October 14, 2015

Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998

Wednesday october 14, 2015 vol. cxxxix no. 88

WEATHER

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } HIGH

LOW

69˚ 43˚

Partly cloudy morning, cloudy afternoon chance of rain:

10 percent

Follow us on Twitter @princetonian

U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S

Most students feel very safe at U., survey finds

By Christina Vosbikian staff writer

Like us on Facebook facebook.com/ DailyPrincetonian

In Opinion Columnist Sam Parsons shows how Princetonians use peer pressure in positive ways, and columnist Ali Akram Hayat talks about the merits of quitting. PAGE 4

Today on Campus 8 p.m.: Psychology professor Stacey Sinclair presents findings on a new study regarding ethnic and gender biases. Dodds Auditorium.

The Archives

Oct. 14, 1996

A majority of students, faculty and staff on campus are comfortable with sworn Department of Public Safety officers having access to rifles during an emergency, according to a survey conducted by

the Daily Princetonian.

The survey respondents do not necessarily feel safer now than before knowing that the officers will be able to access these rifles, though.

DPS Executive Director Paul Ominsky announced on Monday at the Council of the Princeton University Commu-

nity meeting that sworn DPS officers will soon have access to rifles in case of campus emergencies involving active shooters or armed suspects.

The survey received a total of 641 responses from graduate and undergraduate students, faculty and See SURVEY page 3

Campus Response to New Rifle Policy The Daily Princetonian conducted a survey to gauge campus reaction to the announcement that sworn Department of Public Safety officers will have access to rifles in case of an emergency. A total of 641 responded, including 614 undergraduates, 16 graduate students, six faculty, three staff and two others.

How safe do you feel knowing that DPS officers will have access to rifles in case of emergency? (1 being “very unsafe,” and 5 being “very safe.”)

1

54

2

109

3

166

4

139

5

173

Are you comfortable with DPS officers having access to rifles in case of an emergency?

Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole rallies a crowd in Hamilton, New Jersey, in support of his tax plan.

No 38.2%

Yes 61.8%

got a tip?

Do you feel safer now than before knowing that DPS officers will have access to rifles?

Yes 42.7%

No 57.3%

Email it to: tips@dailyprincetonian.com

News & Notes Michelle Obama ’85 speaks at Fortune 50 Summit

Everyone has a responsibility to address the lack of education for women worldwide, First Lady Michelle Obama ’85 said at the Fortune’s 50 Most Powerful Women Summit Tuesday, according to a transcript provided by the White House.

Obama noted that 62 million girls worldwide are not in school and that though there has been some progress in primary education, girls still lag behind in the field of secondary education, with fewer than 10 percent of girls completing high school.

She added that while the problem sometimes comes down to a lack of resources, it is often about attitudes, with girls being subjected to the belief that they should get married and have children or stay home and do household work rather than pursue an education.

Obama also noted that she and President Barack Obama launched Let Girls Learn last spring to support girls’ education in conf lict zones and that they have partnered with the Peace Corps. Michelle Obama added that she is launching a $25 million

AUSTIN LEE :: DESIGN EDITOR

{ Feature }

Through the Decade: The Keller Center

By Annie Yang staff writer

Interest in entrepreneurship among students at the University has grown dramatically, and the Keller Center has responded to this by providing opportunities to explore these interests and pursue innovative ideas beyond traditional settings in the classroom and laboratory, Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science Vincent Poor GS ’77 said.

The Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education celebrated its tenth anniversary with a symposium on Tuesday featuring keynote speaker Tom Leighton ’78, who is an applied math professor at MIT turned CEO of Akamai, and an introduction by University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83.

Director of the Keller Center Mung Chiang said that innovating education has been a core mission of the Keller Center since its founding in 2005.

Engineering, math and physics courses teach BSE students in an integrated curriculum, and the Engineering Projects in Community Service program provides students interested in community service through engineering projects with experiential learning opportunities. In addition, the Program in Technology and Society helps prepare leaders in a technology-driven society, he said.

Chiang noted that 238 students in the Class of 2014 have taken at least one of the 12 entrepreneurship and design courses at the Keller Center, and that 66 percent of them came from non-engineering majors.

Chiang said that the Keller Center has two missions: fostering entrepreneurship and innovating education. Within this program, he said, there are four buckets of activity: cre-

ate, learn, explore and engage.

These buckets expose students to entrepreneurship and support those who are interested in it.

Chiang said that since March 2014, the Keller Center has been continuing a strategic process of ‘division’ – the streamlining of activities into the four buckets – and ‘subtraction’ – restructuring existing activities so that they are sustainable, high-quality and unique.

“Collectively, these steps will maximize its ‘multiplication’ impact: casting a longer shadow than its actual size in terms of serving Princeton students, faculty and alumni,” Chiang said.

Hannah Miller ’16, a member of the Keller Center’s Student Advisory Council, noted that University students are creative, but demanding class schedules and extracurricular activities might make the idea of starting a business or other endeavor overwhelming.

The Keller Center has made great progress in countering this perception and fostering a spirit of entrepreneurship on campus, she said.

“It has offered opportunities that expose students to inspirational entrepreneurs, provide resources and support to students starting their own ventures and connect students with outside startups for jobs and internships,” Miller said.

Miller is a former design staffer for The Daily Princetonian.

Miller also noted that programs such as the eLab summer accelerator program attract both undergraduate and graduate students from a variety of backgrounds. The Innovation Forum, an event for researchers to present potentially marketable discoveries, has featured many graduate students, she said.

Sunny Feng ’16, another See KELLER page 2

LECTURE

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Leighton ’78 speaks at Keller Center Symposium

Gillispie, history of science professor emeritus, renowned historian dies at 97

By Myrial Holbrook contributor

Anyone with the right determination and perseverance can start a successful company, Tom Leighton ’78 said at the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education Symposium, which was held to commemorate the Keller Center’s 10th anniversary.

