The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/category/opinion/editorials/)
After a second year of Zoom elections last Saturday, The Cornell Daily Sun elected its 140th editorial board — a wonderfully even number to match an equally wonderful new board. This new group of editors bring with them unbounded enthusiasm and drive as we go into this new cycle, building on our 140-year tradition of dynamic student journalism.
In the past four days, Cornell has been put under shelter-in-place orders twice — for a bomb threat on four Central Campus buildings and for the local police pursuit of an armed suspect. While no further tragedy came of either alert, fortunately, students spent the time panicked and uninformed. Given the weight of the events, it’s unacceptable that students haven’t received substantial support since. After the two incidents, President Martha Pollack encouraged students “to take the time you need to take care of yourselves and each other,” in a Tuesday evening email. But we question how possible this is — between ongoing assignments and exams, daily classes, extracurricular responsibilities, campus jobs and the little remaining time for eating and sleeping.
Without significant structural support for students to actually take a break and process the trauma of this week, these reminders feel shallow.
After Sunday’s five hours of waiting before the bomb threat was deemed “not credible,” faculty received little guidance about how to proceed for the week beyond calls for “generosity.” This relative silence from the University left individual instructors to make their own decisions — often less than generous ones — meaning students’ experiences of classes Monday varied widely.
As New York State’s vaccination program ramps up, many Cornellians are now eligible to receive their first dose under the criteria for Phase 1B. However, despite their eligibility, many students are facing obstacles in traveling to vaccination sites in Syracuse and Binghamton.
If Cornell truly wants to encourage health and safety, it needs a better plan to help its community receive vaccinations. Now, as dining workers, residential advisers and in-person instructors are eligible, the University should assist at-risk individuals by offering scheduling, transportation and informational assistance.
“I felt completely alone in trying to arrange my appointment to begin with,” said Selin Cebel ’21, a student manager at Green Dragon Café. “Being an international student, I didn’t know how to find my way in scheduling this sort of thing.”
Cebel, who traveled to Syracuse for the vaccination last week, had to rent a car in order to receive her first dose. “Taking a public bus right now isn’t the best thing to do, especially when you’re going to get the vaccine, and so I had to rent a car from Central Ithaca,” she added.
Now that campus has returned to alert level green, it might be tempting to forget what moved Cornell to yellow in the first place. In a Feb. 5 email, President Martha Pollack attributed the pre-semester spike to a Collegetown party where several members of Greek life organizations were reportedly present and not following COVID-19 protocols. The actions of these students not only violated the behavioral compact, but were also incredibly selfish. However, Greek life represents a microcosm, albeit a rather extreme one, of how the entire student body feels.
We echo the Tsialas family’s call for truth and transparency, as the investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death continues in the courtroom.
So in the words of Ginsburg herself, “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.”
Last March, when Cornell shut its doors, students and faculty alike were scared and confused as to what the next few months would bring. Our future at Cornell was uncertain. Students fled from their dorms and houses, final goodbyes were rushed and every student body and faculty member gained a uniquely traumatic experience that will stay with them. No one knew quite how serious the coronavirus pandemic would get. Nearly six months later, the U.S. exceeds 6 million COVID-19 cases.
Today, Cornell must prove to its student staff that they are not pawns to be manipulated during times of global unrest.
Cornell, already, is not holding up their end of the bargain; we have to pick up the slack.
President Martha E. Pollack, fire Collum.
With a lack of public press conferences, investigations updates and public interface commonplace in even the IPD, it is clear that CUPD should — at least — be subject to the same student-interaction level that nearly every other facet of campus is mandated to.