Columns

SCHECHTER | Tough Love

By |

The three best speeches I’ve ever heard have been given by presidents: former President George W. Bush’s 2021 address at SMU; former President Barack Obama’s keynote address at the 2004 Democratic National Convention; and Martha Pollack’s 2023 convocation address.

I have seen twelve-years’ worth of boys-schools’ convocations, which left me with limited expectations on the Sunday after O-Week. As President Pollack began her speech, though, comfortable behind her wooden Cornell University podium, I knew she was confident in her message. As her speech unfolded, I felt myself filled with hope. Hope for my future here. Hope for my classmates’ futures. Hope for the future of the school. And hope in knowing through all of Cornell’s rigid toughness, my classmates and I will make it through.

4/20

Pollack: A Martha Story is Going to Change Cinema Forever

By |

Last week at the Cans film festival, thousands of lucky fans, critics and members of the film community were treated to a sold out premiere screening of the much anticipated new movie, Pollack: A Martha Story. Reuniting Martin Scorsese as director and Paul Schraeder as writer, Pollack stars character actress Margot Martindale as Cornell’s very own beloved president, following her through the early years of her life. It opens from humble beginnings, with Martha only a student at Dartmouth — one of the worst schools in the Ivy League — and follows her as she works her way up to become a graduate student at a marginally better Ivy League school. It charts serious setbacks (serving as an administrator at a public university) and brilliant accomplishments, such as working in the field of AI a mere decade before it actually got exciting. Scorsese films each titillating scene with his trademark flourishes, and presents the hallowed halls of academia in the same manner that he’s previously captured the Mafia, Wall Street Criminals and Gilded Age politicians. 

Of course, every biopic is only as good as its central romance, and Pollack is no exception, featuring a brilliant turn from Tilda Swinton as Vice President Ryan Lombardi.

Columns

ONONYE | It’s 2020; Stop Calling Martha “Martha”

By |

Please stop calling President Martha E. Pollack “Martha.” It’s disrespectful and your internalized misogyny is showing every time that you do it. Martha Pollack is the highest ranked faculty member at Cornell University, and the way that students refer to her is telling of continued gender biases in higher academia. There is a major disparity in referencing senior staff at Cornell University, with President Pollack referred to more frequently by her first name than Vice President Ryan Lombardi and Provost Michael Kotlikoff. In common conversation, students abbreviate these administrators’ titles to “Martha,” “Lombardi” and “Kotlikoff.”

Every time I hear a student refer to President Pollack by her first name, I remember my academic advisor’s warning during my first week at Cornell. She sat down her ten new advisees and explained the importance of referring to female professors as “Professor” or “Doctor” rather than “Ms.” or “Mrs.” She explained the struggle that she has faced after years in academia and her frustration when students, and worse, other academics downplayed her accomplishments when they reference her.