INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 143, No. 12
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2026 n ITHACA, NEW YORK
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Faculty Senate Passes Vote of No
Confidence in Administration By ZEINAB FARAJ and ALLY AGGARWAL Sun Senior Editor
Nov. 6 — The Faculty Senate passed its vote of no confidence in the Cornell administration’s handling of the “ongoing crisis of sexual assault” on campus, in a 75-50 vote announced on Friday. The Board of Trustees remains confident in Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff, Anne Smalling ‘87, the chair of the board, wrote to The Sun. The resolution passed with 55.6% of 135 senators voting in favor, 37% voting against and 7.4% not voting, according to a University spokesperson’s email to The Sun. Following the vote, Smalling wrote that the Board remains “confident” that Kotlikoff and his administration will “comprehensively address the serious problem of sexual assault” on campus. “President Kotlikoff and his team have a plan that is focused on strengthening student safety, improving support for survivors, and addressing aspects of our campus culture that must change,” Smalling wrote to The Sun. The one-sentence proposal, introduced on Oct. 7, comes in response to concerns over the University’s handling of the alleged 2024 Chi Phi gang rape. The resolution holds no binding consequences for Cornell President Michael Kotlikoff, whose position is selected by the Board of Trustees. “This is an affirmation of the stories of students, alumni, exactly and staff, who are survivors of sexual assault, who told us their stories,” Prof. Paul Ortiz, industrial and labor relations, told The Sun. “We’re not going back to the old Cornell where these stories of women being assaulted or swept under the rug.” Ortiz sponsored the resolution, which was signed by 165 supporting faculty. “[T]he Faculty Senate has no confidence in the ability of the central administration to effectively address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault at Cornell University,” it reads. In addition to the proposal, over 260 Cornell fac-
KARLIE MCGANN/SUN SENIOR EDITOR
ulty members have signed an open letter criticizing the University and several other organizations “that failed Jane Doe at every level.” After postponing its initial Oct. 14 vote amid divisions within the Senate, the Faculty Senate met again on Oct. 28 and voted to allow the eight-day online voting period to begin. Dean of Faculty Chris Schaffer wrote that he opposed the resolution in a comment on the resolution’s website. “When we make a judgment this consequential, we should state clearly what has failed and what we expect to change,” Schaffer wrote. “This resolution falls short of that
standard. It does not articulate the specific failures underlying its judgment or the consequences it seeks. It leaves each of us to supply our own reasons and imagine our own remedies.” Ortiz and several other professors will host a press conference regarding the Faculty Senate’s next steps. “This is a new day for this university where people who are victimized are going to be able to tell their stories,” Ortiz told The Sun. Zeinab Faraj and Ally Aggarwal can be reached at zfaraj@ cornellsun.com and aa2936@cornell.edu.
Mother of Cornell Student who Former Cornell Student, Committed Suicide in 2024 Files University, Sued in 2023
Lawsuit Against University Suit Alleging Rape By EVERETT CHAMBALA Sun Assistant News Editor
Editor’s Note: This article references sexual assault and suicide. Nov. 7 — The mother of a former Cornell student who committed suicide in 2024 has filed a civil lawsuit against the University, alleging it failed to protect her child in the events leading to their death. The lawsuit, filed by Sofia Akber on Oct. 26 in the United States District Court of the Northern District of New York, alleges that Winter Knutson ’27 committed suicide in November 2024 after a series of interpersonal conflicts between Knutson and two other students, who are both named in the complaint. The lawsuit named Cornell, 10 anonymous John and Jane Does, Madeline “Maddie” Jennings ’27 and Valen Green ’27, as defendants, all of whom were accused of the wrongful death of Knutson. Jennings’ and Green’s alleged actions included a widely-spread accusation of sexual assault against Knutson — that was “fabricated,” the lawsuit claims — and an alleged campaign with the intent to destroy Knutson’s reputation, all which led to Knutson’s suicide. The suit also referenced a message that Jennings
allegedly sent in a community Discord server where she claimed that Knutson “killed themselves because of me.” The suit alleged that each defendant’s conduct was a “substantial contributing cause of Winter’s death.” When The Sun requested a comment from the University, it declined to comment on the pending litigation, and called the loss of Knutson a “tragedy.” Jennings’ lawyer called the lawsuit an “utterly frivolous claim,” in a statement to The Sun. The lawyer explained he intends to file a motion to dismiss his client from the action. “We will not provide comments regarding the meritless allegations contained in the complaint other than to state that they failed to meet the New York standard for proper pleading,” the lawyer wrote. The Sun was unable to reach Green for comment. Knutson, who was nonbinary and used they/ them pronouns, lived in the Loving House community as a freshman during the 2023-2024 academic year. The Loving House is a residential community located in Mews Hall that “protects and supports” the University’s LGBTQIA+ students at Cornell, according to its site.
See 2026 SUIT page 13
By EVERETT CHAMBALA and CORAL PLATT Sun Assistant News Editor and Sun News Editor
Nov. 10 — A 2023 lawsuit filed against the University and former Cornell student Esat Braveboy ’22 alleges that Braveboy sexually assaulted and raped two former Cornell students and sexually abused multiple others when he was a student at Cornell from 2018 to 2022. The lawsuit accuses Braveboy of sexual assault and battery, and accuses the University, alongside the Board of Trustees, of negligence, negligent supervision and violation of Title IX, the federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in education, including sexual harassment and assault. “Cornell disputes any assertion that it failed to investigate reported sexual misconduct and absolutely rejects any assertion that it would have failed to act in response to multiple reports of such misconduct,” a University spokesperson wrote to The Sun in response to the case. Braveboy declined to provide a comment when asked by The Sun. The lawsuit is still ongoing, with the plaintiffs being required to confirm that they are prepared for trial by April 1, 2027. While at Cornell, Braveboy wrote for The Sun’s news department. Braveboy published several articles from October 2020 to February 2021. He is accused of committing “physical abuse, battery, drug-facilitated sexual assault, rape,” and sodomy, all of which were “authorized, permitted, and allowed” by the University, according to the lawsuit. Two plaintiffs, Quatajah Rennalls ’24 and Gizem Ozturk ’25, submitted affidavits describing when the alleged sexual assaults occurred and the University’s response. See 2023 SUIT page 13
2 The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026
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AASP Wednesday Lunch Series with Ariana Kim Noon - 1 p.m., Rockefeller Hall 429 Lunch will be served. Mindful Birding at Sapsucker Woods Noon - 1 p.m., Cornell Lab of Ornithology Visitor Center NeurodiversiTea noon - 2 p.m., Computing and Communications Center, 2nd Floor Atrium Dancing Across Modernities 4:45 p.m., Goldwin Smith Hall G22 Trivia Night 7 - 9 p.m., Ithaca Beer Company Diner Night at North Star 5:30 - 8:30 p.m., North Star Dining Hall Verano De Jazz 9 p.m. - midnight, Tres Leches
Thursday Cornell Military History Walking Tour 11 a.m. - 1 p.m., Barton Hall Tigers and Their Prey: Assessing Impacts of the Collapse of Wild Pigs Due to African Swine Fever 12:15 - 1:30 p.m., Kahin Center BOOK TALK | Wireless Futures: Speculative Media and German Modernity 4:30 - 5:30 p.m., Olin Library 108 BOOK TALK | Bringing War Back In: Victory, Defeat and the State in Nineteenth-Century Latin America 4:30 - 6 p.m., Martha Van Rennsselaer 2250 Michurin-Lysenkoism and the Politics of Grafting in Early PRC 4:30 p.m., Rockefeller Hall 374 BOOK TALK | Sound Politics: Affective Governance and the State 4:45 p.m., Uris Hall G08
Friday Rogue Writers Group 10 a.m. - noon, Tompkins County Public Library Mindful Botany Walks Noon - 1 p.m., Cornell Botanic Gardens Tea and Honey Pairing Noon - 4 p.m., Honeybee Embassy/Bright Raven Farm & Apiary 24th Annual ILR Labor Roundtable 1:15 - 5 p.m., Willard Straight Hall Memorial Room Townsend Lecture I. The Dynamic Structure of Understanding in Plato 4:30 p.m., Goldwin Smith Hall G64 Cornell Chamber Orchestra presents The Sound of Storytelling: Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde (CU Music) 7:30 p.m., Bailey Hall
The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026 3
PHOTO
SUNBURSTS: New Photographer Showcase The Cornell Daily Sun’s new cohort of photographers are hard at work capturing everything from club socials to nail-biting athletics.
By SUN PHOTOGRAPHY DEPARTMENT
Jojo Yang / Sun Staff Photographer NEXT GEN | Students, families and local residents watch Cornell men’s soccer take on Dartmouth in an exhilarating 3-1 win at home.
Gabriel Hankins / Sun Staff Photographer SUN BURST | Students watch the sunset from the Slope on Oct. 26.
Maddie Leluc / Sun Contributor GAME FACE | Cornell women’s ice hockey prepares for a game against Union on Oct. 30.
Maya Pons / Sun Contributor MODEL CITIZEN | Mikia Eatman poses outside of Ithaca’s Southside Community Center polling station on Nov. 3.
William Wang / Sun Contributor STEP-UP! | Cornell women’s ice hockey chases down Union’s attack in a tight game.
Sophia Whyel / Sun Contributor FOOD FOR THOUGHT | Women in Computing at Cornell and Cornell AI Alignment host a joint social, talking about AI safety and CAIA’s intro course.
Jojo Yang / Sun Staff Photographer CORNELL VOTED | Cornell Votes tables outside of RPCC to encourage voter turnout for the midterm election on Nov. 3.
Gabriel Hankins / Sun Staff Photographer PENSIVE PASTOR | A pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Ithaca delivers a sermon during service on Oct. 18.
To see more photos, please visit cornellsun.com.
4 The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026
News
‘We Demand a New Level of Transparency’: Faculty Senators Hold Press Conference on No Confidence Vote By ZEINAB FARAJ Sun Senior Editor
Nov. 6 — Several faculty members and students gathered for a press conference Friday afternoon to discuss the implications of the Faculty Senate’s vote of no confidence in Cornell’s handling of sexual assault cases, addressing the administration’s response, the Board of Trustees’ support for President Michael Kotlikoff and the resolution’s next steps. The vote of no confidence resolution, which passed 75-50 on Friday afternoon, is a one sentence proposal which communicates that the Faculty Senate has “no confidence in the ability” of Cornell’s administration to handle sexual assault. The resolution, introduced on Oct. 7 following concerns over the Unversity’s handling of the alleged 2024 Chi Phi gang rape, holds no binding consequence. During the press conference, lead sponsor of the resolution Prof. Paul Ortiz, industrial labor relations, explained the motivation behind the resolution.
“We have put the Cornell administration on notice that we demand a new level of transparency, empathy, and above all, support and safety for our students, for all of our students.” Prof. Paul Ortiz “We created this resolution after hearing from scores of current students, alumni, staff and faculty that the Jane Doe case was the tip of the iceberg,” Ortiz said. “That for years and even generations, hundreds of Cornell students and employees have endured rape and sexual assault, only to have their experiences and traumas ignored and swept under the rug by this and previous administrations.” Ortiz also announced that several faculty members are planning to create a listening project that will focus on gathering stories from sexual misconduct survivors in the Cornell community and Ithaca. Ortiz hopes the project, tentatively named the “Cornell University Oral History Project of Survivors of Sexual Violence,” will become a national endeavor. “We have put the Cornell administration on notice that we demand a new level of transparency,
empathy, and above all, support and safety for our students, for all of our students,” Ortiz said. “We refuse to go back to the old Cornell that sweeps unpleasant truths under the rug in the name of, quote, brand.” Response To Board of Trustees Support in Kotlikoff The Board of Trustees’ support for Kotlikoff was a significant point of concern during Friday’s press conference, with several faculty expressing frustration with the Trustees’ statement to the Cornell community in support of Kotlikoff’s handling of sexual assault on campus. “The Board of Trustees remains confident that Kotlikoff and his administration are the right leaders to thoughtfully and comprehensively address the serious problem of sexual assault on our campus,” wrote chair of the board Anne Meinig Smalling ’78. Prof. David Bateman, government, criticized the Board’s statement, noting that the statement was “drafted obviously in preparation” and did not account for “the size of the vote.” Bateman later added that there was a 96% turnout among faculty senators voting for the resolution, which was the “highest turnout” he could recall. He added that the average turnout is typically 77%. “They see the treatment of protesters as a job well done,” Bateman told The Sun. “They see the deal with the federal government as a job well done, and I think ultimately they think that how Cornell has handled sexual violence is another job well done.” Prof. Ariana Kim, music, and co-sponsor on the resolution questioned the timing of the administration’s commitment to addressing safety, referring to Smalling’s statement that Kotlikoff and his administration “have a plan that is focused on strengthening student safety, improving support for survivors, and addressing aspects of our campus culture that must change.” “I want to know why only now,” Kim said. “Why is that a sentence that’s being said two years after this Jane Doe case that we’re meeting about today has happened?” Uncertainty Over Kotlikoff’s Response To The Resolution Several attendees also voiced uncertainty surrounding when and how Kotlikoff would respond to the resolution. Kotlikoff has 30 days to respond to the Faculty Senate’s resolution, according to Prof. Tracy McNulty, french and comparative literature. “We see a consistent pattern with Kotlikoff of him deciding that he knows what’s best,” McNulty said. “He does not answer to the campus commu-
nity.” When asked whether or not the Faculty Senate had heard from Kotlikoff directly, Dr. Anne Marie Brady, ILR, co-sponsor on the resolution, stated that they had not and that information related to Kotlikoff was relayed to the senators through the Board’s statement. Prof. Julia Chang, feminist, gender and sexuality studies, elaborated further, stating that Kotlikoff had attended the Faculty Senate’s initial meeting on the no confidence resolution, where he “took up a significant amount of time,” discussing many things and his position on resignation.
