Tompkins Weekly

Briefs: Women Swimmin’, Cornell Cinema lineup, more


19th Annual Women Swimmin’ raises record-breaking total

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The 19th Annual Women Swimmin’ for Hospicare was held Aug. 13 at the Ithaca Yacht Club (IYC). This year, the event raised a record-breaking total of $580,681 thanks to the 6,000 donations that came in to support Hospicare’s work in the community.

“Through the generosity of our friends and neighbors, who recognize the importance of our mission, we are able to bring medical expertise and compassionate care to all those in Tompkins and Cortland counties who are facing the end of life as well as provide support, comfort and guidance for their family members,” Hospicare said in a recent press release. “The money raised through Women Swimmin’ also allows Hospicare to provide bereavement services to patients’ family members and others in our community who are grieving a loss.”

Women Swimmin’ for Hospicare is a fundraising event that supports the care that Hospicare & Palliative Care Services brings to patients and their loved ones at any stage of a life-limiting illness and/or following a death. Women Swimmin’ for Hospicare raises funds and provides information and education about the agency and its mission in a manner that is inclusive, fun and consistent with Hospicare’s respect for all people.

The morning of Aug. 13 saw 290 swimmers gathered at Cass Park, where they boarded buses for the east shore of Cayuga Lake. From there, they entered the water and began their journey west to IYC. Swimmers are grouped together in pods, often made up of friends or family members, and were escorted along the way by about 160 volunteer boaters who oversee their safety.

In 2015, Women Swimmin’ added pool swimming as an option to participants. While lake swimmers complete a 1.2-mile swim across Cayuga Lake each year, lap swimmers are free to swim any distance they choose in any pool with a certified lifeguard to fundraise for Hospicare.

Lap swimmers swim in pools around Ithaca, across the state and around the country. In 2021, Women Swimmin’ added a Go the Distance option where anyone can participate between May 3 and Aug. 13 by doing any activity in support of Hospicare. Participants can choose anything from walking, knitting, biking, picking up trash and much more.

In addition to swimming or going the distance, this year, participants could choose to simply fundraise or be a support boater and fundraise at the same time.

This year’s event co-chairs are Betsy East and Linda Mikula, and there were close to 100 community volunteers helping out before, during and after the event.

For more information about this annual event, visit tinyurl.com/2k4kquwa. To learn more about Hospicare, visit hospicare.org.

In this photo: two Women Swimmin’ participants pose at the Ithaca Yacht Club after completing their 1.2-mile swim.

 

Cornell Cinema announces August, September lineup

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Cornell Cinema recently announced its film lineup for August and September.

On Aug. 19, check out An Orientation to Cornell Cinema, starting at 7:15 p.m., where you can learn more about the program.

“The Batman” runs at 7 p.m. Aug. 20 and 22. “Mississippi Masala” is at 7 p.m. Aug. 21 and 23. “The Conversation” is set for Aug. 4 and 28, both at 7 p.m. On Aug. 25 and 27, check out “Crimes of the Future,” also at 7 p.m.

The Pixar animated film “Turning Red” plays Aug. 26 and 27 at 7 p.m., and Marvel’s “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” plays Aug. 26 and 28 at 9:30 p.m.

The Ithaca premiere of “Vengeance is Mine” plays Aug. 31 and Sept. 1, both at 7 p.m.

The Sundance Film Festival Shorts Tour 2022 is Sept. 1 at 9:30 p.m. and Sept. 2 at 7 p.m. The tour is a 95-minute theatrical program of seven short films curated from the 2022 Sundance Film Festival short film program, including three titles that won Festival awards.

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” plays Sept. 2, 3 and 4 at 9 p.m. The Ithaca premier of “Il Buco” runs Sept. 3 and 4 at 7 p.m.

“RR” runs Sept. 7 at 7 p.m., and “The Girl and the Spider” runs Sept. 8 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 11 at 9:15 p.m.

“Eraserhead” plays Sept. 8 and 10 at 9:15 p.m., and “Happening” runs Sept. 9 and 11 at 7 p.m.

“Neptune Frost” has showings Sept. 9 at 9:15 p.m. and Sept. 10 at 7 p.m., while “The Society of the Spectacle” runs Sept. 14 at 7 p.m.

1982’s “Diva” runs Sept. 15 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 16 at 9 p.m., and 1986’s “Blue Velvet” (pictured) runs Sept. 15 at 9:30 p.m. and Sept. 17 at 9:15 p.m.

The Ithaca premiere of “Cane Fire” is showing Sept. 16 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 18 at 9:15 p.m., and “Dos Estaciones” runs Sept. 17 and 18 at 7 p.m.

“Cadejo Blanco” has its Ithaca premiere Sept. 21 at 7 p.m., and “Alma’s Rainbow” runs Sept. 22 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 25 at 9 p.m. “Lost Highway” runs Sept. 22 and 24 at 9 p.m.

