Admin Interview 11-12-19 Transcript

The Cornell Daily Sun News Editorial Board

The Sun: How do you define [Provost]?

Michael Kotlikoff: So chief academic officer and chief budget officer.

Martha Pollack: So all the deans and the library and admissions and any kind of academic
support reports to Mike and he also is responsible for the budget.

Michael Kotlikoff: Thanks, but I'm not answering all the questions.

Martha Pollack: No, Ryan [Lombardi] is.

[introductions]

The Sun: Okay, so we wanted to start it out by asking what is Cornell doing to improve its
socioeconomic diversity​?

Martha Pollack: Oh, great question. That is, as everyone here will attest, one of my highest
priorities. And so we are doing two things. One thing we're doing is kind of develop a plan
because you can't get to a goal unless you have a good plan. And we're very fortunate that we
now have a Vice Provost for enrollment management, a very talented man named ​Jon Burdick​.
And he's helping us develop the plan. And by the plan, I mean two things. I mean, both how can
we recruit students? How can we get more students with a broader range of socio economic
diversity to come here? And also, how much will it cost? Because the second part is... The
second thing I'm doing is raising money. When I'm on the road It is always one of the first things
I talk about how important it is that we live up to our "any person” ethos, and how we need
money for that and I'm pleased to say — it's just a drop in the bucket but it's a start — we've had
now already three very generous multi million dollar gifts that will help us support increase
socioeconomic diversity.

The Sun: Do you have any figures or goals that you're working towards?

Martha Pollack: Yes, but I'm not ready to announce them publicly because that's what we have
Jon [Burdick] modeling. We want to announce a very ambitious goal, but I'm not ready to
announce that goal yet because I want to make sure we can do it.

The Sun: Do you have a timeline on that?

Martha Pollack: I'm hoping that by the end of this academic year will be it; I'm not gonna say
next month, but it's not going to drag out forever. Jon [Burdick] started, we were waiting for him
to come because you really need the expertise to get this right. And he started August 1, I think,
so he's only been here on a very short while, but it is one of my highest priorities and we're
working very hard on it.
The Sun: And what are you doing to support those who do already come from, I guess low
income backgrounds? Like I know there's the new associate dean of students and first
generation and low income…

Martha Pollack: We're doing a lot, but I'll let Ryan speak. Yeah, sure.

Ryan Lombardi: I think that's where most of our energy has been focused within the student
support realm in the Dean of Students Office. So ​Shakima Clency's​ office who — her title is
Associate Dean and Director of Student Empowerment, First Generation Low Income student
initiative. She's been a terrific addition to our staff, [she’s about] a year and a half in now. So
aside from her as a human being a support to students, she also has the opportunity to
administer a number of resources to students. So we have the access grants, which are
financial grants that students can receive for some of the expenses that aren't covered under
financial aid and those types of things and they can seek her out, she administers the food
swipes that are donated to ​Swipe Out Hunger​, she was also key in starting up the Cornell ​food
pantry​ and advises the ​Kessler Scholars Mentoring Program​ which is new first generation
cohorts scholarship Leadership Program, she also supervises a staff member that provides
support to our documented and undocumented students here at Cornell. So really great team of
folks trying to support our students. So her office is at 626 Thurston Ave, but she's everywhere
around campus and I really encourage folks to —

Martha Pollack: And I want to add that in addition to the really wonderful work being done in
Student Life, we're also paying attention to what happens in the classroom. Because not
always, but often it's the case that students who come from less well-resourced high schools
have less preparation, less background than the student who maybe comes from a wealthier
neighborhood and there are more AP classes and more ability to get ready for Cornell. And
there's lots of ways in which we're doing this. ​OADI​ is a support unit. But I also want to mention
something I'm very excited about and that's a new way of teaching. Some of you may have
taken courses, particularly the gateway courses where we flipped the classroom where you do
your reading outside of class and then in the classroom, you work on hard problems with TAs
and professors walking around. And we're not just doing this, we're studying it; we're looking to
see what works and doesn't work. And the data is preliminary. But we have faculty studying the
outcomes. And what we've seen is that in the classes where we've flipped the classroom, not
only does everyone do better, but we close the performance gap between students of color,
students from less resourceful high schools, you know, we used to see a performance gap. And
those students do every bit as well, as far as we can tell, as far as the researchers tell us, a lot
of it has to do with self confidence, with building self confidence in these experiences. So we are
looking both for support in student life and support in the classroom we want — I want — every
single student to thrive.

