Thursday, September 18 2014

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Thursday september 18, 2014 vol. cxxxviii no. 73

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In Opinion Ryan Dukeman suggests a streamlining of university organizations, and Ali Hayat argues for more comprehensive representation for the Activities Fair. PAGE 5

In Street Bored of your readings?

Check out some of Street’s favorite reads from the summer!

Interested in free fitness but not quite interested enough to actually attend?

We have you covered with a few firsthand accounts.

PAGE S1-S4

U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S

U. to alter reporting of certain crimes on campus

By Chitra Marti staff writer

The White House announced changes in July to the Clery Act under the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 that would require colleges and universities to comply with new campus

safety and security requirements designed to curb sexual assault, domestic violence, dating violence and stalking.

These changes include requiring colleges to compile statistics for incidents of dating violence, domestic violence and stalking, in addition to existing statistics.

Colleges will also be required to adopt the FBI’s revised and more inclusive definition of rape, which dispenses with the distinction between the forcible and nonforcible sex offense categories, as well as add gender identity and national origin as categories of See CLERY page 4

TIGER TIGER TIGER!

Today on Campus 5:30 p.m.: Michelle White, curator at the Menil Collection, will discuss the themes in artist Lee Bontecou’s drawings, which are currently on exhibit.

Princeton Art Museum.

The Archives

BEN KOGER:: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Sept. 18, 1987

The Princeton Students Events Committee hosted a tiger stuffing and decorating festival in Frist Campus Center on Wednesday.

U. physics professor David Gross was awarded a McCarther Genius grant of $285,000 for his work on string theory.

ACADEMICS

News & Notes Rodriguez ’08 finishes in 4th place on America’s Got Talent with musical ensemble

attorney Cordaro Rodriguez ’08 finished in fourth place on the ninth season of America’s Got Talent on Wednesday with his musical ensemble, “Sons of Serendip,” featuring three other musicians whom he met “serendipitously” while pursuing a graduate degree at Boston University.

The group made it to the final six of 48 competing acts and was chosen from thousands of applications to join the show on live television.

In addition to Rodriguez, who plays the piano and the guitar, the quartet includes a cellist, a harpist and joint vocals.

They describe themselves as a gospel/classical/neosoul/R&B fusion quartet, and their slogan is “Bring you music that touches the heart.” Rodriguez posted a YouTube video encouraging fellow Princetonians to vote for his group on ABC’s website.

America’s Got Talent is a variety show on network TV that showcases acts including singers, dancers, comedians and contortionists. Contestants compete for a $1 million prize.

70 percent of students change concentrations

By Corinne Lowe staff writer

Approximately 70 percent of students change their course of study during their time at the University, Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said in a recent interview, citing an internal study she had seen.

Associate Dean of the College Elizabeth Colagiuri said she was unable to confirm the accuracy of this number but confirmed she was aware that this study had been conducted. This particular study was

conducted at the time of the Class of 2018’s matriculation, Colagiuri said.

“At the point of matriculation, we typically survey students to find out what [academic] divisions they think they might be interested in majoring in,” Colagiuri explained. “It’s one of a number of surveys we conduct at various points in the Princeton experience.”

The study generally looked at which of the four major disciplines students were interested in concentrating in: See MAJORS page 4

39.7%

The lack of awareness surrounding the state of nuclear weapons is the biggest nuclear-related threat in the world today, journalist Eric Schlosser ’81 said at a lecture on Wednesday. Schlosser spoke as part of a discussion on his book, “Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety,” which was released last year.

Schlosser explained that early nuclear weapons lacked adequate safety mechanisms and noted an accident in Damascus, Ark., in September 1980, when a maintenance crew dropped a

ByCharles Min staff writer

Expected revisions to the Medical College Admission Test have caused some premedical students to take the test at a different time and may have effects on the preparatory courses and classes premedical students choose to enroll in.

The MCAT is the standard examination for prospective medical students in Canada and the United States. The Association of American Medical Colleges announced the changes last year as part of an attempt to test students on subjects that are becoming more relevant for doctors today. Among the changes is the addition of a new section titled “Psychological, Social and Biological Foundations of Behavior;” a revised biological sciences section that emphasizes biochemistry; and a prolonged examination period, from 5 hours and 10 minutes to 7 hours and 30 minutes.

