Cornell President Resigns

Well, it’s just been announced that Cornell’s current president, Jeff Lehman has resigned. The reason cited is differences with the board of trustees over the long term vision for Cornell. But I wonder what the real reason is. I’m thinking they sat him down and asked him just exactly what he was thinking when he came up with the Star Wars commencement speech. The previous president, Hunter Rawlings, will serve as interim president until a new president is chosen. Looks like I may have 3 different Cornell presidents during my time at Cornell.

Now For My Non-Related Absurd Rant on Cornell Basketball Courts

I think it’s pretty cool to have a building permanently named after you. If I had the kind of serious money needed to have that happen, I’d want to build a multi-floor basketball complex. All basketball courts throughout and of course it would be used ONLY for basketball. The school basketball team would not be allowed to hold practice there, mainly because they already have Bartel.

This stems from my frustrations from often not being able to find a place to play basketball. Bartel is only open sporadically and we often get kicked out of there because they don’t want just anybody mucking up the team’s courts. A lot of times there’s other things going on at Barton like track, army stuff, and other stuff. Half of the Helen Newman courts are taken up by badminton or volleyball. What the heck is up with that? Seriously. Why would you build a basketball court and then say badminton has priority?

The other half is always filled with full court games with people who can dunk or dribble circles around you. Plus, if you lose, there’s always another team waiting to get next, so then you gotta sit. It’s just not that enjoyable for us average players who just want to get some exercise and have fun with friends. So the only place left is outdoors but if there’s bad weather, there’s no place to play. And if you know Ithaca weather, most of year conditions outside are not favorable.