Author Archives: Malvika

Torture- Opinions

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This past Rose Cafe, we had a refreshing and interesting change from our usual style and topic of discussions and talked about the controversial topic of torture. Dr. Nick Cheesman from Australian National University and his activist colleague Pornpen Khongkachonkiet led the talk, talking mainly from the lens of Southeast Asia where their work is centered. As someone who grew up in Southeast Asia in the city of Singapore,this was very interesting to me.

I found it really interesting to hear from our two speakers because Pornpen was able to offer us the perspective of someone who witnesses and actually deals with matters of torture on a daily basis, while Dr. Cheeseman offered an academic opinion based on his own research in Myannmnar/Burma.

After hearing the talk and listening to the delicate perspectives and information surrounding torture, my existing opinion around torture- that it is something completley evil and immoral and takes away every piece of humanity from the victim- was reinforced. The talk was a difficult and emotional one but I am glad we were able to hear some expert perspectives on such an important, sensitive yet rarely discussed is

Rose Scholars- Feedback and Opinions

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This week’s Rose Cafe was an honest and open discussion about the Rose Scholars program. It was a great and refreshing opportunity to discuss the program and what it is like living in Rose House in general and it was interesting to hear different peoples opinions on the program. Here is some feedback and thoughts I have regarding the program:

  1. I agree with many other people’s blogs that we need more events with smaller time commitments. I ended up mostly attending Rose Cafe as it was the shortest event and happened every week at the same time so I actually just put it in my Wednesday evening time slot in my calendar for my own convenience of having a fixed schedule. On days where I haven’t been able to attend Rose Cafe, I struggled to find another event to attend that is interesting to me, is of a reasonable duration, and at a time that works for me. Unfortunately, as much as I wish I had more time to spend exploring Cornell and Ithaca and enriching my experience here, I simply don’t have time to visit the plantations for half a day. There should be more events which are shorter and interesting on a regular basis, so that people actually go to events other than the cafés and learn and immerse themselves in Rose and the Cornell/Ithaca area- which is the very purpose of the program.
  2. Another major criticism I have is why the ‘Feminism and Food for Thought’ weekly program (that is always featured on the ‘What’s Happening email) does not count as a Scholars event. I would personally love to attend this series and gain credit for it. As a passionate feminist, I believe that it is crucial for us to discuss issues of gender and sexuality. It is absolutely imperative for more people to engage in conversation about feminism. Considering there have been other Rose Scholars events that touch on feminism, as well as a variety of intellectually stimulating topics like economic development, globalization, etc, I don’t understand why this series does not count as a Scholars event. It strikes me as perhaps subconsciously/accidentally sexist to dismiss this fascinating series and exclude it from being a Scholars event, when it is so relevant and in line with the other events that do count for the program.

Track and Field: Uniting Athletes from the UK to the US

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Last week’s Rose Cafe was an extremely interesting talk that shed light on both athletics and cultural exchange (although some would say the two are intertwined. Mr. Paul Wilcox from the UK spoke to us about the Transatlantic series. I had no idea what the Series was prior to the talk and was extremely surprised and impressed to hear about such an international sports tradition! I was definitely proud to hear about Cornell being a part of this sports league.

According to Mr. Wilcox,the Transatlantic Series is a track and field league between Oxford and Cambridge in England and the Ivy League Universities with a four year cycle- with Harvard and Yale touring the UK every four years. Even more surprising to me was hearing that it is the world’s oldest international fixture. As someone who is not particularly interesting in sports, being especially clueless about track and field, what was really interesting was learning about how unique the league by providing participants with cultural exposure and developing friendships across the ocean through the context of sports and high quality competition. The passion in the speaker’s talk really made it clear that this league is much more than just sports, but about international cooperation and unity and friendship.

As an international student who grew up in three different countries, and even as someone simply living in an increasingly globalized world, I think events and opportunities like the Transatlantic Series are extremely important. It is vital that people have the chance to understand different cultures and perspectives and it was really eye opening to learn how sports can offer a platform to do this.

Fats and Palm Trees

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This week’s Rose Cafe was a really interesting and insightful talk about the history and science of fats. Fats and nutrition have become such a popular topic of interest and controversy, with the “facts” changing all the time, confusing over “good” fats and “bad” fats, and a rising obesity epidemic. Therefore, this was a really interesting and relevant talk.

