Author Archives: Michele

A Taste of Ithaca

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For my last rose scholar event, I went to the farmer’s market, as it was one of the first things I did when coming to campus last semester. The farmer’s market showcases the eclectic nature of Ithaca and gives small business owners a platform to sell their goods. I love going to the farmer’s market and seeing all the new products the vendors have to sell. Additionally, something about being on the water, with musicians playing in the background, and the rustic feel of the market place, makes the farmer’s market one of the most relaxing places I’ve been in Ithaca.

My favorite part of the farmer’s market has to be all the hot food that’s available. It’s incredibly hard to decide where to eat! I also love looking around the jewelry shops and seeing how the vendors make their product. The passion that the vendors have towards their work really is admirable. The honey vendor knows everything about bees and the honey process, and the soap makers will tell you the exact scent that’ll make you feel relaxed. In addition to the atmosphere, another one of my favorite parts about the farmer’s market is talking to the vendors. Whether its about Ithaca, their products, school, or life, they always have a unique input. The farmer’s market is a facet of Ithaca that really embodies a lot of character, and I plan to return many more times in the future!

Not Just a Cornellian, an Ithacan

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This particular event has been one that I have been looking forward to all semester. The Student Assembly City and Local Affairs committee, which I have been a member of all year, organized a town hall meeting between students and the city council. The purpose of this was to increase communication between students and city government and give students a platform to voice their grievances regarding government matters. Things like housing, parking, road maintenance, are all issues that affect students that the school has little control over. These issues can only be resolved with the aid of city government and students rarely communicate with the municipality.

At the town hall, Mayor Svante Myrick spoke about his highly controversial legislation known as The Ithaca Plan. His effort to eliminate the drug problem in Ithaca has caught the attention of major news outlets such as the New York Times and CNN. The most notable clause in the plan is the implementation of heroin injection centers, were addicts will be able to use heroin under medical supervision. The aim of this plan is to prevent deaths from heroin overdose, which occurs far too often than it should. Whenever people visit the site, they are under clean and safe medical conditions, and are given a chance to talk about their addiction. The goal is then to help wean people off the drug. Hearing the Mayor talk about the plan that I had heard all over the news was a great experience and I loved having the chance to talk to the mayor himself about the plan. This event made me feel like I was a part of the larger Ithaca community, not just Cornell. Up on the hill, it’s easy to get caught into a bubble on campus. Ithaca is a “gorges” community that many Cornell students do not take the time to explore. After the town hall, I felt like I really was an Ithacan.

Learning about College

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I found the talk Professor Schwartz gave about college life to be one of the most interesting Rose café events I attended so far. Professor Schwartz spoke from many chapter of his book, How to Succeed in College and Beyond: The Art of Learning, about the many dynamics of college life. I found many of his points to be very relatable as a college student here. One facet he spoke about was financial aid and the cost if education. An interesting fact he mentioned was that almost half of Cornell students receive financial aid with a package averaging 25,000 dollars. I found this interesting as I wondered how this statistic was evident in campus life. A little less than half of students receive on average a little less than half off on tuition. I feel like this is a discrepancy I noticed here on campus in manifest ways.

Another aspect Professor Schwartz spoke about was the affect and influence of fraternity and sorority life on campus. He mentioned that he thought greek life will be relatively obsolete in the future and believed that people who join greek life often assimilate into their organizations. I found this interesting and feel that I have noticed it to an extent, but a benefit of greek organizations is that it allows for students to find a place on campus that they belong. Greek organizations sometime help form a person’s college identity and allow for them to have a place they can call their home away from home.

On and Off the Courts

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When Coach Silviu Tanasoiu came to speak to the Rose Scholars at the Rose Café, I immediately noticed his presence and attitude about his talk. He started by explaining how honored he was to have been asked to speak to us and was eager to share his story along with advice. Coach Tanasoiu worked hard in Romania to get to the point where he is today. He explains that once he got the opportunity to play tennis, he committed his whole self to it. Tanasoiu stressed how vital his parents’ support was to his career and speaks about the sacrifices they made to help him move further. One anecdote he told us was about a time his dad sold his prized car in order to afford a plane ticket to play tennis at a well-known tournament in Miami, Florida. He thanks his parents for his position today and hopes to instill the same determination and motivation into his players.

