9-21-23 entire issue hi res

The Corne¬ Daily Sun

Cornell Housing Portal Crashes

Housing selection delayed by one to two days for rising upperclassmen

Guefen '19 to Attempt Pacifc Rowing Voyage

By NIA PERRY Sun Contributor

School of Hotel Administration alumna

By GABRIEL MUÑOZ Sun Staff Writer

The University’s housing portal crashed Tuesday, Sept. 19 shortly after general housing selection began with no clear communication from Housing and Residential Life, creating confusion among students who were told to register for upper-level undergraduate housing starting at 10 a.m. Students reported logging into the housing applications on StarRez when they started to experience delays and unresponsiveness from the site, receiving messages such as “Service temporarily unavailable” and “The system is experiencing higher than expected usage. Please try again later.”

The accelerated general housing selection process is part of the change in the upperclassmen housing selection process announced in May 2023 with the purpose of facilitating on-campus housing for rising upperclassmen for the 2024-2025 school year. The general housing selection process was scheduled to occur on Tuesday after residents wishing to remain in their same room indicated their decision to Housing and Residential Life from Sept. 5 to Sept. 13.

“I feel like there has been a lack of coordination overall this year, a big shortage of housing overall and it seems like [the University] haven’t gotten it figured out,” said Max Warner ’26, who decided to opt

Mayoral Candidates Discuss City Issues

By JONATHAN MONG Sun News Editor

Alderperson Robert Cantelmo grad (D) and Janis Kelly ’71 (R), the major party nominees for mayor of Ithaca, gave a joint interview with community media organization Pegasys on Monday, Sept. 18. The pair discussed some of the most pressing issues affecting the City of Ithaca, such as the negotiations with Cornell over the payment in lieu of taxes from the University to the

city, ways of tackling Ithaca’s housing crisis, progress on Ithaca’s Green New Deal and a citywide increase in crime.

This year’s election comes as the mayor’s role in city government has been reduced due to the new city manager position scheduled to debut in 2024, along with an accompanying 50 percent decrease in salary. However, both Cantelmo and Kelly stated they were running as

Cantelmo

for continuous occupancy instead of applying for the general housing selection. Students who decide to stay in their same room for the following year are guaranteed housing, while those going through the general room selection process are not.

Cornell Housing announced at 9 a.m. via their Instagram story that they were anticipating an increased number of users on the housing portal and urged users to only use one device to log into the portal. At 10 a.m., the account announced that the system was overwhelmed and the general room selection process would be halted and resumed later in the day.

Megan Guefen ’19 will row across the Pacific Ocean in June 2024 as a part of the second Pacific edition of the World’s Toughest Row competition, a pair of endurance races where competitors must row across either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean.

teammates, interviewing multiple people before finalizing their group. They have named their boat the Julie after their late mother, who died of cancer in January.

though

The Pacific race is a 2,800-mile row that begins in Monterey, California and ends in Hanalei, on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Although Megan Guefen had never rowed before making this decision, her sister Gabe Guefen was a rower in college. The two sisters will journey to Hawaii as part of the team Rowing Oceans for Women, which includes two other rowers, Kaitlyn Piltzecker and Hannah Byrd. The sisters did a search for

“[My mom] always taught us that we could always achieve anything we set our minds to and to dream big, and that's exactly what we are doing,” Megan Guefen said.

“We know she's going to bring us good luck on our journey and we hope to make her proud.”

Rowing Oceans for Women aims to break the previous record to complete the row of 34 days for an all-female team on the Pacific route, with shifts of two hours rowing and two hours eating, cleaning, maintaining or fixing equipment and sleeping.

JULIA NAGEL / SUN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Dorm delay | The University's housing portal crashed on Sept. 19 due to an excess number of users, causing a delay in room selection.

Candidate conversation | Mayoral candidates Robert Cantalmo grad (D) and Janis Kelly '71 (R) gave a joint interview on Monday.

KENNETH C. ZIRKEL / COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Rememberance through rowing | Megan Guefen '19 and her sister will row across the Pacific Ocean in honor of their late mother.

COURTESY OF MEGAN GUEFEN

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Today

The Ghost in the Flying Machine: Tracking Elusive Viruses in Fruit Bats

9 a.m. - 10 a.m., Classroom 7, College of Veterinary Medicine at Cornell University

Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Practitioners Network Luncheon

11 a.m. - Noon, G01 Biotechnology Building

S.C. Tsiang Macroeconomics Workshop: Corina Boar

11:35 a.m. - 1:15 p.m., 498 Uris Hall

Seminar: Institute of Artificial Intelligence for Digital Health Noon - 1 p.m., Virtual Event

The Model Minority Myth: Unpacking the Term “Asian Pacific Islander Desi American”

Noon - 1 p.m., Conference Room, 626 Thurston

Ethnocentrism and Democracy Failure in Afghanistan

Noon - 1:15 p.m., G08 Uris Hall

GET SET Institute: Essentials of Teaching — Supporting Student Learning as a Teaching Assistant

Noon - 1:15 p.m., Virtual Event

Biomedical Sciences Seminar Series — Stephen Hatfield, Ph.D.

