CGSU
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GUEST ROOM | CGSU’s Constitution is Neither Fair nor Democratic

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simple analysis (see table below) reveals that students in the some disciplines get more than twice the representation as compared to students in the Engineering, Physical Sciences and Life Sciences. Given that it is the Negotiation Committee that will sit at the table with Cornell to strike a bargaining agreement, I am very concerned about this discordance between the number of members in a constituent discipline and the representation they receive.

CGSU
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Letter to the Editor: Why STEM graduate students support CGSU

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A union does not limit STEM stipends, but protects them. A union will not negatively impact students who receive the best stipends. Instead, it protects and guarantees increases to the highest stipends, and also increases the minimum. Currently graduate students have no say in minimum stipends and no guarantee that individual stipends will increase from year to year. Summer appointment letters decreased by up to $780 in engineering departments in 2016 compared with 2015. It is unclear how widespread this cut was within the school of engineering since the administration does not inform us of pay cuts, who they affect, or why they occurred.

Arts & Entertainment

Questions of America’s Past and Future in Performing and Media Arts Presentation of “The Diary of an American Girl”

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I watched The Diary of an American Girl, a play written by Cornell Performing and Media Arts student Aleksej Aarasether, on February 10th at the Schwartz Center. American Girl had been written for the Heermans-McCalmon Dramatic Writing Competition, and the PMA department showcased it as one of the winning screenplays. Two other performances, excerpts of a screenplay and a script, were also shown. The Diary of an American Girl depicts the story of Anna, a young Latinx girl born in America to with undocumented parents. The script flirts with the conceit of Anna’s diary, through which some of the story is told.

Columns

KOWALEWSKI | It’s Happening Now

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The grim spectacle of Donald Trump’s campaign has transitioned into the grim spectacle of the American  presidency. A mere two weeks have elapsed since President Trump’s inauguration, and already the nation has settled into a routine of expansive executive orders and subsequent corresponding outrage. The vulnerable are under attack, shame is a forgotten concept and the White House seems devoted to the personal aggrandizement of the president above all else. We are in an accelerated America hurling through history. And there are sickening indications that our potential destination is a familiar one.

Columns

TRUSTEE VIEWPOINT | Finding a Voice

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Aziz Ansari, this week’s SNL host, expressed an important sentiment during his opening bit. “Change doesn’t come from presidents. Change comes from large groups of angry people,” he noted in reference to the millions of people around the world that came together for the Women’s March. Ithaca played its role in this national phenomenon as thousands of students, professors and Ithacans came together for the Women’s March in Ithaca. Like many of you, our social media feeds were filled with pictures and messages displaying throngs of Americans coming together and using their voices to fight for equality.

Arts & Entertainment
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STANTON | Trump’s Rosebud

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Despite being an acknowledged and well-researched psychiatric phenomenon, panic attacks remain a tricky beast — treatable only by pinpointing their underlying causes. According to Wikipedia, approximately 11 percent of the U.S. population experiences them, putting Europeans to shame at their measly 3 percent and inviting any number of cultural critiques.  In the absence of a Nate Silver-esque trend line documenting day-to-day stress levels of the average American, one need only consult their Facebook feed to identify Election Day 2016 as a stress point of apocalyptic magnitude — the moment in which we collectively confront the bed we’ve made for ourselves. Suppressing my personal nightmare of waking up next to the GOP’s spray-tanned Frankenstein monster has proven itself a time-consuming effort, and one that shirks the comforting assurance of historical precedence. Whom can we consult to contextualize the first true reality TV election?

Election
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Recipes for Election Night Disaster

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Thinking of throwing your own election night party, but don’t know what to make? I’ve devised the perfect menu to appease both sides of the aisle before you inevitably begin crying with anxiety into your wine glass.