Development Proposed for Eastern Collegetown

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20100208/NEWS01/2080360/1126/news/Developer+seeks+town+re-zoning+in+Belle+Sherman

An underdeveloped piece of land between East Hill and Collegetown is the site of a proposed 26-unit single-family housing development to be called “Vine Street Cottages”. The land has been used by a trucking company since 1980, and was previously the site of an asphalt plant. The land has been marketed for the past year or so by several real estate agencies as a site for dense housing (suggested sale price: a cool $1.25 million for 3.4 acres. Mind you, this is Ithaca, so those prices are quite steep).

The housing is to be designed similar to the older homes in the nearby Fall Creek neighborhood, and sell for about $300k. However, the land is only zoned to hold ten lots, not 26, so a zoning appeal has to be filed and public discussion has to be undertaken. Which leads to comments like this one:

“…whose parents live on Vine Street, said the proposed development would be too dense, and the asking prices ‘are unrealistic for this area.’” A mature tree line currently buffers neighbors from the trucking operation, but all the trees would have to be removed to accommodate that many units, he said…”

I’ll give it one thing – the asking price is steep. A 1900 sq ft., 3-bedroom, 2.5 bath house that is LEED certified seems like it should only go for 200k-250k in the area. As for being too dense, apparently the joys of the frequent traffic of 18-wheelers up and down Mitchell Ave. outweigh 26 single-family houses. It’s also next to Maplewood Park, which is owned by Cornell and much denser (Maplewood Park is on the site where Vetsburg, Cornell’s housing for vets and their families, was originally placed after WWII). Cornell has its own plans to redevelop Maplewood Park within the next several years (assuming the budget kinks are worked out).

Speaking of which, the company that wants to develop the site, Agora LLC, is headed by Toby Millman, Cornell Class of 1992.

It would seem to be that this is a big win for Ithaca. The housing is intended for permanent residents and follows new urbanist principles, so it’s eco friendly and responds to concerns of students overrunning the area. But apparently, some folks think that a trucking company is better.

New Sorority May Be Coming to Cornell

Students Push for New Sorority

February 4, 2010 – 1:51am
By Dan Robbins

A new sorority may be coming to the University if a group of roughly 30 women are successful in their efforts to recharter Delta Phi Epsilon, which closed its Cornell chapter in 2003. Composed mostly of transfer students and women who rushed sororities but were not matched with a house, the group has already begun planning social events, meeting with Greek Life and organizing philanthropic drives.

Molly McMahon ’12, who was a member of Delta Phi Epsilon at Monmouth University, before she transferred to Cornell this semester, is heading the movement and is the only woman in the group previously affiliated with Delta Phi Epsilon.

“At Monmouth, it was a really wonderful experience for me, and I just want to bring that here and extend that to other girls,” McMahon said.

She chose not to rush this semester because she felt joining a house right after transferring would be overwhelming, especially since many women participating in formal recruitment already knew each other. Since rush week, McMahon has talked with other students interested in founding a new sorority. The group has held social events, including mixers with fraternities, and participated in fundraising efforts like the benefit concert, Hands for Haiti.

However, founding a new sorority chapter –– formally known as “chapter extension” –– is a lengthy procedure over which McMahon and the group have little control.

“The Panhellenic Council must begin this process with an extension exploration committee to assess the needs of the female students at Cornell and the current health of the Panhellenic community,” Laura Sanders, assistant dean of fraternity and sorority affairs, explained in an email.

If the committee finds a need for another sorority, Cornell’s 11 current chapters would vote on its potential viability, after first consulting their respective national headquarters. The National Panhellenic Council requires at least a three-week period between the announcement of the vote and the actual balloting.

If the chapters vote in favor of extension, Cornell’s Panhel contacts sororities not represented on campus to assess their interest in installing a chapter, Sanders said. Of the 26 organizations that are part of the NPC, those interested in extension then come to Cornell for an interview.

McMahon said she recently talked to officials from Delta Phi Epsilon who were “very supportive” and offered guidance about the extension process. With only 45,000 members internationally, Delta Phi Epsilon is looking to grow, McMahon said. The sorority already owns a house on The Knoll, where it was initially chartered at Cornell in 1962.

