Author Archives: Charlotte

Improving the Rose House Experience

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Tonight’s cafe was different from previous cafes that I have attended in that it was primarily a brainstorming session. We discussed ways to improve the Rose Scholars program and the West Campus Living and Learning system. 

One point that I brought up during the discussion was the idea of rotating events through fixed time slots instead of having the same events at the same time every week. This semester, I have only been able to attend Rose Cafes for the most part because the other times do not fit with my schedule. However, when the “What’s Happening in Rose” email goes out, I often find that the seminar series events and table talks sound very interesting, but they happen at times that I cannot make. I think it would make sense to have events at the same time every week so that people can plan out their schedules ahead of time, but it would be nice to change the events that happen during those times. For example, some weeks we could have a seminar series event or a table talk on Wednesday night instead of a cafe.

I feel like the two main areas for improvement in the Rose Scholars Program are getting more people to come to events who are not Rose Scholars and promoting bonding among residents, especially at the beginning of the year when people are new to the house and still have free time. The first is a challenge because students are busy and will only go to an event if they know that it will be worth their time. I think that events that have clear applications to academic and/or professional success may be popular among people who are not Rose Scholars (the seminar series is a good start). As for bonding events, I think that events with food or a fun activity would be popular. Some ideas are going to one of the free concerts in the commons which run through mid September, having a barbecue at one of the state parks (preferably before the swimming closes for the season), and having an ice skating event after we return from winter break (which has been done in past years).

Learning about other cultures through competition

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As a runner, I found Paul Wilcox’s talk tonight particularly interesting. I haven’t competed in a track event since high school, but listening to Mr. Wilcox talk about track and field and watching old videos of races made me want to get back out there on the track.

Mr. Wilcox discussed the history of The Transatlantic Series, a competition in which university track and field athletes from the US and the UK cross the ocean to compete against each other. Started in 1894, two years before the first Olympic Games, The Transatlantic Series has been bringing students from different cultures together for over a century. It not only gives students an opportunity to get to know athletes from across the Atlantic, but also from other schools within their own country, since the competition places rival schools on the same team, such as Cornell and Penn vs. Oxford and Cambridge.

Participating in The Transatlantic Series sounds like an incredible experience, allowing students to compete against new competitors and learn about differences between the two cultures. In a world where countries are always in disagreement, it is amazing how events like the Transatlantic Series, the Olympic Games, and the World Cup are able to bring people together from rival schools or rival countries over a common love of excelling at their sport. 

A Taste of Brazil

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What I found most interesting about tonight’s Rose Cafe with Andre Rozemberg Peixoto Simões, an animal science and economics professor at the Mato Grosso do Sul State University, was hearing about a few of the cultural differences between Brazil and the US.

Professor Simões discussed how public universities in Brazil attract mostly wealthy students, even though students can attend for free. In Brazil, the best universities are the public ones and the people who have the most money go to the public universities because they have the test scores to get in. This is because students from wealthier families can afford to go to private high schools, which are far superior to the public high schools. This puts them at a huge advantage in the application process. All taxpayers pay for these universities, yet primarily the rich benefit from them.

Since arriving at Cornell, Prof. Simões has noticed cultural differences, especially surrounding food. In Brazil, the main meal is in the middle of the day. Full time employees usually have a 2 hour break from 12 to 2 pm for their mid day meal, which often includes rice, beans, meat, and vegetables. The evening meal is much smaller. Dr. Simões and his wife will usually have bread and milk. 

I enjoyed hearing a little about Brazilian culture and would love to visit some day to experience it for myself.

Fat: more than a row on a nutrition label

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Tonight at the Rose Cafe, Jonathan Robins, a historian who  specializes in the history of fats, talked about the technology of fat production, environmental concerns related to its production, and health concerns that have changed the types of fat we consume over the past 150 years.

In the late 1980s, palm oil was labelled as a bad fat because it is saturated and was associated with heart disease, and many companies switched to using trans fats in their products. However, not long after, in the 1990s, the recommendations changed. It was discovered that trans fats, which are artificially produced by hydrogenating liquid unsaturated fats to get the consistency desired for many baked goods, were actually more harmful than the palm oil they replaced.  There has been a transition back to palm oil in recent years. This is just one example of how opinions on nutrition have changed over time. New discoveries are made that invalidate previous findings and shift nutritional recommendations.

I asked Dr. Robins to talk about the best fat from an ecological standpoint, since, given the changing views on the nutrition of fats, he was not able to recommend the healthiest fat. This question also has no clear answer. For example, palm oil is made in Malaysia and one acre of oil palms can produce the equivalent amount of oil to 10 acres of coconut palm trees in South America. Oil palm growers argue that because oil palms are so efficient at making oil, they are better for the environment because less land has to be clear cut. But the question arises –  is all land equal? Is clearcutting one acre of Malaysian land really better than clearcutting 10 acres of South American land?  Many Malaysian rainforest sit on top of peat bogs, known to store large amounts of carbon, which complicates the comparison.

Fat is much more complicated than a number on a nutrition label and governments, health researchers, and environmentalists all have competing opinions on which fats we should be consuming.

Nutrition over Taste During the Great Depression

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Last Wednesday, at the Rose Cafe, Jane Ziegelman spoke about her new book, A Square Meal: A Culinary History of the Great Depression.  What I found most interesting about the talk was the emphasis that home-economists, like Flora Rose, placed on making food that contained the proper nutrients but was purposefully lacking in flavor. This was supposedly meant to encourage healthy eating by changing the culture surrounding food. These home economists believed that if people saw food as something they had to eat to survive instead of a pleasurable experience, they would eat healthier, nutrient-rich foods that didn’t taste great and avoid good-tasting but unhealthy foods. They discouraged the use of spices which made food flavorful, because these made eating into an experience.