“It’s not just about treating symptoms. It’s more about treating patients and having a better sense of what society looks like,” Director of Health Professions Advising Kate Fukawa-Connelly, said. “So, they’re putting more emphasis on people and the humanistic side of health care.”

The direct impact the MCAT changes will have on students has yet to be known, Fukawa-Connelly explained, as students delay their application to medical school for numerous reasons.

“We’ve definitely seen trends towards students taking time off, but we don’t know if the causal link is their courses, their desire See MCAT page 3

In the Class of 2014, 19.5 percent of the students graduated as engineers. In the Class of 2018, 24 percent have declared their intention to major in engineering but most years, between 15 and 20 percent of students study engineering.

22.1%

19.5% 15.6%

2.9% 0.02% Social Sciences

Humanities Engineering

Natural Sciences

Math

Interdisciplinary Sciences SHIRLEY ZHU :: DESIGN EDITOR

Students in the Class of 2014 majored predominantly in the social sciences and the humanities.

Schlosser ’81 discusses new book on nuclear weapons and safety staff writer

MCAT changes impact students’ testing timelines

Majors Breakdown

LECTURE

By Lorenzo Quiogue

ACADEMICS

tool that pierced a missile and led to thousands of gallons of high-energy fuel filling the silo where the missile was contained.

“This complex technology was always on the verge of slipping out of our control,” Schlosser explained, adding that this remark still applies today.

He added that because humans are not infallible, the machines they make cannot be infallible either.

“We have to have a sense of humility, not just about the machines we make, but the complex technological systems that interconnect them,” he said.

Schlosser explained that any type of weapon always came with the “AlwaysSee NUCLEAR page 2

SUMMER’S SHADOW

BEN KOGER :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Students study in front of the Princeton Art Museum enjoying the final days of warmth before fall. Nights are expected to stay in the fifties through the weekend.

The Daily Princetonian

page 2

Early nuclear weapons lacked safety NUCLEAR Continued from page 1

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Never Dilemma,” which is that the military wanted weapons that always worked during wartime, but the weapons could not accidentally detonate during peacetime.

“The mechanisms responsible for ‘always’ are the exact opposite of the mechanisms responsible for ‘never,’ ” Schlosser explained.

The focus of the nuclear program was on the “always” rather than the “never,” Schlosser said, noting that in the 1970s, the nuclear weapons had no locks of any sort. He added that the focus on the “always” side of the dilemma led to safety and security becoming secondary concerns.

Schlosser added that throughout all his conversations with people heavily involved in the nuclear weapons program, everyone he had talked to had been amazed that no major city had been destroyed since the atomic bomb hit Hi-

roshima and Nagasaki.

Schlosser explained that while the risk of a full-scale nuclear war today is much smaller, the threat of nuclear accidents is still very strong, adding that infrastructure connecting the nuclear weapons we have is “remarkably decrepit.” He added that there was a very prevalent sense of complacency regarding nuclear weapons — not just among civilians, but among important government leaders around the world, explaining that the lack of major nuclear disasters led to the attitude that nuclear accidents would never happen.

However, he also noted that low-probability events happen all the time.

“If the odds of anything are greater than zero, it will happen at some point,” Schlosser said. “It could be in a million years, it could be next Thursday, but it will happen.”

Schlosser explained that India and Pakistan are currently recreating the arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold

War and noted that this could be even more dangerous due to the fact that India and Pakistan are neighbors and have religious and ethnic differences.

Change is still possible at this point, but world leaders need to take action immediately, Schlosser said. He added that the best way to proceed is to lock up all the uranium and plutonium in the world immediately.

Schlosser concluded his lecture by explaining what role the University should play in the nuclear weapons race, noting that Albert Einstein eventually added his name to the RussellEinstein manifesto calling for the abolition and elimination of nuclear weapons.

“When I was at Princeton 30 years ago, we lived with a daily dread that nuclear war might happen any day,” he explained.

“That isn’t the case anymore, but we still need to act, and we need to act now.”

The lecture, which bore the same name as his recent book, took place at 4:30 p.m. in Dodds Auditorium.

