Hotelie-On-the-Go

As an RA on North Campus and an employee of Cornell Residential Programs (aka. RP for all of you Cornellians that are up on the lingo), I almost feel an obligation to write about this.

Recently, there’s been quite an uproar surrounding Ken Glover — the former Residence Hall Director (RHD) of Ujamaa on campus; after being there for much longer than anyone on RP’s staff, the department decided over the past year to reassign Mr. Glover — in essence, removing him from a job that he has held for about 20 years, to help out at another building.

Needless to say, it’s caused quite a hubbub:  not just over the fact that Mr. Glover’s future is uncertain when he’s been a staple in RP and the Ithaca community for such a long time, but it has become more of an issue over the ramifications for the Cornell multicultural community.  As a result, talks have currently been happening with the Student Assembly (SA) and Cornell administration over Resolution 22 — a plan which, at it’s core, is meant to reinstate Ken Glover into Ujamaa and shift some power back to the community.

Making the case: Ola Williams ’10, left, and Ebony Ray ’10 speak about the multicultural community at the S.A. yesterday.

So what’s the big deal about Ken Glover moving away from Ujamaa?  Well, it’s definitely a complicated issue.  A major concern for the multicultural and minority community is that this is the beginning of a larger chain of events to reduce the minority presence on campus, which may ultimately result in the complete abolishment of Ujamaa and other similar entities.  The following quote can say it better than I can:

“I actually came to the S.A. earlier with this concern and this issue has actually grown [since then] and now it includes a lot of minority communities including the multicultural community and the LGBTQ community.” Ray continued, “I think that the ideology of Students for Ken Glover is the same ideology that’s behind the S.A. — that students should have a say in things that directly affect their lives.”

-Ebony Ray ‘10, Cornell Daily Sun

People are starting to think that this will just create a domino effect — one that they don’t want to see start in the first place.  Other people don’t seem to think it’s any bigger of a deal than any other employee dispute, which is why debates have become so heated:

“It kind of sounds like the Student Assembly is just supporting what is going to happen anyway. I’ve been talking to a lot of people this week and a lot of people aren’t in agreement with you. I think a lot of people are making this an Ujamaa issue instead of a Ken Glover issue and if Ken Glover actually feels that he’s been wronged, then that’s an employee’s right issue.”

-Idris Akinpelu ’10, Hotel School representative, Cornell Daily Sun

Overall, the final vote on Resolution 22 ended up being 14-2-1, calling for a review of the decision with a step to move forward to Mr. Glover’s reinstatement.  While I don’t really know where this story is going to go from here, it is very interesting to see how integral cultural and racial issues continue to be on campus.

I’m not sure if this is as serious as people are making it out to be.  I’m not even sure that the Resolution was necessary in the first place.  But it is nice to see that the student influence and political fervor is still a driving force that focuses everyone on improving the university as a whole.

And another reminder that Cornell will never be perfect.

(If you’re interested in reading more about this, check out the Cornell Daily Sun:  http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/11/06/sa-votes-reinstate-ken-glover-ujamaa)

Holy crap this semester is going by fast!  I can’t believe I’m over halfway done with it already; I ain’t quite out of the woods yet for now though.  I still got a lot on my plate:  just finished a finance prelim last night (let’s not discuss that anymore :/ …), have some RA programs coming up, Cornell Daily Sun articles as always, events for the frat, and my last 2 prelims of the semester ’til finals (!!!) in a week or so.  I see the light at the end of the fall 2009 tunnel, and it’s becoming more and more enticing everyday.

Aside from that, a couple personal updates:  I finally handed in my paperwork to pick a concentration/major in the Hotel School, and I went with Law.  My decision has been a long time coming — between almost transferring to ILR, thinking about marketing for a while, procrastinating about life, etc. — and the Law concentration just makes sense with my interests.  I’m taking the required Hotel School law course right now (HADM 3387), and it’s the first core course I think I’ve taken in the school where I actually look forward to the material.  What I’ll end up doing with it is a very good question (but law school is definitely a very viable option at this point).

And, with that, I’m doing all of my Law requirements … wait for it … next semester!  Yup, it should be a very interesting spring, as I will only be taking one required course in the Hotel School — which will be Restaurant Management (HADM 3305.  I’ve heard mixed reviews.).  But I’m in my CourseEnroll mindset right now, and for any faithful Cornellians that are reading, take a gander at my spring 2010 schedule as it stands right now:  maybe I’ll see you in class!

