INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun 8 Pages – Free
Vol. 139, No. 8
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2022 n ITHACA, NEW YORK
Join the Sun
Science
Sports
Weather
Fall Recruitment
Canine DNA Startup
Gearing Up for VMI
Clear and Sunny
Keep an eye out for upcoming information sessions for all Sun sections!
Embark, founded by brothers Ryan and Adam Bokyo, hopes to unlock future of dog health. | Page 3
Closing last season 2-8, the Big Red will travel to Virginia to face the military institution. | Page 8
HIGH: 64º LOW: 49º
Two Lecturers Discuss Morrill Act
Scholars spark talks on land grant and indigenous displacement By TAMARA KAMIS AND MINGHAN GAO Sun Staff Writer and Sun Contributor
JASON WU / SUN ASSISTANT PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Curriculum change | A student walks into Ives Hall, where several new courses became available after a substantial curriculum change.
ILR Implements New Curriculum Changes By JONATHAN WU Sun Contributor
Starting this fall, the School of Industrial and Labor Relations implemented a substantially altered curriculum for first-year and transfer students, which includes a diversity and inclusion requirement, updated writing seminars and an increased emphasis on statistics and data analysis skills. The update reinforces the college's mission to positively impact individuals and society through teaching, research and outreach. Originally proposed in Spring 2017, this change was approved by the New York State Education
“[Organizational Behavior] was a class that I really looked forward to going to.” Sawyer Tierney ’25
that the changes made reflected input of students under the old curriculum. Although students under the old curriculum have the freedom to take the newly-introduced courses, it is not required to graduate. The updated curriculum also includes a reorganization of pre-existing course requirements. This includes restructuring the organizational behavior and human resource management requirements into four separate half-semester courses, requiring an international and comparative labor course as opposed to being offered as an elective and increasing the number of data science and statistics sequences available to students. One of the most polarizing aspects of the curriculum changes has been the abolishment of the ILROB 1120: Introduction to Organizational Behavior course — a well-liked, required course among the ILR students. In place are now two half-semester courses in both psychology and sociology each, emphasizing a focus on theories and applications as it applies to the intersection between work and labor and organizational structure. “Organizational Behavior was probably my favorite class that fall,” said Sawyer Tierney ’25, who took the now-discontinued course his freshman year. “Prof. Rissing has been teaching it for a while. His lecture was probably the most engaging out of all the lectures I have taken at Cornell."
Department and the State University of New York system in the summer of 2021. According to Bentley Wong ’25, a student ambassador in the ILR school, the curriculum change aims to provide students with both intellectually stimulating courses. “The new curriculum presents so many great opportunities for new students to broaden their perspectives on not only social science research, but also the world as a whole as they begin their journey at Cornell,” Wong said. “The newly introduced course To continue reading this article, requirements encourage [ILR students] to apply their learning to please visit cornellsun.com. their own personal lives and local communities.” As a student under the pre- Jonathan Wu can be reached at 2022 curriculum, Wong voiced jw2452@cornell.edu.
In the 2022 Kops Freedom of the Press Lecture, journalist Tristan Ahtone and historian Robert Lee discussed how their investigation of how land grant universities, including Cornell University, financially benefited from Indigenous displacement. The 1862 Morrill Act helped fund the creation of many universities across the United States, including Cornell, using the sale of land formerly inhabited by Indigenous people to support higher education. As part of the land acknowledgement of the Association of Public and Land Grant Universities, the institutions acknowledge this history. Ahtone, a member of the Kiowa tribe and editor at large for the climate news organization Grist, and Lee, a history professor at the University of Cambridge, conducted a wide ranging investigation into the legacy of the Morrill Act. “How can land grant universities square their professed values with their colonial legacies?” Lee asked in the lecture. According to Lee and Ahtone’s investigative reporting and in agreement with writing from Prof. John Parmenter, history, Cornell University’s co-founder
Ezra Cornell purchased much of the University’s scrip — certificates which gave the owner the right to pick and claim a section of public land anywhere in the United States. Profits from the sale of the lands he selected, previously inhabited by indigenous nations including the Ojibwe, Miwok, Yokuts, and Dakota, were given to the University. Lee analyzed how Cornell has profited from the investment of Cornell’s Morrill Act Endowment over time, citing data collected from Cornell’s annual reports and archival documents. According to Lee, only limited records are publicly available from 2008 to the present, but he believes he has enough data to estimate that roughly 73 million dollars of Cornell’s current endowment is the result of Cornell’s Morrill Act Endowment. To continue reading this article, please visit cornellsun.com.
Tamara Kamis can be reached at tkamis@cornell.edu. Minghan Gao can be reached at mg2328@cornell.edu.
University Remains Test-Optional By KATHERINE ESTERL Sun Staff Writer
After becoming test-optional for certain colleges in 2021, the University will extend this policy and remain test-optional for 2023 and 2024 applicants. Standardized tests are typically used in the college admissions process to measure math, reading comprehension and science skills. The ability of standardized test scores to accurately measure academic capability has been called into question in recent years. “No one believes that to be true
anymore,” wrote Prof. John Sipple, global development, in a statement to The Sun, on the dependability of standardized testing as a predictor for academic performance. Sipple studies the public school system and says test prep systems “guarantee improved scores” for students with resources including time, motivation, money and transportation. “[A test-optional policy] changes the whole ball park of what admissions is,” said Ken Gonzalez ’24. “It blurs the lines between you not getting in because you weren’t what Cornell was looking for, and you
not getting in because of circumstances that you can’t control in your environment.” Gonzalez is a student intern with the Higher Education Opportunity Programs, which supports students from low-income backgrounds, as part of Cornell’s Office of Academic Diversity Initiatives. He said his own high school offered free testprep resources, but it wasn’t effective for raising scores. To continue reading this article, please visit cornellsun.com. Katherine Esterl can be reached at kesterl@cornellsun.com.
Spot of sunshine
MING DEMERS / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Cornellians pack libraries across campus, including Olin Library, seen above, as the first round of prelims looms.