Yesterday I attended a table talk event with Ryan Lombardi.  Throughout the pandemic and before, I have received many emails from him about student and campus life as we prepared for returning to campus and started to learn what it would look like.  It was great to be able to talk to him beyond these emails and learn more about his role at Cornell and how the administration planned the campus reopening.  After talking, I could tell that Lombardi genuinely cares about students and wanted to hear our input and feedback.  He was very attentive and listened to the concerns that people raised, even promising to follow up with individual students’ issues.  When talking about what the spring semester will look like, he said that many more students will be coming back to campus in the spring compared to this semester.  He said that he was confident in our ability to make this reopening plan work, and is glad that it has so far been successful.  I am grateful that the administration worked hard to open campus, as I am so happy to be here in Ithaca and be able to have some college experience, even if it is not the same as usual.