10-25-21 entire hi res issue

Page 1

INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880

The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 138, No. 25

MONDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2021

n

8 Pages – Free

ITHACA, NEW YORK

Arts

Arts

Sports

Weather

Art of the Kava Bar

A Gallery of Play

Skating to Victory

Chance Of Rain

Take a look into the loving psychedelic art show that recently took place at Sacred Root Kava Bar downtown. Page 4

The BEYOND Art Lounge art installation at Center Ithaca brings childlike fun back into the gallery experience. | Page 5

Ben Berard’s two goals pushed the Red past Team USA late in the game. | Page 8

HIGH: 70º LOW: 50º

Prisoner Express To Reopen Doors

A touch of orange

By SIMRAN SURTANI Sun Staff Writer

HANNAH ROSENBERG / SUN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Students relax and walk across the bottom of Libe Slope as the first fall leaves begin to change in the trees above them.

C.U. Fundraises for Financial Aid By VEE CIPPERMAN and VIDYA BALAJI

“For us to remain true to our Cornell mission and competitive with our peers, we need to do more to honor that commitment,” she said. “We need to increase the number of In a virtual event on Thursday, University President lower and middle income students at Cornell to ensure that Martha Pollack announced the launch of “To Do the they have the same opportunities here as their non-aided peers and to reduce the amount of debt Greatest Good,” a new campaign aiming to raise $500 million for undergraduate “Today’s challenges that they bear when they graduate.” According to Pollack, the money raised financial aid. demand a particular kind would help support the University in its The event consisted of pre-recorded of ethos.” three main goals: educating future leaders, speeches to alumni from Pollack, members addressing major world problems and of the Board of Trustees and Cornell profesMartha Pollack increasing Cornell’s global public engagesors with an introduction by undergraduate ment. She also said that Cornell hopes to trustee Selam Woldai ’23. Pollack laid out the campaign’s goals early on in the expand its work in New York City. program, citing three main factors that prompted the campaign’s launch. See CAMPAIGN page 3 Sun News Editor and Sun Contributor

For the past year and a half, Gary Fine has operated Prisoner Express from his apartment: sending books, letters and programming packets to incarcerated individuals through his nationwide organization and its coalition of remote volunteers. Now, they prepare a return to in-person work from the Durland Alternatives Library in Anabel Taylor Hall. Founded in 2004 by Fine, the director of the Durland Alternatives Library, Prisoner Express runs a variety of creative programs across 49 states to bring hope, encourage self-expression and foster a sense of community among incarcerated participants. Twice a year, the organization compiles selected submissions and sends them in a newsletter to all active program members. Fine and his team have also created distance learning programs, which provide packets of information on a variety of topics ranging from chess to computer science. Fine formed Prisoner Express after receiving a letter from Danny Harris, an incarcerated man in Texas. In his letter, Harris asked the Durland Alternatives Library to send him books as part of a larger distribution program he thought they were running. Unfortunately, the Durland Alternatives Library had no such program at the time. “I wrote him back a letter saying ‘No, sorry, we have no service like that,’” Fine said. “But it was a friendly letter, and [Harris] wrote me back thanking me for writing to him like he was a human being and for treating him with dignity and respect.” Fine was surprised that his letter made such an impact on Harris and sent him a package of books. After which, he received a gracious letter back from Harris, expressing how much the gesture meant to him.

GPSA Discusses Public Safety, Veterans Day By ISABELLA WARREN Sun Contributor

JULIA NAGEL / SUN ASSISTANT PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

On the curve | Members of the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly are seen at a September meeting.

During their Oct. 18 meeting, the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly discussed Cornell’s public safety practices and passed a resolution calling for the University to cancel classes on Veterans Day. The Public Safety Advisory Committee led off the meeting with a presentation on its 2020 report on racial justice initiatives that the Cornell University Police Department

could enact. It provided four anti-racist recommendations for campus public safety, including the release of a public anti-racism statement, the development of an alternative response model and the recruitment of diverse participants in public safety initiatives. Their first recommendation was to release a public statement that acknowledges the existence of structural racism in the U.S. and commits to enactSee GPSA page 3

ALICE SONG / SUN FILE PHOTO

Grace note | A piano accents the Durland Alternatives Library, where Prisoner Express meets.

As word got around about Fine’s actions, he began to receive more book requests and sent books to incarcerated individuals across the country. Soon after, he founded Prisoner Express. Prior to the pandemic, Prisoner Express operated from the Durland Alternatives Library. Volunteers from across campus and the larger Ithaca area joined together on weekdays to package books, write letters and educate themselves about contemporary social issues. When the library closed due to the pandemic, See RELAUNCH page 3


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.
10-25-21 entire hi res issue by The Cornell Daily Sun - Issuu