12:15 p.m. -1:15 p.m., Lecture Hall III (T1003), Vet Research Tower

Human Rights and the Paris Agreement: Representing the Kingdom of Tonga and Small Island States

2:55 p.m. - 4:10 p.m., G90 Myron Taylor Hall

“A Bouqet of Queer Roses: Kabaklaan and the Philippine Pink Power Movement,” Robert Diaz (University of Toronto)

5 p.m. - 6:30 p.m., G22 Goldwin Smith Hall

Tomorrow

Grad Student Workshop: Writing a Diversity Statement for Job Applications

10:30 a.m. - Noon, 112 CALS Zone, Mann Library

Introduction to Market Research

Noon - 1 p.m., 103 Mann Library

Cornell Population Center Innovations Seminar

Noon - 1:15 p.m., 102 Mann Library

International Game Day

Noon - 1:30 p.m., 2219 Martha Van Rensselaer Hall

Architecture, Art and Planning and Cornell Institute of Archaeology and Material Studies Colloquium Lecture — Monumental Lies and the Material Evidence of the Past by Robert Bevan

12:20 p.m. - 2 p.m., Milstein Auditorium, Milstein Hall

Wearable Art, Architecture and The Body

12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m., T01 Human Ecology Building

Performing and Media Arts Presentation Series Colloquium by Performing and Media Arts Assistant Professor Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz

3 p.m., 220 Schwartz Center for Performing Arts

The Bernd Lambert Memorial Lecture With Sharika Thiranagama

3 p.m. - 4:30 p.m., 165 McGraw Hall

Politics, Art and Free Expression

3:30 p.m. - 5 p.m., Wing Lecture Room, Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art

Beating the System: The Many Lives of Dr. Joyce Brothers

4:30 p.m. - 6 p.m., KG70 Klarman Hall

Business

Serena Huang ’24

Ithaca Carshare to Resume Operations March 2024

Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) signed an insurance bill that facilitates Ithaca Carshare’s operations

By DALTON MULLINS and GRACE LIU Sun Contributors

Ithaca Carshare will be returning to the city in March 2024 after it suspended operations in May due to insurance issues. This comes after Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-N.Y.) signed a bill on Friday, Sept. 15 that allows nonprofit risk retention groups not based in New York State to provide auto insurance to New York policyholders.

Ithaca Carshare is New York’s only nonprofit carshare service, providing over 1,500 members with nonstop access to 30 different vehicles. While the service was insured through Philadelphia Insurance — one of only two in New York State willing to insure car sharing companies — the insurance company went off the market in May 2023.

In response, Ithaca Carshare found a risk retention group based in Vermont willing to provide the nonprofit with auto-insurance, but as New York State requires RRGs to be domiciled in New York to offer insurance, Ithaca Carshare was unable to purchase this insurance.

A two-year member of Ithaca Carshare, Orion Smedley grad said he likes using Ithaca Carshare as a safety net. He told The Sun he used Carshare up until the day before the organization closed down because it allowed him to perform essential tasks that would otherwise be difficult, such as assisting a friend with moving.

“There was an [Ithaca Carshare] truck down the street, so I just walked down the street and put it into the website, and then swiped my card and checked out a truck and carried his stuff over,” Smedley said. “[I then] dropped the truck back off. That was super convenient — we just used the truck for like an hour or so. Then the next day it was gone.”

Ever since it lost insurance in May, Ithaca Carshare has been losing revenues due to the pause in operations. Liz Field, director of Ithaca Carshare, said the service’s finances were so

dire that she was the only active employee, and they had sold several cars to meet operating expenses. The lack of revenue also impacted Ithaca Bikeshare and Bike Walk Tompkins, which Ithaca Carshare is partnered with as part of the Center for Community Transportation.

“We furloughed all [the] staff except for myself,” Field said. “We know [Ithaca Bikeshare and Bike Walk Tompkins] have been kind of hobbling along. But without revenue from Carshare, we’ve really been struggling.”

Because Ithaca Carshare cannot resume operations until March 2024, members must find alternative modes of transportation in the meantime. Smedley said he used Ithaca Bikeshare, but added the GPS on the app wasn’t quite accurate.

“I think I’m planning to get a car now,” Smedley said.