“They are showing us that they are not in touch with the entire campus community, with the alumni, with the broader Cornell community that has completely lost faith in this administration.” Prof. Julia Chang “If this University feels that they will solve this problem by replacing a president, that itself is not good for Cornell’s reputation,” Kotlikoff told the Faculty Senate on Oct. 14. “I don’t think it’s the right way to address situations like this.” Chang criticized the Board of Trustees’ continued support for Kotlikoff, arguing that its position failed to reflect the broader Cornell community’s loss of confidence in the administration. “They are showing us that they are not in touch with the entire campus community, with the alumni, with the broader Cornell community that has completely lost faith in this administration,” Chang said. When questioned about how the voting process involved members of different departments, Bateman stated that the level of constituent involvement in the vote of no confidence was “unprecedented,” adding that senators “sought out the views” of the members of their departments. “They engaged, they did serious work to understand their constituencies and to vote accordingly,” Bateman said. “So it is really quite striking that the Trustees have already dismissed it and there’s no reason to think that President Kotlikoff won’t as well.” Zeinab Faraj can be reached at zfaraj@cornellsun. com.
Ty Dolla $ign Set to Perform on Campus By ZEINAB FARAJ Sun Senior Editor
Nov. 6 — Ty Dolla $ign will perform at Barton Hall on Nov. 14 after previously canceling an April concert at Cornell, as announced by The Cornell Concert Commission and the
Multicultural CommunityFueled Activity Board in a Thursday Instagram post. Ty Dolla $ign is a rap and R&B artist and producer best known for his songs “Paranoid,” “Or Nah,” “Blasé” and his collaborations with other art-
ists including Rihanna and The Weeknd. He has over 33 million monthly listeners on Spotify and has been nominated seven times for a Grammy Award. Ty Dolla $ign was originally slated to perform at Cornell on April 18, 2026, but the event was canceled the day prior after he informed concert organizers of “scheduling conflicts.” The organizers were unable to secure a replacement artist due to the short notice. In addition to Ty Dolla $ign, the winner of a student DJ competition, titled All Hands on Deck, will
open the concert. All Hands on Deck is presented by Slope Day and the Cornell Interfraternity Council. It will feature six student DJ groups performing in 25-minute sets from 1 0
p.m to 1 a.m. on Nov. 13. The announcement comes a month after a Homecoming concert hosted by CCC was canceled amid mounting pressure on Cornell to address its handling of sexual misconduct on campus. The cancelation followed campus protests and criticism over the University’s response to the alleged gang rape of a former Cornell student at Cornell’s Chi Phi fraternity house in 2024. The concert is free and open to the Cornell community on CampusGroups. Doors open at 7 p.m. on Nov. 14 at Barton Hall, with the concert scheduled from 8 to 10 p.m.
COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Zeinab Faraj can be reached at zfaraj@cornellsun.com.
The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026 5
News
Student Assembly Calls for Complete Phase-Out of
Starbucks Products, Addresses Campus ‘Necessity Desert’
By EMMA SPINDLER Sun Senior Writer
Nov. 6 — The Student Assembly passed Resolution 33 on Thursday, calling on Cornell to remove all remaining Starbucks products from campus following the University’s 2023 commitment to end its partnership with Starbucks. The Assembly also considered several measures aimed at improving student life, including expanding access to basic health and hygiene necessities to students living on campus, increasing programming during academic breaks and improving communication around course assistant office hours. Starbucks Removal Gains Support from Cornell Dining Resolution 33: Starbucks Actually Off Our Campus, passed 23-0-2 following discussions with Cornell Dining officials, whom Student Workers’ Representative Adriana Vink ’27, a Sun opinion columnist, said were receptive to removing the remaining products. In 2023, the University declared it would terminate its partnership with Starbucks, effective June 2025, following student concerns about the company’s treatment of labor unions in Ithaca. The University has since introduced La Colombe as a coffee vendor, but prepackaged Starbucks items are still sold in campus cafes and vending machines through Cornell’s contract with PepsiCo, which was unaffected by the termination of the University’s contract with
Starbucks itself. Starbucks is Pepsico’s only coffee supplier. The resolution identifies Starbucks products being sold in vending machines across at least 10 campus buildings and nine eateries, including Bear Necessities, Goldie’s Cafe and Libe Cafe. The resolution follows years of labor disputes between Starbucks and unionized workers, including the closure of its Ithaca locations following unionization efforts. Members of the Student Employment Policy Committee met with Cornell Dining officials Monday to discuss the resolution and the University’s existing contracts with vendors, Vink said at the meeting. “We had a very productive conversation with the heads of Cornell Dining,” Vink said. “I was really heartened, actually, to see that there are people in Cornell’s administration … who care about their jobs and who want to listen to us and take shared governance seriously.” At the meeting, Cornell Dining officials indicated they would begin identifying where Starbucks products remain on campus and explore how to remove them following the resolution’s passage, Vink shared. The resolution also calls for Cornell to publicly disclose its contracts with PepsiCo and other vendors that allow Starbucks to remain on campus. Vink explained that Cornell Dining officials could not disclose the contract’s details but were willing to explore renego-
STEPHAN MENASCHE/SUN SENIOR STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Starbucks removal | Cornell terminated its partnership with Starbucks in 2023 following student concerns about the company’s treatment of labor unions in Ithaca. The measure was effective in 2025, but prepackaged Starbucks items are still sold on campus.
tiating the agreement to remove Starbucks products while maintaining existing vendor relationships and operations. Sruthi Dommaraju ’27, a member of the Student Employment Policy Committee and Cornell Organization for Labor Action, argued that continuing to sell Starbucks products contradicts Cornell’s commitment to workers’ rights and cited reports of Starbucks baristas having reactions to the silica-based powder used in the company’s Blended Refreshers.
“How can our [Industrial Labor Relations] school, founded on the principles of ensuring students do not ‘think of workingmen as items on a balance sheet,’ continue to sell Starbucks at a vending machine in Ives Hall?” Dommaraju asked. To continue reading this story, please visit www.cornellsun.com. Emma Spindler can be reached at espindler@ cornellsun.com.
Jacqueline Kelly ’07, ‘Diddy’ Prosecutor, Appointed as Outside Counsel to Lead Chi Phi Criminal Investigation By CHRISTINE SAVINO Sun Senior Writer
Nov. 4 — New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) appointed Cornell alumna and former federal prosecutor Jacqueline Kelly ’07 on Wednesday as outside counsel to lead the criminal investigation into allegations that seven former Cornell Chi Phi fraternity members gang raped a woman identified as Jane Doe in 2024. “The Office of the Attorney General is committed to a thorough investigation guided only by the facts, the evidence, and the law,” James stated in a press release. No criminal charges have been filed, and all seven accused men have denied any wrongdoing. Kelly graduated magna cum laude from Cornell with a bachelor’s degree in history and was a Merrill Presidential Scholar, an honor awarded to approximately the top 1% of graduating seniors. Kelly is currently a partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, which has represented survivors of Jeffrey Epstein in civil litigation. Kelly previously served as chief of the Civil Rights Unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York from 2022 to 2025,
where she oversaw investigations and prosecutions of sexual abuse and exploitation cases.
“I thank Attorney General James for entrusting me to lead this investigation with her office. All New Yorkers deserve a fair thorough inquiry into the facts of this case.” Jacqueline Kelly ’07 In the Chi Phi criminal investigation, Kelly will lead a team of attorneys and staff from her firm and the Attorney General’s Office, which will review evidence, interview witnesses and examine previous investigative records. The team will report to James’s office, and the Attorney General’s Office remains the appointed special prosecutor. Kelly previously oversaw high-profile federal sexcrime prosecutions involving Sean “Diddy” Combs, whose defense team was led by Marc Agnifilo and included Teny Geragos of Agnifilo Intrater. The two attorneys now represent Winston Lee, one of seven men accused in Doe’s lawsuit.
Combs is serving a 50-month federal prison sentence following his conviction on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution involving his former girlfriends. “I thank Attorney General James for entrusting me to lead this investigation with her office,” Kelly said about the Chi Phi criminal investigation. “All New Yorkers deserve a fair and thorough inquiry into the facts of this case.” The appointment comes as James faces two legal challenges seeking her removal from the investigation. Gillio Lopes, one of seven men named in the Chi Phi lawsuit, has asked an Albany County court to void Gov. Kathy Hochul’s (D-N.Y.) Oct. 1 executive order appointing James. His attorneys argue that James prejudged the allegations after publicly expressing support for Doe before her appointment. Albany County Justice James Farrell gave Lopes’s attorneys until Thursday to address whether the other six men named in the lawsuit should join the case, warning that failure to include necessary parties could warrant dismissal. Lee’s attorneys, Marc Agnifilo, Teny Geragos and
Jacob Kaplan, filed a separate motion in October seeking James’s removal. The motion remains pending in Tompkins County Court. “Jacqueline Kelly is a seasoned prosecutor who has overseen numerous cases from investigation through trial,” James stated in Wednesday’s press release. “With her crim-
inal legal expertise, commitment to public service, and judicial experience, I am confident that she will lead a fair and comprehensive investigation.”
Christine Savino can be reached at csavino@cornellsun.com.
6 The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026
Opinion
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Anthony Ingraffea is the Dwight C. Baum Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Emeritus. Fenya Bartram '25 is an aluma affiliated with Cornell on Fire.
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F
What Happened to Cornell’s 2035 Climate Commitment?
Come for the Engineering, Forced to Complete the Checklist
or decades, Cornell University has promised us they will reach carbon neutrality by 2035. Yet, 19 years into their climate action plan, Cornell appears to be falling far behind its own goals and standing in the way of Ithaca’s climate goals. As accelerating climate breakdown imperils students’ current lives and future prospects, we must ask: What happened to Cornell’s climate commitment? In 2007, under pressure from students and other community members, Cornell University committed to achieving carbon neutrality by 2050; this was later accelerated to 2035 in 2014 in order to align with leading climate science. Yet, Cornell has so far failed to deliver on every major commitment in its roadmap for emissions reduction. The data shows a path of climate inaction: Cornell’s emissions have flatlined for the last 16 years. The only substantial emission reduction that appears on Cornell’s Greenhouse Gas Inventory (from 2008-2010) is illusory, because it selectively ignores upstream methane emissions caused by the transition from coal to natural gas (via the construction of the Combined Heat & Power Plant). If one includes upstream methane emissions, then it is clear that Cornell has not significantly reduced emissions since they announced their Climate Action Plan in 2007. Meanwhile, in 2019, the City of Ithaca adopted the Ithaca Green New Deal, setting a goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2030. This ambitious policy included the Ithaca Energy Code Supplement requiring all new buildings to electrify heating to phase out natural gas by 2026. Yet in 2024, Cornell requested a change to Ithaca’s green building policy that would allow them to continue to heat new buildings with natural gas using their combined heat and power plant on campus. We (along with several other experts and advocates), as part of an organization called Cornell on Fire, have pushed for the city not to grant this request. As discussed in our 2025 letter to the editor, Cornell’s argument for requesting an exemption from Ithaca’s fossil-fuel phaseout relies partly on their plan to access deep underground heat using an innovative technology known as Earth Source Heat. If it worked, it would require less electricity than conventional ground source heat pumps, and result in less disturbance to campus (due to requiring far fewer wells). However, this experimental technology might not work; Plan B, according to Cornell’s own Climate Action Plan, is to use the mature technology of ground source heat pumps, also called shallow geoexchange. A 2016 Cornell report outlines that Cornell should commence Earth Source Heat if viable, or else an alternative such as ground source heat pumps, by 2025 “if the University is to achieve neutrality by 2035.” In other words: Campus decarbonization is way behind schedule. In truth, the Earth Source Heat project is at the very least stalled. A few years ago, Cornell
ix courses. 18 credits. That’s roughly a full semester of a Cornell engineering degree, reserved for liberal studies classes that many of us end up picking based on the ease of getting an ‘easy A.’ Measured at Cornell’s own part-time per-credit rate, the liberal studies requirement represents about $36,000 of an engineering education. This is approximately the price of a full semester’s tuition in the 2026-27 school year that is spent on courses that many of us choose simply to satisfy a checklist. When there are many families that, even with financial aid, are stretching thin to pay for this degree, every semester should go towards what students came here to learn. There is an immense opportunity cost with these required liberal arts courses. Many students, especially those who may not have transfer credits, struggle with trying to fit everything they want to learn for their careers into their college degree. Those 18 credits across four years could instead go towards advanced major electives, doing research or labs and even just taking a lighter load during the brutal semesters that engineering throws at students. I came to Cornell with no credits but with a passion for aviation. Due to the current curriculum of mechanical engineering, I could not earn a minor in aerospace even though I’ve taken nearly the maximum amount of credit hours each semester that is allowed within the college. There are also certain courses I desire to take that are relevant to my personal career goals that I will not be able to during my time here due to credit limits. Cornell’s own aerospace engineering catalog warns that a minor may take more than the traditional eight semesters. Having 18 more credits to choose from would’ve allowed me to take those classes and receive a minor during my time here. Cornell Duffield Engineering states that this requirement builds historical awareness, cultural awareness, ethics, teamwork and communication. However, the majority of students I have talked to in my experience don’t see this outcome. Liberal studies for engineering students are seen as grade boosters and are picked last, after the rest of their schedule and workload is set. The
current system produces credits, not outcomes. Defenders of this requirement will say the engineers need more than just equations in life and that communication and judgment matter just as much as the calculation. This is absolutely true; disasters like the Challenger explosion were failures of decision-making as much as engineering. However, that’s an argument for teaching those skills well, not for six self-selected courses that students use as fillers around their major requirement classes. If Cornell does truly believe engineers need specific ethics and communication skills from liberal study courses, it should push for these courses to be taught in an engineering context. For a model of how this can be done successfully, look no further than our neighbours to the North. Canadian accreditation also requires non-technical studies, however most of it is tied to engineering practice: ethics and law, engineering’s impact on society, safety, sustainability and engineering economics. Cornell can find a system to keep breadth while also making courses relevant to students’ major. While the University offers some courses along these lines, certain requirements — such as the new group seven requirement — make it so that there are even fewer choices for courses like these. A further requirement that liberal study classes have is that no more than two classes can be a part of the engineering communications distribution. If students are passionate about being able to communicate in the field they intend to work in, why should Cornell limit them? Cornell should take a deep dive into the current system in place and reevaluate if their intended goals with liberal studies are truly in students’ best interest. Guiding students towards learning these skills of communication, ethics and teamwork will be much more beneficial if they are taught within engineering contexts, not grade booster classes. Ezra Cornell wanted to found an institution where any person could find instruction in any study. For engineers, that promise should include the freedom to go deep, not the obligation to go wide.
