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Friday Feburary 4, 2022 vol. CXLVI no. 2
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ON CAMPUS
Lunar New Year on Princeton’s Campus
from The PROSPECT
The Lunar New Year can be a celebration that is at once intensely personal and introspective and also a deeply shared cultural experience. To better understand what this time looks like for students on Princeton’s campus, The Prospect solicited responses from The Daily Princetonian’s editors and staff. The following responses have been lightly edited for clarity.
LIA OPPERMAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
PSGU and Princeton Disability Collective petition posted in front of Nassau Hall on Jan. 23.
PGSU, Disability Collective petition for virtual learning options By Sidney Singer
Assistant News Editor
On Jan. 23, the first day of the spring semester, the Princeton Graduate Students United (PGSU) and Princeton Disability Collective posted a petition to the front entrance of Nassau Hall. The petition advocated for remote learning options for vulnerable students and staff during the spring 2022 semester. The petition was emailed to staff and students on Thursday, Jan. 20, and had 363 signatures on the day it was posted. The petition, according to an email from PGSU and the Princeton Disability Collective, asks for “the University to establish remote learning options for those who would, under the circumstances, prefer it” and specifies that they are not asking for a “return to lockdown.” The email also argued that T H I S W E E K I N F E AT U R E S
‘A community where you’re allowed to make mistakes’: Princeton student musicians find opportunity and relief through original music
Princeton student musicians write and record their own songs in communal studios or even dorm rooms, often debuting these songs on streaming platforms and at live venues on campus. Despite the challenges of Princeton, these students have made original music an integral part of their college experience. PA G E 9
“our lives are more valuable than Princeton’s desire to keep up appearances of a ‘normal’ Ivy League semester.” PGSU sent another email to students encouraging advocacy for online learning accommodations, encouraging students to call administrations between the hours of 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Jan. 21. The email also encouraged students to email Acting Dean of the Graduate School Cole Crittenden, Dean of the College Jill Dolan, and Medical Director of University Student Health (UHS) Dr. Melissa Marks before 4 p.m. on Jan. 21. In response to students’ concerns, Crittenden, Dolan, and Dean of the Faculty Gene Jarrett wrote an op-ed in The Daily Princetonian on Jan. 25, arguing for the safety and benefits of in-person learning. “In light of our vaccination and booster requirements, our mask-
ing requirements, and our current twice-weekly testing requirements for all students, we continue to believe that our mitigation efforts are sufficient to continue with the inperson learning that is so central to our mission,” Crittenden, Dolan, and Jarrett wrote. PGSU member Disha Karnad Jani GS said that “most students have been really supportive, but we haven’t really heard that much from the administration,” adding that “[a]t the department level, departments have been supportive, but it’s a little ad hoc.” Ellen Li ’23, a member of the Disability Collective, told the ‘Prince’ she has felt concerned by how COVID-19 policy is being currently handled by the University. “Administrators repeat the mantra that they are committed to in-person learning. Clearly, this See PETITION page 3
DATA While overall admissions (black) have fallen consistently, the U.’s waitlist admission rate (orange) has fluctuated wildly over the last two decades.
We looked at waitlist acceptance rates for Princeton and seven highly selective schools. Here’s what we found.
