Author Archives: Sarah Crowe

Education, Exploration and Advocacy

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I really appreciated Laura coming to speak to us. I always enjoy hearing about people’s career paths, because more often than not they contain surprises that lead the person to a place that they never would have predicted. As a college student who isn’t entirely sure of what she wants to do, this is very reassuring to hear, and it was certainly true in Laura’s case. Not only does her field of work differ drastically from her first job or what she studied as an undergraduate, she also transitioned from topic to topic around the world within the field of advocacy. Her path was very interesting and I admire how she developed such a fascinating career dedicated to serving others.

One of my favorite points that Laura made was that although not everyone is necessarily suited for advocacy or social work, there are many other ways to improve the world that are just as valuable. She seemed to think that knowing yourself and identifying your own strengths and passions were the most important things that can help you find a career that suits you. I appreciated this perspective, because it acknowledges the importance of supporting roles in the field of social work and advocacy, rather than just focusing on those who interact directly with others to offer help.

Soil Stories

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I didn’t realize how little I knew about soil until I attended Dr. Solomon’s talk last week. Of course I understood that rich soil is essential to agriculture and that soil depleted of resources can be devastating for a community, but I didn’t think it affected the world much beyond that. Dr. Solomon’s passion about the impact that soil has not only on us but also on the environment as a whole, however, quickly made it clear that this was not true. His ideas about how we can deliberately use soil as a carbon sink to help reduce climate change were inspiring, and I really appreciated hearing about climate change and possible solutions from a perspective totally different from anything I had ever heard before. I also appreciated that Dr. Solomon gave us an overview of some of the research that he does, and I was a little surprised by the amount of advanced technology that goes into the study of soil. The bone fertilizer that Dr. Solomon showed us is a great example of how new innovations can still be applied to the soil that we use.

Winning the Tennis Lottery

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It was wonderful to hear Couch Tanasoiu speak at last week’s café. Although his talk was advertised as being mostly about tennis, he made it relevant even to people like myself, who know nothing about the sport. His points about managing time and dealing with adversity were particularly applicable to all Cornellians. I also appreciated that Coach Tanasoiu feels his players need to recognize how unique their opportunities are. He emphasized how few people get to play tennis in the Ivy League by saying that it’s more likely that a person would win the lottery, which I thought was very powerful.

His description of the recruitment process for Cornell Tennis was also fascinating. I knew that coaches spend a lot of time tracking players, but I had no idea how much goes into bringing quality players to Cornell. I liked that Coach Tanasoiu values attitude and personality fit over pure talent, and I appreciated his story about how he reached out to a mother who had been overlooked throughout the recruitment of her son. He seemed to be not only passionate about his sport and his team, but also impressively honest and humble, and I’m glad that I had the opportunity to learn from him.

Just a DREAM

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Esmeralda’s talk on the DREAM act and undocumented youth was really interesting, especially because I knew nothing about the topic before attending last week’s café. I liked that she started out the discussion by giving us a summary of some of the challenges that undocumented youth face, because it was much easier to understand the problems with the DREAM act in the context of these frustrations.

I was particularly interested in why the DREAM act, which at first glance is a great thing for undocumented youth, was received so poorly by many. Esmeralda’s explanation was that the DREAM act only focused on undocumented youth as students and that it implied that their parents were criminals. This demonstrates that even well-intended programs can sometimes backfire or have deeper implications. The images promoting the DREAM act were interesting as well, especially because the posters only showed students, and the yellow filters seemed to make the race of the people in the photos less obvious to the audience (it was unclear whether or not this was intentional).

From the US to Uganda: Adopting Technology

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It was great to go to a Rose Café where Professor Blalock himself was presenting. I didn’t know anything about his research before the café, and I found it to be really engaging.

At first, I was a bit confused as to why he chose to start the discussion by questioning us about why we don’t own more fuel efficient cars. I don’t think it was at all intended to be so, but I found his tone to be slightly accusatory. This confusion quickly diffused as he transitioned into discussing his research, and it became clear that he started the hour the way that he did to show us that problems with adopting better technologies exist in the US just as much as in developing nations. I appreciated that he did this, because it forced us to recognize the fact that we aren’t immune to these problems, and it made the cookstove discussion more relatable.

