Author Archives: Sarah Crowe

The “Battle” of Science and Religion

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Gregory Sloan’s talk was very different than I expected. I assumed the Café would be focused on the history of the events surrounding Galileo’s trial, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much Professor Sloan broadened the discussion. He was an engaging lecturer, and I enjoyed how he integrated astronomy with history and current events. I was also impressed by how knowledgeable he was on the subject, considering his background has almost nothing to do with what he ended up talking about.

His opinion on the traditional “battle” of science versus religion made a lot of sense to me. While I don’t think that the conflict between science and religion can be written off in all cases, it does seem to be a simplification of deeper issues that mostly go ignored. In a time when science increasingly plays a role in the average person’s life, the idea that science and religion don’t have to be mutually exclusive is important. I appreciated Professor Sloan sharing his perspective with us, and he definitely made me consider possibilities that I hadn’t before.

Cornell Dining – Moving Forward

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While I’ve liked most of the Becker-Rose Cafes so far, I appreciated this one because of its relevance to my everyday life. I eat on West Campus at least once every day, often in Rose, but I rarely give much thought to the behind-the-scenes processes and people that allow me to do so. I’ve always told my friends at home about how good Cornell’s food is, but I’ve never really known why that was the case.

After listening to Chef Daniel and Paul Muscente talk, at least one of the major reasons why Cornell Dining is so great became a lot clearer. While I think their system for feeding thousands of people every day works very smoothly, they were still actively looking for suggestions for improvements from the students. Every decision that they made, from moving greens and whole grains to the center of the plate to putting out flavored water, seemed to have the best interests of the students in mind. They responded to every question or comment from the students (both positive and negative) with interest and openness. This attitude of constant adjustment based on the needs of the student body must be one of the main reasons Cornell’s food is ranked so highly.

The scope of their jobs seems overwhelming to me, so I couldn’t believe that they have time for so many initiatives in the first place, but they seem to be taking on new projects enthusiastically. I’m very grateful to have such passionate and creative people behind Cornell Dining, and I really appreciated the chance to talk with them.

Connecting Art Through Time

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I walked through the atrium of Corson-Mudd Hall almost every day last spring, but I never once stopped to notice the restored Blaschka glass models on display there. I passed through Corson-Mudd only as a shortcut to the lab I work in on the Biotech quad, so I was almost always rushed and distracted. Still, I would have thought that at least once I would have given the models some attention – it took Drew Harvell’s talk and film to highlight something that had been right in front of me.

In a similar way, Leopold Blaschka first noticed the creatures that he eventually modeled for Cornell while he was stuck at sea. He didn’t originally pay them much attention, but once he was forced to stop and observe them closely, he was awed by their variety and beauty and wanted to show them to others.

Dr. Harvell and David Brown took Blaschka’s work and made it even more unique than it was in his time. They not only captured images of creatures that are being endangered by pollution and human activity, they also created an intersection between past and present that was wonderful to watch. Seeing the Blaschka models right next to their present-day, living counterparts showed both how the sea has changed and how some of the creatures in it are exactly the same when Blaschka watched them. This kind of opportunity is rare, especially with models that are purposely so exact and creatures that are so rarely seen.

Now that I know about the models and where they came from, I’ve stopped a few times to look at the ones on display in Corson-Mudd. I’m grateful that I can now appreciate them for the teaching tools, pieces of art and historical records that they are.

Understanding Amy

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I heard small bits of Amy Winehouse’s music growing up, but like many people, my main association with her has never been her songs. Tabloid photos of her staring back at me under a headline that had something to do with drugs popped into my head whenever I thought of her before last week.

As often happens after learning more about a person, I felt horrible for Amy once I had heard her story. What struck me the most was that she was aware from a young age that fame would probably unravel her – the film included a recording of her saying, when she was very young, that if she ever thought she was actually famous she would “go crazy”. That context made watching paparazzi crowd her on the street or her father bring camera crews to her vacation spot much more difficult. Seeing her advance through her career when we knew the end of her story was powerful. I was struck by how even once she had died, the media and the public wouldn’t leave her alone – they carried her body out her front door, with a crowd and cameras gathered right next door.