Prior to Hochul signing the Webb/Kelles Ithaca Carshare Bill, State Sen. Lea Webb (D-N.Y.) and Assemblywoman Anna Kelles (D-N.Y.) introduced twin bills, Senate Bill 5959 and Assembly Bill 5718, in March 2023 to allow risk retention groups not based in New York to provide auto-insurance to nonprofit organizations such as Ithaca Carshare, allowing them to continue operations.

Webb explained the urgency behind getting the bill signed into law.

“The challenge with this particular bill is that [because] Carshare had stopped operating at the end of May, the timeframe with regards to getting it signed into law was very time sensitive,” Webb told The Sun.

Webb said she had the community in mind when drafting the bill, as well as the environmental impact of Ithaca Carshare. A 2013 study conducted by Cornell found that for every vehicle operated by Ithaca Carshare, 15.3 vehicles were taken off of the road.

“It helps [community residents] to reduce their carbon footprint because we know that cars are some of our largest pollutants that we have that contribute to carbon gas emissions, so it

also helps with getting more cars off the road,” Webb said. Webb concluded by stating the long term impact of the bill.

“The other cool thing about this bill is that it not only will allow for car sharing in Ithaca, but in other communities such as Albany, Rochester [and] Buffalo,” Webb said. “This program not only helps with getting people access to transportation, it also provides jobs that get people connected so they can go to their appointments or work.”

To continue reading this article, please visit www.cornellsun. com.

Car cooperation | Ithaca Carshare stopped operations in May due to insurance issues, propelling revenue loss.

Upper-level Housing Selection Delayed Mayoral Candidates Debate Policy Ideas

HOUSING

did not learn the site had crashed until afterwards.

By

12:40

p.m., Cornell Housing had announced that they were unable to send or receive emails, and around 3 p.m., they posted a final Instagram story indicating that the system was overwhelmed by many more people accessing the website than those who were signed up for room selection. They also announced that the process would resume Wednesday, Sept. 20 at 10 a.m. and that more information would be sent later on the next steps.

“It was pretty stressful because of the housing [process] itself and I had to balance that while taking my prelim — there was still the thought [of housing] on the back of my mind,” said Simon Cespedes ’26, who was taking an exam during the time housing selection process went live and

Students took to social media and online forums like Reddit to voice their discontent with the process. Some criticized the management of general room selection as students were not given a time slot to select rooms as done in past years, which likely resulted in many students attempting to access the portal at once.

“I wish there were time slots for housing. I don’t agree with the idea of just juniors and seniors being able to pick wherever they want to go,” Roselyn Silva ’26 said. “I felt like it was the Hunger Games this morning and I wish the website worked better.”

At 6:15 p.m., Housing and Residential Life released a statement through an email and a written statement on their website. The statement explained that the crash was caused because the web-

site was inundated by 3,000 active users, compared to the 1,200 students registered for the housing selection process. They also announced that they would divide the general room selection process between Wednesday, Sept. 20 at 10 a.m. for students wishing to reside on South Campus, North Campus and the Townhouse Apartments and Thursday, Sept. 21 at 10 a.m. for West Campus. The statement also explained that some housing contracts initiated this morning were not able to be finalized, resulting in the cancellation of some room assignments for students who signed up for housing on Tuesday.

“We believe a small number of students selected a bed this morning, but due to the glitches everyone faced, these housing contracts were not finalized, and these students will need to participate in the process again,” the statement read. “We are communicating separately with those individuals.”

MAYOR

Continued from page 1

“I have likened the new role of the mayor as being sort of a majority leader for [the Common Council], someone who can work with the different neighborhoods and the different wards across the city, someone who can work with the different communities and the different issues and try to bring [Common Council] together toward consensus,” Cantelmo said, who currently serves as an alderperson for the Fifth Ward.

staffing problems. And that is not something that somebody is going to parachute in and save us from — we’re going to have to do that ourselves.”

The biggest point of disagreement was the negotiation over Cornell’s PILOT payments to the city, where Kelly accused the city of erring during negotiations by not accepting Cornell’s initial offer of $3.15 million per year — less than 10 percent of the $33 million it would owe in property taxes if it were not tax exempt.

Housing and

Residential

Life told The Sun they are working to fix the problems on the portal to allow students to reserve housing on Wednesday.

“We apologize for what proved to be a frustrating experience, and we’re sympathetic to those who spent time trying to secure the housing they hoped for,” Karen Brown, senior director of campus life marketing and communications wrote in a statement to The Sun. “We’re optimistic that things will go more smoothly when the process resumes tomorrow.”

Kelly, on the other hand, said she felt the city’s government is failing its residents and her goal as mayor would be to bring a more neighborly attitude to local politics.

