Spring 2020 was a semester like no other. Over the course of a few weeks, thousands of classes – lectures and seminars, laboratory and performance courses, capstone projects and veterinary clinics – transitioned entirely online. Instructors navigated technical and logistical difficulties, as well as the shifting realities of a global pandemic. But amid the challenges, students and faculty found opportunities for innovation, connection and intellectual growth.
While they’d all rather be on campus with their friends celebrating the last days of the semester, students have found fun and challenging ways to make the best of their situation of remote learning.
The Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source (CHESS) will partially restart operations in June to conduct research related to treatment of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Historian Barry Strauss, who specializes in ancient and military history, notes that plagues and epidemics have often been linked to wars. The current pandemic will accelerate the use of computer models and big data in the field of history; however, he says, COVID-19 has taught us that models are only as good as the assumptions on which they’re based.
This summer, the Cornell in Washington program is offering undergraduates a chance to study COVID-19’s effects on the economy, politics and social policy through the eyes of politicians and policymakers working directly on the crisis response.
The proliferation of medical misinformation on social media and the human experience of social distancing are among the pandemic-related topics to be studied with Rapid Response Fund grants from the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability.
Witnesses and survivors of the Holocaust and other acts of genocide are dwindling in numbers, but their faces and voices will live on through Cornell University Library’s recently acquired permanent access to USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive (VHA).
In this time of increasing political polarization, the participation of scientists in political advocacy has become yet another flashpoint, with some critics accusing scientists of being self-serving if they advocate for increased science funding.
Sophomores in the Milstein Program in Technology and Humanity were supposed to be spending the summer of 2020 living in the House on Roosevelt Island in New York City and taking a special set of classes at Cornell Tech.
Georgina Cedeno Biological Sciences Reedley, Ca What was your favorite class and why? As a junior, I took Professor Feigenson’s biochemistry class, and in his office hours I finally felt like I belonged in the STEM field. Professor Feigenson strung together for me all the chemistry and biology I had been learning for the past two years, and he taught me how wondrous, connected and harmoniously life behaves at the molecular level.
Miguel Soto Tapia English Schaumburg, IL What is your main extracurricular activity and why is it important to you? I split my time between being a student manager at Cornell Catering and as a cadet in Air Force ROTC. Both helped me get rid of my fear of the world and taught me valuable skills about management and empathy; I am grateful to these institutions for accepting me and helping to build me into what I have become.
