The 1959 Cornell College track team, which won the Midwest Conference outdoor title to cap the Rams’ “Golden Age” of men’s track and field, will be honored at a celebration of the college’s new outdoor track at halftime of the homecoming football game against Luther on Saturday, Oct. 30. Kickoff is 1:30 p.m. at Ash Park field.
The halftime celebration will recognize all men’s track teams led by the late Jim Dutcher, Cornell track coach from 1957 to 1959 and football coach from 1953 to 1959. The Rams also won indoor track titles in 1956, 1957 and 1958 and outdoor crowns in 1957 and 1958. Cornell’s new eight-lane, all-weather track in Ash Park will be ready for competition in fall 2000.
Also on Saturday, Arland Christ-Janer, Cornell president from 1961 to 1967, will receive an honorary degree and deliver an acceptance speech in a ceremony at 10 a.m. in King Chapel. The title of his speech is “Reflections – While Bailing.” During Christ-Janer’s tenure, several capital projects were completed at Cornell: The Commons student center and Pauley, Rorem, Tarr and Dows residence halls. After Cornell, he went on to serve as the president of Boston University, the College Entrance Examination Board, Stephens College and Ringling School of Art and Design.
Cornell’s homecoming activities begin Friday, Oct. 29. Special reunion activities are planned for the classes of 1954, 1959, 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, 1989 and 1994. An alumni and class reunion party is scheduled Saturday night at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Cedar Rapids.
Public events on Friday include a concert at 8 p.m. in King Chapel by the Cornell Concert Choir and Chamber Singers, conducted by Lisa Hearne, director of choral music.
The program includes American spirituals, Verdi opera, Gregorian chant, Mass and motet
movements, pop ballads, folk and Latin-American songs and a speaking chorus. Admission is free.
In addition to the track ceremony and honorary degree presentation, Saturday’s public events include a carnival from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the arena of the Life Sports Center and a reception for art professor emeritus Hugh Lifson from 3-5 p.m. in Armstrong Gallery. The gallery is displaying an exhibit of work by Lifson’s former students. “The Pedagogical Legacy of Hugh Lifson” runs through Nov. 24. Admission is free.
Homecoming activities conclude Sunday, Oct. 31, with a concert at 3:30 p.m. by Parisian organist Yanka Hekimova, who is making her North American debut. Her program in King Chapel will be the first played on Cornell’s four-manual Moller-Casavant organ since its conversion to a solid-state multiplex computer system. The program, “The Organ as Orchestra,” will feature orchestral transcriptions of Bach and Hekimova’s own transcriptions of Mozart, Ravel and Tchaikovsky. Admission is free.
Complete details and a schedule of homecoming activities are available on the Cornell Web site at www.cornellcollege.edu/alumni/homecoming/index.shtml, or call (319) 895-4204.