Thursday september 18, 2014

PATIENCE

BEN KOGER :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

The line of students waiting to make stuffed tigers at the PSEC event nearly stretched out the door.

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Thursday september 18, 2014

New exam focuses on treating patients rather than symptoms MCAT

Continued from page 1

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to get more exposure or just because they want to take a break from school for a year,” she said. “So there’s not really a good way to know whether it’s course-linked, but people are definitely taking their time.”

However, for some students, the changes have forced them to amend their timeline for taking the MCAT and thus, applying for medical school. Daniel Tzou ’16 said he wanted to take the MCAT this summer but had to delay it because he has not taken psychology or sociology. He added that he would also have had to wait because his schedule this year does not allow him to take biochemistry.

In addition to students’ application timelines, the MCAT revisions might affect premedical students’ decisions on their majors and methods for test prepara-

tion, Fukawa-Connelly said.

“More students might learn more about psychology, knowing that they’re

“It’s not just about treating symptoms.

It’s more about treating patients and having a better sense of what society looks like.”

Kate Fukawa-Connelly director of health professions advising

going to have to take this MCAT, and then they might realize that they like psychology after doing that, so it may open up that avenue for students in ways

that haven’t before,” she explained. “But I think Princeton students have always followed their passion in terms of what they’re going to major in, and I don’t see that changing.”

She added that reliance on test prep courses might change, as updating the material with the limited test information given about the MCAT would be difficult.

“I know a lot of prep courses are trying to update their material for the new MCAT, but all we have to go off right now is a few practice questions,” Fukawa-Connelly said, noting that full-length practice tests are not available yet.

A full-length practice test, which was supposed to be available by spring 2013, is expected to be available in October.

Students with questions regarding the new MCAT changes are advised to visit the Health Professions Advising office for more information.

News & Notes Suspect arrested in TD Bank robbery case Wesley Gugliuzza, 28, was arrested Thursday for the robbery that occurred on Monday at a Princeton branch of TD Bank.

Gugliuzza was captured and arrested by the Princeton Police Department in Old Bridge, according to a press release. Bail has been set at $300,000.

The arrest was conducted without incident, and Gugliuzza is currently being held at the Middlesex County Correctional Center.

A combined force of Princeton Police and Old Bridge Police Detectives located Gugliuzza after receiving a confidential tip regarding the alleged robber’s location. Surveillance images of Gugliuzza in-

side TD Bank broadcasted by televised news agencies helped police to identify and locate him.

The suspect was charged with one count of first-degree robbery, one count of third-degree terroristic threats and one count of fourth-degree tampering with evidence, states the Princeton Police Department report. ​

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Thursday september 18, 2014

15 to 20 percent of students pursue B.S.E. degrees U. to compile statistics MAJORS for sexual assault, rape Continued from page 1

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humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering.

Neither Rapelye nor Colagiuri provided information on which areas of concentration received the most members, but data included in the University’s Common Data Set, which is a standard disclosure form filled out by universities, suggests that one discipline that sees a net decline in students over the students’ time at Princeton is engineering.

Rapelye provided the distribution of freshmen enrolled as A.B. or B.S.E. for the Class of 2018, saying that 65 percent of the freshman class have declared themselves as

intended A.B., 24 percent as intended B.S.E. and 11 percent still unsure.

“We fully expect Princeton students will come in and discover all sorts of disciplines and fields of study.”

Elizabeth Colagiuri associate dean of the college

The University website claims between 15 percent and 20 percent of students

study engineering most years, and the Common Data Set from the 2013-14 year states that 19.5 percent of degrees awarded in the 2013 year were for engineering.

In addition to this 19.5 percent in engineering, the Common Data Set indicates that 22.1 percent of students earn degrees in the humanities, 15.6 percent in the natural sciences, 39.7 in social sciences and 2.9 percent in math. The remaining 0.2 percent are described as majoring in interdisciplinary studies.

Nationwide, approximately 80 percent of students change their majors in college, according to the National Center for Education Statistics, which also indicates that students will change their major an aver-

age of three times.

“I’m not surprised; to me it is part and parcel of what we seek to do,” Colagiuri said. “In our view, the starting point is simply that. We adhere to the liberal arts philosophy.”

