March 6, 2013

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Wednesday march 6, 2013 vol. cxxxvii no. 23

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In Opinion Lily Alberts suggests linking the advising system to the eating clubs, and Spencer Shen discusses hometown pride.

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In Street Staff writer Livvy Robbins defends the four people you meet in gymhell. ONLINE

The Archives

March 6, 1979 The Federal Republic of Germany presents the Institute for Advanced Study with $700,000 in honor of Albert Einstein.

On the Blog Cheyenne Smith reviews former professor Melissa Harris-Perry’s observations on the Harlem Shake.

On the Blog

STUDENT LIFE

Princeton Talks plans public panel

By Jean-Carlos Arenas contributor

Princeton Talks, a student group founded by four sophomores, will seek to provide a public forum for campus dialogue on a diverse range of issues beginning late this spring.

Inspired by the TED Talks series and Harvard University’s Harvard Speaks club, Phway Aye ’15, Billy Beacom ’15, Faridah Folawiyo ’15 and Susannah Sharpless ’15 created the group to remedy what Aye called “a lack of conversation on campus.”

Sharpless is a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.

“We realized that we could learn a lot from each other that we couldn’t learn in class,” Beacom added, explaining the impetus for the group’s formation.

The group has not yet been recognized by the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students or secured USG funding for its operations, but Aye said the group plans to hold its first public panel

on April 5. English professor and Master of Rockefeller College Jeff Nunokawa has agreed to be one of the speakers for the April 5 forum.

“I’m always for more voices,” Nunokawa said. “I certainly hope [Princeton Talks does] well. I certainly intend to do my part.”

Once it is officially recognized and receives funding, Princeton Talks will organize public panels of five or six speakers who will give 10-minute presentations on whatever topic they wish, Aye said. Although speakers will not be required to present their topic in a specific form, Sharpless said the content of each speech must be “personal [and] relatable.”

After holding each forum, the group will post a video of the event on its YouTube account, according to the group’s Facebook page.

Before speakers are chosen for future panels, however, interested candidates will be required to submit applications on a rolling basis and to See FORUM page 2

IN THE NATION’S SERVICE

KATHRYN MOORE :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Franklin Odo ’61 delivered a talk titled ‘Asian Americans in the Nation’s Service’ in Whig-Clio on Tuesday afternoon. The event was sponsored by the Asian American Students Association.

STUDENT LIFE

Volunteer coordination app wins Idea Farm

By Paul Phillips contributor

Associate Editor for Intersections Amy Garland describes the synesthetic qualities of Youth Lagoon’s new album ‘Wondrous Bughouse.’

News & Notes Gammie recognized for dedication to research training molecular biology senior lecturer Alison Gammie has received the 2013 William A. Hinton Research Training Award for her dedication to increasing the visibility of women and minorities in biomedical science.

The award, which honors prominent African-American medical researcher Hinton, recognizes individuals who make exceptional contributions to the research training of undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.

Gammie is the director of diversity programs and graduate recruiting for the molecular biology department and of the Princeton Howard Hughes Medical Institute Summer Undergraduate Program in Molecular and Quantitative and Computational Biology.

Gammie currently studies yeast to examine how defects in DNA mismatch repair is linked to cancer in higher organisms. She also received the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching from the University in 2004.

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KAREN KU :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Justin Ziegler ’16 and Victoria Lin ’16 won $3,000 at the Idea Farm.

Justin Ziegler ’16 and Victoria Lin ’16 won Princeton’s first Idea Farm with “Sum of Good,” their volunteer coordination platform for nonprofit organizations. The platform aims to improve communication between community service organizations and individuals and to maximize the social impact of volunteering.

Held Feb. 22-24, the Idea Farm was sponsored

by Microsoft and organized by the USG and the Keller Center. Ziegler and Lin will receive $3,000 and the chance to have their idea developed by Microsoft into a Windows Store app.

Ziegler and Lin said they were motivated to enter the competition by their shared passion for community service. Both wanted to improve the efficiency of some nonprofit groups and felt, according to Lin, that their efficacy “could be so much better if they had some form of organization.”

Sum of Good hopes to “reduce this inefficiency by stimulating communication,” Ziegler said, explaining that the platform will improve com-

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

munication on three levels: between nonprofit organizations, between organizations and their prospective volunteers and among volunteers.

The first level includes an app that allows people to perform “impulse volunteering.” In other words, if someone wants to sign up for an activity on short notice, Sum of Good enables him to see what activities are available in the area, Ziegler explained.

The second level focuses on organization and volunteer communication, providing a systematic means for groups to connect and coordinate their efforts. Ziegler and USG social committee member Richard Polo ’16 noted that natural disaster response would be a possible area of impact, citing Hurricane Sandy as an example.

In Sandy’s wake, several organizations tried to band together to distribute food, clothes and other supplies, but time constraints prevented them from doing so effectively.