CHARLIE CLARK ’29 Director of Revenue & Partnerships VICTORIA WROBLEWSKI ’28 Human Resources Manager MELISSA MOON ’28 Arts & Culture Editor JAMES PALM ’27 Assistant Arts & Culture Editor MATTHEW RENTEZELAS ’28 Assistant Arts & Culture Editor HAZEL TJADEN ’28 Assistant Arts & Culture Editor MARC STAIANO ’27 Assistant Arts & Culture Editor KATELYN HALVERSON ’28 Lifestyle Editor AVA BETNAR ’29 Assistant Lifestyle Editor SANIKA SARAF ’28 Assistant Lifestyle Editor KATHERINE ISTOMIN ’29 Marketing Manager JACK MCAULIFFE ’29 Assistant Social Media Editor ASHLIN KWONG ’28 Graphics Editor TAVAN BHATIA ’27 Games Editor RENA GEULA ’28 Layout Editor
SHUBHA GAUTAM ’28 Assistant News Editor GISELLE REDMOND ’28 Assistant News Editor ANGELINA TANG ’28 Science & Technology Editor TANIA HAO ’28 Science & Technology Editor SIMRAN LABORE ’27 Weather & Climate Editor MATTHEW LEONARD ’28 Sports Editor GRACE REUBEN ’28 Sports Editor JANE HAVILAND ’28 Features Editor NATHAN ELLISON ’28 Photography Editor NATHAN BO ’28 Assistant Photography Editor ADELAIDE CHOW ’29 Assistant Photography Editor MIA SOFIA ORENGO ’28 Video Editor OAKLEY DECRISTOFARO ’29 Video Editor AMELIA GARCIA ’27 Data Editor HUNTER PETMECKY ’28 Layout Editor
WORKING ON TODAY'S SUN MANAGING
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Varsha Bhargava '27 Kate Turk '27 Sophia Romanov Imber '28 Everett Chambala '27 Shubha Gautam '28 Atticus Johnson '28
Tania Hao ’28
Grace Reuben '28 Rayen Zhou '29 Zara Cheek '28 Ava Betnar '29 Sanika Saraf '28 Melissa Moon '28 Hazel Tjaden '28 Nathan Ellison '28 Adelaide Chow '29
Trevor Crouse Trevor Crouse '28 is an Opinion Columnist and a Mechanical Engineering student in the Duffield College of Engineering. His colomn, Cockpit Conversations, examines the systems, culture and decisions of Cornell engineering from 30,000 feet in the air. He can be reached at tjc252@cornell.edu.
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applied for a grant from the Department of Energy for $15 million to complete Phase 2 of the project to conduct additional testing. They received no response and when the Trump administration came into power in 2024, it became clear that the DOE would not provide this funding. Cornell could have paid for the $15 million to move forward with the project if the Board of Trustees were committed to it. However, such funding was never forthcoming. Conflicts of interest may hinder board members from prioritizing technologies for transitioning away from fossil fuels, with many trustees having a vested financial interest in the continued use of fossil fuels. For instance, the Chair of the Board, Anne Meinig Smalling, is also the CEO of an investment firm invested in a Mexican natural gas pipeline company, IGASAMEX. Her father (also Chair of the Board of Trustees before her), made his fortune with the Williams Company, which provided the Northeast with fracked gas pipelines. Meanwhile, according to the first author, a consultant to the Earth Source Heat project, key personnel on the Earth Source Heat project have been let go or retired, including the chief geologist and chief modeler. Yet, Cornell has not publicly announced that the project is paused, nor have they announced alternative plans to decarbonize campus heating. It appears that Cornell has no viable public plan to meet the requirement of Ithaca’s green building policy and its own fast-approaching 2035 goal. The Cornell Energy Team has publicly hinted at moving forward with decarbonization Plan B (ground source heat pumps, aka shallow geothermal) in a recent discussion of Cornell’s heating plans. So why is the Cornell administration not confirming the University’s 2035 commitment by making a public announcement about this plan, and committing to provide the funding and resources necessary? As we asked in our letter to the editor, why are they again leaving the Cornell Energy Team out in the cold? Cornell must make good on their Climate Action Plan. To do so, the University must either commit to funding Earth Source Heat themselves or publicly acknowledge that the project is not going to happen and move forward with Plan B. Otherwise, they stand in the way of the City’s decarbonization plan — a city-wide experiment that could ultimately be replicated on larger scales — and fail to follow through on their own climate commitment. 20 years ago, Cornell would not have made this commitment without pressure from Cornellians and Ithacans. Today, they won’t follow through on those commitments unless we hold the University and the Board of Trustees accountable. As members of the Cornell community, let’s hold our University to the climate leadership we need and expect from a globally-renowned educational powerhouse.
The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026 7
COLUMNS
The Refounding Paul Kurgan
The Refounding Paul Kurgan '27 is an Opinion Columnist and a government student in the College of Arts & Sciences. His column, The Refounding, asks how Cornell can lead a refounding of the University for the age of AI, grounded in the ideals of both its own founding and the nation's. He can be reached at pkurgan@cornellsun.com.
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he age of AI has exposed the need for a refounding of the university. As students, faculty and alumni of Cornell, we are the inheritors of an institution uniquely equipped to lead that charge. Step into a lecture on campus and notice right away how far behind the structure of the university has fallen. On every laptop sits a large language model that can explain the material faster, and often better, than the professor at the front of the room. When class lets out, many students head to new-member meetings for their business clubs. They spend their hours building spreadsheets and polishing resumes, work that models can now do in seconds. In the past, this was the surest way to get a Cornell degree to pay off. Now, the threat of mass replacement of white-collar work sits in the room with them. They grab a quick dinner and settle into the Cocktail Lounge to study. Again, the model awaits them at their desks as they open their problem sets, essays and reading assignments. With it comes an urge, an overwhelming incentive. The model cuts the reading from hours to minutes. A problem set that took days is now done in the
time it takes to copy down the answer the model regurgitated. And it’s completed perfectly, with no mistakes. The case for pushing back against these incentives is not being made strongly enough. Not by our teachers, not by our institutions, not by our University. If anything, our institutions, pierced by the market forces and impending labor-market pressures of our society, incentivize and urge us to take these shortcuts. Somewhere along the way, from the first lecture to the last problem set, something at the heart of a university education has been lost. Something special, even magical, about our experiences in the university is quietly, and quickly, slipping away. Out goes the process of learning, and with it the university’s power to transform our character, to inspire our spirit and to strengthen our will. What we need is a refounding of the university, one that rethinks what the purpose of higher education ought to be. And we need to think, together, about solutions that can help us chart a path forward. We must start with pride in the institution we attend. We are the inheritors of a university uniquely positioned to usher in a new era of education, not only for Cornell students but for university students across America. The magnificence of Cornell’s founding lies in what it meant for our nation’s. In 1776, the United States of America was conceived as an expression of the human spirit. The Declaration of Independence proclaimed the “unalienable rights” we hold as humans to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” Our founders envisioned a society free from the irrational will of a monarch, and free from the dogma of a single religious faith. Our nation was founded on a vision of a society where the human spirit could run free. The vision was left unfinished. Slavery had
been written into our Constitution, and 11 states seceded to defend it. The Civil War and the three amendments that followed it freed the enslaved, made them citizens and gave Black men the right to vote. Abraham Lincoln led the charge, calling forth and shedding blood for “a new birth of freedom.” Historians call it our nation’s “refounding.” From this refounding emerged our beloved University. On April 27, 1865, 12 days after Lincoln’s death, Ezra Cornell and Andrew Dickson White won a charter for their new university. They would build what historian Frederick Rudolph would call the first American university: open to women as well as men, bound to no church and devoted to the idea that “any person can find instruction in any study.” Lincoln’s generation refounded a nation; ours must refound the university. Let us find once again the beauty and spirit that our University was founded to bring forth. Let us lead a refounding, within our own walls and beyond them, for universities and students of generations to come. I view this column as an invitation to dialogue, a shared exploration of the ideas our present moment at Cornell calls for. Throughout, let us return to the report of the Committee on the Future of the American University, published just this September and largely overlooked. Let us think and argue about new additions to the curriculum, new ways to build community and new ways to teach. Let our founding story, and the national promise Cornell was built to realize, inspire solutions and help us reimagine the community we belong to and the purpose we attach to our education. And in so doing, let us rediscover that human spirit, buried deep within us, waiting to be transformed. That is the ambition Ezra Cornell, A.D. White and the founders of our nation ask of their inheritors, and the call is now ours to answer.
The Right’s Double Standard: Eradicate Feminism, Excuse Republicans Wesley Leung Slope Talk
Wesley Leung '30 is an Opinion Columnist studying government and economics in the College of Arts and Sciences. His column, Slope Talk, explores how politics shapes daily life, focusing on challenging conventional narratives and shedding light on neglected issues. Through critical analysis, he seeks to encourage Cornellians to question the status quo and engage more deeply with the political world around them. He can be reached at wleung@ cornellsun.com.
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radicate feminism. It's simply the most straightforward way to prevent future Jane Does. That is the answer the American right has offered following the Jane Doe case as a solution to countless sexual assault cases that have been brought to light. Several influential right-wing political commentators have weaponized Doe’s sexual assault allegations to attack feminism. They claim feminism has encouraged women to seek meaningless sexual encounters and shield women from accountability if they have negative experiences or regrets. The right frames feminism as part of a broader leftwing agenda to morally corrupt the next generation and systematically replace traditional, often Christian, values. To prevent society’s supposed moral degradation, they incessantly preach the need to return to traditional conservative values. To be clear, traditional marriage, centering Christianity in one’s life and personal accountability are not inherently bad values. However, for some on the right, traditional values seem less like guiding principles and more like standards to impose on others. Therefore, if feminism has destroyed traditional values, perhaps we should examine some of the most principled Republican politicians who seek to restore them. Take Texas Attorney General and defeated
Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton. Surely someone who has championed the sanctity of marriage and family is guided by traditional values. After all, he differentiated himself from his then-opponent, James Talarico, a seminarian, by highlighting his pious family values. Yet, his wife filed for divorce on "biblical grounds,” accusing him of adultery after 38 years of marriage. Although he has denied his wife’s claim, these are not the first allegations of Paxton violating the sanctity of marriage. In 2023, Paxton was impeached over allegations that he abused his power as attorney general to serve the interests of businessman Nate Paul in exchange for Paul hiring the woman whom Paxton was engaging in an affair with, though he was ultimately acquitted. Interestingly, his estranged wife, a Texas state senator, still urged Texans to vote for the GOP ticket, prioritizing Republican control of the Senate seat over potential reservations about the allegations and behavior of the candidate. Apparently, the sanctity of marriage is a fundamental Christian value until calling out a Republican’s violation of it is politically inconvenient. While the right denounces feminism for allegedly erasing personal accountability, the same standards become flexible when the political balance of Congress is on the line. Perhaps loyalty in marriage is not a traditional value most Republicans are concerned with. Even if that were true, ensuring their wives’ and children’s safety surely must be a traditional value that is nonnegotiable, right? Consider Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio), whose seat was flipped on Tuesday, an advocate for stricter law enforcement to ensure our families stay safe from criminals and a champion fighting against “radical Democrat policies.” Yet, his ex-wife alleges that he held a gun against her head and threw hot water on her, while Child Protective Services indicated that abuse against his daughter was possible, though they did not identify a perpetrator. This comes only five years after his former girlfriend accused him of pushing her against a wall and
slapping her. While some Senate Republicans called for Miller to step down, surely Republican leadership did as well. Except they didn’t. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) reaffirmed his support for Miller, calling him a “great member of Congress,” while Chair of the House Republican Conference Lisa McClain (R-Mich.) said she would “support anyone with an R behind their name.” Johnson and McClain reveal the contradictions of the Republican Party: When a Republican majority in Congress was at stake, party affiliation superseded any allegations of misconduct, even when it ran against the values at the heart of the Republican Party platform. Ultimately, the problem is not simply that Republicans fail to uphold the values that they publicly hold dear in their private lives. This hypocrisy is certainly not isolated to Republicans. The issue is how the American right selectively applies these values to others. Of course, Max Miller and Ken Paxton deserve due process. Allegations alone do not establish guilt. However, due process does not entitle them to unconditional support from their party. Meanwhile, consider how the American right has treated the Jane Doe case. Many immediately attacked Jane Doe for a lack of personal accountability and attacked feminism for allegedly encouraging this behavior while erasing traditional values. At the same time, when Republicans receive severe and credible allegations of violating their values, their leadership suddenly emphasizes patience, reserving judgment or ignorance toward the claims. Why are political allies exempt from immediate personal responsibility, but women supposedly influenced by feminism, like Doe, are immediately condemned as lacking accountability? Perhaps feminism isn’t the problem eroding traditional values — it's the Republican Party’s willingness to turn a blind eye to those who violate them when it is politically convenient.