One topic discussed which I found really interesting was the topic of palm oil plantations and deforestation in certain places in South East Asia for the production of palm trees. I was particularly interested in this because I grew up in Singapore which is in South east Asia and is next to countries like Malaysia and Indonesia which produce a lot of palm oil. An aspect that wasn’t discussed regarding this issue of palm oil production is the health effects of the deforestation process. In Singapore, there would be a huge amounts of haze caused by the burning of forests in Indonesia for palm oil which can be a huge health risk- to the point where the government actually gave out free face masks to protect from pollution!

In conclusion, the topic of fats and nutrition is very complex and interesting and there are are many aspects to the issue.

How has our relationship with food changed?

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This week’s Rose Cafe was very interesting. Dr. Ziegelman talked to us about food production and our relationship with food in the Great Depression and how this relationship continues to evolve today.

An interesting part of the talk was the use of fortified cereals. Examples of such cereals include Milkorno, which were enriched with the nutrition and calories needed for Americans to survive. Such foods took a minimalist of food and focused on ensuring that people recieve the “right” foods and are able to survive and get the right nutrition. It is interesting that in contrast, today, cereals are notorious for being unhealthy processed foods that are simply empty calories with no real nutritional value, full of high fructose corn syrup. As consumers, we have to be very smart about what we eat, and ensure that we are aware of what is going in to our body by checking what foods actually consist of- many cereals today which are advertised as healthy are often high calorie, or have high-fructose corn syrup.

Another example of changing perceptions of foods is how during the Depression era, nutritionists including our very own Flora Rose encouraged cream based white sauced in foods. Today, in our vegan friendly and more nutrititonally aware society, we are aware that such foods are very high in fats and lack nutrition- and that tomato based sauces are far superior.

In conclusion, this talk was insightful and shed light on a lot of differences between food, and our relationship and perception of it, now compared to during the Great Depression.

The Judicial System: Some Debates and Thoughts

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This week’s Rose Cafe featured Ithaca City Judge Scott Miller- an alum of both Cornell undergrad and law school! It was a fascinating talk that discussed a variety of extremely diverse, controversial and incredibly interesting topics, from the debate over free injection centers for drug users, to the emotions of a judge when sentencing.

An interesting topic discussed that I had never given much thought to was the debate over if judges should be elected or appointed. I honestly had never even thought about how judges come into their position, let alone debated which method would be better, and hearing the Judge’s opinion on this was really interesting. I really agreed with the Judge that “judges should be separate from the political process” and that Judges should not be worrying about pleasing voters, but be focusing on maintaining integrity in the judicial system.

Another area we talked about was whether cities should have centers to provide drug addicts with free, clean needles and a space with nurses and medical care to inject themselves with drugs. While at first this sounded absurd to me, what the Judge said definitely changed my mind a lot, about how such a center would help with harm addiction and that you can’t change an addict overnight, so you may as well save the lives of people who are still addicts. After all, the drug wars showed us that simply incarcerating people and leaving them to die in jail isn’t a solution either. In my opinion, such centers should exist, provided that the drug users are also in a rehabilitation program and that the needles are just being used so that users don’t go cold turkey and instead start slowly reducing their consumption (while consuming in a medically safe space) and slowly recovering from their addiction.

I think another really interesting take away I got out of the talk was that it is better than 9 guilty people go free, than one innocent person be sentenced. I thought the Judge’s story about an innocent, mentally disabled woman being convicted of murder was truly heartbreaking and really illustrated his point.

In general, this was a fascinating talk which brought out a lot of really interesting debates and discussions.

Feedback and Learning: Rethinking the purpose of assignments

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This week’s Rose Cafe was an engaging conversation led by Dr. Cynthia Hill where we talked about how to best utilize the feedback we get on assignments from professors to grow and learn- not only to get a better grade next time, but to actually learn.

I think this to me was an important and refreshing takeaway from the talk. We are so used to working hard and have spent our whole life working towards getting good grades for important things like college that we have forgotten what the real purpose of education is. While grades are undoubtedly important, I think this talk reminded me about what what classes and college in general are actually about- to learn, grow, expand the mind and acquire important life skills like critical thinking and problem solving. It was definitely a refreshing reminder.

However, this also reminded me that learning shouldn’t stop just because you get a good grade- even if you get an A+ in a class, there is still potential to learn by trying to understand and meaningfully engage with the feedback you receive. Even a paper with a great grade probably has some feedback on it.

