COVER STORY
Cornell's global citizens roll up their sleeves and tackle real-world problems
"Cornell students are not going to these places as tourists," says Cornell economist Ralph Christy, an international research expert on campus. "They go with their sleeves rolled up, ready to tackle real-word problems."
Notes Alice Pell, Cornell's vice provost for international relations: "It really is part of our being. There's a clear understanding that we are strengthening the university by going to distant places."
Students and faculty are undertaking diverse projects in all parts of the world:
- Researchers have recently developed hardy, higher yielding staple crops for poor farmers in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
- Cornell has a new minor in global health that requires students to spend eight weeks conducting research or participating in an outreach program in a developing nation. The minor focuses on research, service and training to address health problems that transcend borders.
- Students in Cornell's chapter of Engineers for a Sustainable World tried to alleviate issues of the consequences of deforestation, global warming and pollution by helping Nicaraguan women design and use efficient solar ovens, which reduce the need for wood while lowering emissions of particulates and greenhouses gases.
- ILR juniors Rachel Einstein and Edward Rooker spent last summer interning with two South African nongovernmental organizations to help people with disabilities to re-enter the workforce.
And the list goes on.
But why would Cornell seek to spread its influence across the globe? Why send students and faculty to often-remote places at considerable cost and effort? Why, in essence, seek to make Cornell the land-grant university to the world?
Faculty and administrators explain that internationalism has been woven into Cornell's fabric since its founding, largely the result of a powerful legacy of altruism, which persists to this day. However, given today's economic realities, international activities are also vital in keeping Cornell competitive in a shifting global economy and in broadening and deepening professors' international research interests, and perhaps making them better teachers. The most powerful argument, though, is that this worldly exposure trains students to become global citizens.