Author Archives: Alana

Collegetown Makeover

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This past Tuesday, I attended the Ithaca Town Hall meeting in Klarman Atrium. It was my first time going to a town council-type event, and it was so interesting! It was really awesome to be able to hear about Ithaca-wide development projects directly from the officials in charge and seeing that Ithaca has an easily accessible platform for residents to voice their questions and concerns on.

One of my favorite parts of the meeting was the bit about Collegetown development. City officials predict the area will be positively transformed in the next five years. There are six residential properties in the works right now.

During the Q&A section, a graduate student asked about the recent closing of storefronts that, for many Cornellians, were at the center of their social experience. These included Stella’s and Dunbar’s. Mayor Svante Myrick answered this question by first saying he was embarrassed about the current conditions of Collegetown. However, he followed with, “Retail follows people.” If six residential properties are being built or are in the pipeline, then storefronts will most likely follow.

One of the speakers noted that Collegetown has a list of rules and regulations regarding what and how properties can be built. For example, residential properties cannot be on the ground level. I really love this rule, because the ground floors of residential properties don’t interact with the street. It dampens the energy and culture of the surrounding area.

I will probably live in Collegetown my senior year, so I am excited to hear that the City of Ithaca is consciously developing the area for the betterment of the community.

Four Years

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This past Wednesday, Professor Daniel Schwarz spoke about his new book, How to Succeed in College and Beyond: The Art of Learning, which outlines his advice to getting the most of the college experience. His book goes over everything from the College Olympics (the process of finding the right college) to the impact of the Greek system on self-development.

After his talk, I searched for his posts on the Huffington Post. I came across one of his blogs entitled Nineteen Suggestions for College Sophomores. As a sophomore, it seemed appropriate to click. Some of my favorite tips I got from the post were:

  • Declare your major and start thinking about future options.
  • Choose future satisfaction over future earnings.
  • Choose an advisor who is interested in you, and meet with them more than the minimum required.
  • Take classes from amazing professors, not for the easiest grade.
  • Develop leadership skills through extracurricular involvement.

As I’m finishing up my sophomore year, I can attest that these points are really valid. I also found a blog of the Professor’s entitled Suggestions for College Juniors: Balancing the Joy and Practicality of Learning. This is some of his advice:

  • Study abroad or in Washington D.C. (like Cornell in Washington) for a term
  • Think about a concentration within your major.
  • Think about independent research or an Honors thesis.

According to the Professor’s blog, I’m relatively on track in thinking and planning for the future, so that’s comforting! I really enjoyed his insight and advice.

I encourage everyone to skim through his blogs on the Huffington Post: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/daniel-r-schwarz/

Planting a Seed

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This past Saturday, Rose Scholars held a thought-provoking student discussion about activism. One of the first topics we dived into was defining activism.

When I think of activism, the first people that come to my mind are Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. However, these extreme icons are not representative of the ‘minimum requirements’ necessary to be considered an activist.

I would classify someone who educates others about challenges groups face as an activist. Educating is the first step in activism. For example, I was speaking with some classmates about some issues facing the African and African American population at Cornell, and one person didn’t know we even had an Africana Center! Basic conversations that plant a seeds in someone’s mind are sometimes enough.

Overall, it was a really great conversation. One of my favorite moments of the talk was when we were asked what social issues we were passionate about. I said police brutality. Others said LGBTQ rights, gay marriage, abortion, pay inequality, and access to higher education. All of these struggles are interconnected, and the power behind different groups unifying to fight together has a lot of potential.

Islam in the U.S.

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I was really excited to go to this past Tuesday’s Rose Scholars event: “Islam and the American Common Good”. The speaker, Professor Sherman Jackson, is a very acclaimed scholar, and I was looking forward to hearing his insight on such a powerful and relevant topic.

However, I was slightly disappointed that he simply read his speech from a paper. Word for word. This was unfortunate, because the thoughts he brought to the table were so brilliant, yet the delivery hindered the message.

Delivery aside, Professor Jackson made some really powerful points. Towards the end of his lecture, he noted that after the tragic event of 9/11, American ceased to be an ideological playground.

