Reunions Issue - May 29, 2014

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Thursday may 29, 2014 vol. cxxxviii no. 65

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Announcement The annual Daily Princetonian alumni barbecue will be held this Saturday at 4:30 p.m. in the lawn behind 48 University Place. All alumni invited to attend.

In his first year in office, Eisgruber ’83 has shown himself to be more daring than his predecessor.

By Warren Crandall senior writer

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@princetonian #princetonreunions

In Opinion A student on leave of absence from the University recounts their struggle with clinical depression on Princeton’s campus, and Bennett McIntosh suggests how the University can attract low-income students and help them to thrive.

PAGES 14-17

In Street Check out a few of Street’s stories from the past semester. Staff writer Jennifer Shyue gives an indepth look at the personal experiences of two first-generation college students, staff writer Harrison Blackman offers a historical account of Nassau Hall, and Associate Street Editor Lin King laments being a ‘boring person.’ PAGES 18-19

PRINCETON By the Numbers

92.9

Percentage of A.B. sophomores in the art and archaeology department who are female.

News & Notes

Krugman to retire from U. in 2015

Paul Krugman, the economics professor known for his regular columns in The New York Times, will retire from his position at the University in June 2015.

Krugman is currently a Wilson School professor. He won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2008.

Krugman will be joining the faculty of the Graduate Center, City University of New York, as a professor in the Ph.D. program in economics while also serving as a distinguished scholar at the Graduate Center’s Luxembourg Income Study Center, he announced in a blog post for The New York Times. In an interview with The Daily Princetonian, Krugman said he would not have a full teaching schedule at the Graduate Center.

Krugman mentioned his growing interest in public policy as opposed to academic research as one of the motivations for his departure. However, Krugman emphasized that Princeton has provided an incredible academic environment.

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A tale of two presidencies

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Partly cloudy in the afternoon. chance of rain:

news analysis | april 1

SEWHEAT HAILE:: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

In his first year as president, Eisgruber ‘83 has started reviewing the widely unpopular grade deflation policy implemented in 2003.

University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has begun to set an ambitious agenda for his term as the months wind down through his first academic year in office. He has, for example, announced a review of the grade deflation policy, suggested that the University will look into reversing its policy on accepting student transfers, and hinted at a potential expansion of the student body that could accompany a new residential college or an expansion of Forbes College.

Eisgruber’s agenda, set so early in his presidency,

is in contrast to the agenda set by his predecessor, former University President Shirley Tilghman early in her term. While Eisgruber has set an agenda filled with several high profile issues, Tilghman did not initially tackle big topics.

Tilghman acknowledged in an interview that Eisgruber has begun dealing with major University issues much earlier than she had, attributing it largely to his long tenure as provost before becoming president. While Tilghman came to the presidency as a molecular biology professor with little experience with the inner workings of the administration, Eisgruber’s prior work as a top-level See PRESIDENT page 8

VACCINE COMBATS MENINGITIS U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S | A P R I L 8

Reunions sees no new health measures

By Sarah Kim staff writer

The Alumni Association will not be introducing new precautions in light of the meningitis outbreak at this year’s Reunions, a decision made following a meeting of University administrators in early April.

In 2013, the Alumni Association posted a note of caution online, warning alumni not to share drinks.

However, at the time, only four cases of meningitis had been reported. Four more cases were reported in fall 2013 before the University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention implemented an emergency measure to bring a vaccine to campus that was not approved for use in the United States.

No new cases have been reported since December 2013, around the same time as the University implemented the first See MENINGITIS page 10

LOCAL NEWS | MARCH 24

Drexel meningitis death linked to Princeton

By Paul Phillips associate news editor

A Drexel University student who died March 10 from meningitis met a number of Princeton football players at a social mixer a week before her death, local health authorities said.

Stephanie Ross reportedly had close contact with one Princeton football player, Princeton Health Officer Bob Hary reported to the Princeton Health Commission on March 18, according to Planet Princeton. The student had received both doses of the meningitis vaccine. The other football players

present at the mixer had been vaccinated as well.

Additionally, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on March 18 that the strain of meningitis responsible for her death was also responsible for the meningitis outbreak at Princeton.

CDC spokesperson Jason McDonald said that after Ross died of a meningitis infection on March 10, the Philadelphia Department of Public Health and Drexel University provided them with isolates from the deceased woman to compare with known isolate samples from See DREXEL page 10

ACADEMICS | MARCH 2

Art, psychology departments see highest female enrollment

By Ruby Shao staff writer

While bachelor’s degree concentration declarations for the Class of 2016 were predominantly male in the science, technology, engineering and math fields, the gender distribution was roughly even in the social sciences and the humanities.

Female A.B. sophomores declared at the highest percentages in art and archaeology at 92.9 percent, psychology at 87.3 percent and comparative literature at 81.3 percent.

Representatives for these depart-

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ments declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

English had a 70.8 percent female sophomore class and was the secondmost popular humanities concentration after the history department, which had an even gender distribution.

English departmental representative Sophie Gee said she does not consider the disparity a problem and added that she likes the fact that English draws intelligent female students. She attributed the trend in part to the strong mentorship of female faculty.

“English is a discipline where smart See GENDER page 7

Feature | March 4

STUDENT LIFE | APRIL 2

}

The jury and the prosecutors

By Luc Cohen editor-in-chief emeritus

The central question facing the Committee on Discipline one night last year — a question that would contribute to the eventual verdict in a student plagiarism case — focused on a time stamp.

If the time stamp on the student’s computer science assignment was altered, it would indicate the student had plagiarized and then presented fabricated evidence to the Committee before the hearing.

The issue of the time stamp came

JESSIE LIU :: ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITOR

Science and engineering concentrations in Class of 2016 are dominated by male students.

up toward the tail end of the fourand-a-half-hour long hearing, late at night on March 13, 2013. In a discussion lasting around one minute, the Committee decided the time stamp could, in theory, have been fabricated. No evidence presented during the hearing suggested that the time stamp had been fabricated. Nevertheless, the student was found responsible for plagiarism and suspended for a year with a note of “censure” on her punishment for having presented fabricated evidence.

Debates over the fairness of the See COD page 12

TI elects officers post 21 Club scandal

By Lorenzo Quiogue staff writer

Tiger Inn elected four new officers on March 31 after all but two officers resigned earlier that month following a party, deemed unauthorized, of the heavy-drinking group called the 21 Club.

The elections came after what was officially called a “security breach” at the club on March 9, according to an email obtained by The Daily Princetonian that was sent to members by the club’s graduate board president Robert “Hap” Cooper ’82.

Former president Ryan Cash ’15, house manager Dror Liebenthal ’15, treasurer Will Siroky ’15 and safety czar Victoria Majchrzak ’15 offered their resignations to the club’s graduate board of governors after the incident.

Oliver Bennett ’15, the vice president prior to the incident, was elected president. Adam Krop ’15, Andrew Hoffenberg ’15, Ren Scott ’15 were elected vice president, treasurer and house manager, respectively, while Brendan Byrne ’15, the social chair prior to the incident, will continue in that position. Francie Jenkins ’15 was appointed safety czar.

See 21 CLUB page 7

In this issue...

Admissions Page 2

Mental health Page 3

Athletes of the year Page 24

The Daily Princetonian

page 2

Thursday may 29, 2014

U. OFFERS ADMISSION TO 7.29 PERCENT ADMISSIONS | MAY 12

ADMISSIONS | MARCH 28

U. revises yield, now higher than last year Preview shortened due to meningitis

By Corrinne Lowe staff writer

students on campus for their efforts for both Princeton Preview programs. Our students were so helpful,” Rapelye said.

However, Rapelye remains uncertain as to how meningitis and changes to Preview contributed to the yield numbers this year.

“Would our yield have been even higher without it? Maybe it’s had no effect,” Rapelye said.

The enrolled Class of 2018 is 52.4 percent male and 47.6 percent female. Of those students, 11.2 percent are non-American citizens and 41.8 percent identify as students of color.

Rapelye noted that there was an incredibly high yield from students residing in New Jersey, and added that almost every admitted student between Princeton and New Jersey’s southern border who was admitted to the University chose to attend.

Harvard College reported a yield of 82 percent, the same as last year. Dartmouth College’s yield is 54.5 percent, increasing from 48.5 percent last year.

The University of Pennsylvania reported its highest yield since 2011 with a 66 percent yield rate.

69.2

taken off the waitlist this year sometime between now and the end of June. She added that the Office of Admission does not know the specific date they will make these decisions.

The University took 33 students off of the waitlist last year, but any number of students from zero to 124 have been taken off in the past five years.

This yield came on the heels of a year marked by the meningitis outbreak and an abridged Princeton Preview weekend.

“It was a concern. We didn’t know what to expect,” Rapelye said. “I actually felt like there were more variables this year than any other year because we’re still dealing with an outbreak on this campus and we had to make decisions about Preview we’ve never had to make before.”

Rapelye attributed the high yield rate to the work of current University students to make Preview a success and the University’s effort to reassure parents about the dangers of meningitis and the guarantee of vaccinations.

“I certainly want to thank our

68.7

Following an announcement on May 8, the University revised its official yield rate for the Class of 2018, increasing it to 69.2 percent, which actually marked a slight increase from last year’s yield of 68.7 percent.

Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye explained in an interview on May 9 that the number provided to The Daily Princetonian the day before — a yield of 67.4 percent — did not include Bridge Year students.

The original number was provided by University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua and was also reported by the University Press Club.

Each year, around 35 students defer their enrollment for one year to participate in the Bridge Year Program, a Universitysponsored gap year program.

The Class of 2018 will include 35 students who were originally accepted into the Class of 2017 and deferred enrollment.

On Thursday, Rapelye said, those 35 Bridge Year students were subtracted from the statis-

tic she provided, resulting in a reported class size of 1,306 when there are really 1,341 students currently enrolled in the Class of 2018.

“Here’s our challenge: we have a Bridge Year program and there are 35 students who are away who are already in this class,” Rapelye said.

However, these 35 students were accepted to the Class of 2017 and were counted in last year’s yield as well. This practice — of counting Bridge Year students in the yield for both their original class as well as the class they choose to enroll in — has been consistent with previous years.

The yield of 69.2 percent, is comparable to last year’s 68.7 percent. Meanwhile, the yield rate for the Class of 2017 without taking Bridge Year students into account was 65.8 percent.

Rapelye emphasized that even though the enrollment target was 1,308, the University has not overenrolled this year with its 1,341 students.

In addition, Rapelye said that she predicted that approximately 30 students will be

Yield for Classes of 2013 through 2018 80

69.2

PERCENTAGE YIELD

75 70 65

58.3

56.9

68.7

57.2 66.7

60 55 50

2013

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

CLASS YEAR SHIRLEY ZHU :: DESIGN EDITOR

By Corinne Lowe staff writer

Princeton Preview was shortened this year for the Class of 2018 and did not include an overnight component in light of the recent death of a student at Drexel University that was caused by meningitis and linked to contact with Princeton students.

The shortened Preview was announced the same day that admissions results for regular decision applicants were released.

The University continued to f ly students who required financial assistance to campus and put students up overnight in hotels in Newark or Philadelphia if necessary before Preview started.

Those students then f lew back home the same evening of Preview, Dean of Admission Janet Lavin Rapelye explained.

The decision also fueled speculation that new safety precautions would be implemented during Reunions — an event where thousands of alumni, both young and old, come back to campus and engage in drinking activities that may increase the risk of contracting meningitis — although no new measures were introduced.

In addition, those admitted students who chose to matriculate will be vaccinated upon their arrival at the University, beginning in the summer.

“Because the University has been in touch with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about the meningitis outbreak we’ve had, the University has taken efforts to vaccinate our students, but since there was a case where a student became fatally ill, that caused us to reconsider the Princeton Preview program,” Rapelye said in an interview.

Last year, over 2,000 admitted students attended Princeton Preview. At the time, two cases of meningitis had been reported, and Preview occurred as scheduled.

Preview usually takes place over two separate weekends and serves as an introduction to the University for admitted students.

Preview took place on Thursday, April 10, and Monday, April 28. It was a one-day program and did not have an overnight component, beginning at 9 a.m. and ending at 7 p.m.

“We’re doing this in an

abundance of caution to limit the social gatherings on campus where there could be additional risk,” Rapelye said.

The University released admission decisions on March 27 for the Class of 2018. In a press release posted in the early afternoon, the University said it had admitted 7.28 percent of applicants, its most selective class in history.

The letter sent out to admitted students announced the University’s adjustment to Preview and also stated the University’s intention to vaccinate all incoming freshmen upon their arrival at Princeton.

“The CDC has approved the use of the vaccine for incoming freshmen,” Rapelye said.

Students will be vaccinated when they get to campus, whether that be in the summer for athletic programs or right before the start of the term, Rapelye explained.

When asked at the time about how the press surrounding Princeton’s meningitis outbreak and the revised Preview will affect yield this year, Rapelye said it will be difficult to predict.

“We are hopeful that students and families will understand that it is safe to be on this campus, that it is safe to sit next to someone in class, that this is not transmitted through the shaking of hands,” Rapelye said. “The risky behavior comes in social settings — that’s what we’re trying to reduce in this situation.”

The yield increased slightly for the Class of 2018, suggesting that the shortened Preview and the broader meningitis outbreak had little effect on admitted students’ decisions to enroll.

Rapelye indicated at the time that the University had been discussing this decision for just over a week and that the decision was made with the consultation of many community members and the approval of the CDC. This was an unprecedented occurrence that Rapelye hopes will not happen in subsequent years.

“For this year, and because of what happened recently, we thought it only prudent to make this decision while preserving what’s good about the program,” Rapelye said. “My hope is that our current students will do everything they can to help us put Princeton in the very best light.

T HE DA ILY

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The Daily Princetonian

Thursday may 29, 2014

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MENTAL HEALTH POLICIES QUESTIONED U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S | A P R I L 8 U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S | F E B . 1 4

U. holds dialogues Student sues U. for disability discrimination following suit, op-eds

By Chitra Marti staff writer

By Jacob Donnelly staff writer

Following a lawsuit and an outpour of op-eds in The Daily Princetonian, University mental health policy has been at the forefront of campus conversation, prompting administrators to hold dialogues to hear students’ concerns and, in some, cases consider reform.

In March, a student filed a lawsuit in federal court against the University alleging that it had engaged in discrimination when handling a case of attempted suicide.

In April, (see page 14) a student published an anonymous op-ed in The Daily Princetonian criticizing the administration’s practice of demanding detailed medical records from students who have taken time off for mental health reasons.

“If I ever want to return to Princeton as a student, I will have to ‘voluntarily’ waive my right to doctor-patient confidentiality by signing … two forms,” the student wrote. “And the policy that apparently allowed you to ban one student from campus until he was forced to withdraw (despite the abundant support of his psychiatrist and professors) is gravely dangerous because it dissuades those who need help from ever reaching out.”

The anonymous op-ed included a copy of a letter sent by University administrators detailing the procedure for reenrollment.

Among the requirements was signing waivers to allow Counseling and Psychological Services officials to discuss the student’s case with administrators.

The University is reconsidering the language of letters sent

“The institution needs to [rethink] ... how it spends its budget on mental health resources.”

Lauren Davis,

Opinion Columnist

to students who are taking time off due to mental health reasons, Executive Director of University Health Services John Kolligian, Jr. said at a dialogue held with students following the publication of the letter. The goal is to make students feel more welcome, he added.

Another op-ed said the University did a better job at preparing its students intellectually than emotionally.

“The institution needs to do some serious rethinking of how it writes and publicizes its policies and how it spends its budget on mental health resources,” columnist Lauren Davis wrote in one such column.

Following the abundance of campus interest in mental health, University administrators and USG held a pair of dialogues with the University community to discuss University mental health practices and policy.

Dean of Undergraduate Students Kathleen Deignan told students that approximately 35 students take a leave of absence from the University for mental health reasons, of whom three to five are withdrawn involuntarily.

In addition, CPS director Calvin Chin said his office does not share information automatically with the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students.

Rather, CPS evaluates a student at ODUS’ request if ODUS has received information that concerns it, Chin said, adding that CPS only shares general information with ODUS and not the substance of a conversation.

CPS evaluations are usually requested by ODUS not with the goal of promoting leave but

with the goal of helping a student in making his or her choice, Deignan said, noting, however, that most students do follow through with the ODUS recommendation for leave when it is made.

Multiple students suggested including a CPS component to the mandatory programming in freshman orientation similar to the Department of Public Safety’s presentation to reduce stigma. One student suggested that it needs to be made more clear that health is a priority at the University, even if it conflicts with assignments or other obligations.

The University will upgrade the UHS website this year so that students can sort therapists by areas of expertise, Kolligian said, adding that the change is “way overdue.”

At the second dialogue, UCouncilor Zhan Okuda-Lim ’15 noted that a 2007 Princeton Alumni Weekly article appeared to suggest that CPS maintained a “watch list” of students of concern that it shared on a monthly basis with ODUS, but Kolligian said this was not the case and that administrators may not have been choosing their words as carefully in the wake of the shooting at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

The majority of students brought to the attention of ODUS by students or staff do not leave the University community, and the primary role of ODUS is getting students to take CPS treatment recommendations seriously, Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Michael Olin said.

Most students who express suicidal thoughts to CPS or are hospitalized for a suicide attempt or other mental health reasons do not withdraw and are instead treated by CPS or another provider, Chin said.

In response to a recent anonymous guest op-ed in the ‘Prince,’ Olin said he recognized that the treatment provider forms being sent by the student’s director of student life created the mistaken impression that ODUS administrators or the residential colleges are involved in evaluating the opinions of students’ outside therapists. The treatment provider form is part of the readmission application. Only CPS sees the treatment provider forms, he said, and the University is considering reworking the process of sending out the letter.

The “Questions for Treatment Providers Form,” which is four pages long, asks for detailed information about the treatment given to students. Among the questions asked are a list of medicines prescribed, the “focus and type of treatment” provided,

“If I ever want to return to Princeton ... I will have to ‘voluntarily’ waive my ... confidentiality.”

Anonymous

the extent to which the student complied with treatment and an evaluation of the student’s readiness to return to school.

Only two students in the past 10 years were denied readmission to the University for safety reasons, Olin said.

Chin added that CPS was going to restart the Princeton Depression Awareness Program next year to provide a support group for friends of people struggling with mental illness, that he was going to hold office hours to discuss mental health issues and policies with students and that CPS will be posting frequently asked questions on its website over the summer.

A student who previously alleged the University forced him to withdraw following a suicide attempt is now suing the University for disability discrimination, according to documents filed in federal court on March 25.

The student had originally filed a discrimination claim with the The Office for Civil Rights within the Department of Education. The claim that was initially dismissed in January 2013, partially reopened and finally settled in April, according to a University representative.

The student is currently a sophomore and had been diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Bipolar Disorder, Type II. In a brief, the plaintiff, identified by a pseudonym, requested that he be allowed to proceed in the case anonymously to avoid public stigma and emotional distress over the potential publication of his medical records.

“As a direct result of [Princeton University’s] actions he has experienced extreme embarrassment, continuing stress and mental anguish, as well as out-of-pocket expenses, foregone wages, and reputational injury,” the complaint reads.

The student filed the suit pro se, meaning that he will be representing himself rather than through a lawyer. The student had been represented by the Bazelon Center for Mental Health Law, a legal organization specializing in mental disability cases, in his DoE complaint.

Lawyers at the Bazelon Center did not respond to requests for comment over the weekend. It remains unclear whether the Center is advising the student in any capacity in this suit. The student could not be reached for comment.

In addition to the University as a whole, seven administrators were named as defendants in the case: Vice President for Campus Life Cynthia Cherrey, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs Cole Crittenden, Dean of Undergraduate Students Kathleen Deignan, Associate Dean Michael Olin and President Emerita Shirley Tilghman, in addition to Executive Director of University Health Services John Kolligian, Jr. and former Director of Counseling and Psychological Services Anita McLean.

The document includes 21 relevant statutory schemes and 10 causes of action pertinent to the case, listing components of the Fair Housing Amendments Act, the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act which the student believes were violated. In addition, a legal brief accompanying the complaint alleges “unlawful disclosure, distortion, and misuse of plaintiff’s confidential medical records detailing matters he discussed with various mental health professionals.”

The student requests, in addition to appropriate compensatory and punitive damages, “injunctive relief” that would prevent the defendants from discriminating on the basis of disability against the student or anyone else.

The document also lists 59 allegations against the University arguing that the student was in fact fully qualified to function as a student because he met the essential eligibility requirements.

University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua declined to comment on the case, saying the University does not discuss pending litigation.

However, he noted that members of the University community work together with students and families in issues of health and wellbeing.

The student “impulsively ingested” about 20 tablets of Trazodone, on Feb. 25, 2012, the document read, but waited less than one minute before seeking assistance from the health center. He was then taken to a hospital, where he stayed for several nights.

As he prepared to leave, the document says, his mother received a voicemail from Olin saying he had been barred from campus and therefore from attending classes.

“If he did not ‘voluntarily’ withdraw, he would be involuntarily withdrawn in approximately three weeks for failing to attend the classes from which he had been banned,” the student alleges in the document, saying the University should have known that because the forced withdrawal would produce emotional distress, it was therefore against the student’s best interests and would likely exacerbate his condition.

“Instead, Princeton sought to protect itself from adverse publicity or liability,” the document reads.

The student met off-campus later that day with his psychiatrist to organize a partial hospitalization program at Princeton House, a health facility two miles from the town. He also met with McLean and a staff psychiatrist to evaluate his mental state. He alleges that they encouraged him to speak freely, which led him to falsely believe that the content, though not necessarily the conclusion, of his communications was confidential.

He met with Olin and Crittenden immediately afterwards, where he was allegedly

told that voluntary withdrawal from the University was the “universal outcome” in cases such as these.

McLean allegedly said at the meeting with Olin and Crittenden that she could not clear him to return to student life while he pursued outpatient treatment, adding that he could not be readmitted until he had demonstrated stability for a period of no fewer than six to nine months. In the process of this discussion she disclosed what the student had previously believed to be confidential details from his records and their earlier conversation.

The University went on to cast aside several solutions proposed by the student and his mother, the document alleges, contending that they would be fundamental alterations of “the Princeton experience.”

The student’s parents also met with Cherrey, Deignan and Kolligian to appeal on his behalf and submitted a plan for permitting the student to remain in school, which the administrators allegedly did not read.

The student was sent a letter by Deignan the next day informing him that he was believed to have an “extremely high risk of having another dangerous episode” and that the intensive inpatient treatment programs were incompatible with the full-time enrollment required of students.

The student also alleges that many of the details from his CPS records included in the letter were inaccurate and, furthermore, initially believed to be confidential.

Kolligian contacted the

student’s personal psychiatrist, who recommended that the student be allowed to continue in his studies and live in a residential college. A few days later, the student allegedly received a letter saying that if he did not voluntarily withdraw in four days, Cherry would order mandatory withdrawal — the same “universal outcome” Olin had discussed a month earlier.

The student alleges that there was a “denial of any meaningful interactive process with respect to accommodations and a further reflection of the lack of any policy requiring such a process.”

He did eventually withdraw after four weeks of unsuccessful attempts to appeal the University’s decision, in an “emotionally depleted and fearful state and in recognition of the futility of his position.” He completed courses at another university, and even lived in its dorm for a semester.

The document explains that he was given a list of requirements to satisfy before applying for readmission including evidence of improvement in his mental state and undergoing a psychological evaluation that was allegedly not generally required.

The student is now back on campus, but he alleges in the document that his transcript will always have “an awkward, one-year gap. He will always be a year behind his friends in classes, housing placements, and entering the workforce.”

The document says that he will always be afraid to get help from mental health professionals, and that this fear of getting help could be disastrous.

