The Daily Princetonian: February 16, 2023

In highly-selective year, over 80 percent of sophomores participate in Street Week

By Justus Wilhoit Senior News Writer

Street Week 2024 concludes with 629 students being offered spots in Bicker clubs. With the Class of 2026, Princeton’s largest undergraduate class in history taking to the street, also came historic numbers. According to a press release sent to The Daily Princetonian from the Interclub Council (ICC), a total of 1,193 students — about 80 percent of the sophomore class — took part in Street Week. This is the largest number of sophomore participants that the ICC has seen in the past decade.

Street Week took place between Jan. 29 and Feb. 6, as hundreds of undergraduates flocked to the eating clubs

on Prospect Avenue for multiple nights of one-on-ones, group conversations, and games. Though the Class of 2026 is the largest class the University has ever seen, interest changed unevenly across the street. This year, there was a large increase seen in bickerees at Tiger Inn (TI), a drop in interest at Cannon Dial Elm, and Charter’s selective sign-in process leaving many who ranked it first on the ICC portal out in the cold.

Based on data obtained by ‘Prince,’ a total of 1,207 Princeton students were placed into eating clubs during Street Week 2024, a figure which includes juniors and seniors placed in eating clubs that were not counted in the figure provided by the ICC.

The ‘Prince’ reached out to officer

teams at every eating club, along with the ICC. With the exception of the officers of the ICC, none of the officer teams responded by publication time.

629 students were offered spots in Bicker clubs, with 578 were placed into sign-in clubs. There was little change from last year’s figure among Bicker clubs, when 633 students were offered spots in Bicker clubs, while the number of those who were placed into sign-in clubs rose from 516 the year prior. Of the 629 students accepted to a Bicker club this year, 607 were sophomores.

66 percent of sophomores who participated in Street Week chose to double bicker, a figure that has risen in recent years. In 2017, when double bicker was

Reunions & unions: Love in the Orange Bubble

By Katie Thiers Staff Features Writer

There is a legend that 50 percent of Princetonians — or 75 percent, depending on who you ask — end up marrying other Princetonians. This myth has been told on Orange Key Tours, written about in the New York Times, and passed through many students, though no one can pinpoint exactly where it came from.

Around 50 Princetonian marriages take place at the Princeton University Chapel each year. To exit those heavy oak doors as a wedded couple is a privilege granted only to Princetonians or someone marrying a Princetonian. The venue is available for students, staff, faculty, alumni, emeritus faculty, and the children of each of those categories, according to Reverend Alison Boden, Dean of Religious Life and of the Chapel.

“That [policy] is only to make sure the chapel is available to Princetonians who want to use it,” Boden said, “or all the world would love to use this space.”

When couples write to Boden to book the chapel for their weddings, they often include personal anecdotes from their relationship.

“Sometimes, they’ll just tell me about how much the chapel meant to them as undergrad[s] or grads, if they met here,” Boden said. “All the time they spent here either just giving themselves a break from Firestone in the evening and just sitting there, chilling, praying, or getting themselves centered. Other times they tell me how meaningful the place was because of all the religious services they went to or they sang in the choir.”

Students’ experiences at Princeton can lead to relationships that last beyond the day they walk out of FitzRandolph Gate. The campus holds a special place in the hearts of those who find the love of their life here. But what is it like to find true love in the Orange Bubble, and how common is it? With Valentine’s Day on the horizon, I spoke with four Tiger couples to find out.

See UNIONS page 12

Ahead of election season, Frist reinstates notifications for first-class mail

By Gia Musselwhite Assistant Features Editor

As of Feb. 1, 2024, notifications for First-Class mail are back at Print & Mail Services. Princeton students and faculty will now be notified by email upon receiving First-Class mail, which includes “personal correspondence, personalized business correspondence, bills, statements of account or invoices, credit cards and tax forms, as well as lightweight packages that weigh 13 ounces or less,” according to University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss, which includes postage stamps sold by the United States Postal Service used on most personal letters.

These changes come after months without paper mail notifications due to processing software changes and new Frist mailbox numbers, both beginning back in early July. In recent months, some students have complained about the lack of notifications

“and other processing delays at Frist Campus Center. In particular, some students failed to fill out and return their election ballots on time due to them being unaware that their ballots had arrived.

“Based on student feedback received this fall, Print & Mail Services has reinstituted email notifications for First Class mail,” Hotchkiss wrote.

“Undergraduate students and graduate students with mailing addresses at Frist will receive an email notification when First Class mail has been received and is ready for collection at Frist 110. Notifications will be sent from lockers@princeton.edu, and mail can be collected at the Frist 110 window from Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.”

Aaron Sked, manager of parcel services and technology, restated the significance of student feedback in driving this decision.

“We heard that the students were

VALENTINE DUCK AWAITS RETURN OF SOPHOMORE AFTER HEAVY WEEKEND FLOW OF LOVE MESSAGES

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very upset about not getting [FirstClass mail notifications] again,” he said. “So we have decided we want to provide a great experience for the students.”

The reinstated notifications do not apply to “periodicals, marketing mail, catalogs, and bulk mail,” according to Hotchkiss. “These items will be held at Frist 110 and distributed with any First Class mail or upon request.”

The Class of 2027 is totally unfamiliar with paper mail notifications, having arrived on campus after they were terminated. Ava Adelaja ’27 did not know Print & Mail Services did not send paper mail notifications when beginning school last fall.

“As first-year students, we were never told to check our mailboxes regularly,” she wrote to The Daily Princetonian. The first notification she received at the start of the spring semester alerted her to over ten pieces of mail in her mailbox.

This change is especially welcome

ahead of the U.S. 2024 presidential election season, for which many Princeton students vote by mail-in ballot, according to Vote100 Co-Head Fellow Genevieve Shutt ’26. Vote100 aims to increase civic engagement on campus.

“We were all a little bit worried about how the changes to [Print & Mail Services] were going to impact this upcoming election,” Shutt said. “But we’re thrilled to know that they’re bringing back these notifications, and students will be told about their mail once it arrives.”

Some students, like Grecia Hernandez Perez ’24, missed the deadline to send in their mail-in ballots this past November due to not knowing it had arrived.

“I don’t think it’s really a regular habit of students to go check their mailboxes. I know it certainly isn’t a regular habit of mine,” Perez said.

Perez had requested and sent in a mail-in ballot to her home state of Virginia on time each year since arriving

at Princeton. This year, as usual, she requested one, but didn’t receive a notification when it arrived.

“The day of the election came, and I realized it was too late to send it in,” Perez said.

The return of notifications also comes as a relief for some student leaders of campus organizations. Jack Amen ’25, business manager of the Tigertones a cappella group, receives checks from performance venues by mail as part of his role.

“Having that money to submit is very important for our operations,” he said, noting that the lack of timely notifications was “extremely frustrating.”

According to Hotchkiss, “additional mail and package service improvements are also underway based on student feedback.”

Gia Musselwhite is an assistant Features editor and News contributor for the ‘Prince.’

This Week In History

In this very special week in history, The Daily Princetonian published an article on the Valentine’s Day business boom in Princeton Township, with a twist... one sophomore had received a live duck as his Valentine’s Day gift. Back in 1937, Valentine’s Day in Princeton was chaotic and lively. Telegrams, candy boxes, and ducks abound.

CANDACE DO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Ten of 11 of Princeton’s eating clubs are located on Prospect Ave.

Higher demand from 2026’s large class and limited spots available resulted in decreasing acceptance rates in most clubs

STREET

Continued from page 1

instituted for all clubs, the ICC reported that 46 percent of sophomores chose to double bicker.

Students had until Thursday, Feb. 8 at 8 p.m. to rank their club preferences. When decisions were released on Friday, Feb. 9 at 10 a.m., the site crashed, though it was up and running again within the next 30 minutes.

The ICC’s computer system failed to place a small number of students in an eating club due to this year’s swell in interest. According to Beams, “The computer matching system ensured that 99% of participants were matched with a club. Given 2026’s unprecedented class size, requiring bickerees to rank just two signin clubs most likely resulted in the discrepancy between 99 and 100%.” Beams stated that the ICC will recommend that students rank two additional clubs next year to avoid this outcome.

Tower accepted the most new members among the Bicker clubs, while Terrace welcomed the most among the signin clubs. The same situation occurred last year, though Tower’s incoming class size rose while Terrace’s fell.

Tower’s incoming class in particular rose greatly. Tower welcomed 165 new members, including 10 juniors and three seniors — its largest incoming class since at least 2001. Tower members shared with the ‘Prince’ that 278 people signed up on the ICC website to bicker Tower compared to 232 last year. While 278 signed up to bicker Tower, only about 240 bickerees were discussed — a situation that also occurred last year, when about 170 bickerees were discussed. Tower had an acceptance rate of 59.35 percent, about the same as the 2023 rate of 60.8 percent.

Higher demand from 2026’s large class and limited spots available resulted in decreasing acceptance rates in most clubs. Tiger Inn, in particular, had a drop in acceptance rate from 29.4 to 25.7 percent. This made TI the most selective Bicker club on the street, narrowly edging out Ivy. This is the first time TI has held this distinction since double bicker was established for all Bicker clubs in 2017.

TI’s increase selectivity was due to a surge in interest, with the number of bickerees rising from 296 to 374. TI’s incoming class rose from 87 last year to 96 this year, 90 of whom were sophomores and six of whom were juniors. TI’s acceptance rate was slightly lower for juniors than sophomores at 26 percent, with the club accepting six of 26 juniors — about

23 percent.

For the first time since at least 2001, more students bickered TI than Cap and Gown. Cap and Gown saw 360 bickerees, roughly unchanged from 358 last year, and accepted 100, yielding an acceptance rate of 27.8 percent. All those who bickered Cap and were admitted were members of the Class of 2026, as the club does not allow juniors or seniors to spring Bicker.

Cannon Dial Elm Club had 171 bickerees and accepted 101 new members. Both figures were down from last year, when Cannon had 193 bickerees and admitted 123. This yields an acceptance rate of approximately 59 percent, lower than the 63.7 percent acceptance rate last year. 99 of Cannon’s 101 admits were sophomores.

Ivy Club accepted 78 of its 291 bickerees this year, all of whom are sophomores. This marks a decrease from 87 last year, when Ivy accepted its biggest class ever. Despite this drop, 2024 marks the secondlargest incoming class Ivy has seen since 2001. This decreased class size may be an attempt at reinforcing an Ivy practice of accepting a small number of students to foster a closer community. In 2016, former Ivy Bicker Chair Michael Moorin ’16 told the ‘Prince’ that “we believe Ivy’s small membership is core to its identity.”

Cottage Club accepted 89 students, 88 of whom were sophomores. According to individuals with knowledge of the process, about 270 students bickered Cottage, an estimate in line with estimated figures provided to the ‘Prince’ last year.

The ‘Prince’ also obtained data on how many people were placed into each signin club.

Terrace welcomed 143 new members into the club, 140 of whom are sophomores — the largest incoming class of any sign-in club.

Colonial offered spots to 120 members, of whom 115 were sophomores. This represents a surge from 70 people admitted last year. Colonial’s uptick in membership may be due to its early sign-in program, in which new sophomore members could gain admission to the club before Street Week even began.

Quadrangle offered spots to 102 members, similar to the 109 it welcomed last year.

Cloister offered spots to 103 members, 102 of whom are sophomores, the largest incoming class the club has seen since 2014. Cloister has faced the possibility of closure given recent low membership numbers and financial difficulties, though a recent fundraising drive raised over $100,000 according to the club’s Graduate Board of Governors.

Cloister’s leadership admitted that

many students placed into the club did not rank it first, with President Alexandra Wong ’25 saying in an email to admitted members that “Whether or not Cloister was your first choice, we’re thrilled to have you in 65 Prospect and we can’t wait to get to know all of you.”

Though Cloister admitted a large number of students, its struggles with yield in the past mean that this new influx may not lead to a surge in membership. A ‘Prince’ analysis found that only 18 of the 86 students Cloister admitted in February 2023 were listed as members in November.

Charter welcomed 110 members to the club, in line with the 102 it accepted in 2023. Charter is the only eating club that utilizes a selective sign-in process that awards points to prospective members for demonstrating interest in the club, including attending events such as coffee chats pre-winter break and during Street Week.

Charter has increased in popularity since its adoption of selective sign-in in 2020. Based on the point values and eating club placements of several members

who ranked Charter first, the ‘Prince’ corroborated that the cutoff for admission to Charter was approximately 13 points — an increase from last year’s cutoff. Using this estimate, anyone with less than 13 points, or who did not rank Charter first, was not offered membership into the club.

With Charter continuing to increase in popularity, but not increasing its incoming class, conversations are re-emerging whether Charter should become a Bicker club as it decided to do in 2021 — a plan that was eventually dropped. In interviews with the ‘Prince,’ two students who ranked Charter first but did not gain admission to the club said they do not believe Bicker is the solution to rectify Charter’s admission woes, but failed to conceive any alternatives to handling the club’s continued surge in popularity.

“I kind of just put the blame on me for not deciding early enough. I hope they [the eating clubs] take this as a learning experience. So maybe they’ll try to change the system somehow next year to make it less stressful for people,” Dashram Pai ’26, a sophomore who ranked Charter first and said he received 12 points, said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’

Pai is a staff Constructor for the Puzzles section of the ‘Prince.’

Olin Zimmet ’26, a sophomore who ranked Charter first and said he received 12 points, told the ‘Prince,’ “The unfortunate nature of my — and many others’ — circumstances is simply due to the sheer number of students who vied for a spot, not any wrongdoing on the part of Charter or its officers.”

To many members, alumni, and students, Charter has developed a unique identity as a club that rejects evaluative Bicker, making such changes difficult.

“Evidently, this outcome is unfortunate for folks like me who had 12 or 13 points and were not admitted, but I cannot think of another way for Charter to both remain selective and make the system more fair than it already is,” Zimmet added.

Charter was not the only club that left students disappointed at 10 a.m. on Friday.

“I’d say that I felt like I could pretty much waltz in, no problem,” Courtney Harrison ’26, an athlete on the softball team who bickered Cannon, said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ Harrison was

not among the 101 new members accepted into Cannon, despite the fact that all of the other sophomores on her team that bickered Cannon gained admission into the club. Cannon members are primarily athletes.

Harrison said that her rejection from the club left her in a state of “denial.”

She learned of the news from her teammates Thursday night so that she wouldn’t be “blindsided” on Friday morning. Harrison’s team assured her that she was not “red carded” during Cannon deliberations, in which a member of the club negatively flags a bickeree, eliminating them from discussion and the possibility of membership.

Despite these frustrations, most sophomores emerged from Street Week satisfied, with the ICC saying that 81 percent of students who participated in Street Week were placed into their first or second choice club.

In the wake of Street Week, some students have begun to explore alternate options for their dining plan next year, such as joining a co-op, going independent, enrolling in the University dining hall plan, or joining another sign-in club, with Pai saying he hopes to sign in to Colonial, while Zimmet plans to go independent.

The end of Princeton’s unique and historic tradition has brought reflection and melancholy to the students who participated.

“Social standing doesn’t speak to how you are as a person and your character,” Harrison added. “What’s important in being at this university and at any university is choosing people that really see you as you generally are.”

Even though there is still much to decide, some students, like Harrison, are just happy to go back to normal life.

“During that week I just felt like I wasn’t putting my best quality forward. So finally [when Street Week was over] I felt like I could exclusively start focusing on academics as well as softball.”

Justus Wilhoit is a senior News writer and assistant Audience editor for the ‘Prince.’

Mary Ma contributed data visualization for this piece.

Town Council consolidates three committees into one, sparking controversy

By Abby Leibowitz Senior News Writer

In a Jan. 8 meeting, the Princeton Town Council announced plans to consolidate the Civil Rights Commission, Human Services Commission, and Affordable Housing Board into a single 11-member committee. Proponents, including all members of the town council, argue that the move will streamline Princeton’s government, although over 30 Princeton residents expressed opposition and frustration with this decision at a Council meeting on Jan. 22. At that meeting, council members amended the ordinance to increase the number of members of the new committee from seven to nine with two alternates. They also voted to change the name of the committee and the process by which committee chairs are chosen.

Despite personal acknowledgement and apology from council members, including a tearful statement from Councilmember Mia Sacks, community members and commission members expressed feelings of blindsidedness and betrayal.

Spruill said, “If I don’t have a voice as chair [of the Civil Rights Commission], then our underserved community won’t have a voice either.”

In interview with The Daily Princetonian, Councilmembers Eve Niedergang, Leticia Fraga, and Leighton Newlin shed more light on the controversial decision. All supported the decision to consolidate the committees.

“We are not fighting for

the right to vote, we are fighting to live … We cannot continue with the status quo when the organizational structure is not meeting the needs of the committee,” Newlin said.

Among those who commented were Ana Pazmino, executive director of Unidad Latina en Acción NJ, a grassroots organization with which many Princeton students collaborate. She stated that she represents many Princeton residents who don’t have access to these meetings and “have faced many issues with human services and affordable housing.”

Niedergang, a member of the Governance Committee, expressed that in making this choice, the council sought a more “nimble body that would work hand-inhand with staff, because these issues are all connected.”

Councilmember Fraga served on the Civil Rights and Human Services commissions before serving on the town council. She explained that starting in 1968, Civil Rights was a standalone commission before merging with the Human Services Commission in 1996. The Civil Rights Commission returned to being a standalone commission in 2017.

Fraga added that many of the citizens who wrote in opposition to the change “didn’t understand the role of the commission.” She explained that the current setup posed certain limitations, and expressing it was actually doing residents a disservice.

“Nothing is being taken away now; it makes sense to

consolidate, because [after] serving on both, I saw many instances in which it would be best for [the] committees to collaborate,” Fraga added. Fraga provided an example of a family who came to the Human Services Commission to voice concerns about discrimination when applying for affordable housing.

Due to the sequestering of information between each commission, the unit that the family applied for was no longer available by the time the Affordable Housing Commission addressed the concern.

Newlin echoed this point.

“No one is turning their backs on civil rights,” he said. “We see [that the lack of] affordable housing is a problem. If you have three separate entities looking at issues separately and not in a meaningful way, council members have to take responsibility and own that. We need boldness. We didn’t sign up to take up things as they are.”

While the Council supports the consolidation, some community leaders have said that the merger will stifle the work of these commissions. Former Pace Center community partner and former chair of the Civil Rights Commission Fern Spruill wrote in a Town Topics op-ed that “this proposal will not make the commissions more effective. It will do exactly the opposite.”

Several members of the existing commissions attended the Jan. 8 meeting seeking to comment on the changes and were deferred to the Jan. 22 public hearing. The discussions around the decision to consolidate were not made public

or available to members of the commissions being disbanded until a Jan. 5 email. Fraga told the ‘Prince’ that while there were some conversations around frustration and inability to make progress on commission initiatives, no discussions were had about the intention to consolidate. The lack of transparency frustrated some residents, such as community member Carole Golden, who said at the Jan. 22 meeting that “It almost belies that you care what we think.”

Niedergang explained that the original plan was for commission members to receive an email and then a personal call from governing body members before this news went public, but that this plan failed for a “variety of reasons.”

“We messed up on that,” Niedergang said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’

However, according to Newlin, “People shouldn’t focus on feelings being hurt,” but on the final product the new, consolidated commission can accomplish.

In order to emphasize the importance of continued public engagement, the ordinance was amended on Jan. 22 to add that subcommittees could work with members of the public. Newlin expressed that the Town Council and committee members are in need of “people who understand how all things mix and mingle together — grant writing, finance, outreach — and can take it to [the] next level in provisions of service.”

Niedergang expressed that Princeton students can have

a significant role with this new committee.

The majority of people using human services and civil rights services are renters. After requesting subsidies from the University for affordable housing, the municipality and University agreed that Princeton will provide money for homeowners using the Affordable New Jersey Communities for Homeowners and Renters (ANCHOR) program, a New Jersey property tax relief for certain low-income renters and homeowners. One of the Town Council’s goals is that every single eligible person in the town of Princeton will apply. According to Niedergang, the only way to guarantee that every eligible person is aware of the program is to physically reach and speak to community members.

She said that she would “love to get students out to more densely populated neighborhoods, knock on doors and ask people if they have applied for ANCHOR and mention that this year they can be awarded double.”

Niedergang concluded the interview noting that the consolidation was a difficult decision, but that all seven members of the governing body were on board.

Councilmember Newlin reflected on the public discontent surrounding the decision by reflecting on his role as a public official.

“Sometimes leadership is taking uncomfortable positions.”

Abby Leibowitz is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’

MEGAN SPECHT / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Witherspoon Street.

Asian affinity groups gather to celebrate Lunar New Year

By Elisabeth Stewart & Matteo Torres Assistant News Editor & Staff News Writer

For Xuanying Hua ’26, the President of the Malaysian and Singaporean Association (MASA), Lunar New Year is best represented by “tuán yuán fàn” — a Chinese phrase that signifies gathering together and sharing food in a “reunion dinner” to bring in the new year.

However, for students away from home, celebrating the Lunar New Year at Princeton can “feel very different,” Vietnamese Student Association (VSA) President Sabrina Van ’26 told The Daily Princetonian.

Hoping to bring the Lunar New Year experience to campus, seven Asian affinity groups hosted a joint Lunar New Year celebration at the Carl A. Fields Center last Thursday, Feb. 8. VSA organized the event

U. OPERATIONS

and brought food. The six other groups, the Asian American, Chinese, Taiwanese, Japanese, Filipino, and Malaysian and Singaporean student organizations also contributed their own cultural foods. According to its website, the Carl A. Fields Center is a space where “diverse perspectives and experiences of race, class, gender and their intersections are supported and challenged, questioned and answered.”

“Lunar New Year, at its core, is meant to celebrate the beginning of the lunisolar calendar and the coming of spring,” Van later wrote to the ‘Prince’ in an email.

“However, [Lunar New Year] is also a time to wish good luck, prosperity, and good health to others. It is a time for families to reunite, eat traditional dishes, and celebrate the coming year together.”

While each respective culture has its own traditions, this event sought to highlight the shared “concept of eating together

with your loved ones,” Hua told the ‘Prince.’

“While the traditions and foods vary between cultures, I’m happy our event was able to offer everyone a piece of each culture whether it was from the food or the music,” Van wrote.

Each organization committed to bringing “traditional cultural food” to the event, Van told the ‘Prince.’ She and Mason Thieu ’25, one of VSA’s social chairs, traveled to Philadelphia to buy bánh tét (a sticky rice cake rolled in a banana leaf) from a Vietnamese temple. Meanwhile, Hua contacted the local Thai Pin restaurant to cater mango sticky rice, red bean soup, and bobochacha.

“The owner [was] really excited, because although she’s Malaysian, she focuses more on Thai food here,” Hua said. “She was really excited to start cooking some Malaysian desserts for us.”

Other foods included onigiri from the Japanese Student Association, mapo tofu

from the Chinese Student Association, boba and popcorn chicken from the Taiwanese Student Association, and lumpia from the Princeton Filipino Community.

The Princeton VSA also reached out to the Rutgers University–New Brunswick VSA to coordinate a traditional lion dance to celebrate the coming Year of the Dragon. According to Hua, the lion dance tradition stems from a folktale in which the lion drives away a mythical monster. She added that the Rutgers dragon “spit out” red packets into the audience, corresponding to the practice of elders giving younger family members red envelopes to symbolize luck and prosperity.

The event also had red lantern decorations, a live DJ from VSA playing Asian pop songs, and a space for students of all different cultures to share their experiences and enjoy themselves.

“I really enjoyed the event … there was

a lot of food and it was a really good time, plus I was at a table with a bunch of good friends,” Zayvinn Lin ’25 told the ‘Prince’ at the event.

Van said that she hopes to continue the joint Lunar New Year celebration in future years.

“The event was an overwhelming success, and I couldn’t have been more grateful for all the executive boards and groups that contributed,” she elaborated. “Upon seeing the long line extending onto the Street, I was excited to see so many people wanting to join us to celebrate Lunar New Year.”

Elisabeth Stewart is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Matteo Torres is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’

Theme Dinners celebrate cultural backgrounds of dining hall staff

By Victoria Davies Assistant News Editor

Breaking from the regular menu, Campus Dining staff cooked and served family meals for “Theme Dinners” held across residential dining halls on Thursday, Feb. 8.

Menu options ranged from Jamaican chicken curry in Whitman-Butler Dining Hall, to Guatemalan beef enchiladas in Forbes, to Haitian fried chicken in RockyMathey Dining Hall (RoMa).

According to Mitresh Saraiya, the culinary production manager for RoMa, Theme Dinners are held once per semester, along with other events such as the Harvest, Winter Holiday, and Mardi Gras dinners throughout the year. Princeton

Dining also offers “Take Your Professor to Dinner” nights, where students are encouraged to invite professors, lecturers, or preceptors to dine with them at their dining halls.

Margaret Hayes ’26 had dinner at RoMa on Thursday. She said that she thinks “it’s a really great opportunity to expose students to new cuisine that they wouldn’t normally try.”

Saraiya told the ‘Prince’ that “lots of different cultures were represented.” Dining halls featured foods from Jamaica, Haiti, Guatemala, and Scotland, among other nations. He explained that many of the dishes “evoked a lot of memories for a lot of students and a lot of people that work [there].”

The food was met with positive reac-

STUDENT LIFE

tions from the other students who dined at RoMa on Thursday.

Xuan Stabb ’27 said in an interview with the ‘Prince’ that he thought the food was “pretty delicious.”

Kateri Espinosa ’24 told the ‘Prince’ that “it’s cool to see the dining hall workers be able to make their home cuisines in this environment.”

Saraiya explained that he “tasted everything to make sure that things were seasoned well,” and that he thought “the food itself was very delicious across the board.”

Tables in RoMa sported white tablecloths, and flags of different countries were strung across the servery. The servery was decorated by Kenneth Fonseca, the front of  house manager for RoMa, according to Saraiya. Stabb added that “the whole ambiance really improved, and the staff seem[ed] much happier as well.”

Students commented on the sense of pride and community created by the family meals. Espinosa said, “when there’s a sense of pride in what you’re cooking, it just makes the whole experience better for everyone.”

Faraaz Godil ’24 agreed, explaining that “it’s good to build a sense of community with the dining hall staff … they can share a piece of themselves and their stories with us.”

There was variation among the favorite dishes of RoMa frequenters. Stabb declared the Haitian chicken as “probably the best, by far,” an opinion shared by

Saraiya.

According to Saraiya, Jean Pierre, a residential food service worker originally from Haiti, cooked the chicken. Saraiya said “he put a lot of hard work and effort into this, the presentation out there was beautiful and the flavors were really nice.”

Meanwhile, Austin Guo ’26 said that he thought “the pork [was] pretty good.” Pork jocón is a traditional Guatemalan stew, which was served at RoMa.

Hayes “really liked” the cavatappi with

horseradish and pancetta at RoMa, a pasta option that differed from regular dining hall menus.

Theme Dinners were widely popular among those who patronized them, with many hoping to see more of these dishes incorporated into the dining halls’ regular rotation.

Espinosa suggested “incorporating more of these home-cooked recipes into the day-to-day at the dining hall.”

Godil agreed, explaining that “I feel

like giving the dining hall workers more agency ... [is] going to be good, [because] clearly this is really good.”

The residential and Graduate College dining halls will host a Mardi Gras celebration dinner on Tuesday, Feb. 13. Expected menu offerings include crawfish boils, seafood etouffee, gumbo-style Creole chicken and vegetarian jambalaya.

Victoria Davies is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Faith-based organizations utilize limited spaces in Murray-Dodge Hall

By Elisabeth Stewart Assistant News Editor

“That’s the thing about Murray-Dodge — everyone is here.”

This sentiment, expressed by a student as she gathered with her friends outside of the Muslim prayer room on the third floor, is one shared by many patrons to Murray-Dodge Hall, home of the Office of Religious Life (ORL). Dr. Vineet Chander, the ORL’s Assistant Dean of Hindu Life, told The Daily Princetonian that there’s “something in the air, spiritually” that attracts students, whether they are affiliated with a particular faith tradition or not.

Chander said the feeling is “contagious” — so contagious that it attracts a large volume of students, leading to a high demand for a limited number of fellowship spaces.

While several faith-based organizations find fellowship in Murray-Dodge, others have expressed a need to expand to larger spaces on campus to host largescale celebrations and events. Despite limited spaces to reserve, the

current layout of Murray Dodge allows for vibrant utilization by religious organizations.

On the first floor, student groups can reserve two different service and meeting rooms, which hold 55 and 35 people, respectively. Joanne Campagnoli-Sismondo, the ORL’s Operations and Events Coordinator, told the ‘Prince’ that there’s an expectation that certain rooms are reserved for weekly activities, including Wednesday’s Gita Study Circle, Thursday’s “Living with Belief” Qur’anic discussion circle, and Friday’s Jumu’ah Gathering.

Sophia Zelizer ’25, Louisa Sarofim ’25, and Kennedy Walls ’24 organize a weekly Buddhadasa Bhikku meditation class in the downstairs meditation room every Tuesday.

“The space is amazing — beautiful windows, a great energy,” Zelizer said. “The only thing that is a bit annoying is [that] the construction sometimes interrupts our meditation,” she said.

The second floor has a conference room for speaker events. On the third floor, there are service and meeting rooms, an

interfaith meditation room, and a Muslim prayer room. Givarra Abdullah ’26 said that Murray-Dodge is the main hub for Muslims students on campus, but noted that the prayer room is too small to accommodate all students, especially during Friday prayers. Abdullah said that Muslim students expand into the hallways, lobbies, and any open meditation rooms in Murray-Dodge.

Referencing Princeton Hindu Satsangam’s weekly meetings, which are also heavily-attended, Chander said that ORL has embraced the full spaces as “a very affirming sign that folks want to be here and want to attend those meetings.”

“It’s been challenging, but it’s kind of a good problem to have, in a sense,” he said. Organizations occasionally shift to using larger spaces for special occasions that draw larger attendance than the weekly meetings.

“While the spaces themselves are flexible, there are not enough spaces for the demand or the types of events some of the groups would like to host here,” Campagnoli-Sismondo said in an email to the

‘Prince.’

“I’ve only got a certain number of rooms that people can use. Aside from me getting out a hammer and nails and building on an extension, there’s nothing I can do about that,” Campagnoli-Sismondo told the ‘Prince.’ “But there are sufficient other places on campus that if a student group cannot get a room here, [it] should be able to get one somewhere else. I think a lot of what it boils down to is our student groups are very comfortable here, and they don’t like to go somewhere else, but it’s not always avoidable.”

Faith-based organizations have adapted to growing membership within limited space by incorporating spaces outside of Murray-Dodge into their frequent meeting areas. For example, CampagnoliSismondo said that using Murray-Dodge as both a prayer space and dining space during Ramadan proved difficult, so the Carl A. Fields Center now hosts larger Ramadan celebrations. Katherine Jin ’24, the president of Manna Christian Fellowship, said that Manna hosts their weekly “Large Group” fellowship in East Pyne, and re-

serves classrooms in Frist Campus Center, Jones Hall, and Spelman Hall.

Jin noted that she has never had difficulty reserving a room through Murray Dodge, and that the ORL has been “very communicative.”

“The space is something that we are really thankful for, especially because we use a lot of buildings outside of [the ORL],” she said.

For most of campus, however, the space they are most familiar with is the MurrayDodge Café, which serves free tea, coffee, and cookies from 3 p.m. to midnight on weekdays. Chander added that this space is the ORL’s “offering to the community.”

“I think students really appreciate the space that we tried to provide for them and work with them to make best use of,” Chander said. “In the best of ways, students and communities have challenged us to think about more space, better use of space, and innovative ways to share space.”

Elisabeth Stewart is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

VICTORIA DAVIES / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN RoMa servery during Theme Night, Feb. 8.

Princeton Mayor seeks reelection, expresses worry over campus expansion

By Chris Bao & Charlie Roth Assistant News Editor & Senior News Writer

Princeton Mayor Mark Freda recently announced his intention to run for reelection during a virtual press conference on Jan. 19. In an interview with The Daily Princetonian, Freda talked about the strengthening relationship between the University and the town and his worries about campus expansion’s effects on students’ experience with the city.

The primary election will be held on June 4, 2024, with the general election happening later in November. Freda has served as mayor since being sworn in on Jan. 4, 2021. Currently, no other individuals have announced their intention to run for mayor.

Freda told the ‘Prince’ that the relationship between the University and the town has “strengthened” over the past several years and that the University “has worked very well with [the local government].”

Freda cited the annual meeting between President Eisgruber and the municipality to “discuss shared interests affecting the University and the

USG

community, including transportation, housing and support for local businesses,” as an example of cooperation.

“The fact that we can talk to the University and talk to people at any level … just make a phone call or stop over and say, ‘Hey, let’s chat about stuff’ makes a huge difference,” Freda added about the open line of communication between the town and the University.

Freda emphasized the mutually beneficial nature of the town and University’s relationship.

“Because the University wants to continue to attract the staff, the professors, the quality students, etc. They want to be surrounded by a town that’s successful, welcoming, and a town that people want to be in,” he said.

For this reason, Freda also hopes that future University projects will be done with the town’s interest in mind. He referenced construction projects near Faculty Road, which is on the south side of campus where Yeh College and New College West, as well as Jadwin Gym, are located.

“The student population needs to stay up where it’s

easy for them to come into town … If they’re on campus all the time, it’s not a great experience. You want to get off campus, you want to see what is available in the community that surrounds the campus for the students to get involved in,” he said.

Freda’s comments on prioritizing locating new construction projects closer to Nassau Street come at a time when the University has chosen to construct its new Meadows Neighborhood further away from central campus than most previous projects — on the other side of Lake Carnegie. When completed this year, Meadows will house graduate housing, a racquet center, and numerous athletic fields. Notably, Meadows is located in West Windsor Township, not the municipality of Princeton.

“If you get the hell off campus and come over to the other side of the street, there’s a lot in Princeton to do, you know, walking trails … there’s so many nonprofits that students can get involved [with] … come on over and enjoy them,” he added.

The campus in past years has increased its construc -

tion, with construction projects in various stages of completion, including Frist Health Center, four new buildings to house environmental science, bioengineering, and chemical and biological engineering, as well as an engineering commons, and recent plans to build a Quantum Institute.

On Jan. 31, the University officials announced that Princeton will give $28.2 million in unrestricted funds to the municipality over the next five years and $11.3 million over

five years for other projects. Freda said that he believes the contribution shows an acknowledgement that “there’s a cost impact to the town and the University there. It’s not an island and everything that happens doesn’t happen just on campus.”

Chris Bao is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Charlie Roth is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’

USG approves fall budget in first meeting of Attar’s term

By Alena Zhang Staff News Writer

The University’s Undergraduate Student Government (USG) convened for its first meeting of the spring semester on Sunday, Feb. 11, engaging in a series of discussions surrounding upcoming initiatives after announcing an increase in the USG budget. New USG President Avi Attar ’25 set the stage with a 10-minute President’s Report, articulating his vision for a collaborative and inclusive environment that he promised would benefit all students.

All new USG members were introduced at the beginning of the meeting. They attended a retreat on Saturday, Feb. 10 during which they formed working groups that spanned athletics, campus expansion, and international student con -

cerns, among other concerns. Attar expressed eagerness to foster robust partnerships with all facets of the Princeton community, particularly in the realm of athletics, with a focus on bolstering student attendance and encouraging community engagement between athletes and non-athletes.

To begin this engagement, Attar announced an event coinciding with the Men’s Basketball home game against Yale on Saturday, Feb. 17. The event will feature sign making, face painting, and a merch giveaway from 7 to 8 p.m. Attar did not indicate the location of this event but said more information would come over social media and USG’s weekly newsletter.

Attar prefaced the purpose of these meetings this semester, saying that “we will do

our regular business, which involves taking votes on finding student group recognition, etc. But we’ll also be able to have constructive discussions about the work in USG. It’ll be a nice opportunity for members of USG throughout the semester to come up and present on projects.”

Following Attar’s speech, Treasurer Uma Fox ’26 revealed a semester budget of $656,047.21, a 12 percent increase from last semester’s budget of $585,755. This semester’s budget includes rollovers from the preceding semester. Noteworthy adjustments included new committee funding for coffee chats, a rise in the trip budget to $25,000, and a $10,000 boost for athletic engagement. The budget for Lawnparties stayed the same as last year, at $220,000.

Fox elaborated on budget al -

locations, emphasizing flexibility and the necessity for funds to support both ongoing and new projects.

“We also have some rollover from last semester as well from unspent funds that I’m excited to really push for us to use more and do more community-facing work with,” Fox said.

The budget review ended in unanimous initial approval, with an official vote slated for this upcoming Sunday. USG’s semesterly budget must be approved by majority votes in two consecutive meetings, according to the Senate Constitution.

The meeting further solidified its foundation with the confirmation of new senate members. Arman Nemati ’27 and Titus Kim ’27 assumed roles as Alumni Affairs Committee Co-Chairs, Isha Patel ’25 was confirmed as USG Chief of Staff, and Jessica Guo ’27 assumed the position of USG Graphic Design Lead.

over 250 members.

Later on in the meeting, Genevieve Shutt ’26, standing in for U-Councilor Isabella Shutt ’24, presented a request for $1,750 to lead a USG-sponsored trip to see the play “Ghetto Gods in Divineland” in Trenton. The trip was proposed by the local art experiences working group and was unanimously approved. The free trip, which can accommodate 35 students, will depart from Wawa at 6:45 p.m. on Friday and return to campus around 10 p.m.

Chair

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Committee

Abby Lu ’26 praised the new DEI committee members, emphasizing their balanced representation across class years and transfer student status. All new core committee members were approved unanimously.

Lana Utley ’24 delivered a report on the Student Groups Recognition Committee, highlighting the approval of all clubs except the Woodcarving Club, which awaits further consultations with risk management and ODUS regarding safe chisel usage before receiving official recognition. According to a Jan. 31 listserv message sent by club founder and president Luke Carroll ’26, the Woodcarving Club claims

The Projects Board confirmations followed next, with the South Asian Students Association, Black Medical Society, Princeton African Students Association, Society for African Internationals at Princeton, and Princeton Autonomous Vehicle Engineering obtaining funding allocation approvals unanimously. These groups sought funds for various events, including a welcome dinner, an annual fashion show, and a gala spotlighting African culture.

The meeting concluded with a public comment from Treasurer for the Center for Jewish Life Student Board Seth Kahn ’25. Kahn expressed his concerns about communication during transition periods for clubs with new leadership.

In his closing remarks, Attar revealed plans for the tentative assignment of members to groups based on interest areas, with a focus on establishing a point person for each working group.

USG meetings are open for all students to attend and are held on Sundays from 4 to 5 p.m. in Robertson Hall 016.

Alena Zhang is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’

HOPE PERRY / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Robertson Hall houses the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs.

Behind the numbers of Princeton faculty hiring

By Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko Head Data Editor

On Jan. 31, Princeton’s Board of Trustees announced that they had approved six new faculty appointments. These faculty come from a variety of studies across Princeton’s campus. In this round of appointments, three out of the six were concentrated in the natural sciences.

However, in the past year, social sciences made up the largest number of appointments with 24 appointments. While the University is gearing campus expansion towards STEM resources, such as the new Quantum Initiative building and the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), exactly half as many faculty appointments were made to the engineering departments.

As the University’s goals around academic departments shift, The Daily Princetonian looked back at faculty appointments over the past calendar year from the date of publication, from Feb. 6, 2023 to Feb. 6, 2024.

Most faculty appointments over the past year have been assistant professors. An assistant professorship is an entry-level, tenure-track faculty appointment.

According to the Rules and Procedures of the Faculty, “the normal initial appointment of an Assistant Professor is for a three-year term.” Faculty may have their appointment renewed for another three year position after that, at which point, if they

have not been promoted, “the sixth year of appointment as Assistant Professor shall normally be considered terminal,” barring extenuating circumstances. For example, Assistant Professors automatically get an extra year added to their term for every child they have during their appointment.

In a statement to the ‘Prince’ in November, Szymon Rusinkiewicz, Chair of the Department of Computer Science, wrote that “candidates who are wrapping up a Ph.D., who are current postdocs, or who have received Ph.D.s in the recent past apply for Assistant Professor.”

Associate Professorships are also three-year appointments, and similarly to Assistant Professorships, “the first appointment to the Faculty in the rank of Associate Professor may be for a term of up to three years. The service of the appointee shall then terminate unless he or she is reappointed” or promoted to the full Professor position. Upon reappointment in the position of Associate Professor, faculty are typically appointed with tenure, although they may, in an “exceptional case,” be reappointed for one year. However, according to the Rules and Procedures of the Faculty, “departments may recommend that the initial appointment of an Associate Professor be without express limitation as to term (i.e., with continuing tenure).”

Full Professorships are tenured appointments, meaning that faculty are appointed “without express

limitation as to term.” New full professors are typically appointed from faculty positions at other universities.

Over the past year, more new faculty have been appointed in the social sciences than any other field. More than twice as many new faculty have been appointed in the social sciences as in engineering, the same number of humanities professors have been appointed in the humanities as in engineering. Meanwhile, engineering students outnumber humanities students by a more than 2 to 1 ratio, and the University is building a new School of Engineering and Applied Science. When faculty are appointed to multiple departments, they are appointed to a home department, or their primary academic department, and a joint department, or their secondary academic department. Faculty with appointments in multiple departments were counted once per department. For example, Dr. Peter Henderson, whose research interests focus on “aligning machine learning, law, and policy,” was appointed to both the Computer Science department and the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). His appointment counted towards both the engineering and the social sciences in this analysis.

Nine professors had appointments in multiple academic departments, and of those, seven, including Henderson, had joint appointments in SPIA. Professors appointed to centers of study were not included in the analysis of academic fields due

to the interdisciplinary nature of those centers.

In an interview with the ‘Prince’ in Fall 2022, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said that “rebuilding and fortifying our School of Engineering and Applied Science” was his top priority. At the same time, he reiterated the University’s commitment to providing a broad liberal arts education, and said that “the humanities are essential to the liberal arts education that we offer at Princeton, and I frankly think they’re essential for every student.” He mentioned being “concerned” about the trend of fewer students majoring in the humanities, emphasizing the University’s commitment to “continue to invest in the humanities.”

More new faculty have been appointed in the School of Public and International Affairs than any other department. Eight new professors have been appointed to the Chemistry department, and six have been appointed to the Department of Computer Science. Two professors have joint appointments with the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, a center that Eisgruber cited as being “important to invest in” due to its research on climate change and the environment.

Some of the most recent group of faculty appointed joined the faculty last month, while others will join over the summer and in the fall.

Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko is a head Data editor for the ‘Prince.’

Hum r

Cloister’s financial troubles blamed on urine shortage

By Sophia Varughese Head Humor Editor

As sophomores decide where to eat their meals next year, the reported financial troubles of Princeton eating club Cloister Inn define much of this year’s Street Week. Although this has been attributed to low signin numbers, a low member retention rate, and disappointing returns on their investments, a recent audit of the club’s financial statements revealed that a urine shortage is the true cause of Cloister’s near bankruptcy.

“We store gallons of pee in the basement to throw on people at parties, as you know,” said Cloister president Serena Stream ’24. “People have been stealing from our pee reserves for the past year, and we’ve been burning through our cash just trying to stay stocked.”

An analysis of their financial reports shows that, up until last October, Cloister was spending $50,000 a month on hundreds of gallons of human urine, as well as $20,000 on highquality capuchin monkey urine reserved for members-only events.

Last October, the club was forced to switch exclusively to donkey urine due to its affordability.

“Our cups have been stinking of pee for a couple of months now,” said Stream. “My question is, if you’re going to steal it, why drink it at the scene of the crime?”

Cloister’s treasurer Mick Churate ’25 confirmed in an interview that, if the pee continues to “fly off the shelves” as it has been, the club will be forced to close its doors. “If we don’t have that liquid gold, we’ve ultimately

lost our identity as a club,” said Churate. “If our board can’t figure out who’s been plundering our piss, we’re going to be in serious trouble,” said Stream. “We’ve ruled out the five of us, so that leaves our four remaining members. It’s just hard when the whole heavyweight rowing team smells like a porta potty.”

Sophia Varughese ’26 is a head Humor editor. Just because she smells like pee doesn’t mean she’s the one drinking it, okay?

ARIEL CHEN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Cloister Inn.

“L ove L etters ”

By Joah Macosko, Lindsay McBride & Jaeda Woodruff

Head Puzzles Editor, Associate Puzzles Editor & Senior Constructor

ACROSS

1 Apple web browser

7 In the loop

12 Mid

15 King Arthur's burial place

16 Actress Lindsay of "Mean Girls"

17 Cute ___ button

18 Lovingly snuggled next to, as a partner

20 '60s war zone

21 Reflex hammer's target

22 Id checkers?

23 Soft, powdered mineral

25 Comedian Miller

27 More reasonable

28 Loving photo with a partnerturned-spouse

33 Made a sheepish sound?

35 Bobby who co-founded the Black Panthers

36 Sun, in Santiago

37 They might be liberal

38 Lovers' secret meetings

40 Tea type

41 Cinema's Spike

42 "___ it happening?"

43 Like 59-Across, for this puzzle

44 Loving sets of spouses

48 Paintball remnants

49 "Poker ___" (Lady Gaga song)

50 Dating app that grew in popularity on sites like Queerty

52 Showers with loving gestures, maybe

54 Big commotion

58 Swanson on "Parks and Recreation"

59 Song with the line "Now walk it by yourself" ... or a hint to this puzzle's hearted letters

62 "ur kidding"

63 Big name in classic video games

64 Makes smile

65 "Asteroid City" director Anderson

66 Number of stooges or wise men

67 Gentle sound of water

DOWN

1 Fire

2 Stratford-upon-___

3 Discombobulate

4 Heirs, legally

5 Eggs best served raw

6 Alternative to Handshake or Glassdoor

7 Iams competitor

8 Impresses

9 Poke bowl protein

10 Hairstyles sometimes combined with fauxhawks

11 Enrich

12 Subjects of bromances

13 Biblical twin of Jacob

14 Soccer legend Mia

19 Wrinkly citrus

24 Permit

26 Not even?

27 Squabble

28 Floaties

29 Boy band with the hit "Bye Bye Bye"

30 White undercoat

31 Wander

32 Nobel laureate Wiesel

33 Lip ___

34 (1/2)(b * h), for a triangle

38 It "will set you free," per John

39 Merlot and Pinot Noir, e.g.

40 Chipper

By Jasin Cekinmez Staff Constructor

42 High School Musical mascot

43 R&B trio with the single "No Scrubs"

45 Kylo of "Star Wars"

46 Some saucers

47 Ottoman titles

50 "Oh, ___ up!"

51 City that wasn't built in a day

52 End to high or trip

53 Jon Arbuckle's dog

55 "In that case..."

56 Cheers at a fútbol match

57 Pianist/radio host John

60 ___ for the course

61 Ref who might call you out

editor-in-chief

Eden Teshome '25 business

president

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Thomas E. Weber ’89

vice president

David Baumgarten ’06

secretary

Chanakya A. Sethi ’07

treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90

assistant treasurer

Kavita Saini ’09

trustees Francesca Barber

Craig Bloom ’88

Aidan Phillips ’25

Kathleen Crown

Suzanne Dance ’96

Gabriel Debenedetti ’12

Stephen Fuzesi ’00

Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05

Michael Grabell ’03

Danielle Ivory ’05

Rick Klein ’98

James T. MacGregor ’66

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Abigail Williams ’14

Tyler Woulfe ’07

trustees ex officio

Eden Teshome ’25

Aidan Phillips ’25

148TH MANAGING BOARD

Ryan Konarska ’25

upper

Naisha Sylvestre ’25

director of outreach

Lia Opperman ’25

Accessibility

Christopher Bao ’27

Education

Charlie Roth ’25

Tess Weinreich ’25

Lucia Wetherill ’25

creative director

Mary Ma ’26

Financial Stipend

Elaine Huang ’25

Sections listed in alphabetical order. public editor

Abigail Rabieh ’25

head archives editor

Raphaela Gold ’26

Kaylee Kasper ’26

Associate Archives editor

Elizabeth Clarke ’27

head audience editor

Paige Walworth ’26

associate audience editors

Zach Lee ’26

Amparo Sanchez ’27

head copy editors

Nathan Beck ’25

Bryan Zhang ’26

associate head copy editors

Lindsay Padaguan ’26

Elizabeth Polubinski ’25

head data editors

Andrew Bosworth ’26

Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko ’26

head features editors

Sejal Goud ’25

Molly Taylor ’25

associate features editor

Raphaela Gold ’26

head graphics editors

Luiza Chevres ’26

Noreen Hosny ’25

head humor editors

Spencer Bauman ’25

Sophia Varughese ’26

associate humor editors

Sam McComb ’25

Mya Koffie ’27

head news editors

Bridget O’Neill ’26

Annie Rupertus ’25

associate news editors

Julian Hartman-Sigall ’26

Olivia Sanchez ’26

Miriam Waldvogel ’26 (Investigations)

head newsletter editor

Kia Ghods ’27

assistant

Jessica

business

associate newsletter editors

Victoria Davies ’27

Sunney Gao ’27

head opinion editor

Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26

community opinion editor

Christofer Robles ’25

associate opinion editors

Thomas Buckley ’26

Wynne Conger ’27

head photo editors

Louisa Gheorghita ’26

Jean Shin ’26

associate photo editor

Calvin Grover ’27

head podcast editor

Vitus Larrieu ’26

associate podcast editors

Senna Aldoubosh ’25

Theo Wells-Spackman ’25

head print design editors

Avi Chesler ’25

Malia Gaviola ’26

head prospect editor

Isabella Dail ’26

associate prospect editors

Russell Fan ’26

Regina Roberts ’26

head puzzles editors

Sabrina Effron ’26

Joah Macosko ’25

associate puzzles editors

Wade Bednar ’26

Lindsay McBride ’27

head sports editors

Cole Keller ’26

Diego Uribe ’26

associate sports editors

Tate Hutchins ’27

Hayk Yengibaryan ’26

head web design and development editors

Yacoub Kahkajian ’26

Vasila Mirshamsova ’26

148TH BUSINESS BOARD

Robert Mohan ’26

Kok Wei Pua ’25

My Ky Tran ’26

Gabriel Gullett ’25

Andrew He ’26

Tejas Iyer ’26

Jordan Manela ’26

chief technology officer

project managers

Jason Ding ’25

Kaustuv Mukherjee ’26

148TH TECHNOLOGY BOARD

Roma Bhattacharjee ’25

lead software engineer

Sanh Nguyen ’26

software engineers

Anika Agarwal ’25

Carter Costic ’26

Jessica Dong ’25

Vishva Ilavelan ’27

Austin Li ’26

Allen Liu ’27

Isabel Liu ’26

Joyce Liu ’27

Hang Pham ’26

Aidan Phillips ’25

Joe Rupertus ’26

Caitlin Wang ’26

Shannon Yeow ’26 (UI/UX)

Brett Zeligson ’24

THIS PRINT ISSUE WAS DESIGNED BY

Ethan Cheng ’27

Avi Chesler ’25

Malia Gaviola ’26

AND COPIED BY Bryan Zhang ’26

Sign-in clubs shouldn’t pretend to be something they’re not

Thomas Buckley

Associate Opinion Editor

The share of Princetonians who graduate as members of sign-in clubs has halved since the 1990s, reflecting a long-term decline in sign-in participation. In light of this trend and Cloister’s dire financial situation, the question of what allows an eating club to succeed is an important one.

Eating clubs are the most prominent exclusive social organizations on campus. Unlike other groups on campus defined by shared activities, eating clubs must rely on developing a strong culture, often through categorizing Princetonians to bind their members together. For a club to thrive, it needs to have a distinctive identity.

Bicker clubs derive their identity from the Bicker process — they are defined by who they exclude. Sign-in clubs lack this tool for differentiating themselves, and therefore must be more deliberate in cultivating their culture through other means. The best clubs lean into their sign-in identity and are able to create a community centered around openness and inclusivity. Most essential to this is making sure that the sign-in clubs establish an identity that is distinct from Bicker. Charter Club and Cloister Inn have each failed to do this but in different ways. Charter, by embracing selective sign-in, and Cloister, by tying its identity to its opposition to Bicker, have each failed to carve out this identity.

Moving away from a sign-in identity can come at a serious price. When Campus Club faced membership struggles in 2005, its graduate board pushed for it to revert to Bicker in a desperate attempt to drum up membership. In doing so, the club not

only died — its identity as a club known at the time for “eschewing status-consciousness and social posturing, and for really thriving on diversity” was destroyed. In choosing to become Bicker, Campus Club gave up a fundamental part of its identity in order to chase trends — alienating its members and ultimately leading to its dissolution.

Charter Club faced a similar identity crisis in 2020, when its membership dwindled to just 52 members. Instead of implementing Bicker, the club tried to achieve a middle ground by instituting a policy of selective sign-in, which rewards prospective members for attending Charter events. The logic behind this policy was that it would allow the club to fairly allocate slots to members who ranked Charter first and fairly distribute the remaining spots. The points system thus ensured that those signing into Charter show some interest in the club.

While Charter’s goals in implementing this policy were admirable, in the wake of this year’s street week, it has become clear that Charter has become sign-in only in name. This year’s sign-in class reportedly needed to attend almost every event to gather the points needed to be admitted into the club, representing an enormous time commitment on the part of prospective members. While wanting to ensure some level of interest in the club is understandable, expecting sophomores to spend dozens of hours attending street-week events is unreasonable. While selective sign-in does avoid some of the fanaticism of Bicker, it requires a time commitment to one club that is incompatible with an open and inclusive community.

While Charter is chronically oversubscribed, Cloister suffers from the opposite problem. Cloister is unambiguously a sign-in club, yet its identity is tied up with Bicker as evidenced by its slogan: “FBDB” (Fuck Bicker Drink Beer). The slogan

is present not only in the club’s Instagram bio, but also as the subject line to the email welcoming new members to Cloister on Friday, Feb. 9. Cloister traditions reinforce its captivation with Bicker. On the Thursday of Bicker Week, members dressed up as “knights” and attempted to charge into Bicker clubs, yelling “FBDB” to interrupt the last night of Bicker discussions.

This demonstrates how Cloister’s identity is developed around negativity toward Bicker clubs rather than a positive conception of itself. Cloister’s views on Bicker coincide with the club’s low yield rates, such as last February when Cloister offered 86 spots to new members, but only 18 were listed as members in November. As reported in the ‘Prince,’ Cloister is on the brink of closure, and in the past months, much ado has been made over the fate of Cloister Inn and its efforts to revive its membership through a takeover. Ultimately, if Cloister is to survive, it must embrace its sign-in identity and stop obsessing over Bicker because students likely want to be part of an environment defined by a club’s positive attributes, and not just anti-Bicker antagonism.

Cloister and Charter have cultural problems stemming from their relationship with Bicker. Charter’s selective sign-in has bred a quasi-Bicker culture in a sign-in club that recreates the toxicity inherent in the Bicker process. Cloister is at risk of closure and at the same time has failed to establish an identity that is not tied to vehement opposition to Bicker. While these clubs’ financial and social situations are very different, their ties to the Bicker process are fundamentally detrimental to their culture in the long term.

Thomas Buckley is an associate Opinion editor from Colchester, Vt., majoring in SPIA. He can be found feeling smug about his decision to sign into Quad or at thomas.buckley@princeton.edu.

Vivi Lu ’26

Annie Rupertus ’25

The way we talk about climate needs an update

Planetary breakdown worsens each day — and our language to describe it hasn’t caught up. Most of us call it “climate change,” or “global warming” if we’re old-school. While useful in certain contexts, these terms fail to convey the urgency of the dire situation facing our planet and our people — sometimes, they even conceal that situation. As a result, they limit our ability to feel and act from that urgency. Let’s change this language.

At Divest Princeton, the way we refer to imminent planetary breakdown has evolved over time. We use both “climate change” and “climate crisis” in our speeches and op-eds. I’ve started to favor the stronger language of the latter term, which better matches our sober reality and more forcefully transmits its emotional impact. I call on students, faculty, and administrators to make this linguistic switch too.

“Global warming” entered American discourse in the 1980s, culminating with climate scientist James Hansen’s famous testimony before Congress linking human fossil fuel combustion and increasing global average temperature. The term can be confusing, however. Because it refers to the average increase in global temperature,

“global warming” does not inherently communicate how that average varies dramatically across place and time; sometimes, it’s still cold, even when, on average, everything is warmer! It also doesn’t immediately explain other effects of increasing greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere seemingly unrelated to increased temperatures, like the temporary blasts of extreme cold we experienced in the United States this winter. The fossil fuel industry and its enablers exploit this confusion to attack the reality of global warming.

Enter: “climate change.” The phrase has become ubiquitous, enshrined in international institutions and embedded academic and campus life. It more accurately evokes the variability of long-term effects from rising global temperatures on different climates. Not only do we experience extreme heat from higher temperatures, we also suffer changes like more frequent droughts, floods, hurricanes, wildfires, and freezes, as well as rising sea levels.

But limitations plague this term, too. Chief among them: “climate change” does not spark an emotional response. Early promoters of the term exploited this fact. Its initial booster was Frank Luntz, a public relations consultant during President George Bush’s administration in 2002. He advocated for the term in a Republican party memo because, as he explained in underlined words, “Climate change’’ is less frightening than “global warming.” The mildness of “climate change” that Lutz evokes in his memo — “less

frightening,” and elsewhere, “less emotional,” and “more controllable” — downplays the existential threat of the phenomenon it attempts to describe.

“Global warming” can lead to misunderstandings and “climate change” lacks urgency. Both terms give rhetorical ammunition to climate deniers. That’s why we should consider using other terms in public discourse instead. “Climate crisis” is a good place to start.

Unlike its two predecessors, the term better fits the severity of the situation at hand. The planet is already falling apart — not in 10 years, not for the next generation, but right now — with deadly consequences for communities everywhere. As climate scientist Zeke Hausfather puts it, “my … colleagues and I have just about run out of adjectives to describe what we have seen.” Nevertheless, he attempted to give a description: “Staggering. Unnerving. Mind-boggling. Absolutely gobsmackingly bananas.” In this context, even “climate crisis” might not be strong enough of a term.

Yet still, it comes closer to provoking the intensity of emotion that today’s global devastation merits, in a way that “climate change” or “global warming” cannot. It concentrates each individual extreme weather event felt across the world and concentrates them into one word: “crisis.” The emotional effect is noticeable: according to one study, “climate crisis” elicits an emotional response from people that’s 60 percent stronger than that of “climate change.” Moreover, the term implicitly demands

some sort of action. Framing the phenomenon as a crisis implicitly makes it something that can and should be resolved. Even if it doesn’t necessarily cause people to act right away, its direct connection with urgency helps people understand the danger of the situation.

Because of these advantages, we should move rapidly to adopt the term. University administrative departments like the Office of Sustainability already use “climate change.” They can update their style guides to favor “climate crisis” in relevant communications. This change should extend to other areas of campus life, from classrooms to dining halls: professors and students alike must employ “climate crisis” as the term of choice. Conceptual reframing requires all of us to be intentional about the language we use.

What we call the climate crisis shapes how we see it — and therefore, how we act in response to it. At the same time, switching the phrase we use to describe the effects of fossil fuel combustion and uncontrolled resource consumption remains just a semantic change, albeit one that informs the actions of politicians and the public. The next and more difficult challenge still remains: how we use this language to repair our broken world.

Columnist Alex Norbrook (he/him) is a sophomore from Baltimore, Md., and cocoordinator of Divest Princeton intending to major in history. His real crisis is the state of his inbox at alexnorbrook@princeton.edu.

Don’t write off the benefits of institutional neutrality

Student-led sociopolitical dissent is an enduring asset of the American university.

Since the horrific events of Oct. 7, 2023, on-campus demonstrations have recognizably spiked. The ensuing months of complicated and heartbreaking conflict in the Middle East have prompted many contemplative and necessary exchanges regarding power, national autonomy, and the ceaseless tragedy of the loss of innocent life. This intensification of student speech, in tandem with the recent controversy surrounding congressional testimony by Ivy League university presidents and their alleged hesitation to condemn rising antisemitism, has renewed attention towards the role of universities as both conduits and participants in the national political discourse. Some even argue that Princeton University is responsible for answering inquiries on its positions regarding national and global events to continuously support marginalized voices.

While this goal is undeniably noble, a reexamination of the Kalven Report and recent restrictive legislation levied towards Florida universities serves as a necessary reminder that we at Princeton shouldn’t overlook the power of institutional neutrality

to preserve campus discussions of diversity and equity.

The Kalven Report was released in 1967 by the University of Chicago in response to anti-war demonstrations led by students against the Vietnam War. As a declaration, it seeks to provide “a statement on the [University of Chicago’s] role in political and social action.” The document opens by stating that the ultimate purpose of a university is the inquiry and dissemination of knowledge into all aspects of society. The classical liberalism of the Kalven Report’s definition of university purpose prioritizes the scope of speech over its perceived degree of social conformity or subversion. In essence, the university has a greater interest in enabling student discourse than directly intervening in the dialogue of the student body. Thus, the university is assigned the role of the arbitrator, not the converser, and assumes the now well-known position coined by the Kalven Report: “institutional neutrality.”

This ideological stance of neutrality is derived from the notion that an institution cannot take collective action on an issue without implicitly silencing some faction. Therefore, any ideological interventions on the university’s behalf would inherently negate the higher purpose of universities to empower the widest degree of conversation. Notably, the Kalven Report does not call for absolute neutrality: it allows for political speech at the institutional level in instances where the preservation of the university’s mission to protect speech

or the ethics of its corporate activities are at stake. However, the report acknowledges that these exceptions to neutrality are “extraordinary instances” that don’t directly apply to a university’s standard practice.

In the Princeton Alumni Weekly, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has shared his thoughts on institutional neutrality. Although he concurs with the Kalven report that Princeton is “a place for untrammeled, rational inquiry, and debate,” Eisgruber ultimately identifies with the practice of “institutional restraint.” First developed by former University President Robert Goheen GS ’48, who led Princeton from 1957 to 1972, institutional restraint reasons that because Princeton is a “value-laden” institution, the University cannot be separated from its commitment to intellectual freedom, diversity, and civic responsibility. In his statement, Eisgruber also invokes another former president of the University — Goheen’s successor William Bowen ’58 — citing that “the unrelenting, open-minded search for truth is itself the highest value.” In theory, this value strongly aligns with the Kalven Report’s commitment to ensuring the “improvement, and dissemination of knowledge” across “all values of society.” However, Eisgruber seems to feel that institutional neutrality does not strike a sufficient balance between institutional integrity and intellectual inquiry.

Eisgruber is not alone in this sentiment: much of the argument against institutional neutrality derives from

the fear that it will absolve universities from being held morally accountable or committed to inclusivity. However, this position assumes that the university can only impact its student body in a socially positive manner if given the power to express political views. Yet, many onceinnocuous values, such as diversity and equity, have been politicized and villainized by far-right politicians. To examine this phenomenon in action, one needn’t look any further than my home state of Florida, where Governor and former Presidential candidate Ron DeSantis has passed education legislation that aims to suppress the visibility and autonomy of minorities. A poignant example is Florida Senate Bill 266, which bans funding for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programs in state universities and aims to remove “woke” curricula that teach the historical and contemporary reality of American systemic inequality.

While DeSantis’s regressive legislation does not directly model how universities may speak on behalf of their students and faculty, it does demonstrate how institutional policy, and thus the larger educational experience and campus culture, can be manipulated to serve a larger political agenda without the consent of the members of the intellectual community. These encroachments on educational freedom could just as easily originate from a University official as it already has from a public official. This goes to say that although institutional neutrality

may initially appear to obstruct the curation and preservation of diversity on campus, it can represent an invaluable protection against regressive policies. Neutrality ensures, rather than obstructs, the space for conversations surrounding equity on campus. When the university takes a political “back seat,” it gives maximal power to the student body, rather than the university itself, to shape campus culture and values independent of political impositions that may threaten diverse views.

Considering the merits of institutional neutrality begs the question of whether Princeton should adopt the policy or not. The answer is not yet. Due to its status as an elite university in the northeast, Princeton simply doesn’t face the same threats of political censorship that universities in Florida do, and Princeton’s institutional restraint remains a viable policy for the time being. While these ponderings may not be directly applicable to Princeton in 2024, as we look to a future where allegations of “leftist indoctrination” in education remain conservative talking points, they serve as “food for thought” in the larger debate of how Princeton should politically assert itself moving forward. We shouldn’t overlook the protective barrier of institutional neutrality — even if it might be suffocating at times.

Christie Davis is a first-year undergraduate from Jacksonville, Fla. intending to major in economics. She can be contacted at cd6404@princeton.edu.

PHOTO COURTESY OF AARON SERIANNI ‘25

Alex

Norbrook

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DEI metrics should inform stories, not staff

Abigail Rabieh Public Editor

The Daily Princetonian released its 2023 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) report last week, which publicly shares internal statistics on staffers’ identities, feelings of inclusion within the ‘Prince’ community, and satisfaction with the extent of ‘Prince’ coverage. This report, which includes a multitude of analyses on the problems the ‘Prince’ faces and goals for improvement, could be read as suggesting that the utmost priority of internal Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) efforts is to increase the diversity of staffers. This would be a poor takeaway from an interesting and insightful report, and leave the paper open to common criticisms that shallow DEI programs face — that they prioritize appearances over values-driven change. Instead of becoming a directive on personnel proportions, the DEIB survey should be used to identify and resolve gaps in coverage of particular communities and areas in which internal programs exclude certain groups of individuals.

When DEI programs find themselves lambasted, critiques usually come in a rote form. The DEI effort, its detractors declare, “racially discriminates to remedy past racism,” bureaucratizes social reform to the point of rendering it meaningless, and favors insignificant qualities over “merit and qualifications.” But while some of these critiques may be well founded against particular programs or initiatives, such dismissals seem to suggest that promoting these values is an unimportant goal. Indeed, criticisms of DEI often fail to propose what an institution such as a newspaper should do when it seeks to expand areas of coverage, wield its power to support each community it serves, and improve trust — in short, increase diversity, achieve equity, and accomplish inclusion goals.

Good journalism aims to provide true information to its readers so that they may make decisions based on informed understandings of the world around them

and of those in power above them. To accomplish this, reporters must make deep inquiry into a diverse portfolio of activities and strive to ensure that their work is read by all of the communities whose lives they hope to improve. Accepting the premise that the values expressed by the shorthand of DEI are essential to the mission of a newspaper, how can they be best fulfilled?

In the introduction to the DEIB report, Community Opinion Editor Christofer Robles, the chair of the 147th Board’s DEIB committee, declared that “a diverse staff is essential for publishing more informed coverage of Princeton and its many communities.” But this is not a good representation of the real goals of the report. Such a statement indicates that there is a clear cause-effect relationship in DEI practice: acquire just the right proportion of identities within the staff, and good coverage will follow. In fact, there is a far more complex interrelation of personnel makeup and journalistic goals. Reading the DEIB survey, leaders at the ‘Prince’ should be identifying gaps in coverage based on the way different identity groups are represented and feel included within the body of the internal community. Assessments of our staff must be used as a reflection of the degree to which we successfully accomplish our journalistic mission, not as a way to ensure we simply get the best identity representation — though internal diversity will hopefully continue to fluctuate as a result of these improvements in targeted coverage.

Areas of the DEIB survey indicate that the ‘Prince’ hopes to approximate the diversity of the University student body within its ranks, a goal which supplements the worst fears of DEI critics — that we’re going to count identity groups and introduce quotas to fulfill across the board. The DEIB report names “recogniz[ing] that our own staff does not reflect the diversity of the student body and correct[ing] these failures” as one of its goals to improve upon in future years.

For example, while 1.69 percent of the Princeton student body identifies as Native American/Native Alaskan or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, the ‘Prince’ has no staffers who identify with this racial category (tracked as Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander or Native American

and Indigenous). Fourteen percent of the student body is registered with the Office of Disability Services, compared to 10 percent of the ‘Prince’ staff identifying as disabled. Groups that are typically considered majorities are also underrepresented within the ‘Prince.’ Forty-one percent of the Class of 2027 identifies as Christian, compared to 35.1 percent of the ‘Prince,’ and while 75.3 percent of the Class of 2027 identified as straight, only 64.9 percent of the ‘Prince’ identified similarly. But do all of these underrepresented groups need to be targeted equally?

There are many ways in which the makeup of the ‘Prince’ differs from that of the larger student population. Thus, the disparities discussed above can be resolved by recruiting more Indigenous staffers and disabled staffers along with more white and Christian staffers. Yet good journalism doesn’t just mean reflecting the community back to itself: attempting to gather the right proportion of staff across the multitude of identities held by each individual doesn’t seem relevant to the journalistic mission. A crucial mission of a newspaper is to highlight the “ills and injustices of a society,” as the World Economic Forum notes. This will not be accomplished through reporting upon the aggregate concerns of the community, serving each identity grouping in proportion to its existence.

But if this isn’t a numbers game, what is the end goal of the diversity efforts of the ‘Prince’? Will it ever be diverse enough?

I spoke to Robles, who said that he doesn’t think that “trying to establish a proportion or a number is an effective way of looking at diversity.”

Rather, he stresses that diversity is multifaceted, and prefers to consider the “representation of everyone” as a goal for the paper, which is, he says, “why we consider numbers in the first place.”

Taking this view of DEI, Robles highlights that “inclusion is a really good metric for what diversity should look like.”

“Within the ‘Prince’ the groups of identities that are proportionally less represented compared to those other identities within the ‘Prince’ are generally the people who are feeling less included or who feel less confident in our coverage,” he concluded.

In Robles’ framing, rather than count

Letter to the Editor:

‘Prince’ reporting fails to capture full SJP protest

The following is a Letter to the Editor and reflects the author’s views alone.

To the Editor:

As one of the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) organizers interviewed for yesterday’s article published in The Daily Princetonian, “Pro-Palestinian protestors gather outside Nassau Hall to call for ceasefire,” I was surprised to find that the article omitted critical sections of my interview and rally speech. In doing so, the story perpetuated the erasure of Palestinian suffering — an erasure that has been ubiquitous on campus. The piece fails to fully capture why we were protesting in the first place, in coordination with students state and nation-wide.

In the context of historic injustices committed against the Palestinian people, the ‘Prince’ has a duty to provide comprehensive coverage of Palestine solidarity activism on campus. The ‘Prince’ must avoid omissions of pro-Palestinian voices that produce a harmful, distorted narrative.

The ‘Prince’ chose not to include any of the context I provided on Israel’s military assault on Gaza, much of which was brought up repeatedly in various rally speeches and was the very reason we were protesting. My specific comments included the fact that Feb. 9 was the day 126 of the Gaza genocide, and that Israel has killed more than 100 children per day.

Instead of describing the situation in Gaza with the contextual information I provided, the ‘Prince’ article only makes a few vague references to

the number of staffers of each race and religion and sexuality, the ‘Prince’ should ensure that it hits two related goals: there should be staffers representing each identity category relevant to the events and communities the ‘Prince’ covers, and no staffer should be the only representative of their identity. According to studies on effective journalism, such a goal aligns with the ultimate reason a newspaper considers diversity in the first place, which is to ensure that “the news fairly represents the lives, interests and concerns of everyone.” Unfortunately, it’s far from easy to accomplish: not only would creating a master list of relevant identities a newspaper staff must include be problematic for countless reasons, the ‘Prince,’ as Robles notes, “is not explicit in recruiting people of certain identities, as far as I’m aware.” In other words, since the ‘Prince’ currently does not consider the identity-affiliation of applicants, fulfilling this goal would be impossible under current recruitment tactics. These make Robles’ identification of inclusion as a measure of diversity so crucial. Instead of counting staffers to consider the surface level diversity of the individuals within the ‘Prince,’ the paper can consider the presence of identities within the community as a reflection of the diversity that’s far more relevant — that of the reporting. Tracking the identities of staffers — in addition to their feelings of belonging to and satisfaction with the ‘Prince’ — can count as a measure of the degree to which various communities feel, or are, included in the work of the ‘Prince,’ both by who’s in it and who’s making it.

In short, the big takeaway of the DEIB survey should be analyzing absence of identity groups to make changes in coverage and leadership priorities, not directly in personnel. With this understanding, rather than trying to recruit more Christian staffers to resolve the fact that they are proportionally underrepresented, for example, the ‘Prince’ should aim to cover the Christian community on campus more intently, and with greater attention on the disparate individuals within.

What are some of the biggest problem areas, then? The analysis within the survey already notes that first-generation low-income students often feel “uncomfortable joining and engaging with the ‘Prince’” and marks resolving this a pri-

ority in the goals section. That there are no Sikh or Native staffers is also an area of concern, as noted by the survey, suggesting a need to increase coverage efforts here.

But I am also particularly concerned by what the survey reveals about internal bias against certain groups, reflected by changes in the makeup of the community at the staff versus the editor level. While 16.1 percent of staffers identify as politically moderate and 3.3 percent as slightly right wing, only 7.8 percent of editors are moderate and two percent slightly right wing, suggesting either a large internal bias towards left-wing individuals, or a concerning lack of support given to moderate/right wing staffers to advance in the ‘Prince’ hierarchy. While 40.7 percent of staffers identify as Asian, only 19.6 percent of editors are Asian, raising similar questions about the potential lack of internal support given to Asian staffers. It is essential that the ‘Prince’ leaders include these worrying trends in their decision-making about which communities are prioritized within our coverage.

Efforts to support DEI at the ‘Prince’ are not noble because they serve the goal of DEI: they are good because they serve the broader goal of bettering the Princeton community by covering it holistically, inclusively, and incisively. The DEIB report is an important tool in accomplishing our journalistic aims, but only if it is wielded appropriately. Our personnel statistics should be used to inform our coverage decisions, the advancement of which is our primary aim. We can predict and hope that internal statistics will change according to the inquiry into a wide variety of individuals and organizations, but this must always remain a secondary goal. Accomplishing DEI efforts must remain in service of a larger virtue, and not become ends themselves.

Abigail Rabieh is a junior in the history department from Cambridge, Mass. She is the public editor at the ‘Prince,’ and writes to address issues of journalistic quality and ethics.

If you have questions or concerns regarding the paper’s coverage and standards, or would like to see her cover a particular issue, please contact publiceditor@dailyprincetonian.com.

Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, describing it as “military activity” or a “military campaign.” As a result, the ‘Prince’ article omits the horrors faced by Gazans and obscures the entire motivation for the protest.

It also gives a platform to Ari Powell, who filmed and repeatedly heckled our speakers as we described the ongoing genocide. The article reads, “‘What about the hostages?’ he called, prompting boos and chants of ‘shame’ from some protestors.”

Yet the article omits my exchange with Powell about Israeli hostages. In my rally speech — the last of the event — I addressed Powell’s question by noting that on Feb. 7, Netanyahu rejected a deal offering the release of all remaining Israeli hostages over four months in exchange for Palestinian hostages and a ceasefire. Instead of ne-

gotiating, Netanyahu called the deal “delusional” and vowed to continue the assault on Gaza until “absolute victory.” The article’s failure to acknowledge my response legitimizes Powell’s heckling.

The ‘Prince’ has a duty to accurately report on Palestine solidarity activism. Israel is entering an unprecedented phase of its ethnic cleansing of Palestine, and college campuses are in uproar nationwide. As Israel intensifies its assault and plans a ground

invasion of Rafah, the last designated “safe zone” to which over 1.3 million civilians, including over 610,000 children, have fled, SJP members are hosting an emergency die-in for Rafah Tuesday Feb. 13, at 3 p.m. at Firestone Plaza. We hope the ‘Prince’ better covers this event and our actions in the future.

Ellen Li is a senior in comparative literature and a member of Princeton Students for Justice in Palestine.

AMMAAR ALAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Students protest outside Nassau Hall.

The small, tight knit undergraduate body can give way to some long-lasting relationships.

REUNIONS

Continued from page 1

‘There’s always the cute boy in the parking lot’

“We just kept bumping into each other throughout college,” said Liz Hoffman ’93 when describing how she and her husband, Mark Hoffman ’93, met all those years ago.

The pair first crossed paths in a Spanish class during the first semester of their first year.

Their first date was at the Garden Theater, where they watched the movie Glory, a civil war drama. Despite the movie being “not super romantic,” as described by Liz, the pair walked home together and shared their first kiss beneath Joline Arch. They officially started dating in the spring of that year.

After a few months of dating, they decided to go separate ways at the end of the year. “We both remember the talk at the [SPIA] fountain which resulted in the friendzone,” said Liz. “It was a mutual understanding.”

Mark remembers it differently.

“She broke up with me,” he said.

Looking back on the experience now, they agreed it was the right call. It allowed them to spread their wings and experience different parts of Princeton separately. The two found different friend groups and joined different eating clubs, with Liz in Charter Club and Mark in Campus Club.

“It was nice because we were able to share a lot of things, but then also have our own experiences,” said Liz.

Though they went separate ways, they continued to run into each other and remained friends throughout their time at Princeton.

Liz recalled a time senior year when she and her mom were moving her back into her dorm in Little Hall. As they were carrying heavy boxes in the rain, they ran into Mark. “I introduced them, and they just chat[ted] and chat[ted]. No one was helping me move in, and I [was] getting kind of annoyed,” said Liz.

“I knew what I was doing,” said Mark. “I should’ve been helping her move her heavy boxes in, but I was having a nice conversation with her mom … You always gotta make sure that the mom is happy.”

After that introduction, any time Liz would complain about her love life to her mom that year, her mom would respond with: “Well, what about that cute boy in the parking lot? There’s always the cute boy in the parking lot.”

“And so now I like to joke that this was an arranged marriage by my mom,” said Liz.

Near the end of senior year, with a lot more time on their hands, the pair found their way back to each other. “I want to give hope to all the seniors everywhere that there is life after your senior

thesis,” said Liz. “You will have a lot more time. We had a lot more time.”

They both agreed it was after they turned in their theses when things started to get serious between them again. Attending the P-Rade together was a moment that really stood out to Mark.

“As the P-Rade goes by, we’re standing there in front of Clio Hall, and she takes my hand,” said Mark. “I was over the moon. I remember thinking: ‘I’m not gonna let go of her hand.’”

And he didn’t. After a bit of long-distance dating post-graduation, in which Liz’s mother always asked “Why couldn’t you have dated this boy when [he] was in the next dorm,” the pair got married. Many of their Princeton pals attended the wedding.

The two now live in Seattle with their three kids — two of whom now also attend Princeton. Their son, Ryan Hoffman ’25, met his girlfriend, Nina Boudet ’25, the second week of school and they became best friends for their first six months at school before dating.

“Nina was my first close friend when I arrived, and I’m insanely lucky that such a genuine friendship has become so much more,” said Ryan. “I can’t believe I met my future wife only two weeks into Princeton.”

The name in the Hoffman’s family joint email address is “5 tigers.”

“It is kind of remarkable that Mark and I stayed in touch all those years, but I think it has to do with the size of Princeton,” said Liz. “There are some Princeton elements that are unique to Princeton. I think that kind of lends itself to staying in touch, staying connected.”

‘The kind of phone calls people who fall in love have’

Though the couple does not remember exactly how they first met, Pythias Temesgen ’09 and Natalia Temesgen ’08 remember a few interactions that kickstarted a long and valuable friendship during their time at Princeton. While Pythias was working as the Frist building supervisor, Natalia worked at the Frist Welcome Desk, and they crossed paths frequently during this period.

“I remember meeting Natalia my [first] year at Frist, and making small talk, thinking she was really cool,” said Pythias.

They recalled the day Natalia got fired from working at the Frist Welcome Desk.

“She got the email [that fired her] when she was asleep, and she rushed to Frist before reading it. It was super awkward,” Pythias said, adding, “and then I lost the [building] keys for like three hours and didn’t tell anyone.” They both laughed, reflecting on the mess of that day. But that was how they remember it starting: at the Frist Welcome Desk, interacting as employees, before becoming friends.

When Pythias was named president of the Black Student Union, Natalia was head of the Black Arts Company and a part of Expressions Dance Company. The pair would frequently trade emails about happenings within both of those groups.

Later, when Natalia’s then-boyfriend was unable to go to Cap and Gown formals with her, it was Pythias who tagged along.

“We have the photo from that night in front of the Cap stairs,” said Natalia. “We looked like babies, beautiful babies though.”

It was the summer after Na-

talia’s junior year when things started to change. “We went from being sort of in the same friend group networks to being really good friends,” said Pythias. “I remember the summer before my senior year, we would talk on the phone a lot,” said Natalia. “This would be the kind of phone calls that people who fall in love have. You know, two hour phone calls, but we both just enjoyed each other’s minds so much and made each other laugh.”

When asked when Pythias started to like her, he answered, “from the very beginning. I don’t think there was ever a time when I was not thinking [she] was incredible.” Despite bringing the idea of a relationship up a few times with Natalia, her response was often the same: “Don’t be ridiculous.”

It was after they both had graduated that that response changed. On Pythias’s birthday, he visited her in New York. When asked what he wanted for his birthday, his answer was “to go out with [Natalia].” Her first instinct was to shut it down, to use their friendship as an excuse, but something made her consider it this time.

“I remember it took maybe a couple days to think about it,” Natalia explained. “I talked to some friends about it, and I prayed about it. I took it very seriously.”

The primary concern was ruining their years-long friendship. After much thinking, she came to a conclusion.

“I think I trust our friendship enough that this can’t break our friendship,” Natalia noted. “I think that even if this is a mistake, we can still be friends. So let’s just try it.”

“Even though our road has been a little bumpy, there’s always been

a through line of ‘well, how do I improve, and how can we help each other do that?’” said Natalia. She noted that maybe this was a reason a lot of Princetonians marry other Princetonians — a certain reflective quality that always pushes them to be more.

“It’s not nerdiness, per say, but just a sort of aspirational quality of thirst for [knowledge],” she said.

In 2012, they got married, and in 2013, they welcomed their first child.

‘He looked so classy, like a vintage postcard’

The Princeton University Chapel is a meaningful location for Shelby Brainard ’22 and Katherine Brainard ’19. It’s the spot where Shelby would play the organ while Katherine studied, the spot where they would worship, the spot where Shelby proposed, and eventually the spot where they were married.

The pair met for the first time during a first-year-only study break that Katherine, a senior at the time, was crashing for the free acai bowls. Shelby had just returned from a Bridge Year in Indonesia, and he immediately caught Katherine’s eye.

“I saw this guy standing there with a vintage Princeton sweater through the doorway of the Mathey Common Room, and I made a comment to my friend. He looked so classy, like a vintage Princeton postcard,” said Katherine.

As luck would have it, Katherine’s friend knew Shelby and introduced the pair. What’s more, the pair also shared a Christian ethics class, were both part of the Christian Union (formerly known as Princeton Faith and Action),

TIMOTHY PARK / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN University Chapel at sunset.

Friday February 16, 2024

and both lived in Mathey.

“We just started bumping into each other a bunch and got along really well,” said Katherine.

For their first date, they went to Teresa’s Pizza for dinner, the Bent Spoon for dessert, then to Princeton’s swing dance club to end the night.

