“No more pencils, no more books” may have held true for many CALS students this summer, but that didn’t mean they took a vacation from education. Learn more about their stories of the kind of learning that occurs outside of the classroom or lecture hall in this special online only issue of PeriodiCALS.
Among the many familiar faces featured, plant science major Justin Kondrat ’14, who transferred to Cornell when he was already halfway through his undergraduate career. But it didn’t take long for him to become firmly rooted here on the Hill. By his final semester, Kondrat’s feelings were manifested in flowery, ten-foot tall letters on Libe Slope that spelled out “ROOTED.” The purpose? To get students with diverse backgrounds to reflect upon what keeps them rooted at Cornell.
And two years at Cornell weren’t enough for plant science major Mathew Bond. Having transferred from SUNY Potsdam in his junior year, Bond wanted to squeeze in as much time here as possible before heading off to the University of Hawaii to pursue a doctoral degree in ethnobotany. Inspired by the Plant Pathology class that he took with plant pathology professor Bill Fry PhD ‘70, Bond spent most of his summer studying potato and tomato late blight in Fry’s lab.
Also plant science major Celine Jennison ’14. Amidst our “throwaway culture,” standing up for sustainability—well, stand-up paddleboarding, that is. she and her teammates Christian Shaw ‘14, Gordon Middleton ‘14, and Julian Rodriguez set out on a 10-day paddleboarding expedition around the waters of Bermuda in order to increase awareness of plastic pollution in the world’s oceans.
Read their full stories (and more) in this epic issue of periodiCALS.