Nearly 600 Cornellians attended yesterday’s lecture by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Nicholas Kristof in Kennedy’s Call Auditorium, on the topic of the Darfur genocide. Kristof, who is currently a New York Times columnist, received a standing ovation for his report on the dire situation in Sudan and his proposals for what can be done to change it. In 2006, Kristof won a second Pulitzer for his coverage of the genocide.

Nothing brings people together like sports games do. So while our university continues to engage in heated discussions about whether program houses promote diversity, members of Cornell’s table tennis club already know they are a sterling example of the cultural richness of our campus.

It may come as no surprise that this year’s process for selecting the Convocation speaker, CNN correspondent Soledad O’Brien, did not go well. According to members of the Convocation Committee, however, it was Cornell’s administration that did not meet expectations when it came to finding a speaker.

Cornell was recently featured in a CNN news clip titled “Divided We Stand: Self-Segregation” on a program hosted by Paula Zahn, sandwiched between clips on high school students in cafeterias and an affluent neighborhood in a suburb of Atlanta, Ga. The video prompted Lindsay Bober ’09, a resident advisor in Clara Dickson Hall, to hold a discussion on the topic of program houses and CNN’s portrayal of the University in its video clip. A dozen students and staff attended the forum last night.

Yesterday marked a milestone in Cornell-China relations, as the highest-ranking Chinese diplomat in the United States, Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong, visited campus to deliver a lecture and to meet with President David J. Skorton and faculty members.