Another interesting topic we discusses was rubrics. In my opinion, rubrics can be useful depending on how the rubric is written, and depending on the class. For example, I took a Web Programming last semester where there was a clear rubric given out of 30 points and each point on the rubric was a clear instruction of a task we had to do in order to receive a point, such as “Validate code”. In this case, this is clearly helpful as I know specifically and exactly what to do to get points. However, in many humanities or writing focused classes I have taken, rubrics can often be vague and unhelpful, with phrases like “Uses sophisticated and effective language to convey an idea”. The problem with rubrics like this is firstly that they seem to convey things already implicit- of course I’m trying to write in a “sophisticated and effective” manner! In addition, phrases like this are extremely subjective and there is no way to know just by looking at the rubric if you got points for “effective” writing or not. I think for rubrics like these, it would be beneficial for professors to go over them in detail and give examples of what “effective” writing looks like in the context of the assignment and class.

Overall, this talk was extremely interesting and made me rethink my outlook on classes, college, self-growth and learning in general. In the future, I definitely want to try to shift my approach to homework with the goal of learning- rather than simply getting an A- in mind.

Political Disagreements

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This week’s Rose Café was a political conversation with Professor Peter Enns. It was definitely an interesting conversation and it was great to hear a Professor’s opinions along with different students’ political views.

However, I think one idea that came up towards the end of the conversation particularly frustrated me- we discussed how it is important not to “question the motives” of people who disagree with us and talk about politics in an inclusive manner that respects the perspectives of people with different political views than us. In general, I completely understand this. I am definitely eager and open to learning new and different things and understand opinions different to mine and realize that everyone has different experiences and identities which shape their political views.

However, I think things are extremely different with this most recent election and trying to build an environment “inclusive and respectful” of Trump supporters is dangerous and normalizes Trump as a President. We must not forget that this has been arguably the most divisive election that has ever occurred and it is something that feels a lot more personal and sensitive. This election hasn’t just been about something like say, trickle down economics. Believing in trickle down economics or other Republican policies doesn’t make someone a bad person and does not harm the lives of other people. The election of Trump is life threatening and extremely scary for millions of people- women, minorities, immigrants, and others. It is quite literally a matter of life and death for some people, a matter of being able keep one’s basic human rights and being able to stay in the United States. To me, being “inclusive” of Trump supporters is to normalize and encourage blatant xenophobia, misogyny and racism which actually HARMS people! I am open to respecting opinions, but sexism and racism to me are not merely opinions and I will not respect or be inclusive of a view which harms and threatens people. I would love to hear what a Republican had to say about his or her political views in any other election- but this election period has been far too appalling and is too grave and serious of an issue to say that all opinions should be respected.

Home Economics: Mandatory?

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This semester’s first Rose Cafe speaker was Eileen Keating, the archivist for the Human Ecology school at Cornell. It was amazing to finally have a female speaker and to also specifically have her talk about something so relevant yet so unknown to most Cornellians and Rose Scholars- the history of the College of Hum Ecology and Flora Rose and how the school began with a focus on Home Economics in CALS. I thought this was extremely interesting and admired how relevant it was to Cornell’s motto “any person, any study” as it was inclusive and empowering for women.

The talk raised an interesting question of whether a Home Economics course should be required for all students. Considering that Cornell has so many other graduation requirements such as the swim test, taking PE classes, and freshman writing seminars which intend to develop crucial life skills such as physical activity, health and wellbeing and vital communication and writing skills, I don’t see why there shouldn’t be a required Home Econ course. As an international student who grew up with maids, I actually struggled a lot during my first college semester with basic “adult” tasks like doing laundry, cooking, staying organized and cleaning my room. I realize that a lot of domestic students are brought up learning how to do those things, however I think there should at least be a basic seminar, such as perhaps a 1 credit course with biweekly speaker events. At the very least, if not mandatory, there should at least be some sort of optional course. I know the Hotel School has a Personal Finance class which teaches students important basic life skills like understanding what a 401k is, how to pay taxes, social security information and just personal budgeting. Therefore, it would make sense for there to be something similar for incoming freshman to learn how to do basic chores and manage their lives away from home through a Home Economics course. I am undecided about whether it should be mandatory or not but there should at least be an option, in my opinion.