I would agree with this. Unfortunately, Islam suffered a collective indictment for the terrorist attack. ‘Islamophobia’ spread throughout a lot of the United States, and unfortunately, the repercussions are still visible.

I really wish that Professor Jackson looked away from his script to elaborate and expand on his ideas and feelings, because I feel like I really would have been able to learn something from him.

Collective Action

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Cornell_Bird_Lab_LogoIt seems that I learn about some amazing feat or research Cornell is involved in everyday! At today’s Rose Scholar’s event, I realized that our university and the Lab of Ornithology is a frontrunner with everything and anything related to birds. The facilities and research located about five minutes from central campus is revolutionary!

Students gave us a bird walking tour. They were able to blurt out the name of a bird based on their call. I learned that birds have ultraviolet vision, which helps them with mating.

Our tour guides also talked about Citizen Science. This is a concept where everyday people and birders can contribute to database and records. This helps understand birds’ migratory patterns and family changes. I think this collective action is so powerful. Any and all notes about birds’ patterns are beneficial to professionals. Citizen Scientists are able to upload pictures, descriptions, audio, and –soon- video onto an online tool, EBird, to create an incredible catalogue.

I am very excited to see what groundbreaking research those that the Lab of Ornithology conduct!

Collective Action

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At this Wednesday’s Rose Café, our very own House Professor, Garrick Blalock, spoke about his time in Uganda. He brought up several of points that I had never connected before, and he essentially summarized the entirety of human behavior in one hour: getting people to change is very hard. He grew a comparison between the popularity of carbon-emitting monsters of vehicles the developed world endorses to the harmful smoking-heavy cook stoves women use in the underdeveloped.

He also brought up the point of collective action and the idea that just one person’s doings won’t change the world. When he talked about this, I couldn’t help but think about the 2016 presidential election. Unfortunately, I know a fair amount of people who choose not take practice their civic duty, because “it won’t change anything”. If there are, for example, 10,000 people who feel the same way, then that unrealized impact is magnified.

It’s the same mentality with global warming. We all know it is real, and we all know we could reduce our carbon footprints, but on an individual basis, “it won’t change anything”. How do we change this mentality?

Old Dog, New Tricks

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Monday night, Rose Scholars had the opportunity to watch the documentary Racing Extinction. As a society, we hear that we are destroying our planet all of the time, but it was different receiving this message visually. I left the Cornell Cinema mad and infuriated, and I think that was the point.

There was one scene that covered village-wide massacre of these beautiful Manta Rays. The village people had to do it in order to survive- not by choice. Once a bill was passed to forbid the killing of the creatures, the creators of the documentary helped the community transition into a tourism-oriented economy. I think this method could be used for a lot of communities that are in similar situations.

There was another scene that depicted clip after clip of endangered animals in black market shops in China. There is such a big market for items like Manta Ray gills (believed to cure cancer) and elephant tusks (a symbol of wealth) in this country and others. I think one of the hardest aspects of ending this cycle is the fact that it started so long ago. Some of these myths and beliefs regarding medicinal remedies and status symbols originated hundreds of years ago. It’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks, but the world depends on it.

FRACKING Jokes

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Last Wednesday at Rose Café, Aaron Sachs, Associate Professor in the Department of History, raised a point that had never occurred to me. Virtually every group of people, religion, political party, etc. has a plethora of jokes and comedic skits targeting them – except environmentalism.

Why?

During the Rose Café, it seemed to me like comedic material to use was scarce. Professor Sachs had to search deep into the bowels of The Onion’s website or pull up a clip from Modern Family to find videos that put environmentalism in a humorous light.

After the official session was over, a few students stayed behind with Professor Sachs to discuss this ‘Why?’. And a consensus wasn’t made.

