Join the ‘Prince’! Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998
Monday february 9, 2015 vol. cxxxix no. 6
WEATHER
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } HIGH
LOW
33˚ 25˚
E AT I N G C L U B S
Rain in the morning and snow at night chance of rain:
60 percent
Announcement The Daily Princetonian will be holding open houses for potential new members today and tomorrow at 7 p.m. at 48 University Place.
In Opinion The Class of 1978 responds to ‘The Princeton Mom’ and Lea Trusty reflects upon the benefits of taking a semester abroad. PAGE 6
Today on Campus 4:30 p.m.: The Pace Center hosts Wendy Kopp ’89, founder and chair of the board of Teach for America, for a discussion on diversity, equity and access. McCosh 10.
The Archives
Feb. 9, 1996 A group of University students gathered to recognize the National Day of Student Unrest in Support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a man on death row petitioning for re-trial citing racial bias and inadequate legal representation.
News & Notes Harvard receives recordbreaking number of applications for Class of 2019 Harvard received 37,305 applications for its undergraduate Class of 2019, 3,010 more than for the Class of 2018, according to The Harvard Crimson. The Harvard College Connection, a new program geared toward reaching out to low-income students, may have contributed to the increase in applicants this year, explained William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions. Fitzsimmons also said that Kenneth Griffin’s contribution of at least $125 million to financial aid last year was a possible factor for the increase in applications. According to Fitzsimmons, nearly 75 percent of applicants expressed interest in obtaining financial aid from Harvard, which also marked an increase from previous years. Currently, 977 students of the Class of 2019 have already gained acceptance to Harvard from the restrictive early action program, to which a total of 5,919 students originally applied. This year’s early action acceptance rate of 16.5 percent has been the lowest thus far since the program was re-established in 2011. Yale has received 30,227 undergraduate applications this year, Dartmouth received nearly 20,500 applications and Brown received 30,360 applications. The University received 26,993 applications to its Class of 2019.
JULIA JOHNSTONE :: ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITOR
Cap, Cannon most bickered clubs By Annie Yang staff writer
Cannon Dial Elm Club was significantly more popular among students this year, with 200 students bickering, up from 143 Bickerees last year for an increase of almost 40 percent, according to Cannon president Connor Kelley ’15. Cannon accepted 105 students in total, up from last year’s 98 accepted students. The accepted members consist of 99 sophomores, five juniors and one senior. “We’re happy with the amount of people that came out to bicker Cannon,
which is more than we’ve ever had,” Kelley said. Although the club is the newest on Prospect Avenue, efforts to welcome students in the past few years have encouraged many to consider bickering Cannon. This year’s 53 percent acceptance rate marked a significant decrease from the 69 percent acceptance rate last year. “One more year established on the Street has really helped the club develop, and people from different groups got to know Cannon a little bit more,” Kelley said. Cap and Gown Club once again had
the lowest acceptance rate for the third year in a row, accepting about 44 percent of all Bickerees, according to Cap president Bo Peard ’15, down from last year’s 46 percent. Cap accepted 100 of its 227 Bickerees this year, with 97 sophomores and three juniors. “We are enthusiastic about having been able to take five more members than last year,” Peard said. At least 558 students were accepted into one of the six Bicker clubs this year, down slightly from 563 students last year. The Bicker clubs received at least 921 applications in total this year, which marked an increase from 884 ap-
plications last year. The overall Bicker acceptance rate was down from 63.7 percent last year to 60.6 percent this year. Of Tiger Inn’s 101 Bickerees, 52 were women and 49 were men, TI graduate board president Hap Cooper ’82 said. TI was the second-most inclusive club with a 78 percent acceptance rate. Out of the Bickerees, TI accepted 40 women and 39 men for a total of 79. Of those, 30 women and 35 men joined TI, resulting in 65 new members in total. Cooper said that gender parity in the club has greatly improved from the See BICKER page 3
E AT I N G C L U B S
OBITUARY
Terrace most popular sign-in eating club for third year
Professor Emeritus, Nobel laureate Fitch dies By Pooja Patel staff writer
By Annie Yang staff writer