By Sam Kagan
Head Data Editor
In 2017, Princeton accepted 101 undergraduate students from its waitlist. In 2018, that number dropped to zero. Waitlist acceptance rates — the percentage of waitlisted students to whom a school offers admission — have varied greatly at the University and many of its peer institutions in recent years. Waitlist sizes have remained largely unchanged. This phenomenon contrasts sharply with overall undergraduate accep-
This Week on Campus
ACADEMIC
tance rates, which have consistently trended down for decades. Utilizing data from the Common Data Set, a collaborative datasharing project among institutions of higher education, The Daily Princetonian analyzed trends in undergraduate waitlist admissions at a collection of the country’s most selective colleges and universities. When available, the ‘Prince’ examined data on waitlist admissions from Princeton, Cornell University, Dartmouth College, Georgetown University, Northwestern University, Massachusetts Institute of Tech-
Having grown up in the United States, where trips to China in January and February were few and far between, experiencing Lunar New Year in Hangzhou was a revelation. For the week or so of Chinese festivities, it seemed that red firecrackers, stretching endlessly on either side of a string, were going off at every hour of the day and in every crevice of the city — and because most workers, except for those in the most essential services, have the week off, the streets were more crowded than ever. It’s a lot of revelry, yet it never felt excessive; that period of time, drenched in hot pot broth and pungent sorghum liquor, is meant to be spent with family and friends in anticipation of a fortuitous year ahead. Celebrating on Princeton’s campus, the best I could do is to imitate these traditions with the limited resources I had: harried pre-midnight dorm cleaning, watching the CCTV New Year’s Gala, and listening to some of my favorite Chinese music. The highlight of my day was visiting my friend’s room to partake in oranges and yee sang, a collection of pickled vegetables and fish that we mixed together while saying questionable wishes for the new year. To substitute for fresh fish, we used store-bought smoked salmon; something about the taste and texture, simultaneously foreign and familiar to the dish, felt suited to the occasion. Aster Zhang | Head Editor, The Prospect Lunar New Year has always been one of my favorite holidays. When I was one year old, I was adopted from China, so Lunar New Year is a time in which I feel particularly connected to my culture. Every year, my parents and I celebrate by decorating our house with red lanterns, paintings, and paper cuttings. In the past, we have spent the day watching dragon dances, or with family friends, making dumplings. For me, Lunar New Year is a time to spend time with family and friends and to welcome the start of the new year. In 2022, Lunar New Year fell on my birthday, so I felt especially lucky this year! Tiana Ruden | Senior Writer, The Prospect I live in a pretty independent family, which means eating dinner alone sometimes, only seeing glimpses of each other on the way to rehearsals, and rushing to school while my dad and sister are still asleep. To me, Lunar New Year is a day when time stops. At the dining table, our lives are no longer busy. Instead, we take time to arrange the dishes so my sister, the youngest of the family, can reach her favorite foods. We take time to position the chairs so my grandparents sit at the head of the table. We take time to wait for my grandpa, the oldest of the family, to take the first bite before we dig in, even if he insists that my sister and I eat first. As the spring semester has picked up speed, Lunar New Year has been a good opportunity to take a moment to slow down. Sitting at SCHouse with my friends, I was able to reflect on how I have begun to build a home away from home; I am grateful that my friends, despite not celebrating Lunar New Year themselves, were happy to put their own schedules on hold to ensure that I could have this experience. And for me, sure, I might have a problem set, some readings, and a draft essay due this week, but as I sat with my friends, I let time stand still and appreciated the moment. Kerrie Liang | Assistant Editor, The Prospect I’m not one to be in the habit of keeping — or even coming up with — New Year’s resolutions. At the beginning of each January, I watch with equal shades of amusement, perplexion, and curiosity as my friends create recurring Google Calendar events for trips to the gym, draft sweeping revisions to unstable sleep schedules, and toss together pescetarianfriendly arrangements at the Whitman College salad bar. I confess, I do enjoy watching the relentless pursuit of New Year’s resolutions; there’s a frenetic energy around, a bold pursuit of grand, ambitious ideals beholden to nothing and no one — a triumph of mind over matter. By the final week of the month, of course, it’s all over. Google Calendars no longer reflect reality; 10 a.m. wake-ups are back, and salad bar visits are merely a faded memory. The final week of January is when the status quo returns, the new-car smell of the year fades, and life continues — as it always does. Accordingly, it’s around this time every year that I congratulate myself for having not engaged in the foolhardy exercise of New Year’s resolutions in the first place. I think, perhaps, that’s why Lunar New Year — which usually falls around this exact time — appeals to me so much instead. The values and traditions of Lunar New Year demand nothing of you; there are no resolutions to painstakingly follow, no pressure to begin anew, or to commit to drastic life changes. Instead of setting rules for the year ahead, Lunar New Year expresses hope and joy; instead of telling us to do better in our lives, the holiday embraces the warmth and belonging already found around us. This year, on the evening of Feb. 1, I huddled inside SCHouse with a friend, the two of us laughing together over a bowl of steaming hot spicy beef. I needled him about when he’d stop going to the gym; he teased me about enabling his unproductive ways — such as eating out on Nassau Street on a Tuesday night. The snow was shoveled to the edges of the sidewalks outside; the semester was picking up steam; the year was already well underway. I think I can say this: Lunar New Year is a celebration of what we have instead of what we don’t. As the Year of the Tiger begins, that’s what I’m choosing to keep in mind. Joshua Yang | Contributing Writer, Features
See WAITLIST page 4
| GDSC Seminar: Joschka Fischer, “New Challenges in a Historically Challenged Region” — Feb. 4, 11:45 a.m., virtual or in person with RSVP A seminar given by Joschka Fischer, former German Minister of Foreign Affairs and Vice Federal Chancellor.