We often talk about how judging someone immediately upon meeting them is wrong, but we forget that celebrities are people too, and they’re subjected daily to the snap judgements of millions of people. Somehow the idea of considering what might be going on under the surface (or giving people the benefit of the doubt) doesn’t always apply when you’re famous. It’s easy to see why this would be so devastating to someone like Amy, who was a little on the shy side and didn’t want the vast majority of the attention she received. I hadn’t though much about this until watching this documentary, so I’m glad I had the opportunity to see it and gain a better understanding of such a talented artist.

From Ezra Cornell to the New West Campus

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Despite the rain and cold, the tour of West Campus was a really wonderful way to learn more about the community we live in. While I’ve admired the beauty of West every time I’ve walked down the slope this year, this event made me realize that I didn’t know much about it. The tour was placed perfectly in the year at a time where we had adjusted to calling West Campus home, but where we still had a long time to directly benefit from knowing more about it.

I thought that beginning the tour with a brief history of Cornell’s origins set the tone of the event very well. At first I wondered how talking about Ezra Cornell’s life story was relevant to West specifically, but as Professor Blalock asked more and more basic questions that none of us knew the answers to (like “Where did Ezra Cornell go to college?”) I realized that learning about West would be meaningless without understanding the larger context of Cornell.  Because we ended the tour talking about West’s very recent history, such as the new House system and the institution of our own Scholars program, the event flowed naturally from broad to specific and from past to present.

I gained snippets of information about a surprisingly wide range of topics while on the tour. I had no idea that Cayuga Lake connected to the Erie Canal (even though I live five minutes from the Canal at home), and I didn’t know you could get free massages in Noyes on Tuesdays. I loved getting to hear about Quill and Dagger and the Memorial Room inside Lyon Tower, and I enjoyed getting to actually see this room even more, because it’s locked up so much of the time. What I found most interesting, however, was the bitterness that many Cornell faculty apparently have towards West Campus. I had heard professors talk about the intense cutbacks and the low morale after the 2008 stock market crash, but I had never made the connection to this being when West opened up. Luckily (at least in my opinion) the new West Campus has turned out to be extremely successful, so the University’s spending doesn’t seem frivolous in hindsight.

Where we are: Cornell on Cayuga land

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I think Professor Cheyfitz’s talk on the state of indigenous people today was a great one for myself and my fellow students to hear. In my FWS first semester last year, we talked a lot about genocide in the context of indigenous people. This meant that I had a much more solid background in the information Professor Cheyfitz was giving than most people in the room, but he offered new insights and approached the problems from perspectives I hadn’t considered before. The legal aspect was entirely new to me, so the  process by which the cultures of indigenous people were threatened filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge. One thing I had never considered before (but that has stuck with me since the event) is how in the United States there is always discussion about black versus white, but that this binary isn’t always where the biggest issues lie.

One other topic Professor Cheyfitz touched upon was the Cornell administration’s refusal to acknowledge that our university is located on Cayuga land. I thought this refusal was really interesting, because objectively it isn’t a question that we’re currently on land that Europeans stole from a group of indigenous people. After considering what would be implied if Cornell made that statement, however, I realized it is actually way more politically charged than perhaps it should be.

It’s hard to know how to help these marginalized indigenous people, as the brutal process by which we obtained the land we’re on can’t really be reversed. I think that the first step towards some kind of solution is to stop ignoring the issues indigenous people face and to actually learn about those who were here before us. As Professor Cheyfitz said, at the very least, we should all know where we are.

The Big Picture: Professor Dan Schwarz

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In day-to-day life at Cornell, it can be very difficult to focus on the big picture. Little things like the next club meeting, tomorrow night’s prelim, or the essay due at midnight often overshadow the reasons we came here in the first place. Professor Dan Schwarz’s talk was a good reminder to stay proactive and focused on the future. As someone in large classes and with a pretty focused curriculum, I particularly appreciated what he had to say about getting to know professors and the importance of taking classes outside of your major.

While I truly appreciated his advice, I did think that much of it was too general to be especially helpful. This was particularly because most of the audience was composed of upperclassmen; there was only one freshman in attendance. Professor Schwarz touched on everything from the first weeks of freshman year to getting a job after graduation, so while he covered a lot of information, he didn’t go into much depth on any one topic. Most upperclassmen had already heard much of this general advice before, so discussing one or two things like how to approach professors or how to do well in a job interview would have been more helpful to his audience.

That being said, he very clearly cared deeply about Cornell students – not just in their successes here, but in their successes beyond the university. I appreciated him taking the time to talk to us, and his reminders were a great way to start off the semester and this year’s Scholar’s program.