Student Assembly Holds First Meeting Of Spring Semester

By CHRISTINA MACCORKLE Sun Staff Writer

The Student Assembly held its first meeting of the spring semester on Thursday in Willard Straight Hall, where they discussed prior resolutions and held an election for the Vice President of External Affairs position.

safety efforts. He also believes Ithaca has a housing crisis that requires continuous efforts to adequately address.

“We need to have a serious conversation about expanding tenant protections in the community,” Cantelmo said.

“Whether that’s the right to renew, whether that’s opting into the Emergency Tenant Protection Act, I think we really need to make sure that our community of renters, which is three-fourths renters, that they both have the appropriate protections and a knowledge of their rights to be able to successfully advocate for themselves and secure housing.”

Cantelmo would also aim to support public sector employees, who have expressed con- for Ithaca is that the mayor will be freed up to be the political leader and the policy driver for the city,” Cantelmo said. “That requires the mayor adopting the persona of coalition building, of listener, of policy and subject matter expert, and really digging into the issues that are facing the community.”

Though Cantelmo said it is too early in the campaign for him to receive endorsements, he has met his fundraising goal for January and hopes to continue to engage with the local community, especially at Cornell.

“As a member of the Cornell community, I really have to emphasize the personal value I’ve felt in being more involved in the community that I live in,” Cantelmo said. “It’s really important to see, in your elected leaders, is this someone who’s actively trying to build bridges between the community that I live in academically, and the community in which I’m located? And hopefully [a leader can] reconcile those identities and make people feel really integrated.”

S.A. President Valeria Valencia ’23 started the meeting with University President Martha Pollack’s responses to the resolutions the assembly passed last semester.

Valencia started with President Pollack’s response to Resolution 16: Condemning Greek Life.

“A number of educational harm-reduction strategies for Greek Life are already being considered,” Pollack wrote. “Strategic work to improve the fraternity community is also underway.” cerns about their salaries and staffing in recent months.

Valencia then said that she has not received a response to Resolution 15, which requested that the University funds an on-staff M.D. Gynecologist at Cornell Health.

Survivors and Facilitating Harm-Reduction Strategies in Greek Life in response to the reports of drugging incidents and a sexual assault allegation last semester.

“If the people and our personnel are not adequately resourced and adequately supported, nothing we vote on will be fully realized in implementation,” Cantelmo said. “I want to really emphasize and center the importance of our city staff who make this community, really to a large extent, the great community that this is.”

The role of city mayor is also set to change in 2024 with the addition of the city manager position. Cantelmo said he would be excited to head the reform process and work with a professional administrator who can handle the day-to-day implementation of regulations in the city.

“What’s really important now

Even though Cantelmo had a decade-long career in the nonprofit sector in Washington D.C. prior to moving to Ithaca and is finishing his Ph.D. in government, he said his aspirations remain on engaging in local politics.

“I love the idea of raising my kids in this community. I love the idea of being settled, having seen them grow up with their friends, of giving them that stability,” Cantelmo said. “I really love the [research], but my passion is absolutely public service in my community. And I look forward to being able to provide that stability in my family for staying in a community that’s given a lot to us already.”

The resolution recognized an editorial published in The Sun in which 136 students urged the University to provide funding for Cornell Health to hire a M.D. gynecologist capable of diagnosing and treating prevalent gynecological problems including chronic vulvovaginal and pelvic pain conditions.

Valencia said she received an email explaining that President Pollack would take longer than usual to respond.

Resolutions 14 and 13 were also discussed.

Resolution 14 approved a thousand dollars to fund the Willard Straight Hall union board tradition of serving freshly popped popcorn in the Willard Straight Hall lobby.

Resolution 13 amended and ratified specifics of the S.A. bylaws regarding the Student Assembly Office of Ethics.

For the last resolution discussed, Valencia shared President Pollack’s response to Resolution 12: Supporting

“I am horrified and repulsed by the reported events at our fraternities [throughout the Fall 2022 semester] and appreciate the Student Assembly’s concern,” Pollack wrote. “I fully support this resolution and in particular support the three specific harm-reduction strategies that they recommend.”

The first harm reduction strategy in the resolution is to redevelop and strengthen the sexual violence prevention programs by the Office of Sorority and Fraternity Life and Skorton Center for Health Initiatives.

The second strategy explains that the SFL office and the Tompkins County Advocacy are exploring an expanded partnership. The Office of Institutional Equity and Title IX has also established many new resources in the last two years to increase capacity for both hearings and investigations and to coordinate support for victims, according to Pollack.

Isaac Chasen ’23, director of elections, then announced the special elections for three vacant seats in the S.A.

The three seats were previously held by LGBTQIA+ Liaison At-Large Kelly Chan ’24, At-Large Representative Benjamin Luckow ’24 and College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Student Representative JiHo Lee ’23.

Students who want to run must gather 75 petition signatures by next Friday. If there is more than one candidate, there will be an election.

By MARIAN CABALLO Sun Staff Writer

Students hailing from any Cornell undergraduate college can now minor in data science, a unique opportunity to learn how to examine and analyze data in an increasingly data-driven world.

“The world is drowning in data that’s waiting to be analyzed,” Prof. Joe Guinness, statistics and data science, wrote in an email to The Sun. “The data science minor will equip you with the skills to search for interesting patterns in data and, most importantly, make sense of them.”

The minor is a new addition to the Department of Statistics and Data Science — where Guinness serves as the director of undergraduate studies — within Cornell’s Ann S. Bowers College of Computing and Information Science, which currently offers the statistical science major in the College of Arts and Sciences and the biometry and statistics major and minor offered through the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

A data science minor allows a greater subset of students to gain important quantitative and analytical skills. Data science previously only existed as a concentration for information science and information science, systems and technology students within CAS, CALS and the College of Engineering. CAS also offers a data science in astronomy minor.

Natasha Aysseh ’23, who is pursuing the data science concentration in the information science major, said she enjoys how data science enables her to process information on her own.

“There’s a lot of information that goes into any sort of job or project, but typically we wait for data scientists or analysts to process it so that we can look into it,” Aysseh said. “It gives someone quite a bit of autonomy to be able to understand what a series of data can do for you and what you can do to a series of data in any situation.”

According to Aysseh, her studies in data science has helped her throughout her tech internships at Rent the Runway and Rocketbook, and is a valuable asset in any field.

“The [information science with a data science concentration] major gives you the tools to understand the information yourself and then present it to others in ways that are comprehensible and natural to someone unfamiliar with the field,” Aysseh said.

The new minor teaches key data science concepts, while also equipping students with the computational and methodological skills to apply it to their own diverse endeavors.

“The minor is designed for students who want to learn some skills in data analysis and statistical modeling to supplement their major field of study, without fully majoring in a data-intensive discipline like statistics,” Guinness told The Sun. “For example, if you want to eventually get a graduate degree in the social sciences, or if you want to be a journalist, the data science minor might be a great fit for you.”

Six courses are required in total for the minor, including one core course in statistics and one in computer programming. Students must take four courses from four categories: data analysis, domain expertise, big data ethics, policy and society and data communication. Students must take courses in at least three categories.

A data science minor may help open doors to different career possibilities.

“It’s a bit early to say, since this is a new minor, but the [career] list will probably include ‘researcher,’ ‘data journalist’