The Daily Princetonian

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feature | april 21

Thursday may 29, 2014

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Longtime Obama aide and writer of classmate notes: Chris Lu ’88

By Jacob Donnelly staff writer

On April 5, 1988, at 2:27 a.m., Christopher P. Lu ’88 put the finishing touches on his senior thesis, wrapping up the cover letter to his cheekily-titled research project, “The Morning After: Press Coverage of Presidential Primaries 1972–1984.”

The subject of birth was evidently preoccupying him at the time.

“In many ways, writing a senior thesis is like having a baby,” he wrote. “The idea for the paper is conceived one day unexpectedly and then gestates inside one’s head for nine months … I now submit this thesis like a proud father, confident that it will stand on its own two feet as a piece of scholarly research.”

However, Lu, this year’s Baccalaureate speaker who is a former White House Cabinet Secretary and the current Deputy Secretary of the Department of Labor, had no idea then that his forays into politics and government, rather than over, were only in their embryonic stage.

He would remain attached to Princeton as well, serving on the board of trustees of The Daily Princetonian, helping the University’s trustees navigate Washington and diligently keeping up with classmates in order to feature them in the pages of the Princeton Alumni Weekly.

“We weren’t totally uncool:” At Princeton Jane Martin ’89, a former sports editor for the ‘Prince,’ remembers Lu as a senior news editor for the ‘Prince,’ a fellow member of Cloister Inn and a good friend.

“It makes me laugh just to think about him, just because he was always making me laugh,” she said. “He was the kind of guy who could argue with you all day long, completely skewer what you were saying

and make you laugh at yourself while he was doing it.”

At one point, Martin and Lu both lived in Cloister with a group of friends.

Martin characterized Cloister at the time as a club for people who might have been comfortable in a bicker club but weren’t.

“We weren’t totally uncool, let’s put it that way,” Martin said, laughing. “It was a fun group, we played mini golf, I have pictures of us going bowling. Chris was one of the more responsible of the group. He would cook.” She added that, when she was bedridden with flu once, Lu checked on her continually and offered to make chicken soup.

It was as a fellow Wilson School student that Karen Bowdre ’88 first met Lu, and she also remembered him positively.

“I remember talking with him about international affairs,” she said. “He was always very focused, had a great sense of humor.”

Bowdre remembered, however, that Lu might have been less memorable to some of his classmates due to a matter of names and chance.

“He was always very kind and very quick-witted when people would mix [him and Donald Lu ’88] up,” Bowdre said. “They both went to Princeton, they both graduated in ’88, [and] they both went to the Wilson School.”

It so happened that Donald Lu was USG president, according to his Nassau Herald entry.

When asked about the matter, Don Lu said that an alumnus who visited him recently in his office in India mistook him for Chris Lu. Chris Lu himself said the most formative part of his University experience was writing for the ‘Prince.’ Memorable stories include reporting on University President William Bowen’s retirement and Harold

Shapiro being named as the replacement, alumna Sally Frank ’80 filing suit against three eating clubs for accepting only males into their membership, going up into a glider while covering the “Princeton Soaring Society” and using his press pass with another news editor to get into the Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City.

“Our press passes looked like we literally ran them off at Kinko’s,” Lu said. “We were wandering right by the stage as the pageant is going on. It was one of the more hilarious things we did.”

Lu added that ‘Prince’ alumni from the period often joke that former production manager Larry DuPraz was their favorite professor.

“We learned how to be good editors, how to be good writers, how to make deadlines,” Lu said.

Lu also said that the Wilson School does a good job at recognizing the reality that policymakers can’t just be experts in one particular field but need a broad range of knowledge and experiences to be effective.

Lu was a skilled writer and debater even before matriculating, according to Charlene Huang Olsen ’88.

“He was an incredible debate guy. We did not go to the same high school, we went to rival high schools, and he was really, really good,” she said. “Our parents were good friends, and my mom and his mom in particular, and he and I attended a Chinese school on the weekends to try and learn Chinese.”

Lu recalled in an interview with Asian Fortune, a magazine focused on Asian-American issues, that his dad, an engineer, “was a history buff and a political science buff and I think that’s where I got my interest.”

The two would read biographies of politicians and watch the evening news together, Lu said.

Lu’s interest in journalism

and politics led to his senior thesis examining how media decisions affected the narrative surrounding the presidential primary election process. He concluded among other things that earlier primaries were more likely to be covered by longer articles and accompanied by a photograph and that the expectations of longer, evaluative articles that expressed an opinion as to “momentum” or expectations of victory were surprisingly predictive of the eventual outcome of the election.

Some of Lu’s conclusions bore striking relation to his future work in politics.

“The selection of presidential nominees is a critical point — some would contend the most critical point — in the process of democratic governance in the United States today,” Lu wrote. “Press expectations are critical to the success or failure of a candidate.”

Lu’s intellect and work ethic helped his senior thesis turn out successfully, C. Anthony Broh, his thesis advisor, said.

“You may read an entire article, and there was only one data point on what it is that you’re interested in, so it takes a considerable amount of time,” Broh said. “It’s meticulous, methodical, conceptual kind of work that needs to be done, and Chris displayed all of those attributes, not only in his research, but also in his person.”

“The truth came out”: Life in government After graduating from Harvard Law School in 1991, clerking for a federal judge in Chicago and working for the law firm Sidley Austin in Washington, D.C., for four-and-a-half years, Lu worked as deputy chief counsel on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee from 1997 through 2004.

Phil Barnett ’79, Minority Staff Director for the committee, remembered Lu’s work

investigating Republican allegations of campaign finance violations by Bill Clinton’s 1996 presidential campaign in particular.

“What he really did was to make sure witnesses, people brought before the committee … were treated fairly,” Barnett said. “Irresponsible allegations were tracked down, and the truth came out.”

The Democratic minority on the committee eventually released a report sharply disagreeing with the Republican majority’s conclusion that, among other allegations, the People’s Republic of China had illicitly influenced the 1996 presidential election. The report pointedly opened by citing several articles critical of the Republican thenchairman Dan Burton.

Barnett also noted Lu’s investigations into other high-profile subjects, including one into the Enron bankruptcy and another into alleged misrepresentations by the Bush administration regarding Iraq War intelligence.

He also investigated substandard nursing home conditions.

Lu left the committee in 2004 to work as a special adviser to John Kerry’s presidential campaign, where he coordinated the support of 9/11 victims’ families and helped to communicate Kerry’s positions on homeland security, especially with regard to tracking down the perpetrators of 9/11.

“Having the support of families that had lost loved ones during 9/11 was an important part of validating Senator Kerry’s position,” Lu said.

He then joined then-Senator Barack Obama’s office upon Obama’s election in 2005.

As Obama’s legislative director, Lu oversaw a staff of 15 people, the drafting of all legislation and, according to Barnett, Obama’s schedule.

Lu said his proudest accomplishments while working in Obama’s Senate office were help-

ing to pass ethics reform and weapons of mass destruction nonproliferation legislation, as well as the Federal Funding and Accounting Transparency Act of 2006, which requires disclosure of all organizations receiving federal government money.

“Works exceptionally well with people. Collegial. Perceptive. Has outstanding judgments,” Barnett said of Lu. When Obama ran for President in 2007 and 2008, Lu primarily remained to help coordinate the legislative activity of Obama’s Senate staff, but he also advised the campaign’s policy team and ran the communications effort for the Delaware primary (in a parallel to his senior thesis work). He also began to coordinate the Obama White House transition as early as May 2008, months before Obama knew he would become President.

At the White House, Lu served as Assistant to the President and White House Cabinet Secretary, in which he served as the link between Obama and federal departments and agencies.

“He was in a position where he knew everything that was going on in the White House, and he knew what was going on in the Cabinet agencies,” Bob Durkee ’69, Vice President and Secretary of the University, said. Durkee met regularly with Lu when Lu was a ‘Prince’ reporter covering the University administration, according to Lu, and the two kept in touch while Lu was in the White House, Durkee said.

Durkee explained that the University has a Trustee Committee on Public Affairs, which holds a set of meetings in Washington, D.C., every year. Lu and fellow University alumni Lisa Brown ’82, White House staff secretary, and Peter Orszag ’91, director of the Office of Management and Budget, met with See SPEAKER page 5

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Lu ’88 examined media’s influence on presidential primaries in thesis SPEAKER Continued from page 4

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the trustees for about an hour, Durkee said.

“Chris made the arrangements, and it was very helpful,” Durkee noted. “And along the way, if there was an issue where we were having trouble figuring out, ‘Who should we be talking to? How can we be sure that this concern gets put on the agenda as people are thinking about a particular issue?’, Chris would be a person who was helpful in doing that.”

Lu also served as Co-Chair of the White House Initiative on Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders. In this role, he encouraged federal agencies to disaggregate their data on Asian-Americans which, when taken as a whole, can mask problems within certain parts of the community. He also traveled frequently around the country talking with and speaking to Asian-American and Pacific Islander groups.

“There is a perception that Asian-Americans are a model minority and that they don’t have economic problems and educational problems, healthcare problems,” Lu said. “Even within the Asian-American community, a lot of people don’t know about … the problems of recent immigrants, the problem of hate crimes, about education disparities, or the fact that there are 2 million AsianAmericans without healthcare.

It’s a very, very segmented community.”

Don Lu noted that Lu always seemed passionate about AsianAmerican issues and studies.

The two co-hosted a talk in June 2013 sponsored by the Asian American Alumni Association of Princeton about challenges and opportunities for the Asian-American community.

“It is inexcusable that Princeton does not have an AsianAmerican studies program,” Lu said at the time. “This is a battle that we fought 25 years ago, and

I suspect that it’s a battle fought well before that.”

In February 2013, Lu took time off from his life in Washington, D.C., to serve as a fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and at Georgetown’s McCourt School of Public Policy as a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, where he gave speeches, consulted and wrote.

“This is a chance to see what I want to do with the rest of my life,” Lu told the ‘Prince’ after a few months off.

In January, Lu was nominated by Obama to be Deputy Secretary of the Department of Labor and was confirmed on April 1. As Deputy Secretary, Lu is the department’s chief operating officer, he said.

He also enjoys running, has completed 28 marathons and often comes up with his best ideas while running, he added.

“The most thankless role”: As an alumnus Bill Bowman ’88 got to know Lu as a hallmate and later as a fellow Class of 1988 Alumni Council officer. Bowman, as vice president, primarily fundraised for the class.

“Some would say [my job’s] the most thankless role. I would say that Chris’s role as class secretary is pretty much up there,” Bowman said. “He had to write the class notes for every issue of the [Princeton Alumni Weekly], and he never missed one.”

Bowman also praised the breadth and depth of these reports, saying that while other class’s secretaries often focused on their immediate circle of friends, Lu frequently did significant research to report the most interesting occurrences. Lu would also arrange for alumni and their families to see the White House tours while he worked there, Bowman added.

Moreover, Lu served as secretary beyond what was originally supposed to be a five-year commitment and only quit when he left his Senate position to work at the White House, Bowman

noted.

“They’d say ‘Who wants to be class secretary?’ and Chris would say ‘Oh, I’ll do it again,’” Bowman said. “So I think he made it a point to get to know people and was so easygoing and affable that it was easy for him.”

Bowdre, Lu’s friend from the Wilson School, also served as the class Alumni Council president alongside Lu. “Lots of things are easy when you’re on campus, but once you leave campus, it becomes chal-

Olsen said.

Lu helped to organize the Class of 1988 Memorial Scholarship in 1990, originally founded because of the death of a classmate in a car accident, and “even though he’s not class secretary, he continues to manage the fund and the contributions,” Olsen noted.

In addition to his work as an alumni class officer, Lu also maintained involvement with the ‘Prince’ after his graduation by serving as a member of the Board of Trustees.

note address at the Princeton Club of Chicago’s biggest annual event. At first, some of her friends who didn’t know Lu didn’t understand why she was so insistent on having him speak.

“I think many people were expecting him to speak and just toe the party line and be very evasive or defensive with anything going on in the White House, but I think he was very candid,” Olsen said. “Many people who did not know him but knew that I had been pushing

ing his message relevant to the Class of 2014 by asking Durkee how he could get in contact with current seniors and talk about the issues that were important to them.

“I think that’s part of what makes him an excellent choice for this role that I think he’s very excited about,” Durkee said.

Martin said that as well as informative, Lu’s speech is likely to be entertaining.

In September 2013, Lu gave an orientation address to the Pace

COURTESY PRINCETON ALUMNI WEEKLY

Chris Lu ’88 managed the legislation and staff in Senator Barack Obama’s office and advised the Obama campaign policy team.

lenging to collect information,” Bowdre said, adding that she never had to ask Lu twice to obtain the information the council needed.

Lu’s service to the Class of 1988 was notable for what he continued even after beginning to work for the White House,

“You were right, he was amazing”: As public speaker Chris Lu has spoken to other University audiences in the past. In addition to headlining the panel on Asian-American issues at Reunions last year, Olsen explained that she recruited Lu to give the key-

him to be keynote speaker, said … ‘you were right, he was amazing.’”

Olsen added that she didn’t believe Lu to be a stereotypical politician even though he worked in politics.

Durkee said that Lu had already shown interest in mak-

Center for Civic Engagement, in which he told students, “You have to give back.”

The topic of Lu’s Baccalaureate speech on June 1 will be public service and civic engagement, Lu said. He will be the University’s first Asian-American Baccalaureate speaker.

The Daily Princetonian

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Thursday may 29, 2014

LOCAL NEWS | APRIL 22

With jurisdictional change, new management, U-Store arrests increase

By Chitra Marti staff writer

The U-Store appears to be cracking down on thefts at the store, leading to several arrests of both students and town residents in the last few months.

James Sykes, president of the U-Store, said the increase in arrests was the result of new management, which took over in July. Sykes said that at the beginning of his term the new manager focused on other aspects of the store, and had only recently shifted his focus to loss prevention.

The U-Store is a nonprofit organization that functions as a co-op, meaning it is owned fully by its members, who receive a 10 percent discount on all merchandise. Because of this, Sykes said, theft becomes more serious.

“At the end of the day, if someone steals from the UStore, they’re really stealing from everybody else that’s an owner. So theoretically, they’re stealing from other students or alums, or someone that’s become a U-Store member over the years.”

About $100,000 worth of merchandise is lost at the UStore every year in internal and external thefts, Sykes said. The U-Store makes about $8 million worth of sales annually.

These extra security measures also come at a time when police jurisdiction over the UStore has shifted. The U-Store is now under the jurisdiction of the University’s Depart-

ment of Public Safety, rather than the local Princeton Police Department, following an agreement of operating procedures signed in May 2013.

Most details of the agreement have not been released to the public.

DPS, which has a stronger presence on campus, has been actively investigating accidents in the U-Store, including charging students for alleged thefts of grapes and sushi.

Sykes said that many thefts are of food, particularly in cases involving University students. Nonstudents, Sykes said, tend to steal high-value items such as headphones. The U-Store has previously dealt with rings of thieves, who would steal things like computers, DVDs and CDs, Sykes said, and then resell them at Saturday swap meets. Sykes also said employee theft can be a problem, primarily with temporary employees.

In the past, DPS has not charged students for shoplifting, instead sending the students through the internal University disciplinary system, where records are not public.

The U-Store primarily uses associates’ observations and an installed camera system to identify thefts, Sykes said. If managers suspect that a theft may have occurred, they will often go back and review the tapes, and, if an issue is identified, will work with DPS. Sykes said the change in

jurisdiction had not had any negative impact on the way DPS identified crimes at the U-Store.

“It’s really transparent; they respond very quickly,” Sykes said, referring to DPS. “They’re on campus anyway a lot of times. Our people are interacting with them; they’re coming in for a variety of reasons, so it really hasn’t been a negative at all. It just really is a different process.”

Earlier in March, Ernst Delma, 30, of Princeton, was arrested and charged with defiant trespass in front of the U-Store. He was also issued a persona non grata, in addition to a previous persona non grata that was still in effect. The arrest was made solely by DPS officers, although one Princeton Police car was also at the scene.

A package of sushi and four or five grapes In separate cases, two students were charged with shoplifting by DPS last month following alleged incidents at the U-Store. The students, whose cases were included in the University’s daily crime log, were granted anonymity as their charges were pending dismissal following community service.

Both students were arrested several days after their alleged thefts, rather than at the scene.

Both also received the following email from DPS: “I’m conducting an investigation and would like to speak

with you. Please contact me at your earliest convenience to schedule a time to meet.”

The first student, who allegedly stole a pack of sushi from the U-Store on March 6, said she was with a friend who had done the same thing, but only the second student’s U-Store membership card was used.

The student said she believes this is how they were able to identify her. She was charged with shoplifting, or “purposefully taking possession of any merchandise … specifically by opening packages of prepared food and consuming the food while in the store and not making payment,” according to a court summons issued against the student.

She got the email from DPS about a week later, noting that her friend, the second student, had already been called, so she was not shocked.

“It was pretty clear that they were going to send me to the municipal court no matter what,” the student said in an interview. During her meeting with a detective from DPS, she was told that the U-Store was tracking theft more carefully, due to heavy losses of revenue.

“She said … they were cracking down and sending everyone to court and letting them deal with it,” the student said.

She had her mugshot taken and was placed in a “holding cell” — an unlocked room. Once she obtained a lawyer, she said, his first priority was reaching a deal with the prosecutor.

“It was a really, really trau-

matizing experience. It just ruined a lot of time for me,” the student said.

The official complaint for the second student who allegedly stole from the U-Store on March 28 reads, “eating from a container of packaged grapes that were not paid for.” She was charged with a different charge of shoplifting: “causing to be carried away or transferred merchandise … by converting the merchandise to her/his own use without paying the Princeton University Store the full retail value thereof.”

“As I was walking around, I guess I — what I would do with my parents when I was a little kid — I started eating the grapes … and I ate, probably, four or five grapes,” the student said in an interview.

“Then, five or 10 minutes later, [we] were ready to check out, and I thought about it, I was like, ‘I don’t think I want both these packages of grapes,’ so I took one out at random — I don’t know if it was, honestly, the package of grapes that I had been eating from or not …

I put it back, and I bought the rest of the stuff.” She also believed her name was obtained using her membership card, which she used to purchase the rest of the items.

A few days later, she received the same email from DPS as the other student got, but was not sure what it was about.

“This was the last thing that I thought they would [be asking about]. It didn’t even cross my mind until they literally

told me,” she said. She said the detectives agreed with her that the charges were “ridiculous,” but that they were under direction from the U-Store, which had decided to crack down on thefts.

“It was very traumatizing,” the student said. “It’s horrible to go through that and be treated like that.”

Both students and their lawyers have reached agreements with the prosecutor under which they will perform community service until their next court date, at which point their charges will be dismissed.

Neither student had bought anything from the U-Store since.

“It’s a little weird to me that they’re using the University to nab people,” the student who allegedly stole sushi said.

“What was the most upsetting for me was being treated like [a criminal] for literally eating a couple of grapes that they couldn’t put a monetary value on,” the other student said. “It’s people like us that are getting caught, because we’re not thinking about it; we’re not trying to hide.”

“It sounds like this is very innocent. It’s a few people, they eat a little food, why does it matter?” Sykes said. “Well, we can’t really create a lot of distinction between one kind of theft and another. Someone steals and it’s a big enough problem for us overall. We have to have a policy that fits everyone; we can’t discriminate.”

U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S | A P R I L 2 2

U. closes tours of Nassau Hall amid campus accessibility campaign

By Ruby Shao staff writer

Nassau Hall is no longer a part of Orange Key tours.

The University’s oldest building was removed from the route on March 25 because handicapped visitors were not easily able to enter. The change came at a time when the University was actively engaging in a campaign to improve accessibility on campus.

“It’s a wonderful, historic, fascinating building to visit,” said Vice Provost for Institutional Equity and Diversity and Americans with Disabilities Act Coordinator Michele Minter. “But we can’t have a situation where someone signs up for an Orange Key tour, where the whole point is to be able to see the campus, and then leave them standing on the steps of the building while everyone else goes inside.”

She cited the uneven flooring and stairs at every entrance as obstacles to the disabled and explained that administrators wanted to ensure equal access.

Office of Disability Services Director Eve Woodman expressed approval of the change.

“To me, it’s giving the right face for Princeton,” she said.

“It’s not saying some people can come in here and some people can’t.”

Minter said administrators will likely renovate Nassau Hall to make it accessible as part of the next capital campaign. They expect to build a ramp that will drop down to the basement in the back of the building, probably on Cannon Green, and to install an elevator in the building.

She added that this renovation would cost tens of millions of dollars.

The University’s efforts to improve accessibility on campus encompass both new construction and renovation, Minter said.

“We have a really good plan for new construction, making sure that all new construction will be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act, and then we have a process of going back and looking at older buildings to try and figure out how they can be gradually upgraded,” she explained.

Office of Design and Construction Program Manager for Standards and Special Projects David Howell noted that although most accessibility projects start out as

part of another capital or major maintenance project, the University has also independently upgraded close to 71 campus facilities since 2007.

Associate Dean of the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students Maria FloresMills said she often retrofits rooms to accommodate the special housing needs of particular students.

“Usually I probably would start with an in-depth conversation with the student themselves to help me understand what it is they really need, and to try to think about it really holistically, in very detailed form. Then I’d go to the shops,” Flores-Mills said. She described an ideal room as one on the ground floor with a wide doorway and a few additional square feet for space to move in.

On a larger scale, Howell noted that the Gothic architecture of many inaccessible residential buildings makes them difficult to renovate.

“In our dorms, most of them, you just have a set of steps, and that only gets you to some rooms, so the difficulty we had in choosing to renovate those was, ‘Which rooms do you make accessible, and which ones do you not?’ ” he said. The Univer-

sity worked out an agreement with the state so that at least one of each room type, such as a double or quad, would be elevator-accessible in each dormitory.

But some of the greatest challenges lie in increasing the accessibility of academic buildings, Howell said.

Wheelchair-bound Mike Zhang ’17 noted that although he can enter most buildings, he once had to delegate a friend to hand in a paper for him at Dickinson Hall, the history department building whose stairs barred him from entering. He added that buttons to open doors to campus buildings are sometimes placed in inconvenient locations that he cannot reach.

Beyond building modifications, accessibility improvements will extend to transportation. Woodman said that she is now spearheading a point-to-point van service that will run in addition to wheelchair-accessible Tiger Transit buses, golf carts for temporarily handicapped students through University Health Services and scooter rentals through the Office of Disability Services already offered through the University. She explained that the van service is necessary be-

cause the bus service does not get faculty members close to where they need to teach and that conveniently located parking spaces are hard to find.

Aside from physical construction, Minter said administrators have just updated all of their policies for employee accommodations and are launching a big project to upgrade technology.

“All of our websites would be accessible to people with visual or hearing, or other sensory impairments. It’ll affect classroom technology, so making sure that classrooms will be accessible to people with sensory impairments, that library materials are accessible, that bank machines are accessible — anything that’s technology-based,” she explained.

The Office of Design and Construction plans to improve communication regarding accessible pathways around campus. “We met as recently as last week about updating the accessibility map, making it more accurate and leading towards … an interactive accessibility map that would help students or anyone who needs to find a route to this place or that place,” Howell said.

The Office of Disability Services also posted a new job offering last Tuesday for an access coordinator, whose job will include addressing physical accessibility, according to Woodman.

Woodman said the University has grown more proactive about including handicapped people in the last couple of years.

“In the past, people would say, ‘Oh? Disability? Well, send them to Eve [Woodman].’ But now people are realizing that they’re not all my students, they’re not all my visitors. Everyone takes ownership and realizes that we just need to make sure that they have equal access to whatever program or services there are on campus,” she said.

Minter noted that increasing accessibility requires daily attention.

“Responding well to the changing needs of our campus community and to the changing requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act is a constant process,” she said. “We will never get to a place where we can say, ‘We’re victorious. We have done it all, and now we’re perfect.’ It’s something that we’re always going to be working on.”

SHANNON MCGUE :: ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The University has canceled stops at Nassau Hall during Orange Key tours due to a lack of accesibility.

