Report From Cornell NYC Tech Vice President Cathy Dove - Partnership With Technion, K -12 Grade Education Director, Integrating Queens Organizations, Free Health & Nutrition Program, Relay For Life And Demolition/Barging Update

 Image of Cathy Dove From Crains NY Business

Cornell NYC Tech Vice President Cathy Dove sends this report to the Roosevelt Island community.

As the Cornell Tech population continues to grow – we’ll have approximately 100 students on our temporary campus this fall – we are establishing ways to become an active part of the Roosevelt Island community. I hope that Islanders are beginning to see more and more of us around town, doing community service projects, meeting with community organizations and just talking to Islanders about our campus.

I was pleased to be part of a team of Cornell Tech participants in the Relay for Life event at the Octagon on April 26. Relay for Life is the signature fundraising event for the American Cancer Society, and our team of Cornell Tech students, administrators, faculty (and even two Cornell Tech children) walked the track for this worthy cause. Our next community service opportunity will be Roosevelt Island Day on June 21, so please look for all of the people in Cornell Tech t-shirts along with our Cornell family partners, Weill Cornell Medical College and Cornell Cooperative Extension. There will be interesting demonstrations, a raffle and helpful information for you and your family so don’t miss it!

We also continue to keep the Island up to speed on how our academic program and construction projects are evolving. On April 28, the latest quarterly meeting of the Construction and Community Task Force was held. We were joined on the Island by Adam Shwartz, the Director of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute. The Jacobs Institute is the part of Cornell Tech that is a partnership between the two universities, which will offer dual degrees from Cornell and Technion beginning this fall. Adam joined the Institute from the Technion earlier this year, where he is a professor in the department of electrical engineering.  He shared our vision for the Institute as a place for experimentation and innovation, and answered questions from Islanders in attendance. Diane Levitt, Cornell Tech’s new Director for K12 Education will present at our next task force meeting on July 28.

Under the leadership of Jane Swanson, Cornell Tech's Assistant Director of government and community relations, we are also working closely with Cornell Cooperative Extension's New York City Programs to bring exciting programming to the Island. CUCE-NYC has already been holding free health and nutrition courses at the senior center, complete with food preparation demonstrations. This program has been brought back twice by popular demand.

Looking just beyond the Island, we are also partnering with Queens organizations to ensure that our campus – and Roosevelt Island – will truly become the center of a vibrant citywide tech sector. In April we met with leadership of the Queens Chamber of Commerce, Queens Economic Development Corporation and the Coalition for Queens to discuss how we can work together to encourage more tech companies to locate in Queens, in addition to the industry growth we expect to occur directly on the Cornell Tech campus.  To that end, at the last task force meeting, the group chose to add a representative from the Queens Borough President’s Office to further integrate Queens into the process.

Finally, as many of you may have noticed, the demolition project on the site is well underway. The barging is going very well. Thus far we have removed about 1,000 tons of debris from the site – 100% of which has left by barge! Please continue to sign up for construction updates and visit our website at construction.tech.cornell.edu for the latest information on the project.

Here is the fascinating presentation made by Adam Shwartz,the Director of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Innovation Institute, to the Roosevelt Island Community and Construction Task Force referenced by Ms. Dove.