“The way I think of it is turning away from the politics of grievance to the politics of gratitude and compassion, and working together as neighbors,” Kelly said.

“And we’re going to have to come together to solve the problems because the city’s in a mess. We have crime problems, money problems, flooding problems, infrastructure problems and huge

“The three anonymous people negotiating on the city’s behalf dropped the ball and turned down $3 million and asked for five and Cornell walked away from the negotiations,” Kelly said. “So I don’t know where that stands. But once the memorandum of understanding expires, the city has a $1.6 million hole in the budget where the Cornell contribution used to go because they’ve screwed up the negotiations.”

Hectic housing | Cornell’s housing portal crashed on Tuesday, causing confusion for students participating in the accelerated upperclassmen housing selection process.

Gabriel Muñoz can be reached at gmunoz@cornellsun.com.

Dalton Mullins can be reached at ddm88@cornell.edu. Grace Liu can be reached at gml93@cornell.edu.

Candidates for Mayor Discuss Key Issues During Monday Interview

Since the debate’s taping on Sept. 12, the two sides have come to an agreement — which will go to a vote at a special Common Council meeting on Sept. 20 — where Cornell will pay Ithaca $4 million, adjusted annually for inflation.

Cantelmo disagreed with Kelly, saying Cornell is a part of the Ithaca community — as are its students, faculty and staff — and the University should therefore be expected to contribute its fair share to its well-being.

“What the city provides in terms of its geography, its resources, its infrastructure, the students and their families all draw upon, as do the faculty and staff,” Cantelmo said. “Those things require maintenance, they require attention, they require reinvestment. And I think it was a very smart call by the negotiating team to basically say that this was not an acceptable offer.”

Cantelmo went on, saying Cornell has to accept its responsibility for poor infrastructure conditions due to the city’s lack of funding for repairs.

“Responsibility there rests with the university system that has decided to say, ‘We are not willing to make this investment. We are not willing to

provide roads for our students,’”

Cantelmo said. “Cornell is more than welcome to not pay for their own roads, if they want to instead contribute to the city and they want to get to the back of the line, like everyone else in the community who has to wait for road repair because we’re insufficiently able to cover the DPW replacement costs.”

The two also disagreed on the best way to approach the city’s housing crisis, though both candidates said there were certain regulations needed to change. Cantelmo argued in favor of what he called the “missing middle” — the bridge between freestanding single-family homes and apartment complexes that often take the form of duplexes and townhomes — saying his goal was to allow Ithacans to purchase homes.

“We need more diversity of options for the people in this community,” Cantelmo said. “You used to be able to start working and purchase a starter home. And the ability to do that, not just in Ithaca, but across the nation, has really diminished.”

Kelly, however, said she was against regulation of housing developments, saying developers find Ithaca’s regulations so burdensome that they choose instead not to build in Ithaca at all.

“Just about any housing developer you talk to about building in the city of Ithaca will tell you, ‘There are too many hurdles, there are too many regulations. It’s not worth it,’” Kelly said. “So they go to Lansing.”

Both Cantelmo and Kelly agreed on fully funding the Ithaca Police Department, especially given an increase in crime around the city.

“For the city to become vibrant again, people have to feel safe, and public spaces have to be safe,” Kelly said. “And you have to not be forever hassled by somebody who’s off their head on drugs.”

Cantelmo said the best way of addressing the crime rate is to increase support for those in need.

“When there’s a lack of housing, especially in supportive services for folks who are transitioning out of being unhoused, or people who are at risk for becoming unhoused — when that infrastructure isn’t there, people are falling through the gaps,” Cantelmo said. “And that’s not a recipe for a vibrant community.”

Election Day is on Nov. 7, and early voting is from Oct. 28 to Nov. 5.

Hotel Alumna to Row Across Pacifc Ocean in Honor of Late Mother

ROWING

Continued from page 1

Since rowers will not be able to sleep for more than 90 minutes at a time, they often lose weight and experience hallucinations during the race, according to the World’s Toughest Row website.

Megan Guefen said she and her team are rowing completely unsupported, meaning they are carrying all of the supplies that will sustain them during their journey across the Pacific. These supplies include oars, medical kits, food, coffee and a solar-powered water maker on the boat.

The team has already begun their training for this endeavor. To focus solely on preparing for the race, Megan Guefen has resigned from her job. Training programs should involve a total of at least 72 hours of on-water training before the race, with at least 12 of those hours being conducted in complete darkness, according to Rowing Oceans for Women’s website.

Rowing Oceans for Women has launched a fundraiser on their website to financially

support the entire race. Megan Guefen said they plan to donate any additional financial sponsorship assistance to the Hawai’i Domestic Violence Action Center and the Women’s Sports Foundation.