• HADM 3305:  Restaurant Management
• HADM 3385:  Business Law I
• HADM 3386:  Insurance and Risk Management
• HADM 4417:  Hospitality Leadership
• HADM 4481:  Labor Relations in the Hospitality Industry

Now that I actually have time to sit back and muse on September 2009 gone-by (since this last round of prelims, cases, events, etc., were not friendly), I have to bring up Bo Burnham.  A couple of weeks ago, a friend of mine got me a ticket to go see the 19-year old (wtf!) comedian — in all of his musically and politically-incorrect glory, and I have to say that it was one of the funniest 90 minutes that I’ve ever sat through in my life.

Usually, I think music comedians disappoint most of the time.  You’re usually distracted by their lack of singing ability, overly-strange lyrics, or just not being able to hear a darn thing over whatever crazy instrument they’re wailing on.  But with Burnham, it seems like some people just have the natural talent to offend people with music.  And this guy has it.  And he’s hilarious.

Especially as an RA — who is seemingly punched in the face with a politically-correct alternative to an everyday phrase almost every five minutes — Bo Burnham is a release for that guilty little voice inside you that loves offensive jokes.  Disgusting, lewd, nasty, “oh my god, I canNOT believe he just uttered those words” jokes.  And that is a rare occasion for me anymore.

Bo Burnham is only 19 years old:  almost 2 years younger than me.  And there were Cornell students lining up out the door of Bailey to hear this kid rant in sing-song about Helen Keller, how his family thinks he’s gay, and about 80 different kinds of sexual innuendo.

So congratulations to Bo Burnham:  I guess not everyone needs an Ivy League degree to be a millionaire.

***Read more with this Cornell Daily Sun article:  http://cornellsun.com/section/arts/content/2009/09/23/bo-burnham-offends-and-amuses

Now that the National Football League is back in full swing, I’m back to my usual habits of chronic procrastination on Sundays, foregoing the academic grind by choosing pigskin and grotesque tackles instead. For me, the football season always signifies that the fall has really started, and it lets the rest of my “beginning of the school year” routine fall into place.

Case in point — my New York Giants are playing the Cowboys tonight. And yes, while briefing Business Law cases is very important for getting to know the material, for the joy of learning, blah blah blah, my attention will be focused to more important matters … like whether or not Eli and Brandon Jacobs have the potential to return me to Super Bowl glory like they did in my freshman year. Only time will tell, and I’m just gonna ride the big blue wave in the process (while studying of course ).

The recent H1N1 Swine Flu outbreak is giving a whole new meaning to the start-of-school jitters.  I swear within the past few days, I must’ve gotten a solid 20 e-mails telling me to wash my hands, not to smooch sneezing people, etc. etc. (which by the way, I hope would go without saying), and the statistics I’m seeing around Cornell are flat-out scary.

One of the deans for the Hotel School, Steve Carvell, came into my Business Law lecture this past Monday morning and brought up the issue before class began.  Aside from the basic “don’t come to class if you’re sick” speech, he said that there were about 120 cases of “flu-like symptoms” at Cornell at that point.

A day later–291.  Holy crap.

The Cornell Daily Sun did an article on this — H1N1 Invades:  Gannett Diagnoses 291 Students With Flu-Like Illness (http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/09/08/h1n1-invades-gannett-diagnoses-291-students-flu-illness), and I gotta say…it’s not encouraging.  That’s for sure.  Especially when Gannett is telling students that they should not attend class for one whole week and not even return to classes until 24 hours after their symptoms clear up, I just don’t see it happening.  We’re at Cornell, remember???  I think about 50% of Cornell students would drag themselves to an 8:40am lecture if their leg had been eaten by a rabid animal that same morning.  But I’m reeeaaaaalllllllyyyyy hoping people listen because this H1N1 thing sounds fierce.

So anyone with the Swine “Blues,” please allow yourself to get better.  And wear those facemasks that Gannett gives you.  For everyone else’s sake :/

***P.S.  On the bright side, at least we’re not to the point of quarantining students like Emory U. in Georgia is:  Ga. Students With Swine Flu Sequestered (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPfJgLF7yIY).