Professor Blalock’s work with cookstoves in Uganda make it painfully clear why changes in people’s behavior are so hard to implement. When trying to get people to adopt new technologies, we often assume that if the benefit of technologies are explained, people will quickly adjust their lives to include it. Professor Blalock’s research, however, showed that habits and social norms can be much stronger than education when it comes to behavioral change.

Tech on an Island

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Last week, I attended Adam Shwartz’s talk about the new Cornell Tech graduate school. I found it interesting as a Cornellian, because it’s a new and rather unique part of our university, and it will be exciting to watch it develop. I have very little interest in technology in general, however, and I don’t want to pursue a degree from Cornell Tech, so the talk was less engaging for me than most Rose Cafes have been this year.

I liked Cornell Tech’s interdisciplinary approach, as well as the emphasis that Shwartz placed on the fact that students from any academic background can potentially come to Cornell Tech. As someone who is interested in health, his discussion of the Heath Tech degree and how technology could help change the field of medicine was very interesting. The Roosevelt Island campus also looks like it’s going to be really beautiful. Overall, although this talk wasn’t relevant to me, I did enjoy hearing about another part of our university.

Uncovering Melancholy

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I really enjoyed Sara Schlemm’s talk on melancholy. As a biology major, I don’t get to listen to lectures on the analysis of emotions in literature and film all that often anymore. Sara reminded me how much I used to love high school English classes, especially because Hamlet used to be one of my favorite subjects that we covered. She was very enthusiastic about her research and an engaging speaker, and she made me think about melancholy differently.

I had never given much thought to how melancholy differs from sadness. I liked the idea that melancholy is a more deep, persistent feeling that doesn’t necessarily have a cause, while sadness is a temporary state with a pinpointed reason for existing. Sara’s analysis of Hamlet’s first speech was interesting as well, because she mentioned a few things that I hadn’t noticed before, and she interpreted its main message as rather different from how I’ve always read it. It’s always fascinating to hear what different people take from the same piece of writing. I had never seen the movie Vertigo, but after Sara’s talk I’d really like to watch it.

A Newer and Better Ithaca

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Lisa Nicholas gave me a fresh perspective not only on Ithaca, but on planning and development as well. To be honest, when I feel like I’m constantly passing construction sites in a place that I live, I often think, “Can’t we just leave it alone for a little while”? Of course some areas need to be improved, but with my limited knowledge it often looks like a relentless drive to make perfectly good things newer and better – and implementing changes is expensive and exhausting for a community. Listening to Lisa talk, however, made it very obvious that this perception was wrong. She clearly loves Ithaca, and she loves her job because of what these projects mean for the community.

I love Ithaca too, and I’ve come to see it as a second home. I’ve tried to get off of campus and down into Ithaca regularly in the year and a half that I’ve lived here, and that’s made me feel some ownership and connection to the town. Because of this, hearing the reasoning behind each project and what Lisa hopes the community will gain from them was really interesting. I also liked hearing about some of the future projects, like the possible conversion of the old chain factory into living and working spaces. I enjoyed getting to hear Lisa speak, and I’ll be looking at construction around Ithaca differently.

When Aid Turns Bad

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As someone who is interested in a career in global health policy, I found Poverty, Inc. fascinating to watch. The basic ideas of the documentary were nothing new to me; I’ve read a lot about how many well-meaning aid organizations end up having little positive impact (and sometimes a negative impact) on the communities they want to serve. I also knew that looking at impoverished people as incapable of making changes in their lives inevitably leads to failure. I didn’t realize, however, quite how widespread this problem was until Saturday. I hadn’t considered how complex the economics of poverty truly are, so I was happy to gain an understanding of poverty from this perspective.

Many of the examples the documentary highlighted were really powerful, but the part that stuck with me the most was about the Haitian orphanage system. Apparently, 80% of kids that live in most orphanages (which are usually started by westerners) have at least one living parent. The parents don’t have the money to feed their kids or send them to school, so they bring them to the orphanage in the hopes of giving them a better life. According to the documentary, in some large families it’s considered almost a privilege to go live at the orphanage. Parents can come visit their kids once in awhile, but a lot of kids are eventually adopted by wealthy westerners. This system appalled me, because not only is it entirely dependent on the whims of wealthy, foreign people, it’s forcing parents to make a decision between giving up their child or letting them go hungry. The American couple who set out to address this problem have had great success in creating jobs for parents, and I hope that this progress will continue.