The third level, communication between individuals, allows volunteers to “volunteer with friends [and] volunteer with people you want to volunteer with,” Ziegler said, explaining that the See MICROSOFT page 2 ACADEMICS

Bodine discusses Middle East policy Appointed judges more effective, U. research finds

By Daniel Johnson staff writer

Barbara Bodine, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen and lecturer in the Wilson School, discussed the Obama administration’s Middle East policy with a group of College Democrats on Monday evening.

According to Bodine, modern American foreign policy must strike a balance between the relatively passive practice of leading by example and the relatively active practice of supporting American policies through interventionist means. Bodine called the current administration’s policies a welcome shift from the “muscular,” “neoconservative” policies of President Bush that strongly embraced the active view.

“The Bush foreign policy felt very strongly that we See FOREIGN page 5

By Hannah Schoen contributor

MERRILL FABRY :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Former U.S. Ambassador to Yemen Barbara Bodine discusses the Obama administration’s foreign policy with the College Democrats at Campus Club on Monday evening.

Justices appointed to state supreme courts are more effective than their elected counterparts, a new study by Princeton researchers has found.

In their article “To elect or to appoint? Bias, information and responsiveness of bureaucrats and politicians,” which was published in the January volume of the Journal of Public Economics, economics professor Matias Iaryczower, graduate student Garrett Lewis and Caltech professor Matthew Shum analyzed almost 6,000 state supreme court rulings on criminal cases from 1995 to 1998.

The study did not analyze judicial rulings on civil cases.

According to the study’s authors, appointed justices possessed better information about the cases over which they were presiding, were more likely to change their preconceived opinions about a case and made fewer mistakes in their rulings See COURT page 3

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Ziegler, Lin to receive $3,000 prize MICROSOFT Continued from page 1

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Takin’ care of BU$INE$$.

app allows friends to coordinate efforts to work together. In the event that a conflict emerges to prevent someone from volunteering, the app allows a volunteer to find someone else to take his place.

One of the platform’s key strengths, according to Idea Farm judge and Microsoft marketing executive Justine Li, is that it “doesn’t currently exist on our market.”

Polo said the app’s combination of creativity and practicality made Sum of Good stand out from its competitors.

Unlike other University pitch events such as TigerLaunch and Hackathon, Idea Farm did

not require its contestants to submit a prototype with their ideas. According to Ziegler, the duo most likely could not have completed the platform if a prototype had been required.

The idea had been in the back of their minds for some time, but most of the work was done during the three days of the competition.

Lin explained that from a coding perspective, a prototype would have been difficult to produce. The open-ended nature of the competition allowed the pair to formulate an idea that would not have to be limited to going “as far as they could code,” she said.

Li said that she does not yet know how Microsoft will develop Lin and Ziegler’s platform.

According to Idea Farm judge Patrick McGrath, Microsoft will need to have a conversation with the winners to determine where Sum of Good will go next.

Both Lin and Ziegler expressed definite long-term plans for the platform. Ziegler said they will continue their collaboration over spring break and the summer, and possibly even after graduation. Lin expressed a desire to disseminate the platform in metropolitan areas such as New York City.

“It’ll be a huge time commitment,” Ziegler said, “but it’ll be a time commitment that’s totally worthwhile because it could really do a lot of good.”

He added, “working together, we can do more than the sum of all the parts.”

Group to promote campus dialogue

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attend a mandatory “coffee talk” with Folawiyo and Sharpless, who are in charge of recruiting. The coffee talks will facilitate the selection process by helping prospective speakers adapt and refine ideas that may not be entirely formulated to make them presentable in a forum, Beacom said.

Princeton Talks has already begun accepting applications, and its found-

ers will speak with current applicants in the coming week, Folawiyo said.

Sharpless added that the group will consider hosting someone who has already given a well-received TED talk at a Princeton Talks event in the future.

Though Princeton Talks has yet to apply for USG funding, Beacom said the group would require relatively little funding and that its costs would be limited to paying for small expenditures, such as promotional f lyers.

The group has already been approached by the Sustainable Fashion Initiative about a potential collaboration, Aye said.

“Our focus is on spreading ideas and starting conversations, and other groups who also emphasize that as well, we’d be happy to collaborate and work with them,” Aye added, though she emphasized that the group hoped to solidify its own presence on campus before coordinating its activities with other groups.

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The Daily Princetonian

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Study analyzes biases of state justices

GETTING CREATIVE

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than elected justices.

The findings could illuminate the debate over the respective merits of appointed and elected judges. University of Toronto professor of economics Yosh Halberstam said the study’s findings also serve as a case study through which to understand whether certain jobs are better performed by elected politicians or by appointed bureaucrats.

According to Lewis, one might expect elected justices to be more moderate, since they will feel pressure to present positions that can appeal to the maximum number of voters, while one might think that judges who are appointed by partisan officials would be more likely to have some initial bias.

