Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison M.A. ’55, had a joyous homecoming yesterday in a packed Bailey Hall, which welcomed the renowned writer with a standing ovation. Morrison, who graduated from Cornell 54 years ago, read from her most recent offering to the literary world, A Mercy, published last year.

At the horrific hour of 5 a.m., the alarm clock interrupts our much-needed slumber. Are. You. Kidding. Each of us roll, quite literally, out of our beds, the freshmen in their dark dorms and townhouses, the sophomores in their silent sororities or houses, and the juniors and seniors in their cozy (read: dingy) Collegetown apartments and homes. We shuffle into our respective bathrooms, bleary-eyed and beaten, stumbling on the masses of empty Gatorade bottles and Wegman’s pasta cartons strewn across the room, evidence of the wild night of heavy hydration and excessive carbo-loading. We struggle to put clothes on properly (sweatpants first, THEN then shoes) and hobble outside to pick up other teammates or to wait for our ride.

This almost became another column devoted to the greatness that is Cornell basketball 2010 style. Almost. Writing about the newly-ranked No. 22 team in the nation would have been a fairly simple task. Just ask the sports writers from any of the other Ivy League schools. Keep in mind Cornell has not even played all of the teams in its conference, yet I still am finding “expert” analysis from other Ancient Eight writers popping up on the Cornell Basketball Blog. Incorporate a few statistics, supplement them with several clichés, make some blanket statements about being ranked in the Top 25 and call it a day I guess.

The women’s hockey team had a successful, undefeated weekend consisting of matchups with two conference opponents. Quinnipiac and Princeton both traveled to Lynah Rink and were unable to score any goals on Cornell sophomore goaltender, Amanda Mazzotta. These two shutouts for the goalie set a new University record for number of shutouts in a single season, and contributed to her being named ECAC Hockey Goaltender of the Week.

The men’s and women’s track and field teams showed up strong at Penn State to finish third overall at the two-day Sykes-Sabock Challenge over the weekend. The men’s team scored 80 points to finish behind first-place Princeton’s 111 and second-place Penn State’s 83, while the women’s team recorded 78 points behind first-place Penn State’s 134 and second-place Auburn’s 111.

Eight former editors of The Ithaca High School Tattler gained a small victory in their fight for First Amendment rights in high school journalism: On Jan. 26., U.S. District Judge Norman Mordue issued a decision allowing an appeal of his earlier ruling that dismissed some of the students’ claims.

Yesterday approximately 25 faculty members and graduate students gathered in the Guerlac room of the A.D. White House to consider ways to improve interdepartmental collaboration by bridging gaps between related fields of study at the University.

It is reasonable to assume that the budget cuts which have recently bludgeoned the performing arts at Cornell will only expand, as departments, majors and disciplines deemed “peripheral unit to the University’s core” (as a Feb. 3 editorial put it) lose funding. The departments that will be saved, because they are certainly not peripheral in any way, like the hard sciences, will never have to question whether or not they are serving the University’s “mission.”

Canadian rapper Drake will headline this year’s Slope Day, according to Dan Tracy ’10, chair of the Slope Day Programming Board.

In an effort to cut back on the proverbial Big Red tape, the University recently created an Initiatives Coordination Office. Provost Kent Fuchs announced the creation of the ICO on Dec. 16. As one of the newest Reimagining Cornell initiatives, the ICO seeks to maintain and augment efficiency in the face of the ongoing economic recession.