Provost Kotlikoff: So this the Active Learning Initiative and the Center for Teaching innovation.
Martha Pollack: And if you know it would be worth whoever's writing. If you're writing an article
on this. We can track down for you the papers. So we have these faculty, they're called DBERs,
Discipline Based Educational Researchers, and they publish papers. You don't have to have a
PhD to read them. They're worth reading — they talk about the performance impact on our
students. We can certainly get you some of those papers so you can see that data.

The Sun: Early decision: you're going to be admitting a new class. Have you made any changes
to your admissions practices, especially in the wake of the ​large college scandals​ or any other
initiatives you've been working on?

Martha Pollack: So what we did in the wake of the scandals was to do a very careful scan of all
of our processes. We looked in particular into athletics, because that's where you saw a lot of
the fraud out there nationally. You know, I've said this to this team before, but I'll say it again: I
was horrified and disgusted by that fraud. We have in place a very good set of checks to ensure
that student athletes really are legitimate athletes. We looked at all of our [unintelligible]
incoming and then our second-year students — we saw no evidence of fraud. In fact, we've
tightened up the process by which coaches nominate faculty. We have also asked John
Burdick, our new enrollment manager, to take a look at the processes across campus. Now, I'm
not going to sit here and say to you that I can guarantee that across 15,000 undergraduates,
there's nobody who cheated on their SATs or ACTs. I can't guarantee that, but we believe that
our processes are very tight. Beyond that, we are — at this point — continuing to do really
holistic reviews.
[7:42]
Michael Kotlikoff: You know, I think part of what Martha mentioned is the recruitment of a Vice
Provost for enrollment. So part of this is having someone that oversees all of the college
processes, making sure we're consistent, we're compliant in all these areas and that we can
pursue institutional goals. And Martha mentioned the other institutional goal of increased
socioeconomic diversity.

Martha Pollack: So that will lead to strategic changes. But as I say, right now, just around the
edges until we have a solid goal —

The Sun: The processes were tightened up, but what was tightened?

Ryan Lombardi: The coaches had to, I think, add a level of attestation around the students
background and skills. So before it was a little more qualitative in nature, so I might say, “Oh,
they're a great midfield” — if I were a Coach, I'm not a Coach — “but they're a great midfielder,
and they would be a great contributor to our team.” They would have to add some level of
quantitative data in there around the statistics, the performance and some of that stuff —
[interruption] so now they have to provide some of the actual data and metrics and performance
records for the student athletes as opposed to saying they'd be a great addition to the team or
something like that.
[more window small talk]

The Sun: So this is something that's going to continue on in the next admission cycles looking
forward?

[affirmative answer]

The Sun: Great. We'd also like to ask about sustainability initiatives and divestment. I know that
there's a lot of offices across campus doing a lot of things with sustainability. But the focus now
has been demands from mostly Climate Justice Cornell on ​divesting from fossil fuels​, and the
[board of] trustees haven't really budged in that regard.

Martha Pollack: I will answer that, but I do want to give you one fact that I think is really
important. Out of our $7.3 billion endowment, more than $5 billion is already invested with
managers who practice the United Nations PRI — principles for responsible investment. So
there is already a very significant portion of our funds that are being invested in along with the
[sustainability] kinds of goals. It is true that it's been several years since the board looked at the
divestment issue. They put in place a process, and that process still holds. So if all five of the
assemblies were to vote for it, they would consider it again, and they would consider it with
respect to the standards that they have in place. I can't speak for them what they will do.

The Sun: And then Ithaca — the city of Ithaca specifically, not the town — just recently passed a
Green New Deal​, and it's very exciting. They also just yesterday ​decided on the budget​ for it.
We were wondering, because some city officials told me that they wouldn't be able to complete
the goals without the collaboration of the university because it takes up so much space. Even
though it doesn't lie within the City limits, it, of course, affects the air and a lot of the goals that
they're trying to reach. Are there any plans to help towards the Green New Deal? I know it's
new.

Martha Pollack: Yeah, I think we're

Joel Malina: We have many conversations with the sustainability team in the city. Rick's team in
particular, we've been focused on one component, which is a green building policy. Right now,
we are working with the City to get it to a place where we could actually comply. They recognize
the importance of Cornell being able to be able to actually satisfy whatever they want to put
forward. So these are ongoing conversations. We obviously have been leaders in the space — I
think the city recognizes our expertise, not just in Rick's team, but in facilities but among our
faculty. So this will be an ongoing partnership collaboration as we try to do what's right for the
for the planet.