“Metropolitan” runs Sept. 23 at 7:30 p.m., and the Ithaca Premier of “Taming the Garden” runs Sept. 24 and 25 at 7 p.m.

“Los Conductos” premiers Sept. 27 at 7 p.m., and 1927’s “Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans” runs Sept. 28 at 7 p.m. “Inland Empire” runs Sept. 29 at 7:30 p.m. and Oct. 2 at 7 p.m.

Cat Video Fest 2022 is on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 at 7 p.m., where 10% of proceeds will be donated to the Tompkins County SPCA. Learn more at catvideofest.com. And finally, the Ithaca premiere of “Inu-Oh” runs Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 at 9 p.m.

Cornell Cinema will be announcing the remainder of its fall semester schedule on Sept. 1.

All patrons are strongly encouraged to purchase tickets online in advance. Individual ticket prices are $9.50 for general admission, $7.50 for seniors, $7.50 for students, and $6 for Cornell graduate students and kids 12 and under.

Patrons can also purchase an all-access pass to get tickets to for all regularly priced screenings. Pricing is $25 for Cornell graduates and professional students, $30 for all other students and $40 for community members.

All screenings will be held in Willard Straight Theatre on campus. Many films will feature faculty or graduate student introductions. For more information, visit cinema.cornell.edu.

 

Ithaca College PA director wins national award

POCN, the largest nurse practitioner (NP) and physician associate (PA) network in the U.S., has announced Ithaca College’s Susan Salahshor, Ph.D., PA-C, as its Q2 NP/PA Community Advocacy Award winner. The award program aims to recognize and support NPs and PAs who go above and beyond for their peers and respective communities.

In recognition, POCN awards a grant to a deserving organization of the winners’ choice that supports the NP/PA community. Salahshor is the founding program director for the Ithaca College PA Program and has more than 25 years’ worth of experience as a PA. She also plays an active role in POCN’s mission as a POCN ambassador.

Throughout her career, Salahshor has been a fierce advocate for diversity, equity and inclusion in the medical field through mentorship and education. As a PA, she practiced at Mayo Clinic and several Florida hospital systems spanning 10 specialties, including internal medicine, behavioral health and surgery.

“Dr. Salahshor is a true leader in the NP and PA community, ensuring everyone, regardless of background, has a chance to succeed in the industry and in their community,” said Richard Zwickel, founder and CEO of POCN. “Her passion and dedication to the communities she serves is evident across her professional career as a PA, educator and community leader. On behalf of all of us at POCN, congratulations to Dr. Salahshor for this well-deserved honor. We are proud to donate to the Village at Ithaca on her behalf.”

On behalf of Salahshor’s mission, POCN has made a contribution to Village at Ithaca, an organization focused on educational equity for Black/African American, Hispanic/Latinx, low-income and any other underserved students within Tompkins County.

“I am honored to be named as an NP/PA Community Advocate and thrilled to represent my colleagues who work each and every day to create a more welcoming, diverse and equitable health care field,” Salahshor said. “I am hopeful the donation to Village at Ithaca will further its mission in my community as they chip away at the social and structural determinants of health early to set young individuals up for a bright future. As a POCN ambassador, I look forward to working together to advocate for NPs and PAs across the U.S.”

POCN is now accepting nominations for two additional NP/PA Community Advocacy Award winners for the remainder of 2022. Nominations can be submitted by emailing ambassadorsupport@pocn.com with information about the nominee, their story and cause.

To learn more about POCN, visit pocn.com.

 

Ithaca Farmers Market adds mid-week online order pickup

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In 2021, the Ithaca Farmers Market launched a Saturday online shopping platform for those looking for safe shopping options and to avoid pavilion crowds. Now, with thanks to the Ithaca Urban Renewal Agency (IURA) Grant Funds and a partnership with Groundswell’s Press Bay Alley cooler, IFM shoppers can order online for mid-week pickup in a convenient downtown location.

The additional curbside pick-up via the Online Market is now offered on Wednesdays from 4 to 6 p.m. at the cooler behind Press Cafe. Orders can be placed between Monday at 6 a.m. and Thursday at 10 p.m. for pickup the following week.

“The online shopping and quick safe pickup is the best innovation in the market in years,” a patron said in a recent press release. “Expand it more!”

This pickup is open to all but focuses on city of Ithaca residents who are eligible for EBT or who qualify as low to moderate income. IURA funds will provide those shoppers with a 60% discount on SNAP-eligible items. This means an order of $100 will cost just $40 (or less if using EBT). This discount is only available while the funds last.

If you have any questions, please email Sarah Simpkins at foodequity@ithacamarket.com.

The store opened for shopping on Monday for the first pickup date Aug. 24. Available products include assorted vegetables, meat, yogurt, cheese, eggs, apples and more from vendors like Crosswinds Creamery, West Haven Farm, Six Circles Farm, Cayuta Sun Farm, Windsong Farm and more.

For more information, visit ithacamarket.com.

