To the Editor:
Thank you for publishing your editorial, “Through Coronavirus and Cancellations, Cornell is Home.” As a proud Cornell alumna and staff member at another higher education institution that made the same difficult decision as Cornell to suspend in-person classes, I appreciated your understanding and analysis of the situation and your advice to the campus community. I am incredibly sad for the seniors and graduating students who will not have a chance to say goodbye to the Hill in the same way that generations of Cornellians did before them. I am worried for the faculty and students who are not able to easily adapt to the new technologies that we are adopting on the fly and am disappointed that your educational experience will not be as rich and fulfilling as you had expected.
However, I know that the Cornell administration, and many other college and university administrations, grappled with one of the most difficult decisions they’ve had to make, and I think they made the correct choice. There are so many unknowns, but the prudent move was to react swiftly to the global pandemic to mitigate the devastating effects we are starting to see across the globe. I hope when we look back at this time, we will not only think about the experiences we missed out on, but appreciate how our actions contributed to the resolution of this crisis.
Rachel Gordon ’08