“Seeing that our mission is to inspire women to take on their biggest challenges, we feel that it is important to give back to communities that uplift and empower women,” Megan Guefen said.

Megan Guefen said that her mother’s legacy propels her passion to break gender barriers.

“As our mom inspired us, we hope to inspire other women to take on whatever challenge is in front of them regardless of if it seems impossible on paper. More often than not, women are disregarded when our goals are perceived as being set too high or even considered ‘crazy,’” Megan Guefen said. “We want to prove that there is no such thing as a dream too big.”

Jonathan Mong can be reached at jmong@cornellsun.com.

Nia Perry can be reached at ncp44@cormell.edu.

Dining Guide The Cornell Daily Sun | Tursday, September 21, 2023 5 Dining Guide

BY KATIE RUEFF Sun Dining Contributor

magine this. You’ve just had a delicious breakfast at Morrison. You filled your plate high with steaming pancakes and berries, tater tots, and a couple of hard-boiled protein-packed eggs. You even went back to the dessert bar for a waffle, but ended up only eating half. Now, you’re walking to the dish drop with your fork, a couple of dirty napkins, crumbled egg shells and that oddly enticing half-waffle. You scrape everything on your plate into the trash can and plop your plate and fork onto the dish hopper. You stroll out, satiated and confident, picking up the pace, realizing you’re almost late to your first prelim.

I

You tell me. Campus waste clubs and the Sustainability Office have struggled for years to promote a culture of composting on Cornell’s campus. No matter the education campaign they drive or the events they run, these groups continue to face waste contamination, ruining their waste sorting efforts. With COVID-19, inspiring compost programs died out, and with it, apparently, our ability to read signs.

Now, these campus clubs––Cornell Compost and Residential Sustainability Leaders, to name a few––are returning in full force. They’re collaborating across a large network of Cornell offices and departments, making it as convenient as possible to mitigate food waste. Nevertheless, here we are: leaving our utensils on our plates and dumping our food scraps into garbage bins.

Okay, so I’ve berated you enough. Why should you even care about composting anyway? Well, according to the EPA, “organic waste in landfills generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas. By composting wasted food and other organics, methane emissions are significantly reduced.” Along with mitigating the effects of climate change, composting can reduce and eliminate the need for chemical fertilizers. Additionally, composting has been proven to increase crop yield!

Convinced? Want to play your part? Well, here’s my handy dandy guide to mitigating your waste on campus: For starters,

respect dining workers. Make their lives easier. Sort your utensils to help our under-paid, overworked dining folks with dishwashing. If human empathy isn’t enough of an incentive, know that the alternative is flimsy paper plates and plastic utensils that break a couple of bites in. Secondly, read the signs. Don’t scrape your food into the trash bin. Leave it on your plate. Cornell Dining composts in the back! Plus it’s less work for you.

out for Residential Sustainability Leaders’ Terracycle boxes that will be up and running again in certain study areas. Terracycle lets you recycle traditionally non-recyclable items like chips and candy wrappers. Each Terracycle bin will tell you exactly what they can accept. So prepare your snacking appropriately! Sick? Live in a dorm? There’s probably a compost bin in at least one of your kitchens. Save all of your tissues and comfort food scraps after you get over your cold and compost both in your dorm’s compost bin!

There’s a major knowledge gap between what people know and don’t know about composing. What can that be attributed to? Let me know your thoughts; which of these methods have you heard of before?

Enjoy free food? Want a single egg? Stop by Annabel’s Grocery. They source local produce from Dilmun Hill and leftover foods from Cornell Dining. They even have a free food section and host free dinners open to all Cornell students! Like chips? Candy? Forget to throw out the wrappers? Keep an eye

Tossed Up: Enriching Your Salad Combinations

BY EIRIAN HUANG Sun Dining Contributor

4. Green Goddess:

T

hough often overlooked, salads are one of the most customizable foods, especially in campus dining halls. However, the expansive salad bar offered in our dining halls is often overwhelming, confusing and has a lot of room for error.

1. Classic Caesar:

Start with kale, romaine or base of choice and add cheese and chicken (or tofu). If it happens to be chicken tender or nuggets day, try adding those for some extra crunch and flavor (instead of the sometimes half-thawed salad bar chicken.) Top with croutons,the most important part, and a generous drizzle of Caesar dressing.

2. Harvest Bowl:

Start with leafy greens, cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, beets and carrots. If you happen to be in Morrison, venture to the vegan section and grab some sweet potatoes. Add quinoa or any other type of grain and top with cranberries, pumpkin seeds, and honey mustard.

