INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 129, No. 141
FRIDAY, MAY 3, 2013
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ITHACA, NEW YORK
20 Pages – Free
News
Arts
Sports
Weather
Dying to Divest
Making Movies
Almost There
Sunny HIGH: 70 LOW: 45
Students lay still on the ground outside Day Hall to protest the University’s decision to not divest. | Page 3
Student films will make their debut at Cornell Cinema on May 12.
Men’s lacrosse is playing in the semi-finals of the Ivy League Tournament this weekend. | Page 15
| Page 13
C.U.Continues Push For Faculty Renewal By RUDY YODER Sun Staff Writer
Facing the largest wave of retirements in its history, Cornell is aiming to hire about 67 new faculty a year through its decade-long, $100 million initiative to replace half of its faculty, according to Dean of Faculty Prof. Joseph Burns Ph.D. ’66, astronomy. The goal of the initiative, called Faculty Renewal, is to steadily hire about 800 new faculty members before half of the University’s current faculty members over the age of 55 retire, according to Peter Lepage, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In order to support the initiative, the University will seek to raise donations; half of the $100-million will come from donors, while the rest will come from a “simple of resources for “We decided to take every allocation faculty salary,” according to Linda Glaser, staff bit of loose money we had writer for the College of Arts and Sciences. and put it into hiring.” As of May, the Dean Peter Lepage University has already received $39 million in gifts from donors supporting faculty renewal, according to John Siliciano ’75, senior vice provost for academic affairs. The arts college, the biggest college at Cornell, is seeking to support 20 sesquicentennial faculty fellows, according to the college’s website. The arts college’s push to rapidly hire new faculty highlights a challenge the University has been facing in recent years: replacing retiring faculty with new hires despite facing economic constraints. According to Lepage, after the 2008 recession, the University was forced to cut the number of new faculty hires by 50 percent. At the same time, the University was facing a retirement rate that was double of what it was in the 1990s. “We have the oldest faculty we’ve ever had,” Lepage said. “When I joined the faculty in 1980, only 20 percent of the faculty was over the age of 55. Now, it’s 50 percent.” Although the University continues to cope with lingering effects of the financial crisis, hiring new, quality faculty members remains a priority for Cornell, according to Lepage. See FACULTY page 4
JEFF STEIN / SUN SENIOR WRITER
Monopoly | Eight landlords own almost two-thirds of all housing in Collegetown, public records show. For an interactive web graphic with more details, visit cornellsun.com.
C-Town Housing Market Scrutinized Eight landlords control almost two-thirds of area’s housing By JEFF STEIN Sun Senior Writer
Eight landlords collectively own about $153 million in Collegetown property — or almost twothirds of all housing in the area — according to an analysis of public records conducted by The Sun. Two of those landlords — John Novarr and Jason Fane — each own more than $38 million in property, records show. The other six — the Avramis Family, Travis Hyde, the Lambrou Family, Pam Johnston, the Lower Family and Matoula Halkiopoulus — have a wide range of assessed property, from Avramis’ $21 million to Halkiopoulus’ $5 million, according to the figures. Taken together, the landlords own 4,013 of an estimated 6,110 bedrooms in the area. 1,559 of those are owned by John Novarr, whose mammoth Collegetown Terrace project has significant-
ly expanded the stock of student housing. These numbers do not prove that Collegetown real estate has become increasingly consolidated in the hands of a few landowners, as several observers of the market suspect. But they do speak to the stakes of the Collegetown housing market and illustrate the extent to which Cornell students’ rents are valued. “There’s a heck of a lot of money to be made here,” said Common Council member Ellen McCollister ’78 (D-3rd Ward). The statistics used for this analysis are derived from several sources. The number of occupants was calculated using the City of Ithaca Building Department’s directory, the estimated value of each property was taken from the Tompkins County Department of Assessment and the propSee LANDLORDS page 5
Hiring of Residence Hall Director Sparks Outrage Among Students
Celebration
By NOAH RANKIN Sun Senior Writer
YIXIN LU / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Students perform Thursday at the Korean Language Program’s fourth annual end-of-year Korean Festival. Apart from musical performances, the event also featured Korean cuisine.
Members of the Latino community expressed discontent at an event Thursday over the way in which a new Residential Hall Director of the Latino Living Center was hired, saying they feel students did not have a chance to give input in the process. Angel Keen, previously the RHD for the Multicultural Living Learning Unit, was appointed RHD of the LLC without any other applicants or student input involved in the process, according to Marti Dense, Latino Studies Program Director. According to Residential Programs Assistant Director Kristyn Bochniak,
Keen’s hire was conducted in the way it was due to concerns about timing and a lack of external candidates for the position. Still, Joe Burke, Director of Residential Programs, said he invited students to speak with him in a phone conversation during finals week about concerns over the way it was conducted. Burke was not at Thursday’s event for medical reasons, though several students expressed a desire to present him with their concerns. Additionally, at the Meet and Greet, which was hosted to allow students to meet Keen, Keen voiced her passion for the RHD position. “For me, the first semester is going to See RHD page 4