All work and no play? Not at CIPA. This week, CIPA enjoyed a bit of a break with a 4-day long weekend. Many CIPAs, including Ranissa (class of 2018), took the time off for some much needed rest, fun activities, and extra time to finish up school work. From networking events to organizing panel discussions, and ski adventures to group meetings, Ranissa packed in an incredibly eventful weekend and was back in time for class on Wednesday. In her own words, Ranissa reflects on the week including the February break.
Even though it’s only been a couple weeks since classes restarted, for the last few days CIPA students enjoyed some time off classes with President’s Day weekend. It feels well-deserved, even if only short-lived, because we’ve had work and activity-filled weeks before it. Even when classes weren’t going on, we kept ourselves pretty busy. Here are some moments from my past week:
Wednesday, February 15th:
The Cornell Public Affairs Society (CPAS) and CIPA cohosted a Panel on Immigration Policy, specifically addressing President Trump’s “immigration ban,” led by CIPA faculty Matthew Hall and Raza Ahmad Rumi. The panel also included Steve Yale-Loehr and Brendan O’ Brien. Students from many different departments filled the auditorium in Warren Hall and asked questions about their personal rights and safety in the face of this immigration ban.
Thursday, February 16th:
It wouldn’t be a Thursday afternoon without CRP 5450, or Statistics for Public Policy with Professor Nancy Brooks. This was the last class that many of us had before break officially began.
Friday, February 17th:
The morning starts at 5:30AM – we’re heading down to NYC for the day. Thankfully, the weather was more than welcoming, and we made it down in around just four hours. After the CIPA networking event, we made the long drive up to Lake Placid, where we would be spending the next couple days.
Saturday, February 18th:
Finally in Lake Placid! This place is famous for being the host of the 1980 Olympic Games, nestled in the northeastern corner of New York State. We got an early start and hit the slopes at Whiteface Mountain. It was unseasonably warm, but there was still plenty of snow on the mountain so we were able to get a lot of good runs in.
Sunday, February 19th:
Main Street in Lake Placid feels like a post-card. After stuffing ourselves with crepes and sandwiches we went dog-sledding on Mirror Lake (not to be confused with Lake Placid, just adjacent). We made a visit to the 1980 Hockey Rink where the original U.S. Olympic Ice Hockey Team claimed their infamous victory over the Soviet Union. I think I found my Miracle movie references funnier than anyone else did.
Monday, February 20th:
Back in Ithaca: I spent most of the morning doing work for my research assistant position in the Johnson School of Management, before meeting with the PhD candidate on our current project coding stockholder resolutions. Later in the evening, my SMART group (which travelled to Kenya) convened to put together the finishing touches (four hours of it) to our presentation that we will present on Wednesday. You can check out our blog here: https://smartkenya2017.wordpress.com.
Tuesday, February 21st:
The Kenya SMART group met again, this time at Brookton’s Market in Brooktondale, about a 15 minute drive from Ithaca. Here we discussed our presentation with our team leader of the trip, Beth Medvecky. Looking forward to the presentation to the class.