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Thursday may 29, 2014

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Newly elected officers inherit hostile environment following 21 Club scandal 21 CLUB

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Immediately after the incident, Cooper wrote in a statement that what happened was in fact a party, although he did not provide further details about the events.

“Early Sunday morning, a private party took place in Tiger Inn without the necessary security precautions in place,” Cooper wrote. “Our officers neither planned, hosted nor participated in the function, but they allowed it to take place, putting the community at risk.”

However, two members with knowledge of the event con-

firmed that the incident was a party but explained that it was a party hosted by the 21 Club, a semi-secret society that groups some of the heaviest drinkers on campus. The two members were granted anonymity because they were not allowed to speak to the press.

The party allegedly took place between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. on the morning of March 9, the sources said.

“That would have been the end of it except that the Grad Board watched the video of TI that night and saw what happened,” one of the sources said referring to footage taken by security cameras at the club.

The 21 Club members were allegedly “throwing the place

apart” and “throwing up everywhere.”

The 21 Club is known for its drinking contests. The membership consists of 21 juniors and 21 seniors, mostly coming from four eating clubs: Ivy Club, Cap & Gown Club, Cottage Club and TI. During initiations, members reportedly have to drink 21 beers in 42 minutes, and the goal is to be the last one to throw up.

Cooper himself lists on his LinkedIn profile that he was president of the 21 Club during his time at the University. He confirmed that he participated in 21 Club initiations in 1981 but neither confirmed nor denied that this weekend’s incident was related to the 21 Club.

The elections at TI on March 31, which Cooper attended, were preceded by a “town hall” meeting between the members and the graduate board. In the meeting, the graduate board explained the details of the incident that led to the resignation of the four officers, and discussed the plans of the club going forward.

Cooper did not respond to emails and text messages, as well as did not return phone calls following the election.

Former graduate board president Eric Pedersen ’82 said he was unavailable for comment.

After the officers resigned in early March, a petition criticizing the decision circulated

among the members of the club, according to a member with knowledge of the events.

The petition obtained over 100 signatures, but did not reverse the decision.

“The decision [to fire four officers] … will likely produce no productive results, has served only to further alienate the membership and foster the impression that the Graduate Board views us as irresponsible children,” the petition read.

“The truth is this: the new officer corps inherited a hostile environment, which was the product of years of irresponsibility and bad luck.”

The petition proposed the creation of two new representatives per class, who would work

with the graduate board.

“As a first step towards cooperation we propose the establishment of two additional elected representatives for each of the Junior and Senior classes. These representatives, elected and held accountable solely by their respective class years, would serve on a Task Force with the Graduate Board, the primary objective of which would be to increase transparency, accountability and representation in the Club’s governance,” it said.

The group of former officers and the group of new officers all either did not respond to requests for comment or declined to comment. Majchrzak is the projects editor of the ‘Prince.’

Following the forced resignation of four officers, Tiger Inn members circulated a petition criticizing the way the club’s graduate board had handled the situation.

Female majority in MOL department GENDER Continued from page 1

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young women are able to feel comfortable, feel welcome,” she said.

Molecular biology was the only STEM major in which a female majority declared, at two-thirds of those declaring.

Departmental representative Thomas Silhavy noted that while the imbalance has long existed across the nation, the proportion of women at the University seems to be creeping up. Women may find biology inherently more interesting than the physical sciences or look to the many female faculty members as role models, he said.

Silhavy said the department does not have plans to attract more male concentrators, adding jokingly that having more women could attract more men.

Departments with over five concentrators with the highest male percentages were mathematics at 86.7 percent male, philosophy at 77.8 percent male, A.B. computer science at 77.3 percent male and physics at 76.2 percent male.

Mathematics departmental representative János Kollár said he believes much of the imbalance starts in elementary school, when teachers present mathematics as a collection of recipes. This imbalance, he said, can only be addressed in a limited way at the university level.

“Maybe people think that the mathematician is just like a computer who happens to have two legs and two arms is a more negative image to women than to men,” he said. “I think it’s a negative image to everyone,

but it might be especially offputting to young women.”

A.B. computer science was 77.3 percent male, similar to the B.S.E. rate of 76.3 percent. The department contains a slightly higher proportion of women than the national average of around 19 percent.

Departmental representative David Walker said University courses such as COS 126: General Computer Science broaden the appeal of the discipline.

“We illustrate in our introductory courses all the range of different things that involve what I would call computational thinking — thinking algorithmically, thinking using procedures and all the applications of that mode of thought — applications in medicine, applications in mathematics, applications in art,” he said. He added that he expects the successes of female computer science majors to draw more women to the department.

Physics departmental representative Christopher Tully and philosophy departmental representative John Burgess declined to comment.

Sophomores declared majors in the social sciences, including sociology, politics, the Wilson School, East Asian Studies and Near Eastern Studies, at mostly even rates. The exceptions were economics at 64.4 percent male, anthropology at 72.7 percent female and psychology at 87.3 percent female.

Anthropology departmental representative Isabelle ClarkDecès did not respond to a request for comment. The data for the anthropology department was compiled from unofficial numbers obtained from the College Facebook.

Economics department representative Smita Brunnermeier noted that equal numbers of entering freshmen list economics as a prospective concentration but added that the proportion changes by the time students declare in their sophomore year. She noted an even worse imbalance for graduate students and faculty.

Women with broad interests might avoid economics because they mistakenly believe the discipline only leads to careers in finance, she said.

“Maybe we should be doing a better job of communicating to young female students that the methodological tools — econometrics, statistics, the modeling techniques that we teach — can be used in a wide of variety of applications and are very applicable to topics of social importance,” she said, adding that the department could close the gap by reaching out at underclassman open houses to discuss the variety of research and jobs pursued by majors.

According to data provided

by Brunnermeier, the male distribution of the economics department peaked at 73 percent for the Class of 2009 and reached its lowest point in the last nine rounds of concentrations at 58 percent for the Class of 2013.

The language departments, which received the smallest numbers of concentrators, saw male majorities or even gender distributions. German had four males and one female, French & Italian had three males and one female, Spanish & Portuguese had one female and one male and Slavic Languages & Literatures had one male.

Staff writer Do-Hyeong Myeong contributed reporting.

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administrator has given him an easier time transitioning into the role of president.

“I think President Eisgruber is in a much stronger initial position because of his role as provost for nine years before becoming president,” Tilghman said.

Eisgruber also said that his time as provost gave him an advantageous familiarity with University-wide issues, issues that he would later look to tackle as president. He noted as examples some endeavors, such as Tilghman’s focus on promoting the arts, that he worked on heavily as provost and that he continues to support as president.

“There were a lot of the parts of the job that were familiar to me from my administrative experience beforehand,” Eisgruber noted.

When comparing the early presidencies of Eisgruber and Tilghman, it is also impossible to overlook the impact of the September 11 attacks that occurred one day before Tilghman’s first semester as president began.

“What a life-changing experience it was to live through 9/11

and to be responsible for a large community here in Princeton who were very touched personally by what happened,” Tilghman said.

The early part of Tilghman’s term was marked by news about terrorism and the war in Afghanistan. To complicate matters further, a high profile anthrax attack attempt was found to have originated close to Princeton. Financially, Tilghman had to confront a lackluster economy almost immediately upon taking office, and this fiscal weakness would continue throughout the course of her presidency.

Eisgruber has not had to deal with such crises during the opening of his presidency, which may have helped him to transition more easily into the role of president without external pressure.

Despite these differences, both Eisgruber and Tilghman began their presidencies by focusing on potential student body expansion. For Tilghman, the early plans to expand the student body, which eventually resulted in the building of Whitman College, had already been formulated by the prior administration. For Eisgruber, the question of student body expansion is one that University administrators should

always be asking.

“Given the extraordinary character of the benefits we provide to every student who goes here, and given that we’re taking a smaller percentage of students than at any point in our history, we have an obligation to be asking ourselves when it is that Princeton would next be able to expand its undergraduate student body,” Eisgruber said.

Another challenge both Eisgruber and Tilghman have dealt with at the start of their presidencies was high turnover among upper-level administrators. Four deans, three vice presidents and the University’s general counsel departed during Tilghman’s first one hundred days. Like Tilghman, Eisgruber has dealt with a significant number of top administrators stepping down from their positions, including Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin and Dean of the Graduate School William Russel.

Tilghman noted that such attrition was not surprising to her, adding that it is quite common for top administrators to leave when a regime change happens at the top. Though she noted that it was certainly difficult to replace such crucial leaders from the previous administration, she

{

said she approached the task as a chance to form a new, dynamic team.

“I saw it as an opportunity to build a team, a team that would mesh well with one another where we were not all thinking exactly the same,” Tilghman said.

Eisgruber, too, expected such attrition as a natural part of leadership change, and said he sees recruiting fresh talent to replace these key University leaders as a critical part of his first moves as president. To this end, Eisgruber has looked to Tilghman’s administrative team as an ideal toward which to strive.

“One of the things at the forefront of my mind is to be able to put together a group of people who will have the same kind of … dedication to the values of this institution that Shirley’s team had,” Eisgruber said.

Despite Tilghman’s relative unfamiliarity with the administration prior to taking on the role, she left behind a University significantly different from the one she inherited. It remains to be seen if Eisgruber will do the same, but if the active beginning of his administration is any indication, the University certainly seems to be weighing much potential change.

feature | may 12

KATHRYN MOORE :: SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER

Eisgruber ‘83 hugs former University President Shirley Tilghman at his presidential inauguration. Tilghman will rejoin the faculty next year as part of the Wilson School.

}

Gray areas: who can use the Princeton name?

By Sharon Deng staff writer

Colleen McCullough ’12 was contacted this March by University officials who told her that Princeton in the Middle East, the post-graduate fellowship program she had founded along with other University alumni, would have to remove the “Princeton in” construction from its name because it suggested that the independently established organization had an affiliation to the University and thus created confusion.

PriME is one of many outside organizations that have fallen into the gray area as to whether or not they should be allowed to use the word Princeton in their name. University General Counsel Peter McDonough said the University decides whether an organization can use the Princeton name on a case-by-case basis.

Sometimes the University evaluates an organization and finds its use of the Princeton name to be legitimate, while other times, as with PriME, it has chosen to step in to ensure that no confusion regarding an association with the

University arises.

For example, the Princeton Club of New York is a private club founded in 1899 that offers social events, rooms for overnight stay and fitness facilities for its members. Although it is independent of the University, its membership is restricted to University alumni, faculty and students, as well as alumni of select universities such as Columbia University and Williams College.

“We are fine with there being an association in the public’s mind between Princeton Club of New York and the University, so

we don’t think there is any likelihood of confusion because we are fine with that,” McDonough said.

According to PCNY Director of Catering/Human Resources Tracy Kaufman, the club hosts over 250 events with the University each year.

“We are an extension of the family. We are Princetonians in New York City. We host parents. We are down for parents’ weekend, alumni day, senior check out, reunion weekend. We are part of the make up of what Princetonians need when they come to Manhattan,” Kaufman said.

McDonough said the similarity between an outside organization’s services and those of the University is a key factor the University considers. For example, Princeton Adult School is a nonprofit educational organization founded in 1931 that is located in Princeton. Executive director Anne Brener noted that the adult school has close ties with the University.

“Although we are not affiliated at all, our lectures series is not only usually given on campus at University facilities, but the other part of it is that most of our lectures are from the University,” Brener said.

McDonough noted that the University’s shared name with the town complicates the issue of determining whether organizations can use the Princeton name. He said that the University tries to be fair and reasonable when deciding whether or not to intervene.

“We are not like Yale. Yale is in New Haven. At Yale, if somebody proposed to start the Yale Adult School, they really could not argue that they are calling it that because of geography,” McDonough explained.

Brener recalled numerous cases when people have confused Princeton Adult School with Princeton University.

“People would call here, thinking they are calling some office of Princeton Admissions. I don’t know how they get to that from the name of Princeton Adult School,” Brener said.

McDonough said that the University must also determine if an organization is intentionally trying to suggest to its customers that there is a University affiliation.

“There is no suggestion,” McDonough said regarding the Princeton Adult School. “There isn’t a wrapping up the adult school name in orange and black, and there isn’t a lot of name dropping about the University that looks like it’s intended to confuse.”

Brener added that the real confusion comes when organizations bearing the Princeton name are located outside of the town of Princeton.

“When people outside of Princeton use the name so freely all the way out to Hightstown,

which is, you know, ten miles up the road and all the way past Princeton’s borders, past our zip codes, that’s where it gets confusing, but not here in town,” Brener said.

However, the University had called into question the use of Princeton’s name in the case of the Princeton Review, an independent business focused on standardized test preparation that at one point had its biggest offices in Princeton, according to its founder John Katzman ’81.

“They dropped the opposition, but I agreed that we would not use the brand Princeton Review in ways that create confusion with the University. For instance, there will never be a Princeton Review University, or anything like it. And we don’t use fonts that are similar to University’s fonts,” Katzman said.

Katzman explained that he chose the name not because of the University but because Education Techonology Service — an educational services company that makes the SAT, among other tests — used to be commonly referred to by guidance counselors as “Princeton” due to its Princeton mailing address.

Princeton Architectural Press, founded by Kevin Lippert ’80 while he was an Architecture School graduate student, has dealt with confusion over its name since it moved its headquarters from Witherspoon Street to New York City.

Lippert said the name now causes some unintended confusion but that the company has no immediate plan to change the name.

“The name is now confusing because we are not in Princeton.

We are not part of the University.

We don’t want people to think that we are the architectural arm of the Princeton University Press, and we publish a lot more than just architecture these days,” Lippert said.

According to Lippert, the University’s adoption of the town’s name makes it easier for outside business to have Princeton in its name. However, Lippert pointed out that trademarking a place name brings with it many complications.

“You can trademark a place name,” Lippert said, “but how many millions of businesses have the word New York in them here in New York City? So would you then try and whatever, shut them down or tax them or collect some sort of fee for the use of the name New York?”

McDonough pointed out that there is no clear legal boundary that the University applies to determine if a likelihood of confusion exists.

“We are talking about an area of the law that doesn’t have real, solid lines. As lawyers we talk about black and white issues and gray issues: this is a gray issue because it is almost always going

to be decided based on the unique particular facts of any situation,” he added.

Not all outside organizations carrying the Princeton name report cases of confusion, however.

The Historical Society of Princeton’s Executive Director Erin Dougherty said she does not think any confusion exists with the society. It was founded in 1938, and its founding president graduated from the University in 1899.

“I think our visitors come in knowing we are talking about the history of the town. We do sometimes discuss the University in our exhibitions, but we try to make it clear that we are a separate institution,” Dougherty said.

When the product being offered is very different than that of the University, there is also little confusion over the Princeton name. Princeton Power Systems was founded in Princeton but has since spread all over the country.

According to co-founder Darren Hammell ’01, the name derives partly from his University affiliation and partly from the geographic area.

“We were based in Princeton when we started, so the location, and then we were all Princeton students in fact when we started the company, so that has something to do with it,” Hammell said.

Hammell said having the Princeton name has been a benefit because it gives potential customers background information about the company and its origins just by the name.

McDonough noted that the quality of the product that an outside organization provides is another factor.

“If we are really, really, really good at something, and they are really, really, really bad at something, we would have a stronger case with the court for arguing that they can hurt us by us permitting them to continue to [use the Princeton name],” he said.

Brener said that ultimately whether or not an organization uses the Princeton name is not the most important factor for its success.

“I do think they look for it and I do think they think it might be a very special program because it is called Princeton,” Brener said.

“However, in the end it is the quality of our courses that gives us the reputation and makes us successful.”

Dougherty expressed similar sentiment and said she doesn’t see a problem if confusion arises.

“Having Princeton in our name is just an complete plus for our organization, so if people happen to associate us with other organizations in town who also has Princeton in their name, like the University, you know it’s fine because it really shows Princeton as a really strong place that has a lot of organizations that celebrate the town,” she said.

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday may 29, 2014

page 9

STUDENT LIFE | APRIL 18

Panels detached, reinstalled in ‘The Surface’ campus art project

By Carla Javier senior writer

The creators of a class art project that seeks responses to the question, “What can you not say at Princeton?” reported two incidents against their project in April.

Known as The Surface, the creators reported one incident of “aggressive intervention” and a second incident where the University removed part of their project due to “graphic content.”

Both incidents allegedly happened on April 15.

The University has denied any involvement in the first incident and said the second incident was in response to a complaint it had received.

The Surface was a literal white surface where people could write and express their answers to the overarching question. At its opening, it consisted of several upright, connected white panels on the Frist Campus Center North Lawn between Marx Hall, McCosh Hall and the Architecture Laboratory.

According to the project’s manifesto, anyone could write or draw on The Surface, anyone was free to censor anything

written or drawn on The Surface and these rules were to be enforced by visitors and “authorized appropriators to The Surface.”

The Surface was part of the class VIS 439: Art as Interaction.

According to a report prepared by Mary Lou Kolbenschlag ’14, a member of the class, and posted on the project’s Twitter and Facebook pages, the easternmost panel of The Surface was detached sometime between 1 a.m. and 4:20 a.m. on April 15.

This panel was left on the ground. The report also stated that another panel was “pried from its support post, with the screws left in a pile on the ground by the post.” This panel was not detached, and it is unknown who attempted to detach it.

The creators responded by reinstalling the detached panel horizontally in order to “reflect the appropriator(s)’ presumed intent.”

University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua said the University was aware of this incident but was not involved in the panel’s detachment.

However, the University then took one of the panels away later

that same day around noon, according to a separate report prepared by Kemy Lin ’15, another member of the class, together with Kolbenschlag.

Lin said the creators were not notified by the University prior to the second panel’s removal.

However, Lin said they were told afterward in an email sent by manager for visual arts in the Lewis Center for the Arts Marjorie Carhart that the panel had been removed because a pedestrian had complained about a depiction of a penis painted on it.

Carhart declined to comment, deferring comment to the course’s instructor, Fia Backström.

According to the report prepared by Lin and Kolbenschlag, Al Pearson of Grounds and Building Maintenance wrote in an email that the panel would be returned under the condition that its offensive content was painted over.

In an updated report by the creators posted on the project’s Twitter page, Remi Yamazaki ’14 provided an excerpt from an email where Pearson quotes “Rights, Rules, Responsibilities” Section 1.3.7 regarding property.

Pearson did not respond to request for comment.

Mbugua said that Grounds and Building Maintenance received a report about a complaint around noon on April 15.

However, he declined to comment on who issued the complaint or to whom.

Acting on the report of a complaint, Grounds and Building Maintenance moved the panel to MacMillan Building by 1:30 p.m. the same day, Mbugua explained.

In the panel’s absence, the creators placed a sign stating, “UNIVERSITY BUILDING SERVICES REMOVED THIS PANEL WITHOUT THE CONSENT OR CONSULTATION OF THE ARTISTS DUE TO APPARENT ‘GRAPHIC CONTENT.’ AN ADJUSTED PANEL WILL RETURN.” The sign was later removed.

The panel was returned to its original position at 7 a.m. the next day, April 16. The creators painted over the depiction of male anatomy with white paint.

Where the depiction originally was, they painted, “CENSORED

BY ORDER OF THE UNIVERSITY.” Mbugua did not refer to the

University taking and returning the panel as censorship. Instead, he said, “It is clear that the project has generated the interest and interaction that it intended.”

Members of the class met with University stakeholders before The Surface’s opening on April 13 to address issues of safety and placement of the project, Backström said.

Lin explained that attendants at these meetings included representatives from Building Services, Grounds Services, Conference and Event Services, Fire Safety and the Department of Public Safety.

Nathan Jones ’14 said he saw the panel before its removal while walking to class Monday morning. He said that at the time he did not know what the project was and was surprised the University had not taken it away.

Upon learning more about the project and how people are invited to censor it themselves, Jones said he considered painting over parts, but he ultimately decided not to. Instead, he contacted Buse Aktas ’14, one of the creators of the project. His comments appear in a post on the

project’s Facebook page.

“It seems like people are just being immature, rather than actually expressing themselves,” Jones wrote. “Is this what The Surface was intended for, or is it being abused?”

Lin said documenting the response to the project has become part of the art of The Surface.

“Obviously, people have written some offensive things on The Surface,” Lin explained. “Our intention is not to offend or break rules. We have complied with everything the University has asked us to do. We are interested in the bureaucratic processes and how something uncommon like this interacts with the student body and the administration.”

Mbugua added that he cannot speculate on what course of action would be taken should another depiction of male anatomy appear on The Surface. He said the University would evaluate any future complaints and respond appropriately if necessary.

The Surface was a collaborative community project created by Amber Stewart ’15, Aktas, Yamazaki, Lin and Kolbenschlag.

KAREN KU :: ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR SHANNON MCGUE :: ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Students in VIS 439: Art as Interaction installed ‘The Surface’ in the lawn between 1879 Hall and the School of Architecture in April.

T HE DA ILY

Want to meet up with other ‘Prince’ alumni?

Come to the annual barbecue in the lawn of 48 University Place!

Sat. May 31 at 4:30 p.m.

Tweet Tweet!!

Follow us on Twitter! @Princetonian #princetonreunions

Students painted over a panel that had been removed by the University, accusing it of censorship.

The Daily Princetonian

page 10

Thursday may 29, 2014

U. promotes caution during Reunions MENINGITIS Continued from page 1

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round of vaccinations.

However, a student at Drexel University died from meningitis after reportedly being in contact with Princeton football players at a sorority mixer at her school in March.

The death of the student prompted the University to ban overnight stays during the Princeton Preview program, a move that left up in the air whether more severe restrictions would be implemented during Reunions this year, although none were ultimately introduced.

“We would take similar precautions as last year,” Associate Director for Reunions Mibs Mara, said, noting that they would doubly emphasize the need for precautions. “We’re just going to make sure that we do the best job we can with getting the information out, whether it’s around campus, during Reunions or beforehand, on preventative measures that can be taken.”

She explained that the Alumni Council would work closely with the alumni class presidents, the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni and the Reunions chairs to actively communicate

“The University is going to try to find a way to communicate some of the risks.”

Jason McDonald, CDC Spokesperson

the decision.

“The meeting’s primary purpose was about making sure that participants receive relevant information that would help them join the University community in helping stop the spread of illness,” University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua said.

Mbugua also noted that the CDC and health officials have not recommended making changes to or canceling the events on campus.

Organizers also encouraged participants to take preventive measures against the disease during last year’s Reunions, which followed the official announcement of a meningitis outbreak at the University.

Information on prevention was printed and disseminated in last year’s Reunions program and will be printed again in this year’s. The program is also available online.

Mara noted that last year’s Reunions participants were very receptive to this information, and that she hoped the participants would be as cooperative in this year’s.

“From what I understand it, the University is going to try to find a way to communicate some of the risks associated with meningitis,” CDC spokesperson Jason McDonald said. “Of course, we support that. We think it’s a great idea.”

MONICA CHON :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR EMERITUS

In a rare appeareance, University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua faced a crowd of TV journalists.

Drexel not to receive access to vaccine DREXEL

Continued from page 1

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meningitis patients at Princeton. Genetic fingerprinting showed that the strain of meningitis, serogroup B, was the same in both cases.

Ross had attended a social mixer at Drexel along with 25 to 30 members of the Princeton football team and three other Princeton community members, Hary explained.

“The case points out what a lot of people didn’t realize — just because you do a human vaccination campaign, it doesn’t mean you will prevent the disease from spreading,” Hary said at the meeting.

“Some people are carriers. That is the best guess from the CDC as to how this occurred … Does the vaccination decrease the probability of being a carrier?

We are in uncharted water.

Clearly from the most recent case it is not 100 percent effective.”

Hary did not respond to a request for comment. In addition, around half a dozen football players did not respond to requests for comment about the mixer.

McDonald explained that people who have been exposed to bacterial meningitis can still carry the disease even if

they do not show symptoms, as the bacteria can lodge in their nose or throat. The bacteria are spread through close personal contact such as kissing or sharing food or utensils.