8 The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026
Science
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
‘It’s the Great Pumpkin, Cornellians’: A Look Into Cornell’s Vegetable Breeding Research By MEI KNIGHT Sun Contributor
Past the Botanical Gardens and deep inside Cornell’s agricultural grounds lives the Mazourek Lab, where horticulturists can produce vegetables consumers have never seen before on the shelf. The Mazourek Lab recently finished its autumn field harvest, collecting a variety of vegetables that included gourds, squash, peppers and peas. The lab’s next step is to see what genetic traits — yield, taste, disease resistance or aesthetics — can be improved upon in the next generation.
“We have to kiss a lot of frogs, but eventually you’ll find some really good squash along the way.” Prof. Michael Mazourek “As pathogens, the environment and the weather-climate continues to change, we need our food to change with it,” said Prof. Michael Mazourek, plant breeding and genetics, who founded the lab. “So we work on a subset of vegetables, and we use whatever means necessary within the natural breeding context to try to create new varieties that will work for the grower and the consumer.” Throughout the year, local farmers and restaurants reach out to the Mazourek Lab to request new vegetable hybrids that can withstand certain ecological conditions. For instance, a current project the lab is working on is developing disease and insect resistant pumpkins that can be consumed after serving
as Halloween decorations. “There’s a lot of back and forth as we show them a prototype, and then they’ll test drive it and say, ‘okay, well, we grew this, maybe this needs this or that,’ and then we go back, work on it some more, and then go back,” Mazourek said. The lab’s first step is figuring out which breeds are the best to experiment on. “A lot of times something will have some characteristic, some resistance or some unique growth habit that we like, and then we have these other varieties that [have] really good flavor but might not grow very well. So we make crosses,” said Gregory Inzinna, a plant science graduate student and technician working for the lab. The process of “crossing” vegetables is built on basic Punnett square principles. Characteristics of plants are found in different stretches of DNA — the genetic code that makes up both plants and animals. When DNA from two plants are mixed together, the resulting seeds can carry more than 30,000 genes stitched together from both parents. “We just do a standard natural pollination, take pollen from one plant and put it on the stigma of the flower of another plant,” Inzinna said. The most successful cross-pollinations in the lab are the ones that can produce large yields. “Agriculture consumes a lot of resources,” Mazourek said. “And the farmer has to be able to stay in business and feed people. So yield is critical. We look at how it performs, at least in the regions we can grow in.” Second to yield comes taste. For squash, Inzinna will cut up pieces of each vegetable, cook them and taste-test the flavors. For pep-
COURTESY OF MICHAEL MAZOUREK
Perfecting peppers | The Mazourek Lab works with local farmers and restaurants and uses plant breeding techniques to create new vegetable hybirds.
pers, Inzinna can often get a sense of how a hybrid will taste by sniffing the capsaicinoids, naturally occurring chemicals within peppers that are responsible for their characteristic burning sensation. “And so some of them, you know, they’re regrettable and you want to spit them out,” Inzinna said. “Michael says we have to kiss a lot of frogs, but eventually you’ll find some really good squash along the way. And we do the same thing with peppers.” Recently, the lab has found a large amount of success with pepper production. Mazourek and Inzinna created a Sweet Italian pepper that had sizable yields on the field while maintaining a unique taste. The cross-pollination was so successful that the lab was able to collaborate with spice company Burlap & Barrel on a brand new spice. The work required to maintain the lab’s
success is extensive. Both Mazourek and Inzinna believe that recruiting undergraduate students is vital for smooth lab operations. “When we get sick and tired of, ‘man, we’re going to have to harvest all those squash,’ then all the undergrads come back in August and [are] like, ‘oh, look at all the squash. I’m so excited,’ and then we get excited again,” Mazourek said. Undergraduates are often given serious lab responsibilities that prepare them for a future career in horticulture. During harvest season, the extra hands are critical for extracting vegetables from the field before the frost.
To continue reading this story, please visit www.cornellsun.com. Mei Knight can be reached at mk2654@cornell.edu.
VR Proteins, Hydrophones, Hip Implants: Inside Cornell’s Teaching Grants By ASHLEY KIM Sun Staff Writer
For some students in Prof. Yu Wang’s class this semester, a stethoscope offered something unexpected: the first time they had ever heard their own heartbeat. “Just by [bringing] up this experience itself, listen to your heartbeat, so that doctors do not monopolize that knowledge. I think that is already very meaningful,” said Wang, an assistant professor of science and technology studies. Wang’s class is one of several reshaped this year with support from the Center of Teaching Innovation’s Innovative Teaching & Learning Grants. Across campus, faculty are using the grant to show students what is usually hidden: sounds too faint to hear, proteins too small to see and patients that medical research has long overlooked. Support Behind the Scenes The Center of Teaching Innovation supports faculty and instructors with everything from Canvas to complete course redesigns, according to Carolyn Aslan, senior associate director at CTI. Since the center began awarding the grants in 2018, it has funded more than 40 projects that explore innovative teaching approaches and emerging technologies in the context of the classroom. Each funded project is paired with an instructional designer who helps research teaching strategies, plan how to assess its impacts and share the results with the wider community. “We really try to go from principles and practices that have been established by education research as effective,” Aslan said. Seeing the Microscopic In an introductory biology course on
cell biology and development, lecturer Cora Whitmore and Prof. Martin Graef, molecular biology and genetics, faced a familiar challenge: teaching protein structure with flat images. Proteins are the machines of the cell, Whitmore explained. Like a coffee grinder, each has a three-dimensional shape and parts that must do their job. “If you had never seen a coffee grinder before and just looked at an image, you wouldn’t understand how it works,” Whitmore said. “And it’s similar when we teach proteins using just still images, which is what we’ve done in the past.” With their grant, Whitmore and Graef brought virtual reality into the course’s discussion sections. The activity allowed students to interactively examine the structure of proteins. With around 480 students, it is the largest course at Cornell to incorporate VR, Whitmore said.
“We really try to go from principles and practices that have been established by education research as effective.” Carolyn Aslan The first run wasn’t perfect, she said, and the team is planning to revise the activity for the spring. “Just using a new tool for the sake of using a new tool isn’t really good enough,” Whitmore said. “We have to prove that it helps with learning.”
Hearing the Unheard In Wang’s class, STS 2031: “Global History of Data,” his project “Teaching Data Sovereignty Through Embodied Experience” asks students to think about how data is extracted from their bodies and how they might take control of that process. His grant funded sound recorders, hydrophones that capture sound underwater, sound level meters and a 3D printer. The 3D printer will allow students to design a physical object for their final project rather than writing an essay. “I want [the students] to do a project that you can put in your dorm for a year or two,” Wang said. “Something that will stick to your mind beyond the classroom.” The tools are meant for more than just a cool demonstration, Wang said. He builds in time for students to reflect on the tools’ limits and on the social dynamics behind them, such as diagnostic technologies built on samples of mostly male patients. Seeing Who Research Left Out That gap in medical research is at the focus of teaching for assistant Prof. Kayla Wolf, biomedical engineering, through her course, BME 4420: “Biomedical Engineering for Women’s Health,” which is being offered for the first time this year. “For a long time, males have been the default research subject,” Wolf said. She is using the grant to build “failure analysis studios” for students that run “sort of like a murder mystery.” In these assignments, students receive rounds of evidence about a real clinical failure, such as why women receive more hip implants, and must work out what role anatomy played. The course then asks students to explain
what they’ve found to a broad audience through podcasts that they plan to share publicly at the end of the semester. Wolf said that this communication skill matters both for learning and for students’ future careers. “When you have to explain something, you have to really understand it,” she said. When it comes to engineering for women’s health, she added, explaining the importance of sex-based differences is a crucial skill for this type of work.
“When you have to explain something, you have to really understand it.” Prof. Kayla Wolf Work Worth Seeing Asland said interest in the grants has grown, especially in proposals related to AI. Some faculty want to incorporate it into learning, while others want to design assignments where it isn’t useful. CTI launched a new faculty fellows program this year, the AI Experimenters, to explore those questions together. Much of this effort, she said, never reaches the ears of students, despite the fact that running a single VR session for undergraduates requires complex logistics and months of design. “I’m just almost every day just amazed at the things that Cornell faculty are doing in their classes,” Asland said. “It should be communicated more.” Ashley Kim can be reached at askim@cornellsun.com.
The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026 9
Lifestyle
LIFESTYLE
The Sophomore Slump Phenomenon By SAVANNAH SANDHAUS Lifestyle Staff Writer
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ince the Spring 2027 Class Roster officially dropped for pre-enrollment browsing this October, I can’t help but notice a familiar feeling of existential dread spreading among my fellow sophomores. In high school, we all heard about, and likely experienced, some form of the ‘sophomore slump’: a lack of motivation to engage with school, anxiety about the future and burnout that comes with settling into a new environment. I can’t help but attribute some of that same feeling to life here at Cornell. I didn’t quite expect to experience it all over again, but now that the honeymoon phase of freshman year has officially passed, we’re becoming accustomed to the rigor of college and the monotony of routine, while also confronting the question of what we actually want to do with our lives, and how, exactly, we’re supposed to get there. Sophomore year is an interesting crossroads period. We’re past the excitement of completely starting anew but haven’t quite reached the upperclassman stage of settling into a confirmed major, planning for post-graduation and, for many, studying abroad. This is the era of officially locking in and becoming the ‘academic weapons’ we all proclaimed ourselves to be in high school. For those of us who thought we were certain about our passions (personally, an ever-changing debate between English, sociology, psychology and some odd combination of minors), the pressure to figure out who we are and who we want to become feels more intense than ever as we transition into adulthood. But when the pressure becomes so
immense, it doesn’t always inspire us to thrive. Sometimes, myself included, we experience anxiety accompanied by a dragging sense of demotivation. The novelty wears off, replaced by the routine of classes, prelims and stagnant, repetitive social schedules. Sophomores aren’t given the same guidance as first years, and suddenly, we’re expected to start building the connections that will supposedly carry us through our remaining college years. To say the least, LinkedIn connections have become my sleep paralysis demons. We’re pressured to lock down a major, pursue opportunities and make decisions that feel increasingly consequential, leaving little room for curiosity. The resulting apathy and burnout aren’t necessarily individual struggles; they can be part of a shared experience. Some days, it feels like we’re drifting through our routines in a haze, unsure whether what we’re doing is actually bringing us closer to our future goals. We start to anticipate what the coming months will bring: the Ithaca winter, the stress of midterms and finals and the mounting difficulty of coursework. The familiarity of it all can be comforting, but it can also make the semester feel like one long stretch of obligations. Still, just as we had to remind ourselves in high school, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Sophomore year can also be a time to reassess our routines: to try a new hobby, find new circles through campus clubs and explore those niche curiosities we haven’t had the chance to pursue. It’s an opportunity to seek mentorship, talk to upperclassmen and lean on the people who can remind us that life picks up again. Most importantly, it’s a time to prioritize ourselves outside of our academic ambitions. That can start with the basics: main-
ANNIE PARK / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
taining a consistent sleep schedule, calling time to strengthen the connections we’ve home to catch up with family and friends made, explore our interests more deeply and making time to get outside. Whether and find excitement in trying new things, it’s going to the gym, taking a walk or no matter how simple. We don’t need to simply enjoying Ithaca’s fall foliage while have our futures mapped out quite yet to the last few days of vitamin D are upon enjoy where we are right now. Just because the novelty of college has us, small changes in routine can make a dwindled since last year doesn’t mean difference. Just this weekend, I went apple picking we’ve run out of things to experience. for the first time at Indian Creek Farm, Sometimes, we just have to make a more a 15-minute drive from campus. It was conscious effort to find the moments a wonderful change of pace, even if I that allow us to feel present. Ithaca and Cornell are just as full visited for only a few hours. Surrounded by Ithaca’s fall colors in full swing, I got of opportunities as they were last year. a change of scenery before returning to We can find that feeling again because the prelim studying I know all too well. it never actually went away. Routine I’ve also started reading for pleasure again, can be boring, tedious and easy to even if it’s only for an hour before heading dismiss. But somewhere between the to bed. On quiet Sunday nights, I play prelims, the pre-enrollment stress and guitar with my roommates in our triple the LinkedIn notifications, there is still dorm room. I’m now making plans to a life to be lived outside of planning our head to Cinemapolis to see a new film entire future. We just have to remember or try a new restaurant in the Commons. to look for it. None of these activities are particularly groundbreaking, but that’s the point. Savannah Sandhaus is a member of the Class Sophomore year doesn’t have to be of 2029 in the College of Arts and Sciences. defined by mounting pressure. It can be a She can be reached at ssandhaus@cornellsun.
