Newsreel

A periodic compilation of references to Ithaca College in the nation’s media.

Tired of hearing bad jokes? A new Web program may have a solution. Created by a UC–Berkeley professor, the program recommends a series of jokes based on what users have said they like. It’s similar to the program that helps Amazon.com recommend books or videos you might like based on what other people have bought, for example. By trying to use science to explore humor, the researchers are tackling a topic as hard to nail down as a carefully timed punch line, researchers say. "Deciding what’s funny is a complex process," said Barney Beins, a psychology professor who studies jokes at Ithaca College in New York.

— San Jose Mercury News, May 22, 1999

Fear not for the poets. This is a good commencement year for the rhymers and declaimers. U.S. poet laureate Robert Pinsky will speak at his alma mater, Stanford University, June 13, and the Pulitzer Prize–winning poet Yusef Komunyaka, a professor at Princeton, will be the commencement speaker at Lycoming College. But poet-writer Maya Angelou is the big winner in her field, getting the speaking nod at three schools: Ithaca, Lafayette, and the State University of New York at Albany.

— Philadelphia Inquirer, May 10, 1999