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Friday february 20, 2015 vol. cxxxix no. 15
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In Opinion David Goldstein ‘17 argues that the University can better respond to concussions on campus, and the Editorial Board suggests improvements to the selection process for Honor Committee members. PAGE 4
Today on Campus 8 p.m.: University organist Eric Plutz will perform a 10th Anniversary Sampler organ concert. Chapel.
The Archives
Feb. 20, 1959 A seven-foot-tall wall was placed at the corner of Washington Rd. and College Rd. as a “stone sample” containing four building materials. Architects were meant to choose two of the materials for a new wing in Guyot Hall.
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News & Notes Eating clubs welcome new presidents, more women elected to office The six bicker eating clubs – Cannon Dial Elm Club, Cap & Gown Club, Cottage Club, Ivy Club, Tiger Inn and Tower Club – have recently elected their officer elections. Three women were elected as officers of TI, which was the last club to admit women in 1991. Hap Cooper ’82, president of the TI Graduate Board, stated in an email on Thursday that the club elected Grace Larsen ’16 as president, Maria Yu ’16 as treasurer, and Victoria Hammarskjold ’16 as safety and communication chair. Ivy, which was the second-to-last club to admit women in 1991, elected Eliza Mott ’16 as the new president. Ian McGeary ’16 was elected as president of Cannon, Tyler Rudolph ’16 was elected as president of Cap, Forrest Hull ’16 was elected as president of Cottage and George Papademetriou ’16 was elected as president of Tower. The sign-in eating clubs elected their presidents last year. JeanCarlos Arenas is the president of Charter Club, Ed Walker ’16 is the president of Cloister Inn, Swetha Doppalapudi ’16 is the president of Colonial Club, Lucia Perasso ’16 is the president of Terrace Club and Mitch Shellman ’16 is the president of Quadrangle Club. Arenas is a former chief copy editor for The Daily Princetonian.
STUDENT LIFE
Dining halls close in response to measles By Christina Vosbikian staff writer
The University notified certain members of the faculty and staff on Thursday that they will be required to provide proof of protection against measles before they are allowed to return to work. The University previously said on Wednesday that a student had been diagnosed with a suspected case of measles. The notified faculty and
staff were born after Dec. 31, 1956, and may have been in buildings where the affected student visited while contagious. Only dining operations have been affected so far by the requirement that employees provide proof of immunization, University spokesperson Martin Mbugua said. It is currently unknown whether classes will be affected, he said, adding the University should have a clearer picture of how campus operations
will be affected by Friday morning, since most notified employees received the message late on Thursday. Forbes College Dining Hall, the C-Store, Café Vivian, Studio 34 and the Witherspoon Café were closed Thursday evening, Mbugua said. Thursday night late meal operated in a limited capacity, he added. Whitman College Dining Hall, Forbes College Dining Hall, Studio 34 and the Frick See MEASLES page 3
LOCAL NEWS
Board of Health to raise tobacco purchasing age to 21 By Christina Vosbikian staff writer
The Princeton Board of Health plans to introduce an ordinance that will prohibit stores from selling tobacco products and electronic smoking devices to anyone under 21 years old. The ordinance is set to be in-
troduced by the Board of Health on March 26 and may be adopted by April 21. The Board of Health was concerned with the problem of youth smoking, Charles Rojer, a member of the Princeton Board of Health, said. “I think, if hopefully passed, [the ordinance] will prevent a
significant number of teenagers from becoming involved in smoking, which, along with obesity, is one of the two main problems that we encounter in our society that causes so many health problems,” Rojer said. “Anything we can do that could cut down the likelihood of teenSee TOBACCO page 2
STUDENT LIFE
USG launches pilot operation to develop meal exchange app By Katherine Oh staff writer
The Undergraduate Student Government, Campus Dining and the Office of Information Technology are creating an application that would allow upperclassmen in eating clubs and students on residential college meal plans to exchange meals on their mobile devices. USG expects to begin the pilot operation this spring and launch the app for use by the fall of 2016, USG president Ella Cheng ’16 said. While the number of students who will participate in the pilot has not been determined, Cheng said the focus is to include students from all the different eating clubs, rather than having a large number of students. Plans for the project began last fall, and the developers of the app met last Friday with representatives from USG to discuss progress on the app. Former USG president Shawon Jackson ’15, who was at the meeting, said the meeting gave USG members the chance to voice their opinions. “We were trying to understand what the next steps would be and ensure that the members on the technology side had all the information necessary,” Executive Director of Dining Services Smitha Haneef said,
