Creeping in Collegetown

I have never understood, nor will ever try to understand, the fascination some have with invading the privacy of young college women in their apartments. A recent Cornell Sun article notes a case where a former Cornell student entered two apartments in the 312 College Ave. apartment building invited. These apartments were occupied by female students, who screamed and/or confronted the guy, causing him to flee. Apart from the obvious threat a guy like this poses, I couldn’t help but think that events like these have been going on for a while now.

My first thought was the “Collegetown Creeper”, a story that I already knew from when I was growing up north of Syracuse, because that’s how much of a media sensation it was. The creeper was tied into at least 18 cases, occurring in 2003 and 2004. Most of the earlier ones were cases of peering through windows into the apartments of young females. Then the creep factor was kicked up a notch in early 2004 when he would break in and watch them sleeping. By the end of his reign of terror, he had graduated to full-blown sexual abuse. At least one victim claimed her clothes were cut off and baby oil was poured onto her. As one might imagine, this created quite a stir, and by the fall of 2004, students were protesting outside Common Council meetings, demanding further action be taken on the issue.

The creeper was eventually arrested in late October 2004. The suspect was identified as Abraham Shorey, who at 23, a married father of six, and sporting Rastafarian-style dreads, seemed as unlikely a sexual criminal as any. Shorey was familiar with the Collegetown area and its crowds, as he worked as a cook over at The Nines. Before his arraignment on charges of burglary and sexual abuse, Shorey posted bail and fled the area. He managed to avoid arrest on two occasions  by producing fake IDs throughout his time as a fugitive. He was arrested a year later in San Diego, where he plead guilty to assault with intent to rape a San Diego County woman in May 2005. DNA evidence collected at the scene of the San Diego incident linked the perpetrator to the events in Ithaca from the previous two years. His sentence in California is seven years and four months, but the charges against him in New York were dropped for a number of reasons (time elapsed, difficulty locating witnesses, etc.)

Unfortunately, much worse has also occurred. Although technically not Collegetown, a 25-year old graduate student was raped and murdered near North Campus in May 1981, her body then dumped into the gorge. Her killer would graduate and go on to seven more murders in downstate NY and CT before being arrested.

Ignoring all the insensitive jokes students make about “forcible touching” here, but female students at Cornell have every reason to be concerned for their safety, in the past, now, and for the foreseeable future.

Scoundrel, or Scapegoat?

The Sun’s piece regarding the problems with Jason Fane is nothing new. Previous articles over the past several years have done the exact same thing. I personally have never, ever been a fan of Jason Fane. So, since he is the (man? villain?) of the hour, I figured it was worth taking a look at the man who owns so much of Ithaca.

Jason Fane, from as far as I can tell, has been a major landlord in the Ithaca area since the mid-1970s. He is New York bred, holds a civil engineering degree from MIT and a Harvard MBA, and is about 70 years old. The recent Sun article notes that his tenants refused to pay rent in 1974, citing deplorable maintenance of his properties. In 1979, he feuded with the city building commissioner, who condemned one of his properties (with 15 occupants still living in it). An academic study of Ithaca compares quotes from him in 1975 to 2000, where he goes from saying “students aren’t interested in aesthetics” to students “are looking for quality”. By quality, we’re talking $1,400/month in rent. To be fair, Jason Fane knows his business…and for better or worse, he knows how to milk his stakeholders to his advantage.

Cornell has a fairly wealthy student body, such that extremely high rents are acceptable, as some students have the means (or rather, their families do) to afford such rates. Business owners, however, tend to be a different story. A student pays high rents because of proximity to Cornell and high quality of services. For a business, setting up in Collegetown means suffering a major lack of business during academic breaks, not to mention extremely high rents for choice, high-traffic locations…many of which are owned by Jason Fane. As long as the apartments are rented, Fane has no need to try and fill the commercial space, no matter how much students, residents and local officials complain. He’s still making a tidy sum from his residential units, and rather than cut prices to lure in shopkeepers, would prefer to wait until that day when someone is willing to pay his high price – because occasionally, someone will.

