INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun 8 Pages – Free
Vol. 140, No. 10
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2023 n ITHACA, NEW YORK
News
Dining
Science
Weather
Carshare Continues
Considering Composting
Research Reflections
Sunny
Ithaca Carshare will return to the city in March 2024, following suspended operations due to insurance issues. | Page 3
Katie Rueff '27 urges Cornellians to practice composting and properly dispose of their food waste. | Page 5
Students who participated in the Nexus Scholars Program this past summer discuss their research experiences. | Page 8
HIGH: 69º LOW: 43º
Cornell Housing Portal Crashes Housing selection delayed by one to two days for rising upperclassmen COURTESY OF MEGAN GUEFEN
Rememberance through rowing | Megan Guefen '19 and her sister will row across the Pacific Ocean in honor of their late mother.
Guefen '19 to Attempt Pacific Rowing Voyage By NIA PERRY Sun Contributor JULIA NAGEL / SUN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Dorm delay | The University's housing portal crashed on Sept. 19 due to an excess number of users, causing a delay in room selection. By GABRIEL MUÑOZ Sun Staff Writer
The University’s housing portal crashed Tuesday, Sept. 19 shortly after general housing selection began with no clear communication from Housing and Residential Life, creating confusion among students who were told to register for upper-level undergraduate housing starting at 10 a.m. Students reported logging into the housing applications on StarRez when they started to experience delays and unresponsiveness from the site, receiving messages such as “Service temporarily unavailable” and “The system is experiencing higher than expected usage. Please try again later.”
The accelerated general housing selection process is part of the change in the upperclassmen housing selection process announced in May 2023 with the purpose of facilitating on-campus housing for rising upperclassmen for the 2024-2025 school year. The general housing selection process was scheduled to occur on Tuesday after residents wishing to remain in their same room indicated their decision to Housing and Residential Life from Sept. 5 to Sept. 13. “I feel like there has been a lack of coordination overall this year, a big shortage of housing overall and it seems like [the University] haven’t gotten it figured out,” said Max Warner ’26, who decided to opt
for continuous occupancy instead of applying for the general housing selection. Students who decide to stay in their same room for the following year are guaranteed housing, while those going through the general room selection process are not. Cornell Housing announced at 9 a.m. via their Instagram story that they were anticipating an increased number of users on the housing portal and urged users to only use one device to log into the portal. At 10 a.m., the account announced that the system was overwhelmed and the general room selection process would be halted and resumed later in the day. See HOUSING page 3
Mayoral Candidates Discuss City Issues By JONATHAN MONG Sun News Editor
Alderperson Robert Cantelmo grad (D) and Janis Kelly ’71 (R), the major party nominees for mayor of Ithaca, gave a joint interview with community media organization Pegasys on Monday, Sept. 18. The pair discussed some of the most pressing issues affecting the City of Ithaca, such as the negotiations with Cornell over the payment in lieu of taxes from the University to the
city, ways of tackling Ithaca’s housing crisis, progress on Ithaca’s Green New Deal and a citywide increase in crime. This year’s election comes as the mayor’s role in city government has been reduced due to the new city manager position scheduled to debut in 2024, along with an accompanying 50 percent decrease in salary. However, both Cantelmo and Kelly stated they were running as
KENNETH C. ZIRKEL / COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Candidate conversation | Mayoral candidates Robert Cantalmo grad (D) and Janis Kelly '71 (R) gave a joint interview on Monday.
consensus builders, though their interpretation of consensus building differed. Cantelmo said he aimed to be the bridge between Common Council’s members as
well as the bridge between the city and other entities such as the University, businesses and state and federal agencies. See MAYOR page 3
School of Hotel Administration alumna Megan Guefen ’19 will row across the Pacific Ocean in June 2024 as a part of the second Pacific edition of the World’s Toughest Row competition, a pair of endurance races where competitors must row across either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean. The Pacific race is a 2,800-mile row that begins in Monterey, California and ends in Hanalei, on the Hawaiian island of Kauai. Although Megan Guefen had never rowed before making this decision, her sister Gabe Guefen was a rower in college. The two sisters will journey to Hawaii as part of the team Rowing Oceans for Women, which includes two other rowers, Kaitlyn Piltzecker and Hannah Byrd. The sisters did a search for
teammates, interviewing multiple people before finalizing their group. They have named their boat the Julie after their late mother, who died of cancer in January. “[My mom] always taught us that we could always achieve anything we set our minds to and to dream big, and that's exactly what we are doing,” Megan Guefen said. “We know she's going to bring us good luck on our journey and we hope to make her proud.” Rowing Oceans for Women aims to break the previous record to complete the row of 34 days for an all-female team on the Pacific route, with shifts of two hours rowing and two hours eating, cleaning, maintaining or fixing equipment and sleeping. See ROWING page 4