Leighton, an MIT applied math professor turned CEO of Akamai said he never would have guessed he would start a company 20 years ago. Akamai, he said, is a leader in content delivery network services, or services that provide servers. He noted that he had always been afraid of real analysis and said that he considered himself a ‘closet mathematician.’

“Being on the mathematical side of computer science was about as low as you could be,” Leighton said.

He explained that his company was able to grow quickly and innovate effectively because he and his colleagues never gave up.

“Perseverance in the face of adversity is essential,” he said. “You can’t be afraid to make mistakes, but try to correct them as quickly as possible. You have to take risks.

It’s fine to fail, or else you don’t get there.”

He noted that hardships abounded, especially from 2001 to 2002, as corporate customers and student staffers went bankrupt, the company downsized and co-founder Danny Lewin was killed in the Sept. 11 attacks.

“Wall Street left us for dead. We had been demoted to junk status,” Leighton said, “but there is a light at the end of the tunnel, even when you know [your team] is thinking that light’s a train that’s coming at you.”

He added that Akamai was able to reverse its fortunes, breaking even in 2004.

He also noted that he and his team could have sold Akamai after their first big breaks with ESPN’s website during March Madness in 1999 and Entertainment Tonight’s release of the first Star Wars trailer in 1999, and that Steve Jobs even called Akamai to buy them out on April Fool’s Day of the same year. However, they decided they did not want to sell, he said.

“If we were going to start a company, we wanted to make sure it was successful,” Leighton said. “The only way to get the technology out there was to start the See SYMPOSIUM page 2

By Alfred Burton contributor

Charles Gillispie, the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Emeritus died on Oct. 6.

He was 97.

Gillispie, a renowned historian of science, established the program in the History of Science at the University. His honors included the International Balzan Prize for History and Philosophy of Science in 1997, as well as the History of Sci-

ence Society’s 1984 George Sarton Medal for lifetime scholarly achievement.

Gillispie was born on Aug. 6, 1918 in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and raised in the same town. In a 1999 retrospective article on his life “Apologia Pro Vita Sua,” Gillispie said he enjoyed reading history as a child, even in the form of the stories of King Arthur. He majored in chemistry at Wesleyan University, and went on to postgraduate studies in chemical engi-

neering at Harvard, where he studied history for a semester.

In 1946, Gillispie returned to Harvard from his service in the Chemical Mortar Battalion in Europe during World War II, and switched his postgraduate degree from chemical engineering to the history of science.

“I had never read, or even heard of a single work in history of science, and I hadn’t the faintest idea how to go about See GILLISPIE page 3

MUSIC

LINH TRAN :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

New York based Japanese music group Duo Yemeno performed at Frist Campus Center on Tuesday.

The Daily Princetonian

page 2

Wednesday october 14, 2015

Chiang: innovating education has been core mission of Keller Center since 2005 KELLER

Continued from page 1

.............

member of the Keller Center’s Student Advisory Council, said that he hopes the Keller Center works towards the creation of an entrepreneurship certificate. Having a certificate program would open up even more possibilities for aspiring entrepreneurs, he noted.

“An extensive core EGR course list is already in place, and there are VIS, COS and other departmental courses that could supplement it,” Feng said.

Chiang said that a potential certificate program in entrepreneurship, innovation and design is being explored in a way that will ensure a high caliber of intellectual content, learning-by-doing components and synergistic integration to the liberal arts educational environment at the University. He noted that they are still early in the process of mapping out details.

Poor also noted there have been discussions about a certificate involving innovation and design, and entrepreneurship would fit into this more general subject area.

“As a whole, I think this group of subjects would make sense as an academic certificate as it can be tied meaningfully to many disciplines across campus,” Poor said.

JASPER GEBHARDT :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Tom Leighton’78 spoke at the Keller Center’s 10th Anniversary symposium on Tuesday afternoon.

Leighton ’78 emphasizes perseverance in the face of adversity at symposium SYMPOSIUM Continued from page 1

.............

company ourselves.”

Leighton explained that research for the company began in 1997 when Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web Foundation, came to Leighton’s theoretical algorithms group at MIT and asked them to start working on possible solutions to web congestion. Leighton and his team received a grant from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and began work in earnest. Leighton and his team finally formed Akamai as a CDN by the summer of 1998.

He noted that the company started out with only one pixel and one hit every

few minutes, made manually by a team member on an obscure webpage of the Disney website. Akamai now serves 15 to 30 percent of web traffic today, uses more than 30 terabits per second and gets more than 40 million hits per second.

The current four great challenges he is facing include expanding the capacity of online video streaming, making the cellular ecosystem more instantaneous and capable, ensuring the security of the web and focusing on enterprise networks.

“I really try to fan the flames of innovation,” Leighton said. “As you get bigger, you do slow down some, you do have a bureaucracy, and the real innovators start wanting a smaller company again.”

He noted that creativity does need some infrastructure, but that policies should not be too rigid.

“You have to put a lot of things in place to make that happen,” Leighton said.

“Rules are great, but sometimes it’s good to have a flexible policy.”

Noting that the Internet did not exist 30 years ago and Google did not exist 20 years ago, Leighton said that we do not realize the impact of recent and current innovations. He said that students, innovators and entrepreneurs should expect to work hard, take risks and always operate with a sense of urgency.

“Be tenacious as hell,” he said. “You can start a successful company. If we can do it, you can do it.”

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: The Daily Princetonian is published daily except Saturday and Sunday from September through May and three times a week during January and May by The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc., 48 University Place, Princeton, N.J. 08540. Mailing address: P.O. Box 469, Princeton, N.J. 08542. Subscription rates: Mailed in the United States $175.00 per year, $90.00 per semester. Office hours: Sunday through Friday, 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Telephones: Business: 609-375-8553; News and Editorial: 609-258-3632.

For tips, email news@dailyprincetonian.com. Reproduction of any material in this newspaper without expressed permission of The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc., is strictly prohibited. Copyright 2014, The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Daily Princetonian, P.O. Box 469, Princeton, N.J. 08542.