Although an exploratory committee, formed by Panhel last spring to determine if there was room for a new sorority, supported the extension, the national organizations with local chapters at Cornell blocked attempts at chartering a new house.

“The overwhelming response was that they felt Cornell was not yet ready for another sorority,” Sanders said.

Many of the national organizations said that Cornell’s current chapters have not fully used informal recruitment, a period outside formal rush when houses with vacancies can extend bids to women who have attended Cornell for at least one semester. Sororities are usually eligible for this type of recruitment when members graduate early, or when they pledge as sophomores or juniors and consequently graduate before the rest of their pledge class. The houses can offer bids whenever they like during the process. In the last two semesters, four houses at Cornell qualified for informal recruitment each period, but not all participated or filled their vacancies, said outgoing Panhel President Alison Ewing ’10.

Panhel plans to form another extension committee this semester, Ewing said.

“Whether national organizations support extension this time depends on whether the concerns they had last time are resolved,” Ewing said. “It’s hard to say this early whether the use of informal recruitment has allayed their concerns.”

Last year, officers from the national organizations with sororities on campus also feared that a new chapter would use informal recruitment more heavily than existing chapters. This could create a stigma and hurt existing houses that do not participate in informal recruitment. But Ewing said this does not mean that an attempt to recharter Delta Phi Epsilon will automatically fail.

“There were women at the end of this past formal recruitment who didn’t get matched to a chapter and we still have very large pledge classes,” Ewing said. “So there might be potential, but we have to decide whether adding a new chapter would be viable and not hurt existing chapters.”

Although Panhel voted to recharter Alpha Xi Delta in 2004, McMahon feels there is definitely room for a new house.

“There are only 11 sororities and over 40 frats, so I don’t know why they wouldn’t see the need,” McMahon said. “We really have plans and goals and hopefully it’ll work out.”

***

So, this was no surprise. If they were here for 41 years, and they still own a house here, I’m sure their national would be most receptive to a recolonization at Cornell. Thing is, it’s not so easy because this isn’t following standard procedure. So these ladies are in for a lot of red tape and work on their parts.

Cornell’s Morbid History II: A (Sadly) Busy Year

Glancing over at Elie Bilmes’s Fast Lane Blog, he made mention of the most recent student fatality from Cornell University, that of sophomore Mark von Bucher, who succumbed to injuries sustained in a skiing accident in Utah over winter break. He goes on to note that this is the eighth student fatality this year.

Offhand, let’s goes through that list. The Daily Sun makes it easy because it all gets placed on the “tragic” node. Respectfully, the Sun does not display ads in this node either due to the nature of its content.

1. David Yang ‘11 was killed in a car accident in Missouri in late August.

2. Warren Schor ‘11 succumbed to complications related to contracting the H1N1 “Swine Flu” Virus in mid September.

3. Boon Jim Lim ‘13 was found dead in his dorm room in late October. The family has chosen to not disclose the cause of death.

4. Rion Wight ‘09, who had been on academic leave for the past two years, died unexpectedly in late October, a week after the death of Boon Jim Lim. No cause of death was released.

5. Lucas Wooster, a 32-year-old Ph.D. student, died unexpectedly in early November. His death has been speculated by some to be a suicide.

6. Adam Frey ‘11 lost a two-year-long battle to cancer the day after Christmas.

7. Clayton DeFisher ‘11 died after suffering cardiac arrest at a New Year’s celebration.

8. Oliver Schaufelberger ‘11 died at home around January 13th. The family has chosen to keep the cause of death private.

9. The aforementioned Mark von Bucher ‘12.

If you count the Ph.D. student, that makes for nine fatalities. Comparably, the tragic node records three student fatalities for the entirety of the previous academic year.

This has been a truly unfortunate year for the student body of Cornell.

The Rush Week PR Disaster

Pike being booted is bad enough. But it looks like sororities haven’t been able to avoid trouble either.