The Sun: Right, okay. Because I know that there are certain faculty in architecture and in
engineering who are already working with the government on specific localized projects. But I
think I'm interested to know whether there's a bigger push that might lead to a committee or
something.

12:17

Joel Malina : We have Cornell participants on the committees that the city has put together. We
also have a sustainable Cornell council that has launched that reports up to the provost. Rick
could speak to that. Rick is one of our co-chairs of that effort. The other thing I would say, in
terms of the city's green aspirations, we do have a commitment or embracing a goal of carbon
neutrality in the Ithaca campus by 2035, which we're hoping others will see as an inspirational
thing to get.

Rick Burgess: So with respect to our efforts in the sustainable Cornell Council, we have an
overarching structure of leadership. And then inside of that we have three committees. One is
focused really on carbon neutrality. How do we get from here to there, as George mentioned.
Another one is campus operations. So kind of all the rest of the business of running the campus,
how do we do that in a sustainable manner, have a light footprint. And then the third area is
really the education and engagement piece. So what do our students do, whether they're in an
on-campus org or in their engagement off campus? So all three of those committees are now
stood up, we have a goal to report back to the Provost by next month what we propose to take
on. And this is not going to be a one shot deal, but we want to want to move out very smartly on
this, so we don't spend a lot of time just churning the committee. We're going to give some
specific recommendations. Once we've made those recommendations, the Provost is either
approved or disapproved of that I think you'll hear more of our actual concrete plans are. And as
Joel mentioned, we've been working very closely with the city and with the town with respect to
building standards, whenever we propose a building project, if it’s part of the endowed side or
student Campus Life side of our campus, we actually have to go down to get building permits,
which means we, you know, we have to brief them on what we intend to do and have to comply
with building codes. We've been working with them on the game, and we welcome their move in
this direction.

[14:28]
Michael Kotlikoff: We just add one more thing and Rick can give the details, but we really
haven't been sitting still. One of the things that's happened is our energy usage per square foot
has gone way down in the past 10 years. We've built more buildings, we're using roughly the
same amount of energy that we were before. Cornell has a commitment going back to lake
source cooling that has really been a game-changer in terms of our own carbon utilization.

Joel Malina: And I would just note that this sustainable Cornell council does include on each of
these committees student representatives, as well as shared governance University assembly
representative, so it's a collective dialogue.
The Sun: Beautiful. Okay, great.

The Sun: So I'd like to shift a little bit to talk about the passing of the freshman Antonio Tsialas
and Greek life and hazing and kind of the last two weeks if I was going to paraphrase it. Yeah.

Martha Pollack: I want to separate those two issues. Okay. So on, ​Antonio [Tsialas]​. Incredibly
tragic. I spoke to his mom again just this morning. We don't know what happened. But what I am
committed to — and I cannot say this more strongly — what I am committed to is transparency
on this. The investigation is active, it's underway, it involves not only Cornell police, but the state
police and involves the Tompkins County D.A., there is no evidence of how play but we simply
at this point don't have any more details to share. We are determined to do everything we can to
understand what happened to him. And I am personally, and I said this to his mom this morning,
personally committed to transparency.

I want to really separate that from the discussion of Greek life because we don't know at this
point and that's really important. What we do know is that the policies that we put in place a year
ago, year and a half ago, haven't entirely had the effect that we had hoped. There are six
organizations that have been suspended at this point for — in that time period, in that time
period, for violations that must be pretty serious to be suspended. This can't stand. We need to
provide us a physically safe environment for our students, and we're not doing that. And so
Ryan and I with his team, and I'm involved in this personally with his team, are right now looking
at what we can do to provide a better environment. This is something I know it didn't pass the
Panhellenic Council, but the majority of sororities asked for a change. The fraternities
themselves came forward and put in a pause, I applaud them for that. We've gotta do better. I
don't know if you want to add anything.

Ryan Lombardi: Yeah, we just say, my side of this, obviously, from the students and their
actions over the last week is that they also want to see change. The leadership of these
councils, I think, I interpret some of their actions as a call for help in affecting that change. And
certainly me and my team will lean in to help them. We maintain close connection with the
leadership of those councils, obviously, and and we'll start brainstorming on them. I know one of
my staff members this evening is going to the IFC exec meeting tomorrow night when all of the
chapter presidents for IFC are together. I'm hoping to get over if I can get out of a talk I'm
supposed to give tomorrow evening. So yeah, we'll be working hard to think about what other
steps need to happen, a lots already been laid out, and then there are historical policies too,
even before the ones that President referenced from a year and a half ago. I don't think
unfortunately there are any easy answers to this, right? If you look around the country and you
see campuses trying all kinds of different things, and so I think we've got to keep at it, though
Cornell wants to be a leader in all the things we do, and no exception here.