Concerns Students have expressed concerns in the past that the University’s engineering program focused too much on theoretical rather than applied engineering. Poor noted that the curricula were designed to educate students for career-long success in their fields, which requires a focus on the fundamentals of engineering.

“That said, it certainly doesn’t hurt to expose students to specific applications, and this is largely done through experiential learning — internships, research projects, etc.

— which is part of Princeton’s traditional culture and also part of the Keller Center’s mission,” Poor said.

Entrepreneurship professor John Danner also addressed this concern, noting that students are interested in having a solid theoretical grounding but also want to find outlets for their curiosity that can have an impact on the world and benefit others.

“What the Keller Center is doing and has been doing every day is to help that translation process, so that students have that opportunity to experiment and decide what type of entrepreneurship they are interested in — changing-the-world entrepreneurship or changingthe-market entrepreneurship,” he said.

Danner noted the Keller Center has been instrumental in connecting expanding student opportunity through initiatives such as Demo Days, competitions and the eLab. “The eLab involves both program and concept design and provides more intensive support for students who are actively interested in developing specific ventures through a combination of mentorship, networks, focused support, classes and even investors,” Danner said.

Chiang noted that the eLab summer accelerator helped 27 teams in the past four summers explore the lives of entrepreneurs.

Entrepreneurship professor Derek Lidow ’73 said that five years ago, there were only a few entrepreneurship courses, but this has expanded into 17 courses offered today, including courses that are unique in being offered at an undergradu-

ate level. He added that there has been a similar expansion of co-curricular offerings including eLab, E-Hub and workshops that offer support to students, a fact that is often overlooked.

“I think the Keller Center has helped make thousands of graduates much more confident in their ability to think differently and willing to take risks to make lasting positive impacts on the world,” Lidow said.

Lidow noted that although some research shows that entrepreneurship classes have little impact on students and their ultimate interest and success, the University’s courses have differed. In surveys of graduates over the past decade, it is evident that the courses offered at the University do correlate with later achievements, he added.

Entrepreneurship professor Christopher Kuenne ’85 said that as this vital element of American socioeconomic fabric continues to evolve, the University is doing what it does best, defining both the curricular and co-curricular elements of its programs to ensure that those who graduate from the University are prepared to be responsible citizens in an increasingly entrepreneurial world.

“The Keller Center is one of several key elements of Princeton’s entrepreneurial culture, and now with the E-Hub, is continuing to expand both the practicing courses and the cocurricular elements of Princeton’s program,” Kuenne said.

He noted that another key contributor to the University’s entrepreneurial culture is the Entrepreneurship Club, which offers opportunities such as TigerTreks that allow students to spend a week in New York City or Silicon Valley and speak with technology luminaries. These opportunities expose students to successful entrepreneurial founders, hackathons, speaker series and many other events.

Internships In addition to the programs and courses offered, Keller Center also offers several summer internship programs. These include the newest Princeton Start-Up Immersion Program for students interested in internships at start-ups, which is to be launched in New York City during the summer of 2016, according to the Keller Center.

Emily Hsu ’16 explained that she first found out about the International Research Exchange Program internship, an international research exchange program that offers students the ability to participate in an eight-week research project in their field of study, in her freshman year.

“It sounded like a great opportunity and the idea of going abroad appealed to me, so I applied for an internship and ended up going to Hong Kong the summer after my freshman year,” she said.

Jamil Merali ’18 also participated in a REACH internship and noted that in addition to internships, the Keller Center offers many opportunities for students to work on startups, which would foster an entrepreneurial spirit. He hopes that as many of these internships and programs as possible should be offered, since many students would be interested in participating.

“Not only did it further my formal education in electrical engineering but [it] was also a great cultural experience as I’m sure that you can imagine what two months in Hong Kong would be [like],” Merali said.

David Prilutsky ’18 said that the REACH experience also allows students to go abroad.

“I felt that my experience was exceptionally great be-

cause the department I worked in put a strong emphasis on team-building, which manifested into group outings and events, all of which helped me feel a part of the community,” he said.

Beginnings of Entrepreneurship at Princeton The position of Visiting Professor in Entrepreneurship, which was established in 2007, was renamed in 2010 after Dean Emeritus of the School of Engineering and Applied Science James Wei. Although the entrepreneurship culture in Princeton today is well-developed, it was not the same as it was a few decades ago, Wei said.

“The culture of Princeton in the 1990s was very scholarly, and the faculty and students [made] discoveries and let others take on the task of moving from discoveries to make products and services to benefit the world,” Wei said.

Wei added that the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the time would be described more as 90 percent applied science and 10 percent engineering.

“It took a tremendous effort and many pioneers to steer Princeton to a balance, which is more in keeping with the motto ‘Princeton in the Nation’s Service’,” he said.

Entrepreneurship professor Ed Zschau ’61 said that the entrepreneurship courses and programs came into being in 1997 under the vision and leadership of Wei. Zschau met with Wei, who was Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science at the time, at his 36th reunion. He followed up with a letter outlining initiatives that could be taken to establish entrepreneurship opportunities for students.

Zschau said that although Princeton does not have a business school, the engineering school provided a natural home for entrepreneurial programs because engineering’s impact is fully realized in the form of products and services. He noted that startups are often the best vehicles to do that.

Zschau’s High Tech Entrepreneurship course was first offered in the fall 1997 semester, with 45 seniors enrolled.

Zschau offered the course for 30 additional semesters over the next 15 years, with approximately 1,600 students completing it. Some of the initiatives he had suggested to Wei were later implemented, but not in the manner or order he had envisioned, he noted.

Although the Keller Center was founded in 2005 as the Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, the history of entrepreneurship in the form of courses and programs precedes it, Zschau said.

Raeva Kumar ’17, E-Club copresident, said that six undergraduate students founded the organization in 1998 with the support of Zschau.

