Tag: Pollack

June 29, 2023 Members of the Cornell Community, Cornell University was founded in 1865 as a university where “any person can find instruction in any study.” We have been committed ever since to diversity and inclusion, a commitment that was reiterated and enshrined in the University’s core values adopted in 2019. Cornell is disappointed by…

April 17, 2023 Dear Cornell community: "Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom." -Benjamin Nathan Cardozo, Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the United States Free expression is the bedrock of democracy, just as academic freedom is the bedrock of higher education. These twin freedoms are at…

Dec. 6, 2022 Dear Cornellians, Cornell’s commitment to diversity as reflected in its founding principle of “Any person… any study” is both historical and tied to Cornell’s academic mission, stemming from an understanding that a diverse community ensures better educational experiences, prepares students for the world they are entering and leads to better solutions to…

Sept. 15, 2022 Dear Ithaca campus community, As we start another academic year, I want to remind everyone that Cornell has a set of core values that were created after extensive discussions with people from all parts of our community and that are rooted in our long history. You can find them here. Among those…

Aug. 22, 2022 Dear Cornellians, Welcome to the beginning of the 2022-23 academic year, and to all of our new students, faculty, and staff on all of our campuses, welcome to Cornell! Despite the turbulent times we’ve all been living through, Cornellians are continuing, in so many ways, to demonstrate tremendous creativity and tenacity in…

Aug. 22, 2022 Dear Cornellians, Welcome to the beginning of the 2022-23 academic year, and to all of our new students, faculty, and staff on all of our campuses, welcome to Cornell! Despite the turbulent times we’ve all been living through, Cornellians are continuing, in so many ways, to demonstrate tremendous creativity and tenacity in…

May 15, 2022 Like many of you I was horrified by yesterday’s shooting by a white supremacist in Buffalo. It is tragic that shootings and acts of violence in our nation and around the world occur so often that issuing a statement in response to each would feel empty. But this shooting was practically in…

March 2, 2022 Over the last week, the world has watched Russia’s deplorable and unprovoked invasion of the sovereign nation of Ukraine, an attack that is both devastating for the people of Ukraine and has deeply impacted countless others, including members of our own community. My heart goes out to each of them. We have…

Dec. 14, 2021 Dear Ithaca campus community, Since our Saturday message, our surveillance testing has continued to identify the rapid spread of COVID-19 among our student population. While faculty and staff case numbers currently remain low, just last evening our COVID-19 testing lab team identified evidence of the highly contagious Omicron variant in a significant…

Nov. 9, 2021 Dear Cornellians, For all of us here on campus, it’s been a difficult, frightening few days. Sunday’s bomb scare, followed, just two days later, by today’s shelter-in-place while a gunman was being pursued near North Campus, would have been stressful enough in ordinary times. As it is, they add still further to…

Nov. 9, 2021 Dear Cornellians, For all of us here on campus, it’s been a difficult, frightening few days. Sunday’s bomb scare, followed, just two days later, by today’s shelter-in-place while a gunman was being pursued near North Campus, would have been stressful enough in ordinary times. As it is, they add still further to…

November 1, 2021 Dear Cornellians, Over the past year and a half, despite the energy and attention necessarily directed toward the pandemic, Cornell has continued to move forward in our mission of teaching, research, and engagement. As we settle into the Ithaca autumn, I am writing to share some updates from across our remarkable community.…

Sept. 17, 2021 Dear Cornell Community, I’m delighted to announce that the School of Hotel Administration in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business has received a historic $50 million gift from alumni Peter J. Nolan ’80, MBA ’82, and Stephanie Nolan ’84. In recognition of the Nolans’ legacy of commitment and support, the school…

September 2, 2021 Dear Cornellians, Last week, I sent you a message sharing two lessons we’ve learned at Cornell from our experiences in this pandemic so far, which would continue to guide us in the year ahead. One was to respect knowledge: making our decisions based on science, ready to change course when the evidence…

Aug. 26, 2021 Dear Cornellians, It’s been wonderful to see the campus come alive over the past week, as our new and returning students, and so many of our faculty and staff, have arrived and returned to campus. Whether you are here in Ithaca, in New York City, in Geneva, or somewhere else in the…

Aug. 10, 2021 Dear Ithaca campus community, In summer 2020, I charged the Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC) with evaluating and reimagining Ithaca campus safety and policing protocols and structures. The PSAC, comprising students, faculty, and staff, sent me their Public Safety Reform report on July 27 and earlier today I sent the committee the…

May 30, 2021 Dear Cornellians, As we celebrate this historic Commencement, and the many achievements of the Class of 2021, we celebrate, as well, all of you: the students, faculty, staff, and families who came together, in our remarkable Cornell community, to bring us to where we are today. The success of this on-campus pandemic…

May 26, 2021 Dear Cornell Community, As we arrive at the end of the academic year, our nation is again grappling with disturbing acts of hatred and bias, the latest being an alarming national rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes, including several reports of bias incidents on our Ithaca campus, amid ongoing tensions in the Middle…

April 30, 2021 Dear Cornell Community, Late yesterday, New York state released updated public health guidance (PDF) for commencement ceremonies. In particular, where we were previously limited to using only 20% of the capacity in Schoellkopf Field, we are now permitted to use up to 33%, with our graduating students seated separately and not counting…

April 6, 2021 Dear Members of the Cornell Community, I am delighted to be writing you today to share good news about our plans for in-person Commencement celebrations for the Class of 2021. We are still awaiting additional guidance from New York state on COVID-19 public health measures for graduation events. But we are moving…