Prof. Edward Buckler, plant breeding and genetics, uses statistics to identify more nutritious corn breeds. A Sub-Saharan corn variant with a 16-fold increase in vitamin A is scheduled to be deployed in 2014.

Today, America is in the midst of a health crisis: the leading cause of death is heart disease, two-thirds of the nation’s adults are obese and increasing proportions of children are being diagnosed with Type II diabetes. These health problems threaten a new generation of Americans, and as a consumer-mentality pushes Americans toward prescription drugs, retired Prof. T. Colin Campbell, nutritional science, advocates that the healing process must begin with a fork and knife at dinner tables.

It’s back to the gridiron for us Cornellians, both as students and as fans of that great American tradition — football. But the NFL has been closer to Ithaca during the offseason than you might think.

The New York Jets came to nearby Cortland, N.Y., over the summer for training camp, staying in the area from July 31 to Aug. 22. With only one more game left on the preseason schedule before New York’s opener at Houston Sept. 13, the Jets named highly touted first-round draft pick Mark Sanchez as the starting quarterback just last week.

About a month ago, over 1,000 people first started signing a petition lobbying for the return of Nutritional Sciences 200: Vegetarian Nutrition, a former course taught by Prof. T. Colin Campbell, one of the world’s leading researchers in the field. The petition claims that Cornell’s abrupt removal of the course and refusal to disclose an explanation was “clearly a violation of academic freedom.”

The course was pulled back in 2005, and Campbell has spent the last few years attempting to settle the matter internally with the University.