After a few months of dating, Shelby created a scavenger hunt around campus for Katherine. It was based on all the places around campus that were meaningful to them. The game included places like Murray-Dodge Café, where they spent hours hanging out and playing chess, and Tower Club, where Katherine was a member. The date ended at Joseph Henry House, where Shelby had set up a candle-lit Italian dinner.

Shelby returned to this theme for his proposal. The proposal started at Nassau Hall and toured around the campus, stopping at all the places that were significant to the couple. At each location, a close friend or family member would greet Katherine, “reading from a scroll [her] life story in fairytale language.”

At each stop, she also got a word. By the time they reached the last location, the chapel, the words added up to one sentence:

“Katherine, will you marry me?”

Shelby had originally planned to propose in Prospect Garden, but rain spelled a change of plans. He shifted his plan, complete with a trio of musicians, to the chapel. The pair got married in

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the exact spot where Shelby proposed.

“I think you go through the fire while you’re at Princeton, in that it’s a place where you’re really refined. You are pushed to your limits, and what’s beautiful about your Princeton relationships and friendships is that you’ve done it together.” said Katherine. “I think it gives you a better understanding of your spouse. You are able to understand them on a deep, deep level only a Princetonian can truly appreciate.”

‘What if we got married right now?’

Haley Choueiri ’25 was sure she wasn’t going to become a part of the 50–75 percent statistic her RCA told her in her first year. But two years later, I sat across the table from her and her wife, Reema Choueiri ’25, as they recounted their love story to me. The two met through a mutual friend who connected them via Instagram. After a few weeks of exchanging DMs, they switched to texting, which turned into a first date at Junbi.

Their first date was seven hours long. After leaving Junbi, they didn’t want to say goodbye. So, they walked three miles along the towpath into another town, just chatting away. They had dinner before walking the towpath back to campus.

They started dating a few weeks later when Reema elaborately asked Haley to be her girlfriend

through a Spotify playlist that spelled out, through songs, the question: Haley, will you be my girlfriend?

“We walked across the middle of [Poe Field] at night, and it was so romantic, and the stars were out,” said Haley, speaking about that experience.

Nearly two years later, the pair is married and lives in married housing on campus as they finish out their junior year.

“It first started out as a joke,” said Haley, “We like to travel a lot, and we’d see the county magistrate office, and I [would be] like ‘What if we got married right now?’ And then eventually, it wasn’t a joke anymore.”

Reema proposed a year after they started dating, on a hike that overlooked New York City.

“When you know, you know,” she said, smiling.

The uniqueness of their marriage is not lost on them. Whenever she mentions her wife in class or somewhere else, she gets a variety of responses, often shock.

“But it’s been really heartwarming to see the reaction and reception from other people. [They] really root for us,” added Haley.

Haley also shares details about married life while in college on her Instagram profile. She’s posted wedding photos, answered questions about married housing, and more.

“I think a lot about our presence on social media,” she said. “Sometimes that’s a source of

stress and targeting for queer people, but then it also can be a source of strength for the community and representation a lot of people need and love.”

They got married in Haley’s hometown of Fayetteville, NC over the summer. They had time to honeymoon and relax in Reema’s hometown of Charlotte, NC, before returning to school for their junior year.

“I love telling my friends I have a wife,” said Haley.

The 50–75 percent: How common are Princetonian marriages?

Dean Boden, who oversees all applications for chapel weddings, said she only sees a handful of intra-Princeton marriages.

“[Applicants] definitely tell me in their letter that they met while at Princeton, but that’s a minority of people,” said Dean Boden. “I would say a majority of people are [cases where only] one has a Princeton affiliation.”

I asked the couples what they made of this myth. Some had heard it for the first time when I told them, while others were familiar with it. However, few of the couples agreed that the statistic was actually that high.

Pythias and Natalia said they would lower the statistic to around 20–30 percent, Mark and Liz placed the figure around 20 percent, and Shelby and Katherine predicted it was in the 7–10 percent range. Haley and Reema

were more optimistic, suggesting the statistic might be around 50 percent.

While the Choueiris admit they may be biased in thinking the statistic is 50 percent, they do have a hypothesis to back it up. They proposed that in coming back to Reunions, many alums reconnect and boost the figure.

The Hoffmans observed this when returning for their 30th Reunion.

“There seemed to be a lot more people who had married other Princetonians than at the time [as undergrads],” said Mark.

So, maybe this supposed group of 50–75 percent of Princetonians aren’t finding each other on campus, but after, in life post-graduation. Whether true or not, this myth acknowledges something special about Princeton. The small, tight knit undergraduate body can give way to some longlasting relationships. Pythias expressed that these special relationships make the Princeton experience all the more worthwhile.

“Folks are attracted to Princeton I think for the same reason why a bunch of Princetonians marry,” Pythias said. “It’s because it’s so undergraduate-focused, and it’s so intensely about this small, tight knit group.”

Katie Thiers is a staff Features writer for the ‘Prince.’

ARTS & CULTURE

the PROSPECT.

Looking for Valentine’s Day plans? An algorithm could be the answer

Regina Roberts Associate Prospect Editor

Given an average Princeton student’s numerous classes and extracurricular activities, it may be difficult to naturally find “the one.” However, Valentine’s Day at Princeton has brought a resurgence of matching systems that use algorithms to help participants find a partner or a new friend.

The Marriage Pact algorithm, based upon the concept of agreeing to marry someone in the future if both parties are still single, offers itself as a backup plan if participants do not find a conventional romance. The website has a standard set of questions that are used to match participants with the hopes of helping them form their own marriage pact. Princeton is just one of the 86 schools across the country that has Marriage Pact, and it has been a campus Valentine’s Day staple for the past couple of years. This year, almost 2,000 people signed up to receive a match. The website boasts that it can tell you “your most compatible marital backup plan on your campus, down to the percent.” Marriage Pact utilizes questions formulated by relationship psychologists in order to make matches. While the specific algorithm is not publicized, Sim-

one Kirkevold ’26, one of the organizers of Princeton Marriage Pact, says that it is the “secret sauce” distinguishing Marriage Pact from other matching systems.

Kirkevold credits the intentionality behind Marriage Pact’s questions for determining successful matches. “Something that is so cute with Marriage Pact is that a lot of times people will actually enter a relationship with the person they’re matched with. I think a couple thousand of those relationships [across participating schools] have gone on to be over a year long,” she said.

Marriage Pact is not the only matching algorithm that wants to bring people together for Valentine’s Day. Datamatch also helps people find matches, both romantic and platonic. Unlike Marriage Pact, which features more serious questions, Datamatch takes a more light-hearted approach, asking people questions like, “What is your campus nightmare?”.

Datamatch participants receive ten matches, distinguishing its system from Marriage Patch. Liv Bobby ’26, who runs Princeton Datamatch, believes that having several matches creates a better user experience. “It can be discouraging if you get one match, and you’re like ‘I have no idea who this is, or I’m never gonna meet this

person.’ But when you have ten chances to make a new friend or meet a partner, it’s a lot more encouraging and a lot more exciting,” she said.

Because Datamatch was originally created at Harvard, Bobby does not know how the algorithm functions, but she does believe the matches are accurate. “I found that last year, it matched me with someone who I was already really good friends with, which, to me, shows that it works,” she said.

Another unique feature of the system is “Crush Roulette,” where participants can match themselves with someone or match a friend with someone to tilt the scales. This feature means their final matches can be slightly influenced, allowing participants to connect with someone they may have already crossed paths with.

At the time of writing, Datamatch has about 1,500 participants. Allison Jiang ’26, who used Datamatch last year, knew she wanted to participate again this year after experiencing how the algorithm can pay off. “I ended up meeting with a friend match, and we are still hanging out today,” she said.

Although it has seen some success, Bobby wants to continue to grow the impact of Datamatch after the matching process. “One of my goals for the next two years

that I am here is to get more local sponsors to sponsor dates for people that end up actually meeting up with their matches,” she said.

Kirkevold is also enthusiastic about Marriage Pact’s impact beyond its initial release of matches. “Here at Princeton, one of my favorite stories is about my friend who graduated last year. She got matched up with one of her best friends, and then they actually made a marriage pact,” she said.

Both Marriage Pact and Datamatch drum up excitement around campus during Valentine’s Day as participants discuss potential matches. Even for those who do not find their ideal match through the algorithms, Kirkevold believes that the systems serve a purpose on campus. “At Princeton, I think it’s just a good way to form a community,” she said. “One of the big things that we were focusing on at Marriage Pact is just getting it out there and getting people to talk about it, because it’s a fun thing to talk about.”

Regina Roberts is an associate editor for The Prospect and contributing staffer for the Podcast section at the ‘Prince.’

REGINA ROBERTS / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Hélène Grimaud debuts at Princeton University Concerts

The eminent French pianist Hélène Grimaud performed a classic combination of “B” composers — Beethoven, Brahms, and Bach (arranged by a slightly less famous B, Busoni) — in a sold-out Richardson Auditorium at her Princeton University Concert series debut on January 24.

While well-known pieces run the risk of being standard or cliché, her unique style made them sparkle — just like her outfit.

Grimaud took her time at the start of Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 30, Op. 109, allowing the first few notes to hang in the air before she continued. The piece’s moodiness was reflected in Grimaud’s seemingly spontaneous interpretations, with moments of gentle delicacy in the first

movement and clashing eruptions in the second. Grimaud’s use of the sustaining pedal and brief pauses in between the three movements almost morphed them into one. Crescendos and diminuendos ebbed and flowed, fueled by deliberate pauses at the end of long phrases. She took another long pause before playing the last note, hunching over as the crisp note reverberated in the hushed auditorium. Though the program overall was exceptional, Beethoven did not feel like her strongest performance.

Grimaud brought out the rich musicality and harmonic language in Brahms’ Intermezzi, Op. 117. Compared to her recording of the same three Intermezzi on her recent “Schuman and Brahms”

album, Grimaud articulated the first melody much more slowly here. The bittersweet sentiment was enhanced by her control of rubato – slightly slowing down at the end of phrases – and her ease in navigating abrupt transitions: from misty, brooding arpeggios to calm, yearning chords. Her pauses here appeared more natural here than they had with Beethoven, and the choice suited the angst-ridden and bittersweet undertones of the Brahms.

After intermission, her technical and dynamic control were again clear in Brahms’ Fantasies, Op. 116, beginning with nimble righthand octaves and thunderous left-hand chords. Her use of the pedal gave these seven pieces fluidity despite their

density, seeming to blur them into one overarching narrative. The last Fantasia particularly struck me as she executed the clear melodies with hands that almost seemed to be floating through space.

Finally, Grimaud unleashed a seemingly effortless performance of the great Chaconne from Bach’s Partita in D minor for solo violin, arranged by Ferruccio Busoni. She remained completely in control of each rise and fall of the phrases, enhancing each resolution with pauses and with the articulation of trills. In many parts of the piece, her left-hand octaves were so quick that separate notes almost blended as one. As she wrapped up the chord-filled finale, the audience was even more quiet and attentive than it had been the whole evening.

Grimaud played three encores: Rachmaninoff’s Études Tableaux Op. 33: No. 2 in C Major (Allegro) & No. 3 in C Minor (Grave), and Valentin Silvestrov’s Bagatelles Op. 1: No. 2 in E Minor (Moderato “Lontano”). Her fearless playing of Rachmaninoff’s enigmatic etudes produced a collage of loud ascending left-hand chords and light right-hand melodies, naturally wavering from one to the other. As she had done throughout the evening, she took a long, luxuriant pause before the last phrase of Silvestrov’s bagatelle, which brought a change in tonal color like a flower blooming.

Chloe Lau is a staff Prospect writer and a staff Features writer for the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at chloelau@princeton. edu.

An international food tour of love

Valentine’s Day cuisine goes beyond candy hearts and boxes of chocolate. While the holiday celebrates blossoming romance, it equally serves as a reminder to honor other kinds of love, including affection for family, friendships, home, places, and more. Personally, I advocate for a love of food. Food is a source of joy in my life that never fails to satisfy my appetite. Moreover, through its ability to unite families, friends, partners, food is a symbol of love itself. Reflecting on their cultural backgrounds, Princeton students shared dishes and delicacies with The Prospect that represent love to them.

Iran

For Arman Nemati ’27, Persian culture played a prominent part in his upbringing. Nemati shared that red apples are a Persian symbol

of love, beauty, and fertility. The symbol is seen in many ancient Persian poems that intertwine red apples with themes of love.

Nemati explains that the apple must be red, because “when people fall in love, their cheeks turn red from blushing.”

According to Nemati, the red apple makes appearances in special, festive occasions with his family, serving as a positive token. “We always put a red apple on our table for our New Year for a year filled with love,” he said.

Philippines

Kirsten Pardo ’24 shared a dish from her home country, the Philippines. “There’s a stew dish called sinigang — it’s my favorite Filipino dish and always invokes a warm feeling,” Pardo said. “Since my family knows it’s my favorite, they make it every time I return home.”

Sinigang is a hearty stew typically made from tama-

rind, meat, and vegetables and is often served with rice. With such simple ingredients, the star of the dish is its signature sour tang that comes from the tamarind.

Pardo said, “Even at Princeton, I make it and share it within the Filipino community here.” Pardo sees herself making this for her family in the future and continuing to pass the recipe down.

Belgium

Zara Kamga ’27 developed a deep connection to Belgian food from spending her childhood summers in Belgium with family.

“My mom moved to Belgium when she was quite young. One of the dishes she grew up eating was potato gratin,” Kamga said. “Since my mom is an amazing cook, she makes certain meals as a sort of love language. This is one of them.”

Potato gratin is an indulgent, French classic where layers of thinly sliced potatoes are baked in a creamy

cheese sauce. For Kamga, this dish reminds her of her mother’s love and her Belgian roots.

Cameroon

While Kamga has a Belgian background from her mother’s side, she is Cameroonian on her father’s side. She shared that the other dish her mother loves to make for her family is a Cameroonian dish called “beignet et haricot,” or beignets with stewed beans.

“As I grew up I realized how amazing it was that she learned to cook dishes from so many different cultures, showing appreciation for all the people she meets in her life,” Kamga said. “Her cooking for my family is truly a form of endearment as she does her best to pass down the love she absorbed from various cultures (and of course leave our appetites more than satisfied).”

