The Daily Princetonian: February 23, 2023

Princeton first-year passes after NJ Transit incident at Faculty Road crossing Eisgruber faces questions on mental health at CPUC meeting

By Thomas Catalano Assistant News Editor

Content Warning: The following article includes mention of student death.

University Counseling services are available at 609-258-3141, and the Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 988 or +1 (800) 273TALK (8255). A Crisis Text Line is also available in the United States; text HOME to 741741. Students can contact residential college staff and the Office of Religious Life for other support and resources.

University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 faced significant questioning about campus mental health at the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) meeting on Monday, Feb. 19. Council members and members of the audience raised concerns about the intersection of academics and mental health, additional support for first-generation students, and financial coverage of mental healthcare treatment.

Eisgruber began his speech with an acknowledgement of the recent death of James Li ’27.

“I’m mindful as we begin this that all of us in the broader Princeton community right now are grieving the death of

James Li,” Eisgruber said.

The meeting comes three days after Li was fatally struck by the Princeton Dinky shuttle on campus at the Faculty Road crossing. This is the eighth student death in the past three years.

The CPUC is composed of faculty, students, staff, and alumni representatives and holds six annual meetings that are open to the University community. Monday’s CPUC meeting was a Town Hall with Eisgruber, during which he discussed his annual State of the University letter before shifting the meeting to a Q&A format. A significant portion of the Q&A was devoted to the mental health conversation.

CPUC Council member Judah Guggenheim ’25 asked Eisgruber whether or not the University will take national leadership in the mental health crisis by adopting “existing recommendations to extend the semester, to offer summer courses or opportunities for five-year graduation frames, and to significantly invest financially in mental health resources.”

Eisgruber first recognized the anguish associated with the loss of a community member and the importance of the mental health conversation before describing examples of the University’s ac-

tion to address mental health.

“There are tragedies that take place, even when people do all the things that they should be doing,” he said.

He cited investment in Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS) “on an aggressive scale” and the construction of Frist Health Center which will serve to center student well-being. The center is scheduled to open in 2025.

Eisgruber also challenged Guggenheim’s implication that academic rigor negatively affects student mental health, citing other factors that impact mental health, such as sleep, substance abuse, social connection, belonging, and purpose.

In November 2022, Eisgruber told the ‘Prince,’ “I think high aspiration environments, and that includes academically rigorous environments, are fully consistent with and helpful to mental health.” The remark drew criticism from many students.

In an interview with the ‘Prince’ after the meeting, Guggenheim said that he believes Eisgruber and the University are taking the mental health conversation seriously. However, Guggenheim also disputed what he calls Eisgruber’s “divi-

Opinion

Get Princetonians back to innovation, not exploitation

By Eleanor Clemans-Cope Head Opinion Editor

In a world overflowing with challenges, from the existential threat of the climate crisis to growing economic inequality, innovation is a beacon of hope. But not all kinds of innovation contribute equally to human flourishing. As Princeton heads into the 21st century, it is crucial for us to discern between the transformative and the trivial: are we innovating for a better world, or just bigger profits?

I grew up hearing stories of the innovation of old — in the 1980s, in a lab under an hour’s drive away from Princeton, my grandfather invented a process for creating high-quality semiconductor repeaters that vastly improved AT&T’s trans-Atlantic cable. His friends in the lab down the hall helped create the fiber optic system of the cable. They all worked at Bell Labs — “The Idea Factory” — AT&T’s research arm where inventors worked on projects from the trans-Atlantic cable to the transistor. This was the innova-

tion of the 20th century. Contrast this with the barrage of emails in my Princeton inbox, touting insights on securing startup funding for your plugin or app or seminars on “how to be a venture capitalist.” In the face of the climate crisis, ecological breakdown, and escalating inequality, our generation faces a dire need for hard and often physical innovation. But the flavor of entrepreneurship promoted by Princetonians feels small-scale and greedy; although there are exceptions, the prevailing culture is narrowly focused on small tweaks fueling profits using existing technologies rather than innovating the groundbreaking, transformational technology and institutions that our world urgently needs.

A few examples of what Princetonians are putting time and money into:

Prospect Student Ventures supports companies including a pay-to-play marketplace for employee hiring, a company that says it will “revolutionize

See INNOVATION page 10

Please send any corrections requests to corrections@dailyprincetonian.com.

This Week In History

LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Princeton first-year passes after NJ Transit incident at Faculty Road crossing

Road crossing.

Vice President for Campus

Content Warning: The following article includes mention of student death.

University Counseling services are available at 609-258-3141, and the Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 988 or +1 (800) 273TALK (8255). A Crisis Text Line is also available in the United States; text HOME to 741741. Students can contact residential college staff and the Office of Religious Life for other support and resources.

First-year James Li ’27 died in the afternoon of Feb. 16 after being struck by the Princeton Dinky shuttle at the Faculty

Life W. Rochelle Calhoun wrote in a campus message that “few details are known and the incident is under investigation.”

At approximately 2:15 p.m., a Princeton Junction-bound train “struck and fatally injured” Li, according to Kyalo Mulumba, a senior public information officer for NJ Transit, in an email to The Daily Princetonian.

This is the eighth student death in the past three years. Li was a member of Yeh College and attended Princeton High School.

According to the statement from Mulumba, the train departed from the University at 2:14 p.m. and was scheduled to arrive at Princeton Junction

at 2:19 p.m. There were no reported injuries to the “approximately 30 customers or crew on board,” Mulumba added. Ethan Caldwell ‘27 was aboard the Dinky when the incident occurred.

“A New Jersey Transit police officer or firefighter came on board and checked to ask if everyone was okay, if anyone had been hurt,” Caldwell told The Daily Princetonian. “He just reiterated that there had been an emergency and that they were going to try to evacuate us from the train, because it could not move.” Caldwell added that the police did not provide further details on the reason for the evacuation.

Caldwell is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’

At 3:59 p.m., an email was sent

out to members of the University community via TigerAlert that Faculty Road was closed “between Alexander Street and the Elm Drive Circle,” citing police activity. Staff members who typically exit campus at Faculty Road and Alexander Street were directed to the exit at Washington Road.

The campus message shared that resources and support will be available through Counseling and Psychological Services (CPS), the Office of Religious Life, the residential colleges, and the Graduate School. Students wishing to speak with a counselor can call 609-258-3141, CPS Cares Line, which is available 24/7.

The message also noted that CPS will offer drop-in hours for

In lieu of taxes, University increases voluntary contribution for second year

By Julian Hartman-Sigall

On Jan. 30, the University announced its plan to donate more than $50 million over five years to the Municipality of Princeton and local nonprofits. At roughly $10 million a year, the contribution represents more than double the value from 2022, when the University made a voluntary payment of $3.9 million to the Municipality of Princeton.

The new payment plan includes $28.2 million in unrestricted cash contributions, $11.3 million dedicated to specific municipal projects and programs, and $10.8 million to local agencies and lower and middle-income residents. Programs and agencies due to receive funding include the fire department, a scholarship fund for low-income students who graduate from Princeton High School, and various housing-affordability programs.

The lack of housing affordability in and around Princeton has been a major issue at the University, in the Graduate Students’ unionization struggle, and in the Princeton community at large. Building more affordable housing has also been a major issue in local politics. There have been a variety of proposals for affordable housing in various locations, one of which has been facing opposition from local residents who cite

the historic nature of the neighborhood and the size of the proposed developments.

This voluntary contribution is separate from the University’s tax payment, which totaled $7.7 million for property and sewer taxes in 2023. In the past, the University unnecessarily paid taxes on some properties for which they had exemptions. In 2023, the University claimed the tax exemption for those properties previously left voluntarily on tax rolls. The increase in voluntary contributions in 2023 was to make up for this reduced tax payment.

Some view the contribution plan as not a donation, but more of an unofficial payment in lieu of the many taxes from which the University is exempt. Under federal tax code, colleges and universities and their foundations are classified as public charities — as a result, they are not subject to taxes on investment income. In all 50 states, nonprofits are exempt from property taxes. Between these policies, Princeton does not have to pay taxes on its roughly $34 billion endowment or its more than 2,360 acres of land.

Universities have recently come under fire for their tax-exempt status. After recent Congressional hearings on antisemitism, some congresspeople argued that universities should lose their tax-exempt status. In New York City, as Columbia University and

New York University have begun acquiring additional real estate, stripping the city of much-needed tax revenue, elected officials have speculated on whether such subsidies are the best use of resources.

Princeton has some programs that entail expansion in town, such as their Tenancy-In-Common Program, which allows eligible faculty and staff to co-purchase a property locally with the University. However, the University has not made a major land purchase since 1951, when it purchased 825 acres in Plainsboro.

In an interview with The Daily Princetonian, Princeton Mayor Mark Freda noted that the relationship between the town and the University has “strengthened” in recent years. However, he also addressed tax exemption as a point of contention.

“You look at all the property they have, the vast majority of that property doesn’t pay taxes. That’s why there’s this whole tug of war between the town and the University. Right?” he said.

Explaining the discussions of the size of the voluntary contribution, Freda said of the University, “What are you really costing us? And are you doing enough to offset that cost? So that’s the continual back and forth. And I think we’re in a pretty good place on that right now.”

When asked about the plan, the

University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss directed the ‘Prince’ to the official press release.

In the release, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said, “We are pleased to advance these shared priorities in collaboration with local government and nonprofit organizations to provide meaningful services and resources across our community.”

Not everyone is thrilled with the payment. In a recent letter to the editor in TAPinto Princeton, local activist Maria Juega took issue with the form of the contribution. She wrote, “If the intent of the Princeton contributions is truly to ‘aid lower and middleincome residents’ and address ‘the challenges of affordability, sustainability, and equity within the community we share,’ why would these subsidies only be reserved to homeowners who, by definition, are the more privileged residents of the community?”

In her criticism, Juega stated that much of the University’s contribution towards housing affordability benefits “more privileged” homeowners, rather than renters who might be in more financially precarious circumstances.

In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ Juega called the plan “anything but equitable” and said, “Is it insufficient? No, of course it’s not sufficient.”

In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ Director of Media Relations Jen-

students seeking support at McCosh Health Center on Saturday, Feb. 17 from noon to 2 p.m, and that faculty and staff may contact Carebridge to speak with a licensed professional by calling 800-437-0911.

A gathering for “students who wish to reflect and support one another” will be held on Feb. 17 at 4 p.m. in the residence of Yeh College Head Yair Mintzker, located on the first floor of Mannion Hall. During the event, deans of the Office of Religious Life, counselors from Counseling and Psychological Services, and residential college staff will be available.

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

nifer Morrill noted that “the University, in addition to voluntarily assisting homeowners whose income is $150,000 or less, many of whom are seniors, through this year’s voluntary payment is also providing support to renters and housing insecure” through through their donations to the nonprofit Housing Initiatives of Princeton and “to the municipality for emergency housing assistance.”

While the size of the voluntary contribution is less than what the University would pay in property taxes without its exemption, Freda argued that its large benefaction will be a force for good in the town and is a positive indication of the University’s engagement with the town of Princeton.

“A lot of people have a stereotype image of who lives in Princeton, and that everybody that lives in Princeton is exceedingly wealthy, and doesn’t appear in the world when it comes to money,” Freda noted. “We have people that are barely surviving and live in town.”

“The fact that the University is acknowledging, hey, we’re specifically giving money for some of these purposes… that’s pretty big.”

Julian Hartman-Sigall is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Eisgruber: “There are tragedies that take place, even when people do all the things that they should be doing.”

MENTAL HEALTH

sion between academic elements of Princeton and student mental health.”

Guggenheim added, “I think that it is definitely true that mental health challenges are not unique to Princeton. But I also think it’s true that there are decisions that Princeton can make about the way it conducts academics and other programs to help students’ mental health.”

CPUC Council member Sarah Bard GS referenced Eisgruber’s

response to Guggenheim on the correlation between academics and mental health when specifically asking about mental health support for first-generation students.

During the meeting, Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun described Outreach Counselors, who “work very specifically with particular communities on our campus” and the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity (EBCAO). Eisgruber also referenced the EBCAO in his response as “promoting belonging for all of our students, but particularly

for our first-gen and low income students.”

Several students, including Christopher Catalano GS, the vice president of Graduate Student Government, asked about the perceived burden of $20 co-pays for therapy or psychiatric visits covered through the Student Health Plan. Catalano noted during the meeting that the resulting cost for a year of mental health care, assuming weekly visits, could be as much as $1,000.

Both Eisgruber and Calhoun responded that barriers to accessing mental health care were

a significant issue. Calhoun pointed to the University’s program offering free Lyft rides to off-campus medical appointments, including those for mental health.

“We should not allow the ability to pay a copay … to be a deterrent from seeking care,” Calhoun affirmed. Calhoun did not commit to specifically eliminating or reducing the co-pay.

“We have to think carefully about how to use co-pays that I think are, on the one hand, an important part of what is still a very generous program that is provided and, on the other hand,

we understand can, at some point, be a deterrent or a concern for people,” Eisgruber noted.

“I was actually pleasantly surprised,” Catalano said in reference to Calhoun’s and Eisgruber’s response on co-pays in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “They seemed very open to the idea.”

Thomas Catalano is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’ Associate News editor Miriam Waldvogel contributed reporting to this article.

One of two Forbes laundry rooms out of commission following fire

By Victoria Davies & Hallie Graham Assistant News Editor & News Contributor

A dryer in the laundry room of Forbes College Main caught fire around 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 18. The main building was evacuated, and the room — one of two laundry rooms in Forbes — is currently out of service.

Teams from the Princeton Fire Department, Princeton Rescue Squad, Plainsboro and Hamilton Fire Departments, and Princeton Plasma Physics Lab Fire Department dealt with the fire, with firefighters on the scene at Forbes College within 10 minutes of the alarm going off.

Joe Novak, the Fire Marshal for the University, told The Daily Princetonian that the fire was “definitely related to the dryer.” He explained that “it was burning inside the dryer and ... smoke was starting to spread.”

According to Novak, the cause of the fire is not yet known, but he thought it was “possibly the dryer vent ... but it’s something [they’re] digging into.” He explained that a contractor will be “tak[ing] apart” the dryer in the coming days to find the exact cause.

In an emailed statement to the ‘Prince,’ University Spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote that “several dryers were damaged and removed.”

Ciel Smith ’27 was in the laundry room when the fire began. Smith was putting her clothes into a washing machine when a nearby dryer began smoking. She told the ‘Prince’ that there was a panel on the bottom of a dryer machine that was “open and smoking a lot.” Soon after, she added that “there was a bunch of smoke in the laundry room.”

Novak told the ‘Prince’ that “somebody saw [the smoke] and pulled the fire alarm.” The smoke detectors also picked up the fire after the alarm had been activated.

Novak added that no one was injured — “everyone evacuated,” he explained.

Shortly after the fire, Smith told the ‘Prince’ that her friends in the Forbes Annex, a portion of the residential college which is adjacent to Forbes Main, were not evacuated. One of her friends there “just didn’t hear the fire alarms,” she said. Smith added that she was worried that her clothing was gone in the fire.