The University has been repeatedly reminding students about the importance of hygienic practices such as washing hands and avoiding close personal contact, and McDonald said that he thinks the University has done a good job communicating those measures.

However, the CDC has said that as the disease is not highly contagious, there is no reason for the University to limit social interactions or travel to the University.

“Students at both [Drexel and Princeton] should be especially vigilant to the signs and symptoms of meningococcal disease and seek urgent treatment if suspected,” the CDC said.

University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua noted that Princeton released an email explaining the connection between the Drexel death and the Princeton outbreak when the CDC announced the result of its findings on March 18. Although the press had already reported on a connection between the strains on March 14, the CDC’s test results had not

come out yet, he said.

Ross, a sophomore at Drexel studying mechanical engineering, was found unresponsive at her sorority house on March 10 and died later after being taken to Penn Presbyterian Medical Center.

Drexel said in a statement that it has identified and provided prophylactic antibiotics to anyone who may have been exposed and is continuing to make prophylactic antibiotics available at the Student Health Center to students who have had close contact with the infected student. As the CDC does not indicate vaccination as a method of prophylaxis for a single case of meningococcal infection, Drexel will not be providing vaccines as the University has done.

Infection by serogroup B of the meningococcal vaccine was confirmed in seven University students and one campus visitor between March 2013 and November 2013, and the University launched mass vaccinations on campus on Dec. 8-11, 2013 and Feb. 17-20, 2014.

The University held two more vaccination clinics from 1 p.m. to 7 p.m. on March 26 and March 27 for students who were unable to receive vaccinations earlier. Eligible individuals were able to receive both the first and second dose.

KAREN KU :: ASSOCIATE PHOTO EDITOR

Dr. Janet Neglia addresses a crowd of students after they received a dose of the meningitis vaccine.

SOTOMAYOR AT PRINCETON

BEN KOGER :: PHOTO EDITOR

Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’76 was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service, the highest award for undergraduate alumni.

Thursday may 29, 2014

The Daily Princetonian

YEAR IN REVIEW

page 11

Clockwise from top left: Susan Patton ’77 came back to campus this year to participate in a debate at Whig-Clio titled ‘Marry Right: A Guide to Finding the One.’ (Sewheat Haile :: Staff Photographer); Mayer Hawthorne was one of the headliners at spring Lawnparties. This was also the first year that proceeds from the event were donated to a charity, although the pick, TEAM Charter Schools, sparked controversy.

(Grace Jeon :: Senior Photographer); Part of the Dinky station’s overhead canopy collapsed unexpectedly during construction of the University’s Arts and Transit Neighborhood. (Austin Lee :: Staff Photographer); Yoga sessions were held at the Princeton University Art Museum. (Sewheat Haile); For the second year in a row, the University’s football team beat both Harvard and Yale, leading to a celebratory bonfire. This year, however, controversy ensued over plans to burn an effigy of John Harvard. (Merrill Fabry :: Photo Editor Emeritus); Reports of gunshots in Nassau Hall, which ultimately proved to be unfounded, prompted an emergency response last fall that sent SWAT teams to the building. No injuries were reported. (Lilia Xie :: Associate Photo Editor Emeritus); The annual Communiversity festival held in April celebrated the town and gown relations. The relationship had become strained in past years due to the University’s planned move of the Dinky train station, plans which ultimately prevailed. (Grace Jeon).

The Daily Princetonian

page 12

Thursday may 29, 2014

Committee on Discipline criticized for alleged presumption of guilt COD

Continued from page 1

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Committee on Discipline’s procedures are decades old.

But, for the first time, The Daily Princetonian has obtained an audio recording of a hearing, provided by the student from the March 2013 hearing on the condition of anonymity.

A review of the hearing provides rare insight into the largely opaque process and calls into question whether the Committee always meets the high standards of evidence that it holds itself to in order to find a student responsible for a violation. Moments in the tape bolster the arguments of detractors who suggest that some of the questions the Committee asks during hearings are designed to prompt accused students to make selfincriminatory statements.

During the reporting process, the ‘Prince’ sought to use the hearing to shed light on the disciplinary process in general — a longstanding campus-wide debate that previously lacked any documentary evidence.

University officials explained that the ‘Prince’ did not have access to the internal deliberations of the Committee, nor the evidence itself, neither of which are disclosed to the public, which is similar to the American judicial system. Chair of the Committee and Dean of Undergraduate Students Kathleen Deignan explained that the observations and discussions presented at these deliberations, without accused students present, can put the Committee’s decisions in full context. Deignan said she and other Committee members could not discuss the details of this case, or any specific case, due to policies protecting students’ privacy.

Nonetheless, Deignan emphasized that the accused student is always presented with all evidence and has the opportunity to respond.

All Committee hearings are recorded for the purposes of an appeal.

Too harsh or too lenient?

The student’s hearing was one of an estimated 25 to 40 cases heard each academic year by the Committee, which adjudicates most violations of University policy, from cheating on homework assignments to sexual assault. The Committee has previously been

criticized both by those who claim it is too harsh on accused students and those — namely advocates for rape victims — who claim it is too lenient. In addition, some argue that the University’s limited range of penalties result in punishments that do not fit the crime.

Deignan, who was secretary of the Committee for 17 years after her arrival at the University in 1984 and has chaired the Committee since 2001, argues that there are good reasons behind many of the most commonly criticized aspects of the Committee’s work. She said the Committee sets a higher standard of evidence than most civil court cases and peer institutions’ disciplinary bodies in order to minimize the risk of a false conviction, and argued that a limited range of punishments is necessary to uphold the academic and intellectual values of the Princeton community.

“It’s an exercise in the students learning that they’re hopeless in the face of the Leviathan.”

Harvey Silverglate ’64 Defense Attorney

Courts adjudicate most civil cases based on a “preponderance of the evidence” standard, meaning that the defendant can be found guilty if more than half of the evidence points against them. The University applies a higher “clear and persuasive evidence” standard instead, which is analogous to the “clear and convincing” standard used by the courts in some cases.

Criminal cases employ a stillhigher “beyond reasonable doubt” standard, which some said was too high for the Committee’s purposes.

Princeton is somewhat of an outlier among peer institutions when it comes to standards used to adjudicate campus disciplinary action.

All other Ivy League institutions except Harvard utilize the “preponderance of the evidence” standard. Harvard uses a “sufficiently persuaded” standard, which requires

more evidence than the preponderance standard but does not correspond to any particular outside legal standard and has been criticized as vague.

However, students who have gone through the process and the professors and lawyers who advise them say the process is marred by a presumption of guilt and inconsistent application of a respectably high standard of evidence.

“We don’t do the criminal justice system in that manner, and we shouldn’t do it [that way] at Princeton,” R. William Potter ’68 said. Potter is a local attorney who has advised students going before the Committee. “And let’s face it. Something like suspension or expulsion from the University is a kind of quasi-criminal penalty. It’s a form of exile.”

“And certainly it is a scarlet letter on the person’s record for the rest of their lives,” Potter added.

Such criticism of the Committee strikes at the heart of the debate over the role of campus discipline committees, which are not in any way unique to the University.

Deignan said the University treats discipline as an educational process, noting that the way the procedures are designed and the way the Committee members ask questions are intended to help the students learn from their alleged mistakes. Critics contend that this approach ignores procedural fairness, violating student rights.

Harvey Silverglate ’64, a Massachusetts criminal defense attorney who runs the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, argued that the educational language formally describing the mission of the Committee helps the Committee avoid being held accountable for seeming violations of due process.

“It’s an exercise in the students learning that they’re hopeless in the face of the Leviathan,” Silverglate said.

Deignan said that during her time at the University, the Committee has never wrongfully convicted a student, attributing this fact to the high standard of proof the University sets. However, she noted that Committee has probably let guilty students off in the past due to lack of evidence.

“Your instincts are telling you that this doesn’t feel quite right, but the evidence wasn’t there,” she said.

Uncertainty over timestamps At the hearing, as well as in a later interview, the accused student who provided the recording of her hearing to the ‘Prince’ maintained that the whole situation had been an accident. She admitted that she had downloaded code as reference for the assignment, but added that rather than intentionally plagiarizing she had accidentally submitted the downloaded file, which had the same file name as the file that contained her own work.

In her defense, the student and her adviser, a computer science graduate student, argued that she had saved the file containing her own work before the assignment’s deadline, pointing to the file’s timestamp as evidence.

“But the Committee questioned that line of defense, instead at one point suggesting that student only created the second file after she learned that she was accused of plagiarism. Committee members noted that it was possible to alter the timestamp on the file, but did not present any evidence that the student in this particular case had in fact altered the file’s timestamp.

Deignan outlined the main question the Committee had to answer: whether there was clear and convincing evidence that the student had intentionally submitted the plagiarized file and only completed the assignment after the due date.

“Deignan’s statement was the last mention of the possibility of altered timestamps in the entire hearing. However, this particular moment in the hearing apparently weighed significantly in the Commit-

tee’s decision.

The decision letter sent to the student the next day explained that “the Committee was persuaded that the code you brought to your second interview with [Associate Dean of the College Victoria Jueds] on March 12 constituted fabricated evidence.”

Jueds, as secretary to the Committee, does not vote on a case’s outcome, but collects all evidence related to the allegations and presents it to the student before the hearing.

“You explained that this was original code, written without the use of any [impermissible] outside source, and that this was the code you intended to hand in,” read Jueds’ letter. “The Committee found this explanation implausible, and instead agreed that the original code could not have existed when you first [met] with me, let alone when you handed in Assignment No. 2.”

The letter acknowledged that there were some “unknowable” things about the case, such as why the student would have plagiarized given that her code was largely working when she visited a preceptor during office hours before the assignment was due. The preceptor had confirmed this fact during the hearing. Nevertheless, Jueds wrote that “these uncertainties did nothing to diminish the clear and persuasive evidence of your violations.”

The student in this case was suspended from the University for one year. The Committee added “censure” to her punishment to indicate their belief that she had been dishonest with them. She has now spent two semesters away from the University, and permanently has a note on her transcript indicating that she was suspended for plagiarism.

The Committee also argued that the course’s policy prohibited consulting online resources in completing assignments, and thus the student was in violation of course policy simply by searching for information online. The student and her adviser disputed this, arguing that course policy was ambiguous and that students frequently searched for hints and tips online.

Students and faculty currently serving on the Committee either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

A stacked deck?

Before the hearing, the student had previously met with Jueds, who had presented her with the evidence against her.

During the hearing, Committee members said they thought that she only wrote her own code after this meeting, which could potentially explain why the student did not inform her professor that she accidentally submitted the wrong file until 36 hours after she met with Jueds.

The student appealed the decision to Dean of the College Valerie Smith, who can receive appeals on the grounds that there is additional information that could not have been permitted during the hearing or that the penalty imposed is inconsistent with previous penalties for similar cases.

In her written appeal, the student detailed her activities and alibis in the days after she met with Jueds, arguing that she would not have had time to write the file.

The verdict and punishment came as a surprise, the student said in an interview, adding that the burden of persuasion had been placed on her to prove she had acted honestly, where it should have been the Committee’s responsibility to prove she had altered the timestamp.

In the meeting with Jueds, the student did not immediately recognize that the supposedly plagiarized code was not her own, she and Jueds both said in the hearing. The student argued this was because she didn’t spend much time looking at it. Committee members suggested that if she had really submitted the code by mistake, she would have instantly recognized the code was not hers, and questioned

HANNAH MILLER :: SENIOR DESIGNER

why she did not spend more time looking at it.

“You’re told that you’re going before the Committee on Discipline for this code, and you don’t look at it?” history professor and then Committee member Michael Gordin asked during the hearing.

Asked why she waited 36 hours to inform her professor, the student said it was because he would not have replied to the message.

“He wouldn’t what?” a shocked Deignan said in response.

“You waited until Thursday to tell him you made a mistake, and you submitted a code and you’re being accused of plagiarism, for two days … Why? Because he wouldn’t check his email?” Gordin asked.

The way the Committee members asked some of their questions, which the student said mixed accusations and questioning, left her wondering whether she’d already lost

“Suspension or expulsion from the University is a kind of quasi-criminal penalty.”

William Potter ’68 Local Attorney

her case.

“They’re the jury and they’re the prosecutors,” she said in an interview.

Gordin, who declined to speak about this particular case although he agreed to answer general questions about the Committee, said statements such as these reflected his genuine surprise, not a presumption of guilt.

“It would be nice if we were able to be completely dispassionate, but sometimes someone says something and I’m like, ‘Oh, that just seems like not how I would behave,”’ Gordin said. “That’s not dispositive. That doesn’t say that someone’s guilty.”

Potter, the local lawyer and occasional adviser to students, said the roles of questioner and decision-maker were conflated during a case he witnessed after accusing a student of plagiarism in a politics course he was precepting.

This is concerning because the Committee becomes invested in its own arguments, clouding its judgment of others’ cases, he said.

Wilson School professor Stanley Katz, who attended Harvard Law School and has advised several students accused of violating University regulations, said the Committee’s bias in favor of its own arguments results in a presumption of guilt.

“That’s in my mind a violation of the basic principle of fairness in a quasi-judicial proceeding,” he said.

Deignan said the Committee “absolutely” presumes innocence, and that the burden of persuasion rests squarely on the Committee to demonstrate clear and convincing evidence.

She said she understands some students feel the deck is stacked against them, but that this perception comes from the strength of the evidence the Committee collects before finding a student responsible.

Deignan pointed to the Committee’s “clear and persuasive” standard as an indication that it does not take its work lightly. She explained the Committee recognizes that suspension and expulsion are severe penalties, and that this makes it crucial to be confident in a guilty verdict.

While some accused students claim the deck is stacked against them, other critics contend that the system goes too far in protecting certain perpetrators.

Advocates for rape victims have criticized schools like Princeton that continue to employ a clear and persuasive standard in sexual assault cases, making it more likely an alleged rapist will avert consequences. A 2011 “Dear Colleague” letter issued by the federal Department of Education recommended using a preponderance of the evidence standard. Princeton did not lower its standard in response, noting that the recommendation did not carry the force of law.

‘And then what happens?’

Despite the high standard of evidence, some students who felt they were wrongly accused said Committee members’ actions during hearings were not fair, no matter what ideals the Committee purported to hold.

During her hearing, Committee members frequently asked the student to provide a detailed walkthrough. In this case, this included everything that happened from “the moment you open the file to the time you turn it in,” Gordin said.

During the student’s explanations, Gordin asked for more See TAPES page 13

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday may 29, 2014

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In past, judicial courts have sided with U. enforcement of disciplinary system TAPES

Continued from page 12

.............

and more detail, prodding her to “be a little bit more precise about your memories” and saying “when I said detailed, I meant really detailed,” following a question about what time she went to bed on a specific date three weeks before the hearing occurred.

The hearing is peppered with a constant chorus of phrases such as “Then what happens?” and “and then what?”

Potter, the local attorney, characterized such practices as “inviting confession.”

“They should not be asked to spill their guts in front of the Committee,” he said.

The student said the system perversely encourages self-incrimination.

“Censure wouldn’t have been added if I had said, ‘Yes, I did it,’” she said. “I tried proving the truth and this is what they did to me.”

However, Gordin said that committee members are instructed to ask for very specific details, Gordin said.

“That method of trying to be really specific is a standard practice just to actually figure out what happened,” he said. “I imagine some students might interpret that as trying to get a confession out of them, but if they don’t remember, they honestly don’t remember, and that’s sometimes true.”

Deignan pointed out that the Committee’s purpose is meant to be educational for the accused students, rather than punitive. Since the hearing is not a court of law, the implications of self-incrimination are not as severe as they are in the U.S. legal system, she said.

Given the academic setting and the Committee’s educational goals, Deignan said members expect accused students to be “honest and straightforward.” She said the

Committee is not sympathetic to a student whose “main objective is simply to avoid punishment and therefore thinks he or she shouldn’t have to … incriminate themselves.”

Limited penalties Katz, the Wilson School professor, said he had no problem in theory with an approach that treats discipline as an educational matter. However, he added that because the stakes are so high — students who are found to commit minor acts of plagiarism often face a one­-year suspension — more due process must occur.

Princeton’s range of penalties is more limited, and the punishments are more severe than many of its peer institutions. A review of the

“[Students] should not be asked to spill their guts in front of the Committee [on Discipline].”

William Potter ’68 Local Attorney

University’s annual disciplinary reports for the past three academic years indicates that most students found responsible for academic violations are suspended. Students receive disciplinary probation when the Committee determines that a “reasonable person” may not have realized they were committing plagiarism.

By contrast, Brown University’s academic code allows students who committed less severe acts of plagiarism to fail the assignment they plagiarized, or fail the course in which they plagiarized. Harvard’s Administrative Board

has these options as well, and also allows the student’s professor to determine the penalty in certain cases.

At other peer institutions, probation and suspension are the only options, but students may be suspended for less time; at Princeton, the minimum suspension for any violation of University policy is two semesters.

Deignan said these penalties are appropriate in an academic community, where academic integrity is a core value.

“These are longstanding responses to violations the University thinks are serious,” she said, noting that harsh penalties even in less severe plagiarism instances are necessary to uphold the community’s values.

At a place where academic integrity is a “foundational value,” a suspension is a punishment that fits the crime, she argued.

She also cautioned against allowing faculty members to determine punishment for the cases they bring up to the Committee, since the University wants to make sure that penalties are equitable across courses and departments.

After the hearing The student suspended last March submitted her written appeal to Smith one day after the hearing. The appeal argued that the fabricated evidence conviction was based on a presumption of guilt, and the Committee had no evidence besides a hunch.

Smith denied her appeal, noting that the student submitted copied code without addressing the question of whether she intended to or not.

“You copied code from the internet and submitted it without attribution for Assignment #2,” Smith wrote.

“The Committee on Discipline therefore found you responsible for plagiarism.”

The student returned home for the final weeks of the

spring semester and the entirety of the fall semester.

If she had decided to sue the University, her chances in court would have been slim, whether or not the University reached the right conclusion.

“There’s a very strong sense of judicial deference to the University in administering its own affairs,” Potter said.

Katz said he has frequently advised the parents of suspended students not to pursue legal action against the University, since “their first instinct is to think that they ought to sue the University.

And they’re not going to win.”

Silverglate said that although universities’ written disciplinary codes constitute a contract that courts have recognized, the judicial system has held schools only to the codes’ general spirit, not to the letter. Thus, students suing on grounds of procedural unfairness don’t stand much of a chance.

The University’s disciplinary system has been challenged in court many times, including two seminal cases in the early 1980s. In both cases, judges upheld the University disciplinary bodies’ decisions, reaffirming the University’s right to discipline students how it sees fit.

In Napolitano v. Princeton University, Gabrielle Napolitano ’82 alleged the Committee on Discipline wrongly convicted her of plagiarizing a Spanish assignment. A New Jersey appeals court found that courts should not serve as a “super-trier” in University due process cases.

Robert Clayton ’82 sued the University in 1980, claiming the student-run Honor Committee had not afforded him due process before suspending him for cheating on a biology lab assignment. In 1985, after multiple appeals, a federal district judge ruled that the University had given Clayton “fundamental fairness,”

which is “all that the law requires.”

These cases have served as precedents for New Jersey Superior and Appellate courts in more recent cases. University General Counsel Peter McDonough pointed to six cases since the Clayton decision in which courts have sided with the University’s right to conduct its affairs independently, most recently in 2010.

“None of it would bother me so much if we more frequently slapped people on the hand.”

Stanley Katz,

Wilson School Professor

Proposals for change For those who believe the Committee should reform its practices, the main question is how to strike a balance between the need for greater due process and the benefits of more expeditious and informal hearings.

Potter said he understood that “overjudicializing” the system could have adverse consequences, but that since the penalties were so severe, accused students deserve more due process than they are currently getting. He noted that students should not be prompted to reveal everything that happened during their initial meeting with the associate dean, since they are not adequately informed that what they say can be construed as evidence of a confession.

Instead, he proposed that the University set up an independent office called “Student Advocate” or “Student

Ombudsman” to confidentially consult with accused students, go over the evidence with them and help them prepare for the hearing.

Katz said he is sympathetic to the concerns about making the process too judicial, and suggested that reforming the penalty scheme could make the procedures fairer. He said the insistence on harsh punishments makes the system punitive, rather than educational, in nature.

“None of it would bother me so much if we more frequently slapped people on the hand,” Katz said. “But so long as we give what seems to be really severe penalties, for what I think are not trivial but essentially venial kinds of offenses, then it’s a system I think that can’t achieve an appropriate educational goal.”

Deignan said that overall, the presence of both students and faculty members on the Committee helps ensure procedural fairness and an accurate outcome. She noted that the student and faculty members of the Committee are respectful of one another’s views, and that the faculty do not exert any sort of pressure over the student members as some outside observers may expect.

She said the decisions in most cases were unanimous, and whenever there is a split vote, it is rarely students on one side and faculty on the other.

“Particularly with respect to academic cases, a faculty member is bringing a case before the Committee and a student is being charged, and having the perspectives of students and faculty is so important, and while they represent different perspectives, they are remarkably aligned in their assessment of the facts,” Deignan said. “It’s a wonderful process.”

This article is the first in a three-part series examining the University’s Committee on Discipline.

Thursday may 29, 2014

Opinion

page 14

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

My lying, smiling face Published April 21,2014 Editor’s note: The author of this column was granted anonymity due to the intensely personal nature of the events described.

I

am writing this column because I am genuinely concerned about the well-being of my fellow students here at Princeton. I wish to share my own story, first, to try to push back against our very real and human tendency to prefer silence over any difficult conversation, and second, because I hope to reignite this crucial discussion regarding mental health at Princeton.

Surrounding the University’s Mental Health Week last month, a few perspectives and opinions were raised regarding voluntary or involuntary withdrawals and Princeton’s related policies. While it is laudable that efforts were made to promote discussion on this topic, the momentum from that week seemed to stop short of meaningful change. During that time, there surfaced only a couple of articles highlighting students’ concerns, a single article from the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students and University Health Services in response, and then … nothing.

To clarify up front, I am currently in a year-long leave of absence from the University. In just the first two months of focused treatment, I am already infinitely better and look to the future with hope. But my situation was not always so positive.

The first two-and-a-half years of my Princeton career were filled with an ongoing battle with clinical depression. Beginning in my freshman year, I began to suffer the classic symptoms: sadness, lowered energy and self-esteem and a loss of interest in activities I used to enjoy (this occurrence is not uncommon; a great number of individuals who will deal with mental illness begin to experience symptoms in their late teen years).

This continued through my sophomore year, and it prompted me to intermittently visit Counseling and Psychological Services and talk to a counselor. I generally had a good experience there, and even wrote a few comments on previous years’ mental health-related articles to reassure concerned and stressed out individuals that not all CPS counselors were the enemy, as many feared. And as long as my condition stayed man-

ageable, I was content using campus resources as part of my mental and emotional support.

But then it got worse.

Toward the end of the summer and continuing through this past fall semester, my depression became more severe than anything I could have ever imagined. My brain, which was formerly one of my greatest assets, turned against me with a vengeance. I was constantly in a state of inexplicable self-loathing, and if anyone presented “a substantial risk of self-harm,” it was me. Entire lectures would pass by without me hearing a single word the professor said; I had to focus all of my mental energy and effort on not scratching myself with the cap of my pen. My daily commute back to my dorm required that I convince myself not to “accidentally” crash my bike on the steps leading to my entryway. I encountered these types of thoughts and impulses several times an hour, nearly every day of every month, and the severity continued for the entirety of the semester.

