Last October, when the Cornell University Programming Board brought Steven Colbert to Cornell, his entrance was anything but subtle. First he roused thousands of students at 9 a.m. to buy tickets online. Then he sold 3,000 tickets in 15 minutes, selling out his scheduled performance in record time. To top it off, he performed an additional show to quell the desire of eager Cornell audience members. Attracting a crowd of about 10,000 over 2007’s First Year Family Weekend, CUPB, to say the least, started the year with a bang.

Correction Appended

The oldest and largest programming contest in the world, IBM’s Battle of the Brains, will include a team of three students from Cornell who will compete with the world’s finest student computer programmers. The Cornell University Computer Whizzes, the University’s delegation to the competition, has beaten 6,600 teams in local and regional competitions to advance to the World Finals.