E-Club is student-run and is among the largest organizations on campus, with an officer corps of 70 and programming that reaches thousands of students, she said.

“The energy, enthusiasm and insight that the Keller Center brings to their programming and this campus is invaluable, and E-Club is very excited to continue to work with them,” she said.

According to Kumar, the Keller Center supports 13 different E-Club programs, and the combined emphasis on entrepreneurship is making a tangible difference on campus. At the same time, there is room for growth, and the two are working to build up programs and a community to support the endeavors.

“The Keller Center is the perfect partner in this, and in the next few years, entrepreneurship at Princeton will very much thrive,” Kumar said.

The Keller Center was officially named after Dennis Keller ’63 and his wife Constance Templeton Keller donated $25 million to the University’s Aspire capital campaign in 2008, with the desire to introduce A.B. students to the potential of technology.

The Daily Princetonian

Wednesday october 14, 2015

Gillispie launched U.’s program in History and Philosophy of Science GILLISPIE Continued from page 1

.............

it,” he wrote in the same article, looking back to the beginning of his career as a historian of science. The discipline appealed to Gillispie in combining his two passions for history and science.

In 1947, Gillispie joined the University’s faculty as a lecturer on British history while pursuing his Ph.D. in history at Harvard. He received his doctoral degree from Harvard in 1949.

During his first sabbatical in 1954 in France, Gillispie conducted research on the scientific discoveries of revolutionary France. “Almost everything I have written since goes back to those heady days,” Gillispie wrote of that year.

Returning from the sabbatical and a subsequent year at the University of Oxford as a guest lecturer, Gillispie began to offer undergraduate courses on the history of science.

He launched the program in History and Philosophy of Science in the fall of 1960, with three students. In 1964, Gillispie contributed to the program’s growth by recruiting his long-time friend Thomas Kuhn, a philosopher of science who at

that time had just released “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.”

Angela Creager, the Thomas M. Siebel Professor in the History of Science, noted that Gillispie’s first book, “The Edge of Objectivity,” is exemplary of his scholarship. “[The Edge of Objectivity] is a tremendous synthesis of the emergence of science from the early-modern period to Einstein,” she said.

As the program became more established, Gillispie turned his attention to what is now one of his best-known works, the Dictionary of Scientific Biography, which he worked on from 1964 to 1980 as the editor. Gillispie oversaw the entire editorial process and read every article before it went to press. The 16th volume was completed in 1980, and in 1981, the dictionary was awarded the American Library Association’s Dartmouth Medal for outstanding reference work.

He stepped down from leading the program soon after, although he continued to attend the weekly graduate seminars until a couple of years ago.

History professor Emily Thompson GS ’92, who was his last doctoral student, explained that his supervision has influenced her work tremendously.

“It was a combination of rigor, and curiosity, and style, that his own work was characterized by, that he helped foster in my own work,” she said. “For the most part, he was a handsoff advisor who let me find my own voice, and kept me on track and made sure that voice was as clear and as interesting as possible.”

Gillispie, aside from being a rigorous scholar, also cared deeply for his students, Daniel Sachs Class of 1960 Scholarship advisor Matthew Stewart ’85 said.

Stewart explained that Gillispie helped establish the Sachs Scholarship, one of the highest distinctions given to graduating University seniors, after the death of his student Daniel Sachs ’60 in 1967. The Sachs Scholarship funds students to complete a two year postgraduate degree at Oxford University.

The Scholarship was an example of the concern Gillispie took in every aspect of his work, Stewart added.

“Part of it was [his commitment to] Princeton, part of it was his commitment to scholarship, and more generally it was his commitment to developing students in a complete way,” he said.

page 3

Majority of campus comfortable with DPS access to rifles in emergencies SURVEY

Continued from page 1

.............

staff. Approximately 95.8 percent of respondents were undergraduate students.

The survey was circulated through various student listservs between 11:20 a.m. and 9:50 p.m. on Tuesday. The survey contained three multiplechoice questions and one scale question about how members of the University community feel about the policy change.

The answers were collected anonymously.

Nearly 62 percent of the total respondents said they were comfortable with officers having emergency access to guns, while 57.3 percent said they did not necessarily feel safer than before.

“I don’t really think there will be much of a change, but I don’t think it’s doing anything negative for the safety of the school,” Ki Won Ahn ’16 said.

She added that though the idea of anyone carrying a rifle is somewhat alarming to her, she does feel safer because DPS officers will have access to guns in the case that an emergency warranting gun use does arise. Ahn noted, though, that since Princeton’s

suburban atmosphere is not as potentially threatening as many urban college campuses, she does not anticipate much visible change due to the new policy.

When asked to rate how safe they felt knowing that that the officers would now have emergency gun access on a scale of one, or “very unsafe,” to five, or “very safe,” the majority of students responded that they feel safe.

The most popular rating was a five, with 27 percent of the respondents reporting that they feel very safe. The next highest was a three with 25.9 percent, then a four with 21.7 percent.

Only 25.4 percent of students responded that they feel unsafe or very unsafe about the policy change, with 17 percent of students choosing a two and 8.4 percent choosing a one, or “very unsafe.”

Jenny Peng ’17 noted that people’s concern over DPS officers’ access to rifles likely stems from the issue that the rifles may be too easy to access.

“I really don’t see it as a problem, as long as they actually use them for emergencies when they’re supposed to,” Peng said.

Peng explained that she

doesn’t necessarily feel safer now that DPS officers have access to guns in cases of emergency, since she herself has not encountered an emergency situation on campus yet in which gun use was necessary.

“If it does happen, I guess it’s good to be prepared,” Peng noted.

The announcement followed a series of violent shootings on college campuses, including at Texas Southern University in Houston, Texas, Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Ariz. and Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore. The Fraternal Orders of Police, the labor union representing DPS officers, had previously asked in 2008 that sworn officers be allowed to bear guns on campus in the event of an active shooter situation.

