INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun 8 Pages – Free
Vol. 139, No. 13
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 4, 2022 n ITHACA, NEW YORK
News
Arts
Sports
Weather
Wesley Hunt
Homecoming Concert
Colgate Comeback
Cloudy
The Cornell alumnus is running to represent Texas's 38th Congressional district.
Isabella Hacket '26 discusses last week's performances by lovelytheband and Indigo De Souza. | Page 4
| Page 3
Football hopes to rebound from last week's loss at a Colgate game on Saturday. | Page 8
HIGH: 63º LOW: 43º
Students Rally for Liberties in Iran Grad students protest for women's rights in Iran after police murder By ANGELA BUNAY and RORY CONFINO-PINZON Sun Managing Editor and Sun Staff Writer
MING DEMERS / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
An apple a day | Attendees of this weekend's Apple Harvest Festival enjoyed a variety of apple-themed dishes.
2022 Apple Harvest Festival Estimates Over 70,000 Attendees By SAM JOHNSTONE Sun Contributor
The 40th annual Apple Harvest Festival, hosted by the Downtown Ithaca Alliance, kicked off Cider Week New York this weekend. Held from Sept. 30 to Oct. 2, the festival featured fresh produce, baked goods, ciders, a variety of food trucks and artisanal craft stands. Local performers and bands provided live entertainment on Saturday and Sunday, accompanied by carnival rides and themed games. Gary Ferguson, executive director of DIA, explained that the Apple Harvest Festival is the organization’s biggest community event of the year and that they expected between 70,000 and 75,000 people to attend over the course of the weekend. “We work on planning the event all year … starting in early spring when we send out information to vendors about participating in it,” Ferguson said. “As we get closer and closer, we’re booking the bands and the activities and beginning to work on all the specific details.” Planning for the event included outlining its budget. Ferguson explained that the cost of hosting such a large event is substantial, but the revenue from the Apple Harvest Fest actually makes enough money to fund future events as well. See APPLEFEST page 3
MING DEMERS / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Delectable donuts | Apple cider donuts are among the most popular treats at the Apple Harvest Festival.
Ho Plaza amassed a crowd of more than 100 students and faculty on the afternoon of Tuesday, Sept. 27 as the rain poured. This did not deter demonstrators from sharing their powerful slogan of “women, life, liberty.” The demonstration was held in response to protests ravaging Iran since mid-September. On Sept. 16, a 22-year-old woman named Mahsa Jina Amini was murdered in police custody — her death has sparked national outrage in Iran. Amini was accused by the Iranian Guidance Patrol of improperly wearing a hijab, in violation of the Iranian com-
“This is the climax of what has always happened in Iran. We want citizens of the free world to know these are murderers."
“We were also hoping that, you know, we can get some attention from Cornell so they can also provide some support for the Iranian community at Cornell,” Sadeghi said. Participants in the rally ranged from graduate students, undergraduates and professors from both Cornell and Ithaca College. Sadeghi said that she noticed there were more non-Iranian participants than Iranian students. Teddy George ’24 skipped class to attend the rally. George said that he attended the rally to stand with the Iranian community in solidarity and listen to people who have a stake in the conflict. “Even random white kids from Philadelphia know what's going on, and they made [the] time to go support [the rally],” George said. George explained that his most important motive in attending was the hope that his presence at the rally would help increase the crowd size, encouraging passersby to stop and listen. See IRAN page 3
Ali Farahbakhsh, grad pulsory hijab mandate. This restriction, which has been in place since 1983, requires all Iranian women to wear a hijab in public. “These people [the Iran Republic and Iranian Guidance Patrol] have no regard for any aspect of human life and social life,” Ali Farahbakhsh grad said. “So, just name it, freedom, justice, prosperity, human dignity, environmental issues — these people are against it and they think that they own the moral codes and standards for each of these categories.” In the weeks following Amini’s death, protests erupted across Iran and have continued since. At Cornell, a group of graduate students held a solidarity rally to raise awareness for the ongoing protests. Sanaz Sadeghi grad, an executive board member of the Iranian Graduate Student Organization, said it was important to hold the protest to show the Iranian government that Iranians abroad care about what is happening and to raise awareness among members of the campus community who have not heard about the conflict.
JULIA NAGEL / SUN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Solidarity and support | Members of the Cornell and Ithaca College communities gather for a demonstration on Sept. 27 in solidarity with recent Iranian protests.
Endowment Sees 1.3 Percent Loss By SURITA BASU Sun Assistant Managing Editor
After a thirty-year record return last year, Cornell’s endowment reported a 1.3 percent investment loss, ending the 2022 fiscal year at $9.8 billion, according to the Office of University Investments. According to the release, the University endowment outperformed its strategic benchmark return of minus 5.1 percent. Last year, the endowment climbed to $10 billion from just $7.2 billion in 2020, recording a 41.9 percent annual return. In a University press release, Chief Investment Officer Kenneth Miranda attributed this year’s 1.3 percent loss to market volatility stemming from the war in Ukraine, ongoing supply chain hurdles, inflation and tightening U.S. monetary policy. Given the economic backdrop, Miranda stated that this year’s returns are respectable relative
to the environment. “We position the portfolio for the long term to weather positive and negative years. Fundamental to our investment philosophy is an understanding that over our near-infinite time horizon, the endowment will confront all manner of expected and unexpected market conditions,” Miranda said. The third quarter of 2022 saw ongoing volatility in equity and fixed income markets. The S&P 500 finished the quarter down 5.3 percent and is down 25 percent year to date, while the iShares Core U.S. Aggregate Bond exchange-traded fund was down 5.3 percent during the quarter and was down 16 percent year to date. The University Investment Office supervises Cornell’s Long Term Investments. Most of the LTI's actively managed assets are in the Long Term Investment Pool, which
invests across stocks, bonds and other asset classes, such as real estate and private equity, with the objective of achieving a return of at least 5 percent in excess of inflation. Fifty-eight percent of the LTI is invested in equity while 18 percent is invested in real assets. So far, only two other Ivy League schools have reported endowment returns for the 2022 fiscal year. Cornell’s endowment performed better than Dartmouth’s, which returned a 3.1 percent loss, falling from $8.5 billion to $8.1 billion. The University of Pennsylvania’s endowment saw a positive return that was less than 1 percent, climbing from $20.5 billion to $20.7 billion. Cornell’s endowment consists of more than 8,000 individual accounts. Approximately 5 percent of earnings are distributed each year to support See ENDOWMENT page 3