Campus innovation and creativity shine: Ithaca College, Cornell, and TC3 students lead the way in arts, science, and entrepreneurship

Local college campuses are brimming with innovative, unusual and unprecedented projects. From entrepreneur-led companies forged by marathon think tanks to the raw ingredients for the culinary arts, the students and faculty on our campuses are hard at work churning out the best in their fields — including Broadway stars.

Future stars shine bright at Ithaca College
Ithaca College’s highly-ranked theater program has turned out many professional actors, including a couple who have risen to new heights just this year.

Dharon Jones, a graduate of the Ithaca College Class of 2020, stars with Nick Nolte in the feature film “The Golden Voice,” coming to theaters Feb. 28.

The movie is about a young street singer and a homeless veteran who battle dark times through friendship and music.

“[Jones] is one of the kindest people I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with,” said Cynthia Henderson, a professor of acting at Ithaca College since 2000. “He was hungry for the art — for everything he could learn. He just took it all in.”

Henderson said Jones was “always focused, prepared, ready to explore and take chances, and those are the students we love.”

Jeremy Noel, Class of 2021, also rose to stardom after graduating from Ithaca College. He is currently a member of the ensemble and understudy for the role of Simba in “The Lion King” North American tour.

“[Noel] is an angel,” Henderson said. “One of the first things he would always say is ‘How can I help?’ And I love that attitude, because in the helping they also learn so much.”

The theatre program at IC was ranked #1 by The Princeton Review in its 2021 edition of “The 386 Best Colleges,” and #11 in its 2024 edition. 

There are many other Ithaca College graduates who have made a name for themselves in film and on stage. The list includes Jeremy Jordan (2007), who was nominated in 2012 for a Tony Award for his portrayal of Jack Kelly in “Disney’s Newsies: The Broadway Musical,” and Q. Smith (2000), who joined the North American tour of “Mary Poppins” in 2007 and later became the first featured African-American actress in any of the musical’s productions in the role of Miss Andrew.

Henderson said she immediately liked the students from the first time she met them when she interviewed for her job.

“Talking with the students, I fell in love with the kindness and the thirst for knowledge, with the artistic and intellectual curiosity,” Henderson said. “I love the caliber of students who are attracted to this program. They have been an absolute joy to teach and direct.”

Other Ithaca College standouts:

South Hill Forest Products and South Hill Apiaries
South Hill Forest Products is a student-run business dedicated to providing high-quality, all-natural, nontimber forest products that include maple syrup, hickory syrup, salves and wooden carvings, produced on the Ithaca College Natural Lands. Jason Hamilton, a professor in the college’s department of education, helps students run the business. He also helps students run the college’s very own South Hill Apiaries. Find out more at southhillforestproducts.com and southhillapiaries.com/our-story.

Students ‘Localify’ the music platform scene
What is Localify? It’s like a local version of Spotify — a platform developed primarily with the assistance of IC students to help people discover and connect with their local music scenes. The website was developed by Ithaca College associate professor of computer science and Ithaca native Doug Turnbull. Check it out for yourself at localify.org.

Cornell hackathons aim to crack the codes to the world’s toughest problems
Later this month, students from all over the world will converge in Ithaca, put their heads together, and challenge themselves to solve some of the world’s most perplexing and pressing issues — all within just a few days.

Cornell University’s upcoming Digital Agriculture Hackathon, to take place at the university’s Schurman Hall Feb. 28 to March 2, will draw participants from all over the globe, some from as far away as Spain and Switzerland, for an intensive experience that is hard to find anywhere else.

The event’s premise starts with an acknowledgement that agriculture demands a radical transformation on a global scale and asks students to use their skills and knowledge in the areas of biology, ecology, engineering, business, computer and information science and the social sciences to create communication networks that “enable timely response and informed decision-making at the level of the farm, community, nation and world,” the website for the event states.

Including students from other countries enriches the experience, said Ami Stuart, hackathons director at Cornell.

“It definitely broadens the perspective of the participants,” said Stuart, who became the university’s first hackathons director 10 years ago. “We say that having a diverse team greatly improves the novelty and idea of what you come up with. Everyone has such a different lived experience.”

