Office Hours
Light streams through the tall windows of Emily Walsh’s corner office in Norton Geology Center, illuminating what was once a corner of the 1910 Carnegie Library and which remains rimmed with books. Walsh has traveled the world as a geology professor and researcher, and the results are found here in the form of field notebooks, atlases, travel books, textbooks, and hundreds of rocks. A powerful microscope sits behind her desk, and colorful paintings by her boys, ages 2 and 6, adorn the wall over her desk.
Greg Cotton, director of the Cole Library, has eclectic tastes and his office reflects them. Paintings from Cornell’s past, along with posters and paintings of more recent vintage, line the walls. His collection of Queen Elizabeth II memorabilia, which began when he was a boy infatuated with a photo of her 1953 coronation, includes photos, bobble heads, and a solar-powered Welsh corgi. Also on display are quirky machines, including a clock that runs on marbles, and models of beach-walking constructions that look like they belong on a Star Wars set.
Aparna Thomas’ office decor in South Hall includes memorabilia of her home country, India, as well as mementos of her travels. A professor with a joint appointment in politics and gender, sexuality, and women’s studies, Thomas displays Indian art alongside items that recall her trip to Jerusalem as an undergraduate and her work with the Comprehensive Rural Health Project in Jamkhed, India. Scattered on tables and shelves are small gifts given to her by students over the years. Overseeing it all are paintings by her young children.
Right: Prall House 106
The office of religion professor Steven Sacks is a fascinating repository of cultural artifacts from his life and travels. Born in Zimbabwe, and a traveler who has led Cornell classes to some of the world’s most remote locations, his office is dominated by books and African sculpture, with a rich array of other interesting items: A typewriter introduced at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, a Moroccan rug, a Mongolian tapestry that hung in a yurt, and a desk used by several Cornell presidents. In the corner, covering a back entrance to his office, is the carpet his great-grandfather carried as he fled Nazi Germany.
Professor of Art History Christina Penn-Goetsch’s office pays homage to her past. It contains artifacts from her parents’ home and her childhood, mementos and keepsakes she’s collected during her travels, and a significant number of creations given to her by former students. Much of her office reflects her scholarly interest in the artistic portrayal of women through history, and in the lives of nuns as patrons in 17th-century Rome.