Colagiuri also said the University’s distribution requirements are a potential cause of concentration changes because of the breadth in education they offer students.

“In our mind, we fully expect Princeton students will come in and discover all sort of disciplines and fields of study that may not have been available to them in the past,” Colagiuri said.

According to Colagiuri, the current requirements of the University’s distribution requirements has been in place in a similar form since some time in the mid-1990s.

CLERY

Continued from page 1

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bias for hate crimes. Colleges will also need to specify the jurisdiction of their security personnel and agreements between the institutions and State and local police agencies.

“These new rules strengthen schools’ capacity to provide safer college campuses for students and to keep everyone better informed about campus security policies and procedures,” U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said in a press release.

“These new rules strengthen schools’ capacity to provide safer college campuses.”

Arne Duncan

u.s. secretary of educaton

Director for Operations at the Department of Public Safety Stefanie Karp deferred comment to University spokesperson Martin Mbugua, who said the University currently complies with all Clery Act requirements with a dedicated section on the Department of Public Safety’s website, and that the University will take steps to comply with all new requirements as well. The University publishes an Annual Security and Fire Report to compile its statistics over the previous year.

“We will have definitions for reportable crimes as defined in the FBI standards for crime reporting under the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act,” Mbugua said.

Regarding the three new categories — dating violence, domestic violence and stalking — Mbugua said the University received reports of such incidents and dealt with them accordingly but did not include them in the report, as they were previously not required.

In addition, the changes

require universities to issue a statement that specifies the jurisdiction of state and local police and the university police. Mbugua said that DPS currently has a map which outlines its own jurisdiction compared to those of other agencies. A statement about this working relationship already appears in the annual reports under “interagency cooperation,” but the details of the jurisdictional lines are not made public for security reasons.

Alison Daks, the Coordinator of Sexual Assault Support Services at Womanspace, a nonprofit serving women in crisis in Mercer County, noted that University students who are victims of sexual assault often face a unique dilemma, as their attackers typically live, work and eat in the same close space.

“It’s a much closer community, and often more self-contained [than a larger town], so it’s more of a challenge for them to try and renegotiate their life,” Daks said.

“They might have to be concerned about their living arrangements, class schedules, things like that.”

Womanspace works closely with Sexual Harassment/ Assault Advising, Resources and Education on campus, serving University students as well as Mercer County residents.

SHARE director Jacqueline Deitch-Stackhouse did not respond to requests for comment.

Daks said the updated definitions and greater reported statistics might better ref lect public understanding of sexual assault. She used the example of a 1979 law that updated New Jersey’s definition of sexual assault to penetration anywhere, which allowed male victims to report crimes as well.

“I think the way that people actually look at [sexual assault] and think about it is using that more inclusive terminology,” Daks said. “If you look at the types of assaults that are being reported, you have to be inclusive of all of those things — unfortunately, objects being used.”

The final regulations will be published by Nov. 1. All proposed changes are outlined in the June 20 Federal Register.

Isabella Gomes

Opinion

Thursday september 18, 2014

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senior columnist

Activities fair: bigger but not better

No more nominations

A

s of Aug. 29, 2014, the ALS Association proudly reported having received $100.9 million from over three million donors within a month, thanks to this summer’s viral Ice Bucket Challenge. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, is a disease in which the progressive degeneration of motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord results in muscle weakness and atrophy.

This often leads to total paralysis and death within two to five years. In the campaign to find a cure, many non-profits, such as Project A.L.S., have adopted the Ice Bucket Challenge, posting it onto their front pages and turning it into a trending social media phenomenon that gathers more supporters each day. However, despite having had an impressive run with no signs of slowing down any time soon, the Ice Bucket Challenge has its critics — and rightfully so.

Even though CNN.com commends the challenge as a manifestation of the “power of the peer-to-peer economy, driven by young people,” the challenge ultimately reinforces the problems in how our generation approaches activism and giving to donordependent organizations. Since the ALS Association neither constructed nor actively enlivened the Ice Bucket Challenge, we’re the ones who should accept the responsibility for the long-term flaws of this activist campaign.