University President Emerita Shirley Tilghman said in 2013 that guns had no place in a community like the University.

“Police can rapidly have the appropriate response without having our own police officers armed,” Tilghman said in an interview with the ‘Prince’ at the time.

Associate News Editor Do-Hyeong Myeong contributed to reporting.

CELLO

Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you ... Imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!

- Kanye West

Buy an ad.

Say what you want.

For more information, contact ‘Prince’ business.

Call (609)258-8110 or

Email business@dailyprincetonian.com LINH TRAN :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Duo Yemeno played music from classical Japanese and western genres during a performance on Tuesday.

A force for good, bad and better

Wanted: Speaker of the House

contributor

“T

Sam Parsons is a freshman from Wangaratta, Australia. He can be reached at samueljp@princeton. edu.

page 4

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

Samuel Parsons

he papers say 15 percent of youth are on meth… that’s bloody rubbish; try 60 percent.” These are the substance abuse rates according to a local paramedic I met this summer from my hometown of Wangaratta, Australia.

Part of me had always known hard drug use was a problem for my community, but hearing an actual paramedic describe the prevalence of crystal methamphetamine abuse in Wangaratta put the sheer magnitude of the problem in perspective.

I was shocked. My initial response was simple: why do we suffer such high drug use? Why are our town’s young people so prevalently sucked into this corrupting sphere of mental and physical degeneration? But the answer I received was even simpler: “Each other. Everyone’s doing it, so everyone does it. Don’t underestimate peer pressure.”

Now I know what you’re thinking: “Crikey, that’s horrendous!” You may also be wondering what this has to do with the Princeton community. But that’s precisely the point. Princeton students are similarly subject to peer pressure, yet our experiences, and the nature of the pressure we face, starkly contrasts that of my peers at home.

That may seem obvious. After all, we are not all chronically addicted meth users. More importantly, however, we Tigers appear to have hijacked the social force of peer pressure in pursuit of our mutual benefit.

Dinner is a great example. Imagine you’ve filled your plate absolutely full of chips, a hot dog, a slice of freshly fired pizza, along with a glass of soda. As you walk through the cafeteria to sit with your mates, you walk past the salad bar and notice the obnoxiously long line. Looking at their plates, you notice the strange green cow food they plan to eat. Suddenly, just like that, you feel a twinge of guilt. You become distinctly aware of the failings of your own culinary choices, the lack of discipline in your diet. Before you know it, you too fall into the terrible queue for lawn clippings, right behind the others. You observed the actions of an influential majority, and conformed to the status quo.

Although that specific scenario may not be familiar, I imagine that we have all, at one point, felt some pressure to eat healthily within such a fit and self-controlled community. Don’t you reckon that such a phenomenon is a little bit strange? At home, intense peer pressure resulted in hardcore drug abuse, but at Princeton it incentivizes us to eat our five servings of fruit and vegetables.

Maybe it’s just a larger American trend (though stereotypes would suggest not), but I believe that Princeton is fairly unique in this regard.

Our unique experience of peer pressure appears to also affect our routines. “I’ve only had like seven hours of sleep since Monday, I’ve read so much,” a friend in HUM once proudly proclaimed.

Proudly? Yes. Somehow we have created a culture where we not only aspire to work harder, but subconsciously hold each other to that aspiration as well. If I had responded that I actually slept nine hours, my academic resolve would suddenly come into question. No one would have said anything out loud, but I would automatically feel out of place. Peer pressure motivates Princetonians to work as much as it pushes us to eat well.

Exercising, diversifying our co-curricular base, being academically honest, getting involved in community service, setting our life goals high… the list of ways in which Princeton has utilized peer pressure to encourage positive effort and behavior is surprisingly extensive. I’m not saying we don’t experience negative peer pressure in other regards. These same forces can contribute to eating disorders, depression and a myriad of issues.

Rather, I aim to highlight our unique ability to manipulate peer pressure in many instances for positive uses. How have we, in contrast to Wangaratta, been able to avoid many of the dangers that peer pressure can bring? Maybe Admissions has a magic formula. I’m not going to dwell on ‘how’ it happens, but rather ask two potentially constructive questions.

Could peer pressure, or more aptly ‘peer encouragement,’ be used to motivate each other to be more socially perceptive? We participate in a constant effort to remove sexism, racism, homophobia and a myriad of social vices from our campus. Depending on your point of view you may find our efforts effective or abysmal.

Regardless, it is worth considering the power of peer influence creating social standards of respect and equity.

I’m not suggesting we be ‘pressured’ into aligning our political interests with what’s politically correct at the time; a diversity of political opinion is important. Instead I’m asking why, in a community that uses peer influence to encourage healthy eating, ambition, GPA maintenance and so much else, we don’t strive to use that same force to encourage the social ideals we uphold as well.

The second question is whether, as a community that clearly has some positive control over peer pressure, we could exercise this control to reduce the negative pressure many no doubt experience; the pressure to drink, to hook up, to uphold an unrealistic body image, to pursue financial success, etc. A deliberate and collaborative effort to change may have profound effects.

Princeton is quirky in a lot of ways, exceptional in even more. Peer influence on this campus is certainly quirky and, under the right circumstance, has the potential to bring this place yet another step closer to perfect.

Opinion

Wednesday october 14, 2015

Ryan Dukeman

contributing columnist

T

he House Republican Conference, by its own admission, is now in a state of ungovernable chaos. As Republican Peter King recently said on the record, “We look absolutely crazy.”

Whereas 15 Republicans are currently running for President, the job listing for Speaker of the House may as well as be posted on Craigslist. Nearly three weeks after John Boehner announced his resignation, zero serious candidates have emerged for the job third in line for the presidency. Which begs the question, what has sparked this historic and immediate collapse in the House Republican Caucus?

The House GOP has, of course, been a mess for some years now. It has been incredibly successful at growing its majority in the House — since the election of President Obama, each biennial House election has yielded a larger Republican majority than the last. However, this majority — even when accompanied by GOP control of the Senate – has yielded almost no substantive results to speak of. The Republican Party promised us that it would govern and govern well if given control of the House. To put it shortly, we’re all — Democrats and Republicans alike — still waiting.

The Speaker of the House used to be a meaningful and influential job. As Vox recently detailed, most rank-and-file members of Congress, upon their arrival in Washington, D.C., are shocked to discover how little influence they

have over actual policy or legislation, and how much time they spend instead at ribbon-cutting ceremonies or town parades back home. Their only hope of achieving some real lasting effect on American life, then, is to seek a spot in leadership — a committee chairmanship, party leadership or even Speaker.

Now, however, only two of the 247 majority members of the House — all of whom are ambitious politicians who at least theoretically came to Washington to govern — have displayed any interest in the job, and neither one has garnered much support.

Even John Boehner compared his job to that of a garbage man. After all, the post-Tea Party Speaker’s job has been reduced to two competing objectives: negotiate with a Democrat president while corralling a caucus that is ungovernable, in which 40 members refuse to negotiate.

Say what you will about money in politics, general dysfunction in Congress or intransigent policy positions, but bar none the fault for this leadership crisis lies with the House Freedom Caucus. As the 40-ish most radically conservative members of the House, they are (for the purposes of the Speaker election) a third-party presence, refusing to vote for anyone who would even consider what Barney Frank called “conspiracy to commit government” by negotiating with the President on anything, at all, ever. Elected on a wave of Tea Party, anti-government fervor over the last four years, these members of Congress have — to say it charitably — changed the dynamic in the House.

The House Freedom Caucus has no in-

vol. cxxxix

terest in governing, no interest even in passing critical legislation like a budget or a debt ceiling increase, without which the world would be plunged into a deep and entirely self-inflicted recession.

They might say this as a point of pride, but the Freedom Caucus sees governing as a bad thing, negotiation as sin and compromise as failure.

Which might be OK, if your party controlled the presidency. But refusing to acknowledge that repealing Obamacare or defunding Planned Parenthood just aren’t going to happen and trying to hold the government hostage out of refusal to admit that isn’t what voters of any party had in mind when they sent the Freedom Caucus to Washington.

Republicans like to portray themselves as the grown-ups, the adults in the room, the serious ones. Whether on fiscal policy or national defense, during campaigns the GOP loves nothing more than to portray Democrats as out-of-touch idealists who just want to tax and spend. In case 30 years of failed trickle-down economics wasn’t enough evidence, though, the recent House leadership crisis will hopefully set the record straight. A majority as enormous as this one that can’t even get enough votes to elect a Speaker is a dangerous thing to say the least and should be cause for worry for all of us going forward as Congress faces yet another series of self-inflicted “fiscal cliffs.”

Ryan Dukeman is a Wilson School major from Westwood, Mass. He can be reached at rdukeman@princeton.edu.

Anna Mazarakis ’16 editor-in-chief

Matteo Kruijssen ’16 business manager

139th managing board news editor Paul Phillips ’16 Ruby Shao ’17 opinion editor Benjamin Dinovelli ’16 sports editor Miles Hinson’17 street editor Lin King ’16 photography editor Natalia Chen ’18 Sewheat Haile ’17 video editors Leora Haber ’16 chief copy editors Caroline Congdon ’17 Joyce Lee ’17 design editors Austin Lee’16 Julia Johnstone’16 prox editor Rebekah Shoemake ’17 intersections editor Jarron McAllister ’16 associate news editors Do-Hyeong Myeong ’17 associate opinion editors Jason Choe ’17 Shruthi Deivasigmani’16 associate sports editors Sydney Mandelbaum ’17 Tom Pham ’17 associate street editors Harrison Blackman ’17 Jennifer Shyue ’17

How to Choose a Good Thesis tyler simko ’18 ..................................................

associate photo editors Gabriella Chu ’18 Grace Jeon ’17 associate chief copy editors Chamsi Hssaine ’16 Alexander Schindele-Murayama ’16 editorial board chair Jeffrey Leibenhaut ’16 Cartoons Editor Terry O’Shea ’16

NIGHT STAFF 10.13.15 senior copy editor Megan Laubach ’18 contributing copy editors Arthur Mateos ’19 Samantha Zalewska ’19 design Daniel Qian ’19 Jessica Zhou ’19

Ali Akram Hayat

If at first you don’t succeed, quit

contributing columnist

M

y high school had no real music society, so unfortunately I never got the chance to sing.

During frosh week my freshman year, I vividly remember sitting in a packed hall listening to different a cappella groups sing and impress.

I was mesmerized. I auditioned. I failed. Not because of a lack of effort, but because I really just didn’t know how to sing. Never mind, Ali, move on. Fair enough.

My high school also had no real campus publication (other than an end-of-year magazine), so I never got the chance to write about campus issues. The ‘Prince’, I discovered through a friend, had an opinion section. That seemed optimal, and this time, I thought, I even had the talent! I applied to be a columnist. I was rejected.

So then I regrettably crawled toward debate. Quick disclaimer: as a former member, debate is a great activity in intellectual thought and public discourse, and Princeton’s debate society is a well-run, highperforming club. But I had promised myself that, after five years of spending fifteen hours a week on debate in high school, I would never debate in college; that I would try new and different things. But there I was, at the first practice, sometime in October of my freshman fall. I tried and I strived for a little bit, but eventually

I quit that too.

For me, there was no value in debating again for another four years, beyond another line or two on a resume or some recognition from my peers. Those things can and do have worth. However, in my case, it was offset by the desire to try something new, to never think in terms of “Government” and “Opposition” ever again or to subject myself to the whims of sleep-deprived, biased judges. To find myself, I could not do four more years of the same.