Let’s be clear – the man is rich. He owns a real estate empire that stretches from New York City to Toronto, where he is currently developing high-rise condo towers. For more proof, here’s an article where he goes to court over $850k in gold and silver bullion. He also isn’t afraid to weigh in on anything that may affect his business – he was a major opponent of the Cayuga Green apartment project, and he also tried to have the city building commissioner shut down Cornell’s temporary freshman housing in student lounges – presumably, because both had an impact on his business.  He is not the compassionate and caring businessman pro-commerce groups like to promote. In fact, a few other c-words – cold, calculating, and controlling – come to mind instead.
In all fairness, Mr. Fane is under no obligation to fill the space, unless he feels a need to deepen his pockets further. But it certainly isn’t doing him any favors in the communities he’s invested in. I guess when you own ten Collegetown properties, several more in downtown Ithaca, and a couple suburban properties, you can afford to do as you please.

Cornell and Crime II: Here There Be Guns

If you want to have a spirited debate on campus, open the floor for a discussion for the provision of guns on university grounds. Stating the obvious here, but student-owned guns are prohibited on campus, and have been for over a century (CUPD officers are issued Glock semi-automatics, an effect of the Willard Straight Hall takeover back in 1969). Few things seem to do a better job of getting someone’s blood to boil, and not without due reason. I thought of looking at this because of this recent little piece from the Sun about a student being robbed at gunpoint in North Campus, and the ensuing “we should be allowed to have guns/are you crazy no we shouldn’t have guns” comment queue.

I mulled this over in my head a little while, thinking that this usually gets tied into some “good old days” argument about back when everyone could have guns and everyone was safer (and there was much less crime, everyone was good-looking, all the kids were above-average, and whatever else those rose-tinted glasses show). I decided to look at the Sun archives for some historical perspective.

One of the first things returned in the search was an article from 1930 – before the vast majority of us were even alive – detailing a series of armed robberies and the murder of a gas station attendant leading to a possible rise in gun permit applications (the only requirement be that you are a law-abiding citizen of “good character”). So much for those good old days. For what it’s worth, the CUPD was formed the following year, with a whopping two patrolmen on horseback, and no guns during day shifts (today, Cornell has six times as many students, and about 45 officers).

As for the case of responsible students, it’s not always easy determining which are and which aren’t – as these cases demonstrate. You have (in order) the hard-partying student, the student claiming self-defense, and the self-inflicted fatal gunshot wound (thought to be accidental, but could have been otherwise). In imagining a world where guns were okay on campus, I can see a clear case for pulling the gun rights of the first, a lawsuit waiting to happen with the second (the gun owner claimed he shot at someone who was leaving racist notes under his door), and another lawsuit waiting to happen with the third, if the family gets on the “my child’s university didn’t do enough to prevent this” train. There would be time, money, and a bevy of other issues involved.

On the other hand, as this Sun editorial from 1981 illustrates, there are some valuable reasons one can have for owning a gun, such as women protecting themselves against rapists, and it’s important to note that most gun owners are responsible, law-abiding citizens. From here we can get into a range of arguments, all of which are easily blown out of proportion. The passion people put into the guns argument is second perhaps only to abortion, especially with regards to the intransigence of its debaters.

So I didn’t write this entry to start up a gun control debate; that’s what news websites are for. The purpose of this entry is to show that there was no “golden era” for either party – no period where guns, or the lack thereof, made us so much safer. There will always be crime, there will always be grey cases in the argument of who is and isn’t irresponsible, and for the foreseeable future, there will be a gun control argument.

News tidbits 1/6/2012: If You Screwed Up Once, You Can Screw Up Again

As time has gone on and I become more removed from my days at Cornell, this blog focuses less and less on student-specific events, such as Greek Life. But then, news articles like this pop up:

http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2012/01/06/after-hospitalization-tke-may-lose-recognition

After Hospitalization, TKE May Lose Recognition

January 6, 2012
By Jeff Stein

Cornell will revoke its recognition of Tau Kappa Epsilon following reports of an alcohol-related hospitalization of a freshman unless the fraternity succeeds in its appeal of the decision, according to multiple sources.

In a memo obtained by The Sun on Thursday, University administrators faulted TKE for reportedly failing to ensure the safety of a highly intoxicated individual — the same oversight that officials say led to the death of George Desdunes ’13 last spring. Sixteen former pledges of Sigma Alpha Epsilon, the fraternity in which Desdunes died, joined TKE a few months later.

