This past Wednesday, I attended the board of trustees forum with fellow Rose Scholars and really got a lot out of it. I hate to say it, but I am not exactly involved when it comes to student government and getting involved in the issues that affect Cornell directly. A lot of the time, I’m so wrapped up in my own world that I don’t ask questions about the construction sites, or the budgets, or the number of students in my chem classes. This forum made me realize that so many people are behind this decision. Cornell has one of the largest board of faculty trustees in the country (I think the exact number is 64) and all of them are so invested in all of these decisions. For example, the North campus construction project doesn’t exactly cross my mind all that often (except when I have to deal with driving through North and avoiding the mess) but the level of thought and planning that went into that astounded me. Trustees mentioned how the reasoning behind that was that Balch Hall (where I lived freshman year) needs renovations, something I can definitely vouch for firsthand (the elevator broke as I was moving out last year and my parents and I almost got stuck on it). While Balch is being renovated, there needs to be space for all those freshmen to live, hence the new building on North.
However, when both are built and finished, Cornell can then accept a larger freshman class. However, that means we need to expand in other areas, including more faculty, more academic buildings, more upperclassmen housing, etc. Overall, it was just really interesting to think about all the things that go into running a school, things I would never really think about otherwise.