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Thursday october 10, 2013 vol. cxxxvii no. 85
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Nassau Hall reopens
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Announcement This week, The Daily Princetonian is piloting running four complete Sports sections in print per week, with Thursday’s edition featuring a modified version. This change will allow us to focus our efforts on enterprise sports coverage midweek and on coverage and previews at the week’s beginning and end.
In Opinion Ye Eun Charlotte Chun suggests how to combat loneliness at Princeton, and Bennett McIntosh reminds us that it’s important to take a break. PAGE 6
In Street Lin King explores the world of Princeton a cappella, Oliver Sun reviews the recently opened Rojo’s Roastery and Zoe Perot defends bedbugs. PAGE S1
On the Blog Lizzy Bradley spotlights a court-reporting error that declares Bicker unconstitutional.
On the Blog Zeena Mubarak looks back on Marilyn Monroe’s acting career and reviews ‘Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.’
News & Notes Yellen nominated chair of Federal Reserve
ben bernanke, the former chair of the university’s economics department, will step down from his role as chairman of the Federal Reserve at the end of January. Janet Yellen, vice chair of the Federal Reserve, was nominated by President Obama yesterday to succeed Bernanke, The New York Times reported. Bernanke chaired the University’s economics department from 1996 until 2002, when he went on public service leave to serve as a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors. He resigned from his position at the University in 2005. As Fed chairman, he has been known for directing the response to the financial crisis beginning in 2008 and for the so-called “Bernanke Doctrine,” which outlines a prescription for the Fed to prevent deflation. If confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Yellen will take over the position of chairman in late January.
By Marcelo Rochabrun associate news editor for enterprise
HORIA RADOI :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
Students dined outdoors in one of Whitman College’s courtyards under lights during Diner Inn Blanc Wednesday evening. STUDENT LIFE
SURGE argues for fossil fuel divestment By Do-Hyeong Myeong contributor
Students United for a Responsible Global Environment has continued to advocate for the University to divest any holdings in fossil fuel companies. Since first circulating a petition in February, the student environmental group has been collecting additional signatures, organizing related events and raising aware-
ness among alumni, according to co-president Stephen Moch ’14. As of Oct. 8, SURGE had collected 576 signatures on its petition. SURGE’s efforts are part of a nationwide movement to increase sustainability on college campuses, which to date has involved more than 300 institutions, including Harvard and Brown, Moch said. SURGE has not yet approached the Resources Committee — the subsection of the Council of the
Princeton University Community tasked with handling issues related to the endowment — with a request to consider its petition. Moch said the group is actively working to demonstrate “sustained campus interest” — a standard that petitions must meet in order for the Resources Committee to examine an issue involving the actions of companies in the University’s investment portfolio. See SURGE page 5
Following a two-and-a-half-hour shutdown as a result of unfounded reports of gunshots inside Nassau Hall on Tuesday night, the University’s main administrative building resumed normal operations Wednesday morning. The police search that took place, which included local Princeton Police Department officers armed with rifles, did not damage the building or items within it, University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua said Wednesday evening. The initial 7:55 p.m. call on Tuesday night went to the University’s Department of Public Safety, Mbugua said. He explained that the caller, a female, was within the building at the time although she left before the search was concluded, aided by police officers. “DPS takes every such call very seriously,” Mbugua explained, adding that the department then informed the local police. Regular occupants of Nassau Hall were made aware of the situation through the University’s emergency messaging system at 8:05 p.m., Mbugua said, a full half an hour before the rest of the University community. The message instructed individuals still at the building to “shelter in place,” although it was unclear if any other individuals besides the caller were inside the building. “I don’t have information of any other occupants who may have been in the building at See POLICE page 4
U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S
Details emerge regarding grading policy review By Warren Crandall senior writer
University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 pointed to the near-constant criticism that surrounds grade deflation as well as recent feedback received from alumni as the strongest indicators that the policy needs review. “If anybody had said to me on the day that I voted for the [grading] policy … that a decade later this would still be a major topic on campus, I wouldn’t have believed it,” Eisgruber said in an interview Wednesday morning. In the most important policy
review so far in his presidency, Eisgruber charged a committee of nine faculty members with reevaluating Princeton’s grade deflation policy on Monday. The committee will not include students. Eisgruber revealed that the review was approved in late September, at a meeting of the Board of Trustees and that the committee members were selected mainly from the two University committees that deal with grading and examinations. He also detailed the scope of the review, explaining that it will focus on students’ experience at Princeton and, as
a result, will not review the impact of the policy on the admission yield. The grade deflation policy, enacted in 2004, states that no more than 35 percent of undergraduate grades given in a department should fall within the A-range. “I think Princeton, as a research university, takes the commitment to undergraduate learning more seriously than any peer,” Eisgruber said. ”But I think that this conversation [surrounding the grading policy] … in some ways becomes more prominent than our commitment to teaching.”
