The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/ivy-league/page/4/)
“With further developments in the outbreak of COVID-19, the Ivy League Presidents are announcing their unanimous decision to cancel all spring athletics practice and competition through the remainder of the academic year. “
A comparison of colleges nation-wide in terms of their response to coronavirus. Newly joining them is Cornell, after a recent announcement of cancelling in-person classes.
Work-hard, play-hard, blah blah blah, Cornellians know to have fun, blah blah blah. People party here — we get it, whether we like it or not. But, as a 17-year-old applicant a year ago, at a time when I thought I’d be partying instead of writing articles about partying on Friday nights, Cornell’s intellectual-partying bimorph was an intriguing appeal, as it is for each class’s prospective students. Admissions ambassadors are well aware that “work-hard, play-hard” is a very powerful pitch to all senioritis-ridden applicants seeking a prestigious degree. So, if we look past the apparent tensions between administration and Greek Life — the source of nearly all organized partying — maybe the two are on the same team after all.
Every day, I pass by the wise words of former Cornell President Hunter R. Rawlings III in Goldwin Smith gatekeeping the entrance to the Temple of Zeus: “Genuine education is not a commodity, it is the awakening of a human being.”
Though I will not argue here about whether the education at Cornell is to be considered genuine or not, I have often thought that if it costs over $60,000 a year to awaken myself, I’d much rather have stayed in bed. I assume that the notion of a genuine education is tightly linked to age-old sayings like “explore your interests” and “follow your passion.” And I assume that awakening a human being probably involves something more than an alarm clock. The author of the quote I pass each day was probably thinking in more abstract terms of becoming an engaged citizen and a better person. But isn’t spending a couple hundred thousand dollars to allow clueless 18 year-olds to spend four years removed from society in the pursuit of vague ideas like self-improvement and intellectual rigor just a way to say that you’re rich? I didn’t come to Cornell to become a better person.
Cornell’s football season is already playing out differently than it has in years past.
While most Cornell students were off exploring Collegetown annex parties from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. at the start of their college experience, Loteria* was learning the ins and outs of working as a stripper. Her first night on the job, she made $1,600 — the equivalent of working roughly 144 hours at a minimum wage job in New York state. Loteria came to Cornell under the pretense that her tuition costs would be covered entirely by financial aid. But after getting to campus, she realized that a “full-ride” could only get her so far. She found herself in thousands of dollars of debt within her first week at Cornell.
The University received 49,118 applications this admissions cycle — 2,210 fewer than last year’s — and accepted 105 fewer students this year, according to a University press release. Nearly 55 percent of this year’s admitted students are “students of color” — underrepresented minorities or Asian Americans — a new record for Cornell.
From exploring planets beyond our solar system to researching exterrestrial life, Cornell’s new undergraduate minor in astrobiology, to be debuted next semester, will allow students interested in both astronomy and biology to study the “origins of life and life existing beyond the Earth,” according to Prof. Nikole Lewis, astronomy.
What followed the Board of Trustees announcement about the the 2020 fiscal year budget and the corresponding 3.6 percent tuition hike? An implicit announcement aimed at members of the Class of 2020: their tuition has increased 11.5 percent since they committed to the Red. The University boasted that this tuition rise was the smallest in recent years. This year’s increase comes in at $6 less than last year’s raise — that’s a single venti coffee with a shot of espresso at Cornell Dining, to put things in perspective. Maybe Cornellians should consider themselves lucky.
“As the sole office responsible for protecting and managing Cornell intellectual property, CTL is uniquely positioned to help researchers to make a potential difference in people’s lives,” said Patrick Govang, director of innovation partnerships at Cornell’s Center for Technology Licensing