Soup and encouragement fill Thursday afternoons at Sage Chapel during the Soup & Hope speaker series. During the cold Ithaca winter, Janet Shortall, Soup & Hope founder and associate dean of students hoped to foster community through warm conversation over warm food.
Sponsored by Cornell’s Office of Spirituality and Meaning-Making, Human Resources, Cornell Health and Cornell Catering, the series takes place every other Thursday from noon to 1 p.m. at Sage Chapel, running from Jan. 23 to March 27. Open to the public with no registration required, attendees can enjoy a bowl of soup provided by Cornell Catering while listening to inspiring personal stories from selected speakers.
“Our goal each year is to bring people together from across our large campus — from different roles and programs, different communities and identities and different life experiences,” said Joseph Harter, chair of the Soup & Hope planning committee.
Harter highlighted the series’ tradition of amplifying diverse voices — such as Prof. Karim-Aly Kassam Ph.D. ’05, natural resources and the environment, who spoke about finding hope after his sister’s death or Joanne Wang ’24, who discussed how joining a running club impacted her mental health.
Each fall, the planning committee asks the Cornell community to nominate speakers for the series. This year, they received a record 25 nominations.
“We look for speakers who have a personal story to tell — one that is authentic and vulnerable — a story that provides a unique perspective on the theme of hope,” Harter said, emphasizing that hope can take many forms, including complex and evolving relationships with it.
Among this year’s speakers was Conan Gillis ’21, a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in mathematics. Born with Larsen’s Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder affecting bone and joint development, Gillis requires full-time medical care — a factor that has significantly shaped his academic journey.
“It’s really hard to find and hire nurses — there’s a worldwide nursing shortage,” Gillis said. “When I was thinking about academics, for both [undergraduate] and [graduate] school, it was about where I could go and get medical care, and I’m fortunate and privileged I could get medical care at Cornell.”
As an undergraduate, Gillis was deeply involved in Cornell’s disability community, serving as president of the Cornell Union for Disability Awareness during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now a graduate student and assistant director of the mathematics support center, Gillis described his role as “the best job yet,” as it allows him to work with a broad cross-section of the Cornell population. When reflecting on what hope means to him, he said, “Being hopeful isn’t simply being optimistic when things aren’t going well. Sometimes it’s being stubborn — stubbornly believing that things can be better even if they seem like they can’t.”
Another featured speaker, Thomas Jones ’24 MILR, shared his journey from incarceration to personal and professional growth. Jones, now the Fair Practice Employment Specialist for Cornell’s Office of Human Resources, recounted how his path took a pivotal turn when his son asked, “Why can’t I stay with you, Dad?” while he was incarcerated.
As he neared his release, Jones focused on education and reuniting with his son. He later attended Rutgers University and committed to setting an example for his son.
At Cornell, Jones became involved with the ILR School and the Restorative Record project, which aids justice-impacted individuals. He now uses his role in human resources to advocate for others facing similar challenges.
“It’s important for others to understand that I’m just like them and not like them at the same time,” he said. “I draw on my lived experiences — whether it be child medical complications, single fatherhood, transitional housing, food instability, emergency foster siblings, incarceration, reentry education services, youth advocacy, [Historically Black Colleges and Universities] education or social services. It’s important to list [them] because there's a cross-dimension in all of my experiences, yet I will always be a student of life.”
Reflecting on the series as a whole, Harter described Soup & Hope as a space for warmth — both physical and emotional.
“Soup & Hope warms us up each winter in body and soul,” he said. “We hope our event will inspire people to be more present with each other, to set aside time to eat together without their phones and to listen and share each other’s stories.”
Kaitlyn Xia ’28 is a Sun contributor and can be reached at kx89@cornell.edu.
