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Wednesday september 18, 2013 vol. cxxxvii no. 69
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In Opinion
Lauren Davis explains what we can learn from MOOCs, and Rebecca Kreutter discusses the effects of gender on class participation. PAGE 4
Announcement Interested in joining us? The Daily Princetonian is having an open house today at 7 p.m. in the newsroom at 48 University Place. We’ll see you there!
Today on Campus
7 p.m.: There will be a Campus Recreation Expo where you can meet the Sport Club’s officers and take free classes. Dillon Gymnasium.
The Archives
Sept. 18, 1980 Students report thefts of furniture stored in Jadwin Gymnasium over the summer.
On the Blog
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Gellman ’82 talks Snowden, national security By Angela Wang staff writer
The government has the ability to easily keep track of every citizen’s online activity, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman ’82 said in a lecture at the Wilson School Tuesday. The discussion focused on Gellman’s role in the blockbuster series of stories relating to the National Security Agency’s extensive surveillance programs that begun appearing in the Washington Post and in the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper this summer. “There has never been a disclosure of so much information of such high sensitivity,” Gellman said in reference to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, who leaked the documents. Gellman is also a former chairman of The Daily Princetonian. Gellman described the backstory of how he became one of three journalists, together with the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald and independent documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras, with whom Edward Snowden shared highly classified government documents.
Gellman said he was first contacted by Poitras, who had begun corresponding anonymously with a source who later revealed himself as Snowden. Eventually, Snowden and Gellman began to communicate directly, Gellman said he would not go into greater detail about his interactions with Snowden or discuss the exact means of communications they have used. “Just because he released his identity doesn’t mean I don’t have confidences regarding our communication,” he said. Gellman explained in general terms the findings that came from Snowden’s documents and focused particularly on the NSA’s storage of metadata — the send-and-receive information as well as timestamps stored in communications — and its importance. “It’s data about data. It’s the outside of the envelope when you mail the letter,” he explained. According to Gellman, metadata can be more informative than the actual content of communications See SURVEILLANCE page 2
ACADEMICS
Q&A: Economics professor Alan Krueger By James Evans
Intersections critic Jarron McAllister discusses Miley Cyrus’ new song, “Wrecking Ball.”
staff writer
Economics professor Alan Krueger served as the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from November 2011 until August 2013 after being appointed by President Obama. He previously served as the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and the Chief Economist of the Department of Labor.
By the Numbers
$2 mil
The amount invested by the Dorm Room Fund nationwide.
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News & Notes Dining Services offers new flexible meal plan for upperclassmen
upperclassmen will now have the option to convert their two extra weekly dining hall meals into a flexible 30-block meal plan for $200 a semester, Dining Services announced in an email to a selection of upperclassmen Tuesday morning. Under the original upperclass plan, upperclassmen were allowed two dining hall meals per week, and unused meals expired each Saturday after dinner. The flexible 30-block meal plan will allow upperclassmen to use their existing weekly two extra dining hall meals at any time in the semester, for a total of 30 swipes. In addition, flexible meals can be used for eating club meal exchanges, theme dinners, outdoor events like barbecues and other special meals. The meals may not be used for Late Meal, bagged lunches or guest meals. Students must indicate their participation in the program via email to Dining Services by midnight on Sunday, Oct. 6.
9.18 news FOR LUC.indd 1
HORIA RADOI :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Barton Gellman ’82 speaks about breaking news on the Snowden affairs.