I regularly saw a counselor offcampus (a privilege that not all students are fortunate to have), but once things got worse I stopped scheduling appointments with CPS; I stopped because I was terrified of the horror stories I had heard. I was scared that Princeton would force me to involuntarily withdraw. I was scared that they would only hear the details that threatened their reputation and liability, and would neglect to consider qualities that my friends and mentors recognized in me — strength, resilience, perseverance and, most importantly, the fact that I had already overcome literally hundreds of dangerous situations in my own head and reached out for help when I knew I shouldn’t attempt to conquer them on my own. In short, I was scared of being labeled, stigmatized and defined by my struggle. Though I was already (very seriously) considering a leave of absence, I was thoroughly convinced that if Princeton knew the truth about me, I would lose all autonomy and the ability to make my decision without overwhelming pressure from the administration. My conclusion? Silence was the only option.

During the first of many “check-in” meetings my Director of Student Life requested throughout last semester, she asked me directly, “How is your depression going?” I plastered a smile on my face, told her my depression

was “much better, thank you,” then immediately returned to my room to cry.

After fall break, with encouragement and support from my family and close friends, I made the choice to take a year off in order to more effectively focus on my treatment and overall health. I was still concerned about losing autonomy, however, and knew that the process would become much more complicated if the University knew the underlying reasons behind my decision. I told those officially involved with my withdrawal that I was leaving for “medical reasons” and they were content to leave the situation ambiguous for a while, until they eventually found out it was for unspecified “mental health” reasons.

Then a f lurry of evaluations, recom mendations and confidentiality waivers ensued mere days before my departure.

And the complications only multiplied from there: a month later, via a letter in the mail, I found out that, among a large number of other requirements, it would be “necessary” for me to “sign two copies of the ‘Authorization for Release of Information’ form: one authorizing your treatment providers to discuss your progress with our clinical staff at CPS, and one authorizing CPS to discuss your readmission evaluation with us.” The implications are sobering.

If I ever want to return to Princeton as a student, I will have to ‘voluntarily’ waive my right to doctor-patient confidentiality by signing those two forms.

To the administration, to ODUS and to the directors of UHS and CPS: I understand that you are concerned for students who find themselves in these difficult situations and that you have to worry about liability issues, but the reality is that mental health’s stigma in our society presents an enormous obstacle that prevents students from reaching out. Please understand that Princeton’s current policies and procedures surrounding mental health and withdrawals do

vol. cxxxviii

little to alleviate the fears of students who consider seeking help (or not).

And though you may believe you have the students’ best interests in mind, you may in fact be contributing to the problem. For example, the rigorous readmission process is counterproductive. It hinders the effectiveness of a student’s treatment while at home — if I know that anything I say during a counseling session might end up on the desks of those who wield the power to potentially reject my return, I will not feel the freedom to be open and honest when it matters. And the policy that apparently allowed you to ban one student from campus until he was forced to withdraw (despite the abundant support of his psychiatrist and professors) is gravely dangerous, because it dissuades those who need help from ever reaching out.

These policies might be in place to reduce the University’s risk of liability, but ironically they increase it. The University may seek to protect students from themselves, but in an environment of stigma, it unfortunately sends a message that students in dire need of help must choose between rejection or the isolation of silence. How long will it take before we become the next Penn or Harvard?

As long as these concerns remain unaddressed, students will continue to choose silence over seeking assistance. Respectfully, I don’t think that advising students to talk to you if they are fearful of talking to you is going to work. This is circular reasoning and fails to acknowledge the salience of students’ deepest concerns. If you don’t believe me, simply look back at the comments under a March 9 letter to the editor: not a single person felt that their worries were alleviated by the administration’s response.

I am hesitant to give any specific policy recommendations to the University; though I have a few ideas, I am not adequately familiar with the intricacies and nuances of mental health policy. But until staff and students work together to find an innovative solution, nothing will change.

And change is imperative. It could be a matter of life and death.

If I ever want to return to Princeton as a student, I will have to ‘voluntarily’ waive my right to doctorpatient confidentiality by signing those two forms.

Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 editor-in-chief

Nicholas Hu ’15

business manager

138th managing board news editor Anna Mazarakis ’16 opinion editor Sarah Schwartz ’15 sports editor Andrew Steele ’16 street editor Catherine Bauman ’15 photography editor Benjamin Koger ’16 video editors Carla Javier ’15 Rishi Kaneriya ’16 web editor Channing Huang ’15 projects editor Victoria Majchrzak ’15 chief copy editors Jean-Carlos Arenas ’16 Chamsi Hssaine ’16 design editors Helen Yao ’15 Shirley Zhu ’16 prox editor Urvija Banerji ’15 intersections editor Jarron McAllister ’16 associate news editors Paul Phillips ’16 Angela Wang ’16 associate opinion editors Richard Daker ’15 Prianka Misra ’16 associate opinion editor for cartoons Caresse Yan ’15 associate sports editors Jonathan Rogers ’16 Edward Owens ’15 associate street editors Lin King ’16 Seth Merkin Morokoff ’16 associate photography editors Conor Dube ’15 Karen Ku ’16 Shannon McGue ’15 associate chief copy editors Dana Bernstein ’15 Alexander Schindele-Murayama ’16 associate design editors Austin Lee’16 Jessie Liu ’16 editorial board chair Jillian Wilkowski ’15

The letter ODUS sent explains that to return to the University, this student must ‘voluntarily’ waive the right to doctor-patient confidentiality by signing two ‘Authorization for Release of Information’ forms.

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday may 29, 2014

page 15

In the service of the nation’s students

KAI SONG-NICHOLS : : CARTOONIST

Bennett McIntosh

Senior Columnist

Published Feb. 27, 2014 This column is the first in a series about socioeconomic diversity and lowincome students at the University.

W

hile we were holed up in dorms and libraries studying for finals, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 was out and about, visiting the home of Princeton alumna, one Michelle Obama ’85. I can’t feel too bitter about him running around in Washington, D.C., though, since he was acting in the educational interests of students at Princeton and elsewhere.

Eisgruber was attending a summit on college opportunities for low-income students, where he f loated important initiatives to improve access to Princeton education for lower-income students.

Such initiatives are key to national economic mobility, but do not go far enough in ensuring that excellent education is available to all students, regardless of income.

Incremental initiatives The summit was capped by the First Lady speaking about the opportunities her time at Princeton had afforded her. As Mrs. Obama said, education at a school like Princeton has a powerful effect on low-income students, due not only to the quality of education at such a school but also to the connections with other thinkers, movers and shakers that students make during our time here.

The Ivy League schools, and their admissions offices especially, are thus gatekeepers to economic and professional success.

Princeton especially, with the largest per-student endowment of the Ivies, has the resources to make a marked difference in the lives of students. The policies the University and its peers take toward recruiting, preparing and educating low-income students, then, have the potential to shape the socioeconomic realities of American life as much as any government policy.

University policy can be more farsighted than government policy too. In contrast to the simplest and largest government measures to reduce inequality — progressive taxation and entitlements targeting basic necessities, such as food and medical care — access to elite education ensures that all students are given the opportunity to educate themselves. On the individual level, a student who obtains an elite education is less likely to need these entitlement programs, but the benefits go beyond the student; a Princeton-educated student is a citizen who can contribute more — economically and intellectually — to society than otherwise.

At the White House summit, President Eisgruber released a statement outlining new commitments to expanding opportunity for low-income students.

This included three laudable initiatives — developing a STEM module to the Freshman Scholars Institute, expanding Leadership Enterprise for a Diverse America and continuing efforts to recruit low-income students. FSI is a valuable resource, preparing dozens of students for Princeton’s classes during the summer before freshman year, and adding an option for students interested in STEM

careers will benefit these students — and, by extension, their future innovations, colleagues and fields.

LEDA’s goal to bring students to Princeton to draw them to a selective education is creditable and dovetails with current efforts to encourage these students to apply by working with their counselors and waiving their application fees.

But these incremental initiatives are not enough.

Failing the litmus test The lowest income used by Princeton admissions and financial aid offices — a bracket which includes as low as 15.8 percent of Princeton students — is a household income of less than $60,000 annually. As a measure for information on the University’s generous financial aid program, this is sensible — most students below this cutoff are granted full tuition, room and board, while fewer students above it are. But this is not a sensible definition of low-income in measuring economic diversity.

In 2012, the annual median income for U.S. families was $51,371.

This means the lowest-earning half of American families contributes as little as 15.8 percent of Princeton students. Meanwhile, in 2012 around one third of Princeton students responding to the Committee on Background and Opportunity III report reported their household incomes to be $200,000 or greater, representing a mere 3.8 percent of American households in the 2010 Census.

Lower and middle-income students are woefully underrepresented at elite institutions, par-

In its report last September, the Trustee Ad Hoc Committee on Diversity failed to include any discussion of Princeton’s current, historical or desired economic diversity in its report, focusing instead on race and gender. This despite recognizing that “Princeton and its peers do not come close to looking like America today” and maintaining that “[i]f equality of opportunity is the bedrock on which the United States was built, diversity is the litmus test of whether this equality is being truly achieved.”

The University’s ultimate goal, then, should be to have student income distribution mirror that of our nation as a whole. Of course, Princeton cannot achieve this goal alone; by the time students even begin applying for college, there is already a dismaying achievement gap along economic lines. Because of this, until we as a nation realize groundbreaking changes in primary and secondary education, Princeton will likely only be able to approach an equitable and representative income distribution.

But this does not mean we cannot make significant strides. The higher proportion of students receiving Pell grants at our peer institutions such as Columbia (30 percent), Harvard (20 percent) and MIT (20 percent) indicates that there is no lack of talented and deserving students among this demographic. In order to reach this demographic makeup, though, the Office of Admission must be proactive throughout the admissions process, not only encouraging these students to apply but also making

rigors but soon became a campus leader in Latino issues, often consulted directly by then-President Bowen GS ’58. As a result of her efforts, the University expanded not only its Latino student population, but also committed to hiring Puerto Rican and Latino professors and administrators, and started running a seminar on Puerto Rican political history. Princeton benefited from Sotomayor’s presence at the same time that she benefited from its educational offerings.

Princeton, thanks to the efforts of Sotomayor and those like her, is now more diverse and more welcoming to diversity — and the University understands the importance of race-based affirmative action in this diversity. When “Fisher v. University of Texas” reached the Supreme Court last year, Princeton joined many of its peer institutions in filing an amicus brief, arguing that race-based affirmative action was still a useful tool in building diversity in the student body.

But race-based affirmative action is no longer on its own sufficient for ensuring holistic diversity within the student body. Although unfortunately race and income are still correlated in this country, many racial minorities have a significant number of successful members.

As a result, strictly racial affirmative action does not target all the students it should, and some who have no need for the leg up it provides. Taken as a part of a holistic admissions policy, though, it still has a place, especially if the admissions office uses it and

can Princeton expect to double the enrollment of students in the bracket which gets a full grant? In light of this year’s gross tuition increase, it would be unfair to place the burden squarely on the shoulders of those who can afford to pay every cent of their way through.

Some of the money could, perhaps, be made up of alumni donations galvanized by Princeton’s newfound commitment to education for Americans from all classes.

Fortunately, a model for expansive free education is already being advanced in the Oregon public university system. Under the Oregon “Pay it Forward” plan, whose planning the state legislature approved last summer, students would pay no tuition whatsoever, instead dedicating a small percentage of all future income to the state university system. If the University were to give students who could not otherwise afford it the option to enter a program similar to this one, full tuition and fees need not be covered by grants — they can be covered in the future by the students themselves. Thus Princeton would literally make an investment by educating its students, and allow more lowerincome students admission while staying on the forefront of financial aid. Such a program would clearly be more complicated than I can put forward right now, but it is important to understand that money should not be a problem to a creative financial aid office.

Leading the way from here The best part of publicly aiming to admit more lower-income

ANNUAL HOUSEHOLD INCOME: PRINCETON VS. THE NATION As little as 15.8% of students have an annual household income less than $60,000.

Princeton

15.8 percent

$0 - $50,000 In 2012, the national median annual household income was $51,371.

$50,000 - $100,000

33.6 percent

$100,000 - $200,000

In the 2012 COMBO survey, 33.6% of students reported having an annual household income greater than $200,000.

$200,000+ In 2010, 3.8% of the nation had an annual income greater than $200,000.

50 percent

3.8 percent

United States JESSIE LIU, ASSOCIATE DESIGN EDITOR & HELEN YAO, DESIGN EDITOR

ticularly Princeton. U.S. News and World Report measures economic diversity of a campus by the proportion of students who are Pell Grant recipients, and Princeton measures at 12 percent – the third lowest among top-25-ranked colleges. Though Princeton has become more diverse since the 1950s, when Jewish and Asian students were rarities and all students were male, it is still severely lacking in meaningful economic diversity.

In the face of these disparities, the University’s incremental efforts to improve economic diversity are nearly trivial. What we need is another paradigm shift the size of our groundbreaking no-loan financial aid program, which began for the Class of 2002. Since 2003, in the wake of this program, the University has increased its enrollment of Pell Grant students by 50 percent.

Unfortunately, since then, the University’s priorities have not been on increasing access to a wide range of low-income students.

it more likely that they get in.

Affirmative Action Yes, I’m advocating for affirmative action. The Office of Admission should set and actively work towards a target proportion of low-income admits. Like the 35 percent which defines grade def lation, this need not be a strict quota, but should weigh heavily in admissions decisions, individually and as a group.

Last year’s affirmative action case “Fisher v. University of Texas” illustrates in a number of ways the need for this sort of affirmative action. Consider first, rather than the arguments in the case or the plaintiff and defendant, one of the arbiters, one of three Princeton alumni on the Supreme Court.

Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’76 has made it well known that affirmative action likely played a part in her admission to Princeton and is unapologetic — with good reason. On campus, Sotomayor struggled to adapt to Princeton’s

information gleaned from students’ personal stories to reach other underrepresented demographics — namely, the bottom half, by income, of Americans.

Yes, the University currently has a holistic admissions process, and yes, lower-income students who have overcome long odds or have compelling perspectives are already considered stronger applicants. But in light of lackluster lower-income enrollment, Princeton must make public its target enrollment numbers, and take good faith measures in making admissions decisions to reach those numbers. If currently, a little over 15 percent of Princeton students come from the lower half of American income, it should not be too much to aim for a third of all those enrolled coming from this income bracket.

We may fall short, but we can make great strides nonetheless.

Paying it Forward Here, a fair question arises: How

students? Princeton will be seen as an accessible option for the highest achievers who might not otherwise have given the Ivy League — bastion of wealth that it is — a second thought.

When more talented students apply, the expanded room for such students fills itself. And if one school succeeds, other schools will follow. With enough effort, elite intuitions need no longer be elitist institutions, and can instead be ladders by which the Sonia Sotomayor’s and Michelle Obama’s of the future — driven students of all colors, genders, and identities – can enter the ranks of our leaders. Thus, Princeton acting in the service of students allows the University to act in the service of this nation and all nations, while individual students are each given the opportunity they deserve to succeed.

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

The Daily Princetonian

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Thursday may 29, 2014

Rape culture exists here, too vol. cxxxviii

Published May 1, 2014 Editor’s note: The author of this column was granted anonymity due to the intensely personal nature of the events described.

I

never intended to write an op-ed or share my story of sexual assault. My thoughts on this subject have generally already been expressed well by others. However, in this instance my ability to speak from personal experience can make a unique contribution to the discussion on campus.

The idea to publicly discuss my rape from my freshman year has coalesced over the last semester.

By now, I have realized that the relevance of sexual assault is not perceived immediately on campus. In my freshman year, I heard students bravely share their assault stories at Take Back the Night, an event honoring survivors. However, this important event has a limited impact and scope because of its self-selecting audience. I know from the rape jokes my friends repeatedly and casually tell that many students assume rape is something that doesn’t happen here or does not personally happen in our friend groups. This is not true. Rape affects a larger segment of our population than almost any other crime, but it has incredibly low report and conviction rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 19 percent of college-aged women have experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college (which is not to say that sexual assault does not occur for males).

When it happened to me, I was in the Sexual Health/Assault Advising, Research & Education program. I was trained to communicate, recognize and/ or intervene in the risk of an assault. Because I was in SHARE, I felt like I should have been able to prevent rape from happening to me. And most of all, after the fact I was confused, with muddled memories and impressions of the memories. I chose not to consider it “rape with a capital R” because I did not want to – was not ready to — associate myself with The

R-Word. I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt and chose not to cast him as a perpetrator. After all I was a self-aware, trained young woman — sexual assault could hardly happen to me or on my watch, right?

But it did. It can happen to anyone. It happened to me at a formal freshman year. To go to the formal, I pulled an all-nighter the evening before on a writing seminar paper. I was so tired that I lapsed in and out, in my head, from being in the room to carrying on conversations with people whom I thought, but were not, there. I remember being given two mixed drinks. I remember returning to the eating club from the formal and following everyone down a flight of stairs. That was the last thing I remembered until, stirred by a vague impression of pain, I knew I was whimpering and in an unanticipated room. It was dark and he was there – but my clothes were not.

I could not leave. The lack of sleep was worse than the alcohol. Consent would not have been possible.

Part of why I never considered it in terms of “rape” is that after a while, he eventually stopped.

At some point, he eventually grasped that I was a virgin. He freaked out, adamant that he should not have sex with me — my first time should be saved for something special, he said. What does it say about the scenario and our culture that he only paused because he thought as he said, that “my first time should be saved for something special?” Is consent not necessary your second, third or 30th time? We should not consider as “special” a sexual experience during which someone does not disregard your agency or ability to consent.

Consent and vocal solicitation of consent should be the norm every time. The idea that consent is implied, or not necessary, with someone who has been sexually active in the past is wrong. We should not start from a place of implicit assumption of consent or sexual choices, where stopping is only a reactionary response. It’s never OK to rape people, be it their first, second, third or 30th time.

The part that tortures me is that I had been conditioned by society to believe that sex was a

compliment. My freshman year I had no idea how “the hookup culture” worked. I was miserable and starved for friendships like others I had seen.

I thought that what had happened could be how some friendships started. I was surprised anyone at the time would want to be close enough to me to have sex with me. Because of this, I warped my experience into a should-be positive thing.

I have fought for the opportunity to publish this in The Daily Princetonian, and I am telling my story because I want to offer one image of sexual assault’s face on this campus. I started to remember all of this when a boyfriend asked me questions about “my first time.” He got more upset than me. He spat vehemently, ‘I hate him,’ But I do not hate my perpetrator. I do not think he was or is a bad person, and I am capable of forgiving him. Nor do I hate the eating clubs or varsity sports teams or the Greek system, institutions that are sites of sexual assault on college campuses across the nation. Eating clubs are not the problem. I hate the culture — the rape culture — that creates otherwise decent people who do completely indecent things. This culture exists here, at other Ivies, at other colleges and outside of college environments entirely. Beyond the eating clubs, rape culture already manifests itself elsewhere on campus. There is no stereotypical picture of where, or to whom, sexual assault occurs or does not occur.

Within this culture, we view men’s aggressive behavior as an acceptable norm. When survivors and their allies try to challenge these aspects of culture we are brushed aside, entirely because they are so engrained. Given the high instance of sexual assault in America, in combination with some of the lowest reporting rates among all crimes, we should not question the legitimacy of those who may have been terrified to put to words what happened to them.

Statistically, someone in your precept or hallway has had it happen to him or her. All of these survivors’ narratives need to be listened to and validated.

Norms can change and I challenge us all — students on all college campuses — to change them.

the proposal

Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 editor-in-chief

Nicholas Hu ’15

business manager

BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 vice presidents John G. Horan ’74 Thomas E. Weber ’89 secretary Kathleen Kiely ’77 treasurer Michael E. Seger ’71 Craig Bloom ’88 Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Richard P. Dzina, Jr. ’85 William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John G. Horan ’74 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Betsy J. Minkin ’77 Alexia Quadrani Jerry Raymond ’73 Annalyn Swan ’73 Douglas Widmann ’90

138TH BUSINESS BOARD business manager Nicholas Hu ’15 head of advertising Zoe Zhang ’16 director of national advertising Kevin Tang ’16

ryan budnick ’16

director of recruitment advertising Justine Mauro ’17 director of local advertising Mark Zhang ’17 director of online advertising Matteo Kruijssen ’16 head of operations Daniel Kim ’17 comptroller Eugene Cho ’17

EDITORIAL BOARD chair Jillian Wilkowski ’15

Daniel Elkind ’17 Gabriel Fisher ’17 Brandon Holt ’15 Zach Horton ’15 Mitchell Johnston ’15 Cydney Kim ’17 Jeffrey Leibenhaut ’16 Daphna LeGall ’15 Sergio Leos ’17 Lily Offit ’15 Aditya Trivedi ’16 Andrew Tsukamoto ’15 John Wilson ’17 Kevin Wong ’17

EDITORIAL

In support of a community against sexual assault Published March 31,2014

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n a Q&A published in The Daily Princetonian on March 11, Susan Patton ’77 argued that women who receive unwanted sexual contact after drinking excessively bear a degree of “responsibility” for their victimization. Patton’s remarks came in defense of claims in her recent book, “Marry Smart”, that a woman who dresses provocatively or who impairs herself by consuming alcohol assumes “accountability for what may happen.” In response to Patton’s comments, 215 University faculty members signed a letter to the editor of the ‘Prince’, published on March 26, stating “we do not believe that their [students’] manner of dress or drinking behavior makes them responsible for unwanted sexual contact” and encouraging students to reach out for help if necessary. The Board endorses these faculty members’ position: the Board not only rejects Patton’s claims on face, but believes that the sentiments they embody are counterproductive to serious, ongoing efforts to combat the issue of sexual assault and sexual harassment within the Princeton community.

Regardless of the circumstances, the Board believes that sexual assault and sexual harassment represent significant violations of a person for which only perpetrators and accomplices bear responsibility. Though excessive drinking often carries severe consequences in itself, these should not be used to divert accountability for unwanted sexual contact away from those who choose to impose it. Moreover, Patton’s statement that a woman should “simply not allow herself to come to a point where she is no longer capable of protecting her physical self” presents a narrow and inconsiderate view of the issue of sexual assault: such acts are frequently violent in nature and leave victims with little opportunity to resist. Whether or not a victim is able to defend himself or herself against aggression or manipulation is no barometer for accountability. In addition, Patton ignores the fact that sexual assault is often premeditated, motivated by the desire to exercise power and carried out by someone whom the victim knows; in these cases, what an individual happens to be wearing has little or nothing to do with the perpetrator’s decision to

deliver unwanted sexual contact.

More specifically, comments such as Patton’s threaten the University’s community values and efforts to curb incidents of sexual assault and sexual harassment on Princeton’s campus. According to the Sexual Harassment/ Assault Advising, Resources & Education office, each year one in nine University undergraduates experiences some form of “power-based personal violence,” a category which encompasses sexual assault, sexual harassment, stalking and dating or domestic violence. The false impression that victims of unwanted sexual contact somehow deserved it discourages victims from reporting their cases or from seeking the resources available to them, further burdening them with unwarranted feelings of shame and embarrassment. Furthermore, such beliefs undercut the community’s sense of responsibility in standing up for one another. By making recipients of unwanted sexual contact seem more like accomplices than victims in the violations and acts of violence perpetrated against them, we rationalize the actions of perpetrators and find a convenient excuse

not to intervene or to defend one another when we are in dangerous situations. Patton’s language contributes to a world in which perpetrators are not held accountable for their actions, incidents of sexual violence become more frequent and the experiences of victims are obscured and met with shame.

The Board strongly believes that the University should be a place where victims and survivors feel supported by their community and where individuals can feel safe from sexual assault or sexual harassment. Remarks such as Patton’s are not only mistaken, but belong to an intellectual vacuum that threatens to impede very serious, very real efforts to educate students on ways of thinking about and of dealing with unwanted sexual contact.

Dissent The Board’s position is itself “counterproductive” to fighting the serious problem of sexual assault.

What better way to “make very serious, very real efforts to educate students” about how to combat this grave issue than to provide common sense advice on how to prevent the problem if possible? While we

do not endorse Patton’s every turn of phrase, we recognize the wisdom at the core of her comments: act responsibly and avoid dangerous situations as best you can.

