Transferring to Cornell, though seemingly an obvious choice now, was one of the hardest decisions of my life. After two years at my previous school, I had a strong network of friends, teachers, teammates and club members that I decided to leave in order to come to the Big Red. Thus, I wanted to make sure that I was entering an environment that would be both welcoming and understanding of the situation of a transfer. As with most other transfers, the existence of the Transfer Center calmed many of my fears, factoring heavily into my decision to come here. Now, with the imminent closure of the T.C., I learned that the very school that built such a place completely missed the point. Simply put, the Transfer Center was the reason I came to Cornell, and by closing it, Cornell is allowing itself to lose its main bargaining chip in recruiting other prospective new students and maintaining its stature with the current ones.
But, Megan, you say, there will be whole wings of the new and nicer buildings dedicated to 150 transfers. Once again, while I appreciate the minimal handholding the school has attempted with those like myself, the idea that this slight nod to our concerns is enough is ludicrous. From the moment I arrived on campus, the girl who was helping my family park the car to unpack reiterated the importance of the T.C. in order to convince me to apply to it. because frankly, “you’ll spend all your time there anyway.” So, after placing myself on the waiting list, I patiently lived in another dorm in which everybody already knew each other and the inner workings of the school, spending almost every night on one T.C. floor or another until, in mid-September, I was allowed to move onto the third floor. Now students in similar situations will be used as bed fillers, placed sparingly around campus to fulfill the needs of the school. What a welcome.
The very existence of a waiting list for the T.C. shows how successful the program is. So successful, in fact, that there is already a Transfer Center annex in the Class of 1918 Residence Hall. Thus, it isn’t like it’s a half-empty building that gets little to no use. Kids are dying to get in because it’s a vibrant community, and banishing them to designated wings is a slap in the face to that atmosphere. This school constantly boasts of loving diversity, but I have yet to hear anything about diversity of experience. Simply look at a bulletin board on any of the transfer floors, and you can see kids coming from not only different locations, but different types of schools.
Why hasn’t there been more of an outcry about the closing of the Transfer Center? If the school had announced the closing of Ujamaa or another program house, I’m sure there would be daily protests and demonstrations. No, the Cornell administration knows who they can push around. Unlike members of the other program houses, the students of the T.C. are new and unaware of how to successfully lobby the administration. Sure, there’s a Transfer representative on the Student Assembly, but he’s only one person. Kids who are too busy trying to shove four years worth of requirements into two or three simply do not have the time to chain themselves to an office or storm a building.
At this point, the administration is probably getting all excited about plugging the activities of the Transfer Center Advisory Board, also known as TCAB. I love TCAB, and I met many of my closest transfer friends at TCAB ice cream socials or pizza nights. The events are great, but without the backdrop of a place to carry the conversations once the pizza night is done, the activities become less about fitting in and more about participating in a club. Allowing 20 minutes for a study break to run downstairs is a lot different than allowing 40 to walk in the snow just to meet people you should be meeting already. When the Transfer Center closes, there will also be no more general university staff dedicated to transfers. Simply put, people like Matt McIntyre, who tirelessly dedicate themselves to transfers, will not have jobs.
In The Sun article on Friday, Nick Peone ’07 brought up a telling point when he expressed his surprise that the current residents were already so loyal to the dorm. In fact, these kids are loyal because in a school so large it has its own zip code, and where an entire section of the campus is devoted to ensuring that freshmen get whatever they want, transfers get one measly five-story building which they can call home. Right now, many of these students have very little else to anchor them.
So congratulations, Cornell administration, on pushing through the West Campus initiative. I’m sure you’re more than happy to finally get rid of the eyesore that housed all of the other new students. But, as I am in my second year of attending this school, I have learned a bit about what makes it tick. Thus, I will speak in a language that you may understand: once the Transfer Center goes, so goes any money I would give to this school as an alumna. Now, that may not be much coming from a senior Government major, but there are currently 209 members of the Save the Transfer Center Facebook group, and a very large and angry group of T.C. alums who I’m sure would be open to taking such a substantive action.
I came to Cornell thinking that it was a school that would celebrate my differences. I guess I was wrong.
Megan Sweeney is a senior in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at mps65@cornell.edu. The 700 Level appears alternate Mondays.