Campus

ENTER THE DRAGON | A Look Inside Dragon Day 2017

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With Dragon Day fast approaching, we recently asked a few members of the team behind the beast to share their thoughts and experiences on the process of creating the famed Dragon, from the initial E-board elections to the mad-dash of Dragon Week. Here’s what they said:
Yueer Niu, E-Board: Fundraising and T-shirts Chair
When Cornell students first hear the words “Dragon Day,” their usual reaction is not excitement or anticipation but confusion. Although for most student on campus, Dragon Day is nothing more than a day when architecture students go crazy (and a day when people actually see us outside the studio); for the AAP (Art, Architecture, and Planning) community, it’s a powerful and transformative experience. Dragon Day, for us, starts two months before the day of the parade with a meeting conducted by second-year architecture students. E-board is chosen at this meeting in a democratic process; leaders are not only delegated the work involved with planning, but the huge amounts of stress and frustration that are side effects to that work.

Campus

TRAVELIN’ WITH JACQUELINE | 7 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Cornell

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This week I’ve decided to compile a list of interesting facts (or secrets!) that I’ve gradually discovered about Cornell this year. On their own, each of these locations would not constitute a complete blog post, which is why this one contains seven. Some of these revelations are intriguing, some are quirky and one is chilling… so let’s get started!  

1) Underground Tunnels

It wasn’t until perusing Reddit that I found out that there exists under Cornell a network of underground tunnels. There’s (a) Ezra’s Tunnel, which runs between Risley and Rand Hall; (b) a tunnel connecting Olin and Uris Libraries; and (c) a tunnel running from the Plant Science Building to Weill Hall, beneath Tower Road.

Campus

SUNSPOTS | Immediate Reactions To This Year’s Slope Day Artists

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If you haven’t read the news yet, this year’s Slope Day headliners will be MisterWives and Big Gigantic, with Brasstracks and S’Natra also performing. Our writers share their immediate reactions to finding out the lineup.  

Gabe Ares ‘19

When I heard that the Slope Day headliners were about to be announced, I, much like the squirrel awakened from hibernation, dug into my stash of memes I had been hoarding since last Slope Day. I looked through my musical meme folder, from Andre 3000 to the Zac Brown band, only to realize I had no idea who these people were. At first, I felt short-changed by the fact that we didn’t get a superstar, but listening to the groups tells me they’re nothing to cry about.

Politics

KRAVITZ’S KORNER | Title IX Tyranny

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On January 25, the U.S. Department of Education initiated its sixth inquiry into alleged mishandling of sexual assault investigations by Cornell University, in accordance with Title IX of the United States Education Amendments of 1972. While seemingly well-intentioned, the Department of Education’s aggressive application of Title IX is a disquieting assault on the United States Constitution and individual rights. Title IX prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. In 2011, the Office of Civil Rights heavily expanded Title IX’s interpretation by disseminating the “Dear Colleague” letter. This communication, which was distributed with the noble intention of reducing sexual assault on college campuses, directed universities to evaluate sexual assault cases based on the “preponderance of the evidence” standard, as opposed to the “beyond reasonable doubt” standard, which is used for all other criminal cases.

Politics

KRAVITZ’S KORNER | We Need to Rethink First-Year Diversity Programs

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Cornell University recently decided to replace Tapestry of Possibilities — the diversity event that has been presented to incoming first-year students for the past 11 years — with the Identity and Belonging Project. This change was due to a host of complaints leveled against the old program, particularly the failure of the old program to encompass enough topics. The University’s decision to modify this decade-long program brings into question the efficacy of diversity programs, and whether they are really needed.  

Diversity programs instill in students the belief that anything that can be remotely perceived as offensive (i.e. microaggressions) is indeed offensive and should therefore be prohibited. On today’s college campuses, speech that is innocuous in mainstream society is often misconstrued as offensive.

Politics

ANDREW SHI | On Hiring Conservative Faculty

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Re: “What Kind of White Faculty Should We Hire?,” Sunspots, Dec. 10

Christian Brickhouse recently penned an ambitious essay in this newspaper. Amongst other things, the author argued against the idea of creating a political diversity initiative in campus-wide faculty hiring. This “Republican Affirmative Action” as he coins it does sound counterintuitive, if not offensive. After all, CS majors or sociolinguists or behavioral psychologists are no more likely to better understand concepts taught by a Republican professor.

Politics

LETTER TO THE EDITOR | What Kind of White Faculty Should We Hire?

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By Christian Brickhouse

Re: “Liberal Intolerance at Cornell,” Sunspots, Dec. 7

To the Editor:

In the last few weeks, The Cornell Daily Sun has published a number of articles by conservative students decrying the lack of “intellectual diversity.” Indeed, last week, a resolution was proposed at the Student Assembly meeting to ask the Faculty Assembly to create a committee on diversity of thought. They diminish “diversity of thought” from the broad and deep intricacies of each field to one of partisan politics. They ignore the glaring racial disparities in hiring at Cornell and replace it with a discourse on hiring more “conservatives” (read: white people). To put this in no uncertain terms, these efforts couch veiled white supremacy in an otherwise valid aspect of academic discourse in order to make it seem more legitimate and palatable.

Politics

KRAVITZ’S KORNER | Liberal Intolerance at Cornell

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Evelyn Beatrice Hall, in her biography of Voltaire, famously coined the phrase, “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This should be a universally accepted principle at Cornell. But sadly, it is not. On November 30, Cornell Republicans hosted former U.S. Congressman and presidential candidate Rick Santorum. As a Republican known for his unabashed support of social conservatism and of Donald Trump, Santorum was met with fervent protest outside the event, which is allowed per University policy. At the beginning of the event, the president of Cornell Republicans kindly asked that audience members do not interrupt Santorum and defer all questions until the end of the speech.

Politics

BETWEEN BARS | Prisoners and Playwrights

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I’ve had two thoughts about theatre. The first is that it is a high art form. It is difficult to understand, like the complex symphony or the abstract painting—a sensory experience for refined tastes. The second impression I’ve had of theatre is that it is meant to entertain. People attend theatre performances because they want to have a good time.