 

Cornell mourns loss of Hartmanis, ‘father of computational complexity’

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Juris Hartmanis, a Turing Award-winning pioneer who was instrumental in establishing computer science as an independent field and founding chair of Cornell University’s Department of Computer Science, died July 29 at 94.

Often called “the father of computational complexity,” Hartmanis discovered a set of fundamental laws that govern the difficulty of computation, laying the foundation for a comprehensive theory of the efficiency and limits of computing.

At Cornell, Hartmanis built one of the first computer science departments in the world.

“Juris was a visionary researcher, leader and mentor,” said Kavita Bala, dean of the Cornell Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science. “His legacy lives on in the discipline he helped build and in the minds of the many people, like me, he inspired.”

Hartmanis was born in Riga, Latvia, in 1928. His father, a general in the Latvian army, died in prison after the Soviet occupation of Latvia in the 1940s, leading Hartmanis and his family to emigrate to Germany. He completed high school in a displaced persons camp and earned an undergraduate degree in physics from the University of Marburg.

Through the sponsorship of a family friend, he moved to the U.S. and received his master’s degree in mathematics at the University of Kansas City (now known as the University of Missouri — Kansas City) in 1951 and his Ph.D. in mathematics from the California Institute of Technology in 1955.

From 1955 to 1957, he was an instructor in mathematics at Cornell, followed by nine months as an assistant professor of mathematics at Ohio State University. In 1958, he was tempted by industrial research and joined General Electric (GE) Research Laboratory in Schenectady, New York, where he spent the next seven years.

It was at GE that he and colleague Richard Stearns founded the field of computational complexity, an area of research that remains one of the central topics in computer science to this day. There had been earlier work in analysis of algorithms that attempted to establish upper or lower time bounds on specific algorithms for various computational problems, but very few general principles that unified the behavior of these algorithms.

Their key contribution was to study the inherent complexity of the problems themselves. In their 1965 paper, “On the Computational Complexity of Algorithms,” they defined the fundamental notion of a complexity class — a class of problems that are solvable within a certain time bound on a multitape Turing machine.

They showed that this notion is extremely robust in the sense that complexity classes are independent of time scale and impervious to minor modifications of the machine model, thus the results were relevant to any reasonable model of computation. They proved several theorems regarding separation and containment of complexity classes, thereby establishing the existence of an infinite hierarchy of complexity classes.

For this foundational work, Hartmanis and Stearns received the 1993 Turing Award, the premier honor in computer science.

In 1965, Hartmanis returned to Cornell as the first chair of the newly founded Department of Computer Science. Under his leadership, graduates went on to become faculty members at new computer science departments forming all over the country.

“Juris has been an inspiration to generations of computer scientists since the early days of the field,” said Dexter Kozen, the Joseph Newton Pew Jr. professor in engineering in the Department of Computer Science. “I am fortunate to have studied under Juris at Cornell, where his influence on the culture of the department is still felt to this day. The news of his passing has left me with a profound sense of loss, as I’m sure is true with many.”

Hartmanis served as chair of the department three times — 1965 to ’71, 1977 to ’83 and 1992 to ’93 — and ultimately retired from the university in 2001 as the Walter R. Read professor of computer science and engineering, emeritus.

“We have so much to thank Juris for,” said Éva Tardos, the Jacob Gould Schurman professor of computer science and chair of the Department of Computer Science. “He founded our department and established the collegial and collaborative culture that has been helping us be a great department to this day.”

Beyond his service to Cornell, Hartmanis contributed to national efforts to advance the field of computer science. He chaired a National Research Council Study that yielded the 1992 publication, “Computing the Future: A Broader Agenda for Computer Science and Engineering.” The report laid out a research agenda and recommended a framework of education, funding and leadership designed to bring computing into the 21st century.

From 1996 to 1998, Hartmanis served as the assistant director of the National Science Foundation, where he led the Directorate of Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). There, he steered the efforts to transform the academic research network NSFnet into the early internet.

He also served on the science board and science steering committee of the Santa Fe Institute, an independent, nonprofit research group founded to advance research in complexity science.

Among his many awards, Hartmanis was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the Latvian Academy of Sciences, and a fellow of the Association for Computing Machinery and the American Mathematical Society. He received the Bolzano Gold Medal from the Academy of Sciences in the Czech Republic and the Computing Research Association’s Distinguished Service Award.

In 1993, he was the recipient of a Humboldt Foundation Senior U.S. Scientist Award, and he held honorary doctorates from the University of Missouri and the University of Dortmund.

Juris was predeceased by his wife Elly (Rehwaldt) and is survived by three children: Reneta McCarthy, Martin Hartmanis and Audrey Langkammerer.

The family requests that in lieu of flowers, donations can be sent to the Ithaca Sciencenter in his memory. A Celebration of Life took place at the Ithaca Yacht Club on Aug. 15.

Learn more at tinyurl.com/2e76datv.

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