Over the years, the meaning of the term “hackathon” has evolved from all-night coding marathons to something much different.

“In the past, they tended to be all coders and developers drinking Red Bull and staying up all night; it was hardcore coding,” Stuart said. “We just took the idea of that and made it a little more healthy and inclusive.”

Other hackathons occurring in early 2025 included one on animal health in late January/early February, one on artificial intelligence that took place earlier this month, and an upcoming health hackathon from March 7 to 9, hosted by Next Jump in New York City.

The ideas that come out of the hackathons are not purely hypothetical; many go on to become full-fledged startups. An example of a successful company that began during Cornell hackathons is ProducePay, which provides access to capital, global trading networks and supply chain visibility for the produce industry.

Other Cornell standouts:

Leading the way in ‘soft robot’ design
A modular worm robot built by the Organic Robotics Lab and a jellyfish that was a collaboration with the Archer Group, both in Cornell Engineering, demonstrate the benefits of “embodied energy,” an approach that incorporates power sources into the body of a machine to reduce its weight and cost. Read more about it — and view videos and photos of the cutting-edge designs — in the Cornell Chronicle story: shorturl.at/ueM7X.

Spreadsheets lead to real-time wildfire relief
Johan Michalove, Cornell doctoral student in the field of information science, developed an interactive map at fireaid.info that has become an online hub for thousands of people in the greater Los Angeles area who are in need of provisions or looking to donate supplies. Read the article at shorturl.at/SV3y8.

TC3’s farm grows raw ingredients for culinary teaching and community building
In Dryden, a working farm serves as the hands-in-the-dirt classroom for the Sustainable Farming and Food Systems program at Tompkins Cortland Community College (TC3), providing the ideal opportunity for students to experience food production at a human-scaled, local level.

In the summer, the farm’s greenhouses overflow with a variety of young plants, including tomatoes, eggplants, basil and more, available for purchase at one of the multiple plant sales TC3 hosts throughout the growing season.

“By integrating with the Culinary Arts and Hotel and Restaurant Management programs, we provide students with a diversified, hands-on experience unlike any other,” the farm’s website states.

Todd McLane, better known as Farmer Todd, is the director of the TC3 Farm. McLane is a graduate of the University at Albany, and his passion for having a positive impact on his community led him to pursue a career in agriculture. His desire to educate and inspire folks about local food led him to TC3. He is also an adjunct associate professor, teaching various courses in the sustainable farming and food systems program.

Before his work at Tompkins Cortland, McLane was the farm manager at West Haven Farm in Ithaca, one of the oldest certified organic vegetable operations in the area.

The food grown at the TC3 Farm becomes the fresh ingredients used by students in the kitchens of TC3’s culinary programs, where students learn not only knife skills but sustainability in the farming and restaurant industries.

The farm also has a Community Supported Agriculture program, which community members can join to receive fresh produce grown at the farm. Making the CSA affordable to everyone is an important goal of the college, and the TC3 Farm offers shares on a sliding scale. Student share prices are at the low end of each sliding scale, with a limited number of scholarships available to eligible students.

CSA pickups take place in the barn at the TC3 Farm located at 100 Cortland Rd. in Dryden. For more information, visit tompkinscortland.edu/tc3farm/csa.

Other TC3 standouts: 

Providing free opportunities for veterans in cutting-edge science programs
TC3 is partnering with Penn State and Cornell University to bring veterans and their dependents a free opportunity to earn a certificate in microelectronics and nanomanufacturing. The program is open to six students in the first cohort, with some expenses eligible for reimbursement. Classes are live streamed with one to two days of hands-on lab activities at the Cornell Nanoscale Facility.

CollegeNow thriving
CollegeNow — TC3’s robust concurrent enrollment program — continues to grow. This year, the college expects around 125 high school seniors from across the region will have taken enough dual-credit courses while in high school that they will be able to graduate with a degree from TC3 at the same time they graduate from high school. “This program has been around a long time,” said Peter Vorhees, TC3 public information officer, “but the number of high schoolers earning credits and saving tons of money on college is amazing.”