But in actuality, appointed justices are more willing to gather information about cases and to prevent their personal biases from influencing their rulings, he said.

To measure each justice’s effectiveness, the researchers considered both the justices’ biases and the quality of their information, or their ability to make decisions that the researchers determined to be correct under the law given the facts of the case. They found that appointed justices had a 39 percent higher quality of information than

elected justices.

They then assigned each justice a FLEX score, which is the probability that a justice would have voted differently in the absence of case-specific information. They found that appointed justices were 23 percent more likely than elected justices to vote differently in the absence of case-specific information — in other words, appointed justices were more likely to take case-specific information into account. Finally, they estimated how often each justice makes incorrect decisions, using the votes of all the justices hearing a certain case and the characteristics of the case to assign each case a probability of being wrongly decided under the law.

They found that elected judges were more likely to make incorrect decisions. “[Elected] justices are not necessarily the great legal minds, they’re the great political minds, the ones that can get elected in a popular election,” Lewis said, contrasting elected judges with appointed judges.

In the study, the researchers wrote that, though elections are designed to hold the justices accountable, elected justices often “pander” to the public through their rulings.

“The basic thing that we do see is that elected officials, including politicians and judges as well, are responsive to the voters,” Iaryczower said. “There is a lot of theory indicating that

sometimes elections induce incentives for politicians to actually make wrong choices, to actually throw away information, to act in a way that makes them look as if they were more competent or as if they were more in line with the electorate, but without actually taking full consideration of the impact of their actions on the policy.”

One of the study’s most innovative features is the model researchers used to evaluate rulings made by Supreme Court justices, Halberstam said. The model incorporates the quality of justices’ information about cases, justices’ tendencies to vote on the basis of case-specific information versus their personal biases and the probability that justices reach an incorrect decision.

“The basic idea [of the model] is that with a really good justice, there’s going to be very little variation in the decisions he or she renders,” Lewis explained.

“Given certain characteristics in the case, he or she is going to consistently come down on the same side of the case, whereas a lower-quality justice will be more all over the place.”

“It is a great first step in the right direction,” Halberstam said of the study. He added that political scientists could extend the model developed by Iaryczower, Lewis and Shum by incorporating judicial deliberation into their calculations.

MERRILL FABRY :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Award-winning playwright Amy Herzog discusses her training, career, creative process and her most recent work ‘The Great God Pan’ in McCormick 106 on Tuesday afternoon.

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Lily Alberts columnist

P

Lily Alberts is an economics major from Nashville, Tenn.

She can be reached at lalberts@princeton.edu.

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Advice on advising

rinceton’s advising system is weak.

For whatever reason, it doesn’t seem to be able to institutionally provide good advising in terms of academic, career planning or independent work. Sure, there are those who have a wonderful adviser with experience in each area — but these are thought to be strokes of good fortune, not the norm of advising relationships. And those students who are lucky enough to have such a personal relationship have a better academic relationship too.

I have always been jealous of those students who have developed relationships with their advisers, who are never hesitant to send a question, whose conversations range beyond academics and requirements, whose meetings last whole hours. For me, that’s never been the case. My meetings were always scheduled through WASS, 15-minute allotments to initial my course enrollment sheet or spot check my regression model. I’ve had four advisers and never once spoken of something non-academic. Our relationships were not only confined to those scheduled minutes — neither of us, I’m sure, even thought of the other aside from those required meetings — but also strictly to the project at hand, whether it be my junior paper or my spring courses.

I always wanted a deeper relationship, something akin to my high school adviser, who kept up with all aspects of my academic life while also asking how the weekend’s Mock Trial tournament had gone, coming to see me in the school play or sticking a card to my locker on my birthday. For her, too, the explicit premise of the job was merely to oversee my schoolwork and contact a higher power if I was screwing up (then my parents; here, I presume, my Director of Stuent Life or College Master), but she interpreted her role in my life to be much more supportive and all encompassing than the one assigned.

The environment of high school likely contributes quite a bit to the difference. I saw my adviser twice a week in our 15-minute homeroom meetings, but I also had her for English four times a week and saw her in the halls countless times, and we both felt deeply involved in the shared community of my school. Here, I share almost nothing with my advisers. Freshman and sophomore year, it’s only an attempted match in our potential field of study; for independent work, a slight overlap in our area of research.

With so little in common, and no shared community, it’s understandable why so few advising pairings launch from sterile, academic planning to true relationships.

Advising here is just too hit-or-miss in that regard. Perhaps you loved your residential college or joined a small department and you found a surrogate, more effective, system of advising there. But from the conversations I have had, it seems this is not the general consensus. One way the University might combat this is through the eating clubs, or organizations with similar reach and commitment from its members. I have been part of many an organization on campus. From religious groups, to club sports, to USG, my attempted engagements run a pretty wide spectrum. And, for me, none have been as successful in creating a community of mentorship and support as my eating club.

From assistance on problem sets, to advice on internships or how to ask for a recommendation, I have turned to the members of Tower, not just because I feel they are more invested in my well-being than any other resource, adviser or community I had on campus, but also because I didn’t feel encouraged or able to reach out to those other sources.

I know dozens of other students who feel this way toward their club — and others who feel that way toward other campus organizations, though a smaller bunch. Yes, the eating clubs are a social institution, but I think it is often forgotten what a strong and important community they create for their members. It seems to me, that if the University could get on board, there might be a way to strengthen the advising system by linking it to this community. If a few professors, representing the different academic disciplines, affiliated with each club, the creation of a shared community might help foster more meaningful advising relationships.

Through hosted dinners or discussions, afternoon teas or happy hours, members could be exposed to and gain familiarity with the professor from their department, who represents a discipline closest to theirs. This could lead to more informal questioning and advising, especially useful to juniors and seniors — who, if their independent work adviser doesn’t take an interest in or feel compelled to advise their academics and life beyond independent work, have no generic adviser during half of their Princeton experience. The club involvement would even better encourage such a relationship because it would not be expressly for JPs, theses or course approval, but simply for advising a community of people in general.

This, too, could be easily implemented with a co-op, for upperclassmen in the residential colleges and — with a bit of extra planning — for independent students, so as not to be limited to students within the eating clubs. It’s about creating a greater shared community by engaging with students through their eating option, whatever that is. It’s not the perfect solution, and not the only solution, but such a system would be a nice complement to the existing advising system, which is simply just too hit-or-miss.

Opinion

Wednesday march 6, 2013

Poorer by concentration

vol. cxxxvii

Luc Cohen ’14

Zeerak Ahmed columnist

A

n interviewer asked me a few days ago what the relationship was between my academic interests in policy, music and computer science. He preceded this with a comment that he had no idea what I was interested in after reading my resume. I was cool with that because I felt like I, too, have no idea what I’m doing with my life. At least we were on the same page.

I told him my interests in all of those fields didn’t really intersect. That didn’t help my job prospects, so I went into recovery mode.

Many of the skills learned doing various sorts of academic work are transferable to the work at a tech company, I said.

An ethnography of musicians and audiences involves similar interviewing and analysis skills as a user test for software, for example. Learning to generate buy-in for policy involves as much of a critical high-level understanding of people’s preferences as any market research job.

But I think this point was leading to something more fundamental. I see the skills across all disciplines as transferable to most forms of work. I believe this is because most academic study can be generalized to understanding the mechanisms behind the processes of the world.

History is about looking at facts of how humans and states (as organizations of some humans representing other humans) chose to act and about understanding the reasons that they did so, and then spotting patterns between similar actions to formulate an underlying mechanism of how humans and groups act in different scenarios. Abstracted to this level, one begins to see similarities with sociology and psychology. The natural sciences are about understanding the mechanisms of organisms and substances behind their phenomenal appearance. It is about identifying and mapping the patterns of movement and change in the natural world.

Much of engineering relies on being able to use these patterns to aid human action.

Behind every field of study there is the logic of causation. X causes Y which leads to Z which implies something else. The primary structure of an argument remains the same. Each field of study involves a combination of finding evidence and reasoning to explain a process that entails the evidence. And as we learn more we become more adept at understanding more complex processes and more complex reasoning. We learn both to abstract so that we can build

on each other’s work and to dissect so that we can build our editor-in-chief own understanding. Theoretically, given enough background Grace Riccardi ’14 knowledge, some abstraction (and belief that abstracted business manager parts of processes work as expected) and the skills of logic, most fields of study should be within the grasp of a diligent student.

The point here being that education is really similar managing editor across the board. We may be ignorant about many parts of Emily Tseng ’14 many fields, but that does not imply that we are stupid and news editors will be unable to understand the field at all.

Patience Haggin ’14 Underlying my interviewer’s question may be the Anastasya Lloyd-Damnjanovic ’14 assumption that the lack of domain-specific knowledge may opinion editor render someone useless for a given set of tasks. I find this Sarah Schwartz ’15 assertion problematic because I see all aspects of the educasports editor tional process as a struggle to build competency with underStephen Wood ’15 standing the mechanisms that underlie our world in one street editor form or another. Intelligent minds should be able to switch Abigail Williams ’14 domains and learn to paddle around them given good experiphotography editors ence in the core art of following an argument.

