Dems Seek Candidate To Fill Seat

By wpengine | September 28, 2001

The fate of the recently vacated position on the Common Council will be decided today at a meeting of the 4th Ward Democratic Committee.

Alderman Josh Glasstetter ’01 (D-4th Ward), who was the first student to serve on the Council, left his post for personal and academic reasons, leaving the Committee to select another to serve in his place.

“[The meeting’s] agenda is to try to identify a Democratic candidate to run on the ballot in the November election for the seat that Josh is vacating,” said Jane Pedersen, who was defeated by Glasstetter in the 1999 Common Council election. Pederson is also an associate dean in Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences.

“Setting the precedent of being a student on [Common] council is my biggest accomplishment,” Glasstetter said earlier this week.

He resigned from his position at the beginning of the month after only two years in office. As his motivations he cited personal reasons along with the wish to take a stand against the currently established four-year terms. In addition, other officials disputed whether Glasstetter was an influential member of the Common Council, as he frequently missed meetings during his term.

“Meetings at 10 or 11 [p.m.] are common, but difficult to make. I did have some problems with being with the [Common] council, … with my own personal conflicts and activities — balancing it all,” admitted Glasstetter earlier this week.

Whether the new member will be a student or not is yet to be seen.

According to Pedersen, “It is possible that there may be other candidates — Republicans, Greens, or Independents — who would want to run for the same seat. The deadline for filing to be on the ballot is Oct. 3.”

There have been questions raised as to whether Glasstetter’s unexpected announcement has negatively affected the selection process by curtailing the period of time during which prospective candidate could apply for the candidacy.

“It’s been an abbreviated process but we have been able to search far and wide throughout our network,” said Alexandra Sanchez ’03, president of the Cornell Democrats.

Archived article by Liz Novak

University Residential Plans Move Forward

By wpengine October 1, 2001

Early last Saturday morning, members of the West Campus Council Conference gathered at Robert Purcell Union to discuss the progress made towards Cornell’s new housing system. The project has been in the works more than five years ago, when the first policy statement was submitted to the Board of Trustees for approval. Since that time, the committee has made much more advancement on their vision. “Indeed, today we are heading down the pathway we envisioned in 1996,” said Susan Murphy ’73, vice president of student affairs. The vision includes renewing and revitalizing Cornell’s commitment to undergraduates. To do this, West Campus will be remodeled into a house system for 2,000 upper class students. The architectural firm of Kieran Timberlake Associates has been hired to complete the project by 2010. Part of the vision, which became a reality this semester, included housing all freshmen on North Campus in order to help them develop a sense of togetherness as a class. “North Campus was a starting point,” Murphy said. “One month ago we opened on time and on budget with 550 new beds, a new community commons seating over 600, and an opportunity for all freshmen to live together and see they are part of something greater than the 20 students they live with.” According to Murphy, the more difficult task was finding a way to transform West Campus into an attractive environment for upper class students. “It’s important to have an option to stay on campus,” said Dan Grossman grad a member of the West Campus Council Conference. “It shouldn’t be a last resort. It should be cool and different and not an absence of everything else.” Grossman spent his undergraduate years at Rice University, where there is only one housing system. Grossman’s perspective provided the committee with fresh ideas and helped incorporate ways to “hand students the key to their own freedom” and allow them to feel like they “own their space,” Grossman said. Also holding seats on the committee are representatives from Yale University, Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania to provide insight into how the housing systems function at their schools. “I’m glad to see that Cornell is taking the time to research its initiative by working with universities who have already implemented these programs so we can see their pros and cons,” said student-elected trustee Khary Barnes ’02. “I think this was a worthwhile conference,” said Jean Reese, residential initiative project leader. “It was timed just right because we have begun to develop specific ideas for the houses. The other schools differ from Cornell in that some have requirements for housing but there were a lot of commonalties that we can all benefit from.” The plans for the house system on West Campus include five “houses” to be named after deceased Cornell faculty. Out of the 350 students living in each house, the University hopes to achieve a mix of 75 percent sophomores, 15 percent juniors and 10 percent seniors. According to government Prof. Isaac Kramnick, vice provost for undergraduate education and council chair, when the sophomores living in the new residential communities move off campus, they will remain affiliates of the house be invited to return for meals and other functions. The new living quarters will be presided over by Cornell faculty, have an assistant dean to supervise administrative functions and house teaching sessions in seminar rooms for large lecture classes. Graduate students will live in the houses as resident advisors and a guest suite will house visitors. In addition, each center will have its own dining facilities and recreational area. According to Kramnick, the reason Cornell undertook this initiative was to “enhance the intellectual mission of the university in general,” Kramnick said. “This residential initiative is the single most important way to enhance the advising of students,” said Provost Biddy (Carolyn A.) Martin. “We need to provide more forms of intellectual exchange [between faculty and students], while simultaneously bringing faculty together to get familiar with each others’ work.” In order to help bring this dream to reality, Martin herself plans to teach a class next semester. “The residential community is made up of many different communities,” said Murphy. “It is important to remember that because each part is critical, but it is also important to think about the Cornell community.” According to Murphy, the initiative is an attempt to build a dynamic program that will link faculty with students in order to balance the broad Cornell community against its individual parts. Cornell is also looking to refine its Greek system and make it come alive once again as a more attractive housing option. “We are undertaking an effort to bring the reality and values [of the Greek system] back together again through a formal assessment process of each house each year,” she said. According to Kramnick, the demand for improved student housing has increased since the late 1980s. “Our peer institutions have all recognized the importance of residential life in attracting the best students,” Kramnick said. Archived article by Rachel Einschlag
Groups Give Back To Local Agencies