He said he found the input from off-campus alumni especially persuasive since it came from people who he felt didn’t have a personal stake in the issue. “When you leave campus and someone says to you, ‘You know, I think the students really have a point with these arguments’ … that can change perspectives,” Eisgruber said. In fact, the announcement of the review came the morning before Eisgruber appeared in front of over 1,000 alumni at an event in New York City, the first of a number of appearances that will take him to three con-
tinents to meet with alumni. But the continued controversy over the policy isn’t the only evidence Eisgruber cited as motivation for a reexamination of the policy. At the NYC event, Eisgruber cited a study by UC Berkeley and Harvard Business School published two months ago that found students who come from schools with tougher grading standards are less likely to earn admission to choice graduate schools. “I haven’t had the chance to look into that study in enough detail to know whether or not See GRADING page 3
STUDENT LIFE
Whitman to hold College Night less frequently, hopes to improve quality By Anna Windemuth contributor
College Night at Whitman will now take place every three weeks instead of each Tuesday in response to cumulative student feedback, the Whitman College Council announced in an email to Whitman College this week. Aimed at foster-
ing residential college camaraderie and team spirit, these themed dinners are restricted to Whitmanites only and feature festive decorations as well as specialty meals. After the College Council kicked off the year with two College Nights in September, “Under the Sea” and “Meatball Night,” only three more are planned for this semester ac-
cording to College Council Chair Kristin Wilson ’14. The change was largely initiated by undergraduate representatives Sing Sing Ma ’14 and Sarah Grond ’16, who aim to be “more intentional” about the dinners by allowing for extra planning time and a presumably higher budget for each event, the email explained.
The change has been motivated by student response and student reaction, according to Whitman Director of Student Life Devon Moore ’05. Students in Whitman praised the revision for its logistical merits. “I actually feel like that gives them time to make each College Night more special and put more See WHITMAN page 3
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Government shutdown freezes BRAIN neuroscience initiative By Elizabeth Paul staff writer
Pending the end of the government shutdown, University neuroscientists may play a crucial role in pioneering new neurotechnologies through President Obama’s recent $100 million Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative. While the initiative was halted due to the shutdown, the Princeton Neuroscience Institute — which oversees the Program in Neuroscience — has the potential to benefit in many ways from this increase in neurotechnology funding. The University already has ties to the initiative through PNI Co-Director and molecular biology professor David Tank, who is a member of the Advisory Committee to the Director of the National Institutes of Health BRAIN Working Group that authored an interim report released last month that outlines the goals of the initiative.
Unveiled this April, BRAIN aims to develop and apply new technologies with the purpose of showing how brain cells and neural circuits interact, according to the National Institutes of Health website. Developing an understanding of the brain is one of the “great remaining challenges in science,” PNI Co-Director and psychology professor Jonathan Cohen explained. “There’s something that sits right in front of us that we use everyday and we’re using right now that remains an utter mystery,” Cohen stated. “That is, ‘How does the brain work?’ ” Rather than targeting its impact on a specific neurological disease, such as Alzheimer’s, the goal of Obama’s initiative is to learn how to use technology, which can then be applied to a variety of brain studies, including medical applications, Tank explained. The initiative is supposed to focus on the development and application of new technologies to study the brain. See NEUROSCIENCE page 4
SHANNON MCGUE :: SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER
The University’s new two-building complex will house the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and the Department of Psychology.