The Sun: Are you looking to other campuses for — inspiration is the wrong word — but for ideas
on how to address this?
Ryan Lombardi: Absolutely. Absolutely. In fact, so, one, I'll mention one of my new staff
members that started this past summer. Her name is ​Jenny Loeffelman​, she's an AVP within
student & campus life. She oversees four departments: sorority and fraternity life, campus
activities, Public Service Center, New Student Orientation. She's worked in Greek life at UNC
Chapel Hill, she's worked at Miami of Ohio, where a lot of those organizations are based, were
founded in the Midwest. She's brought a lot of fresh ideas to the table already. We are in
collaboration with the Piazza Center at Penn State through their national scorecard initiative. So
we're already in collaboration with them, talking with them. So yeah, very much looking around
the country.

The Sun: So I want to start with the first part of my question then, to separate them. You
mentioned some agencies that are involved in the investigation. What is the lead investigative
agency that is taking the charge?

Martha Pollack: My understanding is that the lead agency is Cornell Police.

Rick Burgess: It’s us, it’s us.

Martha Pollack: Cornell Police.

The Sun: Okay. Okay. And is there a timeline for the investigation?

Martha Pollack: No, no, uh, I mean, [?], My unders-, I haven't dealt with a lot of police
investigations, but my understanding is that police investigations take as long as they take.
There is no- It is not because of a lack of resources. They are fully committed to this. They are
dedicated to this. They are following up, I just saw how many leads, it was well over 100 leads
with at least 60 individual face to face interviews. But we're just going to keep at it and you
know, until we can find out what happened.

The Sun: I know that you guys have offered the Silent Witness Protection option.

Martha Pollack: Yes.

The Sun: Has that been being utilized?

Martha Pollack: I don't know. Okay.

The Sun: I am going to leave that for now then, in that case.

Martha Pollack: If you want to urge people, I mean, I want to urge people to come forward, we
need anyone who knows anything, please come forward. And again, I want to repeat my
commitment, there is no desire to hide anything. My full commitment is to transparency with the
community.
Ryan Lombardi: And I would just echo that, I mean, lots of rumors that you hear in the
ecosphere of students, etc. And every time I do I ask a student, have you shared that
information with the police? And If they haven't, I say, why not? Get in there and share it with
the police. I mean, if you're willing to share it and talk about it, then you should be willing to
report to the police so they can follow up on leads.

The Sun: Thank you. So yeah, the campus, as you mentioned, is reeling and has been reacting
in a range of ways and so I appreciate any information that you can share with us; I think it is
valued a lot.

[21:09]
Martha Pollack: If I had any additional info, if I knew anything you didn't know at this point, I
would share it with you, but what's already been you know what's already out there is what we
know so far.

The Sun: Can I ask, has an autopsy been done?

Martha: An autopsy was scheduled. I don’t think we have the results of that. ...

?[Rick Burgess]: It takes a long time to get those back,

Someone: the results.

Rick: We don't expect to hear for some while.

Martha Pollack: it's been scheduled. I think it's taken place but there's a lot I think they might
again, don't quote me on this because all I know is what I've watched on TV, but it does take-

Rick Burgess: Martha, it happens as a matter of course. And from talking with the chief of
police, it would be on the order of months before we hear something back.

VP lombardi: It is different from the TV shows.

Martha Pollack: It is different from the TV shows.

The Sun: So in regards to the IFC plan, a lot of students have been critical of the plan, in that it's
been de facto or on purpose, it was both were grouped in one email. It's been associated with
the death of the first year student, Antonio. And …

Ryan Lombardi: I'm sorry, not the plan has been associated,

Maryam: the reaction,

Ryan Lombardi: the reaction. Ok.

Maryam: Yeah and the plan has been viewed in response to

Ryan Lombardi: in reaction. Oh, gotcha. Sorry. [Cross talk]. I was just trying to understand the
perspective.

Maryam: Yeah I just wanted to be clear sorry. Yeah.

The Sun: So if there is no cause of death that's been ruled, why have we gone to amplify Greek
Reforms at the same time?