Monica Chon ’15 The implication here is that to me, learning domainMerrill Fabry ’14 specific knowledge is like moving to a new house. You must copy editors relearn the little things such as how long it now takes to get Andrea Beale ’14 from home to work, but you don’t forget the core art of transErica Sollazzo ’14 porting yourself from one place to another. design editor For this reason, anytime I see the argument that my eduHelen Yao ’15 cational background (i.e. what major I am) dictates what sort multimedia editor of work I can succeed at and add to, I find it problematic. I see Christine Wang ’14 this when courses are reserved only for members of certain prox editor departments, when I witness the possible difficulty of changDaniel Santoro ’14 ing fields between undergraduate and graduate study and intersections editor every time someone stereotypes my major.

Amy Garland ’14 There’s a part of Sufi thought that argues that divine associate news editor inspiration and realization can only be witnessed by a select, Catherine Ku ’14 blessed few. Many see this as an elitist aspect of Sufism. I associate news editor think that our prohibitive attitudes to diversity of study as for enterprise mentioned above are also elitist because they assume that a Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 concentration may limit one’s scope of thought — by extenassociate opinion editors sion implying that certain forms of thought can only be Chelsea Jones ’15 accessible to certain kinds of people. Be it in school or at the Rebecca Kreutter ‘15 workplace, an inclination to educational diversity should be associate sports editors welcomed, not rejected.

Damir Golac ‘15 I think the struggle to understand the mechanisms of the Victoria Majchrzak ’15 world is a process in which we all take part in order to obtain associate street editors a better conception of the truth about our world. Given the Urvija Banerji ’15 universality of this objective and of thought itself, knowlCatherine Bauman ’15 edge should be available to anyone to understand and build associate photography editors on.

Conor Dube ’15 Zeerak Ahmed is a computer science major from Lahore, Pakistan.

He can be reached at zahmed@princeton.edu.

pope tart

Lilia Xie ’14

associate copy editors Dana Bernstein ’15 Jennifer Cho ’15 associate design editor Allison Metts ’15 associate multimedia editor Rishi Kaneriya ’16

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NIGHT STAFF 3.5.12 news Carla Javier ’15 copy Oren Fliegelman ’16 Michal Wiseman ’16 David Zhao ’16 Alexander Schindele-Murayama ’16 Andrew Sartorius ’13 Natalie Gasparowicz ’16 design Gerry Lerena ’16 Morgan Taylor ’15 Paul von Autenried ’16

Hometown pride Spencer Shen columnist

L

ast Saturday was Texas Independence Day, and seeing the Princeton Texans Club table set up in Frist, with our giant Lone Star flag and representatives decked out in Stetson hats and cowboy boots, reminded me once again of how much pride I have in my home state.

There were a few students who scoffed or made snide remarks, but most nonTexans just seemed slightly bemused by the whole display — after all, what kind of state has its own independence day? However, if you ask any of the students from Texas, you’ll find that many of them will fiercely defend her regardless of their political affiliation or socioeconomic background. Although being a Texan or a New Yorker or a Californian is technically just a geographic affiliation, it carries a regional identity with it that greatly influences our personal identities in more significant ways than superficial differences such as clothing choice or accent.

Before I came to Princeton, I had never really identified with my hometown or home state, and I imagine the same applies to many students here.

Perhaps for those students from nearby states, the atmosphere is similar enough

here to make them feel somewhat at home — and it does indeed seem like half the students here are from New York or New Jersey — but even then, the regional differences quickly become apparent. My roommate, who is from northern Connecticut, is always eager to point out that southwestern Connecticut is full of New Yorkers and doesn’t really count as part of the state.

However, many Manhattan residents will probably tell you that Greenwich is most definitely in Connecticut and not New York. Even within cities, people divide themselves based on where they live — every neighborhood and suburb has its stereotypes — and as a result, even minute geographic differences are associated with deep cultural divisions.

After I arrived at Princeton, I realized how strange I must have seemed to the various new people I was meeting, and it made me realize that a large part of who I am depends on the culture of my hometown and home state. Even the way I talk can sometimes flag me as Texan, or at least vaguely Southern; for the first few weeks, I was met with incredulity every time I said “y’all,” but my friends soon accepted it as a “Texas thing.” The most prominent difference I’ve noticed is how fast everything is in the Northeast. The people talk quickly, walk quickly and generally seem to be in a hurry all the

time. I discovered that saying “sorry” or “excuse me” after bumping into people is quite unusual and calling older people “sir” or “ma’am” is often seen as patronizing. These small, noticeable things might not represent a cultural difference by themselves. However, they are symptoms of a deeper ideological divide, the kind that inspires such stereotypes as the rich, preppy New Englander or the bumbling Texas cowboy. The culture shock I experienced upon arriving here was very real, and in some ways I still feel out of place. I might be able to change my superficial habits, or others might get used to them, but the deeper ideological differences, such as the pace of life or the ways in which people show respect for others, are much harder to reconcile.

