Author Archives: Ilana Kotliar

The Significance of Soil

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Today at the Rose Scholar Cafe Dawit Solomon spoke to us about why soil matters. Although I haven’t given much thought to the role of soil before hearing Dr. Solomon discuss its significance, I realized right away how important it is to life on Earth. Dr. Solomon began by asking us what exactly is the dirt outside that we call soil? While we all had a general idea, we learned that soil has many different far-reaching roles. Some of these roles include as a foundation for society and the society’s structures, a source of resources, an essential aspect in growing food and materials, a component of water regulation, and part of Earth’s climate regulation system, just to name a few.

I was surprised to learn that part of the increase in carbon dioxide gas in our atmosphere originations from the soil. More specifically, 25% of carbon dioxide emissions are from the soil, a percentage that is growing as soil is being disturbed more and more by humans. The quantity of carbon dioxide isn’t changing, however soil is going from the ground to the air – a significant problem. A solution to this issue would be to transfer the carbon back from the atmosphere to the soil, but how do we do this? Dr. Solomon is involved with studying soil at the nano level with many modern imaging tools. However, he pointed out that we still don’t understand how carbon is bound in soils. It seems as though gaining insight into the nature of carbon chemistry in soil would enable scientists to develop a method of putting more soil in the ground and perhaps slowing down the increase of soil in the atmosphere and thus climate change. It was very exciting to hear about all the different methods that Dr. Solomon and students at Cornell have used to research soil, including but not limited to nano-level spectrometry instruments. Hopefully the knowledge that they have uncovered will contribute to the “soil solution”!

 

Words of Wisdom from Coach Tanassoiu

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This week at the Rose Cafe we had the privilege of listening to Silviu Tanassoiu, the coach of Cornell Men’s Varsity Tennis Team talk about his career and how he motivates his team to thrive. Coach Tanassoiu spoke about “nourishing the perspectives” of his players, who have a lot on their plates as student athletes at an Ivy League university. Silviu’s pearls of wisdom as a player and coach seem to be directly applicable to all of us and he made many important points that can help us thrive in our student lives as well.

“Be grateful” – there are 48 ivy league men’s tennis players but there are billions of people in the world. Coach Tanassoiu constantly reminds his players to be thankful that they are here: they get to play tennis and go to such an amazing university. While most of us are not variety athletes, we are indeed very lucky to to attend such a prestigious college and have so many opportunities to learn and develop both intellectually and overall as individuals. Reminding ourselves of this certainly helps to maintain a positive outlook.

“Be intentional with your time” – Time is one of our most previous commodities, so we have to be sure to spend it wisely. Varsity tennis athletes have their entire schedule mapped out for them – including practices, class time, study time for each class, and of course breaks for meals. Only through very strict time management can you accomplish all the tasks you need to do during Cornell everyday life.

“Be nice to yourself” – We are all constantly confronted with expectations – our parents’, professors’, family’s, expectations of us regarding many different aspects of our lives. However, we must remember to be nice to ourselves and focus on the things we are able to control. Results and outcomes do not fall in that category. Adversity is the way we grow and discover all that we can do but we must remember not to beat ourselves up along the way.

Given Coach Tanavsoiu’s amazing record both as a player and as Cornell’s coach, his words and methods seem to be tried and true and I hope to apply these principles in my life as a Cornell student going forwards!

Interpretation of DREAMs

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Today, our very own GRF Esmeralda Arrizón-Palomera spoke about the DREAM act and the experience of DREAMers in the United States. As President Obama has previously said, undocumented youth (DREAMers) are American in every way except for on paper. This means that these youth cannot get their driver’s license, travel, apply for a job, or go to college. The latter has become the focus of legislation and campaigns to change the negative stigma associated with undocumented youth and permit them the right to attend college.

Over the course of this Rose Cafe, we examined numerous images related to DREAMers. One such picture campaign urged the passing of the Dream Act with the message of education instead of deportation and an image of a DREAMer girl in a cap and gown. The coloring of the picture removed the focus from race and instead zoomed in on the issue of granting youth the right to get an education. In a pair of “immigrant crossing” signs, education was also a major focal point. In one caution sign, immigrants were depicted in a way that reinforced and called upon all the negative stereotypes associated with undocumented children. In the other caution sign, the youth were all grown up and dressed, once again, in caps and gowns, almost as if they are running towards graduation and other great big goals.

The images associated with and the experiences of undocumented youth are quite multifaceted. Therefore, I agree with Esmeralda’s assessment that the “DREAMer” term itself is very narrow and makes it seem that the only problem is education, when in fact being undocumented is restrictive in many other ways as well. Moreover, while it is seems like a positive point that undocumented youth have been decriminalized, it is unfortunate that this is at the expense of criminalizing their parents. The issue of undocumented youth in the United State is one that is ongoing, and clearly has much more room to develop.

