INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 128, No. 127 News Little Einsteins
Cornellians teamed up Saturday to teach middle school students about engineering. | Page 3
Opinion The Unsocial Network
Harry DiFrancesco ’12 remarks that although more people than ever are connected on Facebook, there is an epidemic of loneliness in today’s world. | Page 7
Arts
MONDAY, APRIL 16, 2012
By AKANE OTANI Sun News Editor
Jordan Davis ’14, an African American majoring in electrical and computer engineering, was the first student from his high school to attend an Ivy League university. Upon arriving at Cornell’s College of Engineering, he said he wondered, “Are we
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meant to be here?” “Looking around, I guess I thought, I may be one of one or two black people in the room,” Davis said. “As a freshman, I wasn’t sure I was good enough.” Although Davis said that, with time, he has found that “people will accept you based on what you know, rather than what you look like,” he said that increasing diver-
Black Enrollment by Undergraduate College (Fall 2011) 7.2%
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The women’s lacrosse team broke a two-game losing streak with its victory against Loyola Saturday. | Page 20
Weather Partly Cloudy and Windy HIGH: 83 LOW: 50
ITHACA, NEW YORK
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Eng.College Trails in Minority Enrollment
The Bright Side of Life
Bobby McFerrin, best known for his song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” performed a contagiously upbeat set at the State Theatre this weekend. | Page 9
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The engineering college has the lowest percentage of black students at Cornell.
sity in the engineering college is crucial to bolstering the confidence and success of minority engineers at the University. Across Cornell, underrepresented minorities — African American, Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, Hispanic and Native American students — make up 17.1 percent of undergraduates, according to the fall 2011 enrollment report. But at the engineering college, only 6.4 percent of students identify themselves as underrepresented minorities — a figure that administrators and students said was troubling. Some students, like Richard Dansoh ’13, said they stick out in lecture halls, among a sea of Caucasian and Asian faces. Dansoh, an African American operations research and information engineering major, said that, at times, he has felt that “professors may be pleasantly surprised if I’m talking to them and come off as being articulate and well-versed in the subject.”
“Maybe they’re impressed that I’m an African American and in engineering,” he said. “Sometimes, they can be a little more interested in me” than they would be in the average student. It can also be difficult to shake off preconceived notions of ability and merit, students said, especially in engineering — a field where admissions officers are committed to increasing the number of minorities at their schools. “You have to fight the stereotype that you do belong where you are,” said Brandon Gainer ’13, an African American chemical engineering major. “You have to show to the professors that you can perform well in their classes.” Although Sara Hernandez, director of Diversity Programs in Engineering, warned against drawing universal conclusions for why underrepresented minorities leave engineering, she said that for these students, entering a college where See ENGINEERING page 5
Grad Students Compete Clubs May Face New Funding Route For Board of Trustees Seat New system proposed after year of steep budget cuts By UTSAV RAI
Sun Staff Writer
At a forum Saturday, Darrick Trent Nighthawk Evensen grad and Chavez Carter grad, the two candidates running t o become graduEVENSEN GRAD ate stud e n t elected trustee, said what they would do if elected. Evensen, who is the graduate and professional students’ current representative on the University’s Board of Trustees, has held the position for two years. He previously served as the president and the finance commission chair for the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly. Evensen said he hopes to improve communication between students and the Board of Trustees. Although Evensen said that he thinks “we’ve made progress” on improving communication between students and the Board, he added, “I hope to expand that progress over the next few years.” Evensen said he also wants to work on improving environmental sustainability at Cornell.
While Cornell performed well in recent rankings of environmental sustainability, “there are a few areas such as sustainability education, sustainable investment, sustainability in operations and management on campus and other areas in which we can still improve,” he said. Carter is the current president of the Black Graduate Student and Professional Student Association. If elected, he said will tackle mental health issues and increase the transparency of the Board, he said. He added that he would like to see an increase in the number of mental health services available to students on campus. Additionally, Carter s a i d that to increase t h e Board’s transparency, he hopes to make CARTER GRAD the role of the graduate student trustee more visible on campus by expanding the circle of organizations that the trustee works with. The debate was moderated by Juan Forrer ’13, editorin-chief of The Sun. Utsav Rai can be reached at urai@cornellsun.com.
By REBECCA HARRIS Sun News Editor
After several student organizations were embittered by substantial budget cuts, the Student Assembly Finance Commission is making strides to repair what many consider a broken system of student funding. Upon receiving an unexpectedly high volume of requests for funding in fall 2011, the SAFC was forced to slash the maximum level of funding a group could receive by nearly 50 percent. Complaints from student lead-
ers about inadequate funds led to the SAFC’s proposal on Thursday to implement a new system that would place student groups in a tiered system with six levels of funding. “The biggest problem is that there is not [currently] a strategic allocation of funds, because every group can get the same [amount] no matter what they do [or] how much they spend,” said Larry Kogos ’13, co-chair of the SAFC, which is responsible for determining the funding allocation for student organizations. “Hopefully, this would be a more strategic alloca-
tion, in the sense that groups that actually need the most money can get the most money.” Under the current system — which sets a single, uniform cap for all SAFC-funded organizations — “the incentive for a group is to apply for as much money as possible,” said Roneal Desai ’13, SAFC liaison to the S.A. Club sports teams in particular raised concerns about the allocation process after their budget was See SAFC page 4
Live from Bailey, it’s Sunday night Saturday Night Live comedian Kenan Thompson, first made famous to generations of Cornellians for his role in the Nickelodeon show, “Kenan and Kel,” performed at Bailey Hall on Sunday evening.
KYLE KULAS / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER