Jason Koski/University Photography

Alexis Santí reflects on growing up as an Ithacan and traveling the world during the first of six Soup and Hope talks Jan. 16.

What does it mean to identify as an Ithacan and son of a former Cornell professor and how do those identities inform one’s later travels around the world? And what is it like to then return to Ithaca?

In the first of this semester’s Soup and Hope series of personal reflections, held Jan. 16 in Sage Chapel, Alexis Santí, Cornell’s coordinator of travel safety, recounted his personal odyssey from Ithaca, around the world and back again.

Santí was not born in Ithaca, but he spent many childhood days playing on the Arts Quad and hanging out in his father’s office. There was “a feeling of real wonder about being here at Cornell,” he said, but that idyllic time came to an end when his parents split up and his father moved away.

It was difficult when the connection to Cornell was taken away, he recalled. He felt torn by the change – he still loved Cornell, but he felt detached. Still, Santí held onto his identity and the values he associated with Ithaca: diversity, multiculturalism, environmentalism and seeking a better way to live. But, he said, “You end up having these best intentions but have no idea what the rest of the world looks like.”

Santí went to college at Hobart and William Smith, where everyone knew each other, but where discrimination and segregation still occurred. Then Cornell administrators came to the college to teach a collegewide course, “Making Connections,” that focused on different aspects of diversity. At the end of four years – he was a teaching assistant for the course for two years – Santí could see the course had made a difference in the climate at Hobart and William Smith.

Believing that he could make a difference, Santí joined the Peace Corps and went to Romania to work in a juvenile detention center. “I listened to street children who had experienced psychological and physical abuse, and shared their stories with other people around the world,” he said. “But once you engage in a population that has suffered, how can you actually provide support?”

After working in Spain, Korea and elsewhere, Santí accepted his current position at Cornell, providing safety support to Cornell travelers and those doing international service with their studies. He is the founder of the Cornell group Men Against Sexual Violence, again demonstrating that it is always possible to make a difference, he said.

Santí believes that solutions can be found when people come together with a common goal – as they did at Hobart and William Smith, in the Peace Corps and at Cornell. Quoting a Hopi Elders Prophesy, Santí closed, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”