As a Cornell student, academic life is difficult as is. I can’t imagine having to play a sport on top of all the extra curriculars and classes I’m currently involved this. This talk proved that college athletes really need to have strong time management skills in order to handle all different aspects of their schedule. I have friends who are involved in athletics here and they seem to run on a strict schedule to accommodate their practices and games while also maintaining their grades and staying healthy. We all could learn a lot from the life of an athlete, and Coach Tansoiu showed us a glimpse of that!

Rape as a Culture?

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The issue of rape culture has become increasingly prominent on college campuses. Kate Harding conducted a dinner conversation on this topic and addressed multiple facets of the topic such as what constitutes consent. Rape has become far too common in today’s society and the language that surrounds the issue is considered to be rape culture. In media, rape can often be portrayed as a joke or a way for males to assert dominance over females. Somehow in some way, people have started to think that rape is ok. As a woman, I have always been told to never walk home alone, and never wear clothing that is too revealing. The pattern of these statements is that females are often told to avoid making themselves a victim of rape while the pattern should be that people should simply know not to rape.

Harding touched on this subject as well as other things I had not known before. We spoke of the “red zone” which is the first couple weeks of the semester where students, particularly freshmen, are starting to go out to parties for the first time and test their limits with alcohol. During this time period, students are the most vulnerable to rape.

I think it’s incredibly saddening that I have to sometimes worry about rape or be aware of things like the “red zone.” So far the campus has had many great rape prevention programs such as sexual assault awareness week, but a real change can only occur once there is a change in the culture.

A Pathway to Opportunity

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Upon first hearing the topic for the week’s Rose Café, I was extremely excited as immigration policy has always been a strong interest of mind. With this year being an election year and candidates vying for the nomination, immigration policy has been a popular subject of debate. Esmerelda first spoke to us about the aspects of the DREAM act, an act aimed to repair the broken immigration system. The main part of the act was that it would grant amnesty to children who had been brought into the country illegally by their parents. This aimed to solve the issue that children who had grown up their whole lives here were unable to attend college or attain a job due to their parents’ decision. I’ve heard about this act many times and have done my own research as well, but an interesting aspect that Esmerelda brought up was the criminalization of the parents in this description. Many people in the US has harsh views regarding illegal immigration; due to this, the framers of this policy constructed its advertisement this way. How could you say no to innocent children who have to suffer because of their parents’ mistakes? While this approach was effective in that it eventually became enacted through President Obama’s executive order DACA, the stigma remains the same for illegal immigrants of any age in the country. As opposed to this condemning reaction many people have towards immigration, there should be a shifted focus to a pathway to citizenship.

In my senior year of high school, the senate introduced the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, Immigration Modernization Act of 2013. As a law major in my technical high school, every senior was required to pick a piece of legislation to center their senior thesis around. I chose this act and was given the opportunity to travel to Washington DC and interview lobbyists and senator staff members to gain more insight. What I learned through this experience is that illegal immigrants has developed a stereotype of immigrants leeching off the country’s resources and providing little in return. This stereotype does not include the people who are upstanding members of society, who pay taxes, and who have been given an opportunity to thrive because of their residency in the US. This act outline a comprehensive and extensive pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, which involved the payment of any unpaid taxes and no criminal history. America boasts this image of being the land of opportunity and freedom. However, we deny entrance to many refugees and only provide and handful of visas to hopefuls every year. In a nutshell, our immigration system is broken and there has been little traction to heal it, which continues an overall intolerance in our society to immigrants as a whole.

