The yawning gap between the industrial democracy of ILR’s embryonic years and today’s landscape of corporate tyranny reflects a systematic crusade against organized labor. Politicians and private-sector actors have worked together to expand poverty and stifle democracy — all the while siphoning egregious sums of wealth to the already-egregiously wealthy. High-profile strikes made 2022 an exciting year for labor, but the share of workers in a union was the lowest on record, a fact that should profoundly disturb anyone who cares about poverty, inequality or justice.
Beginning in fall 2022, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations implemented a new form of pre-enrollment where students are automatically enrolled in their core class requirements. The system is part of ILR’s new curriculum that will apply to all students who joined ILR in fall 2022 and beyond, including all current freshmen and sophomore transfer students in the school.
This means that the Office of Student Services chooses lecture and discussion times, as well as the professors that students get. Even if a student would like to make adjustments to these pre-assigned core classes, such as changing their discussion times, students were told by OSS that they are no longer allowed to do so.
Because of this lack of flexibility in choosing the specifics of core classes, some students who planned out their schedules before coming to Cornell dislike the new system.
“Before coming to the school I had a very particular plan on what core classes I would be taking for each semester,” said Adam Senzon ’26. “I had planned it out perfectly; I knew which professors taught better for macroeconomics, but instead I got a different one.”
If students are enrolled in specific lecture or discussion times that overlap with another course they would like to take, they are no longer able to enroll in that alternative course. “Personally, there have been several elective courses I’ve wanted to take this semester, and sign up for next semester, that I simply haven’t been able to because the time [or] day they are offered intersects with pre-enrolled classes,” said Shoshannah Odinyayeva ’26.
Following the history-making unionization of an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island, Cornell ILR students and professors offer their opinions on the event and what it means for the labor movement.
The “161 Things Every Cornellian Should Do” may not be the most realistic, but here’s a new bucket list to complete before graduation. Sitting outside of Ives Hall, I witnessed some of Cornell’s return to normalcy with a campus tour of prospective students walking by. The inaccuracies of the tour aside (for which AMST 2001: The First American University is an excellent source of Cornell truths), I listened to the tour guide give a brief view into each college within the University. After wrapping up the discussion of my home, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, the tour guide stopped to ask her visitors: “Has anyone seen The Office?” I put aside my own quarrels with Cornell’s reputation being tied to a fictional television show rather than our outstanding campus, alumni and more while I waited to hear the tour guide connect the television show with the realities of being a Cornellian. Quoting directly from the show, the tour guide noted how one of the characters in The Office says, “We’ll get together in Comstock Hall,” before pointing to Comstock directly across from Ives and Barton.
President Martha Pollack awards this year’s Newman Fellowship to Sherell Farmer ’22, an ILR student founder of Cornell Students 4 Black Lives and advocate for Loaves and Fishes.
This week Julia Lescht ’23 and I had the pleasure to meet Will Harvey ’22, founder of The Eating Club at Cornell University. As a current junior in the College of Industrial and Labor Relations (ILR), Harvey was inspired to launch The Eating Club as an affordable option for college students for homestyle meals.
The Eating Club offers a subscription based food service that caters and delivers meals to students’ doorsteps. Every Saturday, Harvey’s mother and grandfather prepare a delicious meal in Rochester, which is then transported to a packaging area in Ithaca and sent out for delivery between 4 and 5 p.m. Each meal includes a main dish, a side, a cookie and a bottle of Fiji water. The club’s mission is to provide a sense of comfort and community for students by providing them delicious, warm meals during a time when in-person activities are limited.
“Food is definitely a very communal activity,” Harvey said. “When you are eating food, normally, you are eating with other people.
In a campaign season, the ILR school follows suit in conducting Student Government Assembly elections for their next president, addressing issues including equity and school independence.
Now that the world’s gone nuts, quarantine has led us all to confront problems we’ve been putting off for far too long. Loveless marriages, dislike of children and a lot of tequila are driving Americans over the edge. Since we’ve all had to deal with our own issues, I figured Cornell should do the same. The university’s undergraduate college structure doesn’t make a ton of sense. Why are there three business schools?