Martha Pollack: Because, because we do know from the investigation, that and we've shared
this information that there was an unregistered party, that there were freshmen invited, that it
appears to have been a dirty rush, that there was alcohol, independent of Antonio's death, there
was significant misbehavior in yet another fraternity,

The Sun: So then in that case, how does this ban address unregistered events that you
described

Martha Pollack: How what?

The Sun: How does it, because it targeted...

Ryan Lombardi: It's a ban on registered events? Right? Yeah. So it doesn't address
unregistered events so then how would you ban unregistered events if they're unregistered by
nature? So that's, that’s the question.

Martha Pollack: I mean, are you asking what are we going to do?

The Sun: I'm asking if you have any ideas? Any brainstorming?

Martha Pollack: Yeah, we do. We have a lot of ideas for brainstorming, but I'm not ready. I'm not
ready to talk about those ideas yet. We have, we have a lot of thoughts about steps we might
take

The Sun: [unclear] but didn't ... Okay

Ryan Lombardi: Within that question of what are we thinking about? Absolutely. So getting to
that heart of that problem, looking around the country, looking what's worked elsewhere,
thinking about what would work in this community, that we could employ to try to address the
root of what we know some of the issues were on that night, trying to get to those,
notwithstanding what I have seen panhellenic doing
The Sun: And so for the existing ban that was voted on by IFC. Are there any university
repercussions if it's not followed?

Martha Pollack: Yeah, there will be University repercussions if that’s not followed. [Looking to
Lombardi] I'm sorry, I shouldn't speak for you too. ​I'm​ saying that there will be.

The Sun: [Looking to Lombardi] Do you concur?

Ryan Lombardi: Yeah

Martha Pollack: [Laughter] He reports to me.

The Sun: What would those repercussions be?

Martha Pollack: They would be serious. I don't know, I don’t know. But there will be
repercussions. I mean, I admire the fact, I truly admire the fact that the IFC and that portion of
the of the Panhellenics group took this seriously enough to say, okay, we need to step back and
pause to ... I admire that, I said that publicly in my statement, now they have to live up to their
side of things and have this pause, and let us, thoughtfully ... I mean, the reason I'm not talking
about it today is we're just trying to be very thoughtful and deliberate in thinking about how to go
forward and they need to live up there. I’m, I'm not doubting that they will let me be clear, but if
they don't, there will be repercussions.

Ryan Lombardi: And if I can just make a point for a second. I mean, going back to where The
President started about a year and a half ago and putting some reforms in place and saying
we're going to hold chapters accountable. In a year and a half, six chapters have been
suspended, three more on, on long term probation, right? And lost the ability to have social
events, etc, etc. So there's not been a resistance to holding groups accountable for
misbehavior.

The Sun: So is that a success, though, like suspending?

Martha Pollack: No, it's not.

Ryan Lombardi: It's not a goal. But my point in saying that was simply that: the question of what
will the repercussions be? I'm saying this President hasn't been shy about saying there will be
serious repercussions if, if the misbehavior continues

Martha Pollack: and taking in-

Ryan Lombardi: yep, and following through.

The Sun: So then, on that note, kind of, some people discussed gorge safety also as a
concern? Are there any initiatives regarding gorge safety at this point.

Joel Malina: We have a pretty vigorous gorge safety program. It's managed by the Botanic
Gardens. It has been well funded for years and involves a lot of active education. And that's
something that we're going to be continuing. We don't take anything for granted in terms of
what's been done to date. It's just a reality of our campus. And it's an important element of that
ongoing hope to have all members of our community aware of the beauty as well as the
dangers of our environment.

Ryan Lombardi: We have gorge stewards, employees who go out there and monitor the gorges.
So there's a lot wrapped into this, student employees etc. If you need more information about
that.
[26:26]
The Sun: Are you considering any changes to the rush process in the spring?

Martha Pollack: It's too early to say. I mean, we're just discussing everything. Everything is on
the table at this point.

The Sun: And what about pre-professional or multicultural facilities?

Martha Pollack: Everything is on the table at this point. Okay. Again, which isn't to say we will or
won't, but we are we are considering the whole space there.

The Sun: Okay. Do you have anything that you can share like any ideas that you are looking?

Martha Pollack: You know, I'd really rather not because we want to do this in a thoughtful way.
We really want to think through the repercussions of any steps we might take. We want to honor
the students who are behaving well. And I just don't want to get us to get out ahead of
ourselves.

The Sun: Do you think you have anything concrete by the end of the semester?

Joel Malina: If we do, we'll let you know. Yeah.

