From North Campus renovation to college admissions scandals, the meeting with Cornell’s representatives of the Board of Trustees covered a series of issues targeting our university and the overall Ithaca community. One particular issue that raised my attention was the response to the college admission scandal that occurred a few months ago and stirred the attention of the American public. It was very interesting to see the faculty’s perspective on such a serious matter. They informed us about the immediate action that was taken by the Board and President Martha Pollack to review Cornell’s side of the spectrum in the admission process and to check for any possible involvement in such scandal. After reviewing every freshman’s application as well as the existing faculty, it was confirmed (as we already know) that our institution was not in any way involved in such matters.
After this discussion, the school’s motto of “Any Person, Any Study” was brought into the conversation. The Board representatives mentioned how Cornell has managed to stick to their word and has created one of the most diverse campuses amongst their other Ivy League counterparts. These statistics are indeed incredibly positive news, however, there was one point of conversation that did particularly sit right with me. When mentioning the cost management of the university’s construction progress and increasing class sizes, the Board mentioned how, if the school wanted to keep admitting a diverse new class of students every year, it would be financially costly for them to maintain their stats. They said that if they wanted to admit under-represented races and ethnicities, it would mean that the university would have to increase their expenses on financial aid packages to cover such students. The thought of seeing diversity as a financial burden for the institution was not a particularly happy thing to picture and goes against any previously mentioned pride over the diverse student body.
I hope that one day, I can see Cornell grow into an institution where diversity is more than just a requirement and just something that makes this campus so culturally rich and special. It was really interesting to hear from the Board of Trustees and I look forward to seeing the new changes they bring to the Cornell community in the near future.
This sounds like it was such an interesting event. I had never really thought about the impact that the recent college admissions scandals had on our school, and it had never dawned on me that our offices of admissions here at Cornell would have to go through all of the freshman applicants to verify that there was no involvement with Cornell in the scandals. It’s not surprising, now that I think about it, it’s just not something I had thought about before. It’s always interesting to hear about national news and then examine its effects on the people and organizations close to us; it’s too bad when such news isn’t good news.
I also thought your comments on diversity here at Cornell were interesting. I agree, I don’t think that fostering diversity here at Cornell should be about the stats but more about the “culturally rich” atmosphere that you mentioned. Thank you for your comments on these topics, I enjoyed reading them and they were really informative to me!
It is really interesting blog that you use the school’s motto as your title and it catches my eye. I also enjoy reading it.
I was also at this forum and appreciated these comments on the class profile at Cornell. You are right to point out the constraints that University has financially and otherwise to admit an incoming class that achieves that founding motto. While I was listening to the board talk through their decision-making process and the focus groups that they used to facilitate the progress they needed for the University, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the new stories they read with a view of what it might mean for their particular focus group. The college admission scandal seemed to drive this point home in assembling all of the board for that one cause. However, I was also impressed by the time commitment they had to maintain for a long-term project like the North Campus redevelopment. It would be great to have them come back and let us know how they’ve continued that progress.