If anyone has read Ivygate or the Huffington Post lately, apparently Pi Beta Phi’s dress manual for sisters during rush week was leaked, substantiating just about every single embarrassing sorority stereotype known to man. Not that everyone didn’t know there was a dress code, but the shallowness of it all really echoes with the sister who wrote the six-page guide. It’s not something that Pi Phi will get in trouble for since they didn’t do anything wrong, but it’s an embarrassment and a public relations debacle.

Watch out for those dress checks, ladies.

Speaking of which, this puts Greek Life at Cornell in an unpleasant situation. We have Pike and Pi Phi caught committing activities that portray the darker side of Greek Life by exposing some of the excessive drinking and superficiality, the kind that anti-Greek zealots thrive off of.  I know I made the joke a couple of entries ago about how I hope my fraternity sends no one to the hospital during rush week, but this is ridiculous. The goal of recruitment is to invite those interested into Greek chapters, not embarrass ourselves in a stereotypical shit-show that will have repercussions through the system. The reputation of the greek system at Cornell has taken a major hit this week, and Panhel and the IFC need to something, now. Advertising the high points of Greek Life in Sun Articles and OFSA publications is only a small part of the answer. Open and extended discussion of these events will be required at the meetings of the respective councils, and ways to improve upon it. Even if they don’t (which I’m being honest here, and know that things won’t really change), it will offer some good PR.

I know that some of the comments I’ve seen on facebook and other sites question the harshness of immediately stopping Pi Kappa Alpha’s recruitment and kicking them off campus. Let’s be frank – they deserved it. Yes, they sought the freshmen medical attention. Congratulations, by not letting them die they just avoided persecution under NYS law. However, the brothers still let it happen in the first place. Did not monitor the situation, did not prevent the freshmen from drinking to the point of poisoning, did nothing until their lives were actually in danger. The freshmen were stupid, but regardless of that the brothers should have been smart and prevented the situation from occurring. But they didn’t. They deserve every punishment that Cornell, the IFC, their national org, their alumni and anyone else delivers upon them.

Stupid Frat Tricks II: How to Screw Up Recruitment

So I checked my email today and received the following excerpt in an email from the IFC:

“I am writing to provide you all with an update of events that occurred last night that resulted in a fraternity having their university recognition temporarily suspended.  The suspension is in response to a recruitment event at the fraternity house that resulted in the hospitalization of three students due to alcohol poisoning.  These students were transported to the hospital by brothers of the fraternity late last night.  The Ithaca Police Department responded to the event as well and are currently investigating along with Cornell University Police.  This incident is being taken very seriously and will likely have repercussions that effect the entire system.  At this time the fraternity has been instructed to desist from all activities including recruitment.”

While the chapter at least got them medical attention, the act was stupid, dangerous and intolerable. To the point that the fraternity (rumor mill suggests Pi Kappa Alpha) has lost recognition and will not be allowed to have a pledge class. Well, considering the similar incident that happened with Sigma Pi a couple of years ago, I guess this is proof that history has a habit of repeating itself.

Money and Morons

So, I’ll be on a little hiatus for the next several days as I will be attending a conference, but I figured I’d share two conversations I had recently.

The first was with a friend of mine whose job involves educating student athletes on how to conduct phone fundraising. I asked her how they were doing.

“Well, they only have like a couple days each to do it, but ladies hockey is only a thousand dollars from their goal so they’ll probably make it. The guys team wouldn’t have come close to their goal if some guy didn’t pledge $15,000.”

“Wait, someone pledged a $15,000 donation over the phone?”

“Yeah, I think it was one of the largest single donations the phoneathon has ever received.”

EDIT: The best part was when I found out this evening from that same person that the men’s hockey team raised over $55,000 in two days. Of course, half of them became ill, but still, that’s a lot of money.

Someone definitely has some money to give away this recession. It could be that he really likes Cornell men’s hockey, or in light of recent news, he could be trying to buy someone’s enrollment.

Conversation number two was with a friend who is a member of an IFC fraternity. I asked if he was looking forward to rush.

Eh, whatever happens happens. We have a few guys we know are coming back for us, but we’ll see how it goes. It doesn’t help that one of our sophomore guys got drunk and punched this one freshman in the face because he thought he was annoying.”

