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Friday may 27, 2016 vol. cxl no. 62
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WELCOME BACK TIGERS! APRIL 5, 2016
MARCH 29, 2016
Motto will change, Jodi Picoult ‘87 to be 2016 Class name will stay
Despite moves toward diversity and inclusion, students are concerned about a lack of actionable language.
Day speaker
By Amber Park
By Andie Ayala
staff writer
staff writer
The University Board of Trustees announced Monday morning that it had approved recommendations from the Wilson Legacy Committee’s report. Included among the decisions was that the Wilson School and Wilson College will continue to be named after Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, and that the University will change its informal motto. Other approved recommendations include establishing a pipeline program to encourage more underrepresented students to pursue doctoral degrees and diversifying campus art. The committee also recommended designating a Special Committee on Diversity and Inclusion within the board’s Executive Committee to oversee these actions. Brent Henry ’69, vice chair of the board who chaired the committee, explained that the committee collectively decided on its recommendations and the board later voted to approve them, but he did not specify the number of votes in favor of the recommendations. University President Chris-
COURTESY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
The controversy on Woodrow WIlson’s legacy amplified last November.
topher Eisgruber ’83, who notified the members of University community about the board’s recommendations via email on Monday morning, noted in an interview with the Daily Princetonian that the approved initiatives are ways for the Uni-
versity to affirm and energize its commitment to diversity and inclusion. “The board strongly endorsed the committee’s report and recommendations, including its call for a renewed and expanded See REPORT page 4
The Class of 2016 Class Day Committee announced Monday morning that the speaker for this year’s Class of 2016 Day will be novelist Jodi Picoult ’87. Molly Stoneman ’16, a member of the Class Day Committee, noted there have only been two women speakers, including Queen Noor of Jordan ’73 and journalist Katie Couric, as well as one person of color, Bill Cosby, in the history of Class Day. “We decided that we wanted to see more of the values of our class being ref lected in the Class Day speaker,” Stoneman said. She added that Class Day speakers have tended to be white males from Hollywood or business fields but that the committee has recognized that many more students from the Class of 2016 were interested in hearing from people in professions in the arts, screenwriting, creative writing or advertising. She noted that in the past four years she has witnessed seniors who have collaborated with Career Services, the Pace
Center for Civic Engagement, the Women*s Center, the LGBT Center and other organizations on campus in order to find work after graduation, a departure from the stereotypical Princeton career path. This departure is reflected in the speaker choice, she explained. For the first time in Class Day history, Picoult has asked the Class of 2016 what they would like to hear about in her remarks. “I did ask the Class Day Committee to tell me a little about the things on campus during your four years that have been resonant, as I am sure the university is a very different place now than it was when I was there — and as a writer, I find it important to do my research,” said Picoult in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “I was sure someone had made a mistake,” Picoult described her reaction when being asked to be the Class Day speaker, “I mean — Colbert, Stewart, Nolan, Couric — it’s daunting, to say the least. But I’m trying to push past my Impostor Syndrome, because See SPEAKER page 2
APRIL 26, 2016
APRIL 1, 2016
Cameron Platt ’16 named valedictorian, Esther Kim ’16 selected as salutatorian
University admits 6.46 percent of applicants for Class of 2020
senior writer
On Monday, Cameron Platt ’16 was named valedictorian for the Class of 2016. Esther Kim ’16 was named the Latin salutatorian. Platt will give her valedictory address at the Commencement ceremony on May 31, and Kim, per tradition, will deliver the salutatory oration in Latin on the same day. University faculty accepted nominations from the Faculty Committee on Examinations and Standing in a meeting on April 25. Platt, an English concentrator with a certificate in theater, noted that she was incredibly excited and honored to be named valedictorian. She explained that she was first notified that she had been named valedictorian a week prior to the official University announcement. According to a University press release, Platt is the former president of Princeton University Players, the only student-run musical theater company on campus. She is currently working on a show