We do not condone an uncompassionate, victim-incriminating community. That said, we must also uphold the importance of individual prudence. It is simply common sense that inebriation and immodest dress render a woman more susceptible to sexual crime at the hands of morally depraved (and perhaps similarly inebriated) men. This does not — in any way — condone such men and the criminality of their behavior. But the practical ramifications of this sad reality are that women must be especially prudent in avoiding such situations.

The Board’s singular focus on the community’s responsibility unhelpfully deemphasizes individual precaution. It is astonishing that the Board should relegate Patton’s practical wisdom, albeit sensationally-worded, to “an intellectual vacuum” when its own advice is itself vacuous.

Signed by Zach Horton ’15 and Sergio Leos ’17

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday may 29, 2014

page 17

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

A faculty statement on sexual assault Published March 26, 2014

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n light of statements made in a news article in this paper, we wish to inform the students on this campus that we do not believe that their manner of dress or drinking behavior makes them responsible for unwanted sexual contact. It is extremely important that individuals of all genders on a college campus feel comfortable reaching out for help.

We, the undersigned faculty, stand behind victims of sexual assault and want them to know that our campus is a place where they have a voice, where they will not be made to feel responsible and where they can find support and justice. If you have been the victim of unwanted sexual contact, under any circumstances, we can help you find the support you need from the campus groups listed below. As academics and members of the Princeton University community, these are the values we embrace. We encourage others to stand with us, for the integrity, health and well-being of all our students.

To explore campus and community options with a confidential resource, please contact: Phone: 609-258-3310 Email: share@princeton.edu Web address: share.princeton.edu Signed, Christopher Achen, Jeremy Adelman, April Alliston, Bridget Alsdorf, Jeanne Altmann, Elizabeth Mitchell

Armstrong, Ben Baer, Regina Baranski, Yelena Baraz, Charles Barber, Mark Beissinger, Wendy Belcher, Susanna Berger, Sandra Bermann, Amitava Bhattacharjee, Gorka Bilbao Terreros, Elie Bou-Zeid, Rachel Bowlby, Claudia Brodsky, Daphne Brooks, Keiko Brynildsen, Rebecca Burdine, Eduardo Cadava, Margot Canaday, Emily Carter, Bruno Carvalho, Miguel Centeno, Moses Charikar, Zahid Chaudhary, Sarah Chihaya, Alin Coman, Andrew Conway, Joel Cooper, Iain Couzin, Janet Currie, Tineke D’Haeseleer, Shamik Dasgupta, Danelle Devenport, Christina Davis, Melissa Deem, Jessica Delgado, Rachael DeLue, Paul DiMaggio, David Dobkin, Jill Dolan, Janet Downie, Susana Draper, Mitchell Duneier, Adam Elga, Lynn Enquist, Delia Fara, Tina Fehlandt, Patricia Fernandez-Kelly, Susan Fiske, Marc Fleurbaey, Jane Flint, Harriet Flower, Hal Foster, Johann Frick, Su Friedrich, Paul Frymer, Thomas Fujiwara, Thomas Funkhouser, Diana Fuss, Alison Gammie, Daniel Garber, Elizabeth Gavis, Sophie Gee, Leslie Gerwin, Asif Ghazanfar, Martin Gilens, Joan Girgus, Eddie Glaude, William Gleason, Jonathan Gold, Adele Goldberg, Elizabeth Gould, Anthony Grafton, Charles Gross, Elizabeth Harman, Gilbert Harman, Uri Hasson, Michael Hecht, Wendy Heller, Brian Eugenio Herrera, Christopher Heuer, Desmond Hogan, Brooke Holmes, Philip Holmes, Josh Hug, Kosuke Imai, Amaney Jamal, Mark Johnston, Stefan Kamola, Matthew Karp, N. Jeremy Kasdin, Robert Kaster, Robert Keohane, Nannerl Keohane, Atul Kohli, Boris Kment, Michael Koortbojian, Regina Kunzel, Michael Laffan, Joel Lande, Melissa Lane, Andrea LaPaugh, Rebecca Lazier, Russell Leo, Naomi Leonard, Sarah-Jane Leslie, Simon Levin, Adam Levine, Jonathan Levy, Evan

The Tiger

Kai Song-Nichols ’15

Lieberman, AnneMarie Luijendijk, Stephen Macedo, Shaun Marmon, Gaetana Marrone-Puglia, Susan Marshall, Meredith Martin, Margaret Martonosi, Sara McLanahan, Tey Meadow, Tali Mendelberg, Esther Da Costa Meyer, Peter Meyers, Helen Milner, Deirdre Moloney, Alberto Bruzos Moro, Naomi Murakawa, Mala Murthy, Yael Niv, Deborah Nord, Ken Norman, Gabriela Nouzeilles, Jeff Nunokawa, Joyce Carol Oates, Daniel Osherson, Serguei Oushakine, Lyman Page, Betsy Levy Paluck, István Pelczer, Imani Perry, Sabine Petry, Philip Pettit, Alexander Ploss, Sara Poor, Grigore Pop-Eleches, Deborah Prentice, Robert Pringle, Markus Prior, Kristopher Ramsay, Eileen Reeves, Jennifer Rexford, Mark Rose, Gideon Rosen, Cecilia Rouse, Gayle Salamon, Matthew Salganik, R.N. Sandberg, Martha Sandweiss, Cyrus Schayegh, Kim Scheppele, George Scherer, Gertrud Schüpbach, Eldar Shafir, Jacob Shapiro, Nicole Shelton, Thomas Silhavy, Stacey Sinclair, Peter Singer, Anne-Marie Slaughter, Irene Small, James Smith, Michael Smith, LaFleur Stephens, Anna Stilz, Howard Stone, Jacqueline Stone, John Storey, Dara Strolovitch, Susan Sugarman, Ezra Suleiman, Corina Tarnita, Edward Telles, Heather Thieringer, Marta Tienda, Shirley Tilghman, Alexander Todorov, Nick Turk-Browne, Juan Uson, Aynsley Vandenbroucke, Tim Vasen, David Walker, Samuel Wang, Leonard Wantchekon, Omar Wasow, Andrew Watsky, Judith Weisenfeld, Max Weiss, Susan Wheeler, Jennifer Widner, Paul Willis, Ned Wingreen, Ilana Witten, Stacy Wolf, Tamsen Wolff, Susan Wolfson, Robert Wuthnow, Keren Yarhi-Milo, Deborah Yashar, Ali Yazdani, Virginia Zakian, Viviana Zelizer.

Editor’s note: The specific statement that motivated this letter is included in an abridged version below. The full Q&A was published on March 11.

Daily Princetonian: You wrote: “Please spare me your ‘blaming the victim’ outrage,” saying that a provocatively dressed drunk woman “must bear accountability for what may happen.” Why does the woman hold the responsibility in the case of rape or sexual assault?

Susan Patton ’77: The reason is, she is the one most likely to be harmed, so she is the one that needs to take control of the situation. She is that one that needs to take responsibility for herself and for her own safety, and simply not allow herself to come to a point where she is no longer capable of protecting her physical self. The analogy that I would give you is: If you cross the street without looking both ways and a car jumps the light or isn’t paying attention, and you get hit by a car — as a woman or as anybody — and you say, ‘Well I had a green light,’ well yes you did have a green light but that wasn’t enough. So in the same way, a woman who is going to say, ‘Well the man should have recognized that I was drunk and not pushed me beyond the level at which I was happy to engage with him,’ well, you didn’t look both ways. I mean yes, you’re right, a man should act better, men should be more respectful of women, but in the absence of that, and regardless of whether they are or are not, women must take care of themselves.

What ‘check your privilege’ really means Mitchell Hammer columnist

Published April 16,2014

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ince every issue of The Tory, Princeton’s major conservative student publication, is pushed underneath my door, I tend to flip through it and scan anything that happens to catch my interest. In this particular issue, I was immediately drawn to “Checking My Privilege,” an article written by Tal Fortgang ’17. Once I got past the irrelevant, anti-liberal rhetoric — comparing the use of the phrase “check your privilege” to the descent of “an Obama-sanctioned drone” did little to help me understand Fortgang’s argument — I realized that Fortgang wasn’t wrong. He just didn’t get it.

The main umbrage Fortgang and others who share his opinion take with the phrase “check your privilege” is that they take the colloquialism personally. Fortgang’s article is reminiscent of the 2013 incident at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC), where three white males criticized Professor Shannon Gibney for how she was discussing race issues in class. The students felt personally reprimanded for structural racism because of their identity as white men. However, Professor Gibney — and anyone involved in race, gender, sexuality and other identity discussions — is not directly criticizing every white male. Similarly, every white male’s accomplishments and personal family ancestry are not condemned or negated by the privilege debate. Instead, “checking” one’s privilege is meant to provide a more universal outlook and a heightened awareness of greater societal trends and stereotypes that we have each internalized.

What Fortgang does not realize is that privilege does not necessarily require being able to trace your lineage back to Rockefeller or Vanderbilt. Privilege can be independent

of your family’s past, of your actual socioeconomic status, of real hardship you or your ancestors may have endured. What privilege means is being able to confidently enter any social sphere without fear of rejection. Privilege means never questioning the bias of the feedback and grading you receive from your professors or employers. Privilege means living your life free from consideration and hyperawareness of your race, gender or sexuality.

Privilege does not, therefore, mean that you yourself have lived a life of complete affluence and comfortable apathy; it is instead possessing certain attributes or traits that are regarded as desirable — or being free from particular traits that are deemed undesirable — and that have typically allowed their possessor to live a relatively advantaged life.

Whiteness and maleness are two such attributes.

But even as a non-white, non-heterosexual, I am more than aware of my privilege. My family is upper-middle class, I am receiving an Ivy League education, I attended one of my state’s best public schools and I am a man. I know that although I may feel that my personal experience does not reflect it, I am in a position of privilege. Who am I to say that, had I been female, had my family lived below the poverty line, I could have undoubtedly achieved the same standard of life with the same ease with which I did? Unfortunately, structural discrimination does exist, and it is difficult to tease apart what aspects of my life have been affected by internalized stereotypes and circumstance.

The recognition of our privilege is critical for the achievement of the truly meritocratic system that Fortgang so idealistically alludes to in his article. Awareness of the historic disadvantages of others enlightens us to what advances are yet to be made and reminds us that institutions such as the LGBT Center, the Women’s Center and the Black Students’ Union are necessary as long as those for which they are meant to support believe them to be. We all need to “check” our privilege until the Equal Protection clause Fortgang mentions in his article truly does protect each citizen regardless of their identity.

Mitchell Hammer is a freshman from Phoenix, Ariz. He can be reached at mjhammer@princeton.edu.

Avoid these worthless classes!

Bennett McIntosh

Senior Columnist

Published April 14, 2014

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ast week, the University’s premier magazine of conservative thought, The Princeton Tory, posted a list (now retracted) of the sort that has become an unfortunate fixture of American conservative publications: a list of worthless college courses. Sprouting up everywhere from Conservapedia to Business Insider, the idea that American higher education has been overrun by a rash of useless classes has dug its way into the American consciousness.

The alleged culprits for this epidemic range from lazy students to liberal professors bringing their skewed views of the world into the classroom, but the underlying message in dismissing so many courses offhand is that college education should fit strict ideals of usefulness in “the real world.” Of course, I cannot defend every course, professor or college attacked in such an article

on the basis of their own merits, but creating a category of “useless” courses we are simply uncomfortable with is dangerous and threatens both the integrity and the utility of education.

As the Tory post itself reminds us, “a liberal arts education is meant to challenge students’ perspectives, introduce them to new ideas, and prepare participants for successful careers in the 21st century.” How better to challenge perspectives and introduce new ideas than by examining, if not taking, courses which seem at first blush tangential and offbeat? Mocking a course based solely upon a cursory and closed-minded reading of its online description represents a disturbing intellectual laziness. The mentality that it builds is worse — if we as students are to avoid exposing ourselves to new ideas because they challenge our perception of which ideas are connected, we are actively opposing the critical thinking and consideration that make a liberal arts education valuable.

Worse is that so many such articles obviously set out to find strange and “useless” courses, and, in doing so, approach the curricula with a closed mind — reading to mock rather than to

learn. If the reaction to reading about HIS 544: The Environmental History of Medieval Europe is to crack jokes about Al Gore’s “time machine device” and ignore the ideas at hand, we have little hope of learning from medieval deforestation, land use and natural resource exploitation — and perhaps of learning something about these struggles in our own time. A student who desires only to learn about what he or she already knows about can hardly be called a student at all — these classes are essential to our freedom to learn.

But how do such classes prepare students for careers? A better question is how can we expect to prepare for careers in the 21st century without challenging our beliefs or making connections between seemingly disjoint ideas? It is all well and good to train future financiers, politicians and scientists in finance, politics or science, but the well-established curricula for these vocations represent the way the world is now, or more often the way the world was years to decades ago when curricula were set. To prepare us, the students, for modern careers, we need to study modern issues — issues which come from the interplay

between widely divergent trends.

Consider one of the courses riffed by the Tory post, AMS 358: Electronic Literature: Lineage, Theory, and Contemporary Practice. While modern college students are indisputably aware of the interplay between social media and their life, precious few have pondered what information technology means for modern literature. Before reading the course description, I hadn’t either, except to mourn the loss of paper books. But I’m now intrigued, for ebooks are still a surpassingly static medium, and literature formats which can adapt to and grow with the internet can have vastly more influence. Imagine if The Grapes of Wrath had been published in the format of The New York Times’ features “Snow Fall” or “A Game of Shark and Minnow,” which integrate new formats into in-depth analysis.

Anyone who hopes to take a career in journalism, policy or literature would do well to examine the direction in which literature and media are moving, and understand the pitfalls and strengths of this way of storytelling.

Even if you, like me, are not planning a career in policy or journalism, the careers that we millennials will

hold will be dependent on communication so understanding how ideas spread nowadays — whether via AMS 358 or “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame,” which tops Business Insider’s list — will be essential for everyone.

And this goes for courses which touch on the interplay between, say, poverty and disease, or revolution and entertainment — without considering such interplays, no college can claim to educate effective leaders.

So next time you see a silly or surprising course, use it as an opportunity to question your world, not to mock or lament how ridiculous college classes are nowadays. The trend is nowhere near as worrisome and corrupting as one might think, based solely upon list articles online and offhand jokes about underwater basket weaving.

Don’t succumb to the temptation to dismiss potentially world-changing ideas as trivial or ridiculous. Instead, read the description with an open mind and maybe even take the class — you just might learn something.

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

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday may 29, 2014

page s1

Being First Part Two

Street staff writer Jennifer Shyue takes an in-depth look at some personal experiences of first-generation college students at Princeton

For this two-part series, Street spoke to five first-generation college students about their experiences at Princeton. In addition to being first-generation, some of the students are also first-generation Americans; others are not. One is not American at all. They hail from places as close as Brooklyn, N.Y. to as far as Espartinas, Spain. Their majors range from psychology to operations research and financial engineering, and they dream of everything from reforming education policy to traveling into space.

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hawon jackson ’15 and Ana Maldonado ’16 have three more years of college left between them, but they, too, will be the first in their families to graduate from a four-year university. Both Jackson and Maldonado are active contributors to the Princeton community and campus discourse. Jackson is currently serving his second term as USG President, and Maldonado is the community service and outreach chair of the University’s Quest Scholars Network chapter, a resource for students affiliated with QuestBridge finalists around the country. Jackson and Maldonado are both QuestBridge scholars.

QuestBridge is a program that helps students from groups that are traditionally underrepresented at the nation’s top colleges succeed in the college application process. According to its website, “QuestBridge connects the world’s brightest low-income students to America’s best universities and opportunities.” Since its founding, the organization has matched over 5,000 students with 35 of the nation’s top universities.

Part of QuestBridge’s mission is to “revolutionize the way leading colleges and universities recruit talented low-income students, and the way these students approach their educations and futures.” Jackson and Maldonado’s perspectives on their time at Princeton thus far offer insight into how their unique experiences and backgrounds influence their approach to participating in the Princeton community — and their plans for the future Both Jackson and Maldonado were invited to participate in the Freshman Scholars Institute before their freshman years, a voluntary program targeted at helping certain groups, including first-generation college students, successfully transition to the college sphere. Although Jackson ultimately did not attend, the program does foster a sense of community within the group of participants and allows them to refine their academic goals, according to Diane McKay, FSI’s director and Associate Dean of the College.

“I would also say that many of the first-gen students with whom I have worked feel a sense of connectedness to others, and they have a desire to serve communities beyond the immediate community,” McKay said. “They

are aware of the sacrifices that were made on their behalf, and the, feel a sense of commitment to improving the lives of others. I hope that we find ways to highlight these really positive qualities of first-gen students.”

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hawon Jackson, who is from University Park, Ill., attended Illinois Math and Science Academy, a boarding school in Aurora, Ill. He decided to go to boarding school instead of staying in his hometown for high school because, Jackson said, “My home high school wasn’t of a high quality, and I wanted a better education.”

In his senior year, when he applied to QuestBridge, he ranked Princeton as one of the schools he was interested in.

“I did not expect to be matched at all in December, and I was very, very excited and pleasantly surprised when I got an email saying I was matched with Princeton,” he said.

The full scholarship that is guaranteed with every QuestBridge match through the National College Match program was a huge boon for Jackson’s family, he said.

“It was a huge relief for my family because they didn’t have to worry about paying for me to go to college,” he said.

Jackson, however, did not know his family qualified as low-income until he applied for QuestBridge.

“I didn’t even realize we were low-income because my mom and dad always did a good job making sure my brother and I had everything we need,” he said.

“QuestBridge generally says, ‘Oh, if you’re under $60,000 for your income, then you probably qualify.’ I was like, ‘Mom, do we qualify for this?’ She was like, ‘Oh baby, we definitely do. Go ahead and apply.’ ” Nevertheless, Jackson believes that being low-income has influenced his Princeton experience more than being first-generation has.

“I don’t know if being first-generation has impacted my experience as much as being a low-income student, though the two are definitely related,” he said. Even so, he said, “[My parents] instilled the value of education in me at a very, very young age, and they knew that even though they didn’t complete college, that wasn’t an excuse at all for me not to go.”

After finding out about his acceptance to Princeton, Jackson learned of the Wilson school and decided he wanted to concentrate his studies on

public policy. His upbringing inspired his focus on education policy.

“When I compare my home community and that high school to the type of education I received at my boarding school, I noticed a lot of disparities,” he said. “It was always sad to me that it was the minority population, both in terms of race and class, that did not receive a high-quality education.”

Jackson hopes to become an education policy adviser for the government or a nonprofit.

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na maldonado is also a Quest Scholar. In her hometown of Santa Ana, Calif., she said, over 90 percent of students in the public schools are Hispanic, and a majority of the city’s inhabitants live under the poverty line. Her own parents are natives of Mexico and never received a formal education. Her father taught himself to read; her mother, who is deaf, never learned to read, write or speak sign language.

“Both my parents don’t have any education,” she said during an interview.

“It’s kind of awkward for me when they ask, ‘What is your parents’ level of education?’ And the lowest they have is high school, and I’m like, ‘Well, they didn’t even go to high school. They didn’t even go to school to at all.’ ” Maldonado first heard of Princeton in elementary school, she said, when her class flew to the East Coast through the generosity of the principal at a Princeton elementary school. In the first week of her freshman year of high school, she said that she walked into the counselor’s office and asked, “I want to get into Princeton. What do I need to do?”

When Maldonado was matched through QuestBridge with Princeton in the December of her senior year, she was surprised and thrilled, as were the teachers and counselors who had served as her mentors. When she told her father she had gotten into a school across the country, however, he had the opposite reaction.

“He just flat-out did not talk to me for the rest of the day,” she said. Her father tried to persuade her to attend the University of California, Irvine because it was a 15-minute drive from their house, she said.

“I was trying to explain it to him: ‘Dad. If someone were to give you a Ferrari, and it’s free, and someone gives you, I don’t know, a Honda Civic, and it’s not necessarily free — maybe you have to pay a grand or two — which one would you take, Dad?’ ” Maldo-

Percent of admitted first-gen students in the Class of 2018

Princeton

13.8

Penn

12.0

Brown

18.0

Dartmouth

12.4

MIT

17.0

Williams

16.0

Georgetown

12.0

nado recalled. “He still didn’t really get it.”

Eventually, he came around, Maldonado said. She participated in FSI the summer before her freshman year and felt more or less prepared to tackle Princeton academically.

What she was less prepared for, however, was the tug she felt from her life back home.

“The hard thing for me, freshman year, was balancing between life here and life at home.

For the most part, [my life] was life at home,” she said.

“The first semester, Sources: princeton.edu, The Daily my dad was unemPennsylvanian, Brown Daily Herald, ployed, so it was constant, ‘Okay, now.dartmouth.edu, MIT News, see if there are any williams.edu, The Hoya jobs, submit my application.’ ” Her father called often, she said, as did her sister, at Quest Scholars Network on campus times seeking help with finals when and recently attended the second anMaldonado was studying for her own. nual First-Generation College Student “That was mainly the biggest strug- Summit at Amherst College. She noted gle, having to answer the phone, be- that there are initiatives other collegcause I can’t just ignore it, and having es have instituted, such as a winter to sleep late because I have to do home- coat fund and a day when professors work, or just because my sister is on the who were also first-generation wear Tphone with me until one in the morn- shirts that identify them as such, that ing,” she said. she would like to see at Princeton. She On campus, she has found faculty also questioned the fact that the Unimentors who have helped her make im- versity’s expectation for student conportant decisions, such as switching tributions increases each year, when out of the premed track and deciding to the difficulty of a student’s course major in psychology. When Maldonado load also increases with each year. decided to leave behind her life-long Overall, she would like for there to be goal of becoming a doctor, her father more open conversation about the exstruggled to understand her reasoning. periences of first-generation students.

“That’s the problem, when you grow “None of us are telling our stories up and you’re first-gen, the only jobs so that people can feel sorry for us. you know are being a doctor, being a You shouldn’t feel sorry for us belawyer, being a teacher, possibly be- cause we’re here — we’re at Princeton. ing an engineer. But most of us don’t We did make it,” she said. She added think of other things like going to later, “We didn’t get in here to just grad school,” she said. ”I told him, serve as diversity. Yes, we got in also ‘[Being a doctor is] my number two because of that, so that we do bring and I don’t want to go for my number diversity. But what’s the point of gettwo if I want my number one.’ ” She ting in for diversity if no one wants to plans to become a family or couples’ talk about it?” therapist.

Maldonado is active within the Originally ran April 3, 2014.

The Daily Princetonian

BORING PERSON

OF A

CONFESSIONS

Thursday May 29, 2014

It was a Monday. The air was bitingly cold, yet my eyelids continued to droop despite the frosty sting.

I had two classes down and two more to go, with only a short lunch break in between. Something buzzed in my gloved hand.

“Getting food. Where are you?”

It was a text from my roommate. I picked up my pace.

I entered the Rocky dining hall with a vague sense of dread. My roommate was probably still getting food, and I doubted I could find her inconspicuous JanSport amid the masses of unfamiliar faces in forest green quarter zips.

To my relief, I spotted a friend, A, with none other than my roommate’s backpack in the seat opposite him. After exchanging a brief greeting, I hurried off to the servery.

When I returned, however, it was not to A and my roommate alone but our friends B and C as well. My hope of cramming in some reading dwindled into a pathetic little flame, which was swiftly extinguished when acquaintances D and E plopped their bags down next to us. I saw the weight of my growing social anxiety reflected in the scowl that my roommate sported; we both had gotten very little sleep and only had about 20 minutes left to eat.

“Have you guys ever heard of coronation chicken?” asked D. “It’s Britain’s national dish made for the Queen’s coronation in 1952 that includes precooked chicken, mayonnaise, curry powder and raisins.

It’s atrocious,” he laughed, “but it was like, the only thing I ate on my flight back from my inter —” “Dude, you want to talk about atrocious?” interrupted A. “Over the summer in Ecuador, all I ate were the guinea pigs from my host family’s farm.”