Editor’s note: This article references sexual assualt.
The Consent Conversation By LIBBY IDO Sex on Thursday Columnist
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Maybe later.” “Not right now.” “I guess.” “I don’t want to.” “Since we already did.” “Since you really want to.” “I’d rather not.” “No.” All of these are statements, and precisely zero of them are express consent. “We can try again later.” “You just need a bit of liquid confidence.” “You don’t know what you want.” “Well, let’s see how the night really goes.” “But, I really wanted to.” “I can’t believe you would do this to me.” “But you said before … ” All of these are also statements, and all of them are attempts at coercion. For many survivors of sexual assault, these phrases are all too familiar, but they are also too familiar in our culture. There is a myth that hearing ‘no’ is the deciding factor on whether something is consensual. The phrase “No Means No” originated in Canadian student movements of the ’90s that sought to prevent sexual assault, but the message falls short of the notion of consent. It assumes that permission for sex is the default. The second half of that movement, which acknowledges that asking for consent is mandatory, has been largely ignored. This has allowed for the “No Means No” slogan to morph into a standard where only an explicit ‘no’ means refusal, placing the blame for sexual violence on victims who didn’t say the word. Sex on Thursdays is a column dedicated to voicing the candid experiences of sex in college. It would be remiss of me, someone who adores talking
about sex, to publish for this column without having the consent conversation Cornell culture has been lacking. Ironically, I am a student in one of multiple majors where Cornell requires students to take research methods and scientific literacy classes that thoroughly discuss consent in the scientific realm; we are only lacking it when it comes to our campus culture. For some reason, when sitting in lecture halls, we can all agree that research requires informed consent that has not been unduly influenced, and that anyone can revoke that consent at any time. We agree that it is abhorrent when we hear of studies done on participants who were never told what was happening, who did not have the choice to say no or who only participated as a last resort. If we were to hear about research studies done on participants who had been drugged, who were subjected to procedures beyond what was agreed to beforehand or who would be in danger if they resisted, we would be rightfully horrified, because that is clearly not informed consent. The entire lab would be shut down, and the researchers involved would be shunned from the scientific community forever. Yet the second we exit the classroom, we are bombarded with debates about how far into the gray area we can go before we can truly decide someone hasn’t given consent. For survivors, this is triggering. For any scientific thinker, it should be ridiculous, because we know how consent works, and we know better than to assume it is the default. But, our discourse about sex fails to address the real issue: only yes means yes. Any reluctance, hesitance or replacement in place of the
SUN FILE PHOTO
word ‘yes’ are not consent. Whether it is because purity culture has taught that women do now have ownership over their bodies, or because porn has taught us that sex is the status quo or because many adolescents haven’t received proper sex education, we as a society have continued to perpetuate the idea that the onus is on the victim to say no ‘properly.’ We hardly ever have the conversation that the onus is on the initiator to receive a yes before beginning, and that consent is subject to change at any time. The idea that you just need to try harder to get a yes from someone isn’t just wrong; it’s an attempt at sexual coercion, and when it succeeds — as it does for so many people — it is sexual assault. At Cornell, we have the mindset that if you don’t get what you want, you need to be more of a go-getter, an achiever, because we should never take no for an answer. This outlook causes many to adopt a dangerous
mentality when pursuing other people, which encourages them to persist regardless of the wishes of the person being pursued. The bottom line is that if it takes convincing for someone to have sex with you, then they don’t want to do it and you shouldn’t want to have sex with them anymore either. Sex is not something that you get to do because you win or a reward because you’ve worked hard enough. Sex is also not something that you do to someone because you want to, or because they’re attractive or because they haven’t told you to stop yet. Sex is something you do with someone because you both agree that you want to, because it is fun and enjoyable. And, because you both respect each other, enough to know that only ‘yes’ means yes. Libby Ido is a member of the Class of 2030 at Cornell. She can be reached at style@cornellsun.com.
10 The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026
NEWS
Palantir CTO Discusses U.S. Deterrence
By SHUBHA GAUTAM Sun Assistant News Editor
Nov. 7 — The chief technology officer and executive vice president of Palantir Technologies, Shyam Sankar ’03, spoke to an audience of around 300 students on Thursday evening in Baker Laboratory. The event began with an advanced screening of the documentary Deterrence: Winning the Second Cold War, followed by Sankar discussing the private sector’s role in the defense industry, the use of autonomous weapons in warfare and how the U.S. has “lost [military] deterrence” in a Q&A session. Palantir is a data analytics and defense software company that has been criticized for its collaboration with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Israel Defense Ministry. Palantir employees, including Cornell alumni, also offered coffee chats on campus to upperclassmen in student project teams this week, according to a Tuesday email from the director of project teams obtained by The Sun. Prof. Matt Marx, vice provost for entrepreneurship, innovation and external engagement and moderator of the Q&A, introduced Sankar to the audience as someone who “has grown [Palantir] to be a worldwide leader in software, AI and technologies,” over the past two decades. Sankar, who also serves as a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve, joined Palantir in 2006 as their 13th employee, after earning a bachelor’s degree in electrical and computer engineering from Cornell and a master’s degree in management science and engineering from Stanford University. Free copies of his book, Mobilize: How to Reboot the American Industrial Base and Stop World War III, were available outside the auditorium. At the beginning of the event, Marx reminded attendees that interruptions would be a violation of University policy. He said those who interfered with the screening would be escorted out by Cornell University Police Department officers, who were present at the event. Cornell students, faculty and staff attending the event were screened by security, prohibited from bringing in bags and instructed to swipe their Cornell IDs to enter the venue. As people entered the venue, a single protestor stood with a sign speaking out against weapons manufacturing recruitment on campus. They declined a request for comment. In his opening remarks, Sankar said he “very vividly” remembers having “a lot of anxiety,” as his time at Cornell ended since he did not have many job offers or a post-graduation plan. “The thing I wish people would tell me was [to] focus less on the anxiety I had and on exactly what I’m going to do, and much more on the purpose — what I can do,” Sankar said. Exclusive Documentary Screening The event opened up with the 90-minute documentary, which featured various U.S. national security officials and founders of private defense companies, discussed foreign supply-chain dependencies in weapons manufacturing, the Russia-Ukraine war, China’s ongoing weapons development and military deterrence as a means of preventing conflict. Attendees were prohibited from filming the screening. Military deterrence is defined as preventing an opponent from
“taking an undesired action” by making it so the “costs of acting outweigh any potential gains,” according to NATO, and typically refers to how investment in strong military capability can be a strategy to deter war. The film warned of the possibility of war with China. Founders of private defense companies, including Palantir, Castelion and Anduril, were presented as leading efforts to advance the American defense industry. Sankar said private companies “showed up” when increased weapons manufacturing was needed. He said the U.S. is in an “undeclared state of emergency,” and this results in a need for private defense expansion. “When [Palantir] first started, you couldn’t do anything with the Department of Defense,” Sankar said. “The eager crew of [private defense company] founders has then pulled behind them enormous amounts of capital. … And I think just like World War II, it will be the private sector that leads ahead of government needs.” Q&A Session Following the screening, audience members lined up to ask Sankar questions. Attendees probed him on topics ranging from gaining experience in the defense industry to the end goal of deterrence. Afterwards, attendees were given the opportunity to speak individually to Palantir employees. An audience member asked Sankar a question regarding the morality of working at the defense company. “Does Palantir’s onboarding process teach you how to turn off your [conscience], or is that something that is assumed before you take your offer?” the attendee asked. While Sankar acknowledged that some see Palantir as a “controversial” company, he said that someone who applies for a job there is an “independent thinker that wants to get the facts for themselves and make up their own mind.” One student asked the Palantir CTO what “it take[s] to win when you organize,” and whether there is an experience or mindset that Sankar sees as integral to success. Sankar answered that success “comes down to caring about winning,” and that the human tendency to get “obsessed” with the aesthetics of winning can constrain progress. “Do you know what the goal is?” Sankar said. “Do you know what winning is? And then [ask] yourself, am I winning more or less? Is that working?” Throughout his responses, Sankar underscored his belief in continued weapons manufacturing as a means of military deterrence. An attendee countered Sankar by pointing out that the U.S. has used its defense capabilities to begin wars and cause “damage to the world.” To them, there was worry of an “infinite escalation.” “The problem is we don’t have deterrence right now,” Sankar replied. Using Russia’s war with Ukraine as an example, he asked: “Why did [Vladimir Putin] do it? Why did he invade Ukraine? Because he thought he was going to win.” The attendee responded by saying they believed the RussiaUkraine war was caused by American provocation with NATO expansion around Russia, to which Sankar said they can “agree to disagree.”
Wyatt Sell ’27, an event attendee and Sun opinion columnist, said the idea of an arms race today “seems bad insofar as it escalates tensions,” but that the documentary compellingly argued instead that increasing weapons manufacturing efforts “actually de-escalates.” He referred back to the Cold War, during which the U.S. and the Soviet Union spent decades in a nuclear arms race before the Soviet Union’s dissolution “without large-scale conflict.” “I think the deterrence [argument] is more compelling because we live in such a globalized world, such that it is better for countries to avoid conflict in general,” Sell told The Sun. In a statement to The Sun, he later added that, “Conflict is already high cost, and if we can maintain or increase the cost of a conflict for our adversaries, it’s all the more likely it won’t happen.” Henry Cheng, a fourth year Ph.D. candidate in history and event attendee, told The Sun he believes the documentary’s perspective is “highly biased” because said it leaves out information about Palantir and can cause more moral issues in today’s higher education system. “Deterrence against authoritarian countries, I must admit, is [somewhat] necessary, but this term is being misused by the authoritarian politicians in [the] United States,” Cheng said. “Palantir is not just investing in the robotic wars to defend Ukraine. … It’s supporting ICE, supporting the police state.” Hours before the event, Cornell Students for Justice in Palestine and Cornell Young Democratic Socialists of America criticized Sankar’s invitation to campus and the University’s “direct pipeline from undergrad to weapons manufacturer.” The video incorrectly stated that attendees would have to sign non-disclosure agreements, however, NDAs have previously been required at Palantir-hosted events on Cornell’s campus. The student groups denounced Palantir’s $30 million contract with ICE to develop ImmigrationOS, a surveillance platform that aims to “streamline the identification … of individuals prioritized for removal.” The AI-powered system pulls data from government databases to target, track and manage deportations. SJP and YDSA also criticized Palantir’s 2024 partnership with the Israel Defense Forces to provide technological services for “war-related missions.” Cheng said that alongside defense, Palantir is investing in “political violence … against the people that live around us.” He referenced pro-Palestine activists Momodou Taal, the international Ph.D. student who sued the Trump Administration in Spring 2025, and graduate student Amandla Thomas-Johnson, who both fled the country over deportation concerns. “[Thomas-Johnson and Taal] became the victims of ICE,” Cheng said, arguing that their self-deportation occurred under the pressure from the federal government’s immigration enforcement policies. “I promise you, as bad as things are now, they will get worse,” Sankar said during the Q&A. “It’s much more convenient to sit on the sidelines and critique the institution than to actually do the work of making them better. So those people who want to fight realism and make the world better, come join us.” Shubha Gautam can be reached at sgautam@cornellsun. com.