3. Mediterranean:

Not all salads require leafy greens! To create your own palatable Mediterranean-style salad, skip the leaves and head for the cucumbers, onions and tomatoes. Sprinkle on feta cheese and drizzle with oil and vinegar or even some balsamic vinaigrette. Add hummus on the side and enjoy with pita chips.

Rose dining’s Green Goddess dressing is the hidden emblem of West Campus Dining. Paired with edamame, kale, carrots, chickpeas and a handful of nuts, you may almost believe you’re eating a $15 salad from a chain restaurant.

5. Taco Salad:

Due to my fear of lacking fiber and becoming malnourished in my freshmen year, I slowly discovered the great things the salad bar has to offer. Nowadays, I always accompany my meal with a side salad and have mastered my own combinations.If it happens to be Taco Tuesday, walk yourself to the salad bar and get some greens, then top with classic taco toppings: cheese, salsa, sour cream, guac, jalapenos, and protein of choice. Pair with tortilla chips for an extra crunch.

6. Arugula Strawberry:

College of Arts & Sciences. She can be reached ehh56@cornell.edu

is a frst year

the

Meanwhile, back in the dining hall, a lonely figure looms over the trash can. It wears a solemn face: a sign. The sign that reads, in bold font: “Please do not throw food scraps in the garbage.” So, have Cornell students lost their ability to read? Why isn’t composting common knowledge yet? Have we wasted painstakingly clear waste education?DANIELA ROJAS / SUN DINING EDITOR There are many different kinds of salads to fit a variety of taste palettes. All dining halls on campus have salad bars/ EMMA GOLDENTHAL / COURTESY OF CORNELL COMPOST These are examples of several things you can compost. Katie Ruef is a frst year in the College of Arts and Sciences. She can be reached at kr468@cornell.edu. cornellsun.com

SUBMIT A LETTER TO THE EDITOR OR GUEST COLUMN

The Cornell Daily Sun is devoted to publishing a broad and diverse set of content from the Cornell and greater Ithaca community.

We want to hear what you have to say about today's paper or any of our pieces.

Guidelines on how to submit can be found at Cornellsun.com. And here is our email: opinion@cornellsun.com

Daniel R. Schwarz

Te Function of the University Classroom

“It can never be satisfied, the mind, never.”

I wish to discuss what University professors do other than engaging in research and conveying crucial information. In the midst of my 56th year since arriving at Cornell I continue to reflect on my teaching goals and to savor the joy I take in teaching.

If career preparation is the daily prose of the University, then the poetry is what happens when teachers and students join in the pursuit of knowledge, working collaboratively to create communities of inquiry in which we learn together, muster evidence and respond to the ideas of others with respect.

As teachers and mentors, whether in STEM, social sciences or humanities, we can share with students the ideal of learning for its own sake, the pleasure of reading and knowing and the necessity of continually questioning accepted truths, including those propounded by us teachers. Whatever our fields, we can share a sense of wonder and discovery with our students.

As a humanist, I want my classroom to be a site where 1) we have a common sense of purpose; 2) the work we are discussing says something crucial to every student, even as it arouses wonderment in response to its artistry and 3) my students share with me the expectation that we will fulfill the possibility of learning together.

As the term progresses, the students in a successful class commit to not only the material and the teacher, but to each other, and the class becomes an intellectual community. Clearly this is easier in small classes, but I have seen it happen to a degree even in classes of 70 or 80 or more.

Teaching is a collaborative activity in so many ways. I tell my students I can do my part to make our class a memorable experience, but I cannot do it alone. Each meeting of a course matters not because it will necessarily help students earn more money, but because learning is an end in itself. Yes, I know students have practical goals and I respect that, but we aim to make our classes oases where other values, especially the pursuit of knowledge, prevail.

Teaching is a collaborative activity in so many ways. I tell my students I can do my part to make our class a memorable experience, but I cannot do it alone. Each meeting of a course matters not because it will necessarily help students earn more money, but because learning is an end in itself. Yes, I know students have practical goals and I respect that, but we aim to make our classes oases where other values, especially the pursuit of knowledge, prevail.

If we can teach our students to think critically, to read complex and nuanced texts, to propose an argument based on evidence (which is crucial not only to STEM but all fields), to synthesize what they are learning, to write lucidly and precisely while holding in their minds several ideas at once and to speak articulately, we will have accomplished a great deal. If we teach our students to listen carefully and respectfully to the ideas of others, and to appreciate the views of others who may be from different cultures and socio-economic backgrounds, we will have

done even more. Teaching students how to take part respectfully in the give-and-take of informed discussion is to create citizens who sustain democracy and contribute to our communities.

