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Thursday february 6, 2014 vol. cxxxviii no. 4

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ANNOUNCEMENT Due to the severe winter storm, Wednesday’s edition of The Daily Princetonian could not be delivered to campus. Today, the ‘Prince’ is distributing both issues. We regret the inconvenience.

By Jacob Donnelly staff writer

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In Opinion Zach Ogle defends the Bicker process. PAGE 4

In Street Lin King confesses to being a boring person.

PAGE S3

Today on Campus The Malaysian and Singaporean Student Association, Thaigers and Vietnaese Student Association will be hosting a Southeast Asian film festival, starting with a Singaporean film, “Getai”. 8 p.m. Black Box.

The Archives

Feb. 6, 1989 Nine students were admitted to McCosh Health Center for alcoholrelated illnesses during club sign-in weekend.

News & Notes Penn sophomore dies, 4th death since winter break university of pennsylvania sophomore Elvis Hatch-

er died Tuesday, according to a report by The Daily Pennsylvanian. His death was ruled a suicide, said Jeff Moran, spokesperson for the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office. Philadelphia Police confirmed that Hatcher died at the house of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity, of which Hatcher was a member.

Hatcher was the vice president of finance for the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity and worked as an instructional technology support assistant at the Wharton School of Business.

Hatcher’s death is the second student suicide in the last three weeks and the fourth Penn student death since winter break.

On Jan. 17, Penn freshman Madison Holleran jumped to her death from a Philadelphia parking garage, according to the Medical Examiner’s Office. Junior Pulkit Singh was found dead last Jan. 12 in his offcampus room and senior Kevin Zhao died over winter break while traveling with his family in China.

BEN KOGER :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Yesterday’s ice storm caused branches to fall on the paths around Brown Hall and Prospect Garden.

All University classes were canceled on Wednesday due to a winter storm that drove New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie to declare a state of emergency on Tuesday evening.

Non-essential University personnel were also ordered not to report to work. The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, campus libraries and Dillon Gymnasium were also closed, according to an Office of Communications statement at 8:30 a.m.

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

The dining halls, eating clubs and Frist Campus Center remained opened Wednesday, and Tiger Transit buses operated “on a limited basis,” according to the statement.

However, the Stanworth Apartments and the Boathouse, which are supplied power by public utilities and not the University’s cogeneration facility, experienced blackouts, said University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua. Other locations experienced an intermittent power supply due to some limited University reliance on public utilities.

See SNOWSTORM page 2

ACADEMICS

Scandal plagues Christie administration

By Jacob Donnelly staff writer

A Jan. 24 Rutgers-Eagleton poll found that only 46 percent of New Jerseyans view ex-officio University trustee Chris Christie favorably, as opposed to 63 percent of New Jersey likely voters in an Oct. 10 Quinnipiac poll. After Christie acknowledged his aides’ role in the socalled Bridgegate scandal, a number of other allegations riled the Christie administration throughout the month of January.

Under mounting political pressure, Christie held a news conference on Jan. 9 to apologize for what he alleged were his aides’ politically motivated actions in closing lanes on the George Washington Bridge from Sept. 9 to Sep. 13.

The bridge connects Fort Lee, N.J., to

the borough of Manhattan in New York City. Fort Lee’s mayor had refused to endorse Christie in his re-election bid, and Rachel Maddow of MSNBC has speculated that Fort Lee may also have also been a target because its Democratic State Senator, Loretta Weinberg, vehemently opposed the re-appointment to the state Supreme Court of Helen Hoens, a Republican favored by Christie.

Christie also publicly announced on Jan. 9 the firing of aide Bridget Anne Kelly, who had written in an internal Aug. 13 email that it was “time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee.” Christie had publicly rebuked Democrats on Aug. 12 for delaying the Hoens nomination, and claimed not to have known about Kelly’s communications until Jan. 8. Another Christie aide, David

Wildstein, who served as director of interstate capital projects at the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey, was also held in contempt of the state legislature on Jan. 9 for refusing to answer questions surrounding the lane closures. Contempt is a misdemeanor in New Jersey.

The Christie administration did not respond to a request for comment.

Politics professor emeritus Jameson W. Doig, author of Empire on the Hudson, a history of the bi-state Port Authority, noted that Christie had a history of prior conflict with the Port Authority’s objectives. “[Christie] wanted money that would allow him to avoid having to raise the gas tax, and the way to avoid that was to have the Port Authority not build a new See CHRISTIE page 3

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Pal-Chaudhuri ’01: Hollywood paired with ‘socially minded’ art

By Angela Wang associate news editor

Most students look forward to applying what they’ve learned at Princeton to their developing careers post-graduation, but by the time Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri ’01 graduated from the University, she was already in what she called “the fullfledged middle of [her] career.” She was a fashion model and photographer.

Pal-Chaudhuri spent five years traveling the world as a model before enrolling at the University to study anthropology. Upon graduation, she had also established herself as a photographer and owner of a photography agency for five years.

Since then, her career has spanned a number of media including an Alicia Keys music video, a Beyoncé album cover, film directing and a Bravo reality TV show.

Pal-Chaudhuri began her modeling career almost unintentionally at age 14. When she met with professional photographers to discuss her desire to be a professional photographer, they suggested she start off with modeling since she had no experience with photography.

