The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/martha-pollack/)
The Sun questioned Interim President Michael Kotlikoff on protester repercussions, institutional neutrality, the Class of 2028 demographic data and financial aid.
President Pollack formally expressed her disapproval of the student-led divestment and ceasefire referendum in a statement sent on Thursday.
Pro-Palestine graduates walked out of President Martha Pollack’s final commencement speeches.
With Provost Michael Kotlikoff transitioning to serve as interim president, Prof. John Siliciano ’75 will serve as interim provost effective July 1.
“Yet there is no avoiding time, the sea of time, the sea of memory and forgetfulness, the years of promise, gone and unrecoverable, of the land almost allowed to claim its better destiny, only to have the claim jumped by evildoers known all too well, and taken instead and held hostage to the future we must live in now forever. May we trust that this blessed ship is bound for some better shore, some undrowned Lemuria, risen and redeemed, where the American fate, mercifully, failed to transpire.” — Thomas Pynchon ’59
When Cornell’s encampment is uprooted tonight, green and yellow patches of deadened grass will remain on the Arts Quad for some time — subtle discoloration indicating that at some point, something was here. After a few weeks at most, the grass will be mowed and grown anew, removing this temporary imprint. In three years, virtually all of the undergraduates who experienced life within our Liberated Zone will have graduated. Soon enough, our story will be reduced to the same vague murmurs of disquiet that eventually subsume all student protest movements.
The student activity fee will be incrementally increased over the 2024-26 byline funding cycle, a change implemented by the Student Assembly’s Resolution 39.
Amid the current Arts Quad encampment, University faculty have shown their support for the rights of the protesters involved.
By capturing a sliver of the Arts Quad and starting from scratch, the campers remind us that there is always another way — that there can be a better way.
We urge the provost, the president, the VP of University Relations and, indeed, the entire campus community to reach out to subject matter experts at Near Eastern Studies and other Cornell departments for education on matters related to Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish or Persian language and the history and culture (including conflicts) of the Middle East before making public statements that could cause further division and misunderstanding in an already very tense environment.
We couldn’t be more excited for this new partnership, and we believe that together, we’ll be able to reach new heights in hard-hitting, high-quality pro-administration propaganda.