Inspiring teachers shape their students, perhaps most by opening the door to future learning in terms of encouraging reading, curiosity and awareness of the world. Helping students realize their potential and not only achieve their immediate goals, but also set lofty goals for the future should be our teaching goal. Our role is helping to transform possibility into actuality, while giving students the confidence to do more than they think they can do. Important, too, is knowing that sometimes the best five words you can say to a student are, “I am here for you.”

I have never taught a class at Cornell where I did not learn from the insights of students, more and more of whom come from different backgrounds and countries. Students keep me on the pulse of social change and aware of campus issues. I have taught many of the major editors of The Cornell Daily Sun, and they have heightened my awareness of what is happening on campus.

One crucial aspect of good teaching is listening. Efficacy as a teacher is enhanced by interest in students and their knowing we respect what they say, how they feel and what they care about. Empathy and sympathy matter when students are having troubles and frustrations. We need to try to hear what students are saying, and sometimes what they are saying requires interpreting because they may be speaking obliquely. I should add that I don’t pretend to be a psychotherapist, and when I think a student needs help, I refer her or him to those who are professionals.

Let me turn to my own field. As a professor of English, my focus is on teaching literature. Among other things, I want to convey what serious literature does: 1) It takes us into the worlds of others, including different times and places; 2) It exposes us to dialogues among characters that reveal different perspectives; 3) It teaches us how to love and respect words; 4) It pushes us to think about how we would respond to ethical quandaries.

When we begin reading an imaginative work we are sealed off from the rest of the world. Whether reading fiction, poetry or drama we enter a created world with its own geography, temporality and history as well as its cultural assumptions about how people should behave.

As a teacher I keep in mind Emerson’s great essay “The American Scholar.” For him The American Scholar needs be “Man [and Women] Thinking”— thinking as an active and creative power of mind — rather than “a mere thinker, or worse yet the parrot of other’s people’s thinking.” What he meant is that a Woman or a Man thinking has an obligation “to see the world clearly, not severely influenced by traditional/historical views and to broaden understanding of the world from fresh eyes and not to defer to the popular cry.” These qualities of vision, I submit, are the qualities for which we as teachers and students must strive.

Daniel R. Schwarz is the Frederic J. Whiton Professor of English Literature and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Fellow in the College of Arts & Sciences. He is Te Cornell Daily Sun’s 2023 visiting columnist. He can be reached at drs6@cornell.edu.

Sundoku

Puzzle 3389

TELEPHOTO DOG

Fill in the empty cells, one number in each, so that each column, row, and region contains the numbers 1-9 exactly once. Each number in the solution therefore occurs only once in each of the three “directions,” hence the “single numbers” implied by the puzzle’s name. (Rules from wikipedia.org/wiki/ Sudoku)

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Mr. Gnu

Mr. Gnu

Mr. Gnu

SC I ENCE 2023 Nexus Scholars Speak On Summer Research

By BRENDA KIM Sun Staff Writer

The Nexus Scholars Program hosted 80 undergraduates from the College of Arts and Sciences this past summer, providing them an opportunity to engage in eight and a half weeks of research at the University in topics ranging from Asian studies to neurobiology.

Designed for students who have minimal research experience, Nexus requires applicants to rank three of their preferred choices from a list of faculty mentors — also known as principal investigators — or choose a PI who is not on the list.

Prof. Sylvia Lee, molecular biology and genetics, who is also an inaugural Nexus PI, worked with Tenzin Dhasel ‘25 over the summer to study the role of nutrition on fertility in C. elegans, a model organism for studying genetics.

The team specifically focused on NHR-49, a nuclear hormone receptor in C. elegans.

A nuclear hormone receptor is a transcription factor — a protein that controls the rate of transcription of DNA to mRNA — whose activity is regulated by the hormone bound to them.

In the first part of a two part

project, Dhasel investigated the effects of the C. elegans’ diet on controlling its localization to the nucleus. Localization refers to the process by which a complex such as a protein is transported or maintained in a specific location.

NHR-49 is localized to the

nucleus when a ligand — a molecule that binds to a protein — binds to it. Dhasel focused on how changing the diet to remove the ligands would affect this nuclear localization.

C. elegans have two ligands, bmeth#1 and becyp#1, that bind to

NHR-49. While bmeth#1 comes from within the worm, becyp#1 is produced by the bacteria that the model organism preys upon.

After discovering these two ligands, one of which was discovered by the Schroeder Lab, they focused on the interaction

between the ligands and how food could affect the transcription factor NHR-49, which is important in regulating fat metabolism for obesity and diabetes.

To remove bacterial ligand becyp#1, Dhasel fed the worms bacteria that did not have becyp#1 while the other ligand was removed by mutating the worms. She found that while there wasn’t a clear difference in nuclear localization between the first-generation of worms, worms that produced the ligand and were not fed the bacteria saw a decrease in nuclear localization in second generation worms.

