INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 140, No. 34
8 Pages — Free
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2024 n ITHACA, NEW YORK
News
Dining
Science
Weather
Resolution Rejected
Rethinking Eating
Fascinating Feces
Cloudy
Daniela Rojas '25 explores how to navigate relationships with food at college and take care of your body. | Page 5
Tompkins County Legislature rejects Resolution m, which condemed violence in the Middle East in a 7-6 vote. | Page 4
Bumble bee "outhouses" may mitigate disease transmission, Cornell researchers find. | Page 8
HIGH: 51º LOW: 29º
Business Club Culture Revealed Students Reflect By BENJAMIN LEYNSE Sun Contributor
BORIS TSANG / SUN FILE PHOTO
Club critiques | Cornell students attend club fest to learn about various organizations before spring recruitment begins.
Tanvi Bhave ’27, a computer science major interested in exploring business, said that she planned to apply to Delta Sigma Pi until her friend informed her of the organization’s academic hazing misconduct from last spring. DSP is one of Cornell’s more than two dozen business-related clubs and professional fraternities. While many are aware of the club scene’s exclusivity, little is known about what it actually takes to become a member of these organizations. As spring recruitment season roars on, The Sun spoke to business club applicants, members and leaders for an exclusive look at the inner workings of this semester’s recruitment process, revealing reports of alleged misconduct and engineered exclusivity. Alleged Misconduct in the Recruitment Process One student speaking to The Sun on the condition of anonymity went through the interview process for Cornell Undergraduate Asia Business Society — which, according to its website, values “leadership, family and excellence” in its impact on Cornell and the greater business community. CUABS’ first interview round was broken into three rooms — a casing room, a game room and a “shock room,” according
to the source. Applicants assigned to the “shock room” waited silently in a line before being given the number of a room. At first, the students thought they mistakenly went to the wrong room when they were directed to what they described as a “pitch-black classroom.” “There's no … room number [on the door], so you kind of second-guess yourself, but I had no other choice but to go in,” the student said. Through the door was a dark, empty lecture hall with two CUABS members sitting in the back row. Potential new members were instructed to stand on a red “X” at the front of the room, where a projector blared directly into their eyes. They were then asked a series of questions, the student said. Club leaders first asked potential new members about their interest in CUABS, but would repeatedly ask them to speak up throughout their response, to the point where potential new members had to yell. Additional prompts included telling club leaders a joke and identifying their interviewers despite still being in the dark. “The point of it is to have that unexpected shock, because it's not the professional or the stereotypical thing that you would expect when you go into an interview like that,” the student said. Two other students who also went through the recruitment process in fall 2023 confirmed similar experiences in an interview with The Sun. Cornell’s hazing policy bars organizations from facilitating an activity that “causes, encourages or compels another person to engage in any activity that could reasonably be perceived as likely to create a risk of mental, physical or emotional distress or harm” as an “explicit or implicit condition of recruitment, admission, initiation into, affiliation with or new or continued membership status.” This includes activities that “abuse, humiliate, degrade or taunt another person or persons.” CUABS declined to comment. This report comes after DSP’s suspension until spring 2023 for hazing new members. New members were reported to have spent up to 80 hours a week on conducting case studies, completing brotherhood interviews and sending detailed thank-you letters.
After Dean's List Discontinuation By BREANNA FERREIRA Sun Staff Writer
Starting Fall 2023, incoming Cornellians, including the Class of 2027, became ineligible to receive the Dean’s List distinction on their transcript. The move away from the Dean’s List came after discussion within the Faculty Senate regarding equity concerns. The Faculty Senate’s Resolution 182: Regarding the Award of Honors and Distinctions to Cornell’s Undergraduate Students, passed in May 2022, sought to create a more fair and equitable learning environment for students. “[The proposal] is aimed at creating consistency across the undergraduate colleges and schools in the award of academic honors and distinctions and balancing recognition of high-achieving students against amelioration of an unhealthy level of competition at Cornell,” the Faculty Senate wrote in the resolution. Cornell will officially stop listing the honor on student transcripts by Spring 2026, thereby leaving only two Ivy League universities — the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University — maintaining the tradition. Many students, such as Parthenia Tawfik ’26, a student in the College of Arts and Sciences, believe the Dean’s List distinction is less relevant and more arbitrary than it seems. “I didn’t really ever think about it,” Tawfik said. “It’s very much a subjective thing because it’s different across all colleges.”
See BUSINESS CLUBS page 3
See DEAN'S LIST page 4
Test-Optional Policies Maintained by Cornell Admissions By KATE SANDERS and DALTON MULLINS Sun Staff Writers
Cornell Undergraduate Admissions announced on Feb. 6 that it would extend its test-optional and test-blind policies for the Fall 2025 application cycle, leaving all Cornell colleges and schools without a standardized testing requirement. Cornell’s admissions testing policy states that SAT and ACT scores will be considered on an optional basis for the College of Arts and Sciences, the College of Engineering, the College of Human Ecology, the Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences; the College of Architecture, Art and Planning and the Cornell S.C. Johnson College of Business — which includes the School of Hotel Administration and Dyson School of Applied Economics — will remain test-blind and not consider test scores for any applicants. Cornell initially suspended its testing requirement in April 2020 in response to access issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. The University then announced in
September 2021 that this suspension would continue for the Fall 2023 and upcoming Fall 2024 admissions cycles. Tuesday’s announcement comes in the wake of Dartmouth’s Feb. 5 reintroduction of its SAT/ACT requirement. Dartmouth stands alone as the only Ivy League university that will require standardized test scores for admission in Fall 2025, while Columbia announced in March 2023 that it would become permanently test-optional. At the time of publication, Cornell Admissions had not responded to a request for comment on factors that motivated the University’s continuation of testing policy and whether the University plans to continue the suspension of testing requirements in admissions cycles after Fall 2025. Critics of testing requirements have said that the tests do not reflect a student’s full abilities, often citing disparities in standardized testing performance along socioeconomic lines. Research on standardized testing has found that test scores are strongly correlated with annual household income. Opportunity Insights, a research organization in Harvard University’s Department of Economics, found
that students from families whose household income is within the top 20 percent were seven times more likely to score a 1300 or higher on the SAT or a 29 on the ACT than those from families whose household income is within the bottom 20 percent. These scores rank above the 90th percentile of test-takers, according to data from the College Board and ACT. However, in an interview with The New
York Times, Stuart Schmill, the admissions dean at Massachusetts Institute of Technology — which announced their reinstatement of their standardized testing requirement in March 2022 to “better assess the academic preparedness of all applicants” to the university — said that after reinstating testing, diversity increased in the university’s incoming class.
See TEST OPTIONAL page 4
JULIA NAGEL / SUN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Policies persist | Cornell continues its test-optional and test-blind admissions policies.