By wpengine October 1, 2001

About 400 Cornell students rose early Saturday morning to participate in the student-organized, 10th Annual “Into the Streets” public service event. The activity was sponsored and partly funded by the Cornell Public Service Center. The Student Activities Funding Committee also funded the event. “The main goal of Into the Streets is to introduce students to more thoughtful community service opportunities in the greater Ithaca area,” said Sarah Jensen ’03, director of the event. “A group of students thought up the idea ten years ago and just made it happen. Now the event [is held] every year by Cornell students, with a few hundred students volunteering.” This year the nine-student Executive Council worked together on to pull off the event. Beginning early Saturday morning, the Council held meetings together and then with their volunteers to open the day with motivational speeches from members of both the Cornell and Ithaca-area community. Laura Mar ’05 was impressed by the words of Prof. Jeffery Haugaard, human development “Prof. Haugaard was a very inspiring speaker. He referred to the New York City tragedies and spoke about how community service also brings people together and how it does not always take a tragedy to do [bring people together],” she said. Vivek Kumar ’05 explained that the recent tragedy in New York City and Washington D.C. was one of his main motivations for participating. “There is even more inspiration to help better the community in a time where the community is in need,” he said. The volunteers also had an opportunity to meet representatives from many of about two-dozen local community agencies that they were there to help. Many of the students traveled to the downtown Ithaca-area for the first time Saturday. Nina Niu ’05 and ten of her peers painted the American Red Cross homeless shelter in downtown Ithaca. For Niu, “[Into the Streets] really helped me realize that there is community down in Ithaca, other than the one on campus,” she noted. Beth Lasoff ’05 joined local Ithaca volunteers in helping with construction of the new downtown Sciencenter. “We saw that the community really needs workers and help which is different from what I see at home. We learned where to go if when we want to help,” she said. “The best part,” said Johana Marin ’05, “was just having random people walk by and say thanks. It felt good.” Rachel Ruggirello, publicity chair for Into the Streets, believed that the event helps engage Cornell students into the Ithaca community. “The purpose of this day is really to promote consistent volunteering by letting students see what they can do to help,” she said. “I think the day went really well. Everyone got to their agencies and it was nice to see Cornell students work closely side by with the people of Ithaca. Though it was a lot of labor, it was meaningful and makes a lot of difference for the community.” Lieutenant Gill Sharp of Collegetown’s Ithaca Fire Department Station 9 found that the help of the volunteers directly impact the community in more ways than they can realize. “They’re helping us out a lot. We need to keep our fire hydrants in good condition if we want to help stop fires. These guys are helping us with the color coding which is important for the firefighters to know when they get to the scene of a fire,” he said. The largest group representation came from the Latino Living Center with about 24 volunteers helping at the Sciencenter. Terrell Buckner ’05 said he was pleased with the experience. “It was great to be able to give to the community. It really helped make Ithaca feel more like home,” he said. Alex Smith ’02 felt grateful for the opportunity to assist Ithaca. “[The fire department] has come down and helped us out a lot. It’s great to be able to do something for them. It will also make Ithaca city a safer place. Usually Saturday is just a time were [students] relax and hang out. Today we had the chance to impact our lives and the lives of around us,” he said. One of the only “problems” with the event was the overwhelming number of students who wanted to volunteer, many who had to be turned away due to size constraints. “It’s been very difficult for us find a lot of one day projects for the volunteers. Much of the work ends up getting done at the beginning of September when it’s warmer. We hope that Cornell students understand that we really regret that we had to turn people away. At the same time we’re very pleased that so many students wanted to help out,” said Miranda Pugh, a team leader coordinator. According to Jensen and the other organizers, the day of service turned out well. “The whole day has really shown how connected Cornell is to the community and that is one of the great things that I love about Ithaca,” Jensen said. Adey Fettene contributed to this article. Archived article by Alison Thomas