The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/author/suzypark/)
Suzy Park is a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a staff writer for the News department and can be reached at [email protected].
Assembly members prepared requests to bring before the Board March 22, where they will discuss the changes that the Assembly wants to see in the shared governance system.
The approved 3.75 percent increase in tuition will help address the rising operating costs of the University, according to Barbara Knuth, senior vice provost and dean of the graduate school. Among the areas covered with the increased undergraduate tuition will be faculty and staff salaries and benefits, academic program investments and facilities maintenance and utilities, according to Knuth. Additionally, she said the University aims to “realize sufficient tuition revenue to sustain the quality and value of a Cornell education” and “provide access to education for deserving students regardless of their ability to pay” when setting to yearly tuition rates. “If we did not continue to invest in our people, programs and facilities, the quality of a Cornell education would quickly degrade,” Knuth said. Provost Michael Kotlikoff announced last Thursday that undergraduate tuition will rise 3.75 percent in the 2016-17 academic year.
Residents of Enfield, New York are opposing plans to build a wind farm on a hill in their town which could produce 20 percent of Cornell’s annual energy. In December 2014, Cornell announced plans to purchase all electricity generated by Enfield’s Black Oak Wind Farm following its construction. The farm will produce 16 megawatts of renewable electricity — a significant percentage of of Cornell’s annual energy usage. “This is a major step toward Cornell becoming a carbon-neutral-campus,” said KyuJung Whang, vice president for facilities services, in an interview with the University. The purchase reflects the University’s progress towards an original carbon neutrality goal, which is delineated in the Climate Action Plan.
Anabel’s Grocery, the proposed student-run grocery store in Anabel Taylor Hall, received provisional approval from the Cornell Community Coordinating Committee last week. Following a Student Assembly meeting on Nov. 6, during which the assembly approved a resolution to provide the store with $320,000 in funding from the Students Helping Students Grant Endowment, representatives of Anabel’s Grocery met with the Cornell Community Coordinating Committee to discuss further steps, according to Joel Malina, vice president for university relations. “The Committee — whose charge, in part, focuses on Cornell’s sales activity policy and how it might affect off-campus interests — gave the President’s Office its provisional approval of the proposal,” Malina said. At the receipt of the committee’s approval, President Elizabeth Garrett expressed her plans to address the issue.
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Three Cornell students represented Democratic presidential candidates former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former Governor Martin O’Malley (D-M.D.) and Senator Bernie Sanders (D-V.T.) in a mock Democratic primary debate Wednesday, arguing over issues that included gun violence, student debt, climate change and income inequality. During the 60 minute debate, which featured opening remarks, general questions, audience questions and closing remarks, the three students spoke from the perspectives of the candidates they were standing in for. Natalie Brown ’18, who represented Clinton, emphasized her comprehensive dedication and lifelong service to the country throughout the debate. “My experience in serving this nation is what makes me a unique candidate,” Brown said. “I spent my entire professional life fighting for the American people, fighting for their interests in three different ways: as the Secretary of the State, the First Lady and the Senator of New York, and I have pursued progressive causes throughout my entire career.”
Danyoung Kim ’16, who spoke as Sanders, argued for the need to look at examples in socialist democratic nations such as Denmark and Sweden in addressing issues that included social security and keeping Wall Street in check.
Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-N.Y.) announced last Wednesday that the state is awarding $6.9 million to the New York State Food Venture Center, a Cornell-run program based in Geneva, New York. The nearly $7 million fund aims to help FVC “experiment on new techniques for wineries and beer labs,” Cuomo said at the third annual Beer, Wine, Spirits and Cider Summit held in Albany, New York, where he announced the grant. He added that the state will set aside an additional $10 million to promote the state’s craft-beverage industry and to fund start-up wineries and breweries through $50,000 interest-free loans. Founded in 1988, FVC is a food science extension and research program under the College of Agriculture and Life Science’s New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, according to Prof. Olga Padilla-Zakour M.S. ’88 Ph.D. ’91, who serves as the director of FVC and chair of the Department of Food Science. In 2000, the center received five years of federal funding and worked together with the Center for Food Science at the University of Vermont to cover the Northeast, under the title Northeast Center for Food Entrepreneurship, according to Padilla-Zakour.
United by the love of dance, 10 of Cornell’s dance troupes performed a four-minute flash mob Wednesday, hoping to “establish a better community” among Cornell dancers. Dozens of dancers took to Ho Plaza, performing everything from tap-dancing to hip hop to Punjabi dance, as a large audience filmed and watched the flash mob. Even after the performance ended, students remained on Ho Plaza, socializing and taking pictures. Groups that participated included On Tap Dance Troupe, Cornell Bhangra, BreakFree, Base Productions, Impact Dance Troupe, Cornell DanceSport Team, Big Red Raas, Rise Dance Group, Badmaash and Anjali. Jin Jin Ma ’17, president of hip hop dance group BreakFree, said he felt the need for greater exchange between different dance groups during his three years as a part of Cornell’s dance community.
Finding himself in the right place at the right time, Max Aronson ’19 would not have predicted that a chance encounter in an airport with Ted Allen, the host of Food Network’s cooking competition show Chopped, would eventually lead to him winning $10,000 on the show. However, as viewers on Thursday night watched, Aronson was named the winner of the “Teen Redeem” episode and received the grand prize, part of which he eventually donated to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital. Aronson, a freshman in the School of Hotel Administration, hails from Saddle River, New Jersey and has been cooking “for basically as long as [he] can remember.”
“I feel like food is a really great way to express yourself, to express emotions,” he said. “It just makes me happy and I like making other people happy through food.”
Aronson, who has been working at restaurants since he was 13 years old, said he recalled his home kitchen as the beginning of his culinary career. “My family is always the house to have family dinners for holidays,” he said.