Having taken two years between high school and college to model, Pal-Chaudhuri said she felt as though she approached her University experience with a more goal-oriented perspective.

“I came to Princeton a little later than most people, and that gave me a bit more of a sense of what I wanted to accomplish at Princeton, so I think I came with a bit of an agenda — intellectually speaking. I really wanted to study South Asian See PAL-CHADHURI page 3

COURTESY OF NATALIE SMITH

Indrani Pal-Chaudhuri ’01 has been involved in projects with Alicia Keys and Bravo.

Diversity a priority for Princeton faculties

By Elizabeth Paul staff writer

Though a report released this past September by the Trustee Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity found that white males dominated in faculty, administrator, graduate student and postgraduate populations, representatives from several departments on campus said that they had paid attention to the diversity among their populations before the report was released.

The Committee’s report reviewed statistics of the racial and gender demographic trends in undergraduate, graduate, postdocs, faculty and staff populations. While it found near gender equality among undergraduate students, 73 percent of postdocs and 78 percent of full professors were male.

Similarly, the representation of white Americans increased 75 percent from undergraduate demographics to faculty demographics.

The report then offered population-specific recommendations for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, calling on departments to construct a ‘multi-year strategic diversity plan’ in collaboration with the Dean of the Faculty, the Provost and the Graduate School.

“For each population you need a department-based approach so that you can really ask people who work in that discipline or in that administrative unit to think specifically about what talent they’re looking for and what their unique challenges are,” Michele Minter, the vice provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity, said in an interview.

Minter said that the University has made many advances on the diversity front, but added that there is certainly much room for improvement.

While the proportion of women among associate and full facSee REPORT page 2

STUDENT LIFE

Office of Religious Life sponsors trip to Havana for 15 to 20 students

By Corinne Lowe staff writer

The Office of Religious Life is sponsoring a trip this June that will present students with the opportunity to travel to Cuba in order to focus on religion, human rights and social change, said Alison Boden, who is the dean of the Office of Religious Life and of the Chapel and is responsible for orga-

nizing and leading the trip.

Between 15 and 20 students will partake in the trip, Boden said, adding that she anticipates that students will be eager to take advantage of this unique opportunity for travel.

One such student is Deirdre Ely ’17, who has applied to go on the trip.

“It’s a cool country that, because I’m an American citizen, I

wouldn’t really get the opportunity to go to,” Ely said.

Ely added that she hopes that in participating in the trip she will improve her Spanish and that she will come away with an understanding of Cuban culture and Cuban politics.

Getting permission to travel to Cuba was challenging in a few ways, Boden explained. She noted that even though Cuba welcomes

visitors, traveling to Cuba is more difficult from the United States because American groups need special travel licenses in order to travel to the island country. Due to the requirements of the Treasury Department’s World War I Trading with the Enemy Act, the University formed a partnership with Witness for Peace, a nationwide grassroots organization, to obtain a license.

The trip costs $2050 in total, not including the costs of flying to Miami from where the group departs, but Boden explained that cost is not an issue.

“I make it a big budget priority to be able to give funding to students who need it,” Boden said.

“It’s pretty much like the school’s financial aid system.”

Boden noted that in sorting See CUBA page 3

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Thursday february 6, 2014

Diversity to foster problem solving REPORT Continued from page 1

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ulty has increased significantly from 3% in 1980, it remained at 22% in 2010, according to the committee’s report.

“There is a sense that the demographics of our country are continuing to evolve. Princeton has changed a lot on the undergraduate front. It has changed much more slowly in terms of its other populations,” Minter said.

This evolution is crucial to maintaining Princeton’s leadership in academics, Minter explained.

“We really don’t want to miss out on talented people,” she said. ”We don’t want there to be any reason why we’re not finding them [because we haven’t built the good networks], because we’re not recruiting in the right way.”

The advantages of a diverse faculty and student body are especially relevant for science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, chemistry professor Susan VanderKam explained. VanderKam was chosen by the chemistry department to head their efforts in improving diversity.

“If you have 15 people in a room that are coming from five different backgrounds, problem solving becomes much more creative. Instead of looking at a problem in one way you are looking at it in five different ways,” VanderKam said.

However, Minter also noted that although this report is the first time the University has worked comprehensively across campus populations, “there’s always been a pattern of working on diversity” at Princeton.

For example, Chair of the Department of Psychology Michael Smith explained that the philosophy department has historically had a low proportion of women among graduate students and faculty and has been sensitive to these issues for many years.

“I really do think it’s a zero-

sum game across the profession for women, until we make it more attractive for them,” Smith explained. “That’s really a matter of trying to attract [women] to become majors.”

In response to this conclusion, the department recently redesigned its website to “make it more salient to undergraduates,” Smith said. He explained that the philosophy department’s updated webpage included profiles of alumni, including many women and people of color.

Smith also described the philosophy department’s efforts to find ways to improve its graduate program by conducting a questionnaire among graduate students. The results of this questionnaire showed that women were much more vocal about how they were underserved by the program’s “loose structure,” Smith said.

“That structure did not serve well people who were feeling alienated by the program,” Smith explained. He added that in response, the graduate program has downsized and put in place more monitoring procedures to ensure that students don’t fall behind, such as keeping track of where people are in the process of completing their work and asking for more shortterm goals.

Dean of the Wilson School Cecilia Rouse also identified the importance of targeting undergraduates of underrepresented minorities, but added that a direct benefit to the department from such actions would be unlikely. Rouse explained that the Woodrow Wilson School has launched a Junior Summer Institute in order to increase undergraduates’ interest in applying to their graduate program and ensuring that they have the skills they need to be successful.

“Many schools that run these programs have had to shut them down because there’s no guarantee that [the attendees] are going to come to Princeton,” Rouse said.

While these initiatives have

seen some success in the philosophy department and the Wilson School, other departments have seen improvements in diversity by choosing the best candidates and being sure to avoid inherent bias, rather than by implementing initiatives specifically designed to increase diversity.

The music department has taken such an approach and has seen an improvement in the proportion of female composers in the graduate program. Steven Mackey, chair of the department, compared the previous gender disparity among composers to that in STEM fields.

“Twenty, 30 years ago I’d have to really struggle to think of hot, up-and-coming composers who are female. Now, that’s who I think of first,” Mackey explained.

While Mackey said that the numbers have improved, he did not think it was the result of affirmative action, but rather because of “progressive forces” and a larger presence of women at all levels.

“It’s affirmative action in the best sense of the word. You take actions to make sure you are not replicating a pattern,” Chair of the Department of Sociology Miguel Centeno explained.

“There is no memo you can write about that, it’s more a question of awareness.”

Centeno added that maintaining a diverse population is particularly difficult in a small department, where the departure of two women could dramatically shift the ratio.

The Department of Art and Archaeology has taken an approach similar to that of the music department, resulting in an increase in the number of women faculty from three to six over the past 13 years, acting chair Jerome Silbergeld said.

“We really got to a better proportion in terms of gender not really by controlling for gender.

We just got there. Those were the best people available for us to hire,” department chair Jerome Silbergeld said.

Dangerous conditions close office SNOWSTORM Continued from page 1

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However, all “central areas” were fully powered, Mbugua said.

The announcement canceling classes altogether came after an earlier announcement from Donald Reichling of Public Safety alerting all undergraduates to a delay of opening of offices and classes until 11 a.m. on Wednesday. The announcement canceling classes for the whole day came approximately three hours later. The first alert, which included a text message and an email, was sent at approximately 5:50 a.m. and the second was sent at approximately 8:30 a.m.

Around 4:15 p.m. on Wednesday, the University sent a third text message and an email to students canceling evening classes and postponing the resumption of normal operations until 8:45 a.m. on Thursday. The University had originally expected normal operations to resume at 5:00 p.m.

Automated telephone calls sup-

plemented the text messages and e-mails throughout the day.

“The safety of the members of the University community” was the most important factor in canceling classes, Mbugua explained.

He added that the safety of faculty and staff members who use the roads to commute to work was a specific concern.

Mbugua stated that walking and driving conditions were affected by falling tree limbs and branches.

“They were cleared,” Mbugua said. “There were no injuries reported.”

The University last canceled classes on Feb. 10, 2010, almost four years ago, also due to a snow storm.

Blake Feldman ’17 said he had not been affected in a significant way by the closures and the weather conditions beyond classes being canceled. “[I have] more free time,” Feldman said. “I’ll probably sleep a little more tonight.”

Sidewalks were covered in ice and slush in the early afternoon, although sidewalks in some areas, like Wilson College, were cleared

later on in the day.

Some, like Patrick Harrel ’16, had to confront the falling branches about which Mbugua had warned.

“I was walking toward Witherspoon Hall, and I started hearing this rustling in the tree — there’s a big tree next to the staircase there, it goes up to the little courtyard towards Witherspoon, and the branch just came down, exploded, with ice flying everywhere,” Harrel said. “They came down about ten to fifteen feet in front of me. They were probably about ten to fifteen feet long. There were four or five hefty branches that were there.”

“It would have been dangerous if someone had been under those branches when they fell,” Harrel added.

Tom Byrne ’76, managing director of Byrne Asset Management on Nassau Street, stated that two out of the three exits from his neighborhood had been blocked by fallen trees and that his home had lost power as a result of the weather conditions. Power to his office had also been intermittent, affecting his computers, he said.

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday february 6, 2014

page 3

Gov. acted ‘to eliminate wasteful Students to meet political, religious leaders CUBA spending,’ Christie spokesman says Continued from page 1

CHRISTIE Continued from page 1

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tunnel, the so-called ARC Tunnel between New Jersey and New York and to give a lot of that money to Christie, so he could use it on highway projects in the state,” Doig said. “He said in effect, ‘Give me that, or I’m going to block your other projects.’”

Doig said that Wildstein’s role at the Port Authority and his lack of prior transportation experience were a break from precedent. “[Wildstein’s] role was to keep track of the staff [at the Port Authority] and to make sure people didn’t disagree with Christie’s plans,” Doig said. “Wildstein was viewed as a really dangerous character who could cost you your job if you went against him.”

Doig said that while previous governors had voiced opinions on Port Authority matters, they had never taken such an activist role.

He noted as an example that Christie had doled out more than fifty patronage appointments at the agency.

“I think [Bridgegate] ought to make [future governors] wary of forcing the Port Authority to accept patronage appointees, and trying to force the Port Authority to give up its funds to deal with the governor’s short-term political problems,” Doig said. “[Patronage appointments] might end up demoralizing the staff, might give the governor a black eye.”

A special committee in the state legislature is currently investigating the lane closures. Matt Riley, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, confirmed that the matter had been referred to his office by the Inspector General of the Port Authority, but declined to say whether an investigation was ongoing.

However, Christie acknowledged on Feb. 3 that the U.S. Attorney’s office had issued subpoena requests to his administration relating to the lane closures. Christie said his administration would comply with the requests.

Tom Byrne ’76, former chairman of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, managing director of Byrne Asset Management and a current member of the New Jersey State Investment Council, worried that the scandal was overshadowing Christie’s positive record on fiscal issues, including combatting what he viewed as excessive taxation.

“I think Governor Christie has made a genuine effort to be more responsible and change things fiscally.

You get almost no political credit for that,” Byrne said.

“The sad thing for the state, whatever your politics are, is that this scandal is inevitably going to detract from some of the bipartisan effort that’s needed to solve what are pretty serious problems.”

Byrne noted that much work remains to be done to prevent the “hollowing out” of New Jersey’s business base, work that is unlikely to be completed in the shadow of multiple investigations into the Christie administration’s conduct.

Allegations of Christie’s heavy-handed tactics have now extended beyond the Bridgegate scandal.

On Jan. 13, United States Representative Frank Pallone, a Democrat, announced that the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Inspector General was “auditing” the Christie administration, referring to its award of an advertising campaign contract (“Stronger Than The Storm”) to the firm MWW. On the same day, the Asbury Park Press obtained documents suggesting that the issue at hand was whether the Christie administration had a sufficient reason for awarding the contract to MWW, despite its bid being $2.2 million higher than that

of the other competitor.

The documents that the Asbury Park Press obtained, however, had the names of individual members of the state Economic Development Authority redacted, which made it impossible to ascertain whose votes caused the contract to be awarded to MWW. The six-member Economic Development Authority is responsible for scoring the proposals based on their merits.

Christie spokesman Colin Reed responded at the time by calling the announcement “conveniently timed” and pointing out the Obama administration’s earlier support of advertising campaigns in the wake of natural disasters as a way to spur economic development, according to the National Review. Pallone responded that he had only just learned of the information recently and made it public shortly after, according to The Star-Ledger.

“I think his aid campaign was another way of trying to promote him as effectively as possible for his reelection,” Pallone told The Star-Ledger.

On Jan. 18, Mayor Dawn Zimmer of Hoboken, a Democrat, said that Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno threatened that the Christie administration would withhold Hurricane Sandy relief funds from Hoboken if she did not approve a realestate development project proposed by the Rockefeller Group. The Rockefeller Group had hired Wolff & Samson, a lobbying firm run by Christie’s Port Authority Chairman David Samson, to win Zimmer’s approval.

The Rockefeller Group stated shortly after Zimmer’s claims that the allegations would be “deplorable” if true and terminated Wolff & Samson. It denied asking Guadagno to coerce Zimmer into approving the project.

The Christie administration claimed that it could find no evidence of the alleged threat, and Guadagno herself “categorically” denied that such a demand to Zimmer had ever been made.

On Jan. 23, the Daily Mail published allegations from state Assemblyman Joe Cryan that the Christie administration shut down the Motor Vehicle Commission office in Elizabeth, the fourth-largest city in the state, in 2010 as revenge for political dissent.

Cryan and other Democratic legislators representing the area worked for Christie’s opponent, then Governor Jon Corzine, during Christie’s first gubernatorial bid and opposed Christie’s plan to cap the annual growth rate of property taxes.

“We have had a DMV since Henry Ford was building cars,” the Daily Mail quoted Elizabeth Mayor Chris Bollwage as saying. “[Christie] was always one of those guys who punished individual legislators for not supporting the way he thinks. That’s just who he is.”

“I think it’s a cold, cruel and, … despicable thing for them to do this,” said a Republican political consultant, referring to the fact that residents of Elizabeth were less likely to be able to use online processes and more likely to need a location easily accessible by foot, speaking to the Daily Mail under the condition of anonymity.

In defense of Christie’s actions, Reed, the Christie spokesman, said that Christie had acted “to eliminate wasteful spending and ensure all government agencies were operating efficiently.”

Cryan, however, also said that “the salaries of the folks who worked there were relocated or assumed by others, and therefore all you were left with was lease payments [as savings].”

“And we wanted to work with the DMV, and move them into a building that may have even been owned by the city – because the service is important. Our demo-

graphics, our community needs a DMV that’s located on bus lines,” Cryan added.

A new claim of improper patronage has also been raised in the barrage of accusations against the Christie administration.

On Jan. 28, Christie’s appointment to chair the State Ethics Commission, Susana Espasa Guerrero, who had reportedly worked alongside all nine of Christie’s aides subpoenaed by the state legislature in the fallout from the lane closures, was confirmed by the current members of the Ethics Commission.

The Ethics Commission has the power to initiate investigations into misconduct and thus can investigate state officials in connection with the lane closures and “Stronger Than The Storm” advertising expenditures.

Paula Franzese, former chair of the commission, was quoted as criticizing Christie for the appointment.

“It was always the tradition that the governor’s office would not intercede in [ethics commission] appointments because the governors were mindful of avoiding the appearance of impropriety,” she said.

On Jan. 31, Wildstein, released a letter through his attorneys alleging that “evidence exists as well tying Mr. Christie to having knowledge of the lane closures, during the period when the lanes were closed, contrary to what the Governor stated publicly in a two-hour press conference he gave immediately before Mr. Wildstein was scheduled to appear before the Transportation Committee.”

The letter, addressed to the general counsel of the Port Authority, was part of Wildstein’s quest to have the Port Authority pay his legal fees associated with his involvement in the case.

The Christie administration released a statement saying that “[Christie] only first learned lanes were closed when it was reported by the press and as he said in his January 9th press conference, had no indication that this was anything other than a traffic study until he read otherwise the morning of January 8th.”

Democratic National Committee spokesman Mo Elleithee cast doubts on Christie’s credibility in a statement that read, “Chris Christie said he barely knew David Wildstein. That was untrue.

He said he hadn’t seen Mr. Wildstein in a long time.

That was untrue. He’s repeatedly said that he had no knowledge of the lane closures. Today’s revelations raise serious questions about whether that is true.”

The Christie administration attacked Wildstein’s credibility in a Feb. 1. email to supporters.

“Bottom line: David Wildstein will do and say anything to save David Wildstein,” the email said.

Wildstein and Christie’s former campaign manager, Bill Stepien, have both invoked the Fifth Amendment against legislative subpoenas that they object violate their right against self-incrimination.

Both Loretta Weinberg, the state senator whom Rachel Maddow posited as the target of the lane closures in Fort Lee, and Bill Baroni, former deputy executive of the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey who resigned in the wake of the bridge developments, were part of a panel entitled “New Jersey 101” at Princeton in fall 2005. The purpose of the panel was to “discuss major issues in New Jersey politics,” according to a press release announcing the event. Topics such as affordable housing, high property taxes and campaign finance were discussed at the meeting. Baroni had been a state assemblyman at the time.

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through applicants, she hopes she can select a group of diverse students for the trip.

“I’m going for a real diversity of political and ideological thought, to the extent that I can tell what that is,” Boden said.

The application for the trip calls for brief answers to four questions that ask about interest in the trip, past experience with religion and social change, past experience with human rights and willingness to participate in presentations upon return to campus.

Boden also noted that even though the trip is religiously oriented, students across the religious spectrum are encouraged to apply as they have partaken

in similar past trips organized through the ORL. Dayna Li ’14, a student who partook in ORL trips to both Cambodia and the former Yugoslavia in the summers of 2011 and 2012, respectively, said that the trips “approached the issues through a religious framework, but ultimately it became more about the issues than the religious emphasis.”

“It’s probably one of the best things I’ve done at Princeton just in terms of how much it’s influenced me,” Li said of the trip, adding that both her junior paper and her senior thesis were inspired by the topics she was dealing with on those trips.

The ORL has also sponsored trips to Tanzania, Bolivia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Honduras in the past.

While in Cuba, Boden said that

the group will stay in a hostel in Havana adjacent to the Ebenezer Baptist Church, whose pastor is a member of the Cuban Parliament.

Boden said that in addition to hearing the pastor’s take on the Cuban political situation and the situation for religious communities, students will meet with a number of nongovernmental organizations and leaders in the political and religious community to gain a better understanding of the religious and political landscape in Cuba.

Students will also see the major sights of Havana, such as the Museum of the Revolution, and will end the week by visiting the US Interests Sections, which is the Cuban equivalent of a US embassy.

The deadline for trip applications is February 10. Students will hear the results about a week later.

Pal-Chaudhuri featured on Bravo show PAL-CHADHURI Continued from page 1

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philosophy, and I had traveled in India,” Pal-Chaudhuri said.

“And that had opened my eyes to a lot of questions I wanted to find out more about.”

However, she was surprised to learn that at the time the University had no existing South Asian Studies department and had discontinued the Sanskrit program. Pal-Chaudhuri spearheaded a student initiative to create that program and reinstate Sanskrit classes — goals that came into fruition.

“I think that one of the things that Princeton really inspired [in] me is this idea that if you’re interested in something, you can go for it and ask people enough and bother them enough and show that there is a lot of student interest. The University is responsive and does take student interest seriously,” she said. “That was very empowering actually, to see change within the Princeton community and to help make changes afterward.”

Pal-Chaudhuri’s senior thesis, “In Pursuit of Happiness: Desire in Hinduism’s Vedanta Philosophy and Practice,” examined approaches to the concept of desire from premodern to postmodern times.

Pal-Chaudhuri’s former professor also attested to the relationship between her studies at Princeton and her work in the entertainment industry.

“What we practice in anthropology is this profound respect for difference and this sensibility for people’s singularity, and I think that transpired in her work in anthropology,” anthropology professor João Biehl said.

“I think [this] most likely also influenced her and helped her in her impressive career, this attention to singularity and people’s plasticity.” Pal-Chaudhuri had been a student in Biehl’s class on medical anthropology.

“I found it really liberating to pursue the intellectual, philosophical background to a lot of the work I was doing because as an advertising photographer, that’s what you’re doing.

People desire some things,” PalChaudhuri said. “Now as a filmmaker, I find myself going back

even more to my early Princeton studies.”

Upon graduation, Pal-Chaudhuri continued diversifying her career by exploring celebrity and fine art photography. Her work has been featured in over 20 exhibitions and 22 books.

Most recently, her photo of Beyonce’s 2003 album cover is being shown at the Smithsonian Institution.

Four years ago, Pal-Chaudhuri found her true passion, and began directing films and videos.

“My real passion is to find interesting stories and myths and retell them in modern settings and find ways to combine elements of artistry in today’s world with elements of the past,” she said.

Her film work has included The Legend of Lady White Snake, a short film based off an ancient Chinese legend that won the four top awards at the International Fashion Film Festival, and Digital Death, a short film on female infanticide that won two Golden Lions at the Cannes Film Festival. She is currently working on several feature films.

In 2010, Pal-Chaudhuri returned to the other side of the camera as the star of a Bravo show called Double Exposure which explored the behindthe-scenes of her photography shoots alongside her partner Markus Klinko.

Although they are currently working independently, Klinko and Pal-Chaudhuri have worked as a photography duo since 1995.

“She’s a very very clever and creative person, very hard worker,” Klinko said. “[Pal-Chaudhuri is] really a perfectionist, someone who takes [her work] extremely seriously, who is able to not sleep and eat for days in order to achieve what she wants to achieve.”

“It was a difficult process because so much of reality TV, of course, is your creating entertainment,” Pal-Chaudhuri said. “It helped me to see myself with a different perspective, my work, and to really learn about storytelling and live action. Being the center of that storm, it was really an immersive experience.”

Her experience on the show inspired her to write a book

about crafting public image which will be published next year.

With her extraordinary success in multiple platforms, it is hard to imagine how PalChaudhuri finds the energy and time to stay focused and sane.

“I meditate and that helps me a great deal to focus and not have to sleep that much,” she said.

Pal-Chaudhuri also attributes her success to a fundamental experience in her young adulthood — starting a school for impoverished children in India at the age of 18 that has been running successfully for almost twenty years. The mission of Shakti Empowerment Organization is to empower women. The school, located outside of Calcutta and run by her father, educates 300 students from the surrounding area.

“I’ve had a sense of responsibility; I had to accomplish certain goals to keep the school going, and that’s really helped to keep my focus and to recognize that there is so much that we can all do,” Pal-Chaudhuri said. “It’s been one of the most rewarding things that I’ve done in my life, certainly inspires me to keep going in a positive direction and to keep creating and using my artwork to inspire.”

“I think that she is definitely someone that’s at heart a scholar and extremely dedicated to giving back,” Klinko said. “Whatever financial success and reputation that she can gain through the work, she will try to give it back to the school which she always supported.”

Pal-Chaudhuri has also maintained connections to the University. She participated in a faculty-alumni forum panel on the arts in 2011 and has written for Princeton Alumni Perspectives.

In the future, she said she hopes to create globally- and socially-minded films as she also continues her work in photography and videography.

“It’s incredibly fun; I get to do what I enjoy every day. I mean, not every aspect is fun of course, but creating and inspiring others is,” she said. “I feel very blessed to have wonderful people around me and to constantly be searching for and finding the elements that make life fascinating.”

Opinion

Thursday february 6, 2014

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

Bennett McIntosh columnist

Drawn and quartered

I

t is, by now, a fact of life to most of us at Princeton that we will see no real breaks during the academic year.

Though placing fall and spring breaks after midterms theoretically allows a midsemester respite, everything from essays to take-home midterms to midterms scheduled oddly in the week after break makes these less of a break, and more of a short stretch of work without classes. And this says nothing of our winter schedule. Our longest break — the five weeks of winter break and reading period — is situated at the exact time when students have high-pressure final projects and papers due, and finals themselves are just around the bend. This situation is especially poor for freshmen, who have little idea how much effort needs to be put into academics over winter break in order to adequately prepare for finals. Inertia and controversy over what any change to the calendar would look like, however, have kept this format since its Depression-era inception.

Only by finding the best option for change to the academic calendar, and rallying as a student body and as a University behind it, can we hope to adjust our outdated system.

As the fourth-oldest school in the nation, Princeton has a number of educational policies and other traditions which are unique, or at least rare, among U.S. institutions. Some, like the Honor Code and residential colleges, distinguish us even from our peer institutions and are justifiably lauded. Other, newer policies such as grade def lation are brave changes possible only because of Princeton’s prestige; love it or hate it, grade def lation raises important points about U.S. educational standards.

But traditions as strange as Princeton’s winter non-break seem to be the product of mere institutional inertia. As James Evans reported in the Daily Princetonian before the 2012-13 winter break, much of the reason behind Princeton’s keeping fall exams in January has been due to simple lack of sustained effort to make the change.