On that note, physcical assault of freshmen is not the best way to recruit. Like last year, I’m keeping my fingers crossed that I don’t come back to find out someone set my fraternity’s house on fire or sent rushees to the hospital.

An Employee’s Revenge?

Truth or fiction?

http://www.theithacajournal.com/article/20100111/NEWS01/1110344/Former-employee-accuses-Cornell-University-of-unfair-admissions-practices

A former Cornell University employee threatened to reveal unfair admissions practices in an attempt to settle a personal lawsuit regarding overtime, Cornell officials allege.

Eldred Harris, a former reunion campaign officer in the Alumni Affairs and Development Office, is suing the university for $30,000 in overtime fees. Cornell officials allege in court documents that Harris said he had information about a supposed university admissions practice in which mediocre students were offered placement in return for large donations, and threatened in March 2008 to reveal it if a settlement was not reached.

Harris’ lawyer, Edward Kopko, said the matter of Cornell’s admissions practices is not related to the overtime issue and the university is using it to obfuscate the matter.

“We are only concerned with (the Fair Labor Standards Law) and labor law,” Kopko said. “The case has nothing to do with the distractions that were raised by Cornell pertaining to admissions. I assume Cornell is doing it to undermine Mr. Harris, but it actually has nothing to do with this case.”

Associate Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Richard Banks said in an affidavit in the case that Harris’ then-lawyer, Seth Peacock, wrote to Cornell Vice President for Human Resources Mary Opperman on March 12, 2008, outlining Harris’ grievances, which included being terminated for persistently pushing the AA&D office to address what he termed “neglect and under-investment (of) Cornell’s diverse constituents,” and giving a deadline for reaching a settlement regarding the overtime fees.

“To highlight one of many of Mr. Harris’s significant concerns, I have included three disturbing e-mails with this letter,” Banks quoted Peacock’s letter as saying. “They illustrate quite clearly that for majority donors, there is a threshold gift level that impacts admission decisions despite all of the lofty protestations to the contrary. The first sets forth the price of admission to Cornell; the second, if the price is paid even a mediocre student will be admitted. Both students were admitted to Cornell.“

A third e-mail is from an African-American alumnus who was complaining of his daughter’s rejection from Cornell despite what he regarded as her “clear qualifications and his giving potential.” According to Banks’ affidavit, Harris asserted in Peacock’s letter to Opperman that this alumnus is still not tracked by the AA&D office. Harris’ complaint in Tompkins County Supreme Court includes several e-mails between him and his supervisors at Cornell, but does not include the e-mails mentioned in the quoted letter to Opperman.

Peacock’s letter, as quoted by Banks, goes on to say that the issue of equitable access to higher education is one to which Harris is “highly sensitive” as an African-American Cornell alumnus, and that Harris is “prepared to forward all one hundred plus messages to … the New York Attorney General’s Office, numerous media outlets and most importantly he is ready to share these messages with Cornell’s twenty-five thousand or so Asian, African-American, and Latino alumni of which I (Peacock) am one.”

University Counsel Wendy Tarlow responded to Peacock March 13, 2008: “Please be advised that the use of confidential University documents by your client violates the confidentiality agreement that he signed while employed at Cornell. Your threat to use these documents also appears to constitute extortion under New York law. Moreover, your own actions in writing the letter dated March 12, 2008 (to Mary Opperman) appear to violate the New York Code of Professional Responsibility.”

Tarlow gave a deadline for the documents to be returned to Cornell by the next day.

• Letter containing admissions complaint
• Eldred Harris case complaint

Banks and Harris did not return calls regarding the case. A spokesman for Cornell’s press relations office said she could not comment on the case since it is still in litigation, and that she was not aware of practices within Alumni Affairs and Development. Harris is a member of the Ithaca City School District Board of Education.

Kopko said the matter of Cornell’s admissions process and Harris’ exchange with the university regarding the e-mails have nothing to do with the case Harris has brought against Cornell and are an intentional distraction Cornell has “injected into the case.”

