It is easy to criticize the cost of tuition and wonder where all the money goes towards. Having only a vague understanding of why it costs so much to operate a university of Cornell’s size, I have to trust that the budget is put to good use. Hearing from the Board of Trustees made me rethink my skepticism of how everything is being run. The different considerations like maintaining the university’s reputation, how financial aid fits into the budget, the perspectives of faculty, having to attract the top professors and having the facilities to give them all the tools they need to conduct there research. There is so much responsibility that comes with being on the board that I have never thought about.

Two interesting topics that affects undergraduates that were discussed was mental health and the North campus expansion. Hearing how the approach to mental health has changed from adding more counselors  to considering what is the underlying cause and how to treat that was interesting. It is such a prevalent problem and knowing that it is being talked about instead of believing that people are probably talking about it is comforting. The other topic of expanding North campus was enlightening because it had been several years in the works. There seemed to be a lot of discussion about housing and growing the number of admitted students and what were the possible effects of increasing the class size. Making any decision seems to require a multitude of other decisions. The ramifications of changing one thing is actually tenfold.

Hearing from people who cared so much about the university’s longevity and success was unexpected in a good way.