{"id":13516,"date":"2022-11-18T13:27:00","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T18:27:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/?p=13516"},"modified":"2023-12-12T13:28:12","modified_gmt":"2023-12-12T18:28:12","slug":"ithaca-native","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alumni.cornell.edu\/cornellians\/ithaca-native\/","title":{"rendered":"As a Kid in Ithaca, I Gazed Up at the University on the Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My great-grandfather was a porter in Sheldon Court; I graduated from the Hotel School. I want others to follow in my footsteps<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Siera Milton Beal \u201907<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

As a freshman, I had the best real estate on North Campus: a massive, fourth-floor single in Balch Hall with a Juliet balcony, overlooking campus and the hills of Ithaca beyond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I shared a sink with a Singaporean engineer who cooked all her meals in-house. The double next door housed a future attorney from Cupertino, CA, and a coxswain for the rowing team who came from the State of Washington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On move-in day, Mom and I hauled my suitcase and three large Rubbermaid bins into the room.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"a<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

She arranged all the dorm goodies she\u2019d splurged on: two cases of Snapple, Easy Mac, Oodles of Noodles, and my favorite fruits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I plugged in my refurbished ThinkPad. She made the bed. I unspooled my icicle lights. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then we walked back to the car, and off she went\u2014two miles downtown to our Esty Street apartment, a world away.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Growing up in Ithaca, Cornell was that prestigious, mystical place on the Hill for exceptionally smart (often rich) kids, adjacent to the most affluent neighborhood in town. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as I handled my AP and honors course load, part-time job, and sports, Cornell remained nearby, but always in the distance somehow. I was smart, but unconvinced I could be Cornell<\/em> smart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I was smart, but unconvinced I could be Cornell<\/em> smart.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, my Ithaca High classmates applied to Cornell without hesitation, quite certain of their merits and with clear expectations of getting in. A few of them who were waitlisted or rejected even insinuated that affirmative action helped me take their spot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is, stepping into Balch that fall was indeed an affirming action\u2014a long-anticipated, hard-earned one for myself, my community, my ancestors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Ezra Cornell was contemplating the institution he would found, my fourth-great-grandparents\u2014Charles Washington Reed, who had escaped from slavery in Virginia, and Almira Pickett, a Tompkins County native\u2014were on the other side of the lake in the Town of Ulysses, raising children and tending their farmland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Siera
With her mom in Venice in 2006, during study abroad.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n

I was a first-grader at Central Elementary when it was renamed for Beverly J. Martin \u201957\u2014my mother\u2019s principal when she attended Central. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martin became one of Ithaca\u2019s foremost educators, advocates, and community leaders.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She, too, was a Black woman born in the city.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I applied to Cornell at the insistence of my after-school program director (another Cornell alumna and Reed family descendant)\u2014and with the kind heroics of our mailman, who placed extra postage on all my unknowingly under-stamped application envelopes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like most freshmen, Robert Purcell Community Center was my dinner mainstay\u2014a place I knew well, having spent many of my high school evenings working on the other side of the counter, preparing and serving meals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My sophomore year, I transferred from CALS to the Hotel School, where my grandfather spent many years as a chef, back when the Statler was just a jewel-box inn.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

My home junior year (campus housing win number two!) was Sheldon Court\u2014the Collegetown residence hall where my great-grandfather served as a porter not long after he arrived from Lynchburg, VA, in 1929.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My senior year, I became the director of community service for the Cornell chapter of the National Society of Minorities in Hospitality<\/a>. That very organization had hosted eight-year-old me (and my four-year-old sister) at a holiday event in Statler Hall, where students helped local kids make gingerbread houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As much as connecting these dots galvanizes my spirit\u2014and grounds me further in who and what I am, and where I\u2019m from\u2014it also weighs on me.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"Two
Beal (right) samples the frosting as Hotelies help her and her sister decorate their gingerbread creations in 1994.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m not sure how many Ithacans have traveled the path behind me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As is the case for many low-income communities across the nation, the news emanating from home is mixed at best. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inequality, affliction, addiction, violence, loss\u2014all of it more intense, acute, and frequent than I ever remembered it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

I\u2019m not sure how many Ithacans have traveled the path behind me.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

So I share my story now, because more than ever, I need to believe …<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That my path is still lit for others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That the brilliant threads of our community fabric remain intact.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That young people caught in Ithaca\u2019s fray may see what is possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That kids can trust that no place in their hometown is too hallowed for their presence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That a poor Black girl at IHS will apply to Cornell as reflexively and confidently as her peers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That my alma mater reaches deeply, intentionally, and locally for any person to pursue any study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Siera Milton Beal \u201907<\/strong> is an affordable housing consultant by day and genealogist and family historian by night. She lives in San Diego with her two children, husband, mom, and mini German shepherd.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All images provided.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Published November 18, 2022<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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