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Ice Cream Is the Solution By Marek Stanton ’30
AI Psychosis By Jesus Garcia ’29
12 The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026
FEATURES
How Emily Cho ’28 Has Been Closing Gaps in STEM Education In Juvenile Detention Since Age 13 By RAFAELA GANDOLFO BUSTAMENTE and LIA LOSQUADRO Sun Senior Writer and Contributor
Nov. 8 — Emily Cho ’28 stepped into a quiet conference room to take a phone call during what she thought would be a regular day at her summer internship in June 2026. When she stepped out of the room, she had to contain her excitement — she had just been named one of 10 L’Oréal Paris Women of Worth for founding the nonprofit Juvie for STEM, an announcement that would not be made public until mid-October. Cho, who studies information sciences, systems and technology in Cornell’s College of Engineering, founded JSTEM in 2019. The donation-based, volunteer-run organization works to bring “STEM education, mentorship, and reentry support to youth in juvenile detention and correctional facilities,” according to their website. While most juvenile detention centers have an educational system governed by the local public district’s board of education, these programs are often situated in underfunded areas and therefore are not held to a strict standard, Cho explained in an interview. JSTEM was her idea of a solution to this problem. “We thought that maybe we can go in and … deliver some educational materials that may help these students either pursue a further career in academia or spark some interest in a very particular STEM field,” Cho said. In light of her nonprofit work, she was selected by L’Oréal from around 5,000 nominees to be recipient of their annual award, which comes with a $25,000 grant,
strategic mentorship and national visibility across L’Oréal platforms. The recognition is not Cho’s first for her nonprofit work. In 2025, she was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in the Education category. Since its founding, JSTEM has expanded to 18 states and internationally, with chapters in China and Mexico. These chapters impact nearly 23,000 students with the help of about 8,000 volunteers, Cho said. The nonprofit’s current reach, however,
“It’s really hard … not [being] taken that seriously because of your age. But I think I’ve turned this into a double-edged sword in the sense that if I stick out already, [I] might as well make my point. ” Emily Cho ’28 has been years in the making. When she was 13 years old, Cho said she began seeking out opportunities to tutor at local correctional facilities due to an overall interest in court cases and the judicial system. “It’s really hard … not [being] taken that seriously because of your age,” Cho said, when discussing challenges she faced as she started looking for tutoring chances. “But I think I’ve turned this into a double-edged sword in the sense that if I stick out already, [I] might as well make my point.” Cho was offered her first opportunity at a low-security prison in south Jersey. She
soon recruited her high school friends to tutor with her, which inspired heightened awareness for the cause and donations from local businesses that would end up allowing her to register her group as a federal nonprofit. She began developing lesson plans — first on her own, and later with the help of others — to bring learning materials directly to incarcerated youth, which she tailored to their specific interests. These programs may be taught by professionals or groups of volunteers. “If someone was really interested in coding, for example, I would just think to myself, ‘what’s the easiest coding language to get into,’” Cho said. Lesson plans eventually grew to larger scales, expanding to “curriculums that I’ve personally never been in a classroom for,” Cho said. Whether it was biology, coding or automobile mechanics, Cho aimed to narrow educational discrepancies by facilitating hands-on interest in STEM fields in the form of workshops and classroom settings. These days, she said the parents of former students update her on their child’s success after leaving the facility, from internships to job offers. “L’Oréal Paris recognizing the nonprofit … is shedding light on the millions of students who are in these facilities that are overlooked by politicians” Cho said. “It’s been a problem that’s been existing for centuries [and] has been overlooked, and only now are people actually paying some attention to it.” The JSTEM curriculum today has also incorporated microscopes donated by research labs and, more recently, instruction
on large language models has been implemented in multiple educational programs. The education that future work environments require is ever-changing, Cho explained. Adapting to advancements in artificial intelligence is a need she noticed and implemented into JSTEM while studying at Cornell. It is difficult to teach AI fluency in places like juvenile detention, which do not allow access to LLMs like ChatGPT, according to Cho. “A lot of times when we bring them a laptop to learn how to code, that’s their first time using a laptop,” Cho said. “Imagine trying to use a laptop and then figuring out what AI is.” Cornell’s community has also provided Cho with a support network for facing such difficulties. “When I talk to Cornellians who actually have … nonprofits, … we can bond over that a lot, and if I can talk about our struggles, I can often seek a lot of advice from them,” Cho said. Despite seeking ways to strengthen her nonprofit and even winning awards for her work, Cho’s goal is for JSTEM’s work to eventually become unnecessary. “The fact that my nonprofit even exists means that the problem exists,” Cho said. “So hopefully my nonprofit can do a really really good job, and we can keep expanding until this problem is actually solved.” Rafaela Gandolfo Bustamente and Lia Losquadro can be reached at rgandolfobustamente@cornellsun.com and lml284cornell.edu.
What to Know About Skyler Johnson J.D. ’28, the Newly Elected Board of Trustees Grad Student Representative By MAYA JOHANSEN Sun Contributor
Nov. 9 — Skyler Johnson J.D. ’28 was elected to be the Cornell Board of Trustees graduate and professional students representative on Oct. 1 after a campaign which focused on investing more in graduate programs, protecting against funding cuts and improving loans available to students. In his election, Johnson beat out Rachel Davis, a second year Ph.D. student, and Kimberly McMillan M.B.A. ’28 to secure a two-year term as a student-elected trustee.
“Being on a board like this where you become a colleague with executives and very accomplished individuals, you need to not be afraid to use your voice. Otherwise, you’ll very easily get drowned out.” Skyler Johnson J.D. ’28 Pushing back against federal funding cuts and pushing for an overall increase in support for graduate student programs was a key part of Johnson’s focus. “The University needs to continue to fight cuts and support graduate programs,” Johnson told The Sun. “It’s a big part of what makes Cornell University the elite institution that it is.” Graduate programs have been
affected by federal cuts to research and stop-work orders under the Trump administration. In 2025, Cornell saw over $250 million in research funding frozen and over 120 stop-work orders. Though the funding has since been restored with a federal settlement, researchers pointed to its impact on graduate students’ job security. “I really focused on my campaign on … making sure that we can continue to keep open access to funding for students as we’ve seen federal cuts and as we’ve seen federal access to funding start to shudder,” Johnson said. In addition, Johnson proposes that the University should expand or adapt its existing student loan programs to serve graduate students. Federal loans for many graduate students were restricted under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed by President Donald Trump in August 2025. After July 1, 2026, graduate students can no longer take out Grad PLUS federal loans, and the parent version of the loan is severely capped and faces repayment restrictions. University-funded loan programs are available only to undergraduates who demonstrate financial need, limiting graduate students to either federal loans, which face restrictions, or private loans. Ideally, “the University could offer [graduate] students more favorable borrowing terms than they might otherwise receive through private lenders,” Johnson wrote in a statement to The Sun. Johnson’s campaign also touched
on expanding free access to the TCAT buses for graduate students. After the first year of studies, undergraduate and graduate students both must pay for the TCAT, and are only exempt on weekends or after 6 p.m. on weekdays. Ph.D. candidates, graduate assistants and members of Cornell Graduate Students United, however, are exempt from paying for the TCAT for the duration of their studies.
position as the Cornell Law Student Association Vice President. In addition, he is also the Co-President of OutLaw, Cornell Law’s LGBTQ organization. “I think that those experiences overall have taught me how to have a voice, even in a room where people may disagree with me and in a room where I’m one of the most, if not the most, junior person,” Johnson said. “Being on a board like this where you become a colleague with executives “The University needs to continue and very accomplished individuals, need to not be afraid to use your to fight cuts and support graduate you voice. Otherwise, you’ll very easily programs. It’s a big part of what get drowned out.” The Board of Trustees is vestmakes Cornell University the elite ed with “supreme control” over the institution that it is.” University, including all of its colleges and other units, according to their website. Skyler Johnson J.D. ’28 As the graduate student representative, Johnson will serve as a full voting member for two years on “I would like to see [the fare exemp- the Board of Trustees. In addition, tion program] expanded to cover Johnson sits on committees includeveryone in graduate and professional ing the Committee on Student Life programs because of the economic to discuss issues directly related to strain that often falls on the student campus life. When asked about what success population,” he said. Johnson told The Sun that TCAT would look like for his tenure as the access is one of his core issues because graduate student representative on he believes it is an achievable goal the Board of Trustees, Johnson reiterthat would have a tangible effect on ated that he simply wants to “get the ball rolling” on his initiatives. students’ lives. “Sucesss for me would be walkJohnson has extensive experience working in advocacy ranging from ing away knowing that I left the being a board member on Planned University a little better than I found Parenthood Hudson Peconic Action it,” Johnson said. Fund, being a board member of the Maya Johansen can be reached at mhj49@ Temple Beth Emeth Synagogue, to his cornellsun.com.
The Cornell Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026 13
NEWS
2026 SUIT Continued from page 1
During the 2024-2025 academic year, Knutson was a dues-paying, outof-house member who still had access to the building and its events, and sophomores Jennings and Green were roommates in the Loving House. Knutson and Jennings became friends during Knutson’s freshman year, according to the lawsuit. This friendship allegedly “turned toxic” during the fall of Knutson’s sophomore year, when Knutson sought a romantic relationship with Jennings and the alleged harassment between Knutson, Jennings and Green began, according to the lawsuit. Described in the lawsuit as six “escalating episodes,” the alleged actions included door-to-door accusations of Knutson “drugging people,” Knutson’s
“banishment” from the Loving House’s Discord server and a campaign to hurt Knutson’s standing as a fraternity pledge. The episodes culminated with an accusation of sexual assault disseminated by Jennings on allegedly “fabricated grounds,” the lawsuit claims. The lawsuit claimed the University knew Jennings was in an “escalating psychiatric crisis.” It also claimed that Jennings was failing multiple courses, and that she used the allegation as a way to avoid a “negative reason for the leave” on her record. The lawsuit claims the staffing and supervision of the Loving House was “wholly inadequate” despite its commitment to protecting its residents. The lawsuit referenced research
which found that LGBTQ+ college-aged students experienced higher rates of suicidal thoughts and attempts compared to their heterosexual peers, including research published on the Cornell Bronfenbrenner Center for Translational Research website. The lawsuit claimed the University knew “exactly whom it was gathering” in the Loving House, yet failed to support its residents by not providing clinical supervision and training their residential advisors adequately. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages for nine counts, in which the University was named in all nine. This lawsuit has emerged on the heels of another lawsuit against the Unviersity and others, in which seven former Cornell students were accused
of gang raping a woman after she was coerced into consuming drugs in the Chi Phi fraternity house in 2024. The initial report of the alleged assault occurred on Nov. 8, 2024, while Knutson’s suicide occured two days after, on Nov. 10, 2024. “The harassment was so severe, pervasive, and objectively offensive that it deprived Winter of equal access to the educational opportunities and benefits Cornell provided,” the lawsuit reads. “Winter was ultimately deprived, through death, of all access to every educational opportunity Cornell offered.” Everett Chambala can be reached at echambala@cornellsun.com.
2023 SUIT Continued from page 1
Rennalls and Ozturk both alleged that they were “sexually, physically, and verbally assaulted” by Braveboy. Rennalls alleged that she was assaulted from June to October 2018, while Ozturk alleged she was assaulted on May 7, 2021. Both wrote that they filed Title IX complaints with the University. In her affidavit, Ozturk wrote that “no action was taken” by the University after filing her complaint. Both plaintiffs stated in their affidavits that the University’s Title IX office received “numerous
Title IX complaints” against Braveboy prior to their complaints. An investigation was opened in 2021, Ozturk wrote, but she added that the investigation against him was closed after he withdrew. The University, the complaint alleges, “had an opportunity to intervene and prevent the sexual abuse perpetrated against Plaintiffs and failed to do so.” The suit argues that the University could have instead properly trained students, investigated the reports of sexual misconduct and reported the allegations to the proper authorities.
Ozturk and Rennalls did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Braveboy’s lawyer previously filed a motion to dismiss the complaint in January 2024, calling the allegations “factually unsupported and legally insupportable.” That motion was denied in August 2024. Everett Chambala can be reached at echambala@cornellsun.com and Coral Platt can be reached at cplatt@cornellsun.com.
