By Einaudi Center Undergraduate Migrations Scholars Danielle Berkowitz-Sklar, Aliou Gambrel, Joanna Moon, Vanessa Olguin with Eleanor Paynter, Postdoctoral Associate in Migrations with the Einaudi Center, and Rachel Beatty Riedl, Director of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies and Professor of Government
As part of its inaugural undergraduate research symposium, Cornell’s Migrations initiative brought undergraduate students into conversation for Beyond Borders — an event organized and run by us, the undergraduate Migrations scholars of the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.
Migrations is, by nature, an interdisciplinary topic and our ten student presentations reflected that very fact. With research in…
By Mike Hoffmann
“You have cancer” are words we fear hearing, but chances are good we will hear them during our lifetime. In the United States, about 2 in 5–40% — of us will be diagnosed with it. Of those who die from cancer, 90% succumb to metastatic cancer, a form that spreads to other parts of the body. The symptoms: headaches and dizziness, jaundice, shortness of breath, and pain. Many of us have known a loved one, a friend, who has walked this path.
Now all of us — 100% — are facing the threat of a metastasizing climate…
In a year defined in part by COVID-19, Cornell graduates charted their own course, showcasing creative ideas, perseverance, and a dedication to the broader community and to each other.
Ingenuity
Creativity was key in overcoming the challenges of the pandemic, as members of the graduating class demonstrated with their resourcefulness and inventive thinking.
Designing innovative ways to safely socialize
While physical distancing is one of the key ways to prevent the spread of COVID-19, a group of students and recent alumni collaborated to make physical distancing more social for students on the Ithaca campus. With “Cornell: Safely Together,” an installation of log seats and freestanding seesaws, students were able to safely spend time together while enjoying the unique seating arrangements.
A student-led initiative showered the Arts Quad with a colorful display of hundreds of fluttering balloons tied to inspiring messages as the spring semester concluded.
At the end of an unpredictable and unprecedented academic year, faculty, staff and students awoke to an outsized display of positivity on May 14, finding the Arts Quad filled with more than 500 balloons anchored to messages of gratitude from Cornellians to each other. Cornell Lifted students spent hours late into the night arranging the display as a pop-up surprise for the last day of classes.
The student-led initiative invites faculty, staff and students to submit messages of appreciation, with recipients encouraged to find and keep their balloon and message. The project, which takes place annually prior to final…
By Karim-Aly Kassam
The tragedy of COVID-19, with its devastating loss of life and disruption to our food and social systems, will be a walk in the garden compared to the looming catastrophe of human induced climate change. As we tenuously begin to emerge out of this pandemic, our attention is returning to the shattering impact of climate change.
Farmers, fishers, gardeners, herders, hunters, orchardists and even tourism operators depend on seasonal variation for their livelihoods. They are not afraid of anticipated changes; they depend upon them. Seasonal changes in weather are necessary for the health of ecosystems and the…
A Cornell senior’s two-year-old rabbit, Finn, has become Internet famous as a symbol of hope and health amid the pandemic.
When Finn hopped into the life of Erin Scannell ’21 in February 2019, she found herself taking a lot of photos of the lovable Holland Lop bunny. With floppy ears, long whiskers and distinctive orange fur, Finn quickly captured the hearts of Scannell’s friends and classmates, too — inspiring Scannell to create the Big Red Bun Instagram account. Two years later, Finn’s account has surpassed 10,000 followers and has become a source for Cornellians worldwide to follow his adventures on campus and find messages in support of COVID-19 safety and mental health and well-being.
Cornell researchers are working to restore our planet’s natural resources — from the soil to the seas to the skies — and helping to ensure a sustainable future for years to come.
Cleaning our water to protect marine life
Pollution threatens our oceans, seas and waterways, as well as the many endangered species living there. Increasingly, plastic waste from homes and businesses ends up in water, and the commercial fishing industry contributes a significant amount from polymers in fishing gear.
By Karim-Aly Kassam
In the twenty-first century we need a concept anchored in the reality, history, culture, and ecology of North America. It is time to expel the idea of ‘race’ from our thinking. It has no relevance in the third millennium. The idea of ‘personhood’ offers hope for a just and sustainable future.
Race is a construct propagated by European settlers to colonize the Americas. It is an imported artifice, created to diminish the ‘personhood’ of others, an invention intended to justify an ideology of oppression. This historical legacy of sociocultural and ecological erasure, often leading to genocide, not…
By Michael Fontaine
April Fool’s Day may be behind us, but this spring, we could all use a laugh — especially at work. In that spirit, here’s a little story:
A guy was driving down the freeway last week when his phone rang. When he answered he heard his wife’s voice frantically warning him: “John, oh my god! I just saw on the news: there’s a car going the wrong way on 280. It’s crazy! Please be careful!”
“A car going the wrong way on 280?” says John. “Hell, it’s not just one car. There’s hundreds of ‘em!”
This little…
By Joseph W. McFadden, Associate Professor of Dairy Cattle Biology in the Department of Animal Science at Cornell University
Humanity is faced with unprecedented challenges. These include a pandemic, economic volatility, poverty, war, climate change, and a growing human population; however, we have created a new problem that has abruptly influenced how we raise animals for food. The critical issue that has emerged in Canada is that hard butter refuses to soften.
You would think that this is just an amusing empirical observation and at most a minor inconvenience, but human curiosity has provoked the spread of misinformation about science…