Ok:  every once in a while I come across something that really ruffles my feathers.  Most of the time it has to do with someone wearing something that looks really studid, a massive line at the Appel salad bar, or some dimwit letting their cell phone blast Beyonce in the middle of a class.  But this time, my beef is with Cornell Financial Aid.

Here’s a link to the article that describes the current clusterf*** that is the Financial Aid office:

FinAid Office Backup Causes Delay:  New Initiative may be cause of 550 students awaiting aid packages: http://cornellsun.com/section/news/content/2009/09/02/finaid-office-backup-causes-delay

Every year since I’ve been here, I have had some issue with the Financial Aid office:  whether it be them losing my documents (only to then penalize my application for not meeting deadlines), decreasing my financial aid for no apparent reason, or just flat-out impoliteness when I call the office, it amazes me how anyone gets any funding to attend this university.

If you look at the article, it says 550 students still have not received aid.  I understand there are a lot of applications.  I even understand that some mistakes are always inherently made in any process.  But when you start denying registration to students (i.e. denying them access to certain classes, student privelages, etc.) because your department is late on processing applications, that is one of the most irritating things I have heard in a very long time.

I am one of the lucky ones I guess.  I received my financial aid on August 7 (which is still late by the way) — but here’s the kicker.  Tuition bills are due on the 11th of August, so naturally, I could not pay that on time because my financial aid package was done a month after the deadline that the Financial Aid office set for itself.  So what happens?  I check my next bill, and there is a late charge for $90 because I didn’t pay the August 7th bill on time.  Anyone see a problem here?!?!?  Yea, sorry Cornell, I do happen to have an extra $21,000 stocked away in my underwear drawer just for these types of occassions.  How do they expect students to gather that amount of money (i.e. loans, grants, savings, etc. etc.) in a matter of a few days?

Anyways, I know this sounds like ranting, but as a Cornell junior, this whole process still boggles my mind.  And don’t get me wrong — the Financial Aid office is one of the most important departments on campus.  With the amount of help that is filtered through them to students, Cornell is accessible to a lot more people, including myself.

And I’m not blaming Cornell for not processing late applications on time either.  Late applications are late applications.  If you don’t get your stuff in on time, don’t expect a quick turnaround — that is completely understandable.  But many students — including myself — completed the application on time and are still dealing with this issue.

I guess my point is to Cornell Financial Aid (and other money-handling departments):  Please get your act together.  Your job is tough.  I understand that.  But students — especially freshmen — do not need the added hassle of not knowing the money they have, and then having some department charge them late fees and registration charges when it is the university’s fault in the first place. Look at the student’s side of this and how ridiculous this situation really is.

Well, well:  welcome back to the hills of Ithaca!  I’ve been looking forward to returning to my Cornell routine for some time now, and now that classes started a couple days ago, the fact that I’m a junior (and over halfway done with my college career…yikes!) has hit me like a punch in face.  The time goes by so quickly:  especially as an RA looking at all of the new freshmen moving in this past week, I feel like an ancient old geezer nostalgically looking back on my naive freshman escapades.  Bring on the dentures and seltzer water :/

Anyways, lots has happened since I sort of “signed off” for a while back in May.  Summer has come and gone, and I’d like to think that I came away from it with a few new nuggets of wisdom.

My Summer in a Nutshell: Over the summer, I worked for a real estate development company in Syracuse, New York, called Action Companies, Inc.  They mainly work to develop hotels and restaurants in the greater Syracuse area but are trying to branch out to other places nationally as well.  Definitely was a worthwhile experience as far as learning the ins and outs of a raw, unadulterated entrepreneurial business–and all the stress, sweat, and savvy that needs to be thrown head-first into it.  I did a lot of stuff relating to feasibility reports, budgeting, etc., which is kind of a fancy way of saying that Microsoft Excel and I became BFFs.

That being said, corporate life is much, much different from the rambunctious (and somewhat haphazard) college lifestyle that I know and love.  I had a tiny studio apartment near Syracuse University located in a house that looked like it had people throwing rocks at it for the past 100 years, and the only times I partied college-style was when I visited Cornell twice throughout the summer.  I missed the friends; I missed the mental and physical rigor of classes; and most of all, I missed the college debauchery that I’ve come to expect as a college student.

