INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 138, No. 37
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2021
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8 Pages – Free
ITHACA, NEW YORK
In Honor of Turkeys
Arts
Sports
Weather
The Sun will take a breather during Thanksgiving Break and resume publication, refreshed and reinvigorated, next Monday.
Overcrowded Minutes
Skating to Win
Partly Cloudy
Charlee Mandy ’23 reviews Marvel’s action-packed new release, Eternals.
Men’s ice hockey shuts out Yale in the final home game of 2021.
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HIGH: 43º LOW: 27º
Student Athletes Navigate Return to Competition By COOPER STEPKE and RACHEL KODYSH Sun Contributors
For two years, many Cornell student athletes faced training cuts and lost games as the Ivy League put sports on hold. Spring 2020 seasons were canceled, Fall 2020 Spring 2021 practices were sparse, but the latter portion of the Fall 2021 season has shown a hopeful return to pre-COVID schedules. The Men’s Lightweight Rowing team, which competes in both the fall and the spring, has started practice in full swing. Eric Whitehead ’22, who has been on the team since he began at Cornell, said the team is practicing five days a week. Though it’s hard, he said that the structure creates consistency in his schedule. Whitehead has been rowing since he was in the eighth grade and said he is excited to return to the water next season. “I think everyone is very excited, loving the sport,
loving where we are right now,” he said. The team closed the season on Nov. 7 in the Princeton University 3-Mile Chase, where all three of Cornell’s boats finished in the top ten. “We were just smiling,” said John Jaicks ’22, the team’s coxswain — the member who steers the boat. “We were about to have some fun and show up for the team. We were just excited because we were able to throw down against some of the best lightweight rowers in the country.” A senior like Whitehead, Jaicks has also rowed on the team throughout his time at Cornell. As an upperclassman, he has more rowing experience than many team members, since the last two seasons were cut short. Thus, only the seniors on the team know what it’s like to go through a full competitive season. Though the team does have access to indoor rowing machines and other equipment to train, they have lost time to train on the water in the past two years.
However, many members stayed in Ithaca and continued to train throughout the hiatus, mainly by biking. Using an app called Strava, they tracked their times on various routes and competed amongst themselves and against Cornell’s cycling team. “We’re just competitive guys,” Jaicks said. “It doesn’t have to be rowing.” He and Whitehead said this helped keep the team in shape, but they still had a shaky start to practices this year. Since there wasn’t anything to train for, Whitehead stated, the team found difficulty staying motivated. Other Cornell sports teams have faced adjustment challenges as well. In early November, Cornell women’s soccer wrapped up its first full season since Fall 2019. Despite the sudden return to normal life as a student athlete, Evanthia Spyredes ’22 managed to find success and earn All-Academic Ivy League honors this fall. See ATHLETES page 3
Tech Access Essential to Students By ISABELLE GOODROW Sun Contributor
KATRIEN DE WAARD / SUN STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Signs of the times | President Pollack addresses the Student Assembly about this month’s lockdowns.
Pollack Attends S.A. Meeting ‘Do Better Cornell’ members protest admin presentation By SURITA BASU Sun Assistant News Editor
President Martha Pollack and Vice President for Student and Campus Life Ryan Lombardi made an appearance at last Thursday’s Student Assembly meeting in the wake of two emergency threats that rocked campus on Nov. 7 and 9. Pollack and Lombardi arrived at around 5 p.m., fifteen minutes into the meeting, to make brief remarks before the S.A., followed by a Q&A session with representatives. The two administrators were met by members of Do Better Cornell, an organization advocating for the University to improve diversity, equity and inclusion. Recently, Do Better Cornell released a list of demands for the University to improve the response to the emergency events.. A group of approximately a dozen protestors, dressed in black, entered the Willard Straight Hall memorial room shortly after
Pollack and Lombardi’s arrival. They carried signs bearing slogans such as “My mental health matters,” “do better cornell” and “no more business as usual.” Protestors remained quietly in the back of the room for the duration of Pollack and Lombardi’s address before leaving once the rest of the meeting continued. Then, the meeting carried on as usual. During their remarks, Pollack and Lombardi discussed the University’s response to last week’s emergency threats, addressing student concerns over the University’s unclear communications during the shelter-in-place orders. Lombardi explained that the University is working to improve emergency communications moving forward, and acknowledged the criticism that he was not the one to send out messages to students. To continue reading this article, please visit cornellsun.com.
Although Cornell has left most Zoom classes behind, technology remains at the center of academic life. On laptops and tablets, students type notes, design graphics and communicate with peers. Despite their universal reliance upon it, students experience vastly different levels of access to technology. Hannah Mitchell ‘24 said that she received her current laptop — a Macbook Pro — as a high school graduation gift from her extended family. However, her high school was not one that used personal devices in the classroom. She said before college she was unfamiliar with the technology that she is entirely dependent on to store all of her notes, files and PDFs without fear of misplacement or destruction. “If I forget my laptop when I go to the library I’m useless,” she said. “I keep everything on it, all my files and PDFs. Seriously, I’m lost without it.” Mitchell prefers taking notes manually, but she said that her laptop is more convenient for keeping files together and staying organized. Georgia Lawrence ’25 used a MacBook throughout high school and knew it would be important in college. She claimed that if she had known how common iPads were for taking notes, especially in STEM classes, she would have tried to purchase one.
However, Mitchell said that tablets seem more inconvenient for the students who use them. “Even in my communications classes, where we are not writing equations, I see many students using both,” she said. “I don’t see what an iPad offers that a laptop does not. I feel like it would just be another item to distract me.” Jasmine Chang ’23, who studies human biology, health and society, says that her new iPad pro is her most useful piece of technology because she can use it for calculation and formulas. “I can carry it into med school or while shadowing other doctors, instead of needing to have a pen and paper while walking around,” she said. Although Mitchell received her laptop two years ago, it dies quickly and frequently. She stated significant concern that it would stop working entirely, because she would then have to find the money to buy herself a new one or brave schoolwork without. Julia Vanputte ’24, who studies operations research, spends much of her day working on her computer for many hours. She expressed her concern that the context bluelight exposure has worsened her eyesight to the point where may need glasses. Vanputte expressed how the dependence on technology affects her studying. She raised complaints with the See TECH page 3
HANNAH ROSENBERG / SUN PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Rainbow for sale | The Cornell Store advertises the latest Apple products.