‘Overheard’ Facebook Group Evolves Into Forum for Campus Issues

Overheard at Cornell began in the fall of 2012, and since has become the largest Cornell community group on Facebook, with almost 9,000 members. What started as a place for students to share funny stories has evolved into a massive hub for extra-campus student discussion on varying topics, according to Jocelyn Lee ’16, the group’s founder and administrator. “Initially I created it with the intent of it being a fun page to share and browse for amusement — like a Tumblr for inside school jokes,” Lee said. “I noticed that some of my friends at other colleges had a page like this and I thought it looked fun. People kind of scorned the group at first, but after a few months it grew to a couple thousand people.”
Lee said she believes that while the group has retained its original purpose as a place for amusement, it has also become a place where students could also spread news and have a platform to discuss important and controversial issues.

First American on Death Row Exonerated by DNA Addresses Students

Kirk Bloodsworth, the first American man on death row to be exonerated by DNA evidence, spoke to a psychology of law class last Thursday about the flaws in the criminal justice system that cost him eight years of freedom and almost cost him his life. Bloodsworth was arrested in August 1984 for the murder of nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton. Wrongfully convicted in March 1985 and sentenced to death, he spent eight years behind bars until a DNA analysis exonerated him in June 1993. The real perpetrator was discovered 10 years later. Bloodsworth began his story by saying that he was a former marine and then became a waterman on the shore of Maryland.