e.coli

Pulitzer Prize Winning Journalist Details Investigation of Processed Food

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Michael Moss, a New York Times investigative reporter and Pulitzer Prize winner, spoke about his effort to expose harmful impacts of the processed food industry and its advertising strategies in a lecture Wednesday. Moss drew heavily from his 2013 book Salt Sugar Fat: How the Fast Food Giants Hooked Us in his talk. He recalled reporting on the Iraq War in 2008 for the New York Times when he said his editor assigned him to write about a salmonella outbreak in the U.S. caused by tainted peanuts from the Peanut Corporation of America. “These peanuts were being used as ingredients in this $1 trillion processed food industry about which we really know very little,” Moss said. “That outbreak became the story about how that industry had lost control over its food chain.”
Moss said this first experience with food safety reporting later led him to report on an E. Coli outbreak in Minneapolis in 2007, food industry.

financial aid

Kotlikoff Announces Tuition Hike, End of Need-Blind Aid for International Students

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Cornell students will see a nearly four-percent rise in tuition next academic year and admissions for international students will soon no longer be need-blind, according to Provost Michael Kotlikoff. International applicants will be admitted on a need-aware basis beginning fall 2017 due to insufficient funding for financial aid, according to Kotlikoff, who explained these changes at a forum hosted by the Student Assembly Thursday. Many students expressed concern that this change will cause the University to favor wealthier international students who are not dependent on aid. “Student opinion has been disregarded,” said Shivang Tayal ’16, international liaison at large to the S.A. “The new policy does favor high-income, rich students over [the most deserving] students. These standards are not [imposed] for domestic students, so why are they for international students?”
Kotlikoff also announced that both endowed and contract non-resident tuition would rise 3.75 percent in the 2016-17 school year, while campus housing and dining costs both increase by two percent.

Economics

Professor Recounts Years As Chief Economic Advisor for Indian Government

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Swiftly moving from Cornell professor to Chief Economic Advisor of the Indian government was a unique but challenging transition, Prof. Kaushik Basu, economics, recounted. Baru, senior vice president and chief economist of the World Bank, described his life story at a talk Thursday. Basu said that his recently published book, An Economist in the Real World — which discusses economic policy development — was only written because he kept a detailed diary during his tenure as Indian CEA from 2009 to 2012. According to Basu, his sudden appointment to the CEA’s office and entry into economic policymaking was a somewhat traumatic experience for him. “The interaction between the world of talk and the world of action doesn’t happen so neatly.

News

Students Tackle Community Issues at 24 Hour Hackathon

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Nearly 150 students participated in the University’s first Random Hacks of Kindness hackathon, coding for 24 hours straight from Saturday to Sunday morning to formulate solutions to community problems put forth by local organizations and nonprofits in Tompkins County. At the end of the hackathon, representatives from Accenture, the AFYA Foundation and the Cornell Public Service Center selected three winning teams out of the 25 participating teams, who were eligible to receive $2,000 to $3,000 to execute their proposed solution, according to the Random Hacks of Kindness website. The hackathon was sponsored by Entrepreneurship at Cornell, which hosts several hackathons a year, according to Tech Events manager Ami Stuart ’10. However, this was Entrepreneurship at Cornell’s first hackathon with an altruistic theme. “We have several hackathons per year, all at Cornell Tech in New York City,” Stuart said.

News

Trustees Defend Fossil Fuel Involvement, Labor Policies

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Correction appended 
The Board of Trustees defended the University’s financial involvement with the fossil fuel industry and rejected calls for an independent investigation of possible labor abuses at Weill Cornell Medicine in Qatar at a panel with students on Wednesday evening. The discussion, hosted by the Student Assembly and the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly, was intended to be an opportunity for students to engage with trustees about their concerns with the University’s policies. Students were able to submit their questions online as well as directly address the trustees during the event. Robert Harrison ’76, chair of the Board of Trustees, responded to concerns over the University’s refusal to divest from fossil fuel companies and private prisons by stating that the University has no direct ownership interests in such companies and institutions. Harrison acknowledged that the University did rely on such organizations to finance its goals of education, research, affordability and access.

News
Sun File Photo

Faculty Senate Talks on Finance, Romance

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The Faculty Senate addressed the rising costs of the University’s financial aid program, plans to resolve the University’s deficit and proposed revisions to Cornell’s policy on romantic and sexual relations between students and faculty at its meeting Wednesday. Dean of Faculty Prof. Joseph Burns Ph.D. ’66, astronomy, began the meeting by announcing an upcoming faculty forum will discuss the feasibility and educational sense of Cornell’s current financial aid policy. According to Burns, the forum, entitled “Financial Aid Policies: Unimaginable Outcomes,” is intended to be a little bit provocative. “There are large expenses in the University. We knew building costs are expensive.

News

Professor Explores Western Lyrical Tradition at Lecture

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Prof. Jonathan Culler, English and comparative literature, spoke Wednesday about his new book The Theory of the Lyric as part of Cornell University Library’s Chats in the Stacks book talk program. The Theory of the Lyric, published by the Harvard University Press in June, explores the Western lyric tradition across millennia, continents and cultures. Culler drew upon 40 years of research on a wide range of poets, including Sappho, Baudelaire, Petrarch, William Carlos Williams and even nursery rhymes to help determine how the lyric continues to exist socially and enchant readers today. “[Culler] challenges us to reexamine what we think we know about the lyric poem and expands our concept of the lyric as a genre,” said Bonna Boettcher, director of Olin and Uris Libraries. Culler explained that his new publication originated in his curiosity of the strange ways lyric poems often addressed subjects such as time, winds, trees and the dead and how the poems asked its subjects to do something or refrain from doing what they usually do.

News

Capital One Hosts Talks on Finance, Career Paths

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Capital One associates and recruiters hosted Cornell’s first People + Money talk Tuesday at Philips Hall. Co-sponsored by the Theta Tau professional engineering fraternity, the event featured five Capital One associates who each spoke briefly about how students can better manage their finances and career passions. Justin Steimle ’12 and Alex Chang ’14, both analysts at Capital One, began the presentation by telling students to ask themselves how money affects them both as individuals and members of the millennial generation. “In my time at the Hill, I’ve learned three things,” Steimle said. “It’s way too cold here, everyone’s rich at Dunbar’s Group Therapy and money is an extremely emotional thing.