A Look Into the DC Start Program’s First Semesters By EMMA YU Sun Contributor
Nov. 3 — For some students in the Cornell Jeb E. Brooks School of Public Policy, freshman year doesn’t start in Ithaca. Instead, it begins in the heart of the nation’s capital. The DC Start program, which held its inaugural semester last fall, is a first-semester residential program that allows incoming Brooks students to start their college experience in Washington, D.C. and pairs their foundational public policy coursework with exposure to the policymaking world. Students live and take classes at the Cornell Wolpe Center in Dupont Circle before transitioning to the Ithaca campus for their spring semester. Of the students who applied in 2025, 43 became the first DC Start cohort. This year, the program accepted 44 students. “Instead of waiting until junior or senior year to experience Washington, students who already know they are interested in public policy can begin their Cornell education there,” Maria Fitzpatrick, the Brooks School’s senior associate dean for academic affairs wrote to The Sun. “They study economics, ethics, writing, and public policy while meeting practitioners, visiting institutions, and seeing policymaking firsthand.” Students in the program’s inaugural semester pointed to many of these opportunities as reasons for enrolling. Ella Nguyen ’29 said she was drawn to the program by the chance to learn directly from practitioners while living in a city where “policies are being made.” Just as important, she added, was the opportunity to “meet a lot of the other first-year students in Brooks in [her] major and have a strong relationship with them before going to Ithaca.” Other students said the decision to join came down to the industries and opportunities that felt closer within reach in D.C. “I was really excited to have the opportunity to start in a bigger city … to have that semester where you could have hands-on experience and plug yourself into a lot of different opportunities like business, tech, policy,” said Adrianna Zawojek ’29. The program’s offerings are designed with that kind of versatility in mind, pairing students with practitioners across a range of fields. While students take classes for
their core public policy curriculum, DC Start’s includes elective courses taught by working practitioners including a former Congressman, former White House senior advisor and a journalist for The New York Times. These professors’ ongoing work in policy offers a firsthand perspective on potential career paths, which students said shaped how they think about their own futures. Engagement with professors “helped me figure out what I did and didn’t want to do — what I expected for my future, not just academically but in all aspects,” said Saanvi Puri ’29. Puri pointed specifically to conversations with Cornell in Washington lecturer Stephen Damianos, who teaches PUBPOL 2830: “Ethics and Public Policy,” and whose work spans technology and migration policy as well as briefings at the White House and State Department. Being able to talk with him “very candidly” about her career goals and gaining advice from his own trajectory, Puri said, was unique to DC Start, which gives students access to “really young and current practitioners as professors.” Nyguen’s favorite class at DC Start was her first-year writing seminar PUBPOL 1510: “America at War in the Modern World,” taught by longtime Prof. David Silbey, director of teaching and learning at Cornell in Washington. Nguyen said what made the course unique was the in-person site visits to war memorials, where her class discussed “the design of the memorials” and explored more deeply “how we commemorate war.” Beyond academics, the program provides early access to off-campus living. Housed in apartment-style units at the Wolpe Center rather than traditional freshman dorms, DC Start scholars are responsible for their own grocery shopping, cooking and household cleaning. Gargi Singh ’29 described this independence as “one of the best parts of this journey,” in a Brooks admissions blog post. “I still don’t love doing the dishes, and I may or may not have survived one week almost entirely on spaghetti,” Singh wrote. “But, somehow, between groceries and the gym, I’ve started building a life that’s mine. It’s not always easy, but it’s real, and I’m proud of it.” The program’s first year came with its share of chal-
lenges. On the administrative side, Fitzpatrick pointed to the government shutdown, “which unexpectedly limited students’ access to several planned activities outside of the Wolpe Building,” in a statement to The Sun. Luckily, she stated, “the program was able to draw on Cornell’s rich connections in Washington to quickly pivot and bring policymakers and practitioners to the students.” For Zawojek and Puri, one challenge was the transition back to Ithaca in the spring. Without any clubs or activities to fall back on, Zawojek said it was “very easy to feel disconnected and isolated from the larger Cornell community.” As for Puri, the anxiety centered more on falling behind in Cornell’s pre-professional culture. “I felt scared coming into [club recruitment] … but after actually applying and interviewing and being able to talk about [DC Start], it ended up being a benefit, not a negative,” Puri said. Despite these concerns, Puri and Nguyen said that the connections they built at the Wolpe Center were strong enough to soften the adjustment to Ithaca. “I think that we were much closer coming back to Ithaca than most people are with their major in the first semester,” Puri said. Nyguyen expressed a similar sense of closeness among the cohort. “The community that we created within D.C., and how close we got, when we came to Ithaca, it felt like we were all just trying to navigate it together,” Nguyen said. “It really created this sense of comfort and community, and it helped all of us be able to transition more easily because we were all in it together.” This month marks five years since the Brooks school’s founding. DC Start, still in its first years, is among its newest programs, and for the second cohort, Fitzpatrick wrote in her statement to The Sun that DC Start has “expanded opportunities for students to build community with one another and with faculty.” “DC Start reflects the kind of public policy school the Brooks School is building,” Fitzpatrick wrote to The Sun. “Experiential learning shouldn’t be something students encounter only at the end of college. For DC Start students, it is part of their education from day one.” Emma Yu can be reached at ewy6@cornell.edu.
A & C
14 | Wednesday, November 11, 2026 | The Corne¬ Daily Sun
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Drinking With Professors? EDWIN MICHEL ARTS & CULTURE CONTRIBUTOR
On Oct. 28, I happened to find myself at the pilot event of the newest movement on campus: Cornell on Tap. Founded by Luciano Bogomolni ’27, Julian Joseph ’27 and Paul Kurgan ’27, Cornell on Tap is an independent student-run organization that aims to cultivate a social and intellectual community on campus by bringing students and professors together in an informal setting to discuss ideas outside of the classroom. I experienced this goal firsthand when I arrived at Vinifera Ithaca — Collegetown’s most luxuriously decorated bar, featuring a sleek, loungeful atmosphere with paintings and large windows that capture the gaze of nearby onlookers — and I took a seat with an overly-elaborate cocktail among a large group of students doing the same. There must have been roughly 50 people in the room, all with their attention turned toward Professor Robert Shepherd, the director of graduate studies for mechanical engineering, who is an expert in robotics and artificial intelligence. He spoke with a sophisticated yet casual demeanor about the intersection of robotics, biology and machine intelligence, with takes that were hopeful, humanistic and empirically grounded. The talk began similarly to many lectures that we have all sat through before, but it quickly picked up the pace once a queue of raised hands began engaging with Shepherd’s ideas. Although he argued on the side of humanity, Shepherd was still met with debate and opposition from the people in the room. Students asked questions, contested his views and engaged in back-andforth disputes as the room became one large conversation. No definitive answer was ultimately agreed upon, but that did not seem to be the point; rather, the goal of the evening was to transform the cocktail lounge from a rigid assortment of strangers into a dynamic, conversational flow of ideas between curious individuals that cared deeply about society’s future. It was especially charming to see the wide range of questions that came from students of vastly different
academic disciplines. Students studying computer science approached the matter technically, whereas those in economics wondered which skills will become most marketable and philosophy students questioned whether AI’s output can constitute new knowledge. Despite being pulled in all directions, Professor Shepherd stayed consistent in his humanistic viewpoints and answered the students’ questions directly and honestly. When one raised hand challenged Shepherd’s assertion that humans will forever be better reasoners than AI, Shepherd asked the room if we think AI could ever calculate whether a person likes us more efficiently than we can ourselves. The student replied that perhaps with enough data, AI could do so, to which Shepherd quoted Archimedes: “Give me a lever long enough, … and I shall move the world.” The event was an undeniable success. Roughly 50 students spent their Wednesday evenings gathered to discuss AI, and a sizable portion stayed after the event had finished to exchange handshakes and conversations with each other and with Shepherd. It was both academically rigorous and socially interactive. I had the opportunity to speak with Kurgan, one of the founders of Cornell on Tap and an opinion columnist at The Sun, to hear his views on the event. He described the socialization I saw as the very purpose of the organization: “This is a unique way to socialize … I [see it as] a real light in the week, where you can combine talking about ideas with meeting new people.” Kurgan reflected on his time spent abroad at Oxford University, where it’s commonplace for students to grow close relationships with professors over tea, beer and late evenings spent discussing complicated issues. These sorts of out-of-the-classroom conversations are not habitual on Cornell’s campus, and the people at Cornell on Tap think they should be. “There’s very few places on campus where you get students from different studies, different perspectives and different backgrounds coming and discussing the same thing,” Kurgan said. “You have FWS classes, which is one of the few moments that you get that … and it’s a beautiful experience, but you only get that for two semesters.” Kurgan emphasized that one of the main missions
of Cornell on Tap is to encourage a diverse group of people to come to these events. This includes diversity across all identities and backgrounds, a vital component of intellectual collaboration. He also noted that feedback forms were sent out to attendees to better understand how to foster an inclusive atmosphere, a practice that will continue in the future. Cornell on Tap aims to continue hosting these events, eventually scheduling them as weekly or bi-weekly gatherings. In the meantime, they encourage supporters and those interested in attending to check their Instagram for updates. Their next event is currently planned to be held in mid-November. “This is what we need,” Kurgan said. “We need more unity, we need more community, we need more gathering together … This is a beautiful thing with good intentions, and I think it’ll be something special.” I certainly felt this optimism and intellectual curiosity when I attended their opening event, all the way from the friendly introductions at the start, to the captivating debates in the middle, to the end of the night when students said their goodbyes to friends, thank yous to Shepherd and waltzed out of the cocktail lounge to the streets of Collegetown. Though the event had concluded, the debates and conversations continued on the thoughtful walks back home and remain in the minds of those who attended.
COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
COURTESY OF PAUL KURGAN Edwin Michel is a member of the Class of 2027 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a contributor for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at em853@cornell.edu.
The Quintessential Fall Series BRAYDEN ROGERS ARTS & CULTURE COLUMNIST
My first experience with Over the Garden Wall (2014) came long after its days of premiering on Cartoon Network. Rather, it came in my 11th grade AP English Language course. While, admittedly, my teacher was eccentric, he must have had a reason for including the miniseries in an AP-level course. After only my first viewing, I knew that Over the Garden Wall captured something special, alongside the overarching message of struggling with imposter syndrome. Right away, the visual aesthetic of the series pulls the viewer in. Drawing inspiration from storybook illustrations, postcards and early 1900s animation, there is something familiar about what you are watching. The Americana atmosphere feels like that of the Pacific Northwest or New England in autumn, supplementing that warm feeling. For those reasons, I make an effort to rewatch the series every year in the fall. The show is incredibly charming. While I might have cringed about a song titled “Potatoes and Molasses” in any other media, I found it sweet coming from Over the Garden Wall. The main characters, step-brothers Wirt and Greg, have a familiar dynamic that nearly every older and younger sibling matches. The story itself only gets better with time, evolving after each viewing until it becomes a modern retelling of the world’s most famous poem. In my most recent rewatch this year, the parallels between Over the Garden Wall and Dante’s Inferno stood out to me like never before, and the final piece as to why a cartoon was AP Lang
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curriculum was found. The main character, Wirt, maps onto Dante, with Greg acting as Virgil. The most obvious connection is that the bluebird following Wirt and Greg is named Beatrice, after the woman who sends Virgil to save Dante. In each story, Wirt or Dante find themselves outside the ‘gates’ to a sort of darker place, the Unknown or Hell. As Over the Garden Wall goes on, it becomes clearer that Wirt is traveling through limbo and then the circles of Hell, greed, heresy, violence and more — until he arrives at the big twist in the story: fraud. While already an incredibly endearing story of two step-brothers trying to escape the Unknown, Wirt’s experience with fraud is what drives the emotional narrative that everyone can relate to. Wirt has continued to experience self-doubt and stress throughout the story thus far, however, it happens in this fantastical world unlike our own, with things like a ferry of Frogs or a tavern littered with strange guests (like my personal favorite the Highwayman). It is revealed to the audience that Wirt and Greg have not always lived in the Unknown; instead they come from the real world. The show is not some fantastical other world but really Wirt fighting to survive while drowning in a river in the real world. Through struggling with feeling socially accepted at school and with finding love, Wirt tumbles into the Unknown as he has become at risk of being a lost soul. The fraud comes with the feeling that plagues Wirt every day: imposter syndrome. In high school and still now, everyone has had experiences feeling fraudulent like Wirt. And many have had to go through the Unknown just
as Wirt had to find himself. Seeing the main character prove his worth, not to others, but to himself, is the ultimate conflict. Furthermore, the Beast which lives in the Unknown cannot physically attack anybody. He remains a physical manifestation of the self-doubt that lives in everyone’s head, driving them to stress and committing the sinful acts outlined in Dante’s Inferno. In these ways, a miniseries with a nostalgic feeling becomes a reflection of what everyone has to go through in their lives: proving to themselves that they are everything that they are. At a university ridden with imposter syndrome and overachievers galore, Over the Garden Wall is a must watch. Wirt was never the social pariah that he believed himself to be. He was titled “the Lover” in an early episode, yet denied this role thoughtlessly. Other people could see the value that Wirt brought to their lives, yet he could not see that himself. Looking back to my fascinating experiences in 11th grade AP Lang, I see that every “odd” activity carried out by my teacher was an attempt to make his students see themselves as Wirt at the end of Over the Garden Wall rather than at the beginning. For those who have not had a similar high school experience, or who have yet to see this miniseries, I dub it not only the quintessential fall experience but also a valuable exercise toward appreciating one’s own value. Brayden Rogers is a member of the Class of 2028 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a contributor for the Arts & Culture department and can be reached at brogers@cornellsun.com.
A & C
The Corne¬ Daily Sun | Wednesday, November 11, 2026 | 15
ARTS & CULTURE The Stories We Tell About Sudan
Courtesy of European Union, 2026 (photographer: Peter Biro), via EU Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid / Flickr By BASIL BOB Arts & Culture Staff Writer
Editor’s note: This article contains mentions of extreme violence.
