divestment
Trustees to Discuss Divestment This Weekend
|
“I share a lot of the concerns that those who support divestment do,” she said. “I just don’t think divestment is the right way to go about addressing those concerns.”
collegetown
Film by Alumnus Depicts Experiences of the ‘Modern College Student’
|
Over 150 attendees watched the pre-screening of the independent feature film, Collegetown, at Cornell Cinema Tuesday. Hugo Genes ’10, the film’s director, said the creative nonfiction film “depicts the modern college student’s experience with student debt and heavy campus recruitment from the financial industry.”
Genes, who is a former arts and entertainment editor for The Sun, said he was inspired to write the film four years ago when he revisited Ithaca as an alumus. “The idea for the film sort of sparked when I visited Cornell as an alumn[us] for the first time … I was walking around Collegetown during orientation week this time as an outsider,” he said. According to Genes, the film encapsulates his college experience in a nutshell.
News
Lombardi Announces Plans to Increase Advocacy, Resource Center Staffing
|
Ryan Lombardi, vice president for student and campus life, announced that there will be an increase in staffing in the University’s advocacy and resource centers at Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting. Lombardi said that since the beginning of his term, there has been a “need of additional front-line staff to support students.”
The specific areas for employment are yet to be determined, but Lombardi said he plans “to identify the exact areas these staff will be employed based on where they are needed the most.”
Some students leaders in diversity and advocacy groups said they approve of this effort and agreed that these centers have been understaffed in the past. “The staff who lead [the centers] help ground our communities, especially with regards to individual students and student organizations,” said Linda He ’16, president of Cornell Asian Pacific Islander Student Union. According to He, one staff member leads each center, a sizable responsibility which includes tasks like interacting with alumni and handling difficult situations. “They are also responsible for so many things such as crisis management or alumni engagement that they can’t possibly be directing a center or supporting a community all on their own,” she said.
News
Cornellians Mourn Individuals Affected in Paris, Beirut Attacks at Monday Night Vigil
|
About 50 students, faculty members and Ithaca residents attended a vigil to commemorate last week’s tragic events in Beirut, Lebanon and Paris, France on Ho Plaza Monday. Coordinated terrorist attacks killed over 129 people in Paris Friday and two suicide bombers killed 43 people in Beirut Thursday, with the attacks in both locations leaving hundreds wounded. The vigil was organized by the Cornell French Society, according to Adélaïde Pacton ’17, the organization’s president. Pacton said the French Society held the vigil “to honor the innocence of the deceased in the two tragedies.”
“[We wanted] to remind people that this is not only something that affects Western countries, but also the rest of the world, and that it is something that is very recurrent,” Pacton said. Both the French and Lebanese flags were displayed in the center of the circle of mourners, and attendees wrote messages of solidarity on the flags.
Bar
Cornell Law School Sees Highest Bar Exam Pass Rate in State
|
Cornell Law School boasts the highest pass rate of the July 2015 New York bar exam — 96.6 percent, a two percent increase from last year, according to New York Law Journal. For the past two years, Cornell has had the highest pass rate in the state, even as the statewide pass rate hit an all time low since 2004, at 79 percent. In 2008, the law school’s pass rate reached a record high of 99 percent. Eduardo Peñalver ’94, dean of the law school, said Cornell has always had an impressive pass rate, even while the rate naturally fluctuates year to year. “Our pass rate has been consistently strong, and that’s because our admissions standards and our students are smart and hardworking,” Peñalver said.
News
Weill Cornell Medicine Dean Accused of Chimp Abandonment
|
Dr. Laurie Glimcher, dean of Weill Cornell Medicine, has been the target of protests from animal activists who claim she “abandon[ed] 66 chimpanzees in Liberia with no food or water,” according to Donald Moss, founder of TheirTurn, an online animal rights news magazine. The protests criticize Glimcher, focusing on her work with the New York Blood Center, where she recently completed her term as a member of the board. The NYBC had been funding a Liberian lab performing virus-testing research on chimpanzees since 1974, but ultimately ended its financial aid to the lab last March, according to The New York Times. Protesters surrounded the medical college, Glimcher’s residence and NYBC’s office denouncing the NYBC’s decision to withdraw its financial support from the lab, which they say left it unable to provide for the 66 chimpanzees in its care. “We staged two protests at the NYBC itself, six protests at the homes of the chairman of the board of the NYBC — in both New York City and the Hamptons — [and] three protests at the homes and office of Laurie Glimcher,” Moss said.