…

The freshman, who had been consuming alcohol before attending TKE’s event, arrived at a recruitment dinner hosted by TKE at the China Buffet on Nov. 11. While it “remains unclear if he continued to consume alcohol at the dinner,” TKE did provide both beer and hard alcohol at the event, the report states.

…

But as early as September, the University had reason to believe “rumors that SAE has been operating through TKE,” according to the report, when administrators learned of plans for the “White Party” — an event “historically hosted by SAE [as a] social activity attracting hundreds of community members.”

“Out of great concern for the safety of attendees, considering that TKE would not be prepared to host a large event such as this, due to their inexperience, we placed the chapter on interim suspension,” the report states.

The memo then notes that, in a meeting with administrators, fraternity leadership agreed to cancel the event, terminate plans they had to “induct ‘little sisters’” and work with the TKE national organization toward building TKE “traditions that the community could support, as opposed to adopting SAE traditions.”

Despite these promises, “it became clear in that meeting that SAE’s former members, those who were fully initiated and have no affiliation with TKE, have significant influence on TKE as an organization,” the report states.

…

***

I read stories like this and I cringe. I’m a fairly avid supporter of Greek Life at Cornell. But stories like this make me rethink my stance. I understand that the person may or may not have consumed beverages at their recruitment dinner. Okay, innocent until proven guilty. But you’d think for a group of pledges that watched some of their pledgebrothers be indicted for killing someone, they’d use a little more precaution than “we’ll just drop him back off at his room and hope he’ll be fine”.

But that seems to merely be the straw that broke the camel’s back. The administration was bothered by how the chapter became SAE with a different set of letters. I couldn’t agree more. I am strongly bothered by the open flaunting of the SAE connection, and figuratively (maybe literally?) pissing on TKE’s original brotherhood and traditions (not that it wasn’t expected). I don’t know how much of the comments on the article to believe, but I don’t think they’re far from the mark. Calling yourself “Epsilon” because you feel the fraternity that took you in is so inferior you still have to tie it in to SAE (stating the obvious here, but it’s a nod to the fact that both Tau Kappa Epsilon and Sigma Alpha Epsilon share that letter). It just disgusts me. You’re not SAE. SAE of Cornell was doomed the moment George Desdunes died due to alcohol poisoning administered during a pledge kidnapping.

It’s sad. Sad that TKE was so desperate for social status and growth that they sold out everything their brotherhood was. Sad that SAE let someone die. Sad that one organization is gone completely and the other one is about to be kicked off campus. Sad that this reflects on the whole system, which is in a percarious enough position as it is.

What an ignominious way to go. I hope as a Greek alumnus that if my fraternity was ever in TKE’s position that they would just close instead of selling out.

 

 

The Loyal Opposition to the Tech Campus

Image Property of Cornell University

Congratulations to Cornell on winning the bid for the NYC Tech Campus.

However, to be honest, sometimes I feel like the only alum who doesn’t support the project.

By no means do I not want Cornell to succeed as an institution and give a strong education to those that earn entrance into the university. Plus, it seems unusual given my predilection for the development of physical facilities related to Cornell. It’s just…well, it has to do with Cornell’s identity.

Take Weill for example. Most Cornellians in Ithaca are vaguely aware of Weill’s existence. Certainly, the folks are aware of Cornell being based in Ithaca. But they both function independently. They’re separate institutions that just happen to be under the same Big Red umbrella. From a bureaucratic standpoint, that’s probably for the best. I expect something similar to shape up in the operation of the new Engineering Graduate Campus in New York City.

But some disparities between the two have been troubling. For instance, fund-raising in the “Far Above” campaign. As described in this Metaezra post from June 2010, the campaign was immensely successful for the medical school…but not for the main campus in Ithaca. One line has always stuck out in my mind:

“…so apparently wealthy New Yorkers care more about life-saving research and services than basic research and education a five hour drive from Manhattan.”

