December 16, 2015

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Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998

Wednesday december 16, 2015 vol. cxxxix no. 123

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } HOLIDAYS

ACADEMICS

U. task force talks general education By Maya Wesby staff writer

Colagiuri noted that the Task Force hopes to give a report on its findings to the University administration by next fall. “At a high level, ideally, what should every Princeton student take away from their education? And then we started to turn to, more practically, what would that look like? How might we best do that?” Colagiuri said. She noted that students who attended the conversations were very engaged and passionate about the topics at hand. Undergraduate Student See REQUIREMENTS page 2

Whitman College had a festive “Come Home for the Holidays” themed dinner on Tuesday night.

The University’s Task Force on General Education held three discussions with students last week about concerns regarding distribution requirements. Elizabeth Colagiuri, Deputy Dean of the College and member of the Task Force on General Education, said the discussions were centered on the goals of an undergraduate education at the University and what core values and lessons students should be equipped with by the time they graduate.

STUDENT LIFE

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Number of low income students has increased at U.

Cruz ’92, Christie talk terrorism in final debate

By Drew Brazer

President Barack Obama has done an inadequate job combating the ISIS terrorist threat and if they were to be elected president, they would be much more effective, both Texas Senator Ted Cruz ’92 and New Jersey governor Chris Christie argued in a Tuesday republican debate focused on the terrorist threat. “If I am President, we will hunt down and kill the terrorists,” Cruz said. Christie said that the basic responsibility of the President is to protect its people and that Obama has not been doing that. Christie is an ex officio trustee of the University. Cruz also said that Obama and Secretary of State and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton have not been sufficiently willing to fight against terrorism. Cruz added that the problem with the Obama administration is not a lack of competence, but an excess of political

NATALIA CHEN :: PHOTO EDITOR

staff writer

While the proportion of lowincome high school graduates enrolling in two- and four-year institutions has experienced a significant drop since the economic downturn of 2008, the University’s low-income student enrollment has increased over the past seven years. According to U.S. Census Bureau data, the percentage of students from low-income families enrolling in higher education immediately after graduating from high school has declined from 56 percent of graduates to just 46 percent since 2008. The report added that this data signifies that, in short, low-income students today are much less likely to enroll in college immediately following high school than they were seven years ago. In a report called “Where Have All the Low-Income Students

Gone?”, The American Council on Education said that the national findings are indeed surprising given increased national and institutional efforts to increase low-income post-secondary school participation since 2008. The American Council on Education has also indicated that the dramatic decline in enrollment among low-income students in two- and four-year colleges and universities transpired despite massive increases in federal and institutional financial aid. Grant aid from federal, state, private and institutional sources increased by roughly 50 percent after adjusting for inflation, from $82 billion in the 2008-09 academic year to $123 billion in the 2013-14 academic year, as detailed in the College Board’s 2014 “Trends in Student Aid” report. The net price of college since 2008 has fallen significantly at two-year institutions and increased only by 21 percent at four-

year institutions, the report said. These figures do not seem to correlate with the demonstrated decline in low-income undergraduate enrollment. The American Council on Education proposed several theories to explain this issue, including the ideas that the rapid price increases in college tuition may have led low-income students to think that college is out of reach financially. Other theories were that students may believe that the economic value of higher education has declined and that low-income students have begun to enter the workforce at a higher overall rate than those from higher-income families due to the economic recovery. The Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to lowincome undergraduates and certain post-baccalaureate students with the goal of promoting access to post-secondary education, acSee INCOME page 3

By Paul Phillips news editor

correctness. Cruz said he disagreed with opponent Donald Trump about banning all Muslim refugees to the United States, explaining that he has instead introduced legislation to suspend all refugees from countries with a strong ISIS or Al-Qaeda presence for three years. Trump’s idea, he said, does not sufficiently focus on the problem. “It’s not a war on faith, it’s a war on a political and theocratic ideology that seeks to murder us,” Cruz said. Cruz added that he does not support complete amnesty for Syrian refugees, and that he opposed an amnesty plan for the refugees supported by a bipartisan “Gang of Eight,” including presidential competitor and Florida Senator Marco Rubio. Cruz also said that as President, he would use air power to utterly and completely destroy ISIS, and that Obama, who is currently instigating 10 to 20 attacks a day against ISIS, is not doing See DEBATE page 2

ACADEMICS

Psychology department creates 3 labs staff writer

The psychology department at the University opened three new research laboratories in computational neuroscience, social neuroscience and developmental psychology in the past two years. Two of the labs, the Princeton Baby Lab and the Princeton Social Neuroscience Lab, were created at the beginning of this academic year. The Princeton Baby Lab is a joint initiative created by psychology professors Casey LewWilliams and Lauren Emberson. “I primarily study language in the first years of life, and she primarily studies perception in the first years of life, but all with the focus on understanding how learning gets off the ground in the first place,” Lew-Williams explained. Lew-Williams noted an increasing desire in the psychology

department to have the perspective of developmental researchers to better understand the origins of how adults process information in memory, attention and social interaction led the University to hire experts in the field. Psychology department chair Elizabeth Gould deferred comment to assistant chair Nicholas Turk-Browne. Turk-Browne declined to comment. Lew-Williams lab’s projects focus primarily on the basic science side of learning but also focuses on more translational, or applied projects, he noted. His research projects include how infants break into language in the first place, combining sounds and syllables into words and sentences and coming to understand and produce these structures, he said. “We always have our eye on what our finding might mean for a particular population that is at risk — for example, children in

poverty, or children born prematurely, or children with a developmental disorder of some kind,” Lew-Williams said. Emberson said her projects focus on memory and perception in babies and the interrelation of these two elements. She explained that her lab combines behavioral methods, such as camera and eye trackers, with neuroimaging technologies, such as near-infrared spectroscopy. Another new lab, the Princeton Social Neuroscience Lab, seeks to answer important social questions by drawing from disciplines including neuroscience, social psychology, behavioral economics and machine learning, according to psychology professor Diana Tamir, who created and runs the lab. Some of the lab’s main research questions include how people bridge the subjective world they See LABS page 3

TOMI JOHNSON :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The psychology department added 3 new labs this year.

In Opinion

Today on Campus

Columnist Prianka Misra discusses a simpler but prevalent form of eating disorder, and the Muslim Advocates for Social Justice and Individual Dignity highlights the recent anti-Islamic sentiment. PAGE 4

4:30 p.m.: Professor Peter Singer, Samantha Harris ‘99 of FIRE, Joshua Leifer ‘17 and Daniel Teehan ‘17 will discuss free speech, media and social justice in light of recent debates on campuses in a panel discussion hosted by The Daily Princetonian. McCosh 10.

WEATHER

By Myrial Holbrook

HIGH

60˚

LOW

40˚

Mainly sunny. chance of rain: none


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December 16, 2015 by The Daily Princetonian - Issuu