On the one-year anniversary of the El Fasher massacre, it is worth remembering the scale of the humanitarian disaster in Sudan. Since April 2023, the war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of civilians and forced more than 14 million people to leave their homes. Famine has been confirmed in parts of Darfur and Kordofan, and nearly 34 million people need humanitarian assistance. This time last year, El Fasher, the capital city of North Darfur, fell to the hands of the Rapid Support Forces, a genocidal militia led by Muhammad Hamdan Dagalo, better known as Hemedti. El Fasher had withstood mass starvation, aerial bombardment and fighting between the RSF and the Sudanese Armed Forces in the previous 18 months, leaving millions facing starvation and famine. Once the city fell, the RSF began their campaign of terror and ethnic cleansing, murdering at least 6,000 people, including aid workers and journalists; slaughtering people in hospitals, attacking civilians trying to escape, going house to house, massacring whoever was inside, engaging in acts of sexual violence against women and girls. The sheer amount of blood was visible in the satellite footage captured by the Yale Humanitarian Lab. It showed bodies and reddish ground discoloration consistent with blood. It is easy to look at the human suffering in Sudan as inevitable. Another case of Africans killing other Africans. Just another chapter in the story of Sudan, whose history is supposedly nothing but a long procession of violence, coups and conflict. It is very easy to think this way when coverage of the wars portray the violence to be an African or Middle Eastern problem, something outsiders can witness but bear no responsibility for. The choice offered to us is thus reduced to pitying the Sudanese people or looking away. The war is made to seem distant: geographically, politically and morally. Even in coverage sympathetic to the plight of the Sudanese people, we still find a lack of willingness to actually challenge those complicit in this humanitarian
catastrophe. Take, for example, Vanity Fair’s “‘Does Anyone Care About Sudan?’: Inside a War the World Ignores,” published on June 25, 2026. Written by Janine di Giovanni, with photographs by Lynsey Addario, the feature reports from refugee camps in South Sudan. Its reach extended beyond the magazine, with Joy Reid interviewing both contributors on her show and praising the article.
for El Fasher in political decisions, its framing still presents Sudan as a country destined for conflict. It is unable to escape the image of Sudan as a country “haunted” by endless war. The article’s mention of political responsibility becomes a footnote, an awkward contradiction within a narrative that leaves no room to imagine Sudan outside a state of perpetual catastrophe, as though the country could exist no other way. But it shouldn’t be this way. Sudan has a “I still do not know what an anniver- long history of democratic resistance, of regular sary is supposed to accomplish for people organizing to demand a form of democracy that truly answers to the needs of all citthe dead, except to force the living regardless of racial or tribal background. to do the arithmetic again, out loud, izens Any conversation about the ongoing war must on a date.” understand it as a reactionary backlash to that and covering why no one cares about Ahmed Ismat Ahmed struggle Sudan should begin with those who benefit from choosing not to act. Understanding how The issue with the Vanity Fair article is not Sudan’s democratic movement is being crushed that any of the reporting is false or that it fails means not just focusing on those committo discuss the foreign powers supporting the ting the violence, but also on the institutions different sides of this conflict. In fact, the arti- that protect those responsible. According to cle explicitly names actors such as the United Nathaniel Raymond’s parliamentary testimoArab Emirates, Egypt and Ethiopia as major ny, the U.K.’s Foreign, Commonwealth and backers “gnawing at the carcass of Sudan.” Development Office was warned of UAE supThey even point to how the U.S. and U.K. port for the RSF but chose to prioritize its were warned well before the massacre that the relationship with the UAE over public pressure. RSF was planning a genocidal assault of El Genocidal violence is never a local problem. It Fasher, that what happened “was not a failure never comes naturally in a country’s history. of knowledge but of will.” The issue is that the This kind of wanton cruelty in Sudan only reporting reproduces familiar narratives and exists with the tacit tolerance of states and clichés about Sudan, ones which create this bodies that are meant to prevent this kind of apathy in the international community. The humanitarian crisis from happening. This conarticle starts with this clichés about Sudanese text belongs at the center of the story, not at its history: “a country, haunted by endless cycles margins. of violence and war and famine.” The article On the anniversary of the El Fasher massatransitions from this cliché to address why the cre, it is our responsibility as human beings to war in Sudan is not being talked about. “In move past pity and apathy when we discuss the the late 2000s,” Di Giovanni explains, “actors war in Sudan. We must move past the narrasuch as George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Don tive that violence comes naturally to Sudan, Cheadle drew attention to Darfur’s genocide and understand the ways we are complicit in in the pages of this magazine.” Yet now, over- that violence. And we must do this because shadowed by conflicts in the Middle East and Sudanese lives matter. Ukraine, the world has averted its gaze from Sudan. The implication is that, as Westerners, we need to re-establish our compassion, not to Basil Bob is a member of the Class of 2027 in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a staff writer for the Arts & Culture examine our complicity. While the article does locate responsibility department and can be reached at bbob@cornellsun.com. ARTS
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16 WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 11, 2026
Sports
The Corne¬ Daily Sun
Men’s Hockey Beats Princeton in First Ivy Matchup By ELI KWAIT, ERIC JOY AND LILY STAHLMAN Sun Senior Writer, Sun Staff Writer and Sun Contributor
As the final buzzer sounded, a collective sigh of relief echoed throughout Lynah Rink. The Red had held on to a 3-2 advantage and was rewarded for a hard-fought game. From start to finish, Cornell (2-2-0, 1-1-0 ECAC) matched Princeton’s physicality, played well defensively and received timely scoring. “We wanted to serve ourselves a little bit more, where we’re confident and playing faster and exiting the zone,” said head coach Casey Jones ’90. “I thought we did that for a large part of the night tonight. It was a good step for us.” Both teams threw the body in the opening shifts of the first period, establishing the physicality that remained throughout the night. Just over a minute into the first period, junior forward Charlie Major drew a hooking penalty, sending the Red to its first man advantage of the night. The Red could not convert on the power play that featured a unique look — sophomore forward Caton Ryan quarterbacked the man advantage, patrolling the blueline while senior defenseman George Fegaras set up on the far circle. Jones explained that the team had been working on the setup in practice. “It wasn’t new to [Ryan],” Jones said. “Our philosophy was to work [Princeton’s] penalty kill tonight and kind of get energy and momentum off of that.” With 7:51 remaining in the first period, the Red took a tripping penalty in its offensive zone. Princeton (2-2-0, 0-2-0 ECAC) failed to even set up its power play — Cornell players swarmed Princeton players along the wall, not allowing any open ice in its offensive zone. The Tigers were largely silent on offense in the first period, not registering a shot on goal until Cornell took a second O-zone tripping penalty nearly 15 minutes into the game. While Princeton found some more success setting up its power play during its second attempt, the Red killed off the penalty with ease, even finding a shorthanded opportunity.
Although Cornell had the better of Princeton in the opening frame, the scoreboard read 0-0 as the teams headed to the locker room. Reentering the ice for the second period, the Red continued to dominate the offensive play. But, nearly five minutes into the middle frame, Princeton flipped the script. A Cornell lapse in coverage left a Red defenseman alone, defending a two-on-one rush. Princeton forward Shaan Kingwell found forward Jake Manfre, who fired it bardown past sophomore goaltender Mathis Rousseau. The tally put Princeton up 1-0 just over four minutes into the second period. The Red had a chance to even the score during four-onfour action later in the period.
“We wanted to serve ourselves a little bit more, where we’re confident and playing faster and exiting the zone.” Head coach Casey Jones ’90 Junior defenseman Luke Ashton found open ice walking in from the blueline and laid a shot onto Princeton goaltender Arthur Smith. Smith was unable to control the shot and junior defenseman Michael Fisher pounced on the rebound, tallying his first goal of the season. “I thought it was a good shot by [Ashton],” Fisher said. “It was kind of a squeaker. I didn’t expect it to pop out, but it did, so it was pretty exciting.” The game was tied at one with 6:51 remaining in the second period. The goal energized the Red and it went back on the attack. Just over a minute later, senior forward Jake Kraft stole the puck from behind the net. Skating it out in front, Kraft backhanded it past Smith putting the Red up one with 5:31 remaining in the middle frame. The goal was Kraft’s first of the season. “We were just on the forecheck, [Walsh] kind of put it low,” Kraft said. “I think the guy got a stick on it, but I forced a turnover and took it to the net — hope for the best.”
The two goals lit a fire under the Red and it entered the third period up 2-1. Dump-and-chase play characterized the first 10 minutes of the final period, with the Red keeping most of the action in Princeton’s own end of the ice. The Red continued to punish Tiger skaters. Sophomore defenseman Luke McCrady threw an enormous open-ice hit on Princeton’s Seamus Latta, knocking the Montananative down. “I thought [McCrady] played really steady, and I was really happy for him,” Fisher said. “He also lit a guy up, which was pretty scary, but super happy for McCrady, I thought he played great.” Latta, who was visibly shaken after the play, returned to the ice with 12:30 to play and unleashed a slap shot at Rousseau for the Tigers’ best opportunity thus far in the frame. Rousseau neutralized Latta’s shot to keep the Red ahead. The dump-and-chase finally wore down the Tigers with just under nine minutes to play. Following a successful forecheck, the Red sent the puck to Fegaras at the point. Fegaras floated a seemingly innocuous shot that was tipped in front by Kraft, restoring the Red’s two-goal advantage. “I saw it go [defenseman to defenseman] and tried to get to the net as quickly as possible,” Kraft said. “[The puck] just hit off my stick.” The Tigers made a great effort to claw their way back into the game, drawing an O-zone tripping penalty and getting to work on the resulting power play. Princeton’s power play unit looked lethal, peppering Rousseau wiwth shots. The Tigers’ unit finally broke through the Red kill with 4:22 to play. Manfre, after receiving a puck at the goal line, found Drew Garzone with a beautiful cross-crease, behindthe-back pass. Garzone hammered home the feed to draw Princeton within one. To continue reading this story, please visit www.cornellsun. com Eli Kwait can be reached at ekwait@cornellsun.com, Eric Joy can be reached at ewj36@cornell.edu and Lily Stahlman can be reached at lms468@cornell.edu.
Men’s Basketball Falls to Lehigh in a Back-and-Forth Battle By SUREYA LOPEZ Sun Staff Writer
Cornell (1-1, 0-0 Ivy) traveled to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to face Lehigh University (1-1, 0-0 Patriot) at Stabler Arena on Thursday. Though it was a rainy and gray day, the Red didn’t let that stop them from creating its own energy and carrying that into its first away game of the season. The last time these two teams faced each other was in 2023, with Cornell securing the win. The Red and the Mountain Hawks have been playing each other since 1904. Cornell leads the matchups 15-9. Coming off an intense and exciting one-point home win debut against Pepperdine University, the Red tried to carry that confidence onto the court against the Mountain Hawks. Ultimately, that confidence was not enough for the Red as it fell to the Mountain Hawks 71-64. Cornell looked to find its pace quickly into the first few minutes of the matchup, but ultimately couldn’t get there. Though it struggled to find the range from behind the arc and to convert plays into points, the Red did not start slowing down until the final buzzer sounded. To start off the first half, the Red and the Mountain Hawks scored back-to-back, with Lehigh getting the first points of the game and Cornell answering immediately. For the first couple minutes of the game, the Red struggled to find its ground. With Lehigh slowly pulling away at the 14-minute mark, Cornell was left trailing 24-15 towards the middle of the first half. While Lehigh held the lead, Cornell did not take its foot off the gas. With players like sophomore guard and transfer Luke Kennevan making an explosive fastbreak layup in the paint, freshman forward Quinn Gibson consistently finding the basket in the paint and sophomore guard JJ Sanchez knocking some shots down from behind the arc, the Red
slowly began to crawl its way back. Cornell may have cut down some of the gap, but Lehigh did not let that go unanswered. Lehigh’s Edouard Benoit and Joshua Ingram consistently found the basket, helping to maintain the Mountain Hawks’ lead. Closing out the first half, Lehigh still held a 39-32 lead. The second half began with Cornell coming out with more energy and hunger than it had in the first half. The Red scored the first points of the half with junior guard Mateen Rafiq coming in, settling into a spot behind the arc and knocking down a beautiful three-pointer, something that the Red has been struggling to do this game.
JULIA LEAVITT / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Team huddle | The team huddles together to strategize and defeat Lehigh at Newman Arena.
The Mountain Hawks immediately answered with a layup from Hank Alvey but came right back down the court to foul junior guard Anthony Nimani, who scored both free throws to bring the score to 37-41 in favor of the Mountain Hawks for the first few minutes of the second half. The rest of the half remained the exact same way, with
an exciting yet nailbiting game of tug-of-war. Both teams traded points, senior guard Jacob Beccles converted a threepoint play and then kissed the ball off the glass for a layup to tie the game, 44-44, at the 16-minute mark. This helped the Red get its confidence back and at the 11-minute mark, senior forward Kaspar Sepp had an explosive putback to give Cornell the lead 50-48 for the first time since the game started. As the game stretched on, each point mattered and each possession became a potential lifeline for both teams. Though Cornell continued to get good looks, it was not enough to stop Lehigh, who started to peel away, causing the Red to fall 71-64. On the court, Cornell just couldn’t seem to find its rhythm, going 5-31 from behind the arc compared to Lehigh’s 7-20. Despite this, the Red did have some impressive performances; Gibson scored a career high of 13 points, while Sanchez secured six points in six minutes for the Red. With Cornell losing some of its key pieces last season, the Red now has some big shoes to fill. From what can be seen in these first couple of games, the Red is out to make a statement, that though it lost a couple of good players, that does not mean it is out of the count just yet. With players stepping into different roles and younger ones finding their footing, the Red has an entire season to show what it is made of. For its next matchup, the Red faces Keuka College (0-0, 0-0 Empire 8) at home. The game will be played in Newman Arena at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 8th. The Wolves and the Red will face off for the third time, dating back to 2006, when the Red secured the win 122-64. Cornell leads 2-0 against the Wolves. The game will be streamed on ESPN+. Sureya Lopez can be reached at slopez@cornellsun.com.