Cornell Urban Scholars Program: Orientation

Cornell Urban Scholars Program

The Cornell Urban Scholars Program (CUSP) is dedicated to supporting the efforts of New York City's most innovative non-profit organizations. CUSP achieves this goal by encouraging Cornell's most talented students to pursue public service careers with organizations working with New York City's poorest children, families, and communities. Thanks to the contribution of Peter Sloane, President of the August Heckscher Foundation for Children, Cornell University was able to create this public service program. This blog represents the thirty-one 2007 Cornell Urban Scholars that are dedicating their summers to non-profit organizations and local government agencies.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Orientation

June 2, 2007

New York City has a dynamic metro region that has a powerful impact over our workplaces. As part of the Urban Scholars orientation weekend students split into small groups and toured one of five major areas of Manhattan. These areas included Chinatown, Central Harlem, Upper East Side, SOHO, and Greenwich Village.

For this ethnographic activity students were asked to walk through their assigned neighborhood and gain a sense of its history, evolution, and community. The groups were asked to identify and investigate key physical and social dimensions by observing the smells, sounds, and sights of the areas.

When the student groups returned from the 4 hour neighborhood tour they put together a poster presentation of their findings. The teams then presented their posters to the class and a panel of Expert New Yorkers.