Advance, Cornell ILR School's publication for alumni and friends.
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from around the world. It has sent teams to national and international competitions, including an intercollegiate competition in Montreal and the International Chamber of Commerce Commercial Mediation Competition in Paris. we didn't have the money to put students on the payroll," says Lipsky. "Five or six years ago, we didn't have competitions, and "One of the reasons Marty endowed the institute was to revive the ILR School's tradition in mediation and arbitration, which he believed the school had gotten away from," Lipsky says, referring to Scheinman. "So it's no accident that we've greatly expanded our offerings in this area and created these opportunities for students, trying to re-create, in a way, the kind of opportunities Marty had when he was an undergraduate here in the 1970s." At a dinner last October to mark the five-year anniversary of the reconstitution of the institute, Bob Harrison, chair of the Cornell University Board of Trustees, noted the significance of the Scheinmans' latest endowment. "This gift hits dead center on three initiatives outlined in the university's strategic plan: faculty renewal, crosscollege collaboration and becoming the land-grant institution to the world." Residential Center. "We teach them to speak in public, but we also challenge the norms they have, so that they can deal with conflict in a nonaggressive way," says Leah Salgado CALS '12. Salgado was team president her junior and senior years and now serves as assistant director of forensics. What makes the team so successful in competition? Yeh credits Nelson for setting clear expectations and for "his attention to our lives outside the Forensics Society. He always makes an effort to ILR ALUMNI MAGAZINE learn his students' career interests and hobbies, and tailors the program to each student's individual interests. For this reason, students are incredibly responsive to Sam's suggestions and criticisms." Nelson deflects the praise, saying, "It's always the students. The coach can only take so much credit; we have really talented students." Singh and Christine Yu '14, vice president of internal affairs, cite the "generous funding" provided by ILR Dean Harry Katz, and the debate office in Ives Hall, which "provides a collaborative environment where all members can meet and gel as a team." Practices at least twice a week and more than 20 tournaments a year help team members gain critical thinking, public speaking and presentation skills. They also learn teamwork, and how to lose gracefully. Sometimes, the learning goes deeper. Salgado says her participation taught her to always ask "why?" and to challenge things she believed in. Yu learned to value her contributions to the team and take greater risks in life. Singh realized that arguing and persuading are desirable ways to earn a living. "Winning tournaments is nice — we like doing that, and we want to do that," Nelson says. "But if we can be a positive part of team members' lives while they're at Cornell, then we've really accomplished something." 7