“Get on the bus,” Summer Rayne Oakes ’04, natural resources and entomology, said to an audience of students, faculty and staff last Wednesday. She did not mean get on the TCAT and leave the car keys at home, though the world’s first eco-model certainly would not object to that. Oakes was referring to the countless Campus-to-Campus bus trips she boarded every Friday down to New York City and back to Ithaca again each Monday to work as a model, while enrolled as a full-time student. Too often, she said, “so many of us have ideas and talk about it, but we never get on the bus.”

In an effort to slash $90 million from the University’s annual administrative spending budget, the Initiative Coordinating Office is seeking outside assistance. Last month, Cornell hired Dick Shafer, Ph.D. ’97, a director at TruePoint consulting group, to help gauge the need for administrative support across the University by leading focus groups comprised of 120 faculty members.

To the Editor:

Re: “It’s Not Just Paper Clips They’re Cutting Back On,” Opinion, Oct. 15

In yesterday’s editorial, you asked whether recommendations from Bain & Company would have consequences for our core mission, asserting that “it is important that the academic core of Cornell remain untouched by non-academic consultants,” and if our new procurement initiative will affect the readings faculty assign, the publications the library purchases or the equipment used in classes.

As project manager for our engagement with Bain, I have spent the past four months working with colleagues from Cornell and Bain to ensure that our project stays on the right side of the line between academics and non-academics.