It was my birthday when I attended this event, and with age comes a sense of growing purpose and meaning. Thus, I found it interesting to reflect on the influence and power we as students have. On a small scale, it feel like we have no authority and must follow the laws of the land here at Cornell. But in reality, we have more power than we might know. It can be difficult to feel like students have the power to change anything on campus. However, its thousands of us here , and I believe that we can make the changes we want to see. It won’t be easy but I think it can be done.

Student Assembly is one way I have become involved in creating change here on campus. Leadership roles are a great way to influence decisions made here on campus, and I believe everyone should participate in these types of things.

Cornell’s students have a lot of influence on shaping and changing the campus, but that influence is also limited. Students can feel like they can not actually create change due to corruption. It seems that the school will listen to people who have money or provide the school with money. These people will have strong opinions on how the school handles certain situations. For instance, in greek like on campus, many fraternities and sororities have powerful and wealthy alumni that will not allow for the greek organization that they were a part of be negatively portrayed or be taken off of campus. It is known that fraternities that are higher ranked are allowed to do anything they want and no action will be taken against them. Due to this, it can be hard to feel like students have the power to change anything on campus. We can change something that may not have an actual influence on campus. We do understand that the school may listen to what students have to say, but sometimes it may seem that they will still do whatever they believe best even if it goes against what students requested.

On this talk with Vice-President Ryan Lombardi, we got to learn about the insights of Cornell campus culture and our influence in shaping it as students.

Several topics were brought up in the conversation ranging from classroom culture to the social life of students. An interesting issue that was addressed due to its current relevance within the institution was Greek life on campus. I learned that fraternities and sororities are their own independent institutions. They are managed by separate councils and controlled by larger national chapters. This high level of independence that they have was a novel concept for me, which caused me to wonder how much power they hold over the school and its social systems. According to the Vice-President, when the university decides to “suspend” one of these fraternities, it means that the school no longer acknowledges the organization as theirs. However, this could mean that the “suspended” organization could still continue working behind the curtains of the situation.

Another topic that captured my attention throughout the discussion was the process of taking action to modify or establish a policy or structural change within the university. Cornell, unlike any other schools in the nation, has its own separate “judicial structure” that makes decisions within the realm of legal and political issues that occur within the university. The Vice-President explained that changing and shaping Cornell was a matter that did not only fall in the administration’s hands but also the students themselves. It is important that we, as students of Cornell University and residents of the Ithaca community, stand up for our beliefs and fight for the changes we want to see expressed by the time we graduate. Shaping campus culture is an essential concept for all of us, that we should all work together to establish and organize.

Last Wednesday, I attended my very first Rose Cafe (in three semesters of being a Rose Scholar!). I had always wanted to attend, but I usually had a class on Wednesday nights so as soon as I had the room in my schedule I jumped on the opportunity. The first thing I noticed was how cozy Rosemary’s apartment was, and how nice it was to be in a home. I haven’t been home in some time so just the action of taking off my shoes before walking in and sitting down on a sofa immediately made me feel so at ease and so much more comfortable.
The fact that the Rose Cafe chat was with Vice President Ryan Lombardi the evening even better. I had always heard really good thinking about him. I remember he sent out an email to Cornell parents regarding inclement weather or some safety concern on campus, and my mom, being the overly polite woman she is, responded to him individually and thanked him for informing them. Vice President Lombardi actually took the time to personally reach out to my mother and respond to her note, making sure that she knew where his priorities are when it comes to student safety. I thought that this was so extraordinarily thoughtful of him, that he would take time out of his busy schedule to respond to a single parent, and it made me realize that the gap between the administration and the student community really isn’t quite as large as we see it.
Our discussion evolved into one surrounding fraternities throughout the night, and we were able to get some unique insight into what the administration is trying to do, trying to avoid, and even capable of doing when it comes to disciplining fraternities and their actions. I also hadn’t realized that Cornell’s judiciary committee is separate from the actual administration, an independent body, and found that extremely interesting. In the 60s-70s, Cornell students decided that the students should make these decisions, and the administration should stay out of it. Now, it seems as though students are demanding the administration to act even though they no longer have that power. I learned a lot about this dynamic and definitely have heard bitter sentiment and conspiracy regarding the administration, however meeting Vice President Lombardi helped me to understand that they aren’t faceless bureaucrats behind desks, they actually care about students and are trying really hard to make this campus community a great one.