Collective Action

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Today’s Rose Cafe featured our very own House Professor Garrick Blalock and a discussion about the problems that prevent people from adopting a new and useful technology. Although Professor Blalock’s research focused on Africa and stoves, it is interesting that very similar situations take place in both third and first world countries. Here in the United States, for example, we all know that Prius’s will save their drivers money in the long term and help to reduce their carbon footprint, and we all want to save the planet, yet a very small percentage of people own the hybrid automobile. This problem persists even though many barriers to buying a car have been answered with smart solutions, such as offering warranty, financing, insurance, and test drives. Similarly, in Uganda, the majority of the population is preparing food with inefficient stoves that release a large amount of toxic smoke into the air. However, even though more efficient, cleaner-air stoves have been invented, they have not been adopted by the people of Uganda.

Although there are some differences in the two situations that we focused on, the big picture is the same: the action of one person will not make a significant difference (i.e. one person buys a Prius), but if the majority were to change their behavior (i.e. everyone drives a Prius), there would indeed be a big impact. However, based on Professor Blalock’s experience and research in Uganda, economic incentives and solutions, such as a trial period and financing, are not enough to effect a change in the long term. Returning to homes in Uganda with the cleaner, more efficient stoves 4 years later, Prof. Blalock found that 0% still used them. This unfortunate results leads to the thought that perhaps purely economic incentives are not enough to inspire collective action.

Cornell Tech – Education for the Future

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Today Rose House teamed up with Becker to welcome Professor Adam Shwartz to present an information session regarding Cornell Tech and the Jacobs Institute and answer any questions that we have regarding this budding new institution. Professor Shwartz described the cutting edge approach Cornell has to learning: an overall focus on projects  and offering classes that yield physical objects, creations, and works instead of just pages of notes on theory. Moreover, Cornell Tech places an emphasis on interdisciplinary collaboration, which is something that companies, high tech and otherwise, expect of their employees. Shwartz also mentioned the feedback that students receive very often from experts and professionals. He noted that while this may be harsh at times, students eventually come to love it because honest information that is not sugar-coated is very useful in improving an idea. In addition to all these components, Cornell Tech also focuses on preparing individuals that can communicate in a broad range of fields, which is why they take classes in the categories of “human”, “data”, “engineering”, and “business”, just to name a few.

Even though it was only founded recently, it seems like Cornell Tech is on the path to success and is setting up its graduates for success as well. The school is seeking individuals who think differently, but who have a foundation in computer science and it seems like a Cornell Tech and Jacobs Institute education is build on this same principle. I think this is very important because it enables those who participate in the graduate program to be able to communicate with specialists in many fields and see challenges from many different perspectives. It also gives them the opportunity to adapt to take on many different positions within a company. I also think that the “feedback” system is a key to success because constructive criticism has the potential to lead to great improvement, even if it may not be fun to listen to your idea take some hits.

I am looking forward to the completion of the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in 2017, I think it will take a truly cutting-edge institution to the next level!

Climate Change Comedy

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Today House Fellow Aaron Sachs joined us at Rose Cafe to talk about humor, or lack thereof, in talks about the environment. We watched numerous funny clips related to different facets of the problems facing planet Earth – from over-population, to man’s carbon footprint, and more. Some of the videos we watched, such as a news report about a new Toyota Prius that kills its driver thereby reducing his carbon footprint to zero, seem quite controversial and evocative. This sort of dark humor highlights the idea that environmentalists can sometimes loose sight of issues that are important to people, such as life, death, and war. I think we can certainly learn from humor as well as enjoy it, and one takeaway from the aforementioned video is that we should be careful not to take any one idea to the extreme. Humans seem to have contributed to the problems that are facing our planet right now, but we are also capable of creating solutions.

Therefore, mixing environmentalism and comedy seems like a good idea for a few reasons. Firstly, as Professor Sachs argues, comedy provides a morale boost and has the potential to inspire people to take action, more than tragedy can. Comedy has the potential to grab our attention and keep it. Moreover, if environmentalist try a new approach (humor directed at themselves and at climate change), they can inspire new conversations, new debates, and a renewed interest in saving our planet, something that is very important to all of us!

Facets of Melancholy

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Sara Schlemm led a wonderful Rose Cafe today regarding melancholy. While we began our discussion with comparing and contrasting sadness to melancholy, we also explored many other dimensions of this state of mind.

How is melancholy different from sadness? Some Rose Scholars pointed out that sadness is more of an emotion that is directed towards something, while melancholy may be just a general numbness. To add on to this description, we looked to Freud and learned that he wrote about melancholy and its differences from mourning. Freud argued that melancholy includes an aspect of self reproach and is more of a literary mourning while mourning itself is a feeling regarding an actual physical loss.