This has, in some sense, been my concern with the new campus in New York City. Yes, it will inspire entrepreneurship and innovation and all those other cute buzzwords they like to toss out in brochures. People are also free to donate their money as they choose (as it should be). But to what degree does this development of a new campus affect to the main campus in Ithaca? I’m concerned that so much attention will be paid to this new program that many of our alumni (of which 23% live in the NYC area) will donate to the school in their backyard rather than the one five hours away. By establishing another campus, I also worry that there will be less of a sense of a Cornellian – in my wildest imagination, I fear some future New York City campus alumni will self-segregate themselves – the “I’m a Cornell-New York Campus alum, I don’t associate with Cornell-Ithaca alumni and want nothing to do with THAT Cornell”. At least you can take classes in different undergraduate colleges. I see the mixing of Ithaca and New York activities as fairly rare events. Maybe Stanford was afraid of something similar happening, since the campuses would be 1000s of miles apart.

Maybe I’m being overprotective of the Ithaca campus, or this post will be written off as whining because I don’t like New York City or I don’t support Cornell’s global mission or whatever other reason that floats their boat. But I get nervous when the emphasis seems to be displaced from the campus that Ezra demanded be on his farm on the hills overlooking Cayuga. At the very least, I’m adding my voice to a silent minority that have concerns regarding the proposal.

Beauty in the Eye of the Beholder

So, this is a question that I often wonder about when I play the role of armchair architecture critic. Cornell has pontificated that “each new building should reflect the spirit of Cornell as a pioneering institution and should represent an awareness of its time and place”. Back in the day, that was symbolized by A. D. White’s passionate desire to develop the campus into a New Yorker’s version of Oxford, hence his well-documented derision of red-brick buildings such as Morse Hall and Lincoln Hall, as these were very un-Oxford-esque. Lincoln Hall was built while White was overseas as the U.S. ambassador to Germany (effectively, they sneaked it in when he wasn’t looking), and it’s been said that White smiled when he first heard Morse Hall was destroyed by fire back in 1916. I’m guessing he never counted his own house, but maybe he considered that to be tucked away from the main campus, which it was back in the early days.

Cornell’s architectural preference has evolved with the times. By the 1920s, the fashion was Collegiate Gothic, as seen in buildings like Willard Straight. By the 1950s and 1960s, function was deemed more important than form, and we eneded up with buildings like Clark Hall, and Hollister et al. on the Engineering Quad. Today’s buzz is about “Starchitects” like Rem Koolhaas (Milstein Hall), Richard Meier (Weill Hall) and Thom Mayne (Gates Hall), who designed ultramodern structures that are meant to represent Cornell’s forward-thinking.

My question lies in what is interpreted as forward-thinking. It seems college campuses these days follow two rather discordant trains of thought – one of the modern or ultramodern designs as we have seen lately at Cornell (I was tempted to call them avant-garde, but I don’t think they’re radical enough to merit the term), and then a second line of thinking that delves into the Neoclassical and Gothic themes that conjure images of the romantic colleges of our grandparents’ youth.

Take for instance Princeton and their new Whitman Residential College, or Notre Dame’s new Eck law school building:

Image Property of Notre Dame University

Granted, comparing the new STEM buildings to Dorms and Social Science buildings is a bit like apples to oranges. But what are the pros and cons for the new Houses on West Campus? Were we better off with new and contemporary, or should we have revived the original 1920s era plan and constructed new Gothics?

The original West Campus Plan. Image Courtesy of Wikipedia

Any casual reader of this blog probably recognizes that I fall more into the traditionalist point of view. I guess my concern lies with the aesthetically pleasing value of a campus. Cornell has some tremendously wonderful natural spaces both in the confines of the main campus and surrounding it (the many gorges and waterfalls throughout the area assure that much). The built environment can either enhance that or detract from it, and I’d venture at Cornell it’s been hit-or-miss over the years.  I wonder though, if the increasing traditionalism of some of our peer institutions gives them a recruiting advantage for top students. I think the West Campus structures are quality constructions, but they don’t quite garner the same level of fondness as the arches and turrets Collegiate Gothic.

So I’m going to go out on a limb and throw the question out there for debate. What role does architectural style play in prospective students’ decision-making? Is Cornell being bold and progressive in its current architectural plans, or are we foregoing traditional architectural styles at a detriment to the physical appeal of the university? I’m really curious to hear others’ take on this, so please leave a comment if you’d like to contribute your opinion.

P.S. I don’t want to downplay the importance of interior design, which is important from a livability angle. But I am more interested to hear about opinions about building exteriors, since they often set the first impression.