“The issue in the case is simply overtime,” Kopko said. “It is a (Fair Labor Standards Act) overtime and labor claim. … When you read the documentary evidence, they are trying to distract the court from the fact that this is a labor law issue by referring to the circumstances surrounding (Harris’) separation from Cornell.”

Cornell filed a motion to dismiss the case Dec. 18.

***

Well, if there’s any truth to the allegations, then I guess Sandy Weill’s grandkids will have no problem getting into Cornell.

Better Late Than Never: 2009 OFSA Report Released

It only took them until New Year’s to get it up on their website. What’s that, like six months since the numbers and data were finalized?

The PDF:

http://dos.cornell.edu/cms/greek/upload/OFSA_AnnualReport_0809.pdf

The cover is vaguely charming. I can see my fraternity’s pin on the cover. I also remember that our alumni board president didn’t know that the pins were for reunion, so we ended up putting them in storage for a while before giving them out to interested members.

Basic stats: Not a whole lot of change. Same number of chapters (AOPi closed and Alpha Phi Alpha reestablished itself). Roughly the same percentage of greek undergrads (more on that in a moment). Less community service hours, but about $6K more raised in philanthropies, but honestly no one really cares about that except when it comes time to say good (or bad, comparatively) things about the greek community.

Digging a little deeper into the IFC numbers, it looks like the percentage of Cornell male undergrads in fraternities has increased to 33.15% from 31.68%. Gross numbers, that’s about 143 more members (the total male undergrad population, Greek and non-Greek, increased by 126). Yet, the number of undergrad freshman males stayed nearly constant (up by 9), so the vast majority of the gains seem to be from upperclassmen who chose to pledge later in their college careers, and transfer students. Which is great, in my opinion; one of my best friends in my house chose to pledge as a sophomore, but I wouldn’t think of him any differently than someone that I pledged with as a freshman.

Sorority membership increased to 23.60% from 23.17%. Sororities had 78 more members in 2008-09 over the past year, but the total undergraduate female population increased by 190 students (including 120 more freshman women vs. the previous year). Average members per chapter from 73 to 81, but that’s because Panhel lost AOPi, so there were more ladies to go around.

As a guy, I think I lack the ability to understanding the dealings of Panhel. The idea of being in a chapter of 130 members isn’t too appealing, and I’ve definitely seen cases of girls in the same house not even remembering each other’s names. Whatever floats their boat, I guess.

Just stating this for the record, I write about OFSA figures and Greek life out of my own interest. No figures or statements in this blog are made with the purpose of influencing anyone towards a certain house.  This blog is only good for photos of the houses and for little history tidbits about the chapters. The only way you can figure the character of a fraternity is by visiting them and using solid judgment.

This Isn’t Your Father’s Fraternity

So, with Rush Week coming up, I figured it was about time that I did another Cornell Greek System related article.

So, a fair number of guys who come back for rush week do so on their parent’s urging. Which seems a bit funny, considering the stereotypes and all, but it’s likely that the parents who are pro-Greek were in a fraternity or sorority themselves. Sometimes, someone’s father might try to prod them towards the house that they were a member of back in the day.

Well, fraternities are rather preculiar in that the character of a house can change completely in about three years, as members graduate and new brothers are initiated.  So, your father’s fratenity, while it may have been a “small nerdy house in 1970-something” or “a big jock house back in the ’80s”, may be something completely different today.

For this entry, I decided to compare the membership numbers of houses. For one thing, numbers are solid; character is subjective. Secondly, I’m only doing fraternities; sororities tend to be somewhat less elastic with numbers, especially since they operate with a quota system that sets the number of pledges a sorority may have.

The first number is the active membership number from the Spring 2009 semester for Cornell fraternities. The second number is for Spring 2005, selected merely to illustrate the dynamics of change (or lack thereof).  The last number is from Spring 1983, selected because it is a legitimate date that token rushee X’s dad might’ve graduated from college, but also because  it was easy for me to get a hold of the figures (on paper, so no links unfortunately).

