAA championships at Georgia Tech this past Saturday, junior Mike Smit and senior Stefano Caprara were able make a splash in the most intense competition on the college stage.
Smit earned All-America honors in the 200-yard freestyle, while Caprara placed in the top-25 in both of his events. Their efforts helped the Red to place 46th overall in the championships.
It was Caprara’s second trip to the championships, and he competed in the same events he raced a year ago, improving upon his matching 29th-place finishes in the 100-yard backstroke and 200-yard backstroke at the 2005 championships. Despite his lack of experience at the national level, Smit was able to shine in his first outing at the championships. Both swimmers earned berths in the national field after notching times in an event that ranked among the top-21 of all collegiate swimmers in the nation.
“Swimming is the hardest sport to qualify for individually out of all the other NCAA championships,” said head coach Joe Lucia.
qualifying in one event, the swimmers are allowed to compete in their other events. There are no at-large bids given to swimmers on conference-winning teams. The only way to punch a ticket to Georgia Tech this year was to post a top-21 time.
In the 200-yard free, Smit made it to the consolation finals and finished in 14th place. His time was 1:35.95, which was fast enough to make him one of 14 swimmers to break the old pool record.
“That was the nicest pool I’ve ever swam in,” said Smit. “There was so much energy in the building that it just fired people up to swim their best.”
Smit also swam the 100-yard freestyle, where he placed 41st in the preliminaries with a time of 44.37. This time was good enough to inch Smit past old Cornell legend Randy Sprout’s ’86 record of 44.39 set at the Eastern championships in 1985.
Smit himself was even shocked that he had broken Sprout’s record.
“That was the kind of record that no one thought was going to be broken,” Smit said.
Smit wasn’t the only swimmer setting impressive records at the 2006 NCAA championships.
“It seemed like in almost every event someone was breaking a record,” Smit said. “People were breaking NCAA records, American records, and even world records. It was pretty amazing just to watch people swim that fast.”
Caprara was impressive as well, swimming in both the 100 and 200-yard backstroke events. He placed 22nd in both preliminaries. Caprara swam the 100-yard race in 48.71 seconds and he posted a time of 1:46.42 in the 200-yard backstroke.