INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 132, No. 61
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 2015
!
ITHACA, NEW YORK
12 Pages – Free
Dining
Arts
Sports
Weather
Let’s Give Thanks
Alternative Sound
In the Long Run
Mostly Cloudy HIGH: 57º LOW: 49º
Nicole Kim ’19 shares her favorite gluten-free Thanksgiving recipes. | Page 6
Allison Considine ’17 discusses the evolution of Guster’s sound with frontman Ryan Miller. | Page 7
The men’s cross country team takes third at the NCAA regional championship. | Page 12
Students: Garrett Was Silent on Racial Protests
Express frustration over lack of C.U. response to racial issues across colleges nationwide By PHOEBE KELLER Sun Assistant News Editor
This is the second story of a two-part series. “When other universities across the nation were dealing with racial issues, you didn’t speak on their behalf,” a student accused President Elizabeth Garrett at a Tuesday evening forum addressing problems facing Cornell’s students of color. “This week you spoke in solidarity with the people of France, a country all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, yet here in the United States, you couldn’t stand in solidarity.”
Many other students also expressed their frustration that Garrett has not spoken publicly on behalf of those protesting racial inequities on college campuses across the nation at the meeting with Garrett and Ryan Lombardi, vice president for student and campus life, facilitated by Black Students United in Ujamaa Residential College. In response to students who said they felt betrayed and unsupported by Cornell, Garrett explained that she prefers to have discussions with students rather than making “a series of statements.” “It will be my policy to make fewer presidential state-
Make a wish
ments than have happened in the past,” Garrett said. “I think it is more beneficial for me to listen to you, to work with you. ... I agree with you that I could have taken a different path. My not making a statement does not mean that I do not care about how these issues affect our students.” Garrett explained that she made a statement about the terrorist attacks in Paris because the events directly affected Cornellians living or working in the city and their loved ones on Ithaca’s campus. See GARRETT page 5
C.U.Releases Data on Grad Student Injuries ous offices to address the injured student’s needs,” Fitzpatrick said. Responding agencies include Approximately 26 veterinary the Offices of Graduate Student students reported injuries in the Life, Risk Management, Graduate 2014-2015 academic year, repre- Academic and Student Affairs, senting 63 percent of reported grad- Student Disability Services and uate student injuries. Additionally, Environment, Health and Safety. Since the procedure has been around 25 percent of the total reported injuries were classified as implemented, all four of the workers compensation claims filed by cuts, lacerations and abrasions. The University has pooled this students with medical expenses data after implementing a new set of associated with their injuries have procedures to handle graduate stu- been paid by Cornell’s Worker’s dent injuries, responding to a Compensation fund, according to Graduate and Professional Student the University. According to The Chronicle of Assembly resolution from 2014. The new process allows students to for- Higher Education, a lab accident in August 2013 left mally record an Richard Paminjury through puro grad seCornell’s injury verely injured, report system. leading some to After graduate question whether and professional graduate stustudents seek The number of graduate dents should be medical help, students in the College entitled to workthey should file ers’ compensaan accident reof Veterinary Medicine tion payments. port, through who reported injuries in This accident this new online the 2014-15 academic highlighted the portal, according year. “murky” proceto a University dures in place to press release. handle graduate On the new student injuries, online portal, The proportion of total inciting debate students can reported graduate about workers’ indicate if they compensation are graduate or student injuries coming payments for p ro f e s s i o n a l out of the vet school. graduate stustudents, which dents. prompts assisPaul Berry grad said he believes tance from many different agencies, including Cornell’s workers graduate students should be guarcompensation fund, according to anteed worker’s compensation payTimothy Fitzpatrick, director of ments, but the current policy “leaves open many ambiguities as Occupational Health and Safety. “Selecting this category during to who is actually covered.” the entry process triggers a timely, See INJURIES page 5 coordinated response by the variBy EMILY FRIEDMAN
Sun Staff Writer
YICHEN DONG / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Go to page 3 to read about Willard Straight Hall’s 90th anniversary celebration.
Pro-GMO Article Penned by Cornell Professor Linked to Monsanto By STEPHANIE YAN Sun Staff Writer
On Aug. 8, 2013, Monsanto representative Eric Sachs emailed Prof. Anthony Shelton, entomology, and eight professors from various universities about contributing to “an important project” he had started — a series of publically geared articles on agricultural biotechnology — according to an email obtained by The New York Times. Shelton agreed. Although Monsanto requested that he write the article, Shelton did not disclose his connection to the company; it was not necessary because Monsanto did not compensate him for it. “There would be a conflict of interest if I were paid to write the article or if someone tried to proof and edit what I was writing, but that was not the case
with this at all,” Shelton said. Monsanto, an agricultural biotechnology company, sells genetically modified crop seeds, generating revenues upwards of $9 billion, according to an Aug. 11 story in the MIT Technology Review. According to The Times, biotechnology companies and pro-organic organizations have both made recent efforts to involve academics — who are seen as unbiased authorities by the public — in the GMO debate. A major source of contention is the use of herbicides on plants that have been genetically modified to tolerate them, which organic organizations say may be harmful to humans. In September, The Times released emails showing that Charles Benbrook, a former professor at Washington State University, had been paid to conduct and speak about anti-GMO
research. At the same time, it also released the emails that Sachs had sent to Shelton and other academics. These emails showed a strong link between what Sachs envisioned for their articles and what they actually said. Shelton’s paper, and six others outlined in Sachs’s email, were published as a series in December 2014 by the Genetic Literacy Project — an independent organization that aims to educate the public about biotechnology and genetic engineering, according to the GLP’s website. Co-authored with David Shaw, a weed scientist and vice president for research and economic development at Mississippi State University, Shelton’s article discussed the benefits of genetically modifying plants to be herbicide-tolerant See MONSANTO page 5
BY THE NUMBERS
26
63 percent