I have spent a considerable amount of downtime trying to figure out the reasoning for the lack of humorous material when it comes to environmental humor. There is some opposition to the belief that humans are ruining the earth, just like there is opposition to any political party. There are opinions on how seriously we should take responsibility and act, just like there are opinions on religion. There are stereotypes are extreme environmentalism, just like there are stereotypes of the French. The degradation of the planet is horrific, like events such as the Holocaust, yet war and genocide have more jabs than environmentalism.

I don’t know. Do you?

Vertigo

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Vertigomovie_restoration

At this week’s Rose Café, my GRF, Sara Schlemm, spoke about melancholy in art and literature. One of the literary artworks we discussed was Vertigo (1958), a four-fold movie about obsession, manipulation, fear, and melancholy. We watched a couple scenes from the piece, and it’s easy to say I know what movie I’m watching this weekend!

While discussing melancholy, especially in regards to this movie, I realized that the state of being can be equal parts eerie and beautiful. Before this Rose Café, I always equated melancholy to sadness, and now I understand that melancholy is something much deeper. Something that really stuck to me was the history of the idea of melancholy. It’s suggests the state has always been present in the earth, and that melancholy appears in prolonged cycles- much like the four seasons. (Fun fact, melancholy is associated with the season autumn).

I definitely look forward to looking more into melancholy, watching Vertigo in full, and I thank you Sara for such a great Rose Café!

Everybody’s Neighborhood

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commons_ithaca

This past Wednesday, Lisa Nicholas, a senior city planner, shared the developmental history and future expectations for Ithaca, New York. Ithaca’s rental vacancy rate is 0.5%; that’s really, really low. This lack of availability in the city has made Ithaca one of the most expensive places to live. She also talked about Ithaca as an employment hub and the commutes that more than 13,000 employees make everyday from other counties. Nicholas mentioned that Ithacans and researchers alike have expressed interest in compact, mixed-use development, where vertical construction would allow residents to live in apartments and studios on top of stores and restaurants.

I have been at Cornell for three semesters, and I am confident in saying that Ithaca has something special about it. The Commons, for example, is so old-fashioned and community-based- something I was not accustomed to, since I am from suburban Arizona. Svante Myrick, the mayor of Ithaca, dubbed The Commons, “Everybody’s Neighborhood,” and though I am not a ‘townie’, I would attest to this. It’s a gathering place for city residents and commuters alike, and I am glad that Nicholas and other city planners are devoted to making sure Ithaca maintains it’s personality in light of growth and expansion.

Beijing or Addis Ababa?

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At Rose Café this Wednesday, Professor Nicolas van de Walle talked about governance in Africa and it’s implications on their respective countries. He talked a lot about dictatorship and political coups, but what surprised and fascinated me the most this fact:

There are more than 1 million Chinese people in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Rouse House Professor Garrick Blalock spent some time in Ethiopia this past winter break, and he noted that he would have guessed that the airport he landed in was in China, because of the amount of Chinese people and restaurants around. This fact is so shocking to me; I never thought/knew there was a strong Chinese immigrant pull in Africa.

Now that I think about it, though, it makes sense. Professor Nicolas van de Walle attributed this migration of people to the abundance of unexploited open agricultural land, natural resources, and clean air in Africa. Many Chinese people are settling down in the region to own farms and land. I was in Beijing last year, and pollution and concrete are more common than trees. Africa has resources and opportunities that are unavailable in China.

I am interested in seeing how that migration affects trade relationships, genetics, and the preservation/alteration of cultural and traditional ways of life.

 

Yo Dre, I Got Something to Say

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This Sunday, some Rose Scholars attended a screening of Straight Outta Compton. The movie is acclaimed for raising awareness of police brutality and shedding a light on what it was like as a person of color in the United States in the 80s and 90s. And now.

In my opinion, this documentary, while humorous at times and invigorating at others, was released at the perfect time. It would be great to be able to classify this documentary as a historical one, but the motifs of police brutality and injustice and superficial discrimination still describe the United States today. Tragedies similar to the ones of Trayvon Martin and Freddie Gray still stain our nation everyday. Straight Outta Compton delivered a blatant message of a flawed and unfair system, and I think it is time that Hollywood produced an award-worthy film that wasn’t about black people in chains.