“Woah, that’s so extreme … ” my roommate said weakly.

“Like Doritos,” I said. Nobody heard me, or perhaps they did me the courtesy of pretending not to

BRICK BY BRICK

Nassau Hall HARRISON BLACKMAN Staff Writer

P

LIN KING

Associate Street Editor hear.

“That’s just brutal,” said C to A. “Over my summer in D.C., the secretary who was in charge of the interns’ lunch loved shawarmas.”

What the hell are shawarmas?

“I love shawarmas,” gushed E. “That’s not even worth complaining about. My startup decided to do this banana detox together, so we just ate 30 bananas every day, and nothing else whatsoever.”

A few minutes in, my roommate and I had completely renounced any pretense of participation. Eventually, however, our silence was noticed. Gradually, I felt the force of every gaze falling on our rigid faces.

“Guys, I have something to tell you,” I said at last, quietly. My roommate shot me a look of alarm.

“I’m sorry it’s come to this, I really am. But I — I’m — ” “Lin, no!” cried my roommate. “ — I’m a Boring Person.”

A deep silence blanketed the table. My roommate’s eyes darted wildly among the faces of our acquaintances, trying to salvage the situation. Unfortunately, she, too, was Boring.

“Haha,” said B optimistically. “… Ha?” “HAHAHA!” shouted my roommate aggressively. I kept a meek expression on my face.

“You can’t be serious,” said C incredulously. “Everyone here is Interesting.”

“What’s your Witty Reaction Time? The most it can be is like, what, 0.8 seconds?” asked D. “This semester, on average, 1.21,” I admitted.

An uncomfortable thickness clung to the air, like when someone reveals that they’re PDF-ing Bridges at a table of engineers. “So you’ve been falling behind a bit,” said E at last. “I’m sure you do tons of Interesting things on a day-today basis.”

“Well, I’m behind on Game of Thrones, Suits, Arrested Development and …” I lowered my head.

“And I never finished season one of Breaking Bad.” There was a gasp. B had grabbed A’s hand; C swooned with a flourish (as all truly Interesting people

page s2

are wont to do).

“Sometimes, when I run out of things to check on the Internet and I don’t want to read anything too serious like the news, I check my high school email accounts and then … LinkedIn.” “Okay, this has got to be a joke,” announced D with finality.

I sighed and took a deep breath. “I only go out once a month — on a Friday. I’ve never eaten outside a dining hall. I only ever eat one type of cereal — unsweetened corn flakes. I fall asleep at 11:30 p.m. and wake up at 7:30 a.m. every day. I only speak one language. I come from an upper middle class family of a single ethnicity. I grew up in New Jersey. I’ve never presented at a science fair or won a spelling bee. I don’t plan on pursuing any certificates. I’ve never been on a safari in any African country. I read “Are You Smart Enough to Work for Google,” and I wasn’t.

All my political views are moderate. I’ve never worked for a start-up. I don’t even really know what a start-up is. On each of my birthdays, all my Facebook wellwishers have only ever written “happy birthday” because there is literally nothing else anybody has to say to me.”

An eternity seemed to pass (please note how Boring that metaphor was).

“Wait, wait, I know!” A cried suddenly. “You must know a pun, right? Puns are Interesting.

Tell us something punny.”

“Hm,” I said. “Okay, a man walks into a bar. He said ‘Ou — ’ ” “Stop!” A shouted. Each of the Interestings had expressions indicating varying degrees of shock and even distaste. D appeared slightly nauseous.

“One more thing,” I breathed, barely audible now. “My only extracurricular activity is writing for the ‘Prince.’ ” My roommate covered her face, ashamed of our association. C stood solemnly and pointed a finger to the exit. “Get the fuck away from us,” she said.

Originally ran February 6, 2014.

rincetonians’ hearts should rejoice when they sing in praise of “Old Nassau,” according to the University’s centuries-old alma mater.

Presently, although Nassau Hall — the namesake of the song — stands triumphantly in the center of the colonial district of campus, Princeton students rarely set foot in the historic building, given its modern ceremonial and administrative functions.

However, that shouldn’t stop students from “rejoicing,” because Nassau Hall is much more than an office building, albeit an office building that is also a National Historic Landmark: It is a powerful symbol of American higher education.

Constructed in 1756, Nassau Hall was named for King William III of Orange at the suggestion of the University’s (then referred to as the College of New Jersey) major benefactor, Governor Jonathan Belcher, according to the Princetoniana website. The trustees suggested the building be named after Belcher, but he modestly declined, a decision that paid off—“In Praise of Old Belcher” wouldn’t have made the best University anthem.

The building was monumental for its time. “It was thought to be the largest building in North America when it was being built,” Princeton historian and author of “Princeton: America’s Campus” W. Barksdale Maynard ’88 said.

Nassau Hall played a critical role in the Revolutionary War when George Washington recaptured the building after the 1777 Battle of Princeton and the surrender of British troops who had taken control of the space.

In 1783, Nassau Hall briefly became the nation’s capital, housing the Continental Congress for five months, another highlight in the building’s rich history.

The building’s function has changed over Built in

Inaugural inter-Ivy BALLET KATIE BAUMAN

the years from a single building that housed both students and classrooms to a structure predominantly concerned with administrative and ceremonial uses. “If you look at Nassau Hall functionally, it’s a very generic building — a corridor with rooms on either side,” University Architect Ron McCoy GS ’80 said. “It’s adaptable to all kinds of uses … though it’s probably compromised in its ability to serve all of the functions of a modern administrative building,” due to the limitations of the original architecture, including narrow hallways connecting disparate office spaces, he explained.

Nassau Hall has not only adapted in terms of its functionality but in its style as well.

The exterior of the building has cycled through a range of architectural styles, from Colonial to Italianate, after various fires and subsequent reconstructions, some of which may have seemed to conflict with the campus’ dominant collegiate gothic theme. However, the gothic motif was only established around the turn of the century.

“The question of style wasn’t such a conscious issue [at Princeton] until [thenUniversity President] McCosh ushered in a different style of architecture in the 19th century,” McCoy explained.

“Princeton has a beauty … as an overall campus which tran-

scends individual styles.”

Nassau Hall is so emblematic of the University’s public identity that the University even restricts reproduction of its image by copyright law.

“When we protect names and images, we reserve the right to these images for public trust,” Assistant Vice President for Communications Lauren Ugorji ’85 said. “If we permitted a broad use of images, the association would be diluted.”

Nassau Hall not only serves as an essential image of the University, but also helped define the language we use to talk about American higher education. The building’s position in front of a large lawn removed from Nassau Street created the origin of the term “campus,” deriving from the Latin word for “field,” usurping Harvard’s “yard” as the fundamental descriptor for the grounds of an American college, according to the 2008 Princeton Campus Plan.

Nassau Hall is “an extraordinary symbol of not only Princeton, but higher education in America,” Maynard noted. “It symbolizes the great English idea of [the] university transplanted to the world.”

In praise of Old Nassau, indeed.

Originally ran February 20, 2014 and is a part of a series on campus buildings and history.

LIN KING :: ASSOCIATE STREET EDITOR

1756, iconic Nassau Hall looms just beyond FitzRandolph Gate.

EXCHANGE

Street Editor

D

espite the snow and sleet that have invaded New York, thirty students will be heading to the Big Apple this weekend — in pointe shoes, nonetheless. For the first time, Princeton, Harvard and Columbia’s ballet companies will come together to perform. The three groups are the only student-run ballet troupes in the Ivy League.

This collaboration has been long in the making, and what began as Columbia graduate student Elysia Dawn’s initial vision has grown into a full-fledged production.

“She [Elysia Dawn] had for a very long time wanted to do this collaboration between Ivy League schools that do have ballet companies,” Princeton University Ballet president Caroline Hearst ’14 said. “That process began probably in fall of 2012 when I first heard from her so it’s been a really long time coming ... since we’ve been able to put foundations under her vision.”

These foundations have set the stage for the Columbia Ballet Collaborative, Harvard Ballet Company and PUB to each perform four pieces at the Miller Theatre at Columbia this weekend. The three companies have spent the past two years planning the event and delegating the responsibili-

ties involved in producing the inaugural performance.

Naturally, bringing together three groups to develop a performance brings together an abundance of creativity and talent.

Dancers within each company had individual visions of what the collaboration would look like and reached a consensus on the specifics of their performances largely through communication

by Skype, emails and conference calls.

“I can quickly text, call or meet in-person with PUB officers to organize our shows on campus,” PUB artistic director Chloe Cheney-Rice ’15 explained.

“The distance between Princeton, Harvard and Columbia make this planning process unlike anything PUB has experienced before, which makes it all the more exciting.”

Logistically, the planning was especially difficult for the Harvard Ballet Company and Princeton University Ballet because both groups will perform in an unfamiliar space — the Miller Theatre. Hearst mentioned that in planning the performance, Columbia was often “the rock” that communicated what was actually feasible for the stage.

In preparation for the performance, the groups divided re-

sponsibilities. Princeton received the task of developing a visual identity for the collaboration.

“It was really fun to work with everyone but also really difficult because there are so many brilliant and different ideas about what the show should look like on paper,” Hearst said. “We have an emblem we think will last for many years. It has interchangeable stars at the top that we can add and remove as companies join, and the performance evolves over the years.”

Beyond their collective efforts, each company also had to prepare pieces to feature in the performance. Initially, the groups hoped they might be able to perform together and intersperse their separate pieces with a goal of blending the different schools and highlighting ballet as a link and the focus of the collaboration.

Although the logistics of the long-distance partnership prevented that vision, the heart of the collaboration remains to be the desire to bring together a group of people who, despite being in different schools, share a passion for ballet. Through that commitment and the amount of time the dancers have dedicated to perfecting art, the participants have found many shared experiences between the companies and

dance itself.

“I met with the Elysia over the summer, and it was so cool how much we could relate on even though we went to different schools and had different experiences,” Hearst said. “We are different ages, but there was just so much we had in common having gone through all that ballet training together.”

PUB will take four pieces to the Ivy Ballet Exchange. Three were choreographed previously by Colby Hyland ’16, Maria Katarina Rafael ’15 and PUB vice president Jiae Azad ’15, and have been performed in past shows. The company believes these pieces represent the group’s best work and will transition well to the Miller Theatre.

The fourth piece is a longer one, which was created specifically for the Ivy Ballet Exchange.

Choreographed by PUB artistic directors Cheney-Rice and Sarah Howells ’16, the piece includes themes of friendship and love and incorporate a range of musical styles, including jazz.

The Ivy Ballet Exchange will be the first time PUB has performed off-campus. PUB is taking 30 dancers who will join another 55 from Harvard and Columbia in this inaugural collaboration.

“It’s still hard for me to believe

that I get to participate in such an exciting event my freshman year here at Princeton,” PUB member Ellen Roop ’17 said.

While the companies hope for a large audience, ultimately, collaboration and friendship lie at the heart of the Ivy Ballet Exchange.

“I can’t stress enough how important it is for us to interper-

sonally connect and meet each other,” Hearst said. “We hope too that peoples’ impressions of ballet and what they think it is about or looks like will be changed by the show. We can share what we do on our own campus to take ballet to new places and bring that back.”

Originally ran February 13, 2014.

COURTESY OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY BALLET

PUB developed the visual identity of the collaborative performance.

The Daily Princetonian

page 20

Thursday may 29, 2014

TA B L E T E N N I S | A P R I L 1 1

Freshman star Ariel Hsing leads champion women’s table tennis club

By Eddie Owens associate sports editor

If I asked 100 Princetonians who they think is the best athlete currently enrolled, I would expect to hear a lot of the usual suspects. Senior Tom Schreiber, senior Caraun Reid, sophomore Ashleigh Johnson, perhaps even sophomore Anna Van Brummen from a few particularly informed fans.

I would be surprised to hear even one person name freshman Ariel Hsing. Hsing seems like the nicest girl ever, until you put a paddle in her hand.

Then the three-time American table tennis champion transforms into a ball-smacking, shot-getting, spin-imparting monster, ready to chew you up

and spit you out like nearly all her previous opponents.

Hsing got her humble start like so many other great athletes: by complete chance. Her mother used to play growing up in China and frequented the Palo Alto Table Tennis Club with her father. One night, they could not find a babysitter for seven-year-old Hsing and were forced to bring her with them. She took to the game like a fish to water, winning her first national championship in the under 10 division within a year. Hsing and her parents were surprised and she upped her training regimen. She made the U.S. team at the cadet (under 15) level and traveled the globe playing for the red, white and blue.

“I trained more and more. It was a gradual improvement.

Then, you get to a point in time where it’s like, ‘Hey, I could make the Olympics,’” Hsing said.

And make them she did.

In London, the wide-eyed 16-year-old was seeded 46th and progressed to the round of 32 before falling 4-2 to eventual gold medalist Li Xiaoxia of China. She rated the match “a 10 out of 10, or maybe a 9.9, as I wasn’t quite there.”

When it came time to choose a college, the 4.0 student was attracted by the University’s rigorous academics and table tennis prowess. Yes, that’s right, table tennis has been one of the University’s most competitive teams in

recent years, having finished runner-up in the coed division at collegiate nationals multiple times. Adam Hugh ’10, who recently qualified for the U.S. World Championships team, was a doubles champ and singles runner-up as a Tiger. What the club had lacked, however, was a women’s team.

And I don’t just mean lacked a strong women’s team. I mean Princeton had never even fielded a women’s team before. At the same time as Hsing, but independently of her, Canadian champion freshman Shirley Fu got accepted to the University. All of a sudden, the club was halfway to a full squad. Hsing and Fu put their heads together.

“We were looking for more

players. I think Shirley knew Robin [Li] and I knew Marisa [Chow],” Hsing said.

The freshman foursome immediately became one of the best college teams in the country. Collegiate table tennis team matches take a best of five format that includes four singles matches and a doubles match if the teams are tied after singles. Thus Princeton, with the best duo in the country, could conceivably win every match if Hsing and Fu played well enough.

The championship run was underway, but it was not the traditional Rocky-esque grind one might expect.

“In high school, I practiced six days a week for three or four hours each day,” Hsing said. “In the fall here, I played maybe once or twice a week for two or three hours at a local club. In the spring, I played maybe once a week and only at Dillon [Gymnasium].”

Yet when I commented that she got by this season on talent alone, she replied, “I don’t believe in talent.” Regardless, a training schedule that would make Allen Iverson jealous did not seem to have any effect on the superstar.

Hsing and the team breezed through the divisional and regional tournaments. Holding the highest ranking of any collegiate player by over 10 percent entering nationals in Monroeville, Pa., Hsing was the clear number-one seed in women’s singles. She and Fu teamed up as the top doubles seed, and the women’s team was the second-ranked squad behind University of Califor-

“Ariel and Shirley played very clutch.

Every team was gunning for them. It was a very impressive performance.”

Volker Schroder faculty advisor

nia, Berkeley. The coed team was seeded seventh to boot. It was a packed weekend, to say the least.

The tournament got off to an inauspicious start on Friday, when the Tigers dropped their first match in coed group play to No. 6 University of Toronto. The rest of group play went swimmingly, though, and Princeton advanced to knockout play in both team categories. The first day of the tournament also saw the doubles competition, where Hsing and Fu advanced to the semifinals with ease. There they met the fourth-seeded duo of Zhou and Guo also from Toronto.

The stubborn Varsity Blues played fearlessly, trading games with the Tigers before winning the decisive fifth game 11-6.

“We realized that when we were playing, we didn’t fight as hard as they did. It humbled us and let us know we needed to try harder. It ended up being a blessing in disguise,” Hsing said.

Hsing and Fu got their groove right back on Saturday in singles. Fu, seeded sixth, was able to upset third-ranked Stephanie Sun of Duke before falling to Northeastern’s Yuhua Li in the semifinals.

Hsing lost nary a game on her run to the finals.

“I had already beaten [Li] three times at regionals, but this time she played up to her true ability.”

It didn’t make much of a difference. Hsing came away with a 4-1 victory. One down, two to go: The championship round of both team competitions loomed the next day.

“There was a banquet that night. People from the other teams were going out to clubs, but all four of us from Princeton met in the hotel lobby to do homework. I was up until four a.m. studying,” Hsing

said.

It was not an ideal night to put the student in studentathlete. A few hours later, the coed group fell 3-2 in the first round to the number-eight seed Tulane and would end up 12th in the consolation bracket. Only the women’s competition remained and familiar foe University of Toronto was the quarterfinal opponent. The match would come down to

“We were really happy afterward. It was a team effort.

To go through that with someone else is really cool.”

Ariel Hsing freshman

doubles. The champions from two days earlier, Zhou and Guo, stood in the way.

“Shirley and I were still very confident, since we felt like we lost the first match due to mental weakness. We went out fighting, shouting, trying to pump each other up.

Mentally, we were completely different, but physically it was the same,” Hsing said.

The Tigers took the first game, but the Varsity Blues took the second. Princeton regained the advantage with a third-game win and finished it off in the next one. On the last point, Hsing and Fu so thoroughly bamboozled the Toronto players that they ran into each other and one broke a paddle.

Texas Wesleyan, 11-time reigning coed champs and one of only a few fully-funded collegiate table tennis squads on the continent, was next up in the semifinals.

“They came out with a good strategy against us. They put their lowest player against me and their best against Shirley.

We rooted for her really hard and she won,” Hsing said.

Again, the match came down to doubles and again Hsing and Fu triumphed.

Berkeley, meanwhile, had steamrolled its two opponents and had not dropped a single individual match in the tournament. The team’s chances lay solely with its top two players.

“Ariel and Shirley played very clutch,” said club faculty adviser and professor of French, Volker Schroder.

“Every team was gunning for them. It was a very impressive performance.”

The collegiate national championship, predictably, came down to the final doubles match. At this point, though, there was no stopping Hsing and Fu. “We were all out versus Cal. My arm was hurting, but you can’t think about that. We were super focused and played really well,” Hsing said.

They swept the Golden Bears’ duo in straight games and gave Princeton its firstever team title.

“We were really happy afterward. It was a team effort.

To go through that with someone else is really cool. We were shocked, too, since we had been talking about winning nationals since the fall and it actually happened,” Hsing said.

Next year could be even better, though expectations are being kept in check.

“We’ve got at least one good girl coming and potentially another Olympian,” Schroder said. “But the women’s field was stronger this year. International players are coming to the United States. There are grad students from China. It’s ambitious to say we want to go for a repeat.”

Right now, Hsing is not so concerned with the outcome.

“We bonded so much during the tournament. My teammates are wonderful people.

I look forward to bonding together again next year.”

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday may 29, 2014

page 21

Sophomore standout breaks Metal bats endanger, hold back NCAA ballplayers BATS school, country records Continued from page 24

RATCLIFFE Continued from page 24

.............

her own school record in the weight throw. Her spring season started off just as hot as she left it in 2013, as her hammer throw mark of 62.97 m at the Disney Invitational exceeded the rest of the field by over 40 feet. But her season was just beginning: she would climb to the top of the NCAA on the season with a hammer throw mark of 66.31 m the following weekend at the Monmouth Invitational. Ratcliffe would set a further NCAA-leading mark the following weekend, but it would be April 12 when she would burst the headlines. At the quad-meet Princeton hosted with Monmouth, St. John’s and Vermont, she threw a New Zealand national record, an Ivy League record, a Princeton school record and a personal record with a mark of 69.60 m. This performance led her to be named the National Athlete of the Week by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. She would break all of these records again the following weekend, as she broke the 70-meter mark for the first time at the Larry Ellis Invitational.

Ratcliffe won her second Heps gold in the hammer throw at Yale on May 10, as her throw of 67.75 m gave her a new Heps record. Her performance earned her the award for the meet’s Most Outstanding Female Field Performer.

The sophomore phenomenon has received notice far and wide, most notably as of late from the USTFCCCA. The USTFCCCA announced on May 8 that Ratcliffe had been placed on the Bowerman Watch List as “also receiving votes.” The Bowerman, introduced in 2009, is awarded annually by the USTFCCCA to the nation’s most outstanding male and female collegiate track & field athletes in the nation. Not only has she been recognized within the United States, but also in the international track and field community: Ratcliffe has been invited to compete in the Glasgow Commonwealth Games this summer in late July.

Despite her overwhelming successes this year, Ratcliffe maintains that the distances

and records have not been her focus at all.

“This year I scrapped all expectations and decided to focus on the process of throwing well rather than the result,” the sophomore standout said.

“So throwing as well as I have has been great fun and a lot less mentally stressful than last year. Both short-term and longterm goals have been good technique, consistency in competition and mental strength. I’ve been doing pretty well in those three areas I think, but there’s always room for improvement.”

“Both short-term and long-term goals have been good technique, consistency in competition and mental strength.”

Julia Ratcliffe

sophomore thrower

And while the overwhelming amount of success can get to an athlete’s head, Ratcliffe has her eyes completely on the future as the coming weeks hold much for her.

“I have regionals in two weeks and with any luck NCAA nationals in early June,” Ratcliffe said. “On June 14 I fly out to London to meet my Dad and start my UK-based lead-up, moving through Cardiff for a New Zealand training camp before I compete at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in late July. I will probably have some competitions in the UK, but nothing is set yet.”

In addition, Ratcliffe’s humility is striking, as she attributes a great deal of her success to her supporters.

“Thanks for the award; it means a lot to be recognized by my peers,” Ratcliffe said.

“Shout out to the track team, especially my fellow throwers [senior] Chelsea [Cioffi] and [sophomore] Brielle [Rowe], and Coach [Brian] Mondschein, and my dad for all the help with training!”

Reid to join one of NFL’s premier defensive lines DRAFT

Continued from page 24

.............

Ndamukong Suh. The aggressive style of play that Suh and the rest of Detroit’s D-Line execute offers a perfect fit for Reid, according to his agent Mike McCartney.

“It’s a great spot for him,’’ he said. “I’m thrilled. I wanted him to go to a team where the defensive line gets upfield. That’s his game. And that’s exactly what the Lions do. This will play right to his strengths.’’

After the draft, Reid echoed his agent’s sentiments. “[I’m] so grateful to join a great organization, learn from a great coach and great player and compete to be the best player I can be,” he said.

In a video circulating on Facebook, Reid can be seen answering a phone call from the Lions’ management in which he calmly extends his gratitude. Reid maintains his usual reserved, collected demeanor until his living room fills with relatives’ screams, applause and chants of “Detroit, Detroit!” Reid cracks a smile and slowly exits the room, explaining over the line, “Sorry. My family’s buggin’ out right now.”

While Reid told The Daily Princetonian he was not surprised to receive the call, the experience was unforgettable nonetheless.

“I knew I was gonna get drafted, but the moment was everything,” he said. “Possi-

bly the greatest feeling in my life.”

ESPN commentators commended the “speed” and “slipperiness” of Reid’s interior pass rushing moves as they played clips of him racking up sacks against Dartmouth and Columbia. The analysts also applauded Reid’s well-roundedness as a student, explicitly citing his involvement with

“I knew I was gonna get drafted, but the moment was everything.”

Caraun Reid

Princeton Faith and Action as well as Old Nassoul.

ESPN analyst Bill Polian, who served as the president and general manager of the Indianapolis Colts and was responsible for drafting Peyton Manning, graduated from the same all-boys Catholic high school as Reid. Polian was covering the draft live on ESPN when Reid’s name was announced, at which point he donned a hat from their alma mater and offered his personal congratulations with a round of applause.

“Caraun Reid is from Mount Saint Michael Academy in the Bronx, New York. I’m a proud alumnus. Way to go Caraun!”

.............

to find MLB success out of high school, college baseball is seen as a legitimate proving ground for Major League hopefuls, and teams are increasingly willing to draft players who went to college. So why shouldn’t college baseball look more like the MLB? Plenty of college players have already played in wood bat leagues as high schoolers, and that continues in college. It was his phenomenal offensive performance in a wood-bat league, in fact, that finally convinced New York Yankees scouts to sign Princeton slugger Mike Ford. He had just won Ivy League Player of the Year, but they didn’t sign him until he hit over .400 with a wooden bat.