I had never been truly aware of my habits and beliefs until now. If I had not come to Princeton, I probably would never have noticed them. As much as I miss my hometown, I am glad that I decided to get out of Houston, out of Texas and out of the South to attend college in New Jersey. It’s hard to build up a strong personal identity when everyone has similar identities, whether those are people of the same ethnicity, people of the same nationality, residents of the same neighborhood or even students from the same school. Until

they leave behind these homogenous populations, most people don’t fully realize that many of the practices and habits that they take for granted back home are unusual and foreign to almost anyone who lives anywhere else; for most, this epiphany should occur during college.

Unfortunately, many of us decide to stay in the same groups — ethnic, geographic or otherwise — that we spent high school with, meaning all this talk of “broadening your horizons” is simply empty words on an admissions brochure. The safe choice that many of us make is to stay in a comfort zone of familiar friends; however, we should instead be adventuring out and meeting not just new people, but new kinds of people. We should have our habits and beliefs challenged by people from radically different backgrounds from our own and figure out which beliefs are worth keeping and which ones are not. Being exposed to as many different cultures as possible will provide valuable insight into how the rest of the world lives and make you more appreciative and aware of your own cultural identity, something that we should all strive to do.

Spencer Shen is a freshman from Houston, Texas. He can be reached at szshen@ princeton.edu.

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Wednesday march 6, 2013

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were exceptional, not only in terms of our roots and how we viewed ourselves but that we embodied world values,” she said, alluding to a “toxic mix” created by a unipolar international environment, a very strong economy and a world that “admired who we were.”

In Iraq, Bodine said the Bush administration not only hoped to remove a terrible dictator, but also wished to “remake Iraq and remake the Middle East.” She said that neoconservatives took a “global social engineering” approach to foreign policy.

“In those circles, there was a sense that we can do this on our own, we should do this on our own and we have an obligation to do this,” she said.

“The other legacy of Iraq is that we took our eye off Afghanistan,” Bodine noted.

“Iraq was going to be easy …

We would go over and finish Afghanistan, and we will be home before lunch.”

According to Bodine, the extended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan left President Obama with very difficult circumstances, “including an economy on the precipice and a military stretched thin.”

One of the Obama administration’s accomplishments over the last four years has been to change the rhetoric and substance of its policy

on democratization, Bodine said.

“We stopped saying you have to democratize the way we tell you,” she added. “Each country will have their own form of democracy.”

According to Bodine, Obama foreign policy has continued to support change in governments but has allowed countries to change

“The other legacy of Iraq is that we took our eye off Afghanistan.”

Barbara Bodine

at the pace and in the style they prefer.

“This is not a truth relativism,” she said. “There are core human values, but the way you structure your societies to ref lect this is up to you.” She said this has been ref lected in the Obama administration’s comparatively nuanced dealings with the Arab Spring.

Another major part of the current policy, Bodine said, is a shift back to multilateralism and support for international structures. She added that there has been a walk back from engagement, but not a total avoidance of it, as exemplified in the U.S. doctrine of “leading from

behind” in Libya.

Another way the United States has remained engaged in the world is through the use of drones, about which Bodine said she has “serious misgivings.” Bodine said she is wary that drones have become far from the exception: Today, they are a strategy of choice, justified as an alternative to boots on the ground.

“From our point of view, it’s a nice weapon; you sit in Nevada, and you shoot,” she said. However, she added, “The collateral damage has a cost, and the political costs are starting to outweigh any of the strategy benefits they might be.”

A drone overhead can see exactly where you are going, who you are meeting with and then suggest if you are up to no good, Bodine said.

“To me, that is a very creepy feeling,” she said.

The discussion took place in the den of Campus Club on Monday night.

CORRECTION Due to an editing error, the March 5 article “Callahan breaks Ivy League record in relay” misstated the nature of the record that was set. The men’s distance medley relay team set a new Ivy League record.

Due to an editing error, the Opinion teaser on the front page of the March 5 edition misspelled the name of Isaac Lederman ’15.

page 5

TRANSFORMING AMERICA

HARRIET KIWANUKA :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

History professor emeritus and Civil War expert James McPherson delivers a talk titled ‘The Civil War and the Transformation of America’ in McCormick Hall on Tuesday afternoon.

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page 6

3.6 news for Luc.indd 4

The Daily Princetonian

Wednesday march 6, 2013

3/5/13 11:51 PM

The Daily Princetonian

Wednesday march 6, 2013

page 7

Princeton still undefeated M. LAX

Continued from page 8

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

situation, as they scored six goals in the final quarter compared to Villanova’s two to take the match 14-11. The Tigers scored five consecutive goals to open the quarter, a stretch that took them from being down two to being up three.

Ambler was particularly effective, scoring twice in the quarter to finish with his first career hat trick and five points. Among his three goals was an incredible shot that he fired off while falling backward due to a push from a Wildcat player. The goal found the back of the net to give the Tigers their first lead since being up 2-1 early, a lead that they would not forfeit for the rest of the game.

