Tag: Pollack

May 29, 2020 Dear Cornellians, I am heartbroken, angry and frankly sickened by the recent killing of George Floyd, and before him, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and others whose deaths are less well publicized. The amount of pain in the Black community is unfathomable, especially as these are occurring in the midst of a pandemic…

May 28, 2020 Dear Cornellians, The extraordinary spring 2020 term is now behind us. The COVID-19 pandemic that turned our world upside down three months and a lifetime ago is now a fact of our lives: one that affects every decision in our day, and every plan for our future. We find ourselves making calculations…

May 23, 2020 Dear Cornellians, The Class of 2020 will always hold a unique place in our history. Throughout this unprecedented disruption and dispersion of our Cornell community, they have been in the final stretch of their Cornell degrees: finishing their last papers, their last projects and their last exams in a way that no…

April 22, 2020 Dear Cornellians, Six weeks have now passed since we made the extraordinary decision to move instruction online and begin to deactivate our physical campus operations. Life, for all of us, is now radically different. As a community, we have adapted, transformed and sacrificed our routines and our expectations, finding new daily rhythms…

April 22, 2020 Dear Cornellians, Six weeks have now passed since we made the extraordinary decision to move instruction online and begin to deactivate our physical campus operations. Life, for all of us, is now radically different. As a community, we have adapted, transformed and sacrificed our routines and our expectations, finding new daily rhythms…

April 7, 2020 Dear Cornellians, Wherever you may be as you are reading this, I want to start by asking you to picture Cornell in your mind. Many of you will picture the Ithaca campus: perhaps Libe Slope, or the Arts Quad, or West Campus, or perhaps Schoellkopf Field, or the Botanic Gardens. Others of…

March 26, 2020 Dear Cornellians: Like all of you, I have been adjusting in the last weeks to our shared new reality, in which the mandate of social distancing drives new patterns of daily life. It feels like a very long time since I last attended an event, shook a hand or worked in my…

March 20, 2020 Dear seniors and other graduating students (and, by copy, the entire Cornell community), You have just about completed intense years of study at Cornell. You’ve done amazing things here, both inside and outside the classroom. In normal times, we would celebrate your accomplishments with commencement on Memorial Day weekend. Commencement is a…

March 20, 2020 Dear Members of the Cornell Community, As you know, Cornell has been working with public health officials to monitor the ongoing spread of the virus. Earlier today, we were notified that the Tompkins County Health Department (TCHD) confirmed the first two cases of COVID-19 within the Ithaca campus community of faculty, staff…

March 17, 2020 First, let me assure you that this message does not include any new policies or procedures. Rather, I simply wanted to share some of my reflections on the enormous challenge that we are now all facing. In the past week to 10 days, all of our lives have changed in ways that…

March 13, 2020 Dear Members of the Cornell Community, Each day brings us new information about the evolving pandemic. I appreciate the grace that so many of you have been demonstrating as we adjust to difficult changes to our lives. Things will continue to be difficult for a while, but by working together we will…

March 11, 2020 Dear Members of the Cornell Community, I appreciate all of the input that my leadership team and I have received since yesterday’s announcement of the measures we are enacting to contain the spread of COVID-19. One thing that has been particularly gratifying in the conversations that I have had is the clear…

March 10, 2020 Dear Members of the Cornell Community, As the novel coronavirus disease, COVID-19, has spread around the world, it has challenged all of us in different ways. Some of us may have relatives in countries that were impacted early, others may have elderly relatives about whom we are worried, still others may be…

Dec. 18, 2019 Dear Ithaca Campus Community, More than seven weeks have passed since the tragic death of Antonio Tsialas. Unfortunately, we still do not have a full accounting of the circumstances that led to his passing. We do know that he was last seen at an unregistered fraternity party at Phi Kappa Psi on…

Nov. 19, 2019 Dear Ithaca Campus Community, I am writing with an update on two issues that have been at the forefront of our attentions over the last number of weeks: the investigation into the death of Antonio Tsialas and the ongoing pattern of misconduct in the Greek-letter system. First, the investigation into Antonio’s tragic…

Nov. 8, 2019 Dear Ithaca Campus Community, The passing of first-year student Antonio Tsialas nearly two weeks ago is still under active investigation by the Cornell University Police. While we do not yet have definitive answers about the cause of his death, it is already widely known that an unregistered fraternity-sponsored event took place on…

Aug. 28, 2019 Dear Members of the Cornell Community, As we begin the 2019-2020 academic year, I want to take this opportunity to welcome all of you to—or back to—campus. The first days of a new semester are, for all of us, a time of excitement and potential: a time to look ahead at the…

May 9, 2019 Dear Cornell Community, As we look forward to our plans for the summer and beyond, I would like to take this opportunity to share with you progress that has been made toward building a more equitable and welcoming community at Cornell. As many of you may remember, in the fall of 2017,…

April 21, 2019 Dear Cornell Community, I was shocked and horrified by the attacks in Sri Lanka that took the lives of hundreds of individuals observing Easter Sunday in their houses of worship. As we all try to grasp yet another atrocity in the world targeting people based solely on their religious affiliation, let us…

April 14, 2019 Dear Ithaca Campus Community, Yesterday, I was saddened to learn that a swastika had been found on the facade of a building on the Arts Quad. Apparently, it had been there for quite some time. This symbol of hatred, intolerance and anti-Semitism has no place at Cornell. While this cowardly act, which…

March 15, 2019 Dear Cornell Community, Yet again, our world has experienced a despicable, evil act of hatred: the Islamophobic murder of dozens of Muslims in their houses of worship in New Zealand. Such terrible acts make us furious, sad, and confused. But we must, each of us, continue to reject the bigotry and hatred…

Feb. 20, 2019 USA Today’s recent article on racist photos in old college yearbooks describes a 1980 photo of the Cornell chapter of the Sigma Nu fraternity with captions that are both racist and anti-Semitic. I strongly denounce the use of these offensive captions, which are completely at odds with the values of our university.…

Oct. 29, 2018 Dear Cornell Community, Last week our nation was once again witness to terrible acts of hatred: bombs were sent to several prominent political and media figures; a white supremacist shooting in a Kentucky grocery store left two African Americans dead; and 11 people were killed, and more injured, in a violent act…