A few details: Membership percentages in Greek houses in 2009 was 33.15% of the total undergrad male population, with 47 members on average (50 chapters fell under the “fraternity” designation, but that includes MGLCs – accounting for their typically small number, the reduction is to 42 chapters, then the IFC average is about 54 members). No offense meant to the MGLC folks, but I have no 1983 data for those chapters, so they are excluded.

For 2005, there were 40 IFC chapters, and an average of about 47 members per house (fraternity membership was 28.75%).

For 1983, there were 50 IFC chapters, and an average in the low 50s.The chapters that existed in 1983 that don’t today are

Phi Alpha Omega, a small collegetown-based fraternity started around 1982 and gone by 1986.

Triangle, down to eleven members. Their national would shut them down by 1985.

Theta Delta Chi, which closed in 1999 (to their credit, they have one failed recolonization attempt, from 2003). They failed to submit information in time to be included in the 1983 publication I’m using.

Phi Kappa Sigma, which closed in 1990. They had 35 members in 1983.

Phi Sigma Epsilon, which merged on the national level with Phi Sigma Kappa in 1985, closing the Cornell chapter. It had 73 members in 1983.

Chapter /Spring 2009/Spring 2005/Spring 1983

Acacia 39/29/33

Acacia was on the brink of closing in the late 1990s, when membership dwindled. It seems to have recovered well enough.

Alpha Delta Phi 57/69/56

Alpha Epsilon Pi 35/NA/NA

So, here’s the problem. The first time AEPi closed was in 1984. The second time was in 2005. Way to screw up by stats guys. I looked up their 2004 data; its membership number recorded 29 brothers.

Alpha Gamma Rho 52/63/86

Alpha Sigma Phi 51/56/71

Alpha Tau Omega 75/61/63

Alpha Zeta 55/24/53

Alpha Zeta almost closed in the mid 2000s, so that makes it upward climb more impressive. The 1983 value may be off, since this co-ed fraternity only recognized women on an honorary level at the time, so they were left off the roster. The other two values are combined co-ed.

Beta Theta Pi 30/51/49

Beta is in the midst of reorganizing, hence the low 2009 figure.

Chi Phi 73/72/ 56

Chi Psi 53/47/84

Just…ouch.

Delta Chi 82/27/65

Delta Chi closed and reopened in 2004,  hence the low 2005 figure.

Delta Kappa Epsilon 46/45/68

Delta Phi (Llenroc) 64/41/57

Delta Tau Delta 40/27/56

Delta Upsilon 66/50/60

Kappa Alpha 17/NA/39

Kappa Alpha closed in 1990 and reopened in 2007.

Kappa Delta Rho 39/34/47

Kappa Sigma 71/42/87

Lambda Chi Alpha 67/58/69

Phi Delta Theta 47/54/70

Phi Delt reorganized in 2000, when it threw out the then-current membership and started fresh as a dry fraternity.

Phi Gamma Delta (FIJI) 84/53/93

Phi Kappa Psi 72/61/87

Phi Kappa Tau 56/51/34

Closed in 1994, reopened in 2000.

Phi Sigma Kappa 51/56/65

Pi Kappa Alpha 61/56/102.

Wow. I never knew Pika was once the largest house on campus.

Pi Kappa Phi 65/48/25

Closed in 1986, reopened 1990.

Psi Upsilon 37/57/NA

Psi Upsilon was closed from 1981 to 1985. They also reorganized in 2008.

Seal & Serpent 17/20/35

What happened here was a slaughter of their reputation. That was covered in a previous entry.

Sigma Alpha Epsilon 91/89/35

On the other end of the scale, the rise of SAE is impressive. Who would’ve guessed they were such a small house back in the day?

Sigma Alpha Mu 70/52/21

Sigma Alpha Mu was rechartered in 1983/84.

Sigma Chi 67/61/79

Sigma Chi Delta 12/8/14

An item worth noting- the vast majority (80%+) of Sigma Chi Delta’s membership in the 1980s was of east Asian ethnic groups.

Sigma Nu 55/61/72

Sigma Phi 58/47/45

Sigma Phi Epsilon 51/52/50

Not as stable as it looks. Reorganized in spring 2006, closed for the fall, reopened in 2007.