“It’s great, but we got the W,” Ambler said of the hat trick. “Getting the win is all that matters.”

Faceoffs were key throughout the match, as the Tigers

were dominated in that regard throughout the first three quarters. However, they turned that around in the fourth, winning six of the eight faceoffs.

“We did nothing [differently],” Ambler said of the fourth quarter. “We just kept fighting. We were getting opportunities on offense, and we just played well on defense.”

The home opener was the first time Princeton’s defense let up more than 8 points so far this season. The defense, which consists entirely of players who were virtually untested before this season, allowed the Wildcats to take 44 shots, but freshman goalie Matt O’Connor had 12 saves.

The Tigers will now prepare to travel to Chapel Hill on Saturday for a huge matchup against No. 9 North Carolina in a battle of top-10 teams. Princeton has already knocked off a top-10 opponent this season, defeating then-No. 3 Johns Hopkins over the weekend.

MONICA CHON :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The Tigers picked up 13 ground balls in the final period and scored six unanswered goals to power past Villanova at Class of 1952 Stadium.

Freshman takes home 2 hammers, Robbins looks strong in indoor race CREW

Continued from page 8

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

broke 7:00.

Despite the success from the open women this weekend, Robbins said the team still has a lot to work on before the season starts.

“We now transition to the water and hope to put our winter training to good work in boats,” Robbins said. “This means learning to race together: matching and being effective technically on the water.

We have less than a month until our first race.”

While the open freshman women were impressive, Robbins did as expected and dominated in the varsity open women’s race, finishing in an incredible 6:37.6. For the lightweight women’s team, senior Alex Morss won the hammer, posting a time of 7:14.

Kat Gebert won the freshman hammer while classmate Livvie Francis won the “novice” hammer with an impressive time of 7:58. Notably, freshman Emily Wiebe, who was expected to compete for the freshman hammer, was in-

jured.

The big story for the men’s heavyweight team was the emergence of freshman Pat Eble, who won both the freshman and varsity hammers with a time of 5:59.2. No one has accomplished that feat in recent memory. Senior Tyler Nase won the hammer for the varsity lightweight men’s team with a time of 6:14, while Cam Howie won the freshman hammer by posting a time of 6:15.

“We have a strong group of freshmen. They will be important contributors.”

Heidi Robbins

Crash-P’s is a memorable Princeton crew tradition. Surprisingly, however, Robbins

said she is not incredibly fond of the event.

“To be entirely honest, the event is not my most favorite testing scenario. In fact, that’s an understatement. I do appreciate the camaraderie inspired by the boathousewide event and the support of alumnae and friends from campus. However, I find the din from the cheering to be overwhelming at times and have to work hard to stay cool and focused.”

In addition to Crash-P’s not being a great testing environment, Robbins also said that going through her last CrashP’s made her realize that this marks the beginning of the end for her.

“As a senior, it was bittersweet to compete at my last Crash-P’s, which marks the end of winter training and the start of our spring season,” she said. “As such, it is also the beginning of the end, so to speak.”

The Tigers head back to the grind to practice for a few weeks before kicking off their seasons at various tournaments the weekends of March 23 and 30.

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Sports

Wednesday march 6, 2013

page 8

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } MEN’S LACROSSE

{ Feature }

Tigers rally past Villanova

Freshmen shine at Crash-P’s

By Damir Golac Associate Sports Editor

By Tobias Citron senior writer

This Sunday marked Princeton rowing’s annual Crash-P’s, an indoor regatta in which the men’s and women’s teams participate in a 2,000-meter race on rowing machines. CrashP’s is also the first race of the crew season and marks the beginning of the excitement that is sure to follow the Tiger crews into their first races against non-Princeton opponents, which will take place later in March.

One interesting aspect of Crash-P’s is the opportunity for freshmen to compete in their first real race of the season. This weekend, the freshmen did not disappoint, as rookies across all four teams posted impressive times. This was especially true for the women’s open team.

Senior Heidi Robbins spoke about the strong showing of the freshman class, as well as the role the freshmen will play on the team.

“We have a strong and fun group of freshmen,” Robbins said. “They will be important contributors to all the boats this spring and have done a great job diving in with the upperclassmen and the training.”

It is a Crash-P’s tradition that the freshman with the fastest time on each team is given a hammer, as is each team’s fastest overall rower.

The star of the women’s open freshman class was Meghan Wheeler, who won the hammer with a time of 6:57.5. Her classmate, Brett Simpson, finished just one-tenth of a second behind Wheeler. In total, nine open women See CREW page 7

MONICA CHON :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Freshman attacker Ryan Ambler had his first career hat trick against Villanova and scored twice in the final quarter as the Tigers came back to bring their record to 3-0 Tuesday.