Ever since then, I’ve joined and quit many societies and clubs. Of course, each time I quit, I try to finish the work I’ve committed to doing, leaving with some sort of a clean bill. But once I join a club and realize that for whatever reason I don’t want to continue, I have continually found myself cleaning up my work and moving on to the next thing. The process has been priceless in teaching me which clubs actually matter.

After three years, I have finally ‘channeled’ my efforts into two or three extracurricular activities that I am really passionate about, instead of six or seven that only slightly pique my interests. The catch, though, with quitting is knowing why.

Despite my track record, I’m not at all advocating excessive quitting. In a lot of ways, quitting makes no sense.

Let’s look at three of them. First, a college experience is about balance: there will always be things you will not enjoy doing, but you still ought or have to do them (think MAT 201:

Multivariable Calculus or PHY 103: General Physics I for engineers). The trick is to balance these relatively unsavory aspects of a course load with more enjoyable courses or extracurricular activities.

Second, there are some commitments you just can’t quit, requirements that need to be completed to reach a certain goal or end. I obviously would be far more reluctant to drop ECO 302: Econometrics (a core class for my major) than, say, an elective or a course I took just because it seemed enjoyable. In these cases, it seems, the reasons to stick around outweigh the current inconveniences that tempt me to quit.

Third, there is an internal benefit we gain from not quitting. The very act of perseverance, even in the face of persistently annoying and difficult tasks, is precious. Learning to persevere in life equips us with tenacity and resolve, which help make us stronger in the face of future adversities that pose similar, or even more difficult, problems.

But despite the value of staying true to our commitments, not quitting — as a steadfast rule — does not make sense either. There are benefits to giving up, too. At a competitive campus like ours, however, I often find that everyone neglects them. We often equate quitting with failure.

This is not only inaccurate, in that many people have various reasons for dropping a course or leaving a sport or changing a major, but also adds even more peer pressure to an already

stressful campus dynamic. A lot of times, people stick with things they don’t want to stick with or don’t get much benefit, material or personal, from sticking with a group. I have often found that despite the lack of enjoyment with their situations, many overlook this discontent with the fact that they occupy positions in clubs that are exclusive and hard to get into.

My point is this: there is already so much academic and pre-professional pressure against quitting that we don’t need to add social pressure. As long as people realize that, according to their own ends and goals, quitting x, y and/or z is desirable, they should do it. As Tyler Blackmon, a senior at Yale, writes in an article for the Yale Daily News, quitting a particularly stressful course can make college, as a whole, much more worthwhile (I definitely recommend reading his piece because he does a much better job at explaining the wonderful world of giving up than I ever could).

For me, personally, quitting has worked wonders in fine-tuning my interests. For somebody else, it could help ease a stressful schedule; for another student, it could allow him or her to focus more on classes or employment efforts, leading to better performance. Quitting isn’t failing, but maybe failing to know why you quit is.

Ali Akram Hayat is an economics major from Lahore, Pakistan. He can be reached at ahayat@princeton.edu.

The Daily Princetonian

Wednesday october 14, 2015

Joyce, Goodwin, Park chosen to represent women’s tennis in Navy Blue and Gold Invitational TENNIS

Continued from page 6

.............

against Howard University’s Stacey Roheman and ultimately prevailed in a third set tiebreaker 6-2, 3-6, (10-7).

Goodwin rolled in her match and defeated Claudia Mackenzie of Navy 6-1, 6-1. On the doubles side, each match was only one set. Goodwin and Park defeated Sam Droop and Catalina Rico of Navy by one break, 6-4. In the quarterfinals, they won their match against the tandem of Esu Erdenebat and Olivia LacyThompson of George Mason

6-1.

On Day 2 of the invitational, the Tigers did not reach the same level of success as the previous day. Joyce lost in three sets to Navy’s Amanda Keller. Joyce dropped the first set 6-2 before battling back to win the second set by a score of 6-4. She ultimately lost a close third set tiebreaker by a score of 10-7.

Goodwin continued her dominance and won her quarterfinals match against Luize Strike of Seton Hall 6-2, 6-4.

Park suffered a defeat at the hands of Elizabeth Tsvetkov of Stony Brook 7-5, 6-2. Goodwin went on to play Tsvetkov

in the semifinals, but lost the match by a score of 6-3, 6-3.

On the doubles side, Goodwin and Park went to a tiebreaker against Sara Komer and Arielle Shuren of Delaware and prevailed by a slim margin of 7-5 in the tiebreaker.

On Day 3, the lone remaining match to play for the Princeton women was the doubles final. Once again, Goodwin and Park were eliminated by Tsvetkov and her partner 6-0.

The women’s tennis team will travel to Atlanta, Ga. to compete in the Georgia Invitational in the upcoming weekend.

Yo, Taylor, I’m really happy for you ... Imma let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!

- Kanye West

Buy an ad.

Say what you want.

For more information, contact ‘Prince’ business.

Call (609)258-8110 or

Email business@dailyprincetonian.com

page 5

Lapkin ’17 talks about her spirit animal, drinks of choice to dispense from fingers ON TAP

Continued from page 6

.............

when you woke up this morning?

HL: This morning I woke up and thought… Well, I didn’t go to class… I woke up and thought I don’t really need to shower that badly and went back to sleep.

DP: What would you say is your spirit animal?

HL: An elephant. Because they’re always happy. I think.

DP: What would you say would be the title of a film about your life?

HL: Work Hard, Play Hard.

DP: What secret obsession do you have that most people wouldn’t know about?

HL: I’m into boybands.

accidentally eat a baby. And I’d look really dumb playing with a muffin.

DP: What’s your favorite food of all time?

HL: Peanut butter. Sushi. I have a lot of other favorites too. Oh my god, mozzarella sticks, mozzarella sticks.

DP: And for the typical on tap question, if the four fingers and thumb on one of your hands were drink dispensers, which drinks would they dispense?

HL: Each of them a different drink?

DP: Would you rather not be able to eat mozzarella sticks for the rest of your life or not be able to tell the difference between a muffin and a baby?

