As 2022 draws to the close, the Cornell Review staff looks back to highlight the most important stories of the calendar year.
Cornell University’s COVID-19 Response
Cornell’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic probably had the greatest impact of any development on the entire Cornell community. The year started with Cornell stubbornly maintaining a policy based upon preventing Cornell students from being exposed to the virus and ended the year with an end to surveillance testing and masking requirements. However, Cornell continues to enforce a vaccination mandate upon students. In January, Cornell announced that the first two weeks of instruction would be remote. It suddenly curtailed in-person Greek life recruitment events, resulting in rush shifting from the week before classes to virtual recruitment overlapping with the spring semester. Recruitment for all student organizations was affected, such as delaying ClubFest deep into February, only a week before the first major break of the semester.
At the end of July, Cornell finally relented on its mask mandate. With this announcement, the most visible hallmark of two years of public health policy at Cornell came to an end. By the fall, Cornell completed a transition to full in-person instruction as well as in-person campus life. Mandatory surveillance testing ended in August. The Cornell Review, the Sun, sport teams and other activities all managed to transition to in-person.
Free Speech
Cornell’s campus climate and student acceptance of freedom of expression and academic freedom hit an all-time low. This was made evident by a visit from Ann Coulter ‘84, who was prevented from speaking after Cornell refused to withdraw her invitation to speak on campus. On March 31, students also protested a Federalist Society debate between Jordan Lorence, senior counsel at the conservative advocacy organization Alliance Defending Freedom, and Cornell constitutional law professor Nelson Tebbe. Finally, students from mainland China staged a loud walkout on March 10 when a Uyghur student asked a question at a CIPA-sponsored lecture by Rep, Elissa Slotkin ’98 (D-MI).
There were also efforts to improve the campus climate. The Cornell Review sponsored two on-campus panel discussions on how to improve the climate, and the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) ran a publicity campaign to promote improvement.
The Cornell Review, the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, ACTA, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the Martin Center formally asked Cornell to include free speech as a new student orientation topic, and we are awaiting a response from Day Hall.
The Cornell Review and ACTA also called for Cornell to adopt the Kalven Report, which would have Cornell’s Administration refrain from issuing official positions on the social issues of the day. This would leave Cornellians to make up their own minds on political questions.
Quality of Student Life
Cornell completed the North Campus Residential Expansion (NCRE), new dorms that house 2,000 students at a cost exceeding $230 million. Prior to NCRE, each dorm was priced separately, with the West Campus Houses subsidized by a $100 million gift from Charles Feeney. Now, the NCRE drew few donations and Cornell is borrowing most of the cost. Cornell implemented a new requirement that all freshmen and sophomores live on campus and that a uniform rate is charged for single, double and triple dorm rooms. This made the NCRE rooms affordable, based upon cross-subsidies from the older dorm construction. One of the newly opened NCRE dorms, Ganędagǫ Hall, had several arson attacks, prompting the removal of common area microwaves and drawing condemnation from the Review.
Meanwhile, Student Agencies opened up a new high-rise apartment building across from Sheldon Court, and the construction of a new Catherine Commons high-rise disrupted College Avenue. All of this shifts students from older, affordable housing into more expensive newly-constructed buildings.
The Cornell Review also highlighted the interest in more public skating time at Lynah Rink and the current lack of an intramural hockey program. After the Student Assembly (SA), the Employee Assembly, the Graduate Student Assembly, the Faculty Senate and the University Assembly all passed a resolution asking Cornell to raise funds for a new natatorium, President Pollack announced that it was probably ten years away.
In the spring, the campus voted in the SA election. The Cornell Review interviewed the candidates for SA President on the issues. Unfortunately, the voter turnout was a historically low 10.55 percent.
In March, the trustees approved tuition increases varying from 3.6 to 3.9%. In August, the Cornell Store rolled out its Academic Materials Program, to provide electronic copies of most textbooks and course handouts. The optional program offered a substantial saving to students who elect to forgo hard copy textbooks, depending on major and course load.
Based upon an alleged sexual assault and the possible use of rohypnol at parties, the Cornell Inter-Fraternity Council voluntarily suspended social events for two weeks followed by Cornell extending that suspension until the end of the fall semester. Cornell has not announced any disciplinary action resulting from these incidents. Such a blanket suspension was inconsistent with Cornell’s published judicial procedures. This highlighted the lack of due process and other shortcomings in Cornell current judicial system.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Crusades and Controversies
Cornell continues to make missteps in its efforts to make the entire Cornell community feel welcome. In October, the American Studies Department mis-spent funds donated to fund a lecture on freedom of the press to pay two speakers to discuss why all land-grant universities should make reparations to indigenous Americans. The year-old effort to impose a land acknowledgment on Cornell websites and at meetings also continued to be subject to criticism.
Most of the public debate over mandatory anti-racism classes or faculty training, which had dominated the Faculty Senate agenda in 2021, slipped into behind-the-scenes debates at Day Hall and in the individual colleges.
In athletics, Cornell’s women’s swimming team was dominated at both a Penn meet, the Ivy League and NCAA championships by Lia Thomas, a transgender member of the Penn team. The NCAA has since changed its eligibility rules to protect fair competition among women swimmers.
At the start of 2022, instead of hiring a new deputy to the Dean of Students who had a broad-based Cornell background or could be dedicated to meeting the needs of all students, Cornell targeted the job search to seek a candidate devoted to DEI evangelism. Cornell then selected Greta Kenney, promoting her from her role as head of the Women’s Resource Center. At year end, Cornell announced that its new Athletic Director would be a woman, Nicki Webber Moore. Both top secret hiring searches leave the new hires with an uphill climb to earn credibility with skeptical stakeholders.
All told, it was an eventful year at Cornell, with many developments that will prove to have a long-term impact.