COURTESY OF HUFFINGTON POST
Economics professor Alan Krueger returns to teach at Princeton. STUDENT LIFE
Daily Princetonian: In your view, what is the role of the Council of Economic Advisers? Alan Krueger: The CEA advises the president on all economic issues, and the chairman has the principal responsibility for conveying advice from the Council. The CEA works together with other departments and agencies within the government. But the CEA is unique … President Obama was clear that he wanted the CEA’s role to be to provide him with objective, unvarnished advice based on the best evidence. Other departments have constituencies. The Agricultural Department has the agriculture industry as its constituency; the Labor Department has labor unions as its constituency. We could kind of stay above the special interests, and that’s a nice feature of the job. I think the president appreciated that. It also means that sometimes people don’t welcome your advice because they view things
through a different lens. But I think the way I interpreted the job, and the way my predecessors did, is anything that has any significant economic impact was within our realm. So that involved energy policy, jobs and economic growth, the European debt crisis, even the economic effects of the drought last summer. DP: How was your experience with the CEA different from your time with the Treasury and Department of Labor? AK: They were all different. Working directly for the president was different. First of all, President Obama was a great person to work for. But I found that also when I worked for the labor secretary and the treasury secretary, that they were also very good people to work for. I worked on a wider range of issues at CEA. At Labor it was obviously labor issues; at Treasury it was a broader set of issues because it included housing as well as employment and taxes, and at CEA it was all of those issues. And that taught me a lot, but it also forced me to learn a lot in different areas. It was a very different scope … Here, as my role as chairman of the CEA, I could provide advice, and it was up to others to follow it. I could give the president my advice, and sometimes he would take it, and sometimes he wouldn’t. DP: What would you say was the greatest success, in terms of economic policy, during your last tour of duty in government? See GOVERNMENT page 2
STUDENT LIFE
USG class senator Dorm Room Fund helps student start-ups position opens By Jean-Carlos Arenas staff writer
By Anna Mazarakis staff writer
Members of the Class of 2015 can now apply to be a USG class senator, USG president Shawon Jackson ’15 announced Monday night in an email to the junior class. The appointed junior will fill the seat vacated by Deana Davoudiasl ’15, who stepped down from the position in order to take a semester off, Jackson said in an interview. The new senator will be appointed, rather than elected, in accordance with Section F of the USG Constitution. The USG president and the class president will nominate the replacement, who then must be approved by the Senate. Davoudiasl was halfway through her second term as Class of 2015 senator. During her tenure, she spearheaded the Summer Storage Initiative, which gives students the opportunity to store personal items over the summer, and Tiger Universe, which encourages attendance at athletic events. Davoudiasl said she was taking time off due to a personal matter. “Deana was a huge resource and a huge advocate, not only for the Class of 2015, but a great resource for USG,” Zach Ogle, the other See VACANCY page 5
When FiscalNote, a company founded by Tim Hwang ’14, recently raised $1.4 million in funding, the company’s list of backers included Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and the venture capital firm New Enterprises Associates. But among the list of high-powered investors was a more unexpected source of support, coming from Hwang’s own Princeton classmates, Taylor Francis ’14 and Raymond Zhong ’14 by way of the Dorm Room Fund, a venture fund run by student entrepreneurs at various universities across the United States. Started by First Round Capital — a company that connects and invests in entrepreneurs — the Dorm Room Fund has been investing in various student entrepreneurs in the New York area since 2012. It also operates in the Philadelphia and San Francisco areas, with a branch in Boston coming soon. The fund relies on undergraduate student investors to identify potentially successful student entrepreneurs at their universities. “The core belief is that students
can stay in school and start companies if they get a little bit of support, both financially and in terms of advice,” Francis explained. “The other big idea behind the Dorm Room Fund is that the people who are best placed to find the best student entrepreneurs are their fellow students.” First Round Capital selected student investors via an application and interview, according to Cece Cheng ’08, director of the Dorm Room Fund. The student investment team will choose who will replace the current members as they graduate, she explained. The idea that student entrepreneurs do not have to choose between being enrolled in school and being part of a start-up is different from that motivating many other student-entrepreneur fellowships and grants, such as the Thiel Fellowship, which offers students $100,000 to drop out of school and start a company, Francis explained. Each branch of the Dorm Room Fund is given $500,000 to invest in undergraduate entrepreneurs, totaling $2 million across the four different branches. The average investment the Dorm Room Fund makes in a single startup is about $20,000, according to its
website. FiscalNote was the first Dorm Room Fund investment made at the University. The start-up aims to provide real-time government analytics and actionable data for enterprises regarding relevant legislature that would otherwise not be easily accessible and would require the work of many entry-level assistants to compile, Hwang explained. FiscalNote is on track to raise another $8 million in July, according to Hwang, and will probably expand from 14 to 20 employees by the end of the calendar year. “I’m pretty confident that a little after graduation I’ll be able to ramp [FiscalNote] up to 100 people and start expanding this company out globally,” Hwang said. In addition to providing initial seed financing to the start-ups, the Dorm Room Fund intends to provide mentorship to the aspiring student entrepreneurs. Over 60 entrepreneurs have joined the Dorm Room Fund as resident advisers already, according to Cheng. Many of these advisers are alumni from universities in which the Dorm Room Fund has student investors. See VENTURE page 3
9/17/13 11:20 PM