Cornell’s Rapidly Evolving Late-Night Scene

This entry was inspired by the latest set of news, that Johnny O’s is closed. This follows the news that Dino’s closed earlier this summer, reducing the number of bars and primary drinking establishments to four. While it seems there’s enough interest in the property that a desolate Ctown won’t be an issue, the article raised a very good point about late-night activities that I think bears a little bit of thought:

For many Cornell students and alumni, the closure of another bar in Collegetown prompted concerns about late-night life at Cornell.

“What is happening to the bar scene in Collegetown?” said Cara Sprunk ’10, a former Sun writer.

Lee Moskowitz ‘13 said that Dino’s and Johnny O’s “probably held about 300 people each, so now you’ve got 600 people going to about four bars, instead of six, and those bars were already crowded to begin with.”

***

Lee Moskowitz has a very valid argument. Fewer bars would seem like a good thing on the surface (less noise and rowdiness), except that that isn’t going to deter the large percentage of older students who want to party it up in the evening. I can vouch from my own experience that even when there were six bars, it was not uncommon to wait in line outside to get in, because the bars were absolutely packed. Less bars means longer lines, and eventually people are going to give up and just do more house parties to compensate (especially considering the tighter restriction on the Greek system’s parties). I firmly believe that it’s a naive notion that student drinking would somehow decrease.

While there’s no problem with house parties per se, the issue lies with the fact that while bars and Greek houses have formal regulations that they’re expected to follow, house parties don’t. If the hosts and servers aren’t careful, that can go a couple of unfortunate ways – an IPD free-for-all for citations and fines, and/or a greater risk to partygoers.

With any hope, Cornell’s new pub in the Ivy Room will open as scheduled in the fall. But elsewise, late-night life at Cornell seems to be heading in a less regulated direction, and is going to be a much bigger issue.

News Tidbits 6/28/11: The Lawsuit Everybody Expected

So, the Cornell Sun (on its bare bones summer staff) has noted that the mother of George Desdunes ’13, the SAE brother who died in a hazing event this past February, is suing the national fraternity for $25 million. I’m no expert on legal matters, but I do know this has significant precedent with cases from other universities, and SAE has been slapped with three wrongful death lawsuits  in just the past five years. Most of the wrongful death cases were settled out of court for undisclosed amounts, although at least one, a case against a University of Texas chapter of SAE, was awarded $16.2 million (I’m not positive, but I believe it’s the fraternity’s insurance company that pays out, but the fraternity then finds it that much more difficult and expensive to have adequate coverage for their liabilities, which is necessary for recognition on many campuses. So although the fraternity doesn’t pay out directly, their finances still detrimentally impacted).

Now, here’s my question: is she bring a lawful death lawsuit against Cornell?

In a previous entry, I described how a similar incident had occurred at M.I.T. back in the late 1990s with the death of a pledge at their FIJI chapter. In that case, the Kreuger family held M.I.T. responsible for a lack of supervision of the fraternity that allowed the death to occur. Although a formal lawsuit against the school was never filed, MIT did pay out $6 million to the family, of which $1.25 million went to a memorial scholarship. In hazing-wrongful death lawsuits, it seems, at a casual glance, that while it’s common for the fraternities local chapters and national organizations to be sued, it unusual for the school to be sued, perhaps because its much more difficult to build a case. But, I would not hold out against the possibility that if the lawyers are zealous enough, they can use the lack of supervision against Cornell and receive a similar settlement.  For one thing, SAE lived in a university-owned property and the incident allegedly took place in the Townhouses on North Campus.

So, the obvious take-away from this news is that SAE is screwed and totally responsible for their members’ actions. But in the bigger picture, one does wonder if the plaintiffs are going to try and go after Cornell as well.

News Tidbits 5/6/2011: Some of Us Can’t Be At Slope Day

Oh graduate finals. You take way the afternoon of one of the biggest social days of my year. Well, I’ve studied a fair amount, and since final #1 is at 3 PM, I figured I would take a brief break to tackle a few of the many news pieces to have been released lately, before they become really old news.