We learned that we can also relate melancholy to nature. It has been associated with the Earth, and with the season of Autumn, which is described as cold and dry. The word itself is Greek and means “black spleen” and thus implies that what you are feeling is directly connected to changes that are taking place in your body.

On the other hand, melancholy has also been linked to genius and art. The pain of a genius is put to work to yield brilliant creations, as is evidenced by some of the artistic masterpieces and the masterminds behind them of the past centuries. During the time of the Renaissance, melancholy was thought to be tied to the inability to stop writing, which is a form of art. The brilliant playwright Shakespeare delved into the theme of melancholy in Hamlet, which includes many interesting ideas on what it means for a person to be melancholy. One example is Hamlet’s monologue in Act 1 Scene 2 in which he talks about his grief being much more profound and deep than the symbols of it which he displays on the surface.

Finally, we watched a few scenes from the movie Vertigo and discussed what we can learn from them. I deduced the message that melancholy is a state that can suck you in, and so although it is natural (and “of the earth”, as mentioned above), happiness and joy are natural too and thus it is important to have a balance of those contrasting emotions.

By (Urban) Design

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Today at the Rose Cafe, Lisa Nicholas, a senior planner for the city of Ithaca gave us an overview of Ithaca’s new comprehensive plan for Ithaca. She provided some background for us about where we live and I learned some very interesting facts, such as that the city of Ithaca is the location of 13,000 jobs, but only 1/6th of those job holders actually live within the city. Since the amount of housing hasn’t changed and the population of Tompkins county is increasing, the percentage of the population that lives in Ithaca City is decreasing.

To address this issue, Mrs. Nicholas spoke of building “dense, compact housing”, which sounds like an a nice way of saying apartment buildings with small rooms. As someone from a very large city, apartment complexes seem like a logical development for an area where there is a high demand for housing and very limited space for housing. However, I was surprised that she mentioned that there is little to no focus on developing Collegetown. Although these few blocks are already filled with residential and commercial sites, there are vacant lots as well. Providing an incentive to build housing complexes in these areas would likely help lower the extremely high rent rates by increasing supply. Moreover, this would certainly have a positive effect on the lives of Cornell students, who would be less stressed about finding a place to live during the junior and senior years of their undergraduate career.

In terms of new commercial construction projects, we heard about and discussed a few new hotel developments that will be part of the downtown landscape within a few years. These new additions will definitely alleviate the strain that visitors (such as parents) face when searching for a place to stay overnight during high seasons, such as graduation and move-in days. However, it is important to consider the externalities of new development, such as the limitations they will create on available parking. I hope that Mariott and Hilton have included plans for underground and/or roof parking lots so that visitors or locals who choose to drive down to the Commons for an evening of entertaining or dining will have a place to leave their car.

There are exciting things in store for Ithaca and it seems very clear that change is in the air. It is great that we have planners such as Lisa Nicholas working to make the city the best it can be!

Important Influences

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Today at the Rose Cafe, Professor Nicholas van de Walle spoke about his experiences and work related to the governing bodies and economic situations of African countries. Over the course of the hour, a theme seemed to surface about the significant influence of certain forces, namely money and capital.

The kind of corruption that Professor van de Walle described as the most crippling for a country is the one in which government officials take the majority of the funds, for example, from the health department. The greed of those in power combined with the absence of an incentive, such a term limits, to do good for their country motivates their actions and leaves the majority of the people in poverty.

The “donors community” of the world, namely government organizations, are also motivated by money and economic well-being. The underlying goal of providing aid to poor African countries is to ensure economic stability, thus providing some insurance for the economic well being of the country giving the aid, such as the United States. Ensuring economic stability translate into maintaining the status quo in Africa. Professor van de Walle argues that total reform of government, such as a shift from dictatorship to democracy, would likely have the greatest positive impact on the economy of the African country in question. However, the political institutions of outside nations that donate money to Africa would not support such a radical change because it would surely lead to a period of economic, political, and social instability. Thus, the monetary motivations of the donors prevent important changes from taking place.

Another important influence that I noticed but is perhaps is not directly related to the ideas discussed above, is the influence of our first experiences. Professor van de Walle’s first job after receiving his Master’s degree at the London School of Economics was working for the United Nations in Tunisia, where he experienced and saw the existing corruption and poverty first-hand. He mentioned that this experience inspired his academic work on the doctoral level as well as future travels. This account demonstrates that although we may not realize it until we look upon our “firsts” in hindsight, but our first exposure to new things directly and indirectly shapes the actions we take and choices we make in the future.

Professor van de Walle’s presentation today gave us a comprehensive glimpse into the history, government, and economy of Africa while simultaneously touching on a few very broadly-applicable themes.