Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998
Thursday march 24, 2016 vol. cxl no. 33
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } STUDENT LIFE
U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S
OPT changes to affect international STEM students By Samvida Venkatesh staff writer
Under a new Department of Homeland Security rule, some international students at the University may be eligible to work and remain in the United States for a longer time post-graduation. With the new regulation that will go into effect May 10, international students who have a degree in designated science, technology, engineering and math related fields may pursue a F1 Optional Practical Training visa for up to 24 months, Assistant Director for International Students at the Davis International Center MladenkaTomasevic said. This extends the current 17-month STEM OPT visa limit. International students comprise around 12 percent of undergraduate student body and about 40 percent of the graduate student body.
In 2014 – 15 academic year, about 56 percent of the graduate students in engineering program and 41 percent in natural science programs came from abroad. Tomasevic also noted that under the new rule, students will be responsible for supplying more documentation to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. The regulation also increased the number of allowed unemployment days to an aggregate of 150 days. This number was previously 90 days, according to a USCIS press release. Furthermore, employers are now required to devise training plans for OPT seekers at the time of application and provide follow-up evaluation reports regularly during the applicant’s employment, according to the Center’s website. The Center is still See OPT page 3
LECTURE
CAROLINE LIPPMAN :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
David Lane, U. S. Representative to UN Food and Agriculture Agency.
WEIMEN LI :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER
The second We Speak survey will measure awareness and experiences of sexual misconduct at U.
We Speak survey released to students By Claire Lee staff writer
The second We Speak survey on undergraduate and graduate students’ knowledge and experiences of sexual misconduct and awareness of University policies, procedures and resources, was distributed to all students via email on Tuesday. The survey was put together last year and this year by a smaller working group that had some student involvement, Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity, University Title IX Coordinator, and Co-Chair of the Faculty-Student Committee on Sexual Misconduct Michele Minter said. Administrators on the Faculty-Student Committee, including those who are experienced in survey design, and the SHARE office also participated in the process. About 50 percent of Princ-
eton students participated in the 2014-2015 We Speak survey, according to Vice Provost for Institutional Research Jed Marsh, who is responsible for running and administering the survey. “I have my fingers crossed that we will get at least 52 percent participation again this year. We’re very hopeful that we’re gonna get there, but it would be better if we get more than that,” he said. Marsh added that in this year’s survey, a new section was added that asked about student experiences a few hours before the sexual misconduct to understand what happens before the actual event occurs. “The big question [we asked when designing the survey] was: ‘Is there a way that we can gather information in a way that we can help intervene early in that process and provide students with the
knowledge and skills to avoid the situations of sexual misconduct?’” Marsh said. Marsh added that he hopes that information will help the University administration provide programs to equip students to get out of avoidable situations. Marsh noted that many students helped refine the survey’s questions for this year, including USG student representatives on the FacultyStudent Committee on Sexual Misconduct who pretested the survey questionnaire. “It is really, really important to hear from students on campus to make sure we have a clear understanding of students’ issues and experiences,” Marsh said. Allison Fleming ’18, a student representative on the Faculty-Student Committee on Sexual Misconduct, said that she was able to bring See SURVEY page 2
David Lane discusses global hunger solutions U. researchers collect world’s oldest ice core from Antarctica ACADEMICS
staff writer
We will need to figure out how to feed 9-9.5 billion people more nutritious food with fewer inputs, less water and pesticides and in the face of climate change by 2050, U. S. Representative to United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture David Lane MPA ’88 said in a talk about global food security. In order to accomplish this, the world must increase its food production by an estimated 60 percent, Lane said. He noted that agriculture is a cornerstone for the development and transformation of economies, and that according to the World Bank, growth in the agricultural sector is 2.5 times more effective at reducing poverty than investment in any other sector. The Green Movement of the 1950s, Lane said, transformed agriculture by developing new methods for seed hybridization, extended irrigation and use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, leading to a 250 percent increase in world grain
production. However, he noted that the success of this work may have led people to believe that work in agricultural improvement was over. “It’s my belief that people rested on their laurels and moved on, and the result, however we arrived at it, was a collapse in the investment in agriculture, even in the areas where hunger and poverty were most widespread,” he explained. He noted that in 2009, U. S. President Barack Obama initiated a G8 summit to address the issue of food security and poverty in developing nations. The framework for President Obama’s approach, called Feed the Future, works in 19 countries to reduce the prevalence of poverty and stunted children, focus on smallholder farmers, especially women, and help increase farmers’ income by increasing efficiency. He said that research shows if female farmers had the same access to inputs – such as technology, training, land and seeds – as their male counterparts, they could feed an additional See FOOD page 4
By Andie Ayala staff writer
A team of four University researchers and one member of the U.S. Ice Drilling Program traveled to Alan Hills, Antarctica as part of an expedition drill for the oldest ice core. The team consisted of Assistant Professor of Geosciences John Higgins, Yuzhen Yan GS, research specialist Preston Kemeny ’15, postdoctoral researcher Sean Mackay and drill operator Mike Waszkiewicz of the U.S. Ice Drilling Program. The purpose of the trip was to collect “old ice,” which constitutes ice that existed a million years ago, said Higgins, who led the trip. Higgins explained that compared to other formations such as rock or sand, ice provides geologists with an amazing window into the past because it is able to measure the composition of the atmosphere at different
points in the past, based on bubbles that were formed by gaps between snow. As such, he said that analyzing the ice would allow the team to determine the composition of the atmosphere a million years ago. Higgins noted that he spent two field seasons in the same Alan Hills area of Antarctica in 2009-2011 trying to look for old ice in the area. According to Higgins, the team was in Antarctica from Nov. 20 to Jan. 16, spending two weeks coordinating logistics and being trained on fieldwork and survival skills at the U.S. government’s McMurdo Station. Through their expedition, sediments found in the deep sea have suggested that more than 800,000 years ago, the Earth’s climate had been a lot warmer, Higgins explained. “We think that they were related probably to greenhouse gases but nobody has demonstrated yet that with
In Opinion
Today on Campus
Columnist Sam Parsons argues that students’ denunciation of alumni such as Ted Cruz is harmful, and the PSII proposes divestment from coal to reflect the University’s commitment to sustainability. PAGE 5
4:30 p.m.: Fred Kaplan, national security columnist at Slate Magazine, will present a lecture titled “Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War.” Dodds auditorium, Robertson Hall.
measurements particularly from ice cores,” he added. Kemeny added that the ice they were looking for was also of interest because for the last 800,000 years there has been a glacial cycle every 100,000 years. However, prior to this time period, the periodicity of ice ages was closer to every 40,000 years. Therefore, according to Higgins, understanding this transition may help us to understand what environmental feedbacks move the Earth between different climates. A previous project by the European Project for Ice Coring in Antarctica, which operated from 1996-2006, had collected and documented ice cores 800,000 years old, but not older than that, Higgins noted. Yan noted that this expedition was quite revolutionary in the field of geology as it was the first of its kind to succeed in collecting old ice. See ANTARCTICA page 4
WEATHER
By Caroline Lippman
HIGH
66˚
LOW
55˚
Partly cloudy. chance of rain:
0 percent