Martha Pollack: Yeah. I mean, I mean, we're working hard.

The Sun: To be transparent regarding the death of Antonio, [does] that extend to the Greek life?

Martha Pollack: Yeah, of course.

Of course, we could help. I mean, how could we not right, when we, when we decide on the
reforms, we're going to tell people about them.
The Sun: And then just finally, some people involved in the process itself, that the burden has
fallen on students to do to develop ideas and reform the system. And I know that you've said
now that you have developed a lot.

Martha Pollack: I mean, I mean, we appreciate student input, but I think that's a little bit of an
unfair statement. The policies that were put in place a year and a half ago were policies that I
put together. There are students now developing ideas and we appreciate them. They want that
in the process, but I don't understand the same and that says the burden has fallen on them to
do this.

The Sun: So speaking of students in the process, would you be willing to sort of interface with
both PHC and IFC to sort of I guess, groupthink ideas together?

Martha Pollack: So again, let's let me let me say this as clearly as I can. Antonio died two weeks
ago, right, the first week to week and a half, were frankly spent helping students who are
grieving or dealing with our own grieving, talking with the parents. I talked with the parents
multiple times. So in the first week and a half, we dealt with that. As a result of the investigation,
which has not yet I can't stress this enough, not yet found out what's going on with Antonio what
caused Antonio's death. As a result of that we learn about yet another violation in the fraternity
system, separate from Antonio's death. And that has led us to start thinking about what we
might do how we might do it. And I'm just trying to be honest, we're not ready. We just we just —
we're not ready to talk about what or how, at this point.

The Sun: So transitioning again. So what does tuition like, for the upcoming year? I mean, any
updates to share about that.

Michael Kotlikoff: We have to go through a process that requires Board approval. We're right at
the point of starting we had a meeting with the deans today, where we started to share the
results of our 10 year process. We have a 10 year budget model that basically looks at what our
costs are and tries to increase tuition to the lowest degree that we can consistent with meeting
those costs. And we also have programs in place that are trying to restrain those costs. So It's
very early. But we're we're starting to now configure and all these things are linked, not just the
tuition, but the payout of the endowment. Our salary improvement program for our staff and
faculty are all part of the same effort that we'll bring forward for the December board meeting of
the trustees. So I can't say anything yet about it, other than we're in this framework of the 10
year budget that I've talked about before, which links our tuition as I said to our costs

Martha Pollack: And our commitment has been to increase for many years now to increase
financial aid commensurate with the tuition increases.
Michael Kotlikoff: So yeah, should go without saying that anybody on financial aid, of course
everybody's financial aid gets reviewed annually, but anyone on financial aid will not see
increases in tuition. That that's covered by the increased financial aid.

The Sun: I just have a question for you, were you guys involved in the Weill Cornell decision?
So what was like the, I guess, inspiration for that? And how long had it been in the work?

Martha Pollack: Well, I was because Weill Cornell reports to me, It had been in other words for a
while. I mean, it was it was spearheaded by a couple of wonderful donors who care deeply
about this. And who really wanted to ensure that medical students would feel comfortable
pursuing whatever path they wanted. So they could go be a pediatrician pediatrics isn't nearly
as highly paid, as say a neurosurgeon. It was there was a very thoughtful decision. I think one
that I wanted to make it debt free, not tuition free. That is people the feeling was that people
should be should pay. I mean, someone has to pay for the medical education, right, just like
someone has to pay Cornell. And so the thought was you should pay what your family can
afford, but you shouldn't have to take on more debt. Medical schools are much much, much,
much smaller than Cornell. I mean, you can do this. I mean, it would be would be we would
need to raise. I don't even know what the numbers are.

[32:19]
Michael Kotlikoff: There are 106 students per year and then six person per year. So it's a much
smaller amount of money that was needed. We had a number of donors that contributed 10s of
millions each. To make this possible.

Michael Kotlikoff: I should say one of one of the major, and Martha said this before, major
focuses of the campaign is an endowment for financial aid for undergraduates.

Martha Pollack: We're working extremely hard on that.

The Sun: So do you have any plans to at least I guess, reduce the loan burden that people are
currently taking on?

Martha Pollack: Yeah, so here’s the trade off that we're trying to weigh. We want more
socio-economic diversity. We want less loan burdens. You know, for every marginal dollar, we
have to decide which of those two goals will put it to. And that's what we're trying to figure out
right now.

The Sun: Do you think you would replicate the debt free? It's a large task to do for all of Cornell,
but for any of the other smaller programs or professional programs.