I recently had the pleasure of hearing Vice President Ryan Lombardi speak concerning campus culture at Cornell, and was able to participate in a discussion concerning students’ role in both shaping and improving that culture. One thing I was very surprised to hear was that the administration and the OJD are actually completely separate, and that this separation was once insisted upon (yet now decried) by students. Seeing how students now expect the administration to do what past students explicitly forbade them from doing, I realized just how unenviable the task of structuring a university is, no matter who it falls upon. Not only must the structures and processes governing a university solve the problems of the day, they must also (at least attempt to) be palatable to future generations, to prevent rapid and constant changes which can only degenerate into chaos. Yet, in an environment where 14,000 students cycle through every four years, each cohort bringing with it different experiences and values, and where those students are among the most astute, passionate, and diverse of their generation, achieving such a balance seems nigh impossible. Yet, as the recent tragedy has shown, we must strive to do so. The structures we (both administrators and students) create will never be perfect. All we can do is address to the best of our abilities the problems of the current era, hopefully causing as few problems as possible for the future along the way, and expect future generations of Cornellians to take what we leave them and do the same.

During this week’s Rose Café, we discussed campus culture, or more specifically, how students influence campus culture, both proactively and reactively. We spent much of the time reviewing the history of student influence at Cornell and discussing its present-day ramifications, which was really quite fascinating. For much of the existence of Cornell, the administration acted “in loco parentis”: in the place of parents. They would effectively dictate the rules on campus and decide exactly how to mete out punishments. This, however, began to change over time. After widespread student backlash against the idea that college students were not independent adults, Cornell gave the student body significant control over the affairs of the students by creating independent student administrative bodies. This brought us to the thought provoking question: should this stay the case? To the extent that a university administration has greater legitimacy in meting out punishments quickly and effectively, should the student body be trusted to promote these punishments itself? Honestly, I still don’t know the answer, but this discussion has definitely got me thinking.

It was a very nice experience to have a conversion with vice president.  He talked about his experiences before coming to Cornell and his family. We discussed the critical role that students play on campus. The student assembly line meeting and the student leadership are very important to shape Cornell’s campus culture. The role of administration and students made many changes for us. There are some challenges that affect our campus as well. A community with many groups should have responsibility for the outcomes,

Today I had a very unique opportunity to discuss the intersection between college administration and student life with VP Lombardi, allowing me to further understand the influence of faculty and staff on campus culture. Interestingly enough, it seems to be a concern that there is a lack of student input in reference to established rules employed by the administration. Particularly in light of certain tragic events that have occurred recently within greek life and unordained social culture, it seems to be an ever more prudent concern of the university as a whole. Suggested throughout this discussion, I concur that it would be beneficial to create an administrative foundation of guidelines ensuring student safety upon which to build and advance independently driven social life. As VP Lombardi referenced, college administrators were initially referred to as substitutions for parents of attending students. Being so, it is important to sustain a functioning interface between the governing body of an institution and the students who dictate the internal culture. Also, it is interesting to consider the affiliation of greek societies to the university and how they play such a large part in the dynamics despite being sponsored and led solely by the students. Overall, it is crucial to integrate various sectors of the college community to cultivate a safe and healthy social and academic environment where students can discover and pursue their passion and sense of self.

I attended the weekly talk about campus culture with Vice President Ryan Lombardi and it really opened my eyes to a lot of what goes on behind the scenes in administration. He first started off the talk by going into some of the history between administration and the judicial office here at Cornell. Fifty or so years ago, the students didn’t trust the administration, so they wrote into effect a code of conduct that had no input from the university. Furthermore, the university could not enforce the code of conduct at all. 

Flash forward to 2019, the Office of the Judicial Administrator is separate from Cornell University administration. However, instead of continuing to want a clear divide between the judicial office and administration, students now expect administration to step in on certain matters and to stay away when it comes to others. It’s really interesting to think about how our perception of Cornell administration changes depending on what we want. This is even true for many other things. In the moment, when we’re casually talking about a matter that requires some input from groups in power, we only want them to interfere when it benefits us. 

It’s human nature to want to do things that benefit ourselves. Because the talk was about campus culture, Greeklife inevitably came up in conversation. We discussed why people continue to allow Greeklife to continue, even through all the terrible things that go on involving fraternities and sororities. It comes down to personal benefit. Why do people go back to frats where they hear of bad things happening? The possible positives outweigh the negatives. If students don’t have a personal connection to a victim of Greeklife wrongdoing, they believe that it won’t happen to them and the possibility of having a good time outweighs both the chance of something going wrong and the issue of supporting a “shady” organization. I mean no disrespect to Greeklife, but it’s interesting to think about why we don’t blacklist organizations when it might be prudent to do so. Campus culture is really important for shaping who we are as people. As students, we have a lot more power than we think we do. We should use it.