SPORTS
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ARTS | Behind the Curtain: An Introduction to Backstage Roles in the Performing Arts — Feb. 6, 2 p.m., Wallace Dance & Theater Learn about design and production roles in the performing arts and how to get involved. Open and free for all students!
Women’s Basketball vs Cornell — Feb. 4, 7 p.m., Jadwin Gym Check out Women’s Basketball as they take on two New York rivals this weekend in Jadwin Gym! The undefeated Tigers host Cornell today at 7 p.m. and Columbia on Saturday at 5 p.m.
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The Daily Princetonian
Friday Feburary 4, 2022
A look back at Christian Potter’s term as USG President USG AFFAIRS
By Alison Araten and Annie Rupertus Staff News Writers
Former Undergraduate Student Government (USG) President Christian Potter ’22 concluded his term last Monday, Jan. 24, as the first day of spring semester classes began. After Potter emailed his final report summarizing the 2021 USG term to the student body, The Daily Princetonian interviewed Potter and several of his USG colleagues, asking them to reflect on his experience in leadership, his proudest moments, and the difficulties he faced throughout the term. According to Potter, the priority at the beginning of his term last January was to respond to the many crises surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic while still working to enact changes in underlying aspects of the student experience. “We wanted to really deal with the pandemic and the situation that we were coming into in the spring of 2021,” he said, adding that he wanted to “find immediate solutions to a lot of pressing problems, but also deal with long-term problems.” Potter described the task of “leading a team during a pandemic” as the biggest challenge of his presidency, as the University transitioned from the virtual landscape to an inperson fall semester in 2021. “It’s almost night and day,” he said, comparing the two semesters of his term. “I was on Zoom for every single meeting throughout that whole [spring 2021] semester with my team. And it was really challenging to get up every
day and remember that these Zooms were meaningful.” One other challenge at the beginning of his term was the Social Contract, under which many students felt isolated. “I think the whole campus pretty much agreed that we were in a mental health crisis in the spring, and there were record CPS appointments,” Potter explained. “We were able to successfully secure a postponement of Dean’s Date actually, which is a totally unprecedented step from the administrative perspective.” USG Vice President Ashwin Mahadevan ’22 emphasized to the ‘Prince’ that USG had to strike a balance between working towards big-picture goals as well as managing unexpected COVID-related issues. “We couldn’t have planned to know [what] we were going to be doing,” Mahadevan said. He described being immersed in projects like the community dining program, and then “all of a sudden — there’s a COVID update, and we would have to respond to that.” He told the ‘Prince’ that he hopes this year’s Senate won’t have to deal with as much crisis management and will have the time to focus on more proactive, long-term initiatives. Despite these challenges, Potter’s colleagues praised his leadership. Mayu Takeuchi ’23, Potter’s successor as USG President and former Sustainability Chair, told the ‘Prince’ that Potter “did a particularly great job building relationships with administrators in a way that developed trust.”
“He really helped USG move forward with advocating for the student body and in doing so earned the trust of individual students,” Takeuchi said. In his year-end report, Potter describes conversations with department directors and various student task forces to achieve “interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary curricular paths.” “We are nearing the extraordinary possibility that Princeton could offer minors,” the report reads. “We were able to lay a longterm groundwork for other policy improvements in the University,“ he told the ‘Prince’. “I was Academics Chair before being USG President so that matters a lot to me.” He also emphasized the progress his administration made towards “introducing some new sort of cross-disciplinary degree programs, including potentially minors.” This sort of curriculum change would be a significant adjustment for the University. “The notion that Princeton would have minors — if you told me that when I joined the Academics Committee as a first-semester freshman, I would have laughed,” Potter said. In an interview with the ‘Prince’, Academics Chair Austin Davis ’23 highlighted additional academics-related strides in the past year. He described advocating for Zoom capability or recorded lectures for students in isolation as well as passing a midterm grading referendum with 89 percent support from the student body. In the realm of student life,
ON CAMPUS
COURTESY OF CHRISTIAN POTTER
Christian Potter ’22 served as USG president for 2021.
