Prof. John Cawley, policy analysis and management, is now the next director of the Cornell in Washington program. As he takes the reins of the 41-year-old program, he hopes to take it a step further, improving outreach and working toward increased participation.
113 students have received funding for this winter break alone. While the grant itself provides a maximum amount of $1,500, the average amount students received this winter was $660, said Joy Das M.P.A. ’18, the program manager for student leadership programming.
In January, Prof. Anthony Burrow, human development, received $30,000 from the Engaged Scholar Prize. Nine months later, he’s given away $20,000 of the prize money to 50 projects created by undergraduate students.
The education minor — housed in CALS, but open to students of all colleges — is all that remains after the dissolution of Cornell’s education department nearly a decade ago. The University shut it down in 2010, and its faculty either retired, moved to other universities or dispersed to other departments.
Last semester, my friend Evelyn Torres ’21 woke up at 6:30 a.m. every Wednesday to go to Belle Sherman Elementary School. There, she was a student teacher in a third-grade classroom for three hours as field work for Prof. Jeffrey Perry’s, developmental sociology, EDUC 2410: The Art of Teaching. Although I thought of the experience that prompted her tiredness later that day as a unique one among Cornell students, it turns out that there is a wide array of classes taught far above Cayuga’s waters that include in their curricula engagement in communities close to and far from the lake’s shores. In CS 5150: Software Engineering, a group of students is working to gamify snow-shoveling so that city sidewalks aren’t impassable for pedestrians of all ages and abilities following snowstorms. This semester, a group of students in GOVT 3121: Crime and Punishment are beginning research with two Cornell professors and a colleague at Ithaca College on the challenges of re-entry faced by those who have intersected with the criminal justice system in Ithaca and Tompkins County. In DEA 2203: StudioShift and DEA 2500: The Environment and Social Behavior, students are collaborating with Tompkins County Action to design a living space for 18 to 25-year-olds who don’t have a safe place to stay at night.
The Certificate for Engaged Leadership program gives Cornell students the opportunity to use their leadership skills to “address areas of public concern” in the local community.