In other words, my overarching lesson from the summer was to live it up in college:  work and office life is just that–work.  Not that much fun.  But I think it’s funny how internships can lead you to truly appreciate the unique experiences that Cornell college life has to offer.

The Year Ahead: So I am verrrrrrrrry excited for this year.  First of all, I’m now an RA in the C/D quad for the Townhouses on north campus (which is comprised of first-year students) after being in CKB last year.  My townhouse is ginormous, and I feel like I don’t even have enough stuff to fill it out.  Good problem to have though, I guess

I will be writing for the Cornell Daily Sun sports section again, so look out for my articles!  My extracurriculars are really packin’ on heavy this year:  aside from The Sun and RA’ing (and my blog of course), I’ll also be the philanthropy chair for my fraternity (Llenroc woot woot!).

And finally (!!!), I was able to sign up for a research lab with Prof. Mikels in Human Ecology called The Emotion and Cognition Lab.  The lab studies decision-making and human cognitive function and how those faculties vary with age.  I’ve never been a Research Assistant before, and the lab studies go along nicely with my interests in marketing and psychology, so the lab work should be a nice sneak peek into what a life for me in grad school would be like.

Now that I’ve babbled and rambled for long enough, it’s time to do homework.  Icky, yes, but how I’ve missed it so.

Well, awhile back I did a tribute post to Balls Hall — the beloved all-dudes floor that I was given the opportunity to do RA patrol for this past year.  The smell of chicken wings, random socks floating in the hallway, the undeniable fact that I would always see 2 guys wrestling like idiots in the hallway — ahhhh, I miss it already.

What I didn’t mention was that we had 3 visitors (of the opposite gender no less!) who lived on 4-Bauer in the Court-Kay-Bauer residence hall — so they were just around the corner and down the hall from the wofting testosterone of 4-Court.  They came, they saw, they became honorary “Balls Hall-ians.”

So here’s to you Iona, Nikkita, and Alex.  You definitely made our year in Balls Hall even better.  Even though you all have your quirks

Well the year has finally ended, and just like that, I am halfway done with my undergrad experience (insert “holy *expletive*” here).  This year has gone by even quicker than freshman year, and the feeling of nostalgia is already creeping up on me as I reminisce about my sophomore experiences-gone-by.

Classes, pledging, RA’ing — all of it contributed to a year of stress, laughter, anger, and stories that I’m sure I will recount when I’m enebriated in the future.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Just as an update since the summer just started, I got a summer internship with Action Companies, Inc. in Syracuse, NY — a real estate development company that focuses on hospitality properties.  Got a sublet lined up right now, and I’ll be moving my stuff (once again) up there in a couple weeks.  I’ll be writing periodically throughout the summer about the internship, homelife, Cornell visits, etc., so comment when you can!

Thanks to all those that have made this year unforgettable.

Looking over my previous posts, I can’t believe that I haven’t talked more about being a Resident Advisor on North Campus; it takes up so much time and is such a big part of my Cornell life here in the Ithaca tundra, that I think it would be somewhat of a travesty if I didn’t talk about my floor a little.

With classes winding down, nostalgia is already starting to creep up on me as I see the freshmen packing up their things with their last finals of the year lurking around the corner.  I’ve been privileged to lord over the kingdom of 4th floor in Court Hall — lovingly called Balls Hall since the floor is the only all-dude floor on campus (Balch Hall is all girls … so Balls Hall — get it?).  Definitely been some crazy times on my floor, and I actually pledged Delta Phi with one of my own residents on 4-Court, along with 4 others that live in other parts of Court-Kay-Bauer.  Talk about reliving the freshmen experience (probably a little more than I wanted =D).

Anyways, my floor is ….. um ….. unique in every sense of the word.  Not overly involved or adventurous or suave in any shape or form, but most certainly one of the most loyal and united group of kids I’ve ever seen.  The culture of Balls Hall (aside from the smell of nasty feet and chicken wings — I guess that’s a bonus =/ ) is something all it’s own, and I will miss it next year.

So here’s to the guys on Balls Hall.  Thanks for the great times — you always could make me laugh.

(And thank you again Rishi for that horrible attempt at a finger mustache in the picture =P)