Martha Pollack: My first focus, with one exception that I will tell you, my first focus is
undergraduate students, not graduate professional students. The one exception is the vet
school. Because what's happened is that the cost of the vet school has gotten very, very high
and frankly, salaries are not that high. But it's not that I'm not interested, I'm very interested in
support for all of our students, but my starting focus is for undergraduates,

The Sun: To make it debt- free for undergraduates?

Martha Pollack: No, to increase socio-economic diversity and also think about the financial
packages for those students.

Joe Malina: We will be making an effort to raise as much funds as possible to go toward
financial aid. Depending on the generosity of that philanthropy, will dictate the degree.

Martha Pollack: and thinking about that trade off, which we, you know.

The Sun: So for a kind of a different question in the past year, Cornell had the second-worst
endowment return. And I believe one of the only operating deficits in the past fiscal year. I'm
curious, what was your take on that is?

Martha Pollack: Let me I'll talk to the endowment and then you can talk to the operating costs.
So our endowment return was 5.3% last year, which is consistent with our benchmark, that's
exactly what we aim for. And that's where we ended. We, for many years, Cornell's endowment
did not perform well, that performed very, very poorly. And about three years ago, we hired a
new chief investment officer Ken Miranda, came to us from the World Bank, and we moved our
investment office from Ithaca to New York City, and he has been restructuring. So if you have a
portfolio of investments, you can't just sort of wipe it all out and start over. Many of them have
lag times until you can liquidate them. If you look at the first one he restructured, which because
it was more liquid than anything else, it was our real estate portfolio, that performed at 10.9%
last year. So Ken came in, we did extremely well the first year. Those are the times in which he
had sort of the low hanging fruit on the restructuring. And now we're in a tough period and now
he's got a sort of wait for things to become more liquid. That's why we were aiming towards
5.3%. And we hit it and I should note that our investment office was actually nominated for two
very significant awards by other investors this year. Would I have liked to have seen a higher
return? Yes. But understanding the structure of our portfolio, we landed exactly where we
wanted to.

Michael Kotlikoff: Maybe I'd make a request to have this group, which is that I think it would be
terrific if before an article is written that refers to something like our financial statement, that
comments are sought by the individuals that oversee those financial statements, because I think
that could have addressed some of the issues that were in that article. We, on an operating
basis on our operating budget, we did not have a deficit. What was reported is really in the
financial statement, which is very different than our operating budget. Financial statement
includes things like deferred maintenance, it treats gifts differently. There are a number of areas
in which that financial statement doesn't reflect the money that we take in, in terms of our
revenue every year and the money that we expend every year. I'll give you one of just simple
example. Our financial statements take a gift and treat that gift as though it were given in one
year. And then projected forward in that budget, in our operating, we may get money in that's
pledged for a project in the future not expended in that year expended in later years, it looks like
a deficit. So the only thing I would request is that some of these nuances in terms of financial
statements versus our actual sources can be should be discussed in terms of what they actually
mean for the institution and what they don't. So again, last year, we operated at a slight margin
of profitable margin terms in the revenue that we have versus the expenditures that we made on
the Ithaca campus.

Joel Malina: We have five minutes. So use it accordingly.

The Sun: I was just going to jump back to socio economic diversity and ask how is the initiative
with the food pantry and other food insecurity things? I know we did kind of briefly talk about that
in terms of support.

Ryan Lombardi: Food insecurity, swipes first, I think you mentioned when we last number I got
was a bit just before October we had over I think 3000 swipes sitting in the bank available for
students to access through Shakima's office. So that's very good. The food pantry, excuse me,
opened on October 16. I don't know if you've had a chance to go over there. So this in
partnership with the Food Bank of the Southern Tier, it's been well received. It's not been
overwhelmingly received, but well received. I don't know if I want to be overwhelmingly received.
That's kind of a, you know, but it's been well received. And I think folks that have used it have
been pleasantly surprised. We've modeled our purchasing system off of the food bank. So when
a person registered, they're assigned points that they then expend within there and those points
replenish on a week by week basis. We assign far more points than if you go to a food pantry at
the Food Bank of the Southern Tier or something like that. There's some really high quality stuff
in there a lot of frozen meats and other things, not just you know, kind of prepackaged stuff
that's all high sodium or something like that. There's a lot of good quality food in there. I've been
down in myself. I don't know the number of folks that have used it. I don't have that number of
mine. I apologize

The Sun: And so the swipe for hunger is an ongoing program.

