The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/inclusion/)
students and professors emphasize potential accessibility improvements in Cornell current programs such as Student Disability Services and CULift for students with disabilities and injuries.
In the latest in a long line of emails about anti-racism at Cornell, President Martha E. Pollack gave updates about the University’s progress.
“You look at the floor, and it looks diverse. But there’s really no interaction with diverse team members — [they] aren’t going to lunch together, they aren’t collaborating together, they are not called on in team meetings …They’re kind of isolated.”
The popular Klarman Hall Atrium is always full of students studying and collaborating or sipping coffee from the Temple of Zeus — but that means many Cornellians have experienced the Klarman Hall runaround when they struggle a place to sit during its busiest hours.
Prof. Anthony Jack realized that once he was at those elite schools, he had to fend for himself: Although he had the support from his mother and grandparents, he found that there was a lack of resources and support for the transition from a low income background to a top-tier university.
The inaugural Diversity and Inclusion Summit will bring together leaders of student organizations to share strategies and possible challenges to making Cornell a more accepting community.
A new University website for diversity and inclusion fails to consult student representatives before launch, reps say.
The University has already taken some steps to increase inclusivity on campus after several racially charged incidents on campus, but Pollack is delegating possibly the most important decisions to the hands of others.
On Friday, President Donald J. Trump issued an executive order banning Syrian citizens indefinitely and citizens of seven countries — Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — from entering the United States for 90 days. This order includes citizens of those countries who had previously been granted refugee status and currently enjoy permanent legal status in the United States and citizens of allied nations such as Canada and the U.K. who happen to originate from one of the listed countries. As U.S. authorities began detaining an increasing number of people, protesters began to flood airports across the country. Beyond those directly affected, the order has serious ramifications for the entire country: family members separated from each other, such as an Iranian mother separated from her five-year-old son at Washington’s Dulles International Airport; tenured scientists hindered from continuing their work, such as computational biologist Samira Asgari, who was “very shocked that all [her] efforts, that all [she had] done, can be undone – just like that.” American universities have since advised their foreign students against making international travel plans and find the strength of their educational and research efforts at risk. Over 20 percent of Cornellians are international students, and many others participate in programs abroad.
To the editor:
Resolution #44: Creation of the First Generation Student Representative is, without a doubt, the greatest piece of legislation to go through the Student Assembly during our time on the Hill. This resolution is unique in that it did not come from a member; instead it came from members of the First in Class Advocacy Team. Through meetings with the First in Class Advocacy Team, it became crystal clear that the Student Assembly, our student government that is tasked with representing all students, is inaccessible and excludes many communities, with regards to transparency, communication, engagement and membership. All too many times, we have heard from people who try to challenge that notion, questioning why they (underrepresented communities) “don’t reach out to us more,” “why don’t they come to meetings?” Well, “they” don’t come to meetings because of exactly what you witnessed last Thursday from 4:45-6:30 p.m. When you aggressively defend a viewpoint rooted in hypotheticals that invalidates the experiences of your peers, why would anyone want to be present? When you state that if you hold an open forum the public “might be confused” and might not “understand” what is going on is quite condescending, as it implies that the people who are not elected do not have the capacity to understand how the S.A. works.