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Tuesday October 1, 2019 vol. CXLIII no. 81
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STUDENT LIFE
EcoReps Move-In Resale diverts 15 tons of waste
U . A F FA I R S
COURTESY OF LISA NICOLAISON / OFFICE OF SUSTAINABILITY
Items sold at the sale were saved from the previous year and offered to students at a discount.
News Writer
Many college students throw away unwanted dorm items at the end of the school year. The EcoReps Move-In Resale changes this culture of waste by selling items that would traditionally be sent to a landfill. The third annual 2019 EcoReps Move-In Resale took place on Saturday, Sept. 14, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Dillon Gym. Over 500 students in attendance bought 2000 items, which diverted 15 tons of waste from landfills. During move-out in the spring, the Ecology Representatives — or EcoReps for short — collect items left for trash outside dorm rooms. The EcoReps team then stores these items over the summer in preparation for the resale. “Through our program, we’re able to keep that item on campus, basically for the summer, and then give it to a
new set of students who have the same need as this group of students before, at a reduced price and at a reduced cost to the environment,” said Tatijana Stewart ‘21, one of three EcoReps leaders in charge of greening move out and resale. While most of the items collected by EcoReps are sold at the resale, other items were given for free to students in the University Freshman Scholars Institute for firstgeneration and low income students in July, or donated to charities such as Goodwill and Grad Bag, an organization that gives items to low-income students to prepare them for college. In order to promote access to items for all, students in the Scholars Institute Fellows Program are given a discount coupon. Every item at the resale — including mirrors, fridges, futons, couches, tables, and chairs — was sold at a discounted rate to students. Lisa Nicolaison, who is
the Engagement and Communication Coordinator at the Office of Sustainability, wrote in an email to The Daily Princetonian that the cost for students is based on the price of a similar item at stores like Target and Amazon. “We take those prices and reduce the price to anywhere between 20-50% depending on the quality of the item – how new it is, the condition of the item, the uniqueness of the item based on our inventory,” she wrote. The EcoReps leaders, in addition to temporarily hired student workers, set up and operated the Resale. The variety of items available for purchase attracted a large amount of students. “We had basically a line out the doors of Dillon Gym before we even opened up the sale and we had a steady stream of people for the first few hours until most of the items were gone,” Stewart said. “Seeing that enormous, See ECOREPS page 2
ON CAMPUS
JON ORT / DAILY PRINCETONIAN
The entrance of the Department of Public Safety
Burglary and motor vehicle theft increase, Public Safety reports By Benjamin Ball Head News Editor
A recent report from University Department of Public Safety (DPS) found that reported incidents of burglary and motor vehicle theft on campus increased substantially in 2018. Reported burglaries jumped from 17 to 27 from 2017 to
In Opinion
2018, while reports of motor vehicle theft jumped from five to 17. “Burglary is higher than last year but within a three year range,“ Assistant Vice President for Public Safety Paul Ominsky wrote in an email to the Daily Princetonian. “Theft of motor vehicles, which [in the report] are golf carts,
Contributing columnist Khadijah Anwar advocates for higher housing standards, and columnist Brigitte Harbers shares her biggest Princeton-specific regrets from her first year. PAGE 4
are up significantly. Each of these golf carts has been recovered on campus.” Those crime statistics were a part of the University’s recently released “Annual Security and Fire Safety Report 2019,” available on University Public Safety’s website. Ominsky noted that thus See REPORT page 3
COURTESY OF SAMEER A. KHAN / FOTOBUDDY
Edmund White began teaching at the University in 1998.
Creative writing Professor Emeritus Edmund White receives 2019 Letters Medal By Benjamin Ball Head News Editor
Edmund White, creative writing professor emeritus in the Lewis Center for the Arts, will receive the 2019 Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation. The National Book Foundation’s website describes the award as “one of literature’s most prestigious honors” and explains that the purpose of the award is to recognize “individuals who have made an exceptional impact on this country’s literary heritage.” Writer and filmmaker John Waters will present the award to White at the National Book Awards in November, according to the Office of Communications press release. White began teaching at the University in 1998. The Associated Press described White as “among the most influential gay writers of his time” and described his career as “prolific and versetile.” According to the Office of Communications, White has written nearly 30 books. White’s bio on the Lewis Center for the Arts website notes he is perhaps best known for his biography of French writer Jean Genet, a book for which he won the National Book Critics Circle Award. His other works include an autobiographical trilogy, A Boy’s Own Story, The Beautiful Room is Empty, and The Farewell Symphony; a novel about love in the AIDS era called The Married Man; a biography about the titular French author, Marcel Proust: A Life; a book about unconventional Paris called The Flaneur; and a biography of Arthur Rimbaud. His works of fiction include Chaos and Hotel de
Today on Campus 12:00 p.m.: “Gutenberg & After: Europe’s First Printers 14501470,” a Milberg Gallery Exhibition Firestone Library Lobby
Dream. In addition, he has written four memoirs, including Inside a Pearl: My Life in Paris, published in 2014 and The Unpunished Vice: A Life of Reading, published in 2018. His new novel, A Saint in Texas, is forthcoming in 2020. According to the National Book Foundation, White majored in Chinese at the University of Michigan before moving to New York City, where he would form the Violet Quill, a casual club comprised of himself and six other gay writers: Christopher Cox, Robert Ferro, Michael Grumley, Andrew Holleran, Felice Picano, and George Whitmore. White also co-founded the Gay Men’s Health Crisis, described by the National Book Foundation as “the world’sfirst provider of HIV/AIDS care and advocacy.” The Office of Communications noted that Toni Morrison, the Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus, who died on Aug. 5, received the award in 1996. White and Morrison were colleagues during their time at the University, and White recalled to the Associated Press that the two disagreed about popular culture, with Morrison holding a more favorable opinion while White described himself as “this weird mandarin who never had a television.” Robert Caro ’57 also received the award in 2016. An honorary award will be given to Oren Teicher, head of the American Booksellers Association. In addition, competitive prizes for fiction, nonfiction, translation, poetry and “young people’s literature” will be announced, according to the Associated Press.
WEATHER
By Naomi Hess
HIGH
82˚
LOW
67˚
Partly Cloudy chance of rain:
10 percent