Yes, a college player can be

productive with a wooden bat.

Coaches and players grumbled when new rules mandated “BBCOR” bats a few years ago, but the game seems all right to me.

These bats are supposed to mimic wooden bats by reducing the “trampoline effect” of traditional aluminum bats, and they’re certainly a step in the right direction, but they aren’t doing enough.

According to the New England Baseball Journal, a ball that leaves a metal bat will be traveling at around 80 mph when it’s two inches away, whereas a ball that leaves a wooden bat will be traveling at 60 mph at that distance. Furthermore, the drop in velocity is “more precipitous.”

BBCOR bats have reduced sweet spots, but they’re still there, and the reaction time for a pitcher who finds himself in the path of such a hit is less time than it

takes to blink an eye. Good thing Foote didn’t blink.

It’s not just pitchers who are in danger. If you’ve ever attended a Princeton home game, you know that the teams tend to sit outside the dugout with nothing between them and the foul balls that are often hit that way. Plus, there’s no fence or net between the batter’s box and the stands.

The only reason metal bats became prevalent in the first place is economics. While metal bats rarely break and are virtually impossible to shatter on contact with a pitch, broken wooden bats are a routine occurrence. Banning metal bats would undeniably put more of a financial strain on college teams, as they would have to compensate for each hitter breaking a bat or two over the course of a season. But it’s difficult to argue that increased chance of death by base-

ball is justified by the savings.

Besides, what Ivy League school is going to be bankrupted by the cost of a few more bats?

The Ivy League can take the lead on this. It is often criticized (often by me) for spurning the NCAA and going in its own direction in favor of tradition — the Ancient Eight still does not allow its football teams to play in the NCAA postseason and prohibited freshmen from playing varsity basketball until 1977 — and a little bit of old-fashioned Ivy exceptionalism would be welcome here. Why can’t a league that bases so much of its policies on tradition see the benefit of going back to wooden bats?

There’s nothing like the sound of the ball coming off a wood bat, and when you throw in the fact that wood makes the game safer, it seems like a no-brainer.

The Daily Princetonian

page 22

Thursday may 29, 2014

QB is “Quinn-tessentially” tough Princeton experience inspires new AD EPPERLY Continued from page 24

.............

ing touchdowns and another 18 rushing touchdowns, placing fourth in the league in yards per game through the air and fourth in yards per game on the ground. If you’re still not sure whether or not he’s a good passer, consider his 29-straight completions against Cornell Nov. 2. Epperly says he “just kind of assumed” he had thrown an incompletion until the fact that he had set an NCAA completions record was announced over the PA system in the second half.

That game exemplified the high-velocity offense that became Princeton’s hallmark this season.

“We may not have the biggest guys in the world on our line, but we’re in shape,” Epperly said. “I think there’s a lot of games where our fast-paced offense really wore down teams.”

Despite his ability to read a defense and know exactly when to kick the offense into full gear, Epperly was not Princeton’s starting quarterback for much of his breakout season.

“The whole year, each week, I had to go and check: am I starting, how much am I playing?”

Epperly said.

Surace believes this has been an important part of Epperly’s success.

“I think all athletes, most of us have certain chips on our shoulder,” he said. “To the really great ones like Quinn, an incompletion is an imperfection.”

Epperly started for the first time in his career in week five, playing the whole game as Michelsen was sidelined with a concussion (though Epperly

says he would have started regardless). The game will go down in history as one of the great Princeton-Harvard matchups, a shootout in Boston which went into triple overtime. Epperly says he had all the confidence in the world, even as Harvard refused to go down time and time again.

“We had come so far in that game, and that season, that once we had the ball and they were giving it to us on the 25 yard line, I was pretty confident,” he said.

With that confidence, Epperly stepped up and won the game on a quintessential Epperly play. Using the capital he had gained from a season of tearing up defenses on the ground, he faked a run, pulled back and fired the ball to senior wideout Roman Wilson. Just as he had a year before, Wilson came down with the ball in the corner of the endzone to give the Tigers the win.

Proving that the 2012 homecoming win was no accident meant a lot to Epperly.

“The year before, its seemed like we were doing all these trick plays … a lot of people, they kinda called it a flukey win,” he said. “I think [this season’s win] just showed how far the program had come.”

That program is now squarely in the hands of the rising senior from Knoxville.

Epperly and his roommate, junior linebacker Mike Zeuli, will captain next year’s squad as it seeks an outright Ivy title — and more.

“It really helps to be an exceptional player, but that’s not why you’re chosen captain,” Surace said. “[The players] want to see a guy who does everything right.”

“Quinn isn’t one who talks a lot,” he added. “But when he does it’s very meaningful.”

“I really would love to go undefeated next year,” Epperly said. “I would want nothing less than a very remarkable, historical year.”

Of course, every player would love to go undefeated, but this

goal does not sound too crazy when you consider that the Tigers played probably the worst game of their season against Lehigh and still only lost by one and were four points away from beating Dartmouth in their season finale.

Even if the Tigers don’t go undefeated next year, Epperly & Co. have already brought about a drastic shift in campus culture.

After seasons where “Are you going to the football game?” was something of a joke, 14,824 people were on hand at Princeton Stadium to watch the Tigers beat Yale 59-23 on Nov. 18.

“I think we’ve turned around the culture here,” Epperly said.

“We love for the campus to support us.”

The Daily Princetonian’s Athlete of the Year award very often goes to a senior. Princeton crowds will be grateful that Epperly has a chance to repeat this honor, as well as to achieve some more important goals, next season.

And after that? Epperly says he would love to play professional football in the NFL, CFL or wherever. Surace, who would say so if he thought otherwise, agrees.

“I don’t think there’s ever been more scouts at an Ivy League game than when [recently-drafted senior defensive lineman] Caraun [Reid] and [Cornell quarterback] Jeff Matthews were on the field,” Surace said, referring to Epperly’s NCAA record-breaking game.

“I think anybody who left that day wrote down a note: ‘Come to Princeton, see Quinn Epperly next year.’ ” Maybe this time next year we’ll be talking about the draft again, but Epperly is focused on the upcoming season.

“He looks at this like ‘I’ve got such a long way to go. Everybody thinks I’ve arrived, but I’m not even close to being the type of player I can be,’ ” Surace said.

It’s an exciting idea to think that the man who brought Princeton football back may not have peaked yet.

DIRECTOR Continued from page 24

.............

ing ranges and bowling alleys with professional coaching.

There she founded the Chelsea Piers Scholarship Fund for children in need, and became executive vice president and executive director of the company’s 400,000 square foot sports complex in Stamford, Conn.

Marcoux says that she never considered returning to the world of college sports until she was approached for the specific position Princeton

“The amount of learning that the students are doing on a daily basis is a huge metric of success.”

Mollie Marcoux ’91 athletic director

had to offer.

“I thought of this as the dream job for me, in being able to combine my passion for Princeton, my passion for sports [and] my love of management and leadership, and really sort of bring it all together,” she said.

Her role as AD will not be Marcoux’s first time working for the University’s athletic department, however. Between her junior and senior years in college, the firstteam all-ECAC hockey player interned in the University’s Sports Information (currently Athletic Communications) office. During the internship, Marcoux says she forged professional relationships that she has kept ever since and that she feels particularly excited to return to the Univer-

sity for that reason.

“There are a lot of familiar faces that I worked with many years ago that are still there or still in touch, which is a really great part of Princeton,” she said. “People really stay connected.”

Marcoux cites her admiration for Walters’ commitment to the department’s motto, “Education through Athletics,” as inspiration for her own future.

“Our athletic programs should at all times advance, not compete with, the educational mission of the University,” she said. “The school believes that there’s real learning that happens while playing a sport: not only the life lessons but [also] the determination and the time management.”

Marcoux says that preserving this philosophy is in line with the experience she had as a student-athlete at the University, and that she hopes to help current students feel the same way.

“People cared about sports and academics hand in hand; it wasn’t one or the other,” she recalled. “Being a real committed student but also being a real committed athlete, you felt like people valued the work you were doing and came out and cheered you on and helped create a great culture.”

Although Princeton began admitting women as undergraduates in 1969, the University had never appointed a female athletic director before selecting Marcoux this April.

“I think it’s a real honor, and I certainly value being the first woman,” she said. “I think it’s always great to be the first of anything, but I do view it as I’ll just be the athletic director and will do my very best to make the Princeton community proud of our athletic program, as it has been.”

Marcoux contends that, in addition to her chief concern of winning games and cham-

pionships, she will evaluate her department based on the less tangible experiences of her student-athletes.

“The amount of learning that the students are doing on a daily basis is a huge metric of success, not only on the field but off the field,” she said.

Again referencing Walters’ impressive career, Marcoux hopes to bring more preservation than change to a program that she feels has been remarkably successful in recent years.

“Since I left, and even when I was there, the school has done a fabulous job of getting great coaches who are real mentors and leaders, and so I

“Our athletic programs should at all times advance, not compete with, the educational mission of the University.”

Mollie Marcoux ’91 athletic director

just am really excited to work with those coaches and continue that culture to continue to provide excellent experiences on and off the field for all the athletes,” she said.

“You always want to build on a tradition of excellence,” she said. “I think you never want to just keep the status quo, but [at the same time] you have to value the traditions and the total success that we’ve had and build upon that. That’s one thing that I’m really excited about, is that there’s so much to know and so much to learn … I think that’s the first thing that I need to do is just listen a ton, learn as much as I can.”

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday may 29, 2014

page 23

MEN’S LACROSSE | APRIL 7

Schreiber scores 100th goal in a resounding win over Rutgers

By Andrew Steele sports editor

The course of play at the Class of 1952 Stadium’s Sherrerd Field had visiting Rutgers (7-4 overall, 2-2 Big East) leading 6-3 through one and a half quarters. Princeton’s faceoff unit failed to produce a win in the first frame, leading to a possession disparity frustrating for the home side. However, with a top-down complete effort the Tigers (5-4, 1-2 Ivy League) took control and earned a 15-11 victory over their local rivals.

In fact, it would have taken a miracle for the Scarlett Knights to overcome the form of midfielder and senior captain Tom Schreiber and company. Schreiber, perhaps the greatest player in college lacrosse today, supplied four goals and three assists in a master class performance that saw him notch his 98th, 99th, 100th and 101st career goals. Additionally worthy of note, now having tallied a prolific 92 assists, he is the first Ivy League midfielder to ever reach 100 and 90 in the goal and assist columns.

Career numbers have some intrinsic value. There’s a beauty to a round 100. However, the meaning of the captain’s achievements became manifest in the sheer level of energy that propelled this Princeton side. The Class of 1952 Stadium’s crowd roared when the century announcement came over the loudspeakers. Characteristically humble, he turned for a quick wave to the cheering fans before getting right back into the action.

“It’s a testament to who he is,” head coach Chris Bates said of the crowd showing their support.

“You just see a genuine appreciation, respect and love for his accomplishments. Because he’s earned it. And he’s just such a wonderful young man that people are happy for him. The air’s rare. He’s putting up some historic numbers. At the end of the day, he’s proud of it, we’re proud of it, but he’d be the first to tell

you that the win is the most important thing.”

There’s a narrative trope in epic known as an aristeia, etymologized to the word arête meaning excellence. The term describes the moment when a warrior becomes more or less unstoppable in battle. While the attribution may be hyperbolic in a sense, those watching the game witnessed an athlete’s moment of excellence.

No Tiger or Knight could match the senior’s sheer drive.

There was an abundance of plays which demonstrated his talent and poise. For example, with less than thirty seconds left in the first half, the midfielder took the ball in his stick behind the goal, dodged once and then again to get the best of his defender and fed his partner-in-crime, junior attackman Mike MacDonald, perfectly for a finishing goal at the :07 mark. Although not often a behind-the-crease player, Schreiber feels discomfort nowhere on Sherrerd Field. With the 8-6 lead going into the locker room and all the energy in the world, the Tigers had acquired enough confidence to power past this opponent.

“This is the time for him to take the next step and help lead this team,” Bates said of his senior standout. “He can carry a team on his back, and in essence we’re asking him to do that in some ways.

He’s got the full command of his team and their respect. His voice goes a long way. We’re challenging him to push his teammates around and finish this thing the way we want to.”

Sophomore attackman Ryan Ambler, whose five goals surpassed even Schreiber’s, noted that the leadership from all three captains — seniors long stick midfielder Derick Raabe and defensive midfielder Jack Strabo — had been indispensable in shaping this team.

“They do a great job leading our guys,” Ambler said. “I think the best thing they do is lead by

example. All three of them — Derick, Tom and Jack — they’re the hardest workers. They show us the right way to do things and they really lead us in the right direction.”

If the Tigers hoped to realize their early-season ambitions, they knew this contest had to go their way. And this Rutgers team was no pushover. Though unranked, the Knights play in a strong Big East conference that features the likes of former Princeton head coach Bill Tierney’s Denver Pioneers. Their scoring rate of 13.18 goals per game coming into the game ranked among the nation’s most prolific. On Saturday they managed a perfect 12 of 12 clears, an impressive 20 of 30 faceoff wins and a balanced offense with nine different scorers.

In order to overcome the visitors from Piscataway, coach Bates commented that the practices leading up to the game had focused on honing fundamentals.

“We focused on playing the body,” he began. “We focused on getting low and picking up ground balls with two hands. We [the coaches] challenged them this week and they responded. I don’t think we’re all the way there yet. But this was good to get kind of a gritty win against a good team.”

Bates and his staff made a number of bold moves that helped secure success for their team. Junior goalkeeper Eric Sanschagrin earned his first start and win of the season. Additionally, the offensive lineup saw some tweaking, with junior midfielder Kip Orban migrating down to attack and senior Tucker Shanley taking his place on the first middie line.

With junior faceoff specialist Justin Murphy still sidelined, freshman Jack O’Brien took much of the load at the X. Only nine wins in 25 attempts came to the first-year player, but he was battling against one of the country’s very best in Joseph Nardella. Additionally, a number of O’Brien’s

CONOR DUBE :: FILE PHOTO

Princeton’s greatest-ever midfielder, Schreiber led his team in points for four consecutive years.

wins were timely, correlating with successful offensive possessions for Princeton.

“In the second half, the difference was Jack,” Bates remarked.

“He fought and he clawed and picked up big ground balls.

I would have thought the stats would have been a little better than they were, but it clearly shifted the tide.”

This team effort featured contributions from deep into the roster. Senior attackman Will Himler took a number of runs on offense and tallied his first goal of the season. His score came under two minutes after Schreiber’s hundredth, as Himler simply outwilled his defender on a dodge from behind to finish with a low bounce shot.

Sophomore defenseman Luke Brugger, also usually absent from the stat sheet, took a run on de-

fense. The Massachusetts native often receives praise from teammates for being a fantastic locker room presence, and was highlighted by the hot-handed sophomore attackman Ryan Ambler postgame as one of the players who help push the team forward in practice.

“I don’t even want to call them bench guys,” Ambler said. “They beat us up pretty good every day and they make us earn everything that we can get. They push us forward every single day. Luke Brugger, in particular, he guards me every day in practice, and it is not easy getting past him.”

Three of Ambler’s career-high five goals came consecutively within under 90 seconds. Usually prolific in the assist column, the Pennsylvania native got the best of Rutgers’ Kris Alleyne time and time again.

“Ryan’s playing with a lot of confidence,” Bates said “We’re challenging him to evolve and be more assertive. Last year he was, at times, playing second fiddle.

Now he’s not.”

There was a great deal to be said about this return to form for Princeton. After this win, the pressure will remain on high as they compete for a shot at the Ivy League tournament.

“You always think ahead: if you don’t win it, what are you going to say to your team?” coach Bates said of his team’s rebound victory.

“And I think it would have been challenging. My message either way is that I think we’re on the right path. What we’ve learned is you can’t just put the jersey on.

You’ve got to be more accountable. We’ve got to be better teammates day in and day out. And that’s not always easy.”

Sports

Thursday may 29, 2014

page 24

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } { Feature }

{ Feature }

Male athlete of the year: Quinn Epperly

By Stephen Wood sports editor emeritus

After earning Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year honors and breaking the NCAA record for most consecutive completions, junior quarterback Quinn Epperly can add another title to his ever-growing list: the Daily Princetonian’s Male Athlete of the Year.

“For it to turn out the way it did was very special and definitely something that I didn’t see coming,” Epperly said of his miraculous 2013 season, which was marked by some of the most exciting Princeton football games in recent history and culminated in a share of the Ivy League championship.

He was not the only one — Epperly split time with fellow then-sophomore Connor Michelsen in 2012 but was seen as a clear choice for the backup role going into 2013. Having proven himself as a runner, many believed he would not be good for much else.

“I think we’re in a society where everybody wants in-

stant success,” head coach Bob Surace ’90 said. “For some guys, it happens.”

But others have to endure a lot of hard, thankless work, as well as criticism — something Epperly had to get used to. His initial reputation as a run-first, low-completionpercentage playcaller invited plenty of comparisons, flattering and otherwise, to the much talked-about Tim Tebow, former National Football League quarterback.

“I don’t mind that comparison at all. I’ve actually always looked up to him. His faith, and how he portrayed himself in the media, I think is very special,” Epperly said. “I think we have similar playing styles, I think we were treated similarly our whole college careers … I think our pattern of how we grew was kind of similar.”

“Hopefully I can be regarded as a better passer by the time I graduate,” he joked.

That probably won’t be an issue. Epperly led the Ancient Eight in scoring with 25 passSee EPPERLY page 22

Female athlete of the year: Julia Ratcliffe

By Jack Rogers associate sports editor

CONOR DUBE :: FILE PHOTO

Named Ivy League Offensive Player of the Year, Epperly racked up a prolific 25 passing touchdowns and added 18 on the ground.

COURTESY OF NOEL VALERO

This summer, the New Zealand native will represent her country in the 2014 Commonwealth Games, to be held in Glascow, Scotland.

The Princeton track and field team knew it had recruited a special talent even before sophomore Julia Ratcliffe stepped onto its campus in September 2012. The native of Hamilton, New Zealand had placed fourth just two months before at the IAAF World Junior Championships in the hammer throw.

Earlier in the year, she had set the New Zealand U-19 record for the women’s hammer throw, just as she had set the U-18 record in 2011.

But the Kiwi had bigger plans on her mind as she moved her game to North America.

Ratcliffe’s freshman year included jaw-dropping results during the winter and spring seasons. In her collegiate debut, she set a school record in the weight throw that had been held by Thanithia Billings ’11. She would go on to place second at winter Heps in the weight throw. The spring saw Ratcliffe transition from the weight throw to her specialty

DIRECTOR | APRIL 29

senior writer

Recently announced as Princeton’s next director of athletics, Mollie Marcoux ’91 wrote her senior thesis on the history of women in sports from 1895 to 1946. Perhaps this independent work was foreshadowing, as she will make her own mark on the history of college athletics by becoming the first female AD in the University’s history.

On August 4, 2014, Marcoux will replace Gary Walters ’67 at the helm in Jadwin Gymnasium. Walters, who announced his retirement last fall, will conclude a 20 year tenure that boasted the most Ivy League championships of any school during the era.

During her time at Princeton, Marcoux majored in history while lettering four times in both soccer and ice hockey. A one-time all-Ivy selection

in soccer, she earned four straight first-team honors in hockey while serving as captain and setting the Ivy League record for most goals in a season with 35. After her final season, Marcoux was awarded the C. Otto von Kienbusch Sportswoman of the Year Award for “high scholastic rank, sportsmanship and general excellence in athletics.”

Marcoux’s professional career began with a stint at the local Lawrenceville School, where she served as assistant athletic director, assistant dean of admissions, assistant housemaster and coach of girls’ ice hockey and soccer. She then began a 19-year position with Chelsea Piers Management, a sports and entertainment company that owns and operates two world-class sports complexes where clients can utilize weight rooms, drivSee DIRECTOR page 22

Stephen Wood

TEDDY SCHLEIFER :: FILE PHOTO

Marcoux ‘91 draws upon her past experiences as a student-athlete.

Detroit selects Caraun Reid in fifth round of NFL draft

By John Wolfe senior writer

CONOR DUBE :: FILE PHOTO

College baseball deserves wooden bats sports editor emeritus

NFL DRAFT | MAY 12

During his four years, Reid proved among the Ivy League’s most unstoppable forces.

See RATCLIFFE page 21

{ column | april 23 }

Marcoux ’91 aims to build on tradition

By John Wolfe

in the hammer throw, where she quickly did damage for the Tigers. Her toss of 68.80 meters at the Larris Ellis Invitational would be the first of many times that she would break her own school and Ivy League record. She would earn her first Heps gold two weeks later, as her throw of 66.51 m would outdistance Brown’s Lacey Craker’s by over five meters and would set a meet record. Her success ultimately culminated with an 11th place finish at the NCAA Championships, good enough for second-team All-America honors.

While it is hard to imagine an athlete with so much success making such great jumps one year later, Ratcliffe made it happen, thus making her Female Athlete of the Year 2013-14.

Ratcliffe started her sophomore campaign off in winning fashion, as she won the weight throw at the New Year’s Invitational on Dec. 7 at Jadwin Gymasium. Two months later, her mark of 19.78 m at the HYP meet in New Haven, Conn. would set

Senior defensive lineman Caraun Reid was the fifth round’s 18th pick in the National Football League draft on Saturday. Reid will join the Detroit Lions as the 158th overall pick. He recorded 20 sacks and 36.5 total tackles for loss in his last three years at Princeton, making him the program’s first two-time All-America honoree in 20 years. Reid became the second Princeton player in two years whose decision to play an extra medical redshirt season was rewarded with an NFL Draft spot, after former

teammate Mike Catapano ’13 was dealt to the Kansas City Chiefs last spring.

The defensive stalwart became the 14th player in Princeton history to earn an NFL Draft selection and was just the second of those players to be drafted within the first five rounds. In the NFL’s modern era — since the league’s 1970 merger with the AFL – he is the only Tiger to be drafted this high.

In the Motor City, Reid will join arguably the best defensive lineman in professional football: three-time Pro Bowler and 2010 NFL Alumni Defensive Lineman of the Year See DRAFT page 21

“That ball went right past the head of Foote!”

Seton Hall’s radio guy said after one of Seton Hall’s players lined a ball right back at the Tiger baseball team’s junior left-handed pitcher Tyler Foote.

Everyone in the press box laughed at the play on words, including myself.

But if the ball had been hit a little lower, or if Foote’s reflexes hadn’t done their job so well, we would have been dealing with a very different situation. We might have been waiting for an ambulance. We might have been wondering whether a young man was concussed or even alive.

In many ways, college baseball is a lot more like high school ball than it is the MLB. Games are relatively sparsely attended; fields are almost always the same shape and rarely feature outfield bleachers; and players will switch positions routinely (Tiger senior infielder Jonathan York was recently named Ivy League Pitcher of the Week). And, like they do in high school, the players use metal bats.

Maybe metal bats were first used in college because they were what high school players were used to, though that seems like selling college players short. The problem is, despite what it may look like, college baseball is not high school baseball.

Though — unfortunately for us fans — the NCAA isn’t chock-full of Major League talent, college players are quite often as old and as big as MLB players. Orioles third baseman Manny Machado, for example, was still 20-years-old and 6 feet 2 inches, 180 pounds when he made the AL All-Star team last year. Princeton has 23 players heavier than that and 12 players 6 foot 2 or taller on its roster this season. Sure, college student-athletes are smaller than MLB players on average, but plenty of guys in the NCAA stack up with big leaguers in size.

They may come in being used to metal bats, but college players looking to make it at the next level will have to get used to wood sooner or later, and they do. Metal bats first came into use in the 1970s when college baseball was almost unheard of.

Today, while it’s still far more common for players See BATS page 21

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