HL: I think I would rather not be able to eat mozzarella sticks for the rest of my life because there are other foods that are like mozzarella sticks, and I don’t want to

DP: Whatever you want.

HL: One would dispense cold water, one would dispense orange soda, one would dispense an Oreo milkshake, I have two left? One would be those Lipton green teas, and for my last one let’s go with… What other things do I drink… hot chocolate! Hot chocolate.

Sports

Wednesday october 14, 2015

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

Women’s volleyball sweeps Columbia, Cornell at Dillon

By Mark Goldstein staff writer

When the lights went off at Dillon Gym on Saturday night and the last fan had long since left the building, the women of Princeton volleyball could finally exhale. After dropping their first three Ivy League matches against Penn, Harvard and Dartmouth, the Tigers (7-7, 2-3 Ivy League) regained their composure to sweep Columbia (4-10, 2-3) and Cornell (4-11, 0-5) to reinsert themselves into the Ivy League race.

While senior co-captain Kendall Peterkin led the charge as usual against Columbia on Friday, it was team effort rather than individual performance that allowed the Tigers to beat the Lions and pick up their first Ivy win of the season in the process. After taking the first set 25-18, the Tigers stormed back from a 19-13 deficit in the second set to win it by a narrow 25-23 margin.

They finished off the Lions with a 25-19 third set.

Peterkin tallied a team-high 11 kills on the night, while junior Brittany Ptak, freshman Brittany Smith (who hit .538 on the night) and junior Cara Mattaliano each recorded eight of their own. Mattaliano also added 11 digs to complement senior co-captain Sarah Daschbach’s 17 in the victory.

The following night the Tigers

welcomed the Big Red to campus with another straight-set win (25-19, 25-20, 25-15). Ptak finished a stellar weekend with a team-high 12 kills while hitting a whopping .750, living up to her All-Ivy billing. Mattaliano, another standout of the weekend, added 10 kills and 12 digs.

Freshman Claire Nussbaum and junior Lauren Miller set-up their teammates all night, recording 24 and 14 assists respectively.

Though the Tigers did their part to gain ground in the crowded Ivy League this weekend, they will have their work cut out for them on the next road trip. On Friday the Tigers will square off against Brown (8-8, 2-3), and a win would be critical to keep pace with the pack in contention for the Ivy Championship. On Saturday the Orange and Black will travel to New Haven, Conn. to take on the reigning Ivy Champion Yale Bulldogs (8-6, 3-2) in one of the Tigers’ most anticipated games of the season.

The upcoming weekend will conclude Princeton’s first run through the Ivy League. A disappointing result might dash the Tigers’ championship hopes, but if the team can build upon last weekend’s momentum and perform up to expectations, they could find themselves right back near the top of the league with half of the season yet to play.

STEPHEN CRAIG :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

After starting Ivy League play 0-3, the women’s volleyball team has climbed back up the standings, currently holding joint fifth.

O N TA P

WOMEN’S TENNIS

Solid results for women’s tennis at Navy Blue and Gold Invitational

By Chris Grubbs staff writer

This past weekend, three players from the women’s tennis team traveled to Annapolis, Md. for the Navy Blue and Gold Invitational. The women who traveled were sophomore Sara Goodwin, junior Caroline Joyce and freshman Amber Park. The other schools that participat-

ed in the Invitational were Delaware, George Mason, George Washington, Howard, Long Island University Brooklyn, Loyola (Maryland), Seton Hall and Stony Brook.

All three girls participated in the singles draw, while Goodwin and Park played in the doubles draw. Goodwin and Park came in second place in the doubles, while Joyce and Park lost in the quarterfinals

for singles and Goodwin advanced to the semifinals before being defeated.

On the first day of the invitational, the women went a combined 5-0. All three singles players and the doubles team played in the A flight of the brackets. Joyce defeated Malin Leysen of Long Island University 6-4, 6-2. Park’s match went to three sets See TENNIS page 5

SYDNEY MANDELBAUM :: ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR

Hannah Lapkin is currently a junior on the women’s water polo team majoring in Anthropology.

On Tap With ...

Hannah Lapkin

By Sydney Mandelbaum associate sports editor

Even though the women’s water polo doesn’t play its first game for a while, junior Hannah Lapkin is already raring to go for this coming season. This week, The Daily Princetonian sat down to talk about water polo, boybands and mozzarella sticks.

Daily Princetonian: Where are you from and what’s the best part of being from there?

Hannah Lapkin: I’m from Tustin, Calif. and the best part about being from there is the

sense of community… and having so many In-N-Out burger locations.

DP: What are you studying?

HL: Anthropology.

DP: What’s your favorite thing about water polo?

HL: That you can’t tell when you’re sweating.

DP: What’s the funniest or most embarrassing thing that’s happened to you or a teammate, in or out of the pool?

HL: Do I want to single out a teammate or put my own life out on the line? Oh, duh. I was

skipping around the pool and waving at my team while they were all in the water and I fell and sprained my ankle and was on crutches and for months…

I missed months of season. It was caught on tape in the background of the game that was being filmed so everyone got to watch it happen over and over again... And then the next year it happened again but it was in the weight room. And it was the same ankle. But that one wasn’t as embarrassing because I wasn’t skipping for joy.

DP: What was your first thought See ON TAP page 5

CARLY JACKSON :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Caroline Joyce, Amber Park and Sarah Goodwin had quite strong starts at the Navy Blue and Gold Invitational.

Tweet of the day

Inside

Follow us

“my immune systems class has devolved into a disease being mentioned and me frantically googling symptoms and convincing myself I have it”

Read more about the three members of women’s tennis competing in the Navy and Gold Invitational.

SPORTS PAGE 5

‘Prince’ Sports is on Twitter!

Follow us at

kathleen mulligan (kathleen_mully), women’s swimming and diving

www.twitter.com/princesports

for live news and reports!