INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun 8 Pages – Free
Vol. 139, No. 4
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2022 n ITHACA, NEW YORK
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Read meal recommendations and tips for living off campus without a meal plan. | Page 5
The Cornell Borehole observatory is one step closer to a sustainable future with geothermal heat. | Page 8
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Cornell Workers Vote ‘No’ After Tense Negotiations
Union employees strike down tentative agreement By SOFIA RUBINSON Sun News Editor
The United Auto Workers, the union that represents University employees in non-management positions such as dining and building care, held a vote on Monday on a tentative agreement for wage increases and benefits. Many employees expressed complaints about the agreement, which is the second tentative agreement proposed in this round of negotiations after an initial tentative agreement failed to pass a union vote in May 2022. Now, the results of the vote are in: 28 percent voted no on the agreement, 15 percent voted yes and 57 percent abstained from voting.
On Monday, students held a rally at the meeting where the vote occurred to support University employees in their fight for a fair contract. Among the complaints raised by workers to union negotiators included the high cost of living in Tompkins County, staffing shortages that are causing some employees to pick up work normally given to two or three workers and improper training of new employees. Union negotiators must now reach a new agreement with the University. Sofia Rubinson can be reached at srubinson@cornellsun.com.
JULIA NAGEL / SUN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Residential housing | Sophomore students walk back from class to Toni Morrison Hall, one of five newly-built residential buildings on North Campus.
Sophomores React to Housing By GWEN SCHWAY Sun Staff Writer
JULIA NAGEL / SUN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
No deal | On Monday, students gather to rally in support of Cornell workers in their fight for better and fairer wages, benefits and work environment.
In April 2021, Cornell announced a change in University’s housing policy from requiring students to live on campus for one year to a two-year on campus living requirement. With some exceptions, sophomores found a new series of North Campus developments to call home. According to Cornell Student and Campus Life, the policy change is heavily attributed to the University’s ability to provide residential space for more students upon completion of the North Campus Residential Expansion project. “Upon completion, the NCRE will give Cornell the ability to house 100 percent of its first-year students in developmentally appropriate campus housing and 100 percent of its sophomore students in campus residence halls, co-ops and affiliated housing,” according to the NCRE website. The expansion includes the recently constructed and opened Hu Shih Hall, Ruth Bader Ginsberg Hall and Barbara McClintock Hall. Ganedago Hall and Toni Morrison Hall, which have been occupied since Fall 2021, were also part of this project. As recently as Spring 2022, Sophomores
were given the option to live off-campus, including living in Collegetown. While some students are eager to enjoy the amenities of on-campus living, others are discontent and feel deprived of the opportunity to live off campus with their junior and senior peers. “I wish they let us live off-campus,” said Erin Xu ’25, who lives in Ganedago Hall and said that she thinks the desire to live off-campus is more significant for other students in older dorms. “I feel like for other people [who live] in dorms not as good as Ganedago, it might be better if they could choose their apartments with air conditioning,” Xu said. The required meal plan that comes with on-campus living is another concern of students. Xu, who is enrolled in the Bear Traditional meal plan, is annoyed by the fact that the plan is required. The Unlimited meal plan, priced at $3,306 per semester and $6,612 a year, allows access to all 10 residential dining rooms along with $400 in Big Red Bucks and eight guest swipes. To continue reading this article, please visit cornellsun.com. Gwen Schway can be reached at gschway@cornellsun.com.
Pollinate: The Academic Advocacy Service That Has Cornell Abuzz By MARY SOTIRYADIS Sun Staff Writer
In the weeks before the fall 2022 semester, social media was abuzz with rumors of a new online service called Pollinate that allows students to pay their peers to drop out of certain classes to obtain an open seat themselves — now Pollinate has landed at Cornell. Students took to Sidechat and Reddit with complaints of classism and elitism. Despite Pollinate’s increasing presence on campus, it was actually founded at the University of Chicago by two seniors, Jon Merril and Jack Ogle, studying economics. “We focused on Cornell because we had friends who go to Cornell, and we heard that [enrollment in specific courses] was a problem there as well,” Merril said. Merril and Ogle describe their service as “academic advoca-
cy” for students who need extra help obtaining seats in particular classes that they could not obtain during their university’s scheduled enrollment period. The duo is passionate about fixing problems students face on their college campuses. This passion has led them to pursue a few different business ideas. Their first idea involved organizing Zoom meetings to facilitate student interactions and foster new friendships on their campus during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when many students were not able to socialize as they normally would. “We started to build software to connect students on Zoom meetings and help them study,” Merril said. “We really fell in love with the whole process of trying to make something that helps fix a problem, a pretty big problem, and the idea of a startup and trying to build software was really enticing.”
Soon after, the pair developed a system to motivate students to complete assignments by betting money on them. Merril and Ogle would bet against students and if the students completed their work before the date that they bet on, they would earn money. If the students did not complete their work before this deadline, they would owe Merril and Ogle money. Their current software was originally designed to buy and sell seats in coveted classes. “We thought intuitively, students who really want the class bad will offer some kind of money or some demand for students who are maybe considering already dropping, or this might maybe put them over the edge to say, ‘I’ll take that another time and give my spot to someone who really wants it,’” Merril said. See POLLINATE page 3