INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 135, No. 81
TUESDAY, APRIL 23, 2019
n
16 Pages – Free
ITHACA, NEW YORK
News
Arts
Sports
Weather
Violinist
Political Satire
Men’s Tennis
Partly Cloudy Showers
Prof. Ariana Kim shares her experiences as a Grammynominated violinist.
“Is SNL still relevant?” Ethan Wu ’21 offers his take on the satirical political comedy.
| Page 3
The squad keeps its sights set on an Ivy title in the final regular season match.
| Page 9
HIGH: 72º LOW: 40º
| Page 16
President Pollack Outlines Her Goals, Stresses Diversity Reform at GPSA Meeting By OLIVIA WEINBERG Sun Staff Writer
President Martha E. Pollack ran through a laundry list of ongoing initiatives at the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly on Monday, including efforts to improve mental health, provide more assistance for international students and students with disabilities, and
increase diversity of both the undergraduate and graduate student bodies. She said during the meeting that the initiatives she detailed just “scratched the surface” of all the ongoing projects within the graduate school. According to Pollack, graduate students have experienced a disproportionate number of referrals to outside sources, and she said the administration does
“recognize that and are changing that.” Pollack elaborated on Cornell’s mental health initiative, which she had outlined at previous GPSA meetings. These initiatives included expanding Cornell’s Counseling and Psychiatry services to include three more therapists and more scheduled times for walk-in appointSee GPSA page 5
MICHELLE YANG / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
GPSA | President Martha E. Pollack addresses student concerns at the Graduate Professional Student Assembly meeting on Monday.
Sexual Assault Awareness Week Slated to Begin April 29
Week packed with events aimed at challenging stigma, increasing awareness of on-campus violence By ALEC GIUFURTA Sun Staff Writer
COURTESY OF SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS WEEK
Awareness | Sexual assault survivors submit confessions about their experience and trauma last year.
In October, it was revealed that Cornell University has the highest number of reported sexual assault incidents among New York State colleges. In 2017, a campus climate survey detailed that 55 percent of Cornell students had experienced sexual harassment. Sexual Assault Awareness Week, starting on April 29, aims to change these statistics. Slated for its fifth iteration, the week is marked by a series of community events, curated to increase awareness of sexually related harassment on campus. This year, the week incorporated a different approach for outreach, according to
Alumnus-Run Company Wins $1M By SARAH SKINNER Sun Managing Editor
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a — drone? Upstate New York may see more of the electronic aircraft in the near future, as an alumnus-run company takes to the skies with a $1 million
grand prize grant from the GENIUS NY competition. Five teams pitched projects to a panel of judges in Syracuse last month, and Italian firm Sentient Blue — founded by Saïf-Deen Akanni ’90 — emerged with the top bid. The state-sponsored award goes
COURTESY OF CENTERSTATE CEO
Competition | Saif-Deen Akanni ’90, the founder, CEO and chief technical officer of Sentient Blue, presents his company’s proposal at the state competition.
to initiatives to up the development of unmanned systems technology within New York in hopes of boosting the economy as well. Sentient Blue was founded in Parma, Italy, in 2017, according to its website, and has since expanded out of Europe and into the United States. The company lists its main goal as the development of “efficient, more environmentally friendly micro gas turbine based power plants,” which can be used in unmanned aerial vehicles — drones. These microturbines loosely mimic larger ones found in jet aircraft, while employing techniques to See DRONES page 5
Marissa Block ’19, co-lead on the planning committee. “Something [we] were trying to do this year is to make sure everyone has a place in this discussion,” Block told The Sun. “[We are] reaching out to different groups on campus who would not hear about this ordinarily.” This includes discussions with campus leaders from a wide array of academic, cultural, sports and pre-professional organizations, Block said. Renee Odom ’20, president of ConsentEd, explained that club leadership structures play a role in the prevalence of sexual assault. “A lot of students have come forward about leaders in organizations
having assaulted or coerced them,” Odom said, adding that this topic has often been “handled incorrectly or insensitively” in the past. A discussion on May 1 will highlight this issue in particular. The main takeaway, Block said, is for students to realize why it’s important to bring everyone into the discussion. The week sets goals for both awareness and change, including creating “action items” after each event, according to Block. Some of the events for the week show the intention of widening outreach. Coordinators will screen an episode of the popular documentary series Surviving R. Kelly on See AWARENESS page 5
Floral profusion
CAITLIN OCHS / THE NEW YORK TIMES
These two men were among the thousands who donned their best bonnets and headgear at the annual Easter Parade and Bonnet Festival on 5th Avenue in Manhattan, New York City.