In a written statement to the ‘Prince,’ Smith later explained that her clothes were not the ones which had been destroyed, and she was “able to retrieve [her clothes] shortly after the building was cleared.”

Novak told the ‘Prince’ that somebody’s clothes were in the dryer at the time the fire started, explaining that they “were obviously ruined at [that] point.”

Laundry rooms on campus have faced other issues in recent months, including sewage problems in Holder and Henry Halls in November 2023.

The fire did not have much effect on the operations of the Forbes Dining Hall. Julian Geffert, the Culinary Production Manager at Forbes, explained to the ‘Prince’ that the dining staff was “getting ready for the dinner service and cleaning up trash” when the fire alarm went off on Sunday afternoon. He also noted that the fire “seem[ed] to have been addressed very quick.”

According to Novak, the timeline of repairs on the room “depends on how fast the contractor can come out,“ which he says will likely be around Tuesday, Feb. 20. He added that the “laundry room is out of service” until the cause of the fire can be identified.

Morrill wrote “the facility is offline until further notice, and instead [residents] may use the Forbes Annex.” She added “the University will provide updates on re-opening as soon as possible.”

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

Hallie Graham is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’

By Dashram Pai Senior Constructor

Race for Princeton Council taking shape as candidates look towards Princeton’s future

By Charlie Roth Senior News Writer

When November 2024 election season rolls around, there will be two Princeton Council seats up for grabs. Both positions are currently uncontested.

Councilmember Eve Niedergang GS ’85 publicly shared her intention not to seek re-election last month. In the days following, last month, Brian McDonald ’83 announced a bid to fill the role. Two weeks ago, Councilmember Leighton Newlin announced that he plans to seek reelection for a second term.

McDonald told The Daily Princetonian in an interview that the circumstances presented themselves for him to run for the Council, citing his impending departure from the Princeton Board of Education and the vacancy left by Niedergang.

“I’ve lived in Princeton for 29 years now — not including four years as an undergrad,” McDonald told the ‘Prince.’ “It’s been an important part of my life, and I’ve spent a lot of time giving back to the community and to many of the non-profit organizations in the community.”

McDonald spent seven years on the Citizens’ Finance Advisory Committee of the municipality and six years on the school board. “In some ways, this is a natural progression for me,” he added.

McDonald pointed to his background in finance and education as experiences that will serve him well on the Council.

“My understanding of the municipal finances is very important in a high tax state, at a time when we want Princeton to deliver excellent municipal services as efficiently as possible so we can hold tax increases as low as possible,” McDonald said.

“And I think I’m well-suited to work with the council members

and the mayor and town’s citizens and of course, the staff to do our very best to hold tax increases as low as they can be.”

Newlin, who was born and raised in Princeton, told the ‘Prince’ that he is running for reelection because “the job is just not done.”

“My commitment was to leave Princeton better than I found it. And we’re in process,” Newlin said. “We’re creating affordable housing. We’re creating an infrastructure that’s heavy on the social infrastructure. We’re looking after our people that live in public housing [by making] great strides with the board that oversees the public housing structures in Princeton.”

The town’s affordable housing proposal in the Master Plan has provoked controversy, as some residents have expressed concern for the preservation of green spaces and historic buildings. On the other side of the debate, advocates for the plan point to a decades-long struggle to increase affordable housing options locally.

However, the town is expected to build well over 1,000 affordable housing units, mostly due to a state mandate.

Both McDonald and Newlin discussed Princeton’s growth and their visions for shaping Princeton’s future.

McDonald said he hopes that the town’s growth will be as “deliberate and intentional” as possible.

“It should be sustainable and as consistent as possible with the town’s character. It would support the diversity of the community, which is such an important component of who we are and what we want to be in the future. In the next five to seven years, we’re going to add something like 1500 units of housing, and that’s a big change, and one that I think I can help the town

navigate as well as possible.”

Newlin echoed McDonald’s hopes for sustainable growth.

“Our hope is to create a town that’s going to be sustainable. That can be lived in, not just by the rich people, but by people of all means, of all ethnicities, of all income levels,” Newlin said. “We can no longer be a gated town. The average home in Princeton sold for $1.3 million last year — that’s not sustainable. We gotta have smart growth and make wise choices. This is about making Princeton available and accessible to a great many more people than it is now accessible to. We have to work to reverse this trend.”

Niedergang told the ‘Prince’ that she is proud of her time on the Council, which she calls a “labor of love,” and reflected on the most recent accomplishment: the new five-year, $50 million agreement between the University and the municipality.

“I think [the relationship with the University] has really improved since I came on to Council, and we’ve really worked hard to build a relationship of trust and partnership,” Niedergang said. “And I think the agreement really shows what you can do if you do have that relationship of trust in a partnership.”

A Princeton Council election hasn’t been contested since the 2020 primaries, when David Cohen, Leticia Fraga, and Dina Shaw ran for the two available seats.

Those seeking to run for elected office in Mercer County, including Princeton Council, have until March 25 to file their candidacy petition for the 2024 primary election.

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

SANDEEP MANGAT / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Councilmembers gathered at the Oct. 23 meeting.

U. administrators’ donations heavily favor Kim over Menendez, Murphy in upcoming primary

By Annie Rupertus & Meghana Veldhuis Head News Editor & Assistant News Editor

Princeton employees have donated nearly $20,000 to help Rep. Andy Kim (DN.J.) in his bid to unseat incumbent Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who was federally indicted in September for accepting bribes, in this year’s contest for the Senate. Tammy Murphy, Kim’s main opponent, has no donations to her current campaign where Princeton is listed as the contributor’s employer.

Because the Federal Election Commission (FEC) requires disclosure of fundraising efforts for all federal elections, there is a wealth of information publicly available about the ways in which Princeton affiliates contribute financially to political campaigns, and disclosures have recently updated following the Jan. 31 filing deadline for 2023 campaign receipts.

The Daily Princetonian looked at these recent filings to see how Princeton employees may be impacting the Senate race ahead of New Jersey’s democratic primary scheduled for June 4, as well as to capture a broader picture of how high-profile

University figures have contributed to political campaigns during their time in the Orange Bubble.

Contributions to Menendez, Kim, while Murphy is absent

Menendez has been charged with corruption and taking bribes in conjunction with his wife, Nadine, facilitated by Egyptian-American businessman, Wael Hana. Bonds of over $5,000 were found in Menendez’s residence, and, as of October 2023, he has pleaded not guilty. The Princeton Democratic Committee has called for Menendez to resign, as well as fellow NJ Senator Cory Booker.

Menendez has only received one donation from a Princeton employee this election cycle — from Title IX Director Randy Hubert. This donation was reported in the first quarter of 2023, before the corruption scandal came to light. Menendez has received donations from professors in prior years.

Tammy Murphy — the wife of current N.J. Governor Phil Murphy — is also running for Senator. Murphy’s campaign has no current donations where Princeton is listed as the contributor’s employer.  The Murphy campaign garnered attention on

Princeton’s campus in January after an associate called Nate Howard ’25 — the vice president of the College Democrats of New Jersey (CDNJ) — to pressure the organization against endorsing Kim.

The NJ College Democrats ended up endorsing Kim. The Princeton College Democrats have not publicized which candidate they endorse.

According to polling by Fairleigh Dickinson University, Kim has 32 percent voter support compared to Murphy’s 20 percent.

Kim has received 22 contributions in 2022 from Princeton employees, totaling $19,680. Contributors include one endowment manager, six professors, one administrator, one medical doctor, one editorial associate, one lecturer, and one currently retired professor.  They represent academic departments including SPIA, Psychology, History, the Writing Program, Neuroscience, Computer Science, and Astrophysical Sciences.

Aly Kassam-Remtulla, Vice Provost for International Affairs and Operations and described as “the University’s senior international officer,” contributed $1,500.

Andy Golden, who had served as President of the Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO) for nearly 30

years, and will retire this in June, contributed $6,600. According to recent tax returns, Golden is the University’s highestpaid employee, having made $6,000,000 in 2022, and has donated over $200,000 to political campaigns in the past two decades.

Political Contributions from Top Administrators

Donations from top administrators have also been predominantly Democratic. However, prominent adminstrations at-large have not contributed to any organization or candidate since 2023.

President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has donated the most of current University administrators, contributing between the years 2005-2012 to primarily Democratic candidates, including Obama for both of his presidential runs. He is followed by incoming Dean of the College Michael Gordin, who donated to Obama and Clinton in 2008 and 2016 respectively.

From 2008 to 2021, current Dean of the College Jill Dolan has donated to Democratic candidates including Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and ActBlue.  She has contributed a similar amount as Dean Amaney Jamal of the School of Public and International Affairs. Jamal is also an

Obama, Clinton, and Biden donor. Provost Jennifer Rexford donated once in 2020 to ActBlue, a Democratic nonprofit.

Over the last 33 years, members of the University’s Board of Trustees have donated $7,858,125 to political causes in sum. Trustees have donated mostly to Democratic campaigns, with donations skyrocketing in 2016 and peaking in 2020 at a collective $1,366,689.24 donated to Democrats.

The Trustee’s largest donor has been Blair Effron ’84, who has donated $2,942,046.91 since 1992.  Effron’s donations make up nearly 38 percent of all trustee donations and have been to entirely Democratic or non-partisan causes since 2005.

After Effron, the greatest donors have been Bradford Smith ’81 and Peter Briger ’86.

Annie Rupertus is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Meghana Veldhuis is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Head Data editor Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko contributed reporting.

Labyrinth union holds demonstration as disagreements with management persist

By Annie Rupertus Head News Editor

On a typical morning, Labyrinth Books opens its doors to patrons at 10 a.m. The morning of Tuesday, Feb. 13, the store’s opening was briefly disrupted by a demonstration inside the store. Around 20 people participated in the protest, including Labyrinth employees, Princeton students, and others who gathered for about ten minutes in the store to present a letter detailing complaints against the store’s management.

Demonstrators voiced concerns about what they see as ongoing challenges such as “understaffing and intimidation” that have arisen following the announcement of Labyrinth employees’ intent to unionize and the subsequent official recognition of their union last month.

“We, the employees of Labyrinth, call on management to immediately commence hiring staff to replace the full-time employees who have left, and to immediately cease the unreasonable one-on-one meetings to reprimand the otherwise permissible behavior of staff,” employee Matt Macaulay stated, reading aloud from a letter that was also posted to the union’s Instagram account.

The Daily Princetonian spoke with both union organizers and store management to assemble a portrait of the disputes presented in the letter.

Staffing turnover

Much of the letter addressed what Rebecca Ziemann, an employee who participated in the demonstration, called a “real staffing crisis” in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ Ziemann noted that being shorthanded “not only impacts us, but also impacts the customers because we can’t attend to them as well as we could if we were fully staffed.”

The letter alleged that Labyrinth management has aimed to “shrink the bargaining unit” by “intentionally understaffing the store.” The letter further claimed that this work was being undertaken via the hiring of a “union-busting attorney” after workers announced their intent to unionize on Dec. 21. The letter claimed the “central goal” of this attorney was “to constrain our democratic effort to create a union and vote on a fair contract.”

Labyrinth owner Dorothea von Moltke

refuted this claim, writing in a statement to the ‘Prince,’ “We voluntarily recognized the union and have never engaged in union-busting activities. To call our lawyer a union buster is only to say that he is negotiating on an employer’s behalf.”

The letter addressed the store owners’ voluntary recognition of the union, announced on Jan. 9. This acknowledgment came despite initial indications from store owners that they would wait for an official employee vote to recognize unionization.

“We all really appreciate this recognition,” Tuesday’s letter stated, “but we wish it could have come sooner, and without burning thousands of dollars on antidemocratic advice.”

Additionally, the union’s letter referenced the recent termination of a temporary worker, stating that while management previously said this termination would occur in “mid-February,” the employee was terminated Feb. 2 “during [the store’s] busy coursebook rush” — halfway through Princeton University’s undergraduate add/drop period for courses.

The ‘Prince’ was unable to independently verify the date of the temporary employee’s dismissal.

Maria DiPasquale, a spokesperson for the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), said in an interview with the ‘Prince’ that “this worker is a very vocal union supporter.”

Von Moltke, however, seemed to claim that the early termination was due to decreased demand. “The workers complaining about staffing are wholly unaware of the store’s labor costs or needs, and are making assumptions not backed up by facts,” she wrote to the ‘Prince.’

She noted that Labyrinth’s book sales have sharply declined following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and that “this drop in sales has meant we need fewer temporary employees, and we need them for a shorter period of time. When coursebook season is over, we have always reduced the staff to arrive at the staff level necessary to run the store.”

“It is true that the unionizing staff has decreased recently. But we have not terminated any full-time employees or regular part-time employees,” von Moltke continued. “It’s worth noting that temporary employees are not part of the bargaining unit.”

Tension in the workplace

In addition to points about staffing, the letter also discussed recent occurrences within Labyrinth of managers tapping staff for meetings “to be reprimanded and intimidated for behaviors that cannot be reasonably construed to be punishable.” The letter alleged that management has sent email communications about these meetings while cc’ing attorneys, which the union believes is motivated by a desire to “provide the grounds for future termination.”

While Ziemann saw these meetings as a “common tactic” of “intimidating workers so they won’t fight back,” von Moltke argued that communication difficulties have been caused by the union.

“Since the formation of the [union],” she wrote, “communication in the store has been made difficult by ongoing organizing activity in the store, the use of cell phones in unauthorized ways to holding constant communication, small impromptu meetings, whisper-campaigns, [and] defensive refusal to speak to managers or the owner without undue formality.”

She added that the emergence of the union has prompted the store to “formalize” management and “enforce existing policies in the face of intransigence.”

Von Moltke emphasized the dynamic nature of job duties at Labyrinth. “Book-

selling has never been limited to certain activities,” she wrote. “A good bookseller understands the whole store. It can take years to gain that kind of experience.”

In an earlier interview with the ‘Prince,’ Ziemann described her job at Labyrinth as “part warehouse, labor heavy job [where] you’re lugging boxes of books around, and part detail-oriented data entry work.”

On Tuesday, she reflected on her experience doing this job during the most recent coursebook season, noting that temporary workers during these busy periods usually help with filling student orders, which allows workers like herself to complete their typical tasks “in a timely manner.” During this cycle, she said, “we couldn’t focus on actually receiving books.”

Student support as unionization process continues

In addition to the group of Labyrinth employees present for the demonstration, Princeton students accounted for a significant portion of demonstrators.

Princeton Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA) Steering Committee Co-Chair Abraham Jacobs ’26 told the ‘Prince’ that the Labyrinth union reached out to Princeton YDSA with a request to send students to support the employees’ efforts — basically, he said, they “ask[ed]

us if we could bring bodies.”

Jacobs said that Princeton YDSA has maintained a relationship with the union in the past few weeks as unionization efforts have progressed, and that the student group is “always in solidarity” with local unions.

Despite disagreements between employees and management, the union is officially recognized (and has been since Jan. 10), meaning collective bargaining is the next major milestone — a process which takes, on average, over a year.

Even given the voluntary recognition of the union, Ziemann said that “in the past month, [management has] done a number of things to really underscore that they don’t actually respect our right to unionize.”

DiPasquale explained that those involved are currently still preparing for the bargaining stage. For example, she said, stakeholders need to decide on a neutral location for bargaining, and employees must elect a bargaining committee.

Von Molkte noted in her statement, “At this time, we have provided the union dates to begin negotiations on a first contract, and we await their response.”

Annie Rupertus is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’

CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Pro-union demonstrators gathered in Labyrinth Books the morning of Feb. 13.

“There has to be consensus”: Eisgruber dismisses student Israel divest petition

By Miriam Waldvogel Associate News Editor

At Monday’s meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC), President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said the University would not take action on a student petition calling for divestment from companies associated with “Israel’s ongoing military campaign, occupation, and apartheid policies” until campus consensus on the issue has been reached.

“Under the standards of the university, there has to be consensus,” Eisgruber said in a response to a question about divestment. “There’s the opposite of that on issues involving politics in the Middle East. There’s sharp disagreement.”

Eisgruber also took issue with “divestment as a solution,” he said, in a response to another question.

“At the end of the day, when you’re investing, one person is selling an investment, another person is buying the investment,” he said. “What [the University] can do best is not taking stands on contested issues. What it can do best is to sponsor the teaching and research that make a difference and that we are uniquely qualified to do.”

During the meeting, nearly 30 students with the Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest Coalition (PIAD), the group spearheading the petition, intermittently and silently held up signs with a green thumbs up or a red thumbs down in response to questions from the student body and Eisgruber’s answers. Other students were present at the meeting in opposition to the petition, some wear-

ing shirts reading“Princeton stands with Israel.”

In a written statement to The Daily Princetonian, PIAD said that Eisgruber’s “refusal to take measures to either discern student opinion or act based on a widespread international moral consensus is taking a stance on this ‘contentious’ issue.”

“His insistence on ‘consensus’ needed to bring the issue of divestment to the table is a disingenuous reading of CPUC’s charter,” PIAD added.

The CPUC is composed of students, faculty, staff, and alumni representatives and meets six times per year. The council includes the Resources Committee, which considers concerns about the University’s endowment, including those that garner “considerable, thoughtful and sustained campus interest.”

Guidelines adopted by the Board of Trustees in 1997 state that the Resources Committee should determine if campus consensus is possible on issues regarding the University’s investments before recommending the issue be examined further. In 2014, the committee declined to consider divestment related to companies associated with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank following a petition from faculty members, citing a lack of campus consensus. The final say on the University’s investment matters lies with the Board of Trustees.

Student activists launched the current petition calling for the University to divest its endowment from companies with ties to Israel in December. The petition also calls on the University to disassociate from Israeli universities and to cultivate

ties with Palestinian academic institutions.

Students also pressed Eisgruber about institutional neutrality. Ellen Li ’24, an organizer for Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), noted in her question that Eisgruber issued a statement condemning Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, but “avoided mention of Israel’s ensuing genocide” in his annual letter to the community.

In January, Li published a column in the ‘Prince’ responding to Eisgruber’s State of the University letter.

“I spoke out because I thought that the particular terrorist incident that took place there was one of the special historical significance and cruelty and I think that that warranted a statement of a rare kind,” Eisgruber responded.

Another student asked about the University’s protections for pro-Palestinian speech, including no-contact orders (NCOs). In January, in response to a letter from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), the University narrowed the circumstances for which NCOs can be obtained.

“I agree that it’s a very serious concern,” Eisgruber said regarding the risks of students being doxxed. “But on the other hand, there are limits to what it is that we can do around it. These no-contact orders … did not, could not, and should not have prevented people from doing things like covering protests.”

The letter from the ADL and FIRE argued NCOs were used to “censor student journalists,” citing two incidents involving The Princeton Tory’s reporting on ProPalestinian activities.

More recent protests in support of Palestine have largely focused on the petition to divest from companies associated with Israel’s “ongoing military campaign, occupation, and apartheid policies.” At the time of publication, the petition, which was released in December has garnered 546 signatures from individuals. Undergraduates and graduate students represented relatively equal numbers of signatures, at 99 and 111 respectively. A majority of signatures, 51.7 percent, came from undergraduate alumni of the University.

In September 2022, the University divested its endowment from all publiclytraded fossil fuel companies and dissociated from 90 fossil fuel companies after a decade of student activism. The most recent open letter calling for full fossil fuel divestment, first circulated in 2020, currently has over 3,000 signatures.

The CPUC demonstration by proPalestinian activists follows a die-in on Wednesday in front of Firestone Library to draw awareness to Israel’s planned military offense in Rafah, a city in the south of Gaza. More than 40 students spent nearly an hour on a cold afternoon sitting or lying in silence, some with signs about Rafah being “the last place of refuge in Gaza” or calling on Princeton to divest.

The original die-in was rescheduled due to the snow. Li gave the only speech at the end of the die-in.

“We knew this was genocide,” Li said, referring to the Israeli military’s October evacuation order for 1.1 million people in North Gaza to flee south in 24 hours. “And now we see their final solution, because Israel has now been bombing the final safe, supposedly safe, zone in Gaza, where

civilians were told they would be safe, and now they have nowhere left to run.”

Li notably invoked “final solution,” a term tied to the plan to eliminate Jewish people during the Holocaust. She defended the remark in an interview with the ‘Prince’ after the rally.

“The reason we use the word ‘final solution’ is because we [Students for Justice in Palestine] are often accused of … calling for a genocide of Jewish people, when it’s actually the State of Israel that is committing a genocide of the Palestinians. It’s a reversal,” Li said in an interview with the ‘Prince’ after the die-in.

The CPUC meeting took place in the Multipurpose Room on the B level of Frist Campus Center. Upstairs, many students studying were unaware that the meeting was even happening.

“I think the University stance is appropriate,” Brandon Ambetsa ’25 said regarding the standard for campus consensus for pursuing divestment. “But I’m not sure whether the board … would actually go to that length [of divestment] because you’re opening yourself to a lot of scrutiny.”

“I feel like this issue is so split across campus that making one sort of decision might be marginalizing a huge segment of the community,” said Harish Krishnakumar ’27. “It’s a pretty complicated issue.”

At the end of the CPUC meeting, pro-Palestinian students were insistent on seeing the petition for divestment through, chanting “We will not rest until divest.”

Add/Drop period just ended. We looked at the numbers.

By Alexa Wingate Assistant Data Editor

The add/drop period for the spring 2024 semester began on Jan. 22, one week before the start of the semester, and ended on Friday, Feb. 9, two weeks after the start of classes. In the 2022-2023 academic year, the University reported that 17 percent of classes offered during the academic year contained at least 30 students. This semester, after the add/drop period ended, 196 of the 1397 courses with at least one enrolled student, or 14 percent, had at least 30 students.

At midnight after every day during the add/ drop period, The Daily Princetonian recorded the enrollment numbers of each course that had at least 30 students. During this period, students may use TigerHub to change their course selections.

These large classes, on average, each lost five percent of enrolled students since the beginning of classes on January 29. Six classes had their enrollment drop by more than 35 percent.

Professor David Bell, who teaches HIS 212: Europe in the World: From 1776 to the Present Day wrote in an email to the ‘Prince’ that he noticed the drop in enrollment in his class, which began with 47 students and currently has 14.

“It’s not a course I teach regularly, but the last time I did so, four years ago, nothing like this happened … perhaps student tastes have changed, or my first lectures didn’t go over well,” Bell wrote. “I think it’s important that students be able to ‘shop’ courses, but the practice does make it harder to arrange precepts.” The course has a rating of 4.36.

Louisa Gheorghita ’26 is one of the nine students who dropped HIS 294: Science and Medicine in the Early Modern World, which had 27 students before classes began. Gheorghita dropped the course after the first lecture.

Speaking of her initial interest in the course, Gheorghita said, “I’m planning on getting the European Cultural Studies certificate ... [The description] talked about alchemy. It talked about science and medicine in the early modern world, and this has long been an interest of mine.”

“It was the presentation of the course on the first

day that made me not interested in it,” she continued. “It was more of the anecdotal, contextual information that to me was not very intriguing and I feel like it wasn’t super relevant.”

Gheorghita is a staff News writer and head Photo editor for the ‘Prince.’

Of the original 36 students enrolled in MAT 378: Theory of Games, only 19 remained by the end of the add/drop period. Nick James ’27 dropped the course at the end of the first week.

“The syllabus for the course is just really fast paced … The class just seemed to be very linear algebra based,” James said. “Because Xiaoyu He is very ambitious with the course, I think that also intimidated a lot of the class too.” He, the instructor of the course, is a postdoctoral research fellow in mathematics.

For the most part, the largest classes this semester have historically maintained high numbers. The largest class this semester is POL 396: International Organizations, taught by James Raymond Vreeland, which currently holds 420 students and has grown each year since it was first offered in Spring 2020 and has always been close to its enrollment cap.

POL 332: Topics in American Statesmanship: The Art of Statesmanship and the Political Life, however, was not previously close to its enrollment cap until this semester. The course currently has 255 students enrolled, nearly 7 times the enrollment that it had in the most recent semester it was offered, Spring 2023. In contrast to dropped courses, where 29 courses decreased by at least 20 percent, no courses increased in enrollment by more than 25 percent. The highest percent enrollment occurred in POL 240: International Relations, taught by Christopher Blair, where enrollment increased by 10 students, a growth of 21 percent.

Although the add/drop period for this semester has ended, students are permitted to drop classes through Friday, April 5 for a $45 fee.

Alexa Wingate is an assistant Data editor for the ‘Prince.’

Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’

All-male, all-ORFE a cappella group

Valentine’s Day fundraiser fails to resonate

By Caroline Rasmussen Staff Humor Writer

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

Following the lead of other campus a cappella groups, Princeton’s premier all-male and all-ORFE a cappella group, The Quarter-Zips, recently hosted a Valentine’s Day fundraiser where students could pay $10 for the group to sing a song to their special someone.

However, many students who received a singing-gram were not pleased.

“I was pooping in the bathroom and they came in and began belting ‘Mr. Brightside’ at the stall door,” said one senior, who wished to remain anonymous. “The timing was absolutely terrible, and the soloist was pretty pitchy.”

Another student told the Daily PrintsAnything that “they came into Late Meal wearing only jorts and quarter-zips cut into halter tops, butchering the lyrics

to ‘The Real Slim Shady.’ I asked them to leave, but they followed me back to Forbes and sang Eminem’s greatest hits for another twenty minutes.”

Shruti Singh ’24 told the ‘Prints’ they ruined her Valentine’s date at Agricola by singing Kanye West’s “Gold Digger.” “I swear, I didn’t choose that song. I just happen to always pick up the bill,” said her boyfriend.

“We also did a tight rendition of ‘Take Me Home, Country Roads,’” said music director Phineas Breaux. However, Breaux acknowledged that the act wasn’t as popular as the group had hoped, and they didn’t meet their fundraising goal.

“How else are we supposed to make money?” said Breaux, burning his tongue on coffee from his Morgan Stanley mug.

Caroline Rasmussen is a staff Humor writer. She’d love to hear the Quarter-Zip’s rendition of Karma Chameleon. She can be reached at cr3730@princeton.edu.

Nude olympics revived following sudden snowstorm

By Lauren Owens Staff Humor Writer

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

Students woke up on Tuesday, Feb. 13 to Princeton’s heaviest snowfall in over two years. Snow continued throughout the morning, accumulating an overall depth of almost a third of a Greek cubit.

Although it has been 25 years since the last Nude Olympics took place, reverence for this legendary event is still pervasive in campus culture. In the days leading to the 13th, students became aware of the potential for heavy snowfall, so a few leaders stepped forward to bring back the event, spreading the word via Canvas, email, LinkedIn, and Ed Discussion that they would be reviving the Nude Olympics.

On Tuesday, students flocked to Holder Courtyard as early as 7 a.m. and stripped down while the snow was still falling. The competition was divided into two trials, with the same set of events. Some of these contests were the same as those in the original Nude Olympics, such as pushups, wheelbarrow races, and

running, but this year’s competition also introduced some brand new events, including climbing the Holder Tower and hot dog eating, courtesy of the RoMa Dining Hall. The first phase pitted representatives from each eating club against each other. Nine clubs were represented, with only Tiger Inn and Cloister failing to send any competitors. It is rumored that Tiger Inn has maintained its own secret, in-house Nude Olym -

pics throughout the 21st century, so its members are supposedly saving their strength. Cloister’s athletic committee wanted to assemble a team but could not find any members who were not scared of water that isn’t in the liquid state.

The second phase was comprised of residential college teams. Yeh College, who sent their Yeti mascot as the single competitor, won by a landslide.

One of the organizers, Richard

“Dick” Gross ’24, raved about the success of the event, repeatedly insisting, “I’d like to see them try and stop us!” and explaining how they “plan to hand down the organization of the event to some of [his] zees in Holder. Go Rocky Squirrels!”

Lauren Owens ’25 is a staff Humor writer who has never participated in the Nude Olympics as far as her parents know.

PHOTO COURTESY OF JAMES TRALIE ’19 Blair Arch.

LAUREN OWENS / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Holder Courtyard.

“Flavor oF The MonTh”

By Jasin Cekinmez Staff Constructor

ACROSS

1 Boasts

6 Ship that accompanied the Niña and the Santa Maria

11 "Exit" on a computer

14 2011 teen movie starring John C. Reilly

15 Indigenous people who lived near a Great Lake

16 Role for Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix"

17 *Appetizers often eaten during Lunar New Year

19 It can give shape to hair

20 Cantaloupe, e.g.

21 Boise's state

23 *Cured meats that require no refrigeration

27 School of Buddhism with a name derived from the Sanskrit for "meditative state"

28 De Armas of "Knives Out"

29 Tarantulas, e.g.

30 Ivy Leaguers who lost 70–25 against Princeton Tigers women's basketball this year

32 Strips of wood

34 Subject of GSG election controversy

35 John who sang "Rocket Man"

37 Moved slowly to avoid detection

40 Instruction at the end of many recipies ... or a hint to the answers to the starred clues

45 Diet that includes fruits, meats, and nuts

46 Jewish spiritual leader

48 Day ones, for short

51 Underwater detection system

54 Chess piece that can move horizontally or vertically

55 Agree to a deal

58 ___ culpa

60 When there may be a countdown: Abbr.

61 *Vegetables found in a certain orange soup

64 First prime minister of India

65 Similar

66 Era

67 *Dish that might have kale, citrus, and pomegranate seeds

73 Victory, slangily

74 Time to hit the baseball

75 Census measurement that contains about 4,000 people

76 This or that

77 Lion sounds

78 Sea mammal that holds paws when it sleeps

DOWN

1 K-pop group currently in hiatus

2 Position in the U.S. House, informally

3 Opposite of departure: Abbr.

4 German brothers who wrote Cinderella

5 Independent Senator Kirstyn

6 Taken by mouth, as medicine

7 Removes creases

8 Zero

9 Business card abbr.

10 Italian home of St. Francis

11 Betrothed

12 "Now listen up, pal!"

13 Larger than life Roman statues

18 Valleys in the mountains

22 Father

23 Opposite of buys

24 Bring together

25 Major for some physicists, for short

26 Underdog victory

27 ___ group

31 What you wash your hands with

33 Follow, as a suggestion

36 U.S. cryptology org.

38 Golf score to shoot for

39 Ivan the Terrible, e.g.

41 Actress Kaitlin of "Finding Dory"

42 Glowing lights

43 Certain steak cut

44 Some Gen Z male TikTokers

47 Eisenhower's nickname

48 Anthem of the U.S.'s neighbor to the north

49 It makes things stick together

50 Certain auctioneering eponym

52 Good luck charms

53 Broadcast again

56 Big ___, coastal stretch in California

57 Failed Australian initiative to get rid of a flightless bird species

59 Invites out for

62 Host country of the 2022 World Cup

63 Body part that beats

68 Diminuitive Spanish suffix

69 Curry's org.

70 ___ pulldowns

71 1 or 11, in Blackjack

72 Talk about going from casual to exclusive, maybe: Abbr.

By Ryland Graham

Princetonians should be multilingual: expand PDF option for language study

Aidan Gouley Columnist

For students working toward an A.B. degree at Princeton, the foreign language requirement is a core part of their undergraduate education. For those starting at the 101 level, the requirement constitutes an introduction to rigorous language study that will span at least three semesters of college. Though many students test out of intro courses and into intermediate or advanced-level courses, the language requirement ensures meaningful student engagement with a critical field of study.

However, many Princetonians cease language study after completing the core requirement. In light of a disturbing national trend of institutions of higher learning shifting away from foreign language programs, Princeton should seek to defend the value of language study, encouraging students to pursue advanced language study in multiple languages. Specifically, language classes

taken beyond the requirement should have a pass/D/fail (PDF) option.

In the past decade, foreign language enrollments on the collegiate level have tumbled dramatically. In the half-decade between 2016 and 2021, enrollment declined by 17 percent nationally. This decline was only part of the more severe language enrollment decline of nearly 30 percent between 2009 and 2021. This downward trend has dramatically outstripped even the general decline in college enrollment. In all, 961 language programs have been eliminated nationally, approximately 8.2 percent of all programs at the University level.

Princeton must be cognizant of the practical implications of this decline in language study. The University’s robust language study options is a decreasingly common stance among U.S. institutions. From 2016 to 2021, universities have eliminated 172 German, 164 French, 105 Chinese, and 80 Arabic programs, two of which — Arabic and Chinese — are State Department critical languages.

These languages are essential to recognizing and engaging with an increasingly multilingual and interconnected world. Students who study them grow capable of connecting culturally, acquiring knowledge of customs and values through academic work, and engaging beyond the circumscribed bounds of English knowledge abroad.

A cross-lingual connection does not merely pertain to going abroad but is incredibly important to engage with an increasingly diverse United States, where some 20 percent of Americans speak a language other than English at home. Thus, engaging as a multilingual American in an increasingly multilingual environment is incredibly important. Beyond language study’s socio-political implications, Princetonians would be wellserved by the opportunity to grow as critical thinkers and learners while studying a second or third language. Presently, the University maintains a high standard for language course rigor. This makes sense

to compel students to engage deeply with the content, but those who have already proven their mastery of these skills should be able to engage with additional language courses in a less demanding manner.

Students who have already completed the University language requirement should be able to utilize the PDF option for introductory language courses. Providing this option would ensure that the bar to entry for any given language remains reasonable in light of the increased demands of study as an undergraduate career progresses. The PDF option would limit student concerns about the effects of language courses on their GPA, allaying the fears of students looking at both a highly competitive job market and graduate, law, and medical school admissions environment.

Expanding the availability of the PDF option will not undermine the rigor of introductory language courses. Students working toward fulfilling the undergraduate requirement would still be held to the same

standards as before. Preserving the rigor of introductory courses is essential to ensuring a robust foundation for further study; the benefit of increased access ought not come at the expense of entering students. Having PDF students in the class will not affect the experience of students in their first language class, especially since these students have already demonstrated their commitment to the material by enrolling in the class.

Princeton seeks to accomplish a rather noble — and practical — objective by requiring students to study a single foreign language to proficiency. The University should follow this prerogative to its logical conclusion, increasing proficiency in multiple languages — it is both in line with its commitment to service and its fundamental mission as an institution of higher learning.

Aidan Gouley is a first-year from Fairfield, Conn. intending to major in Politics. He is a columnist at the ‘Prince.’

What recent defenses of legacy admissions get wrong

Anais Mobarak Columnist

As Princeton students, we are lucky that our education affords us endless opportunities. According to a recent study by Harvard economist Raj Chetty, the chance of reaching the top 1 percent of the income distribution is boosted by 60 percent for graduates of Ivy League schools and peer private institutions when compared to selective public colleges. The same study also finds that the chances of attending a prestigious graduate school or working at a prestigious firm are doubled and tripled, respectively, for graduates of these schools.

In addition to these impressive outcomes, Princeton alumni are also entitled to the privilege of their children receiving a boost in the admissions process.

If already-privileged Princeton graduates are granted another benefit — one that helps their children secure a spot at a potentially life-changing institution that for many could be an engine of upward mobility — there must be a good reason. Recently, The Daily Princetonian has published two arguments for legacy admissions that highlight legacy students promoting institutional change and intergenerational culture. But some legacy students will be admitted to Princeton even without a boost, and these benefits can be realized through other means.

These are insufficient reasons for preserving preferential admissions for legacy applicants.

Before diving into the specific arguments, it is important to establish the existence of a legacy “boost.”

Chetty’s study quantified that for Ivy League institutions and their counterparts, legacy applicants, when applying to the school at which they have legacy status, have an acceptance rate four times that of non-legacy students with similar test scores, but their acceptance rate is only slightly higher for other colleges. This suggests that the legacy preference is real and sizable, for if all legacy applicants were objectively more qualified, there likely would not be such a stark difference in acceptance rates depending on whether or not their application is read by the admissions committee of the school that their parents attended.

In defense of this policy, columnist Ava Johnson writes that, especially as the alumni pool diversifies, upholding legacy admissions is important because legacy students have “greater initial insight into how the school should change in the future” and “the ability to see and illuminate the path towards that change.” But this argument assumes that the cultural change driven by legacy students is inherently progressive and forward-looking. Whereas Johnson examines specifically what it means to be a legacy student who is also an underrepresented minority, left

unexamined is what it means to be a legacy student who does not come from the same background. Many different stories could be told about Princeton to future students: perhaps fathers from the Class of 1990 tell their boys about how wonderful it was to be in the formerly all-male Ivy Club, leading their future legacy students to desire to change Princeton by returning gender-exclusion to eating clubs.

Moreover, there are countless other ways to inspire studentdriven change without preferential legacy admissions. For example, the Princeton University Library works on initiatives, such as “Archiving Student Activism at Princeton Collection” with the purpose of enabling students to get involved in activism by preserving organizations’ records, preventing “gaps in institutional memory” and sustaining activist projects.

Another defense of legacy admissions comes from columnist Sarah Park, who argues that legacy admissions is valuable because it fosters “the intergenerational community Princeton values so strongly.” But this is a subjective opinion: there is no reason why legacy students are uniquely important to upholding the intergenerational Princeton community that extends beyond our time as undergraduates. Connections are built in many ways, such as through membership of a student organization or eating club.

Even beyond smaller communities within Princeton, sim-

ply having attended the same school can forge a powerful intergenerational bond. Princeton is known to have a particularly strong alumni network that extends worldwide — a connection extended to both legacy and non-legacy students. After all, who among us hasn’t bumped into someone in a Princeton sweatshirt and started up a long conversation?

Preferential legacy admissions may be one of many mechanisms for promoting an intergenerational culture — shared group membership and experiences, for example, may contribute as well. Indeed, attendance at Princeton reunions, a quasi-proxy for the strength of the intergenerational community, is notably high even compared to our peer institutions like Yale and Dartmouth that also employ preferential legacy admissions, indicating that legacy admissions alone cannot be responsible for fostering an intergenerational culture.

Overall, Johnson and Park justify preferential legacy admissions by focusing on the unique ways in which legacy students contribute to university communities. But even if these were truly unique contributions, their arguments confuse a world without preferential legacy admissions for a world in which no legacy students are accepted. If legacy students were no longer given a boost because their parents attended Princeton, it is incredibly unlikely that legacies would cease to be accepted. This is because

benefits awarded to Princeton alumni can trickle down to their children — perhaps a Princeton graduate’s high-paying job could finance elite private schools, or help their child get an internship in the lab of their freshman-year roommate. As such, the children of alumni are probably already poised to submit strong college applications. Indeed, Chetty’s study concludes that without legacy preferences, legacy students would still have slightly higher acceptance rates because of their “favorable observable characteristics,” such as academic achievements, compared to applicants with similar test scores. Thus, ending legacy admissions would still leave room for legacy students to pave the way for change, as Johnson highlights, and an intergenerational community, as Park emphasizes.

Legacy students will be able to contribute to Princeton’s community regardless of whether a preferential admissions system is in place because many will be accepted without a boost. A robust argument for preferential treatment of legacy students should indicate why the extra legacy students admitted under a system of legacy admissions are uniquely important — not just why legacy students overall are important for our institution.

Anais Mobarak is a junior from Newton, Mass. studying chemistry. She can be reached at am7880@ princeton.edu.

Reactions: To bicker or not to bicker?

Christopher Lidard, Sarah Park, Chrisofer Robles, Siyeon Lee & Wynne Conger

Columnists, Community Opinion Editor, Assistant Opinion Editor & Associate Opinion Editors

1,193 sophomores, 80 percent of the Class of 2026, participated in this year’s Street Week, with 66 percent double-bickering. As in years past, Bicker and its merits were a source of contention among the student body. We asked our columnists to reflect on Street Week 2024 and Bicker, more generally.

For the next round of Bicker, ditch the ICC mechanism

Algorithms don’t care about you — through the most recent iteration of Bicker, countless members of the Class of 2026 have felt the implications of that fact. With the most recent troubles with the ICC website’s automation of the eating club invitation system, what was originally invented to simplify the convoluted process of club admission and bickeree preferences has unnecessarily gamified the Bicker process and left bickering only as a backup to selective sign-in.

Rather than a human-centered process that can create leeway for special circumstances or catch errors, the ICC Bicker system puts club placement in the hands of error-prone and unaccountable spreadsheet acrobatics. With unpredicted design flaws, such as the inability to handle the Friday morning traffic surge or arbitrarily requiring only two sign-in clubs to be ranked, the automated process brings much more harm than good and needs to be thoroughly reevaluated, if not overthrown.

Prospect Avenue and members of the ICC should reevaluate its usage of such an opaque and fallible program. Moving towards a manual club admission system, where invitations are not algorithmically arbitrated, would be one of the first

steps to redeeming the Bicker process from its inaccuracies.

Christopher Lidard is a Technology Columnist, a junior majoring in Computer Science with a policy emphasis, and a member of Terrace Club.

Having an “in” doesn’t always make bicker easier Bicker, as a selective process, is inherently and inevitably biased. For some, however, that comes as a relief. Many students spend their time in the same clubs, on the same sports teams, or part of Greek life leading up to the time they bicker. Surrounded by similar people, potentially part of the same few eating clubs, underclass students naturally want to end up in the same eating club as their peers.

However, when expectations fall short of reality, the emotional stress of Bicker can be all the more taxing for students who are a member of these groups. The idea of being hosed when getting into a club felt like a given can feel like rejection from the people closest to you, even when others say otherwise. The perceived social isolation of not being at the same level or as well-liked as peers can be worse for students who were accustomed to a tightly-knit, wellconnected community in their college experience thus far.

But ultimately, what Courtney Harrison ‘26 says remains true: “Social standing doesn’t speak to how you are as a person and your character … What’s important in being at this university and at any university is choosing people that really see you as you generally are.”

Sarah Park is a first-year intending to pursue a major in Comparative Literature. She is from Manila, Philippines.

With a growing student body, Bicker makes more and more sense.

Princeton sophomores want to bicker, that much is clear. But littered in this paper, you

will find opinions that call for abolishing and ending Bicker, suggesting their cultures are merely “defined by who they exclude.” Such indictments are not wholly unfounded: Bicker has been used by some as a vehicle for classism and antisemitism. But are a majority of today’s sophomores who participate in Street Week just morally bankrupt? Of course not.

The Class of 2026 was the first class admitted under the University’s plan of a four-year expansion of undergraduate enrollment. And as evidenced by their interest in eating clubs, many of these Princeton students want to join a culled community of peers, whether or not that is a Bicker or a sign-in club. This growing student body interested in eating clubs necessitates a strong commitment to a better Bicker that is defined by who it includes.

Every club on Prospect has an identity — Bicker just makes that identity intentional. With so many more students on Princeton’s campus, it is ever more important that clubs have the agency to choose who defines theirs. Rather than relying on games weaponizing freetime — like that of Charter’s selective sign-in — or filling up spots with students who may form internal cliques, anyway, Bicker allows its members to meet, converse, and engage with interested bickerees. Ultimately, Bicker allows for informed decisions and rejections that protect the well-being of the club’s members. So, while Bicker may have a troubled past and sign-in clubs are here to stay, its detractors cannot discount Bicker’s informed narrowing down of an ever-growing pool of interested sophomores.

Christofer Robles is the Community Opinion editor and is a member of the illustrious Cap & Gown Club.

It’s time to bicker—but maybe not for 18 hours

What can a Princeton student accomplish in 18 hours of their

life? Conduct a striking experiment on the unexplored areas of quantum physics or write a deeply introspective paper on 19th century philosophy, perhaps? How about spending every second of it on the streets of Prospect Avenue, all for the slim chance of bickering into one of Princeton’s 11 eating clubs?

Apart from the plethora of issues Princeton’s Bicker system carries — from the elitist gamification of social life to allegations of classist elitism — we need to reflect on the suffocating amount of time a prospective member must invest into showing interest for a club. The most recent iteration of Bicker at Ivy, for example, where each prospective member must interview with 10 of its members, involved over six three-hour time slots spanning through the week. This obviously doesn’t mean that every prospective member attended all six of Ivy’s possible Bicker sessions, but considering the abundance of other Street Week events of similar lengths, 10 conversations at one club can be more than burdensome.

When one of the most pressing concerns that pervade Princeton’s campus is the stress and rigor that debilitates its students’ mental health, the last thing that should take up a crippling portion of their weekday is a Bicker activity. This is not to say that those said activities are unimportant — but rather, that they need to be structured with more caution, efficiency, and intention throughout a longer span of time. With better management of their time-consuming Bicker process, eating clubs have the potential to build meaningful, reparative, and tight-knit communities all bound by a shared camaraderie. Let’s not make it more taxing of an activity than it needs to be.

Siyeon Lee is a first-year from Seoul, South Korea intending to major in History. She is an assistant Opinion editor at the ‘Prince’.

Cloister remains unsinkable… for now

At long last, the much-awaited confirmation has arrived: Cloister’s doors will remain open due to a successful Bicker season, advertising streak, and a remarkably lucrative fundraising campaign. However, members should not ease up just yet: in order to ensure the continued survival of Prospect Avenue’s smallest eating club, Cloister must continue to pursue rigorous efforts to rebrand the club as a desirable location for new members in the long run.

Luckily, the concerns of Cloister’s upperclass students were assuaged. The effective recruitment of 103 new members has been a relief for many: members accredit this success both in part to “unprecedented show of [financial] support” and a strong advertising push. The club reportedly exerted great efforts to promote Cloister’s reputation as a “wholesome friend group,” while simultaneously disassociating from its historical reputation of being “an old boys club … for ‘floaters and boaters.’”

However, Cloister isn’t out of the woods just yet. Not only is the club no stranger to risks of dissolution, but many of the newly recruited members did not rank Cloister as their top choice. Although many of the current members remain unperturbed by the state of the club, the threat of going underwater remains present. In order to maintain membership levels, sustain the legacy of the club, and alleviate the concerns of underclass students, Cloister must persist in rebranding its current image and reviving the club as a sought-after Street Week stop.

Wynne Conger is a first-year and prospective SPIA major from Bryn Mawr, Pa. She is an associate Opinion editor.

Princeton’s ‘startup culture’ is just not well-suited to attack today’s problems.

INNOVATION

Continued from page 1

healthcare” with “payer-focused solutions that enhance efficiency and maximize value” (read: focus on extracting higher profits for health insurance companies, not on health), a plug-in that scans your online grocery shopping cart for nutritional value, and a higher-profit, easier way for wealthier people to invest in real estate or become a landlord.

TigerLaunch promotes companies who offer a way to skip the line at concert venues for a fee, a way to send songs to “music influencers” for a fee, and a way to port schedules between different web platforms.

And this isn’t limited to student-run organizations: the Keller Center eLab boasts companies selling an extension for food

delivery to get on campus, a discount resale platform for overproduced clothing, a grocery-list-creating integration, and a plug-in for carbon offsetting at checkout while shopping online (by the way, carbon offsets don’t and can’t help achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions).

Clearly, this kind of “rent-seeking” — an activity that exploits an information gap or presents commodities to consumers differently —  is the easiest way to reap profits with very little innovation. “Rentseeking,” a term coined by economist Anne Krueger, refers to profiting through market manipulation rather than by contributing to productivity. Though the term often describes lobbying or policy influence, it’s also a useful way to describe other types of efforts to amass wealth with minimal productivity impact.

The phenomenon of rent-seeking innovation goes beyond Princeton: it is epito-

mized by companies like DoorDash and Uber and represents a significant departure from the spirit of genuine problemsolving. The “innovation” of these companies is to find more cost-efficient ways to sell an existing product (i.e. takeout, rides) — and for these companies who have made it big, the insight is generally new ways to exploit labor.

These rent-seeking services often provide a product that people want to consume — and they can even have a positive impact — but they fall short of the transformative potential that innovation can bring us and that Princetonians are uniquely positioned and resourced to realize. These companies do not address the pressing issues that demand our attention and ingenuity, like electricity storage, biodiversity restoration, sustainable materials, water accessibility, large-scale carbon capture, affordable and sustainable hous-

ing, education innovation, redistributive financial vehicles, medical advances, and effective mental health treatments, to name a few. We can’t afford to use our time on rent-seeking — wringing out the dregs of profit by making broken systems run more smoothly when we so desperately need innovation that tackles problems systemically.

Part of the problem is that Princeton’s “startup culture” is just not well-suited to attack today’s problems. The overwhelming profit incentive, no matter how insignificant the “solution” provided or how small the profit, leads to rent-seeking. We need new structures for innovation, ones that are strong, well-funded, and full of scientists and other transformational thinkers — we need a new Idea Factory modeled on Bell Labs. Princeton could be that, and undergraduate students can and should be involved.

Princeton and its community of innovators have a pivotal choice. True innovation involves the technological breakthroughs of basic science and medicine, systemic reform of law and policy, and the collective teamwork of building robust public institutions to support human flourishing. Princeton has the talent, resources, and responsibility to lead this charge. By embracing this more ambitious vision of innovation, we can pave the way for a future where it catalyzes societal transformation. We can’t afford to settle for the illusion of progress.

Eleanor Clemans-Cope (she/her) is a sophomore from Rockville, Md. intending to study economics. She spends her time making music with Princeton University Orchestra and the Triangle Club and good trouble with Divest Princeton.

vol. cxlviii

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The Holocaust is not your political tool

Abigail Rabieh Public Editor

When Israel “tried to tell 1.4 million people to flee on foot in 24 hours, we knew this was genocide. And now we see their final solution,” Ellen Li ’24 shouted at the emergency die-in for Rafah held outside Firestone Library last Wednesday. Referencing a “final solution,” words that invokes the Nazi plan to systematically murder every single Jew in Europe, in the context of a war fought through means of a totally different nature and guided by principles that stem from a totally different intent is a horrific representation of the anti-Jewish hatred that Li — and the members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) whom she represents — spreads. Furthermore, such an unjustifiable comparison represents the extent to which their activism operates in a self-created reality, entirely different from the one experienced by Gazans and Israelis in the conflict zone.

Some might wonder why words are relevant when there are lives at stake. Isn’t any rhetoric useful if it can minimize tragedy? Li and her peers are not waging a campaign of action, but of optics. An emergency die-in for Rafah will have no immediate or material effect on the lives for which they are advocating, who may be in imminent danger — this much is made clear by the fact that the so-called “emergency” action was postponed a day due to snow. Furthermore, the clarification Li provides to explain how her words were thoughtfully selected to directly target Jewish listeners is helpful in understanding the real aim of this campaign.

In an interview with the Daily Princetonian following the event, Li stated why she used the incendiary words “final solution.”

“The reason we used the words ‘final solution’ is because we’re often accused of calling for a final solution. People often accuse Students for Justice in Palestine of calling for a genocide of Jewish people, while it’s actually the State of Israel that is committing a genocide of the Palestinian people. It’s a reversal.”

In order to dismiss concerns about a resurgence of hatred against a minority suffering from intergenerational trauma due to an almost successful attempt at their annihilation, Li and

her peers saw fit to wrongfully turn sufferers into oppressors. They — and I use a group term because Li uses “we” when clarifying the intention of the language —  make a one to one comparison. They work against an assumption they impose upon their audience: many see SJP as perpetrators of enmity against Jewish victims. Instead, they claim that the reverse is true.

The obvious conclusion of this comparison is that while SJP represents the Palestinians, the victims, Israel represents the Jews, the guilty ones.

This sentiment draws sharp and hate-filled boundaries along ethnonational lines, indicating that it is one’s belonging to a certain people which defines their status as either good and bad. Li’s rhetoric suggests that she thinks entities — be they student groups or nations — represent entire populations, and that the actions of the former constitute grounds for universal judgment of the latter. Such a racist claim, made with the same terms in which racism against Jews was channeled into a plan for their genocide less than a century ago, is disturbing in its nonchalant attitude towards this history and hatred. It’s clear that this statement was made not to magnify the suffering of Gazans and advocate for avenues through which relief could be found, but primarily to target and vilify Jews by weaponizing their pain.

Raising awareness is of course a noble goal, and publicly using bodies to disrupt the daily lives of students going in and out of Firestone is a useful tool for turning attention to the grave plight faced by Gazans in Rafah. But, it is crucial to remember that the intentions of these activists remain rhetorical in nature — there is no direct policy change that will come from the die-in, and certainly none that will help those in mortal danger.

Yet SJP, Princeton Alumni for Palestine, and Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest Coalition use purposely inflammatory language to attract attention that distracts from the horrors experienced by Gazans and Israelis, and is at odds with the goal of raising understanding of and awareness about their struggles. Not only is alluding to Israeli actions as the Nazi “final solution” horrifically callous, it’s a pointless and unhelpful comparison in the context of this war.

Whatever atrocious suggestions have been made by racist Israeli politicians about their military hopes for destruction in Gaza, one cannot understand this conflict through these terms of premeditated, planned, and unprovoked industrial mass murder. In a U.N. court ruling last month, Israel was charged to “take action to prevent acts of genocide,” but not “to stop its military offensive,” which was named as an act of self-defense by the American government. Israel has no blueprint for total annihilation of an ethnic group. Outside of Gaza, for example, there are around 2 million Palestinian citizens of Israel and an estimated 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank who are not targets of this war. Claiming that a targeted elimination plan exists only further obfuscates the complex conflict over the future of Gaza.

When these groups divorce their language from its real meaning, they demonstrate that their activism is not intended to interact with the real situation in Gaza and Israel, but to create a new reality that defines the relationship between Palestinians, Jews, and outsiders in terms that have nothing to do with truth. Further examples are can be found on a Sunday Instagram post, when these communities declared the ‘Prince’ complicit in genocide for rejecting a guest op-ed submission: such a patently absurd claim removes all the weight that the word genocide carries in the first place.

To discuss the utility and moral implication of comparing the Holocaust to other genocides — alleged or real — is far outside the scope of this column. However, Li’s declaration that the comparison was made not to impress upon listeners the dangers and horrors faced by Gazans in Rafah but to accomplish “a reversal” that purposefully weaponizes Jewish historical trauma to specifically cast Jews as evil, in the same way their murderers were, goes beyond such a conversation. It reveals a driving force for her activism, and that of those whom she represents: a desire to promulgate anti-Jewish hatred.

Abigail Rabieh is a junior in the history department from Cambridge, Mass. She is the public editor at the ‘Prince’ and can be reached via email at arabieh@princeton. edu or on X at @AbigailRabieh.

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Princeton Pictures brings movie magic to campus

By Chloe Lau Staff Features Writer

“Film is the best artistic medium. It combines every aspect of art. It’s visual. It’s audible. But at its core, it’s human,” said Connor Odom ’26. Odom first got into film in fifth grade, when he acted in a small role in a short film. He transferred to Princeton in fall of 2022, after working for seven years full-time in the videography and film industry.

“I’ll never forget it,” he added. “It changed my life, being on set and seeing the whole operation around me — all the lighting, the directing, the energy.”

But upon arriving at Princeton, Odom found that there was “no film community on campus.”

“There were a lot of people that were across campus that had [an] interest in doing film,” Odom said, “but there wasn’t an outlet for that.”

Similarly, Hailey Mead ’24 had served as treasurer of Princeton Film Productions, but she said it dropped off in 2021 due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, however, when students flocked to the “Oppenheimer” filming in East Pyne courtyard, she realized lots of students were still interested in film.

Looking to rebuild the campus film community, Mead,

Odom, and Kate Stewart ’25 founded Princeton Pictures (PPic) in the fall of 2023. Mead is the PPic president, and Odom is the vice president. Stewart is the co-director of PPic’s Princeton Film Festival in the spring. In its first year, the club has grown to approximately 150 members. A production-based film club, PPic’s crew works handson with all the fundamentals of film production, from screenwriting, casting, and filming on set, to sound directing. In this way, PPic distinguishes itself from networking-focused film clubs like Princeton in Hollywood or clubs focused on film screenings and reviews like the recently restarted Princeton Film Society. Before PPic, students gained hands-on experience through the Princeton Film Productions group, which last held a 48-hour film festival in December 2022.

“I would love to see in my lifetime more Princetonians be directors and writers,” Odom said. “And I think that starts with clubs like this existing and people having the chance to be on set.”

“We started at ground zero,” said Mead, who worked to start PPic as her entrepreneurship certificate project. The team began with formulating the club’s infrastructure and processes and focused outreach at ac-

tivities fairs, social media, and word of mouth. In the fall, 25 students — serving as screenwriters, directors, producers, sound supervisors, and editors — produced two films: “Passenger” and “Paint Loss.”

Passenger Eric Fenno ’25 wrote and directed the nine-minute film “Passenger,” a romance that follows a girl’s songwriting process to cope with her boyfriend’s car crash, with the narrative flashing between past and present.

“Combining music and visuals is something that I think is really interesting,” he said. “Music sets the tone and even provides characterization. It creates a whole atmosphere for the movie.”

Though Fenno had pursued small independent projects with friends or for classes, “Passenger” was the first time he had an entire crew behind him.

“It’s important to know that as much time as I spent working on this film, I didn’t make it,” he said. “There are so many different elements that I technically oversaw, but a lot of the time [I] left it to the people who were specialized in those areas. An army of us made it.”

Fenno came to understand all the “little things” to pay attention to during filmmaking: weather changes during out-

door scenes, motion alignment between takes of running shots, and the inference from unpredictable background noises such as a baby crying.

“It’s a lot of fun, but filmmaking is no joke,” Fenno said. But when everything comes together, he added, “You really get a sense of that movie magic.”

The “Passenger” director added that film as an art form makes him see beauty where he wouldn’t have found it before.

“There are so many stories or images you come across every day that can easily be dismissed as ordinary life or even negative,” Fenno said. “Film has allowed me to see a lot more of those things as beautiful stories or images. Especially around [campus], there’s so much to be seen and to be heard — it makes me really appreciate a lot of those things more than I would have.”

Paint Loss

Paige Morton ’25, an art and archeology major with a concentration in film and a varsity basketball player, started making YouTube videos when she was 14 years old and fell in love with video editing.

“When I got to college, I took a narrative filmmaking class,” Morton said, “and that really just changed my life. I really felt like I found what I love to do in

that class, and then I became a film major.”

Morton wrote and directed the original script of “Paint Loss,” a nine-minute comedy and horror film. The plot follows two girls in an art class about painting the people they grieve — Marilyn paints her missing boyfriend, who the second girl, Bonny, was holding hostage. Jealous of Marilyn’s boyfriend for being the best art student, Bonny held him hostage to produce a painting that would earn the approval of her art teacher.

“I had been thinking about horror movies, and I kind of wanted to put a little fun spin on them,” Morton said. “I also wanted to utilize the dark academia vibe [on campus] and the energy of the troubled psycho artist.”

When it came time for staging and production, Morton noted the “raw energy” on set. “Everyone’s kind of willing to do whatever it takes,” she said.

Morton said she was impressed by the openness of the PPic community, explaining, “There are people from all different experience levels, which is awesome. Receiving only a budget of $500 from ODUS, she noted, “We don’t have these crazy Hollywood budgets, so you have to be super creative with your limitations.”

COURTESY OF MICHELLE TANG ’26.

Paige Morton ’25 leads the cast and crew of her directorial debut “Paint Loss.”

Friday February 23, 2024

As a first-time producer on “Paint Loss,” Mead gained insight into the collaborative process.

“I’ve learned to totally trust the people that I work with and trust the decisions that the directors make,” Mead said. “When I was on set for ‘Paint Loss,’ everybody was smiling and just having a really good time on set.”

The Premiere

The club’s most notable event was a red-carpet premiere of the two student-produced films on Dec. 12 in McCosh 10. Fancy attire was encouraged at the event, which included photographers and a Q&A with Morton and Fenno after the screening.

With a total of 220 attendees at the premiere, Morton remembered feeling very nervous, but noted that she still had a good time with her basketball team, friends, and film crew.

“It’s always scary to show your work in front of people,” she explained. “I’ve never really felt comfortable doing that, and I don’t think I will ever get chill about that. But overall, it was so fun.”

One of the attendees, Madison Linton ’24, said it was her first film premiere and that she was impressed by the contrast between the two films. “The stark difference between the genres pulled a large group of people together,” Linton said.

“The amount of community that [PPic] have been able to build in just the past year has been incredible to be able to watch and experience,” she added. “I’m really looking forward to what they produce next.”

Beyond the premiere, Odom and Mead share the larger goal of creating a supportive campus filmmaking community outside of an academic context. Odom explained that because film requires more technical equipment than other art forms, it requires more funding and is less accessible.

There is no official film ma-

Features

jor or minor on campus. Students can either major in Art and Archeology or minor in Visual Arts, with a concentration in film. Only 4–8 students are accepted as visual arts film minors every year.

“That’s kind of the problem,” he said. “You have people like me, who have worked in the industry, who are applying against someone who is newer to the art form but has an actual interest in the art form, but won’t get the chance to do it because the department is so small.”

The VIS department did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. The Daily Princetonian has previously reported on difficulties with high demand for VIS resources and funding.

As PPic looks ahead, Mead also emphasized staying faithful to the PPic’s DEI values while deciding on new scripts for production.

“[Our goal is] to have more diverse stories be told,” Mead said. “We are hoping to expand into new genres this semester and make sure we have a strong infrastructure to support that growth.”

This semester, PPic will be directing “Double Dash” and “The Reverie,” which are thriller and horror/mystery films, respectively. The club will host a Princeton Film Festival (PFF) instead of a premiere, which will take place over a few days in April to include more screening events and workshops.

Through PPic’s larger-scale initiatives, Odom said that his ultimate goal for PPic to be comparable to larger arts communities on campus, like theater and dance.

“A lot of things in museums are hard to identify with [on] a human level,” Odom said, “but movies and TV have this way of connecting to us on a human level that other art forms can’t.”

Chloe Lau is a staff Features writer for the ‘Prince.’

Hailey Mead ’24, Paige Morton ’25, and Marisa Hirschfield ’27

COURTESY OF BRAD RINDOS ’23.

The cast and crew of “Paint Loss” smiles at the Princeton Pictures Fall 2023 Premiere.

COURTESY OF MICHELLE TANG ’26. Sam Spector ’24 and Sabina Jafri ’24 are guided through a scene by Director Eric Fenno ’25 on the set of “Passenger.”

the PROSPECT. ARTS & CULTURE

‘American Fiction’ USG Movies review: humor from the harsh reality

By Annie Wang | Assistant Prospect Editor

Coming off of five nominations from the 2024 Academy Awards, Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” was USG Movies’ latest pick for their free weekly showing at the Princeton Garden Theatre.

The comedy/drama, which premiered in September 2023, follows the protagonist Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, portrayed by Jeffrey Wright. A Black author and professor, Monk has published several novels, however, none have received critical acclaim. While he navigates the publishing industry’s bias against books written by Black authors, Monk is also left to deal with his personal family struggles. Monk grows frustrated that to be praised, Black authors must write stories highlighting Black Americans’ struggles, like supporting character Sintara Golden’s “We’s

Lives in Da Ghetto,” portrayed by Issa Rae. Professional woes are compounded by personal ones when Monk’s sister passes away.

While navigating frustration with his field and grief for his sister, Monk is driven to write a book unlike any he has authored before. Under a pseudonym, Monk writes the very same kind of narrative he resents: a story focused on violence and crime, giving readers what they believe to be valuable insight into the Black American experience. Ultimately, the book becomes the highlight of his career.

While “American Fiction” is notable for its satire and witty dialogue, the storyline also delivers an authentic and complex examination of race, media, and family dynamics. Jeffrey Wright’s portrayal of Monk, despite the seriousness of the content, delivers refreshing comedic relief. For instance, when

Monk hastily removes his books from the “African American Studies” section of a bookstore as his book’s subject matter is unrelated, he humorously ignores an employee’s protest. This reflects a larger truth of “American Fiction,” for while the film grapples with heavy themes and harsh realities of racial discrimination, it offers balance with glimmers of levity.

While at times the plot of the movie feels like two separate stories — one in which Monk grapples with the expectations of Black authors and a second in which he struggles to accept the loss of his sister and to support his ailing mother — the two storylines intertwine as the film progresses. Monk is incentivized to use the earnings from the novels he wrote as a joke to provide amenities for his mother’s declining health. In doing so, he sacrifices his income for some -

thing more important to him: his family. However, with signs of his mother’s health getting worse, it is unclear to Monk how effective his efforts may be.

Jeffrey Wright, nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role for the upcoming award show in March 2024, delivers a genuine performance, making it difficult to imagine another actor taking on the role of Thelonious “Monk” Ellison. “American Fiction,” is a story about the intersection between media, family, and introspection. While Monk despises the portrayal of Black Americans in entertainment, “American Fiction” presents such narratives through a new lens, leading viewers not only to laugh but also reflect.

Annie Wang is an assistant editor for The Prospect from W. Va.

The Prospect 11 Weekly Event Roundup

By Ivy Chen, Staff Prospect Writer

Love Type Beat

by Nica

Evans ’24 & Tanéyah Jolly ’24

Feb. 22 & 23 & 24 at 8 p.m.

Lewis Center for the Arts

Wallace Theater, Lewis Arts Complex

A new play written and directed by Princeton seniors Nica Evans ’24 and Tanéyah Jolly ’24, which depicts Black women and femmes navigating love in its many forms, from familial to platonic to romantic. The play is based on interviews with women in their own lives. Reserve tickets through University Ticketing.

1 2 3 4

From Wind to Wonder! A Princeton Playhouse Ensembles Concert

Feb. 24 at 7 p.m.

Lewis Center for the Arts

Berlind Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center

The premiere of a concert put on by the Princeton Playhouse Ensembles, combining music theater sto- rytelling, performance, choreography, and more, featuring the work of current university students and alumni. The Ensembles will be joined by Broadway performers and will feature student-written compo- sitions alongside Broadway favorites. Free and open to the public. Get tickets through the McCarter Box Office.

Pipeline

Theater Intime

Feb. 23 and 24 at 8 p.m., Feb. 25 at 2 p.m.

Murray Theater

A new play written by Dominique Morisseau and directed by Alex Conboy ’25, following a public high school teacher seeking to provide her son with opportunities outside of their disadvantaged community and contending with the difficulties of parenting and healing from racial injustice. Reserve tickets on University Ticketing.

Traces: Collaborative Exhibition

Erin Macanze ’24, Kirsten Pardo ’24, and Julia Stahlman ’24

Feb. 26 to Mar. 8 open from 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.

Lewis Center for the Arts

Hurley Gallery, Lewis Arts Complex

A group exhibition of new work by Princeton seniors in the Program in Visual Arts, Erin Macanze ’24, Kirsten Pardo ’24, and Julia Stahlman ’24. Free and open to the public, no tickets required. 5 6 7

i, heresy: A new dance work

by Storm Stokes ’24

Feb. 29 at 8:30 p.m.

Lewis Center for the Arts

Hearst Dance Theater, Lewis Arts Complex

A new dance work by Storm Stokes ’24, studying the liberation of the Black spirit and how the contemporary Black believer experiences discourse. Featuring student dancers. Free; reserve tickets through University Ticketing.

8

KoKo Pops presents: KOKODEMIA

KoKo Pops Dance Company

Feb. 22 at 8 p.m., Feb. 23 at 8 p.m., Feb. 24 at 6:30 and 9:30 p.m.

Frist Theatre

A new dance show presented by KoKo Pops, Princeton’s premier K-pop cover dance company academia-themed show. Reserve tickets on University Ticketing.

Sinfonia Concert Presents: A Night at the Opera

Princeton University Music Department

Feb. 23 at 7:30 p.m.

Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall

Performance by the Princeton University Sinfonia, a full symphony orchestra, conducted by Dr. Ruth Ochs. Includes operatic works by Bernstein, Mozart, and more. Purchase tickets on University Ticketing.

10

SYMPOH presents: Heartbreakers

Sympoh Urban Arts Crew

Feb. 29 at 8 p.m.

Frist Theatre

A new dance show present- ed by SYMPOH, Princeton’s elemental hip- hop dance group, focusing on breakdanc- ing, popping, and locking. Reserve tickets on University Ticketing.

9

Book Club: “Musicophilia”

by Oliver Sacks

Feb. 28 at 10:30 a.m.

Princeton Public Library

In advance of the “Healing with Music” event by Princeton Univer- sity Concerts, the public library is holding a book club meeting, with discussions led by Dr. Concheta Tomaino, Sacks’ fellow co-founder. The book, “Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain,” is a collec- tion of short stories exploring music’s place in the human brain and human condition.

11 Ancient, Indigenous, and Modern Plays from Africa and the Diaspora

Ellipses Slam Poetry: In Translation

Ellipses Slam Team

Feb. 23 and 24 at 8 p.m.

Labyrinth Books

Feb. 29 at 6 p.m.

Labyrinth Bookstore

Discussion led by Professor and Chair of English Simon Gikandi, Lecturer at the Lewis Center for the Arts and Department of English R. N. Sandberg, and Director of the Program in Music Theater Stacy Wolf, over their new book: Ancient, Indigenous, and Modern Plays from Africa and the Diaspora. The anthology includes plays from ancient, indigenous, and modern times from Africa and the Caribbean Diaspora. Co-sponsored by Princeton’s Humanities Council, Lewis Center for the Arts, African American Studies Department, and Program in African Studies.

Class of 1970 Theatre, Whitman College Spoken-word performance by Ellipses Slam Team, where Princeton students will read oral poetry. Reserve tickets on University Ticketing.

Men’s basketball dominates Yale to hand the Bulldogs their first Ivy loss of the season

By Hayk Yengibaryan & JP Ohl Associate Sports Editor & Staff Sports Writer

“We’ll be ready,” senior guard and captain Matt Allocco told the Daily Princetonian following the win against Brown on Friday night.

The Tigers (19–3 overall, 7–2 Ivy League) were indeed ready, outplaying the Bulldogs (17–7, 8–1) for 40 minutes en route to a 73–62 victory. Princeton not only handed Yale its first loss in Ivy League play, but they also prevented the Bulldogs from securing a new best start to an Ivy League season in their program’s history.

“That’s a really good team, you have to play well to beat them,” head coach Mitch Henderson ’98 told the ‘Prince’ postgame. “We really dictated things physically, which was part of our intent.”

On national television and in front of 4,358 faithful Tiger fans, Princeton earned its biggest win of the season. Sophomore guard Xaivian Lee led the way with 19 points while Allocco added 18 of his own.

“It’s awesome playing in front of the students,” senior forward Zach Martini added. “The students getting here an hour before tipoff was a great feeling. It’s something we’re not really used to … We only have two more games here, so keep it rolling.”

The most impressive feat for the Tigers was on the defensive end, where they held forward Danny Wolf — front-runner for the Ivy League Player of the Year award — to zero points.

“I thought the effort on [Wolf] was terrific,” Henderson noted. “Wolf is a little bit of everything, he hurt us in their place. We were really active and Zach [Martini] and Caden [Pierce] were terrific on him.”

Less than a minute into the game, sophomore forward Caden Pierce took a hard fall and started bleeding from his chin, missing six minutes and needing five stitches in the locker room. His replacement — sophomore guard Jack Scott — provided a burst of energy off the bench.

“Jack [Scott] coming in was a seamless transition,” Martini noted. “For him to come into the post, we didn’t lose a beat. I think that just shows dividends of how locked in we were tonight.”

Junior guard Blake Peters started the scoring with a three. However, Yale guard Bez Mbeng answered with two consecutive buckets in the paint. Mbeng is the reigning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year and served as the primary defender on Lee.

Shortly after, Allocco aggressively attacked the paint, and swiftly dished a pass to Martini, who readily hit a three from the corner. The triple gave the Tigers an early 8–4 lead.

Following the media timeout, Yale guard August Mahoney pulled up from behind the arc to give Yale its first lead at 13–12, but Martini eagerly tied the game with a three of his own. Martini

— who struggled Friday night against Brown — scored 10 points in the first half to lead the Tigers.

Down 18–15, Peters exposed Wolf, beating him inside for two quick points. Peters scored two baskets from inside the threepoint arc for the first time since last season’s Ivy League opener.

Forward Jack Molloy provided Yale with a spark, nailing a three to take a 23–21 lead. The Connecticut native played a bigger role on Saturday night due to Yale star forward Matt Knowling being out. Molloy scored six points and had the highest plus-minus of any Bulldog.

“Matt Knowling is a preseason player of the year, we didn’t have him, so that was tough,” Yale head coach James Jones told the ‘Prince’ postgame.

With under four minutes remaining in the half, Lee hit a triple to tie the game at 28. The shot sparked a Princeton run to close out the half. Allocco put Princeton ahead with a fadeaway shot over Danny Wolf’s outstretched frame with time expiring. After getting stops defensively, consecutive threes from first-year guard Dalen Davis and Allocco gave Princeton a 38–30 lead at the break.

“[Allocco]’s playing like a senior,” Henderson added. “We felt good about the matchups he was getting and he made some really tough late clock shots. He made all his free throws.”

The Tigers came out the gates hot once again, going on a 9–4 run to take a 47–34 lead. The run came courtesy of Pierce and Lee, highlighted by a Pierce and-one score over Wolf.

“I feel like my coaches and teammates put me in good positions to be successful,” Pierce added postgame. “At the end of the day, it comes down to making the right play and I think I did that down the stretch.”

It was a game of runs, as the Bulldogs went on a 13–2 run of their own to cut the deficit to two. Molloy yet again provided life for the seemingly stagnant Bulldogs, ripping an offensive rebound down and going back up to draw an and-one. With the momentum in the Bulldogs’ favor, Yale guard John Poulakidas hit a three to make it a one-possession game.

After hitting the first shot of the game, Peters emerged at a crucial time to draw and convert an and-one to pad Princeton’s lead again. However, Poulakidas demonstrated great resilience, hitting a buzzer-beater three after a nearperfect defensive sequence by the Tigers. With just over eight minutes remaining, the Tigers held a 54–50 advantage.

The Tigers continued to make strides in the next few minutes of the contest. Lee continued to dribble through the Yale defense, earning easy layups. Allocco attacked the rim at every opportunity possible, earning and converting free throws. The Tigers went 17-for-18 from the charity stripe in the second half, with Allocco securing seven of these for

Tigers. The game slowly pulled away from Yale, as Princeton held a 63–53 lead with just under four minutes remaining.

Up 69–60, a breakaway dunk from Pierce put the nail in the coffin. Minutes later, the final buzzer sounded, with the Tigers coming out on top, 73–62.

“This group has a very strong will to win,” Henderson told the ‘Prince.’ “I’m glad to see that.”

The Tigers shot 48.3 percent from the field and 37.5 percent from beyond the arc in the first half. In the second half, the shooting worsened, but the Tigers were more aggressive and attacked the rim more. Turning the ball over just once and not missing a single free throw in the second half helped secure the 11-point win for Henderson’s squad.

“I thought we were not great offensively tonight, we were not

patient enough to get the things we normally get,” Jones noted.

The rivalry between these two teams has been one to watch for fans across the country. The two sides met in the final game of the Ivy Madness tournament in both 2022 and 2023, with the Bulldogs clinching a two-point win in the former and the Tigers emerging victorious in the latter.

This year, the Tigers currently sit in third place behind Cornell (19–4, 8–1) and Yale. The Tigers will likely need to sweep the rest of the season and hope for a Bulldogs loss to clinch the regular season title and the first seed in the Ivy Madness tournament, where the Bulldogs and Tigers may meet once more.

“We want to see them again,” Martini added. “We love playing them.”

The next opportunity for Princeton to make up some ground in the standings will be next weekend when they travel north to take on the Harvard Crimson (13–9, 4–5) and Dartmouth Big Green (5–17, 1–8). The Tigers beat both squads by 31 and 18 respectively at home earlier this season and will be big favorites to do so once more next weekend.

When asked if this year’s team can repeat what last year’s team accomplished, Martini quickly responded, “No doubt in my mind. We got the belief, the spirit to win ... the coach. I have no doubt.”

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

JP Ohl is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’

Despite an early game injury, sophomore forward Caden Pierce returned to the game and scored 11 points to lead the Tigers to victory.

FEATURE

‘A special place at a special time’: Inside Princeton baseball’s analytics revolution

By Joseph Uglialoro Staff Sports Writer

When Joe Haumacher was hired as pitching coach for the Princeton baseball team prior to the 2023 season, the program was in dire straits. The Tigers were coming off a season in which they went 7–33, finishing in the basement of the Ivy League. They also finished last in the league in both 2019 and 2020, with the 2021 season shelved due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For Princeton, Haumacher represented the centerpiece of a shifting philosophy under longtime head coach Scott Bradley. The baseball team would ride the wave of analytics revolutionizing baseball across the major leagues.

“First, analytics can show us what’s happening,” Haumacher told The Daily Princetonian during a sit down interview. “Number two, show us what it means. What does it mean to throw a strike versus a ball? What does it mean to have on-base percentage versus slugging percentage, and which is more important? The third is to innovate. Show us what’s going on, tell us what it means, then innovate from there.”

For Haumacher, analytics can be boiled down to a simple concept — collecting data on baseball games, analyzing and searching for trends in said data, and using it to help players improve their in-game performance.

With Haumacher as pitching coach, the baseball team won 17 more games in 2023 than they did in 2022, finishing 24–23 and reaching the Ivy League Championship. Before coming to Princeton, he served as pitching coach at Amherst College and Dixie State University, winning awards and spearheading turnarounds that brought both pitching staffs to new heights during his respective tenures. After a few years, Haumacher received and accepted a job offer from the Baltimore Orioles in 2020.

Owners of the top-ranked farm system in baseball, the Orioles have a league-wide reputation as a leader in using analytics to develop successful major league players. While working across the Orioles’ minor league system as a pitching coach, he was entrusted with the development of some of MLB’s most promising future stars. When Princeton came calling after the 2022 MLB season, Haumacher decided it was time to return to the college game.

A New Movement

After arriving at Princeton, one of Haumacher’s first contacts was Adam Maloof. Maloof was a former college baseball player and current professor in Princeton’s geosciences department. Maloof has been a faculty fellow with the baseball team since 2013. He is a familiar face around the program and a self–described “baseball lifer.”

“Back then, we didn’t have much interest in analytics with the college program, so I just hung out with the team,” Maloof recounted.

“It wasn’t until Joe arrived, who had experience with analytics with the Orioles, that he said ‘we have to have an analytics team.’”

Maloof and Haumacher hit the ground running, placing advertisements around campus in search of student leaders who were interested in data analysis and willing to help the team. Haumacher had set up a similar group at Amherst, and his and Maloof’s

experience coupled with student excitement created a program that rapidly snowballed. Maloof’s class Sabermetrics: An Analytical Approach to College Baseball, co-taught with Haumacher, received immediate interest last spring.

Senne Michielssen ’25 — a computer science major and the president of the Princeton Baseball Analytics Club — was one of the first students to respond to Haumacher and Maloof’s ads. With the help of Michielssen, Alex Dreger ’25, and a few other students, Haumacher and Maloof successfully created a groundswell of analytics interest. The next step? Finding a way to collect the data crucial to analytics.

Gathering Data

One of their first steps together was looking into Trackman, a powerful system that uses Doppler radar to track the flight of a ball and can be found powering data collection efforts at MLB stadiums and in practice facilities across the league. Due to the fact that the Trackman system is still a rarity at the college level, Haumacher and Maloof saw the opportunity to gain an edge and pounced immediately.

Once the acquisition process reached its final stages, Haumacher dipped into a well of experience and major-league connections to fast-track its use before the 2023 season. “We had people from the Orioles come and train our guys on how to set the Trackman up and how to use it,” Haumacher explained. The Trackman was set up just days before the Tigers’ 2023 home opener against Dartmouth and has been collecting data ever since.

With the Trackman fully operational, the baseball and analytics teams gained access to a flood of data pulled from every single scrimmage, game or even practice for which the machine is used. “There’s something like 80 or 90 variables that it’s tracking,” Maloof added. Maloof later helped convert Trackman data into an easily digestible spreadsheet.

Data Analysis

The next step in the process was analyzing the data pulled.

“We’re generating a massive amount of information, and probably 90 [percent] of it just isn’t useful,” Maloof explained.

The baseball analytics team meets every Thursday on the C level of Jadwin Gymnasium. At these meetings, a group of around 15 members, drawn from a variety of majors but each interested in baseball and data in their own way, discuss ways in which they can aid the baseball team using data collected from Trackman and other sources. With the season rapidly approaching, this usually means scouting reports.

“When we’re preparing for the season, we’re really trying to make sure the scouting reports are ready to go,” Michielssen explained. “Our goal is to produce reports that the coaches can use in the dugout that have information about our players and the opposing players.”

These reports usually involve details on opposing pitchers’ tendencies, information about which pitches to throw to which hitters, and other information that can be immediately useful to the Tigers and their on-field efforts.

Just as notable as the scouting reports — and perhaps more exciting for the analytics team — are the long-

term projects that each member of the team works on throughout the semester. Projects can range from app development to research papers, with each designed to address a specific facet of the game. Much of Maloof’s seminar was designed around project development, and each member of the analytics team has a story to tell about their own project.

“The biggest project I worked on involved making spray charts,” Michielssen explained. “Whenever there’s a batted ball, we want to be able to plot wherever that batted ball lands, so we can understand hitters’ tendencies.”

This data can help teams in a variety of ways, as a team trying to defend a batter who hits the ball to left field 80 percent of the time will shift their defense towards left field. Michielssen’s biggest challenge was finding a way to convert written data into numerical data points.

“We were trying to make these spreadsheets, but we were struggling because we didn’t have the right data,” Michielssen elaborated. The NCAA website gives verbal descriptions of each event during a baseball game, but not numerical information on where balls are hit.

“We used large language models to turn that textual data into numerical data, allowing us to make spray charts.” This project can have massive implications for players, granting them access to a wealth of data that would otherwise take hours to comb over.

In conversation, Michielssen stressed the point that anyone, regardless of experience level, can join the analytics team. He explained how plenty of members have never worked with data, and instead focus on hands-on testing of pitching machines or radar guns to optimize their performance.

“Analytics doesn’t just need to be for super nerdy math people, right?” he explained. “There’s something in baseball analytics for everyone, and everyone can find a project that they’ll find interesting.”

When Maloof sat down with the ‘Prince,’  he pulled out his iPhone and flipped through a series of apps until he found what he was looking for. He opened up an app, and a heat map of different batted ball speeds and launch angles appeared on the screen.

“This one is called ‘Hit or Not,’ and it’s for when the players are practicing inside,” Maloof added. “When you play inside, you want to take it seriously, but when you hit the ball into a net, you don’t know where it goes. This app takes exit velocity and launch angle data from the Trackman, and then you can predict what type of hit it was.”

Maloof developed this app himself, and anyone can find it on the App Store listed under his name. Players now use Maloof’s app at every practice and scrimmage.

With so much movement on the data analysis front, Haumacher, Bradley, and the rest of the coaching staff now have access to a wealth of information to help improve their players’ performance.

Analyst-Player Communication

Once the analytics team analyzes available data and creates scouting reports and projects, the ball returns to the coaches’ court where they decide how much information to give the players without overwhelming them.

“We just want to give the coaches the tools to make the players as best as they can be,” Michielssen explained.

Many of Haumacher’s beliefs on pitcher development heavily involve analytics, but some wouldn’t sound out of place coming from more traditional managers. He preaches location to his pitchers, noting that the first step to success is being able to throw strikes consistently.

Scouting reports are crucial to the analyst-coach-player communication pipeline, but are far from the only trick Haumacher has up his sleeve. One of his most important techniques, he explained, involves placing his pitchers in situations where they can be directly exposed to the data behind the

reports. He has his pitchers work with the Trackman directly on days when they’re not pitching them, giving them a window into the information that the analytics team collects.

The Road Ahead

Though the trees around the boathouse are still bare, and students still shuffle between classes in their puffer jackets under gray February skies, spring is rapidly approaching for the Princeton baseball team. With a whole season ahead, there exists reason for boundless optimism around every part of the Princeton baseball team. Haumacher pointed to analytics on the other side of the ball, led by hitting coach Kyle Bonicki, as yet another reason for hope.

“All of the sudden it’s become this big community,” he said. “I think that the next two years, Princeton baseball fans, kids in the program are gonna be pretty surprised about what we can pull off.”

He continued, expressing hope that last year’s 17-game turnaround was just the first step in a process that will transform the Tigers into a perennial contender.

“The payoff hasn’t quite been realized yet to the point where it’s a ‘holy s**t’ moment yet, but I think it’s coming.”

The upcoming season will undoubtedly be a difficult one. The team will spend almost all of March on the road, traversing North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. This stretch of out-ofconference road contests has traditionally plagued the Tigers, who often limp into Ivy League play well under .500.

This year, Haumacher believes, will be different.

“As far as I’m concerned, there’s not many other programs that are like this,” he said. “I just keep telling our recruits and our coaches — it’s a special time at a special place.”

Joe Uglialoro is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’

No. 25 women’s basketball storms past Brown, freezes Yale in busy weekend

By Max Hines Staff Sports Writer

With fifteen wins in a row, Princeton women’s basketball (20—3 Overall, 10—0 Ivy League) is a machine. Over the weekend, the team — No. 25 in the latest AP women’s college basketball poll — defeated the Brown Bears (14—9, 5—5) and the Yale Bulldogs (6—17, 3—7) to continue their rampage through Ivy League play.

Behind late comeback, Tigers down Brown

Ready to embark on a full weekend of play, the Tigers pounced from the jump. After Brown went up 2–0 in the early minutes, firstyear guard Skye Belker, sophomore guard Madison St. Rose, and senior guard Kaitlyn Chen drained three-pointers to bring the score to 9–2.

Off of a Brown timeout, Princeton continued their onslaught to take a 16–4 lead with 4:30 left in the first quarter. However, Brown dug their heels in, keeping Princeton’s lead hovering around 10. As the Bears began to find their footing, the two sides headed into the second quarter with Princeton comfortably up 20–10.

To start the second quarter, Head Coach Carla Berube’s suffocating defense forced three missed shots and two turnovers before Brown managed to score. Off a three from guard Olivia Young, Brown went on a 7–0 run, prompting Berube to call a timeout at 24–17.

Off the timeout, Princeton went on a mini 5–0 run and extended the lead back to 12. However, the Bears’ offense caught fire, and they scored 12 points over the last four and a half minutes of the second quarter. All of a sudden, after what seemed like just a momentary lapse from Princeton’s defense, the two sides headed into halftime in a onepossession game, with Princeton up 32–29.

In Princeton’s first game against Brown, the Bears shot a remarkable 47.8 percent from the three. Senior forward Ellie Mitchell spoke to The Daily Princetonian about the challenge of defending against Brown’s shooters.

“They hit so many threes on a lot of the same plays. A lot of them are actually threes that their four [power forward] was shooting,” Mitchell said. “Me and Chet [Nweke] were getting hit by a lot of flares and having to chase over, we’re not used to doing [that], so in practice, we repped that out a lot [in between games].”

The Bears’ three-point shooting prowess continued to give Princeton a headache, but not to the same degree as in the first matchup. Brown catapulted to a third quarter lead, helped by five successful threes in the frame. While the Tigers’ defense forced pressure inside, they had no answer for guards Olivia Young,

Grace Arnolie, and Kyla Jones. Before long, Princeton found themselves in a seven-point hole halfway through the quarter.

Baskets from sophomore forward Tabitha Amanze and senior guard Chet Nweke cut the lead back to three, and Princeton clawed their way back, culminating with a St. Rose jumper that gave the Tigers the lead back with 1:49 left in the third quarter.

Brown wrestled the lead back once more with a Young threepointer, but first-year guard Ashley Chea answered right back with a shot of her own to give Princeton a 55–54 lead heading into the fourth.

Princeton’s offensive prowess and defensive excellence shined in the final quarter, as the Tigers closed the game on a 13–8 run. With the fourth quarter strongly in Princeton’s favor at a score of 19–8, Princeton wrapped up yet another conference victory, this one with a final score of 74–62.

While the margin of victory was a comfortable 12 points, it wasn’t easy for the Tigers, who blew an early double-digit lead and had to claw their way back in the second half.

“We got off to a great start, and we kind of stumbled a bit, and Brown, all kudos to them, they played very well, they shot very well,” Mitchell told the ‘Prince.’ “They had a lot of energy the whole time, but we’re gonna keep battling, keep fighting till the end. We were finally able to pull away, which we’re obviously happy about, but [there’s] definitely some stuff for us to look back at and fill in these next few days of practice.”

Chen led the Tigers with 17 points — above her season average of 16 points per game. She also led the team in the two other main statistical categories, with a career-high ten rebounds and four assists, marking her third double-double of the season.

Tigers demolish the Bulldogs for best defensive showing in 42

years

Two of the first commands almost any dog will learn are “sit” and “stay.” Saturday night, those two words just about encapsulated the Yale offense’s reaction to the Princeton defense.

Not scoring over eight points as a team in a single quarter, and shooting 25.7 percent from the field while committing 27 turnovers, Yale’s offensive efforts were fruitless as Princeton trounced the Bulldogs.

The game started relatively even, as the two sides traded baskets to bring the score to six apiece in the early minutes. The Tigers then caught momentum heading into the first TV timeout, as three Yale turnovers led to three baskets for the Tigers and a 12–6 lead.

“[We were] just letting our defense fuel our offense — stop, score, stop, score, take it one play at a time,” Mitchell told the ‘Prince’ after the game. “And we always trust that the offense will

come if our defense is doing what it should be.”

Mitchell’s words rang true at the beginning of the first, and they would only be amplified after the timeout. Avoiding the inconsistency of the Brown game, the Tigers went on a 7–2 run to close out the first with a 19–8 lead.

Heading into the second, Princeton kept the onslaught going. Chen, St. Rose, and Mitchell all scored before the first TV timeout, and the Tiger defense forced four turnovers to go along with only three points for Yale. The last four minutes of the quarter were no different on the defensive side, but the Tiger offense sputtered, scoring only four minutes over that period.

Heading into the half, Princeton had a commanding lead at 32–15, but with a strong third quarter, Yale could’ve been right back in it.

However, a third-quarter comeback was not in the cards for Yale on Saturday night. Just in the first three minutes, Madison St. Rose scored eight points for the Tigers, equaling Yale’s

first-quarter point total.

The rest of the team played off of St. Rose’s energy, putting on a defensive master class while continuing to pile on the points offensively. With three minutes to go in the quarter, Princeton had just completed a 20–2 run to bring the lead to 52–17, at which point Yale needed a breath and called timeout. While Princeton’s offensive onslaught slowed down, Yale’s offense never woke up, and the two sides headed into the fourth quarter with Princeton holding a commanding 60–21 lead.

Even with most of the starters resting on the bench in the fourth, Princeton’s defense only got better. Over the first nine minutes of the fourth quarter, Yale could only muster two points, before tacking on two more in the closing seconds to bring their grand total to four in the quarter. Princeton tacked on 10 of their own, led by efficient shooting from the bench.

As the final buzzer sounded, Princeton defeated Yale 70–25. Once again, Chen led the scoring for the Tigers with 18 points

in only 29 minutes of play, and when all was said and done, 10 Tigers scored on Saturday, with nine people playing over 10 minutes.

“I think everyone just really brought it. Everyone was really locked in,” Mitchell said.

For the Tigers, the team hasn’t allowed so few points in 43 years, when the Tigers defeated Barnard — who no longer has a basketball team — with a score of 96–14. 25 points also represents Princeton’s third-lowest total points allowed ever against a conference opponent.

“We had great help defense,” Mitchell added. “If you know your teammates are there in the right position where if you get beat, they’ll be there, that makes the on-ball job a lot easier.”

Now, the Tigers head into another week of practice before their toughest regular-season matchup remaining against the Columbia Lions (18—5, 9—1). The game will tip off at 2 p.m. Saturday on ESPN+ from Levien Gym.

Max Hines is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’

Sports

By the Numbers: A Week in Princeton Athletics

By Andrew Bosworth & Harrison

Editor’s Note: Each week, Sports and Data editors analyze recent athletic competitions to provide analysis and insight on the happenings of Princeton athletics and individual players across the 38 intercollegiate teams at Princeton. Whether they are record-breaking or day-to-day, statistics deliver information in concise ways and help inform fans who might have missed the action.

Princeton Tigers Feb. 8–Feb.

14: Ivy Titles

Of the 21 games where a winner can be determined, the Tigers won 57 percent of them and 83 percent of games within the Ivy League. This does not include thirteen track and field meets as there is no winner of the meet, only of individual events. These thirty-four games and matches were played across 13 sports and six U.S. states over the past week.

Eleventh Heaven

The No. 2 men’s squash team, in their very last game at the C floor of Jadwin Gymnasium, reached the summit of the Ivy League for the first time in 11 years. The Tigers took down the first-place Penn Quakers, 5–4, in the final game of Ivy League play to clinch a share of the title.

This title marked the first for the Tigers since 2013 and the 19th for the program overall. Penn, with whom the Tigers share the title, also finished the season 6–1 within the Ivy League. The marks Penn’s fifth title all-time.

“It felt so good seeing all the alums there to support myself and the team and we are honored to be the one to break the losing streak,” junior Ahmed Wael told The Daily Princetonian. “It is a privilege to be one of the nine to play the last match in Jadwin, especially against such a strong team like Penn.”

Ivy League titles in men’s and women’s fencing

Men’s fencing shares the title with Columbia and Harvard, while women’s fencing shares the title with Columbia and Penn. This is the first time since 2017 both the men and women’s teams won the title in the same year. Princeton has achieved this feat seven times, second only in the Ivy League to Columbia’s 12 dual wins.

The women’s fencing team stands atop the Ivy League for the third year in a row after they shared the title with the Columbia Lions and the Harvard Crimson on Sunday in Manhattan. The No. 4 Tigers won five of their six matches on the weekend.

The No. 3 men’s fencing team overcame the Columbia Lions 1512 in the last match of the men’s competition. Senior epeé Tristan Szapary, junior saber RJ Anglade, and junior foil David Prilutsky all won simultaneously to deliver the Tigers a share of the Ivy title after not reaching the top of the podium since 2017.

Eight is Great and Four Tips of the Hat

Sophomore goalie Lindsey Lucas earned her eighth career Collegiate Water Polo Association Defensive Player of the Week award. Lucas recorded six saves in the No. 9 Tigers’ 18–7 victory over the Villanova Wildcats.

Junior Kayla Yelensky, senior Kaila Carroll, first-year Ally Lury, and sophomore Shanna Davidson all had a trio of goals against the Wildcats, accounting for twothirds of the Tigers points last Thursday evening.

New Number Two

Women’s lacrosse placed second in the 2024 Ivy League Women’s Lacrosse Preseason Poll that was released on Tuesday — the Penn Quakers were unanimously selected for the top spot. The Tigers return their points and goals leaders, senior Kari Buonnano and junior McKenzie Blake, as they have their sights set on competing for an Ivy League Championship in the spring.

Five Times Staying Alive

Men‘s hockey outlasted the St. Lawrence Saints on Saturday in Canton, NY, 5–4 in overtime last Saturday for their record fifth overtime win of the season. Senior forward Adam Robbins netted his third overtime game-winning goal of the season to cement this Tigers’ time as cardiac killers.

5,290 Seats Filled

Jadwin Gymnasium was sold out for the first time since at least 2010 in their Saturday matchup against Penn. According to attendance records by ESPN, only 22 of the 274 men‘s home games since 2001 were attended by more than 5,000 fans. The highest attendance during this period occurred when the Tigers hosted the No. 4 Kansas Jayhawks in 2001, attended by 6,861 fans. With at least 5,290 fans in attendance, the Tigers tied their season-high 16 three-point shots against Penn.

Lucky Number 13

On Feb. 10, both the men’s and women’s basketball teams beat Penn. The women’s team sits atop the Ivy League standings as the only squad with an unblemished conference record and has a win streak of 13 games.

Women’s basketball remains nationally ranked at No. 25 for the third week in a row, receiving their highest number of points towards the rankings this past week.

All in all, it was a successful week for Tiger athletics within the Ivy League. As winter sports approach their respective postseasons, and spring sports kickoff, check back next week to stay updated on all things Princeton athletics, by the numbers.

Remember, as Lou Pinella, former coach of the New York Yankees, once said, “Statistics are a lot like bikinis, they show a lot but not everything.”

Andrew Bosworth is a head Data editor for the ‘Prince.’

Harrison Blank is an assistant Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

MEN’S ICE HOCKEY

Men’s ice hockey splits weekend with loss to RPI, shootout win over Union

By Ava Seigel Assistant Sports Editor

This weekend, Princeton men’s ice hockey (8–14–3 overall, 6–10–2 Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference) hosted two conference matchups: first falling to the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Engineers (9–18–3, 6–10–2) on Friday night before rallying back to beat the Union Garnet Chargers (13–14–3, 7–8–3) in a shootout win on Saturday.

Tigers fall to RPI despite season high 46 shots on goal

Starting their weekend slate in Hobey Baker Rink, the Tigers faced off against the RPI Engineers Friday night. After securing a 6–4 win in Troy, New York, when they faced RPI earlier this season, the Tigers hoped for a repeat showing.

Unfortunately for Princeton, the Engineers were first to find the back of the net. With 11:06 left in the first period, RPI forward Austin Heide-

mann cashed in on an orange and black hooking penalty, slapping the puck toward the net over the shoulder of junior netminder Ethan Pearson.

Down a goal with 10 minutes left in the first period, the Tigers went on the offensive. Fresh on the ice in transition, first-year forward Carson Buydens started off the attack, sliding a pass from sophomore forward David Jacobs into the net for his first collegiate goal.

Following the corresponding face-off at center ice, Buydens set up the Tigers again. Using the forecheck to win possession, Buydens and fellow forward junior Alex Konovalov were able to free the puck, creating space for first-year forward Michael Young to skate in front of the net and knock in his career first goal. Princeton closed out the first period up 2–1.

RPI dominated the second period of offensive play, scoring twice to snatch a 3–2 lead going into the

third. The first of the Engineers’ two goals was scored only 14 seconds into the period. The second came 12 minutes later, after a slapshot found its way behind Pearson from the blueline. During this time, the Tigers applied tons of offensive pressure, drawing a five-minute major for face-masking from the Engineers in the last two minutes of the period and outshooting the Engineers 13–10.

To start the final 20 minutes of play, senior forward Ian Murphy marked his return to the ice after being out for five games with injury. First-year forward Joshua Karnish took an initial shot towards the RPI goalie that was just wide, but Murphy perfectly positioned himself to knock in the rebound for his sixth goal of the year and bring the game to a 3–3 tie.

Throughout the period, both squads were looking for the gamewinning goal opportunity, and on an odd man rush in transition, RPI found their chance. Coordinating their attack, the Engineers bested Pearson and took a 4–3 lead.

This left Princeton again playing from behind and chasing an equalizer. After taking a timeout with 2:31 left to play, the Tigers played their most ferocious hockey of the night with an extra attacker and no goalie in the net. The team had nine shots on goal with the extra attacker, bringing their total to a season-high of 46 for the night, but they were unable to find the back of the net.

“Our last four games we have been playing really well,” head coach Ron Fogarty told the Daily Princetonian. “To be credited with only two wins is really unfortunate, but they are playing good hockey.”

Saturday night shootout success over Union

Back in Hobey Rink Saturday night, the Tigers were able to turn around their Friday misfortunes with a huge comeback win over the

Union Garnet Chargers in the shootout.

The first period of play was scoreless for both teams, with first-year goaltender Arthur Smith making 15 saves to keep Union off the scoreboard.

The second period was plagued with penalty minutes and multiple men in the box on both sides. With 8:52 left in the period — two players in the box for Princeton and one player for Union — the Garnet Chargers scored the first goal of the night. Capitalizing on the 4-on-3 advantage, Union forward Liam Robertson found open ice and maneuvered the puck past Smith. The Garnet Chargers closed out the second period with a second power play goal to leave the Tigers trailing 2–0 with 20 minutes left to play.

Despite the third-period deficit, Princeton demonstrated that they know how to play from behind. With 17:45 left and a player in the penalty box for each squad, the Tigers had an offensive push featuring unsuccessful shots from sophomore defenseman Tyler Rubin and senior forward Nick Seitz before senior defenseman Nick Carabin secured his first goal of the night.

“After the puck hit the goalie, Seitz hit it over to me, and I had a free puck infront of the net,” Carabin shared with the ‘Prince.’ This smooth play brought Princeton within one as they were hunting for the equalizer for the remainder of the period. In this time, Smith kept the Tigers competitive defensively, including a huge save when Union came barreling towards the net on a two-on-zero breakaway.

In the final minute, Carabin sent the Tigers into their eighth overtime showing of the season. With just over 40 seconds remaining to play, Princeton controlled the puck in the offensive circles looking for an opening, and Carabin found it with a slapshot to tie the game at two.

“I saw absolutely nothing at all,”

Carabin reflected. “I only knew I got the shot through when I saw all my teammates coming after me after I scored.”

The following 3-on-3 overtime play was dominated by Union offensive pushes, but again Smith kept his composure and made five saves to send the game to a shootout. “Going into overtime we have confidence in each other,” Smith commented about team mentality. “We know it’s going to come down to one or two big plays and we have the guys to make those plays.” Saturday’s game marked a tied career high total of 36 saves for Smith, who is growing into a steadying force for the Princeton squad.

All three shootout chances for Union were subsequently denied, leading the way for familiar late game hero, senior forward Adam Robbins, to score the only goal of the shootout.

“The kid is electric in overtime,” remarked Carabin regarding Robbins’ goal. “He knows how to put the puck in the net and step up at big times.” This was Robbins’ fourth overtime/shootout game-winner of the year.

While the game officially ended in a 2–2 tie since there was no overtime goal, the 1–0 shootout success earned Princeton two points in their conference standings heading into the last stretch of their regular season.

“We have skilled players, our guys are just as talented as anyone in the country,” beamed Fogarty postgame. He added, “When they play in overtime they play with confidence, so it’s a big two points for us tonight.”

Princeton is set to play a weekend of ECAC and Ivy League hockey against Yale (10–14–2, 7–10–2 ECAC) and Brown (8–15–2, 6–11–1) away next weekend, hoping to lock down two more wins.

Ava Seigel is an assistant Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

Remembering Princeton’s First Infirmary

By Jane Buckhurst Staff Archives Writer

This past November, the University announced a plan to construct the Frist Health Center, set to open in 2025. The new health center will replace the McCosh Health Center, which opened in 1925, replacing an earlier version of the center dating back to 1893. This earliest version of the health center, the Isabella McCosh Infirmary, was the first student infirmary on the University campus. One student, writing in an anonymous opinion article from a 1891 issue of The Daily Princetonian exactly 133 years ago, decried the lack of an infirmary and described the “imperative” need to establish one.

The author wrote that “frequent cases of severe illnesses” were all too common among the student population, which at that time numbered about 800. He advocated for a “proper place be provided for the benefit of all such unfortunates,” saying that

because no matter how attentive the college authorities were, “the fact remains that, as a rule, a college dormitory makes an undesirable sick room.”

With a generally noisy student population, peace and quiet was hard to come by in the dorms.

Even worse, according to this author, meals were “hastily sorted out and dispatched” to the sick student by his eating club, which did not provide nourishment but instead “only food for the sad reflection” that might be better enjoyed if one were feeling better.

Furthermore, the author noted that illnesses often disproportionately affected the University’s economically disadvantaged students, writing that “the majority of cases of sickness which have come under our observation, have been among the poorer classes of students.” Such students had more limited options for food and less comfortable rooms, and thus were especially hard hit when they fell ill.

Also compounding this issue were the all-too frequent outbreaks of contagious illnesses among the University population. In 1880, for example, an outbreak of typhoid fever infected 40 students and killed ten. Less deadly outbreaks of smallpox in 1871 and 1899 caused mass student exoduses from campus, though classes continued.

Perhaps the lack of a campus infirmary was not so dearly felt until 1888, three years before the publication of this article, when University President James McCosh stepped down and students lost their unofficial nurse: his wife, Isabella McCosh. During her husband’s presidency from 1868 to 1888, she often cared for sick students. During this period, the student population was significantly smaller but also was on average younger, and Mrs. McCosh cared for them with “a mother’s sympathy,” as recorded by Alexander J. Kerr, ’79.

“When any boy was sick … she would take her large basket, place in

it one of her own bed sheets, a pillow case, a towel, a wash cloth, some of her own jams and jellies, homemade cookies and tempting cakes and a jug of tea, over which she would place a tea caddy to keep it hot,” Kerr wrote. “She would then carry the basket to the sickroom, no matter though she had to climb four flights of iron stairs to do so.”

Her absence was likely felt deeply by sick students, to whom her care had clearly been meaningful. When an infirmary was finally commissioned — in the same year this opinion piece was published — it was named the Isabella McCosh Infirmary in her honor.

As the University now introduces a new health center to our campus, we will see if it will improve upon the existing level of care students receive and emulate the personal attention that Mrs. McCosh once modeled.

Jane Buckhurst is a staff Archives writer for the ‘Prince.’