The last concerted effort to move finals in 2005 fell apart when students failed to unite behind a single revised system. Faculty members, also divided by several propositions, were resistant to the idea of moving finals before break because students tended to produce higher quality work, especially written work, when it was assigned over break. It makes sense that work would be high-quality, but the expectation that students spend their three-week break working defies the very idea of break. Faculty ought to have realistic expectations for what students can produce in the time allocated for academic work, and if the semester seems too short, advocate for extended instruction time or reading period rather than forcing winter break to absorb the overf low. Compare this to Harvard which, after several years of sustained student effort, moved its fall finals from January to December in 2008.

That same year, Princeton undergraduates were surveyed, and it was found that 64 percent of undergraduates would approve of a similar change, while only 25 percent would oppose it. Then-USG academics chair Ben Lund ’10 took the survey as impetus to push change, as have various undergraduate student governments since then, including that of current president Shawon Jackson ’15, who indicated support for exploring changes to the calendar during both campaigns. The last administration was successful in adding an extra day to Thanksgiving break to allow those who live across the continent to make it home for turkey, indicating that the USG can work with the administration to effect commonsense changes to the calendar. The next step is tackling what President Emeritus Tilghman called the “big Kahuna” of academic calendar issues — our winter non-break.

As students, we can solve the problem of our own fragmentation. If students and faculty can’t agree on whether to move finals by eliminating fall break or moving the start of the year earlier, we won’t change the current system. Students can, however, agree to settle on one new calendar if chosen by a committee of faculty, administrators and interested students. Such a group should consider all options, including nixing fall break and moving the semester toward August, but also more drastic changes such as moving to the quarter system, which could keep fall start and spring end dates approximately the same (I, myself, am a fan of Dartmouth’s f lexible “D-Plan”).

Such recommendations, regardless of whether everyone agreed they were ideal, should be embraced by the student body since they would almost certainly be better than the four weeks of limbo we have now.

Bennett McIntosh is a sophomore from Littleton, Colo. He can be reached at bam2@princeton.edu.

page 4

An expensive education Jason Choe columnist

P

rinceton isn’t exactly known for being cheap.

It ranks among the top universities in the world — but at the same time, the cost of a Princeton education is equally high up on the list. The elevated costs wouldn’t be such a huge consideration, though, if it weren’t for the fact that Princeton students, on the whole, also receive fewer hours of instruction than students at other collegiate institutions, rendering the price of one hour of Princeton class time much more expensive than the price of an hour of class at other colleges.

If the semester here at Princeton feels short, that’s because, compared to most other universities in the United States, it is.

While there is no authoritative data currently in academia to substantiate this claim, the numbers are quite self-evident. Universities that operate on the semester system — as Princeton does — can provide anywhere from 12 to 18 weeks of instruction per semester, but the majority of them offer 15 over the course of two terms, totaling 30 weeks in an academic year. Alternatively, schools that use the quarter system most frequently offer three terms of 10 weeks each, in the end totaling 30 weeks as well. However, Princeton’s academic calendar lies at the lower end of the spectrum, with only 12 weeks of classes per semester, or 24 weeks per academic year.

Besides having fewer weeks of instruction, the amount of time actually spent in class at Princeton is also less. For instance, at the University of California at Berkeley, Math 53, their equivalent of multivariable calculus, meets for three additional hour-long discussion sections on top of three hour-long lectures, meaning that this class effectively meets for six hours a week. At Princeton, in contrast, MAT 201: Multivariable Calculus, the analogous math class, only meets three times a week, effectively half the length of time.

The question inevitably arises — why is Princeton’s academic calendar different? Part of the reason may have to do with the fact that all faculty members are required to teach classes, regardless of whether they conduct research or not (at many other research institutions, professors who work in a laboratory are exempted from the need to actually teach a course), so mandating less time devoted to instruction may enable professors to better balance their academic research endeavors and teaching.

Also, most instructors here offer flexible office hours outside of class time, indicating an academic culture that ostensibly places greater importance on self-responsibility of the students to get help when they need it. And, perhaps there may be a subconscious or subliminal belief that Princeton students simply learn faster.

While there is no clear single reason why Princeton’s calendar is so different, the discrepancy

begs consideration — is such a difference detrimental? In one regard — a purely financial one — students can feel cheated, seeing themselves as the victims of a swindling conspiracy of sorts.

After all, for a higher price, they are receiving fewer hours of actual attention from their professors.

But at the same time, Princeton has plenty of other redeeming characteristics. For one, students are effectively paying for not only a world-class education, but also for a “name brand” diploma (after all, the appellation Princeton is recognized worldwide), which may very well offset the greater costs per class hour in the form of better reputation and resources. Recruiters regularly visit top colleges such as Princeton seeking to attract the attentions of promising students, and simply saying that you are from Princeton often nets you the respect and recognition of others.

In the end, the fewer actual weeks and hours of instruction that Princeton students receive has not in any significant way hindered the ability of seniors to move on to suitable jobs or higher education pursuits after graduation. Further, the higher cost per class hour can be arguably justifiable because of the other advantages that attending Princeton provides. Our system may indeed be unique — but then again, so is our school.

Jason Choe is a freshman from Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. He can be reached at jasonjc@princeton.edu.

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A defense of Bicker Zach Ogle

guest contributor

T

he Bicker system isn’t perfect. Sophomores know it. People who are hosed know it. The vocal minority that loudly proclaims its hatred for the process certainly knows it.