For one, while the ALS Association itself would most likely appreciate a donation of any amount, the ice bucket challenge seems to demand the donation of $100, turning away young people such as college students who originally might have been interested in contributing to the cause. Considering that young adults are a huge demographic of the challenge, it certainly doesn’t help that the viral trend started and peaked in the summer, right before students are having to deal with expenses such as tuition, room and board, meal plans and textbooks.

Facebook users who resort to the free icedumping video alternative still reap the social rewards of ‘likes’ and comments, but the ALS Association has lost a potential donation. For those who choose this alternative, the Ice Bucket Challenge asks very little from its participants. One donor cycle merely involves the nominator providing a 1-2 sentence description about ALS, a link to the ALS Association’s webpage, a nomination of three other individuals and the light-hearted threat of 24 hours for challenge completion on the social media setting of his or her choice. There is almost too much simplicity in the sequence from being nominated on social media to actually submitting your donation. Because of the “I dare you” nature of the challenge, nominees will be less concerned with verifying the efficiency of the charity organization, researching the disease itself or learning about more ways to actively contribute to the cause beyond a single installment of $100. While researching might end up driving away people who are unsatisfied with an organization’s efficiency, it ultimately creates informed donors who are more likely to stay committed to the cause.

This is another problem with the Ice Bucket Challenge: Its thinly veiled connection to ALS is that it doesn’t involve an aggressive follow-through. Charities usually do this by asking first-time donors if they want to join a newsletter or apply for a membership. Since the Ice Bucket Challenge doesn’t even make an effort to maintain donors’ interest after it’s completed, the donor retention time is basically the 24 hours — a single cycle.

Possibly the worst of the Ice Bucket Challenge’s shortcomings is that its results are not reproducible. It probably won’t be renewed again next year as “Ice Bucket Challenge Part 2”. If someone creates a spin-off of it, the new version probably won’t be nearly as successful as the original Ice Bucket Challenge. So even if other charity organizations manage to come up with new challenge ideas, they’ll have to deal with the reality that people aren’t likely to participate in consecutive challenges within a certain time period. As Tom Murphy says in his article, “Why I’m not doing the #icebucketchallenge or donating for ALS”, the new “reality of fundraising” is the “hype cycle” — how long a campaign can succeed before it’s replaced by a new viral trend and permanently goes “off the radar”.

In spite of its good intentions, the Ice Bucket Challenge is ultimately a nod to the short attention span of the social network generation. It trains organizations to figure out ways to cater toward lower levels of commitment and the public’s love affair with slacktivism. The truth is that even if charities manage to continue with the surge campaign philosophy, only so many organizations will be able to benefit from this practice before the public hits a plateau of apathy.

It’s only a matter of time before someone says, “Thanks for the nomination, but there’s no one left to nominate” and frankly, we should be able to do better than that.

Isabella Gomes is an ecology and evolutionary biology major from Irvine, Calif. She can be reached at igomes@princeton.edu.

page 5

Ali Akram Hayat columnist

As you approach the building, you see fellow freshmen buzzing around.

Some are alone, while others approach with awkwardly assembled friends from OA/CA and zee groups, still not quite there yet in the friendship dynamic but desperately trying. The whole atmosphere is buzzing. The Activities Fair really is a showcase for the University to strut the glut of student groups it facilitates and funds and an opportunity for students to pitch for their organizations and recruit potential members.

It’s a festival-like environment, with dance groups performing, sports clubs donning their jerseys and Quipfire! parading in their red shirts, probably saying funny things. Everyone seems warm: The groups welcome one and all, irrespective of talent levels, and the students consider the myriad choices in front of them. A precursor for the four years ahead, it seems.

Not quite. With two years of experience and three separate Activities Fairs under my belt, my outlook on the fair and what it represents is a tad more cynical. There are two major factors contributing to this.

First, the now widely documented idea of false representation about the levels of competition for joining a large chunk of student organizations. Walk by the Nassoons’ table in Dillon Gymnasium on that first Friday, and the smiles on members’ faces will be wide and genuine enough to convince you that you don’t need to be the next Pavarotti to be one of them. While that is still probably true, the skill level required to be a Nassoon, or dance for disiac, or get a role in the Shakespeare Company’s fall show is incredibly high. That itself is

not a problem, and perhaps something one should expect from a college such as ours. However, the false advertisement of their accessibility feels like cheating.