China As a Chinese-American, I

have come to believe that dim sum is the ultimate meal of love. Dim sum, in fact, translates directly to “touch the heart.” This Cantonese brunch meal consists of bite-sized food portions served in steaming bamboo baskets — from numerous types of dumplings to hot congee — that are designed to fulfill the heart’s cravings. Traditionally, dim sum is shared around a large, revolving round table with big groups of friends or family, accompanied by warm conversation and laughter.

Initially, these dishes’ simplicity may come off as a surprise. However, the memory and intention tied to the dishes transform them from a seemingly commonplace food item into valuable pockets of love.

Shannon Ma is a staff writer for The Prospect. She is in the Class of 2027 and comes from Saratoga, Calif. She can be reached at sm2818@princeton.edu.

CHLOE LAU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Shannon Ma Staff Prospect Writer

The Prospect 11 Weekly Event Roundup

By Shannon Ma & Annie Rupertus Contributing Prospect Writers

2 3 1

Love Type Beat

by Nica Evans ’24 & Tanéyah Jolly ’24

Feb 16, 17, 22–24 2024, 8 p.m.

Wallace Theater, Lewis Arts Complex

Princeton seniors Nica Evans and Tanéyah Jolly have conceived a work capturing various forms of love through the lens of Black women and femmes’ experiences. Audiences are limited to 30 members per performance. Tickets are available via University Ticketing.

Quipfire Improv Comedy: The Bachelor

Feb. 16, 2024, 8 p.m.; Feb. 17, 2024, 9 p.m. Class of 1970 Whitman Theatre

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with the hilarity of Quipfire, as they search for love and humor in this season of romance. Tickets are available via University Ticketing.

House Guest

by Sandra Chen ’24

Feb. 16–17, 2024, 7:30 p.m.; Feb. 17, 2 p.m.

Donald G. Drapkin Studio, Lewis Arts Complex

Through a new translation of Nick Rongjun Yu’s play House Guest, Sandra Chen ’24 explores fate, choice, and Chinese intellectual thought. Tickets are available via University Ticketing.

4 5 6

Glee Club: American Spiritual Ensemble

Feb. 17, 2024, 7:30–9:30 p.m.

Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall

The Princeton University Glee Club performs alongside The American Spiritual Ensemble, who are being conducted by Dr. Everett McCorvey. Tickets are available via University Ticketing.

Theater&… AI predicting a successful show

by

Kira Fitzgerald ’24

Feb. 19, 2024, 8 p.m.

Donald G. Drapkin Studio, Lewis Arts complex

Theater&…AI, presented by Kira Fitzgerald ’24, explores the future of data in American theater. This presentation is free and open to the public. No tickets are required.

Fall 2023 Student Film Screenings

Feb. 20 & 22, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

James Stewart Film Theater, 185 Nassau St.

Two screenings will unveil over 30 short films produced by Visual Arts students last semester in courses on documentary, animation, and narrative filmmaking. Both screenings are free and open to the public.

7

Reading by David Henry Hwang & Ilya Kaminsky

Feb. 20, 2024, 7:30 p.m.

Donald G. Drapkin Studio, Lewis Arts complex

The latest installment in the Program in Creative Writing’s 2023–24 Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series will feature Academy Award-winning playwright and screenwriter David Henry Hwang and poet and Princeton professor Ilya Kaminsky. Tickets are available via University Ticketing.

8

Princeton Sound Kitchen presents TAK

Feb. 20, 2024, 8–10 p.m.

Taplin Auditorium, Fine Hall

New compositions from graduate students Aliayta Foon-Dancoes, Gemma Peacocke, Christian Quiñones, Elijah Daniel Smith, and Max Vinetz will feature in this performance by chamber ensemble TAK. This event is free and open to the public.

The New York Arabic Orchestra presents “Mosaic”

9 10 11

Feb. 22, 2024, 7–9 p.m.

Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall

Led by its Grammy-nominated artistic director Layth Sidiq, The New York Arabic Orchestra will perform “Mosaic” ءاسفيسف (Fusaifisa), a concert reflecting the diversity of the Arab world. Sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Studies. Free tickets available via University Ticketing.

Workshop with Chief Ayanda Clarke: The Relationship Between Music and Dance

Feb. 19, 2024, 2:30–4:20 p.m.

Murphy Dance Studio, Lewis Arts complex

Chief Ayanda Clarke, a Grammy Awardwinning musician, will instruct a class in conjunction with Dyane Harvey-Salaam’s course, DAN 211: The American Experience and Dance Practices of the African Diaspora. This event is free and open to the public.

Theater Performance & Audition Cocurricular Classes

Sam Gravitte ’17 and Runako Campbell ’21

Feb. 19, 2024, 4:45–6:15 p.m.

Second Floor Theater Studios, Lewis Arts complex

Professional performers and theater alumni Sam Gravitte ’17 (Wicked on Broadway) and Runako Campbell ’21 (Jagged Little Pill on Broadway) lead a co-curricular class series. The session on Feb. 19 is led by Runako Campbell. Students are encouraged to bring songs, auditions, monologues, dance, and more to work on with Runako. Registration is not required, but is limited to Princeton students.

Hum r

Need help confessing or just want to laugh?

Cut out a Princeton themed Valentine’s gram to give to your crush or your friends!

Jokes By: Mya Koffie | Assistant Humor Editor

To:

From:

Are you a Stanley cup?

Because I wanna bring you with me everywhere I go.

To:

From:

Are you Street Week?

Because I'd let you keep me up all night many nights in a row.

To:

From:

Do you want me to teach you something chemistry?about ’Cuz I’d Frick you anytime.

To:

From:

Are you a genie?

Ive always wanted to make a double-legacy, and you look like you make wishes come true.

To:

From:

You must be the Yeh dining hall — nobody has what you have.

To:

From:

Are you an event giving out free Tico’s?

Because babe, I would show up for you every time.

To:

From:

Are you the inside of our tiger mascot’s costume during orientation?first-year

Because unbelievablyyou’re hot.

To:

From:

You’re like the opposite of my reading period work; I would never wait till the last day to do you.

Men’s basketball beats rival Penn in front of sold out crowd at Jadwin Gym

By Hayk Yengibaryan Associate Sports Editor

In front of a sold-out crowd at Jadwin Gym, the Tigers (17–3 overall, 5–2 Ivy League) triumphed over the Penn Quakers (9–13, 1–6) after a late second half run. The Tigers had one of their best shooting performances of the year, connecting on 16 shots from beyond the arc and attempting their most three-point shots in any game since 2016.

“It was amazing,” sophomore forward Caden Pierce told The Daily Princetonian postgame. “The fans showed out and it really helped us down the stretch. We feed off that energy and we’re really thankful.”

Prior to tipoff, guard Clark Slajchert was activated for the Quakers. The senior had not played in a game for the Quakers since December 30th, when he injured his ankle against then-No. 3 ranked Houston. Slajchert was Penn’s leading scorer prior to that contest, averaging 17.4 points per game.

“We prepared for him,” Princeton head coach Mitch Henderson ’98 told the ‘Prince.’ “They’re very different from him [Slajchert] … he didn’t look like he missed a step, really tough kid.”

The Quakers started hot in the 249th meeting between the two sides, scoring the first five points of the contest. Pierce got the scoring started for the Tigers courtesy of a pass from fellow sophomore guard Xaivian Lee. The next possession, Lee once again found Pierce, who converted a three-point shot.

Lee and Pierce both finished the game with double-doubles. Pierce finished with 17 points and 11 rebounds while Lee shone once again, scoring 22 points and grabbing ten boards.

After Slajchert scored to give the Quakers an early 12–5 lead, Lee found Pierce in the corner for his second triple of the game. Pierce scored the first eight points of the game for Princeton, all coming off passes from Lee.

“He makes my job easy,” Pierce

YEARS LATER 87

scan to read

added about Lee. “He finds me in spots where I’m successful.”

Down 19–13 with just under 13 minutes remaining in the first half, the Princeton offense ignited. A three by senior guard and captain Matt “Mush” Allocco capped off a 7–0 Tiger run and gave Princeton its first lead of the game.

After Quakers head coach Steve Donahue called a timeout, Lee connected on two straight triples to give the Tigers a 26–22 lead. With 7:45 left in the half, junior guard Blake Peters hit a three to give Princeton its largest lead of the half.

After the score by Peters, it was all Penn for the remainder of the first half. The Quakers went on an 18–7 run to close out the half, shooting a lights-out 50 percent from the field in the first half. At the break, Henderson’s squad had work to do as the Tigers trailed 40–36.

To start the second half, the teams traded baskets out of the gate. With just under 18 minutes remaining in the game, Lee drove baseline and found senior forward Zach Martini for a corner three to cut the Penn lead to one point. After shooting one for seven from the field in the first half, Martini shot 67 percent from the field in the second half.

The next four minutes saw both sides struggle offensively. The Tigers and Quakers combined for just four points during that stretch. Down 44–43, the Tigers put their foot on the gas. Lee used his speed to get by his defender and finish at the rim through contact, completing a three-point play at the line.

On the next offensive possession, Martini converted on his third triple of the night over Quaker center Nick Spinoso. The 6’9” big man for Penn made his presence known inside the paint, scoring 19 points and grabbing a game-high 14 boards.

When the Tigers went on a 8–2 run to go up 51–46, the Quakers went on their own 8–2 run to take a 54–53 lead. The game saw a total of seven lead changes and six occasions where the game was tied.

With the game tied at 56, Martini once again converted his fourth triple of the half to give Princeton a three-point lead. The shot brought the sold-out crowd at Jadwin to its feet.

Following the three by Martini, Penn guard Tyler Perkins immediately responded with a three to tie the game. Less than 15 seconds later, Pierce found Peters for an open three from the wing. On the next Penn possession, Spinoso finished inside the paint to keep the game within reach for the Quakers. With seven minutes remaining, Princeton held a slim 62–61 lead.

Unfortunately for Penn, they went scoreless when it mattered most, failing to get the ball through the hoop for three minutes. At home in front of the Tiger faithful, Princeton capitalized on Penn’s offensive struggles. After four straight points from Allocco, Peters stroked two straight three-pointers to give the Tigers their largest lead of the night at 11, with just over four minutes to go.

“Penn did a good job at helping a lot, so Zach [Martini] and Blake [Peters] were open a lot,” Lee added postgame. “So it’s obviously big when they’re hitting shots.”

Following the timeout, it proved to be too little, too late for the Quakers. The last four minutes of the game proved to be the most comfortable for the Tigers, as they held on for a 77–70 win over the Quakers. The key for the Tigers in the second half was limiting turnovers and hitting its shots. Henderson’s squad had just one turnover and shot 44.4 percent from beyond the arc in the second half.

The Tigers attempted 38 threes Saturday evening, the most they’ve attempted since 2016 when they attempted 39 against Virginia Tech in a 86–81 overtime loss.

“I thought we shot the ball nicely,” Henderson told the ‘Prince.’ “But they were open shots. I think if it’s 25 feet or two feet, if it’s an open shot, it’s a good shot.”

The Tigers have now won 10 straight games against the Quakers,

with the Quakers’ last win coming in February of 2018.

The attention will now turn to the Brown Bears (6–16, 2–5) and the Yale Bulldogs (16–6, 7–0) for Princeton, who will stay at home in Jadwin Gymnasium. The Tigers will play the Bears on Friday night at 7 p.m. The following night, the Tigers will play the Bulldogs on national television, with tipoff at 8 p.m.

The Tigers recently played the Bulldogs in New Haven, Conn. on Friday, Feb. 2. Despite being up by five at halftime, the Tigers could not hold on for the win and dropped the contest. Back at home, the Tigers will need to defend home court and knock off the only remaining undefeated team in the Ivy League.

Henderson added, “I still think we got some more lessons to learn, but we’re figuring out ways to win and we’re not pulling apart.”

Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

“The most original valentine”: A Valentine’s Duck

By Raphaela Gold Head Archives Editor

In February 1937, The Daily Princetonian reported that sophomore H.W. Hazard III ’39 received a Valentine’s gift that can only be described as an odd duck. It was, quite literally, a live duck.

Hazard was away from campus when his strange gift arrived at the telegraph office, where it “vociferously objected to incarceration in the cellar.” The duck was therefore kept under care of a Western union operator at a Kingston farm until Hazard was available to collect it.

“Upon his return to Princeton, [Hazard] will be sur -

prised to find that he is now sole owner of an extremely lively valentine in the form of a duck,” the article noted. In addition to handling this unique gift, the local telegraph companies experienced a general boom in business around Valentine’s Day and were “delighted with the tender thoughts in the hearts of undergraduates.” Despite the trend at the time toward original missives, pre-written text known as “canned messages” surpassed all records that day. Some of the most popular of these included, “All the valentines in the world could not express my love for you,” and “Oh, sweetheart mine, with love divine, won’t you be my val-

entine.”

Local Princeton shops also thrived. According to the article, a sandwich shop called Viedt’s sold “many beribboned heart-shaped boxes,” while the Dolsky’s notion store sold a great deal of candy and Valentine’s cards. The store reported that comedic valentines were in that year, while “the sugary and lacy greeting of the past was apparently no longer appealing to a discriminating Princeton clientele.”

The local post-office was far less thrilled with the Valentine’s rush. The postmaster and his staff were displeased with the fact that very few “fancy packages” were delivered to Princetonians, and there was only a

slight uptick in the volume of incoming mail. Still, the overall Valentine’s Day atmosphere in Princeton circa 1937 was cheerful and just a bit chaotic.

87 years later, Valentines Day at Princeton looks a bit different. Rather than flooding the telegraph office, students eagerly signed up for DataMatch and Marriage Pact, and the results are out. Candy Grams have been gifted and received. Love is in the air once more. And who knows? Maybe a live duck is in the air, as well.

Raphaela Gold is a head Archives editor and an associate Features editor at the ‘Prince.’

RYLAND GRAHAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The last time the Tigers played in front of a sold-out crowd was in December of 2001 when they hosted basketball powerhouse Kansas.