News
Non-Profit Solar Project Raises Over $17,000
|
Just a week after its launch, Energizing Impact, a student non-profit solar energy organization, has raised nearly a third of the $60,000 it projects will be necessary to install a 14.3 kW solar energy system and an exhibit in Sciencenter, an Ithaca museum. Kevin Cellucci ’17, project coordinator, said he was exposed to innovative energy options while working in the alternative energy industry over the summer and said he discussed his idea to adovate sustainable energy in Ithaca with Rachel Geiger ’17. He said the result, Energizing Impact, represents and effort to increase energy sustainability through a use of solar energy. Geiger said on campus the project is operated by a marketing team of about 15 students. According to Amy Gaulke, public and media relations manager at Sciencenter, the funds raised through this campaign will be used for “creating a new exhibition gallery that will empower guests to engage in sustainable practices in their daily lives.”
Gaulke said the exhibition will showcase the benefits of living sustainably using solar energy.
china
Cornell Partners With Chinese Dairy Producer
|
Cornell signed a research partnership agreement on Sept. 23 with Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group — the largest dairy producer in China — to find ways to improve dairy production, according to a University press release. The agreement emerged after the University and the Yili group signed a memorandum of understanding in April for research collaboration on increasing dairy product innovation. These public-private partnerships are necessary in order to find ways to feed the growing world population, according to Prof. Martin Wiedmann, food science. “[This partnership is] needed to increase research to create a thriving global agricultural economy and provide high-quality food products for a world that is predicted to soon reach nine billion people,” he said in the release.
News
Cornellians Urge Change in Campus Sex Culture
|
In light of the recently released results of the Association of American Universities sexual assault study, administrators and students stressed the need for a greater change in campus culture regarding the issues. “As President [Elizabeth] Garrett stated in her message to the community, even one instance of sexual assault is one too many,” said Ryan Lombardi, vice president for student and campus life, and Mary Opperman, vice president for human resources, in a joint-statement. “Sexual harassment and violence have no place in our community.”
The administrators, referring to a campus-wide email sent by Garrett concerning the results of the survey on Monday, stressed that while Cornell has “devoted substantial attention and resources” to combating sexual assault, more work needs to be done. “We must stay focused on this issue, and understand and respond to what our students and others are saying,” they said. In regards to changing Cornell’s climate, Lombardi and Opperman said the campus “needs to start upstream by fostering a sense of community and challenging traditional student social interactions that create a risky climate.”
“We will continue to work closely with campus resources — including the LGBT Resource Center, Women’s Resource Center, Gannett Health Services and other organizations — to clearly identify any and all issues these students, as well as faculty and staff, may be facing,” they said.
News
Panel Weighs Implications of Iran Agreement
|
Updated Oct. 9, 2015
Three Cornell professors spoke about the foreign policy implications and historical basis for the controversial Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, an international agreement on Iran’s nuclear program in Malott Hall Thursday. Prof. M. Elizabeth Sanders, government, said that because of the United States’ interventionist role in shaping the Iranian government, we “owe Iran” a chance to participate in the international community. “In 1953, a coup by the Eisenhower administration overturned the first and only secular democracy that Iran has ever had, and we installed a brutal dictator,” she said. “Iran as it is today [is] very a much a product of the United States’ thoughtless intervention, and if anybody owes bringing them back into the international community and giving them another chance, it’s us.”
Prof. Iago Gocheleishvili, Near Eastern studies, emphasized how this agreement marks a turning point in Iran’s diplomatic policies.