When first coming to Cornell, Cat Huang ’21, executive vice president of the Student Assembly, had not initially considered higher education policy to be a particularly gripping field.
But shaped by her experience serving on the S.A. — regularly working with administrators and discussing campus policy — Huang is now working to create The Cornell Higher Ed. Review, Cornell’s first student-run publication focused on higher education.
Collaborating closely with S.A. President Joe Anderson ’20, Huang said she hopes to register the journal as a new student organization in February and publish it digitally throughout the semester. She plans to release the first print edition by April or May.
All Cornell students may contribute to the journal, and there is no application to join.
“We want it to be pretty accessible to all students,” Huang said. “It is an opportunity for them to get published by a journal that is peer reviewed — as in student reviewed.”
Huang hopes the journal will encourage Cornell students to “think more critically about the institutions we inhabit” and become more informed about the day-to-day logistics of university operations.
“Whenever anyone inhabits some kind of institution, it is always important to know what that institution is founded in, if you are part of it,” Huang said. “Understanding the whole structure is really valuable to any kind of student anywhere.”
Through classes she has taken at Cornell, Huang has read literature about higher education policy and structure — prompting the realization that many do not realize the complexity of higher education because they tend to see institutions as businesses rather than bureaucratic structures.
“[The journal] is a great opportunity to learn if you are interested,” Huang said. “I didn’t even consider higher education as a field to be interested in until very recently.”