INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun 8 Pages – Free
Vol. 139, No. 9
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 2022 n ITHACA, NEW YORK
News
Arts
Sports
Weather
Arts Unplugged
Weirdo’s Weirdo
Opening Win
Mostly Cloudy
Leading Journalists and scholars will discuss the RussiaUkraine war on a global scale.
Max Fattal '25 expresses excitement about a new David Lynch series at Cornell Cinema.
| Page 3
The Red avenges loss against VMI from last year's homecoming.
| Page 5
HIGH: 70º LOW: 54º
| Page 8
Cornell’s Jewish Community Rallies Against Antisemitism University response condemns recent antisemitic incidents; Cornell Jewish community gathers on Ho Plaza
pen,” Rabbi Weiss said. “But it's important for us as a Jewish community to stand up to say: We belong at Cornell [and] if there are hateful symbols, we will fight them, we will stand together, [and] we will invite our allies to stand with us, as we will stand with others.” Rabbi Weiss is referring to two incidents of antisemitism on campus. In Oct. 2017, anti-semitic posters with swastikas appeared on several buildings and the Ezra Cornell statue. A year later, COURTESY OF RABBI ARI WEISS when three swastika signs were found on North Campus in Nov. 2018. The University released a statement on Thursday afternoon, before the rally, addressing the recent sightings. In the statement from President Martha Pollack to the Ithaca campus community, Pollack focused on the University’s core value of creating a community of belonging, denouncing the actions. “As I have said before, and will repeat as often as necessary: Cornell denounces in the strongest possible terms all forms of hatred and bigotry,” Pollack wrote in her statement. “We cannot allow acts of hatred, and the attention they bring, to keep us from striving to be a community of belonging.”
By ANGELA BUNAY Sun Managing Editor
After sightings of the Star of David drawn alongside a swastika on the ground next to Beebe Lake and a banner reading “Burn prisons, free them all, Attica to Palestine” on the side of the Cornell Law School building facing the Cornell Hillel offices, the campus Jewish community responded with a Thursday evening rally on Ho Plaza. The rally garnered around 50 participants. After holding a prayer in the beginning, there were an array of speakers including Cornell Hillel leaders and the co-president of the Center for Jewish Living Gidon Amsellem ’23. Rabbi Ari Weiss, executive director of Cornell Hillel, said that while it is saddening that the Jewish community has to hold rallies standing against antisemitism on campus, it was a powerful display of unity. “One thing I'm saddened by is the fact that every couple of years, we have to put together this type of vigil — it's something that happened in Ho Plaza rally | Cornellians gather on Ho Plaza to speak out against the recent 2017, 2018 and probably will continue to hap- antisemitic acts occuring on campus.
See RALLY page 3
Campus Workers Struggle on North By CAMDEN WERHLE Sun Staff Writer
With the recent completion of the North Campus Residential Expansion project, Cornell now has the capacity to house around 2,000 more students. The expansion coupled with the new requirement that all sophomores live on campus, North Campus is busier than ever. This influx of students has posed new challenges to Cornell employees, from understaffed dining halls to a flood of packages in mailrooms. In an email sent to students on Sept. 6, Pat Wynn, Assistant Vice President of Student and Campus Life, noted that the student service centers are currently “overwhelmed” with incoming packag-
es. She stated that North Campus has received 3,000 more packages than it had at the same time last year, leading to lengthy waits of over an hour. Wynn also encouraged students to be mindful of the packages they order, citing environmental concerns about shipping and packaging waste raised from the fact that the service center has already processed 28,000 packages this semester. These delays have also extended to North Campus Dining halls that now have relatively longer wait times. Jackson Jacques, an employee at Morrison Dining Hall, said that the dining hall’s staff work hard to ensure students are not waiting for long amounts of time for food to be
replaced adding that employees are generally successful at handling the volume of people that pass through. However, he also said that Morrison could benefit from hiring more employees. “We’re constantly cooking, we make sure that we always have food available,” Jacques said. “The one thing we’re lacking is staff, we’re understaffed.” Katie Beard ’26 works at North Star Dining, keeping food stocked and at a consumption-safe temperature. Beard is from North Carolina where the minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. She said she took the Cornell dining job because the $14.20 hourly wage was attractive to her in helping See NORTH CAMPUS page 4
CLAIRE LI / SUN ASSISTANT PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Staffing | With more students living on North Campus with the completion of the North Campus Residential Expansion, dining halls have been crowded, with wait times significantly longer than usual.
COURTESEY OF CORNELL UNIVERSITY'S COVID-19 DASHBOARD
Cases Drop Following Spike By SURITA BASU Sun Assistant Managing Editor
With the removal of PCR testing sites and the classroom mask requirement, University policies have allowed for the most “normal” semester since the start of the pandemic in March 2020. As the University rolled back COVID-19 restrictions for the fall, there are still active cases on campus. However, cases have come down since the beginning of the new semester. The COVID-19 Dashboard reported 122 active cases as of Sept. 18 compared with 164 cases last week and 434 cases the week of Aug. 28. Cases among students compared to faculty and staff members have leveled out as there are currently 65 active student cases and 57 active faculty and staff cases. At the peak of the semester, 350 cases were students while faculty and staff comprised only 84. Cases in Tompkins County
have steadily declined for the past several months with 8 new positive cases and a 9 percent new case rate as of Sept. 19. The seven-day rolling average of new daily cases is at 24. Although PCR testing sites have been closed as of Aug. 31 and testing requirements have been lifted, the University continues to recommend that students take advantage of antigen test kits that can be picked up from specific locations on campus. Cornell’s COVID-19 dashboard reports that 97 percent of students and 94 percent of faculty and staff are vaccinated. 92 percent of students and 88 percent of faculty and staff have received a booster. While the University has encouraged members of the Cornell community to everyone to receive every additional COVID-19 booster that becomes available to them. Suita Basu can be reached at sbasu@cornellsun.com.