Yesterday marked the first day of this semester’s Trustee weekend, bringing the University’s top governing board from around the world for a tightly scheduled set of meetings and events. With streamlining initiatives and further budget cuts on the horizon, the Board of Trustees will spend much of the time talking about the ongoing “Reimagining Cornell” initiatives.

In keeping with the goal of fostering diversity and supporting minority communities on campus, members of the various multicultural advocacy groups on campus met last night with alumni from the Board of Trustees and the Cornell University Council. Organized and developed by Renee Alexander ’74, director of Minority Alumni Affairs, the event provided students with the opportunity to network with successful and influential multicultural alumni, while offering the alumni representatives a unique view into the problems currently affecting students on campus.

“When alumni are on campus, they always want to meet with students, but can never get it together in a formal way and the students want to speak with influential alumni about the programs on campus,” Alexander said. “This is a great opportunity for [students] to get to know [the trustees and members of the Cornell University Council] who are working hard for the University and for us.”

The event, which consisted of an informal meet and greet followed by a more structured discussion, was attended by representatives of the Cornell Asian Alumni Association (CAAA), the Cornell Black Alumni Association (CBAA) the Cornell Latino Alumni Association (CLAA), the Black Students Union (BSU), Cornell Mosaic La Asociacion Latina (LAL), the Asian and Asian American Center (A3C), the Cornell Asian Pacific Islander Student Union (CAPSU), Haven, and CU IMAGE. After the mingling period, each student group and alumni association introduced their organization and addressed pertinent issues to their organization. Over the course of the evening, issues discussed ranged from the elimination of the Diversity Hosting Weekend and the need for a dedicated space for the newly formed A3C to the importance of targeted community-based suicide prevention.

One man show: Last night at RPCC, diverse members of the Cornell Board of Trustees and C.U. Council meet and network with student leaders and members of the student body.One of the most common tropes of the evening was the uneven burden placed on the multicultural community, that must keep up with all of their academic burdens while advocating for their rights as students, which they believe are not being actively enforced by University policy.

“The main reason why students of color do not perform as well as white students is because the university is not doing its job,” Sasha Lopez ’10 said. “It is not my job to come after class and have meetings from 4:30 p.m. to 11 o’clock at night and then stay in the library until four in the morning, then start all over.”

Another major topic of discussion was the Office of Minority Educational Affairs (OMEA), which assists students in the New York State Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP) and Educational Opportunity Program (EOP). These programs are designed to provide the chance to attend Cornell to students who have the ability for academic success but have not met the regular admission requirements. Recently, the OMEA has lost one of its counselors, putting it close to losing state funding.

“The counselors at the OMEA have very packed schedules and your problems may not be able to be solved in one appointment, but in all the time I have worked there, I have never seen them turn a student down,” Natasha Moses ’11 said, a member of the BSU executive board and an employee of the OMEA. “With the high turnover in staff and the loss of a counselor, I am afraid that they wont be able to just say ‘come on in’ in the future.”

Despite these controversial issues, there was an appreciation for the opportunities provided by the forum by students who felt their voices were being heard, and alumni who gained an appreciation of the issues affecting life on campus.

“I like to hear the variety of opinions present around campus and the issues students are passionate about. It is so important to bring diverse groups and ideas together,” Dwight Bush ’79, member of the Board of Trustees, said. “When I was here in 1974, this would have been impossible.”