The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/community/)
On the road since 2014, the Ithaca Physics Bus is a mobile classroom that educates people of all ages in the Ithaca community about physical phenomena through quirky and interactive exhibits.
Today, I’m reaching out as part of the Cornell community, which is of deep importance to me and my family. I attended Cornell, as did my parents and two of my children.
Although many students appreciated Cornell’s community day on Friday, Nov. 3, many also urged the University to take further action in response to recent threats and tensions.
The Jane Minor BIPOC Community Medicine Garden provides individuals of color with a safe place to grow plants and build community.
Special clubs on campus allow students to explore niche interests and find tight-knit communities.
Every graduating senior knows some version of my story at Cornell. The class of 2023 is unique, and unified, in our trials and triumphs through COVID-19. We alone have seen the before and after. We are the class that watched Cornell fall apart, and we are the class that rebuilt it — preserving and restoring the traditions, cultures and communities that make this place worthwhile. For once, I write not to break news in The Sun, but to express generational solidarity. Our class, despite all odds and administrative difficulties, saved Cornell.
Over the course of my time here in Ithaca, I have seen how Cornell provides so many opportunities to pursue your passions, both inside and outside the classroom. Yet, I have also seen the ways we can feel shoehorned into taking specific classes, pursuing certain courses of study or applying for certain clubs solely for perceived professional benefits.
As I have argued throughout this column, I believe it is critically important to have an outlet where one can have fun and pursue a passion just for the sake of it. It can be an outlet for your creativity or a place to reconnect with old friends while making new ones. In the end, having an outlet for our joys and frustrations is what keeps us sane.
The Big Red Adaptive Play and Design Initiative re-engineers toys and devices to boost their accessibility throughout Ithaca.
Cornell a capella groups foster community among artists and promote cultural representation in music.
In the vast majority of countries across the world, universities are places where faculty, students and staff are free to study and pursue whatever passions most drive them. They are where students are prepared to enter the fields of their choosing and to make themselves and the world around them better. In general, universities, especially ones that stand for values like Cornell’s, are places where the free exchange of ideas must thrive.
As a result, Cornell must also be a place where students learn to advocate for their ideas in a civil, compassionate, respectful space. We need to become better at communicating our ideas on the merits of the ideas themselves, rather than as vehicles for personal grievances. So I wanted to talk about a trend that I’ve been noticing in our campus politics, one that increasingly threatens that civil exchange of ideas: Whataboutism and false equivalency.