As an addendum, it would be heartening to see more groups with reduced or no skill levels required for entry. After all, college is as much about learning new skills as it is about polishing current ones. The Lobster Club is a good start, and hopefully others groups will follow suit.

The more systematic issue with the fair again has to do with being misled. A quick, cursory glance around Dillon will make it easy to conclude that there is a very large number of student organizations. Yet, a closer (and more critical) look offers interesting insight. There is very little diversity among the categories of organizations. Take out the four broad categories of performing arts, sport clubs, political activities and finance/ business-related groups, and students are left with very limited options.

This does not mean that there aren’t other avenues of activity on campus.

There is a botany club, an anime club, a film society and even a brewers’ society.

A comparison of the size and scale of these organizations, however, both in terms of membership and funding, with their more established counterparts in the ‘big four’ outlined above, shows a clearer picture. Student organizations, meant to be avenues for channeling student interest in fields beyond coursework, are too narrow in their scope.

There is one very intuitive justification for this. These organizations did not descend from another community.

They are the student-created, studentrun and student-managed, and only exist insofar as the student community takes interest in them. The fact, then, that certain groups are more popular than others is simply the result of stu-

vol. cxxxviii

Marcelo Rochabrun ’15

dent demand for them.

There are two issues with this. First, student demand is not an adequate justification. In a lot of cases, demand is not directly caused by interest and is more influenced by how exclusive a group is (think back to the Wilson School when it required admission by application), which tends to make competitive Princeton students pine for it more. Moreover, the relationship between the organizations and the student community is not one-way; it is a reflexive system, in which student demand not only determines but is also determined by current student organizations. When entering a culture with numerous dance groups and more business organizations than residential colleges, students are more inclined to ‘develop’ an interest for them.

Second, from the University’s point of view, student demand is not the only parameter by which decisions should be made. There should be a more proactive stance on student organizations to help mold demand and interest in ways more in conjunction with University aims, one of which must be a more diverse set of activities.

As an example, the Pace Center for Civic Engagement activities fair outside Dillon is a great initiative, but it is important to not let it branch out as a fifth “big” category, leading us back to square one. That will be the peril with any attempt at diversifying unless we reach a stage where there is such a large number of popular categories of activities that a sense of diversity is achieved almost by default. Until then, most of the excitement around the Activities Fair will remain specious.

Ali Akram Hayat is a philosophy major from Lahore, Pakistan. He can be reached at ahayat@princeton.edu.

a modest proposal

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 Joshua Katz 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 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

jack moore ’15

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comptroller Eugene Cho ’17

NIGHT STAFF 9.17.14 news Jacqueline Gufford ’17 Anna Windemuth ’17 senior copy editors Natalie Gasparowicz ’16 Jacob Donnelly ’17 Jennifer Shyue ’17 Oliver Sun ’16 staff copy editors Jay Park ’16 Belinda Ji ’17 design Patrick Ding ’15 Carrie Chen ’16 Hannah Miller ’16

Streamline university websites Ryan Dukeman columnist

I

n any institution as large and complex as the University, a network of departments, offices, councils, organizations, programs, and commissions are needed to carry out essential functions. Such an intricate bureaucracy is by nature hard to navigate, and I wouldn’t hesitate to wager that almost no one here at the University could name all or even most of these organizations. For example, Conference and Events Services is different from Meetings and Convention Services, there are at least 3 separate University websites for International travel, and student funding (though now under the umbrella site of the Student Activities Funding Engine) still involves a patchwork of different offices, commissions, funds, departments and programs.

Arguing that we should streamline these services is not my point here, and would require a degree of specificity not likely to be achieved in 800 words. But streamlining access to these services can indeed be done and ought to be. The most direct way in which we can do this is by creating a more efficient system for navigating the insane number of University and university-affiliated websites.

Currently, the University’s homep-

age maintains an “A to Z” list of websites which can be filtered according to 5 categories (Academics, Administration, Arts, Research, and Sports). On the A section alone, there are 66 websites referenced, linking to services as different from each other as Accounts Payable and Acción Puertorriqueña. This system is hard to navigate unless you already know the specific site you need (in which case you probably don’t use the A to Z list anyways), and if you don’t know where to go on the site, scrolling through the A to Z list involves scanning hundreds of individual sites, which is simply impractical.