that will debut at the New York Fringe Festival, and she will soon attend the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. She is originally from Santa Barbara, Calif. “I know I want writing to be a part of my future, so right now journalism looks interesting,” Platt said, adding that writing fiction would also be a suitable career path. “I don’t know exactly what [the future] will look like, but I have a couple of years to figure it out,” she said. According to the release, Platt earned the Shapiro Prize for Academic Excellence in her sophomore year and was the co-winner of the George B. Wood Legacy Junior Prize for exceptional achievement during her junior year. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa in the fall of 2015. Since the spring of her freshman year, Platt has annually received an English departmental prize. Her prizes have included the Class of 1870 junior and senior sophomore prizes and the Class of 1870 Old English Prize. Platt has twice been recognized for Outstanding See VALEDICTORIAN page 2
staff writer
The University has offered admission to 1,894 students out of an applicant pool of 29,303 candidates, marking a record-low acceptance rate of 6.46 percent. This year’s applicant pool is also the largest the University has seen to date, breaking the record number of 27,290 set by the class of 2019. Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye explained that the Office of Admission has been
making efforts to recruit students from every socioeconomic background, which might have contributed to the large applicant pool this year. “We’re doing more outreach to students,” she added. Of the 1,894 admitted students, 785 were accepted in the early application process. The single-choice early action acceptance rate was 18.6 percent from a pool of 4,229 candidates. The number of students admitted from regular admission was 1109, and the acceptance rate for regular decision
candidates, including those who were deferred in early action and accepted in the regular pool, is 3.8 percent. “The admit rate is reflecting the fact that we’ve had this large applicant pool,” Rapelye noted. She added that the expected class size for the Class of 2020 is 1,308 students. Of the admitted students, 49.5 percent are women and 50.5 percent are men. 50.6 percent of students have identified themselves as students of color, which includes biracial See 2020 page 5
Mitch Daniels ’71 discusses liberal arts learning, education inequality By Caroline Lippman staff writer
“The proper scope of a university, in one soundbite, is to prepare citizens for a free society. A successful free society needs technologists, it needs philosophers, it needs people of integrity and public life,” Mitch Daniels ’71, president of Purdue University and former governor of Indiana, said in a conversation on Thursday with University Professor of jurisprudence and Director of the James Madison Program Robert George. Daniels graduated from the University in 1971, majoring in the Wilson School, and earned a law degree from
Georgetown University Law Center in 1979. He became the president of Purdue University in January 2013 after serving two terms as the 49th governor of Indiana, lasting from 2004 to 2012. Daniels was honored by the University with the Woodrow Wilson Award in February 2013 in recognition of his career in the service of the nation. George began the conversation by introducing the question of the importance of the liberal arts education. “The question of the value of liberal arts learning, and therefore the future of liberal arts learning, is in dispute. Many people ask, ‘So what’s the point?’” he explained.
In Opinion
Today on Campus
Columnist Lea Trusty discusses how we define Princeton and are defined by it, and columnist Devon Nafzger calls for more productive dialogues around last November’s protests. PAGE 8
2:30 p.m.: Journalism Professor Joe Stephens will host an Alumni-Faculty Forum “In Whom Can We Trust: Role of the Journalist Today”. McCosh 10.
Daniels stated that Purdue University aims for its students to have a genuine experience with the liberal arts. “College’s real value could best be measured in the capability of graduates to continue learning,” he said. “Whether our students are studying nuclear engineering or philosophy, we hope that they are developing an appreciation for the need, first of all, to examine all sorts of alternative ideas, to sort the good from the rot and to constantly learn and be inquisitive.” He added that the College of Liberal Arts at Purdue is working to develop a package that would offer students, regardless of their major, a bundle of See LECTURE page 3
WEATHER
By Maya Wesby
By Caroline Lippman
HIGH
89˚
LOW
65˚
Thunderstorms. chance of rain:
50 percent