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Cornellians ‘Get Out the Vote’ in Battleground State of Pa.

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STROUDSBERG, Pa. — 63 of Cornell’s most politically active were right at home on Main Street in Stroudsburg, Pa. this past weekend. From the used bookshop on the corner, to the pub down the block, to the American flags on the lampposts, the view from downtown Stroudsburg is as close to “America’s Main Street” as one could imagine.
51 members of the Cornell Democrats and 12 of the Cornell College Republicans made the two-and-a-half hour drive to Stroudsburg to campaign for their respective candidates in a crucial battleground state during the most important weekend of this election. Stroudsburg is in Monroe County, where President George Bush won by a mere four votes in 2004.

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U.N. Veteran Questions Future of Human Rights

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“Human rights are meant to be of universal application,” said Hon. Louise Arbour, former United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. In her lecture, “Human Rights for All: Beyond our Reach?” Arbour spoke to a diverse group of students and members of the public last night about current threats to the universality of human rights.
“The principle of universality itself is now under attack,” said Arbour, who recently resigned from her post at the U.N. having served since 2004.
Dec. 10 will mark the 60-year anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which Arbour described as, “one of the most important secular documents in human history.”

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Website Weighs Students’ Votes at Home vs. School

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Amidst the hustle and bustle of the pre-Fall Break crunch, the last deadline on most students’ minds is voter registration. The paperwork involved in registering to vote and obtaining absentee ballots has kept college students from the voting booth in past elections, but things are different in 2008.
CountMore.org, a non-partisan website launched Sept. 22, aims to help students decide whether their vote will make a bigger difference at school or at home. Cornell has one of the highest campus population of swing voters in the country, according to votebackhome.com, a website that provides comprehensive statistics about student voters.

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C.U. Receives 'B+' Grade on Sustainability Report Card

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The Sustainable Endowments Institute published its 2009 College Sustainability Report Card last Wednesday, an annual analysis of the environmental and economic policies of the 300 most affluent universities in the U.S. and Canada. Cornell received a B+, showing consistent improvement from the B it received in 2008.
The report card, according to the SEI, is the “only independent evaluation of campus and endowment sustainability activities.” The combined endowments of the universities surveyed total over $380 billion.
According to Bethany Rogerson, a spokesperson for the SEI, each university in the study received a campus survey, an endowment survey, and a dining survey. Over 97 percent of the schools responded to at least one survey. Cornell responded to all three surveys.

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Cornell Democrats Campaign For Obama in Pennsylvania

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54 Cornell students packed into 12 cars made the three-hour drive this weekend to Pennsylvania — a crucial battleground state with a narrow democratic victory in the 2004 presidential election. The group, organized by the Cornell Democrats, traveled to the town of Stroudsburg to volunteer for Barack Obama’s campaign in Monroe County.
Students were put to work immediately upon their arrival Friday evening making phone calls to undecided voters.
The campaign’s goal for Saturday was to knock on 1,000 doors and make as many calls as possible. But Cornell students exceeded local campaign organizers’ expectations, according to John Spears, one of three campaign leaders in Stroudsburg.

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Student and University Assembly Candidates Debate Campus Issues

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New candidates for the Student and University Assemblies presented their platforms and debated policy issues in a two-hour forum yesterday evening, in the Robert Purcell Community Center.
There are 25 freshmen running for three seats on the S.A. and two seats on the U.A.
Online polls will be open next Tuesday through Thursday. All undergraduates will receive an e-mail next week with online voting information and a link to the ballot.
S.A. Director of Elections Mike McDermott ’09 led the forum. Besides the candidates and current S.A. representatives, the auditorium was nearly empty.