Sigma Pi 39/83/94

Reorganized in 2008.

Tau Epsilon Phi 59/11/30

TEP must be doing something right.

Tau Kappa Epsilon 31/34/44

Theta Delta Chi 63/40/69

Theta Xi 23/NA/NA

Theta Xi was closed in 1970 and didn’t recolonize until 2008.

Zeta Beta Tau 43/51/NA

They didn’t submit in time for their 1983 data to be published.

Zeta Psi 53/29/43

So in conclusion, although your dad may regal you with stories of his fraternity days, don’t expect to have the same experience if you pledge his old house.

What the Hippies Are Driving These Days

I figured that it would have been fun to do a little piece on the most common vehicle models in Tompkins County. Unfortunately, the statistics carried by the NYS Department of Transportation and the DMV only keep in track of the types of vehicle (basically, there are about 51,000 registered private vehicles in Tompkins County). Checking with the state department of finance didn’t reveal much, nor was there anything on the U.S. census data website (which is unusual, given that the census page usually has billions pf pieces of seemingly useless data). This is made even more frustrating when you consider that some states actually do bother to keep in track of this data, or that MSN had a “most popular vehicle by zip code” article that covered ten zip codes and then offered no means for anyone to check their own zipcodes. Lame.

It’s not like one can sit next to a window and keep track of the number of vehicles passing by. A green 2002 Honda Accord looks like any other green 2002 Honda Accord for the most part, so there’s little ability to distinguish whether two cars of the same make are genuinely unique or if it’s the same person driving by twice. Plus, most of the students driving around town aren’t registered through Ithaca zipcodes, they’re registered through their family’s permanent addresses (so, all those Audi A6s and BMW 3-series you see buzzing around campus are probably registered in Westchester, northern New Jersey or any token upscale suburb in the northeastern U.S.)

That being said, I’m willing to take a few somewhat educated guesses of the most commonly registered vehicles in Ithaca.  For one, the ubiquitous Volvos that can be found in the Ithaca area. If any particular models stand out, it’d probably be the 240 models from pre-1993, 800 series models from the mid 1990s and maybe some of the 900 series models of the later 1990s.  I’d be impressed if anyone travelling through the greater Ithaca area can go five minutes on the road without seeing the pride of Sweden in the next lane. Not to say that Volvos don’t have their attractions. They’re known for their safety and for great heating systems that prove useful for Ithaca’s long winters. Plus, in terms of cars defining people, Volvo tends to be one of those brands popular with the college faculty crowd, i.e. liberals with higher incomes.Volvos are so ingrained into the community culture that the Ithaca festival features a Volvo ballet, where they decorate the cars in “tutus” and perform on city streets.

Another brand of vehicles popular with the collegetown crowd would be Japanese automaker Subaru (fun fact of the day:  Subaru is the Japanese name for the Pleaides star cluster. This becomes readily apparent once you consider the Subaru emblem). The most popular model by my guess would be the Outback wagon of the mid 2000s or the post-2000 Subaru Forester.  What makes Subaru popular is that it tends to attract the same New Age crowd that Ithaca tends to attract. To quote a Denver paper that noted they were the most popular car in college town Boulder:

“More hip than a mini-van. Very useful. Great in snow. It’s a cool station wagon. Minivans aren’t cool. We know that. The Outback has all of the safety that an SUV doesn’t have and all the utility that the Camry does have. So I see it as a common middle ground kind of ride. It’s kind of like pilates mom instead of soccer mom…”

Lastly, if you consider things from a county level, then somewhere in the top five there have to be at least one of two truck models. Ithaca town and city make up about half the county’s populations, and probably less than half of the registered vehicles once you consider those that walk, bike or use public transit. The surrounding towns are more rural areas where agriculture is king, and many of these residents use Ford F-150s or Chevy Silverados to get around. Case in point, look in Alpha Gamma Rho’s parking lot, and you’ll see twenty trucks, five SUVs and an old Chevy Cavalier.

Seeing as their are no readily available figures, I’d love to hear other opinions on this one. Priuses, Accords, Saabs maybe? Write in and let me know.