adding that Campus Dining is frequently working on projects with OIT. Currently, students in eating clubs have to use slips of paper to exchange meals with students outside of eating clubs. Cheng explained that these meal exchange slips expire at the end of the calendar month, which was hard for students to remember or keep track of. “It’s very easy for students to lose those cards,” Cheng said. “The natural progression was to move it online, or to move it to a mobile app, so that it’s accessible by phone.” The longstanding hosting arrangement between eating club and meal plan students is not only difficult for students to use, but also for Campus Dining to supervise and monitor, Haneef said. The idea for a mobile meal exchange app is relatively recent, because it was suggested only a few years ago when mobile phones became more widely present on campus, she explained. “Coming into my role and talking about priorities, this seemed like one of them. We’re working on some options,” Haneef said. “It’s still in a preliminary phase. There is a lot of programming still to be done.” The piloting process schedSee APP page 2
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Summers talks secular stagnation, possible solutions By Chitra Marti senior writer
The most profound macroeconomic challenge of the next 20 years is secular stagnation, or the idea that the economy has equilibrated to downward growth, Lawrence Summers argued in a lecture on Thursday afternoon. Summers served as Secretary of the Treasury under President Bill Clinton and Director of the National Economic Council under President Barack Obama. He is also President Emeritus of Harvard and a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. Summers opened the lecture by crediting the close ties between government and academia as the reason why the
YASH HUILOL :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
Lawrence Summers, former Secretary of the Treasury and the Director of the National Economic Council, spoke on campus on Thursday.
most recent recession had not turned into a depression, naming many of his friends from both fields in the audience. The United States has not had sustainable, genuine macroeco-
nomic growth in at least half a generation, Summers said, which motivates a debate over different macroeconomic theories to encourage such growth. Previous explanations could
be categorized as “financial network failure theory,” in which a sudden shock “turned out the lights” on the economy. However, these explanations took the view that once the lights were
back on, the economy would not only recover rapidly, but also grow, due to a natural period of playing catch-up, he said. “That was five years ago that See LECTURE page 2
Q&A: Jose Manuel Barroso Former president of European Commission discusses economic policy By Olivia Wicki staff writer
Former President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso joined the faculty of the Wilson School on Feb. 1. The Daily Princetonian had the opportunity to talk to him about his career and thoughts on European policy. The Daily Princetonian: In a reflection on your 10 years at the helm of the European Commission, at the Chatham House in October, you stated, “Had Greece left the euro, the economic and financial damage would have spilled over throughout the single market. Politically, the euro and the European Union would
have been shaken to their very foundations.” Could you talk a bit more about the EU handling of the eurozone debt crisis? José Manuel Barroso: It was in fact a crisis of great magnitude because it started as a financial crisis, but it also became a sovereign debt crisis and an economic crisis, and in some countries a social and political crisis. There was a problem of confidence, so it required a great effort both from the European institutions and from the governments of our member states to respond to that crisis. But I believe that the European Union, having gone through this stress test, the biggest test since the integration process that started in the ’50s
of last century, has proven its resilience. We were able to put behind the existential threat to the euro. We created complete new instruments, like the European stability mechanism. We have come forward with new regulation for the financial sector and new rules for the economic governance of the euro area, and in fact it’s also interesting to note that the way forward was always for more and not less integration, namely for the euro area. DP: Were you met with resistance for these new, different economic developments? JMB: There were many resistants, first of all because the
positions of the different countries were not the same, and so our task in the European Commission and my own task as president of the Commission was always trying to push for what I believe is a common European interest. Let’s say that from Finland to Greece the economic perspectives are quite diverse. Sometimes even between France and Germany they are diverse. So, you can imagine that it was not easy to unite all those governments from different countries, sometimes different political backgrounds, around the current plan. But in the end, I think it has worked — not as quick and not in such, let’s say, a bold way as myself and the
European Commission would have desired. But you have to understand that the European Union and the euro area are by definition complex. Just to give a figure, the year I became president of the Commission in 2004, we were 15 member states. Now, we are 28. It means that we have almost doubled membership through this crisis. Today, we have, in the euro area, we have 19 countries, so more than there were in 2004 in all the European Union. So to do all this in the middle of this enlargement was really an extremely challenging task. But I believe, as I said, that the European Union has shown that it’s capable to overcome See Q&A page 3