The men’s lacrosse team continued its strong start the VILLANOVA 11 to season by PRINCETON 14 beating Villanova on Tuesday night in its home opener to maintain a perfect record. The No. 5 Tigers (3-0) struggled early, but pulled out the victory over the Wildcats (1-3) thanks to strong play in the fourth quarter and another great performance from freshman attackman Ryan Ambler.

The first quarter started out slowly, with both teams scoring only one goal during the first 10 minutes, making it look like the game would be a defensive affair. The Tigers got an early lead at 2-1, but the Wildcats ended the quarter on a strong offensive stretch during which the Tigers barely even held the ball. The stretch included four consecutive goals in a span of just over two minutes to give the Wildcats a 5-2 lead through the first quarter.

The Tigers scored first in the second quarter to break the Wildcats’ streak, when

junior midfielder Tom Schreiber scored his first goal of the game after a nice pass from sophomore attackman Mike MacDonald. The Tigers won the ensuing faceoff, and senior midfielder Jeff Froccaro found the back of the net on a pass from Ambler a mere nine seconds after the previous goal, pulling the Tigers within one.

The remainder of the quarter saw the two teams go back and forth, with the Wildcats scoring three and the Tigers scoring two during the remainder of the quarter, including an impressive angled shot from the left-hand side by junior midfielder Hunter DeButts.

The Wildcats held an 8-6 lead at the half.

The third quarter saw more of the same, as the Wildcats scored twice and the Tigers responded after each goal, with the last goal of the quarter coming from freshman infielder Jake Froccaro. This put the Tigers in the tough position of having to overcome a two-goal deficit in the final quarter of play.

The Tigers proved more than able to handle the See M. LAX page 7

THE

AROUND I V I E S

There is only one week left in Ivy League competition, but last weekend ensured that the next seven days will be full of drama. As many Princetonians know, two final contenders have emerged, and in a week’s time, one’s season will end while the other goes to the NCAA tournament. The other six may not be going to the Big Dance, but they still have a chance to help determine who wins the Ancient Eight.

1.

Princeton (16-9 overall, 9-2 Ivy League) After a huge win over Harvard — and some help from Penn — the Tigers have taken sole possession of first place in the Ivy League for the first time all season. This puts them in the driver’s seat, as wins in their final three games would assure the Tigers a trip to the NCAA tournament. The Tigers will continue to depend on senior forward Ian Hummer to get there, as he was huge down the stretch for them in the win over Harvard, surpassing Doug Davis ’12 to become second on Princeton’s all-time scoring list.

Harvard (17-9, 9-3) The weekend could not have gone any worse for the Crimson, as the team saw itself go from sole possession of first place to a half-game behind Princeton in the standings. While the loss to Princeton was not a shocking one by any means, the loss to Penn was a bit more surprising, as the Crimson had defeated the Quakers by 19 points in their previous encounter. The Crimson will now need Yale, Brown or Penn to upset Princeton in order to force a playoff game to decide who goes to the tournament.

2.

Brown (12-14, 6-6) The Bears returned to a .500 record in Ivy League play thanks to impressive road wins over Cornell and Columbia. The Bears looked very impressive on offense, scoring a season-high 84 points in their win over the Big Red, largely thanks to 13 three-pointers, including six by Tucker Halpern.

3.

4.

Yale (12-17, 6-6) The Bulldogs split their road games last weekend to maintain a .500 conference record. They showed how well they can play when they’re rolling on all cylinders in the first half of their win over Cornell, shooting 55 percent from the field and taking a 14-point lead. They were not able to maintain their high level of play in the second half however, as the Big Red got as close as four points before losing 79-70.

5.

6.

7.

8.

Penn (8-20, 5-6) The Quakers had a very odd weekend, losing to lowly Dartmouth at home before beating a Harvard team that was in first place in the Ivy League going into the game. Penn freshman Tony Hicks had another great week, scoring 20-plus points in both games including 24 in the upset over Harvard, earning him another Ivy League Rookie of the Week honor.

Cornell (13-16, 5-7) Not long ago, Cornell had the best shot to beat out Princeton and Harvard of any of the other six teams, but the Big Red is now out of contention after a four-game losing streak to Ivy opponents in Ithaca. Perhaps Cornell can take solace in the solid season of freshman Nolan Cressler, who had the highest points per game average of any Big Red freshman and put up 19 points on Saturday.

Columbia (12-14, 4-8) The Lions’ win over Harvard earlier this season looks less impressive after this weekend, although they did hand Yale a 13-point loss on Friday. Columbia is no longer in contention for the Ivy League title but could help Princeton capture it if the Lions can defeat the Crimson again in Cambridge this weekend.

Dartmouth (7-19, 3-9) In an excellent example of how crazy the Ivy League has been this year, the Big Green defeated Penn in Philadelphia the night before the Quakers upset Harvard. That win ended a five-game losing streak that started on Feb. 10 and cemented Dartmouth’s poor finish in the Ancient Eight’s standings.

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