Ryan Lombardi: Absolutely.

The Sun: I'd love to get in a question about voting on campus. We are a year out from the 2020
elections. I emailed you about this over the summer. I don't know if you remember.

Martha Pollack: I didn't realize it was you.

The Sun: You said that this is one of your priorities looking forward. Are there any initiatives that
you're currently working on to improve?
Ryan Lombardi: There are, we have a team working out of the public service center right now...

The Sun: Through the Andrew Goodman Foundation?

Ryan Lombardi: Yes, through the Andrew Goodman Foundation. So we've got a team of student
interns and staff that are working on this and it's called Cornell Votes. I've got a nice flier and
send you a follow up fight. Maybe you've already seen this.

The Sun: I'm in contact with them.

Ryan Lombardi: So they've set, you know, our voter registration and then voting rates over the
past at the midterms and at the last national and, and they've set targets for the next national
too. So they've been working hard. I've been to a lot of events on campus where they've been,
they're registering. And that's going to ramp up, we really do want to promote the civic
engagement.

Martha Pollack: I really think that voting is one of those areas where we can and will do a lot.
But nothing is going to have the impact of peer to peer. You guys working to convince each
other how important it is to vote. We will do our share, but boy, if you could do one thing to
impact your future right now. I would say get all your friends to register and vote. It's so
important.

The Sun: I would argue that yes, peer-to-peer is really effective and I agree with that. But also
that coming from a university voice would be super powerful. And so I was wondering if you're
considering something, or if you would consider something, like a day off class to vote. Like, I
know the state doesn't mandate it.

Martha Pollack: No, first of all, first of all, most of our students vote in other states. In New York
you can easily get an absentee ballot. Now we’re not going to give a whole day off from classes.

The Sun: I have one quick question that we also wanted to follow up on. How are the new
mental health initiatives? I've kind of heard that they've been, are they working?

Martha Pollack: Yeah, so the for the first time. Can I tell them this? Ryan and I go to Student
Assembly every semester, and every semester we get beat up about mental health. And we
went this semester and they came in and the students complimented us, they were they were
happy about it. I mean, it's not perfect. It's obviously not perfect, but I think people do — and it's
due to Ryan's team — people really do I think appreciate this new system for getting
appointments. The same day appointments.

The Sun: Are students getting same-day appointments?

Ryan Lombardi: They are. So Cornell Health did a great job rolling this out. And obviously there
are always little bumps in the road, so there have been some moments where we found some
glitches. But in large part, I'm going to try and remember the data off the top my head, which is
always dangerous, but we are typically able to get people in in the same day appointments for
that kind of first access, immediate appointment. The big thing we heard from students was
access, access, access, I want to be able to get in, and I want to be able to get in quickly. So
that's how we modified the appointment length and all that. But we've seen is about a third of
our students go in for that one 25-minute visit. And that's it. It's a problem solving visit they
figure it out, they move on, they don't come back. A third of our students continue and decide
they prefer the 25-minute appointment and continue doing that. And about a third of them switch
back into a 50-minute traditional therapy appointment. We've reduced the number of referrals
we've had to make for students to go to a different provider from last year, it was over 17% this
year it's less than 3%. And last year when we were looking, we usually judge ourselves on the
third next available appointment, when is the third next available because the first next you
might be in class, you might be something like that. So we look at third next, the last time I got
this, which was now about two weeks ago, our third next available appointment was 22 hours
out. Last year that sometimes was getting on four weeks, things like that. So we've seen some
pretty significant changes and enhancements. And some of the other student meetings I have
similar to Student Assembly students have been supportive. We're going to work, we're still
analyzing and I think once we have a full semester of data under our belts to understand and
continue to get feedback from students, especially when we get into finals and some of that, you
see how this all shakes out.

The Sun: How is the workload with staff now that there can be a decreased appointment time to
25 [minutes]?

Ryan Lombardi: It's interesting, this is something we're watching very closely because the staff
aren't working longer, but they're often seeing more clients in the same amount of time. So that
takes a different level of kind of rejuvenation for a staff member to have to work with a client
instead of maybe they were seeing six now they're seeing eight, ten, twelve, even if it's in the
same amount of time so we're really monitoring fatigue and wear on our staff. So I know it's
frankly it's been hard for some of them to make this adjustment to support our students this way.
And so again once we get through this semester we'll pause, we'll sit, we'll collect with them and
understand what it was like for this first semester for them and figure out what we need to do.