1. SAE’s pledge class joining TKE. Do I think this is wrong? On many levels, yes. Playing Devil’s Advocate here, I can see why they might’ve pursued this idea. It’s no great secret that TKE’s numbers have been declining recently, and the fresh blood of a sizable class adopted from a fraternity with a strong social reputation could definitely help in some respects. In a historical sense, there’s nothing particularly like it.  When Phi Sigma Kappa and Phi Sigma Epsilon merged in the mid-1980s, even though both had houses at Cornell, there’s no indication the bortherhoods merged; it seems Phi Sigma Epsilon simply closed. There are some cases of entire fraternities merging, such as Zodiac and ATO in the 1930s. In all my fact-checking, I found only one case; pledges of Theta Chi, which was booted off Cornell’s campus in 1999, asked if they could join Alpha Epsilon Pi, and the offer was accepted. AEPi partially operated out of the Theta Chi house until 2001 (first they operated both their house at 140 Thurston and the house at 40 Ridgewood, then just Ridgewood), when it became too expensive and they reverted back to just their Thurston property.

On a related note, four of the former SAE pledges (not affiliated with the TKE group) were indicted on charges related to the death of George Desdunes ’13.

If I were an alum of TKE (which I’m not, thankfully) I’d be livid. It sets a horrible example, that even though the members of your pledge class had an indirect role in someone’s death, that you’re high enough on the social ladder that another house will come to your “rescue”. For all practical purposes, the size of this group, and their former association, will likely cause Tau Kappa Epsilon to become a hybridized version of Sigma Alpha Epsilon. Arguably, that might help the house’s perceived social standing, and it provides some measure of stability, but at great expense to the house’s integrity, and it speaks volumes on how much the SAE group actually cared about their own fraternal association. It just seems ethically wrong to me.

2. Then again, being ethically wrong seems to be a running theme of the semester. I have to say, having an IFC officer mock MGLC’s step show will sexual gestures towards a large audience that included Ithaca high and middle school students, and then voting to not remove him until the associate dean “strongly advises” it and he tenders his own resignation…like really? Is the system trying to get dismantled, because honestly I can’t tell at this point.

3. last on the pieces of news to tackle, the fatal fire at 107 Cook Street. We all talk about how some of the houses in Collegetown are unsafe, but never would anyone want a tragic event such as this to happen. Argue about zoning and landlords and proper maintenance all you want, but that doesn’t change the fact that someone has lost their life just as the semester was wrapping up. As an aside, I actually knew two guys from my major who lived in this exact apartment last year, and by their accounts it wasn’t in terrible shape. But right now, what matters is that someone is gone all too soon. As a final aside, the last fatal apartment fire was on Heights Court near North Campus back in May 2006. That house was renovated, and at last check, was up for sale.

P.S. I have a backlog of entries to write; once my schedule clears up, activity on this blog should pick up.

How the Mighty Have Fallen

So it’s official. Sigma Alpha Epsilon, up until now the second largest chapter in the Greek system, is being booted from campus for a period of five years. All members must vacate the university-owned facility by the end of the month. I think the following passage is the most disturbing:

“At this time, the information provided to the university indicates that George Desdunes, 19, was provided alcohol while in the care of certain members and associate members of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and became incapacitated. Even though the members and associate members recognized the condition Desdunes was in, they failed to call for medical care. He subsequently died.”

Let’s be honest. Associate members = pledges in this case. Also, just about anyone who’s been in a fraternity can vouch they knew “that” guy who got really, really drunk one time at a frat party or a mixer, so they gave him some water, a bucket just in case, and laid him on a couch to sleep it off (or maybe that was just in my experience). But this time, either members failed to recognize the severity of the situation – tragic but not impossible – or they realized the extent of the situation and did nothing. Which I really, sincerely hope wasn’t the case, especially since a number of criminal charges are likely in the upcoming weeks.

It’s hard to imagine a system without SAE occupying its lofty Hillcrest estate. But, there is a habit in recent years of the largest, most visible houses being shut down for one reason or another. Pi Kappa Alpha was one of the largest chapters in the system back in the 1980s and 1990s, their recognition was suspended after an incident a couple years ago sent three rushees to the hospital. Before In the mid 2000s, the largest chapter was Sigma Pi, which was suspended and forced to reorganize in 2007 after they sent Thanksgiving attendees to the hopsital with alcohol poisoning. It seems that the largest houses are more apt at screwing up.

It’s difficult to picture Cornell’s Greek Life without one of its prominent members. But under the circumstances, I would’ve been even more surprised if they had been allowed to continue on campus.