August 3, 2009
Dear Alice Cook House Community,
Welcome to Alice Cook House, the first of now five living-learning houses that make up The West Campus House System.
What is Alice Cook House about? First and foremost Alice Cook House represents a partnership between students, faculty and staff on a still transforming West Campus. To put it simply, Alice Cook House is a faculty-led, student-faculty-administrative staff-run intellectual, cultural and social community.
Some of the important people you will meet are Alice Cook House Assistant Dean Carl Steidel, six Graduate Resident Fellows who will provide academic support and mentoring, three undergraduate Student Assistants, five native speakers in our Language House section, our office manager Martha Benninger, House Chef Bryan Roberts, and thirty Alice Cook House Fellows, professors and senior staff members from across the campus.
The Dining Room, the Common Room, the House Green and the Baker Tower and North Baker lounges will be the hub of much of what we do together: dining, conversing, and enjoying one another’s company. We will also have many opportunities to come together in larger and smaller groups for programs we will organize. Keep an eye out on the bulletin boards, electronic and conventional, for THIS WEEK AT ALICE COOK HOUSE postings and our website, alicecookhouse.cornell.edu, for info on our programs.
Why are we called Alice Cook House? The House is named for an extraordinary professor of Industrial and Labor Relations who was a pioneer advocate for women’s rights in the labor force. You can read about Alice Cook on our website and from the display honoring her on the first floor opposite the House Office and you can find a video and books about her in our House Library. We will celebrate Alice Cook’s birthday together in late November with cake even as we pay tribute to her memory by bringing another generation of Cornell faculty and students together in new ways.
I look forward to meeting you soon and working with you this year. Please take the opportunity to stop by my office (105 Alice Cook House) in the afternoon, drop in on my residence (101 Alice Cook House) during a study break or other “open house” occasion, or take a seat whenever you feel like it and see me in our Dining Room. You needn’t have an agenda to talk with me about your hopes for the year or your experiences as we proceed, although I will be delighted to hear your specific thoughts and ideas too.
You will be hearing from members of the Alice Cook House Forum who run much of what happens in our House. Please consider joining your fellow residents to help plan some of the athletic, intellectual, artistic, social, public service, or public affairs programming they will organize.
If you follow the West Campus footpath south past our immediate neighbor Carl Becker House you will notice that Flora Rose House is opening its doors for the first time as a House. We welcome them to the neighborhood as they complete the West Campus House System.
With all best wishes for a splendid year together, a year of intellectual and social stimulation and growth, of connecting with faculty in an informal setting, and of forging lasting connections with other residents of Alice Cook House,
Ross Brann
Alice Cook House Professor-Dean
SAVE THESE EARLY SEMESTER PROGRAM DATES:
Monday, August 24: Transfer Student Reception, 8:30pm, Professor Brann’s Apartment
Wednesday, August 26: Opening House Dinner, 6:00pm, Dining Room
Sunday, August 30: 6th Annual Cornell Plantations Tour & Picnic, 11:00am
Friday, September 4: 1st House Professor’s Tea with Cornell President David Skorton 4:00 pm, Professor Brann’s Apartment
Friday, September 11: House Professor’s Tea with Professor Jim Bell, Astronomy & Becker House Fellow, 4:00pm, Professor Brann’s Apartment
Friday, September 25: House Professor’s Tea with Professor Ed McLaughlin, Food Management, 4:00pm, Professor Brann’s Apartment
Friday, October 2: Fuertes Observatory with House Fellow Phil Nicholson, Astronomy, 8:00pm
Sunday, October 4: Monterey Jazz Quartet with Assistant Dean Carl 8:00pm, Bailey Hall