I was also surprised by the large consumption of milk during the Great Depression. It was marketed as a health food because of it’s protein, calcium, and many vitamins. Milk was added to everything including cereals such as Flora Rose’s Milkorno and Milkoato but also in the form of a white sauce (made of milk, flour, salt, butter, and pepper) which was poured over casseroles. These cereals and casseroles fit with the idea that food should be bland.

I love flavorful foods, and I enjoy dining for a long time so that it is an event, not a chore. However, the home economists’ clever use of limited ingredients to make nutritious meals during the Great Depression was impressive.

Guilty or not guilty?

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One question that I have pondered over for a while is how an attorney can live with themselves after defending someone that they know to be guilty. At tonight’s Rose Cafe with the Honorable Scott Miller, I had the opportunity to ask this question.

Judge Miller has served as a state judge in the Ithaca City Court and Tompkins County Court for the past six years, and before that he was a criminal defense attorney. In this role, he defended criminals who had overwhelming evidence against them or who had confessed to him privately that they had committed the crime. The law states that attorneys are not allowed to reveal any confidential information that the defendant shares with them, so he could not tell the jury that his client was guilty. He has had cases where he was sure that his client would be found guilty but the jury found them not guilty.

He brought up an example of a case where he was the defense attorney, The People vs. Eunice Baker, in which a young woman was found guilty of the murder of a 3 year old child who she was babysitting. Judge Miller knew that the woman was innocent but the jury found her guilty and she was sentenced to a prison term of 15 years to life. She was released after 4 years by The New York State Court of Appeals. He found it much harder to deal with the fact that an innocent client was in jail than to know that a guilty client was on the streets.

Our judicial system is set up to protect the innocent, and in doing so, there will always be guilty people who are set free, since no judicial system can be 100% effective in figuring out who is guilty. If every guilty person was found guilty, there would be many more innocent people serving life imprisonment or ending up on death row. Thanks to Judge Miller’s discussion tonight, I have a much greater appreciation for the attorneys who defend people who have overwhelming evidence against them, because everyone deserves a chance, and every effort possible should be made to ensure that innocent people are not found guilty.

 

What actually matters?

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Dr. Hill is one of the most inspiring people I have met. His motivation is truly astounding. Recent events have led him to reflect on what really matters in life, and he asked each of us to do the same. In my day-to-day life, it is rare that I take a step back and reflect on what is actually meaningful, but whenever I do, it puts everything else in perspective.

What truly matters to me is the health and happiness of the people I am close to. These friends and family are the people who keep me going – without these connections I would feel empty.

During the week before I returned to Cornell for the spring semester, my mother unexpectedly had to be taken to the hospital and flown to a larger hospital for an emergency procedure. She is still recovering and each day I am thankful for the team of doctors and nurses who saved her life. It was one of the most frightening experiences I have had, and it has changed my view on life. I still think about my career goals, I hope to become a surgeon one day, but I also feel that it is important to have a balance and set aside time to be with the people who matter most to me.

Standing out in the stack

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The cover letter workshop tonight with House Fellow Cynthia Hill and GRF Shiv was one of the most helpful Rose Scholars events I have been to so far.  I liked how it included a discussion at the beginning about the most important aspects of a resume and a cover letter and then transitioned into a more one-on-one format where Cynthia and Shiv answered individual questions and gave comments on cover letters.

Cynthia had some great advice on ways to make my cover letter more appealing to employers: say something exciting/unique about you at the very beginning to draw them in, shorten descriptions of past experiences so that they do not get bored reading through them, and make it clear what you can offer them, not just what you hope to gain. I also had an interesting conversation with Shiv, who is currently a PhD student in biomedical engineering, about his thoughts on applying to labs, medical school, and MD-PhD programs.

I left tonight’s event feeling a lot more confident about how I can improve my cover letter so that I have a better chance of getting an interview when I apply to internships and jobs in the future. It also gave me a lot to think about in terms of my next steps after graduation.

For or Against?

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On Monday evening, I went to the Table Talk where we discussed the our views on the Women’s March. Since I am from DC, I was able to attend the Women’s March on Washington before I came back to Cornell, and it is an experience I will never forget. Everyone came to the March for a slightly different reason – some for immigrant rights, some opposed to Trump’s views on environmental protection, some for women’s rights, some for LGBTQ rights, the list goes on. However, people marched together, raised their posters up together, and chanted together, recognizing the intersectionality of the causes they were fighting for. Protestors ranged from toddlers to grandparents and it was incredible to see hundreds of thousands of people fighting back against the hateful language and threats that Trump used throughout the campaign to insult so many groups of people.

We had an interesting discussion about how people who voted for Trump were at the March. On one hand, what right do these people have to be at a protest against Trump’s hateful rhetoric and plans for his presidency, when they are part of the reason he is in power and able to follow through with these plans? How can you vote for someone if you are against what they stand for?  Were these people uninformed when they cast their ballots and have since reconsidered their position? And if so, how can you not take your vote seriously? Or did they vote for Trump and never expect he would win? It is hard to understand why these people voted the way they did and decided to march; however, doesn’t everyone have a right to march for something they believe in, no matter how they cast their ballot? These are tough questions to answer, and I go back and forth about how I feel. I hope to hear your thoughts!