The second part of her project then focused on how NHR-49 could affect oocyte activation in feminized worms. While mutations in a sperm gene lead to the production of oocytes — immature eggs — and no sperm in feminized worms, mutations in NHR-49 in these feminized worms led oocytes to act as if there was sperm present. This resulted in the production of excessive unfertilized oocytes.

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Weill Cornell Lab Uncovers New Information About Malaria Transmission Pathway

By ANNA LABINER Sun Staff Writer

Researchers at Weill Cornell recently published a study in Nature Microbiology that highlights the newly discovered intricacies of the malaria transmission cycle. The results of their study could have implications for how scientists approach malaria prevention in the future.

Malaria is a life-threatening disease transmitted by mosquitoes that disproportionately affects tropical countries. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, malaria is a leading cause of death and disease in low- and middle-income countries and remains a significant global health problem.

The cause of malaria is a microscopic organism called a protozoan — more specifically the parasitic protozoan, plasmodium. This parasite lives in two different hosts: humans and mosquitoes. While there are five species of plasmodium that routinely cause malaria in humans, the species P. falciparum is most life-threatening, making it a favorable research target for labs like Kafsack’s.

When an infected mosquito bites a person, it transmits a form of the parasite called sporozoites to the human host. The sporozoites then travel through the blood vessels and infect liver cells, where they reproduce asexually. The parasites then burst out of the liver cell in a new form called merozoites and enter the bloodstream, where they target red blood cells. Inside red blood cells, the merozoites form a ring-like structure called a trophozoite.

Most trophozoites reproduce asexually and release more merozoites into the bloodstream, but some perform sexual reproduction, forming cells called gameto-

cytes. While the asexual blood stages are not infectious to a mosquito, gametocytes are. Because malaria is not directly transmitted between humans, the parasite must return to a mosquito host to complete its transmission cycle — this is accomplished through a blood meal, in which the mosquito ingests the malaria parasites in their sexual form from the human.

While asexual replication keeps the human host infected with malaria, sexual replication is crucial for transmission to a mosquito host, and both are needed to complete the malaria cycle.

The regulation of developmental transitions in these blood cells is the primary focus of the paper’s senior author, Prof. Björn Kafsack, microbiology and immunology. First author Chantal Harris grad performed most of the experiments for the study in Kafsack’s lab, according to

Kafsack.

The way that gametocytes regulate their formation involves a transcription factor, AP2-G. When AP2-G is turned on, allowing for gene expression, parasites become gametocytes in the human host. When ingested by a mosquito, these gametocytes mediate the transmission of malaria to the mosquito host.

“Basically, the question is how does the parasite control how many gametocytes it makes, or how often does it turn a gene on,” Kafsack said.

When chromatin — the building blocks of chromosomes made of DNA and proteins — are very tightly packed, gametocytes cannot be formed. When chromatin is not packed densely enough, the gene is not silenced properly, resulting in gametocyte formation.

Kafsack’s research stems from a separate

2017 study, which found that lysoPC, a lipid biomolecule, suppresses P. falciparum’s gametocyte formation. Kafsack and his team wanted to find the link between lysoPC and the AP2-G transcription factor.

The lab found that the parasite uses a choline molecule to create its membrane. LysoPC is used to synthesize the precursor for choline. However, when the precursor is scarce, the parasite finds a new way to synthesize choline, consuming a molecule called S-adenosylmethionine, or SAM, in the process. The consumption of SAM impairs the dense packing of chromatin that is needed to silence AP2-G, which results in gametocyte formation.

“If the parasite has to make a lot of phosphocholine itself, the brake pads wear down on the silencing of AP2-G, so silencing becomes leaky, so you make more gametocytes,” Kafsack said.

This conclusion provides insight into how gametocyte formation is regulated in malaria parasites.

The application of Kafsack’s research is largely disease prevention. Though altering gametocyte formation would not benefit an already infected individual, it could prevent the future spread of the disease. Because P. falciparum is so adaptable to human and mosquito hosts, malaria has proven to be a very difficult disease to treat — however, Kafsack’s research sheds light on important molecular mechanisms that regulate infection.

“We need drugs that kill the asexual stages, which is what gives people malaria, but we also need to find ways of blocking transmission, and understanding how that works is what my lab does,” Kafsack said.

Brenda Kim can be reached at bmk86@cornell.edu.

Summer savants | The Cornell Nexus Scholars Program gives Arts and Sciences students an entry into undergraduate research in any field across the College, from STEM to the humanities.

Pathogens and pests | Weill Cornell researchers have unlocked new discoveries about malaria transmission that may help with disease prevention in the future.