Green is the New Black

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House Professor, Garrick Blalock spoke to the Rose Scholars about the evolution of green technology and the practicality of it in today’s world. He started by speaking to the students about how familiar we were with hybrid technology and how many people we knew with hybrid cars. We all knew how much hybrid cars helped the environment and how they could even save us money, so how come everyone wasn’t driving hybrids? We concluded that it was because of sheer accessibility and a change in the norm. One worry of many people who consider buying hybrids is that there won’t be a charging station nearby when they need it most. Or the car may break down and the parts to fix it are inaccessible or priced extremely high. For reasons like this, it is hard to complete a shift to green technology and to get people to buy more hybrids—it’s simply easier to have a regular car. Blalock then used this comparison example to explain a phenomenon that occurs globally. He told us about the stone fires used in Uganda to cook and boil water. These fires are extremely easy to make- only requiring 3 stones, a base, and a spark. However, they release strong chemicals into the atmosphere that affect the people’s lungs and are also inefficient sources of heat. To solve this, people came to Uganda to give them a cleaner source of heat and newer stoves. What they noticed was that Ugandans were choosing to ignore the cleaner stoves and continuing to use the stone fires due to the ease and familiarity. This talk showed how turning the society isn’t as easy as it may seem, it requires a shift in culture and thought as well as additional resources to accommodate the changes.

This talk reminded me of an idea called the path of least resistance that I learned in a sociology class. It’s human nature to avoid change and take the easiest path, the path that will give you the least resistance. Changing to be a more green society to many people is not the path of least resistance, which is why it’s hard for many people to makes these changes. It’s easier to have a normal car, go to normal gas stations and to your local auto garage than it is to have a hybrid and make special accommodations for the car. This principle is what makes the path to a greener society more difficult and is a change we have to keep in mind when thinking about the future of the earth.

From Class to the Kitchen

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Last Saturday I, along with other Rose Scholars, had the opportunity to attend a cooking class– and it was probably my favorite Rose House event thus far! Emily Gier, of the Human Ecology school, taught us all basic knife work skills and cooking 101, like how to properly cut an onion and set up mise en place. After a few quick tips, we were off on our own to make our own dishes. Initially, I was pretty nervous. I absolutely love baking, in fact my sister and I actually have a cookie company! However when it came to “real” meals, I’m seriously lacking experience. Thankfully, there were plenty of assistants to help us all out. My dish was a spinach and tomato one pot pasta. When the dish was finished, I couldn’t believe that I had made it, and people were actually eating it! The beauty of one pot dishes is that there minimal clean up and they’re usually pretty simple without lacking in flavor. I’ve already planned to make this exact dish back at home and hopefully learn more one pot recipes!

Aid and Trade

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Last Saturday, the Rose House Residents had the opportunity to see the documentary Poverty Inc. and speak to the producer of the documentary via Skype. Going into the screening, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. You hear the words “poverty,” “developing nation,” and “aid,” thrown around very often when speaking about the global nation. As Americans, the media often enforces a nation that it is the western world’s duty to help other less economically stable countries. However, this “help” is often delivered as free aid as opposed to tools those countries can use to develop. Essentially, this documentary embodies the idea of trade vs. aid. This movie captures how detrimental constant free aid can be on an economy’s nation. The producer specified the company Toms shoes, whose motto is “one for one.” With every pair if Toms purchased, the company gives a pair to a child who needs it. While the child does now have shoes, this movement is preventing local shoemakers and cobblers from selling their products. Why buy a pair of shoes from a local merchant, when you can get them for free? While the CEO of toms says that he plans to supply people with shoes for the rest of their lives, he simultaneously implies that they will always be poor. Although most charitable projects like this are extremely well intentioned, they are not allowing the country and economy to grow in the long run. This movie reminded me of a idea most people are taught when they are young, “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, teach him how to fish and he’ll never go hungry.” The documentary encouraged NGOs and projects that embody this principle in their endeavors. Speaking with Mark Webber afterwards also gave us more insight on his idea and how we as students can help perpetuate his message. I learned a lot from this documentary and will definitely be more analytical when I see eliminate poverty charities, and how they put an emphasis on instruction as opposed to handouts.