Instead, I propose the University should organize its site hierarchically, similar to the folder systems on everyone’s computer. This would allow visitors to browse for the site they’re looking for for a given service (e.g. “Where do I go to register an event with ODUS?”), instead of relying on Google or the archaic A to Z list. For example, the site map could start with the categories used and others (Academic, Administration, Extracurricular, Athletic, etc.), and then upon clicking on one of these categories, a flowchart style listing of websites would appear which the user could further refine through sub-categories.

This change may not seem important, but in fact it is one of the most basic steps the University could take

to ensure students and others can take full advantage of all the services and opportunities available to them here. Especially for new freshmen, who don’t come in knowing about SAFE, the Integrated Course Engine, easyPCE and the myriad other useful sites like them, providing a more top-down, hierarchical organization to University websites makes ease of access more universal. For instance, before selecting their first courses in the fall, instead of relying on the chance they hear about easyPCE from an upperclassman friend or discover the residential colleges’ “Favorite Courses” sites, freshmen would be able to navigate through a hierarchical listing. This could include perhaps, Academics to Courses to Course Selection, which would list several sites like the Registrar’s Course Offerings page, easyPCE, the college “Favorite Courses” listings, the academic advising program sites and the sites of the college academic deans, among others. This would mean in practice that the full range of resources available to students would be utilized right out of the gate in freshman year and would help students make better decisions about their first classes to take by taking advantage of the full slate of opinions, reviews, etc. that could affect their decision.

Presumably, these offices and services are there for a reason, and

if they have a website they probably do some kind of public interfacing, serve “customers” (i.e. students, faculty, and visitors), or at least provide information useful to readers of the site. Thus the aim of having publicly available information and services is better achieved not by maintaining a loose, disorganized apparatus of sites across the University’s domain, but by having an easy-to-navigate folder-like system in which users can find the office whose service they need without having to already know it.

This isn’t a column in which I’ll argue for a controversial or sweeping change to a fundamental way in which the University conducts itself.

This simply is a recommendation for a simple fix to a small problem, that would make everyday life that much easier for students, faculty, and others without requiring much in the way of resources to solve. But small problems are worth fixing, because in this case it has an outsized practical effect in the lives of students. Many of the columns I and others write propose changes that simply will never come.

This is not that type of column, but instead a moderate, legitimately-feasible proposal that would make life for students easier at minimal cost.

Ryan Dukeman is a sophomore from Westwood, Mass. He can be reached at rdukeman@princeton.edu.

Sports

Thursday september 18, 2014

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

WOMEN’S

V LLEYBALL OFFENSIVE STANDOUT

13

TEAM STATS KILLS PER SET

Kendall Peterkin

JUNIOR RIGHT-SIDE HITTER SAN DIEGO, CA (LA JOLLA COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL)

2x

OPPONENTS

13.8

11.8

27 119

sets played

2014 Ivy League Player of the Week

.439

TIGERS

ACES PER SET

kills (#1 in the Ivy League by margin of 38)

TIGERS

OPPONENTS

1.1

1.3

MATCH HIGHS attack percentage vs. Holy Cross, 9/5/14

26

kills vs. Holy Cross, 9/13/14

DIGS PER SET

DEFENSIVE STANDOUT

4

Sarah Dashbach JUNIOR

TIGERS

OPPONENTS

17.5

16.1

LIBERO ATHERTON, CA (SACRED HEART PREP)

14

assists

27 125 sets played

RECENT RESULTS: DELAWARE INVITATIONAL 25

George Mason W (3-2)

SET 1

SET 2

25 20

Delaware W (3-2)

MATCH HIGH

30

25

16

15

25

Manhattan W (3-1)

25

SET 3

22

25

SET 4 25

SET 5

15 10

SET 2 28

26

21

SET 3

23

25

SET 4

25 16

SET 5

TIGERS SCORE OPPONENT SCORE

SET 1

SET 2

SET 3

SET 4

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Justin Frick ’10 (@HJFrick), formerly of the men’s track & field team

10

22

14

SET 1

digs vs. Delaware, 9/12/14

25 17

9

digs

(#2 in the Ivy League)

25

20

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