While Terrace Club filled after its first round of signins, new members will still be accepted at Charter Club, Cloister Inn, Colonial Club and Quadrangle Club until the end of the sign-in period on Feb. 14. Acceptance numbers are not final as sign-ins are ongoing, but they represent the conclusion of the second round of open club sign-ins. At least 405 students joined Charter, Cloister and Colonial. Quad declined to provide the number of its acceptances
this year until third-round sign-ins have concluded at the end of the week. At least 477 students joined a sign-in club by this point last year, which includes acceptance numbers from Quad. Terrace accepted 145 members during the first round of sign-ins this year and closed applications afterwards, proving to be the most popular sign-in club for the third year in a row. All of the new members are sophomores. “I’m very happy that so many sophomores want to find a home in Terrace, and I am especially happy that we are able to take all the soph-
omores who signed in firstround,” Terrace president Lucia Perasso ’16 said. Colonial has accepted about 80 new members so far, which is about a 28 percent decrease from the 115 new members who joined last year. New members consist of primarily sophomores but also include a few juniors and seniors. “Generally in years past, we’ve accepted people through the next week, so we’re hoping for a few more,” Colonial president Swetha Doppalapudi ’16 said. Charter accepted 77 new members in total, with 75 See SIGN-IN page 3
STUDENT LIFE
Peltz ’15, O’Neil ’15 named ReachOut Fellows By Paul Phillips senior writer
Bina Peltz ’15 and Cody O’Neil ’15 were awarded the 2015 fellowships from ReachOut 56-81-06, which each includes a $30,000 stipend funded by alumni that supports year-long public service projects after graduation. Peltz, a politics concentrator from Bala Cynwyd, Pa.,
and recipient of the ReachOut Domestic Fellowship, will be working with the Harlem Community Justice Center in New York. O’Neil, the recipient of the ReachOut International Fellowship and a German major from West Kelowna, Canada, will be working with the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg, Canada, to look into the effectiveness of rec-
onciliation between Canadian Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities. Applicants for the fellowship must submit a five- to 10-page proposal and budget for their project. Fellowship founder and committee cochair James Freund ’56 explained that the committee evaluates both the projects, which must be innovative, See FELLOWSHIP page 4
University Professor Emeritus and Nobel laureate Val Logsdon Fitch died on Feb. 5 in Princeton after a distinguished career in the natural sciences. He was 91. Throughout his life, Fitch worked on the Manhattan Project, won the Nobel Prize in Physics and was a member of numerous science organizations and a mentor to many younger scientists. “He chose his experiments very well and would always try to explain or discover something which was important,” said U. physics Professor Emeritus Pierre Piroue, who noted that Fitch was recognized by scientists all around the world as a top physicist who had made an “astounding discovery.” From Nebraska to Princeton Fitch was born on March 10, 1923, in Merriman, Neb., on a cattle ranch where his father raised purebred Herefords and his mother was a schoolteacher. The family eventually moved to Gordon, Neb., where Fitch graduated as valedictorian of his high school in 1940. Fitch attended Chadron State College for two and a half years before he was drafted and entered the U.S. Army in March 1943. He was sent to Los Alamos
National Laboratory to work on the Manhattan Project where he assisted in the development of the atomic bomb. Fitch received his undergraduate degree from McGill and earned his doctorate in physics from Columbia in 1954. Fitch arrived at Princeton in 1954. He began working on experiments using Brookhaven National Laboratory’s high-energy particle collider, where he met James Cronin, a colleague who later became a faculty member at the University’s Department of Physics from 1958 to 1971. “Early in his career, Val Fitch made some beautiful measurements on the decay of Kmesons, which were very important in putting out some mysteries of the time when we were just beginning to learn about particle physics,” said Cronin, who is now a professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, adding that Fitch himself was a mild-mannered and thoughtful person who was a pleasure to work with. From Princeton to the Nobel Prize In 1976, Fitch was named the Cyrus Fogg Brackett Professor of Physics and in 1987, he became the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Physics. He served as See OBITUARY page 5