But every single member of every single bicker club knows it too. Believe it or not, bicker club members do not sit around looking for people to hose, making snap judgments about who is or isn’t fit for entry. Every year, rather, there are members who are saddened by the ranks of great people who are missed by the system and left out.

Bicker does exclude, there is no denying it. But before we decry exclusion as inherently evil, we should examine why this exclusion exists.

Bicker’s exclusion is based in hard realties. Eating club kitchens can only turn out so many meals. Club facilities can only hold so many members. If next semester the 400 or so people who bickered Cap & Gown Club this year and last were all accepted (assuming the numbers from last spring remain constant this spring), the club would have to serve over 400 meals at every sitting. This is simply impossible. Even

if it weren’t, a key benefit of the club system — breaking the University into manageable and meaningful chunks — would be lost. Some form of exclusion, then, is necessary for clubs where potential members outnumber available spots.

Bicker is indeed exclusionary, but this exclusion is a systemic necessity. The next step is to make sure we rely on a system that excludes in an acceptable way. Even here, Bicker isn’t perfect — ask the ranks of members who know people who they wish had been accepted. But lack of perfection does not make the system “brutish” or even “painfully corrupt,” as Uchechi Kalu argued in her Feb. 3 column. Few people relish the thought of rejecting bickerees. Success at Bicker does not depend on the name of your prep school, nor does it depend upon one’s race, gender or sexual orientation. Though some clubs are undeniably more homogeneous than others, this lack of diversity is a result of affiliation rather than any sort of active discrimination.

In reality, success at Bicker depends on personality, friendships and extracurricular affiliation.

Being friends or teammates with club members obviously matters, but not for any intrinsic value. As-

sociations only matter because they influence the amount of interaction a bickeree will have had with members of the club, and thus how well members know them. Some may label this unfair, as denying a certain population a “fair shot at success.” But it certainly makes sense to allow club members to select from their current friend group when deciding with whom to build a larger circle of friends.

Again, this system isn’t perfect.

Without associations, success at Bicker depends too much on sociability in a contrived environment.

People who would fit in well at a given club are hosed every year simply because their personalities do not come through in the stressful process that is Bicker. And that’s sad. But even if it’s not 100 percent successful, a system that seeks to judge based on personality and friendships makes sense. Yet somehow stereotypes pulled from a bygone era — when race and socioeconomic status were primary drivers in the social scene — still pervade. There is room to improve Bicker, but members of bicker clubs need not “soothe their psyches” because their kitchens can serve a limited number of meals. They simply need to work to make the

process transparent and interactive so that each bickeree has the chance to show off who he really is.

Even worse, the sweeping generalizations, bombastic tones and self-righteous sermonizing of Bicker’s detractors make for pretty reading but obscure the source of social pain rather than address it. The head hanging and “social shame” that classmates who are hosed endure has much more to do with the general campus culture than with the Bicker process itself. When it comes to bettering the culture on campus, we should treat the root of the problem instead of merely complaining about the symptoms. There are a number of ways that we can improve Princeton’s campus culture. We could stop deriving self-worth from our social groupings. We could stop applying our inherent competitive nature to socializing. We could let down our guard, stop pretending to be perfect and be more supportive. Changing Bicker or destroying the clubs won’t really change much, but treating the problem at the source will.

Zach Ogle is a Wilson School major from San Antonio, Texas. He is a member of Cannon Dial Elm Club. He can be reached at zogle@princeton.edu.

Thursday february 6, 2014

The Daily Princetonian

page 5

BEN KOGER :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Following a winter storm that canceled classes on campus and partially shut down campus, trees were uprooted while U. employees helped clean walkways and roads that were covered in ice.

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Sports

Thursday february 6, 2014

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

ICE HOCKEY Men’s (4-17, 3-11 ECAC) Goals per game:

#12

#

= ECAC Rank

#10 Shots per game:

2.07

25.6 #10 Goals against/game:

3.58 Shot %:

#10

8.1

Save %:

#8

89.2 #4 Penalty minutes/game:

Power play kill %:

#8 Power play %:

79

12.4

16.7

3

BY

THE

NUMBERS

#6

3.3

#1

tied

5

#1

Senior Andrew Ammons’ penalty mins/game

Team shorthanded goals

#1

tied defender

Senior Alec Rush’s goals

Note: All stats are from conference play. There are 12 ECAC ice hockey teams.

Women’s (11-9-3, 7-7-2 ECAC) Goals per game:

#5

#5 Shots per game:

2.52

27.2 #8

Goals against/game:

2.71 Shot %:

#3

8.8

Save %:

#8

90.1 #6 Penalty minutes/game:

8.9

BY

THE

NUMBERS

Power play kill %:

#10 Power play %:

74.6

7

#11

8.3

#1

Team shorthanded goals

3.3

5

#2

Junior Ali Pankowski’s penalty mins/game

#2

defender

Senior Rose Alleva’s goals JESSIE LIU:: ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITOR

Tweet of the Day

‘Classes cancelled but practice still on. No time to waste’ Damon McLean, Triple Jumper of the Men’s Track team, on Twitter (@xtremeduck)

Update It was reported on Tuesday that sophomore sprinter Dre Nelson set the school record in the 60 meter dash at 6.79 seconds. While true at the time, his mark has been revised to 6.89 seconds, no longer a school record.

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