USG was also able to work towards implementing a community dining program, for which Potter “built a solid foundation,” according to Takeuchi. The community dining program, according to the USG website, intends to “develop a long-term and financially sustainable community dining program in which students will have greater options to dine at establishments in the town of Princeton.” Potter mentioned the human aspect of the job as one of his favorite aspects. “My favorite thing about being president was just being able to interact with more students than ever before,” he said. “I think my team did an
amazing job with the circumstances we were dealt with [in the spring], but coming into the fall semester, we had a lot more energy,” Potter added. He said he believes that many USG members ended up becoming closer as friends just from being able to work together. Alison Araten is a news staff writer for the ‘Prince’. She can be reached at aaraten@princeton. edu and @alisonaraten on Instagram. Annie Rupertus is a first-year from Philadelphia and a news staff writer who covers USG for the ‘Prince’. She can be reached at arupertus@princeton.edu or @ annierupertus on Instagram and Twitter.
STUDENT LIFE
All student employees receive 50 U. lifts 20-person event cent wage increase per NJ bill capacity limit for
undergraduate students
By Tess Weinreich News Staff Writer
In response to recent legislation dictating an increase in New Jersey minimum wage, bumping the floor for salaries statewide from $12 to $13, University students with jobs in the lowest pay-bracket will receive a 50 cent hourly raise this semester. Popular campus positions including Orange Key tour guides, book page library assistants, Reunions ushers, and campus recreation jobs, which were all previously paid $12.50 an hour, will now receive $13 an hour. Campus jobs are divided into three primary pay-brackets: “worker 1,” “worker 2,” and “manager/tutor” positions. A particular job’s classification is determined by level of supervision, requisite technical knowledge or previous experience, and difficulty of work. “Worker 1” positions (qualified as roles that are “structured,” requiring “little to no prior experience,” and having a “high level of supervision” by the Undergraduate Financial Aid Office website) are the only salary bracket directly affected by the statewide increase in minimum wage. The “worker 1” bracket, which includes popular campus positions such as Orange Key tour guides, book page library assistants, reunions ushers, and jobs in campus recreation, is the only employee group directly affected by the increased minimum wage. Such positions were previously paid $12.50 an hour, which falls below the newly mandated $13 minimum. However, with the new semester, the University adjusted the hourly rate for all salary-brackets by 50 cents: “worker 1” jobs from $12.50 to $13, “worker 2” jobs from $13.50 to $14, and “manager/tutor” positions from $15.50 to $16. In an email to The Daily Princetonian, University spokesperson Ayana Okoya said, “We do not anticipate that the increase in student wages will decrease the number of available positions.” Okoya specified, however, that wages are typically funded by indi-
By Bailey Glenetske
Assistant News Editor
JULIAN GOTTFRIED / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
The menu at Coffee Club located in Campus Club. vidual hiring departments. Covering the cost of increased wages have already necessitated adjustment for some student employers such as Coffee Club, which recently had to increase the price of certain menu items. According to the Club’s marketing director Ava Vilensky ’23, the student-run coffee shop currently employs 36 undergraduates, and all baristas will benefit from the 50 cent salary bump. “Our decision to increase prices is partially in response to the NJ minimum wage increase, as well as an increase in the price of our supplies due to supply chain issues,” she wrote in an email to the ‘Prince.’ “Our hope is that student employees will benefit from a slight increase in their wages.” For Amalia Haile-Manas ’25 who has worked as a barista at Coffee Club since early November, the raise marks “a step in the right direction.” “The pay shouldn’t be something that bars people from working here. Some people have to take jobs on campus that pay more because they need it to support themselves,” she said.“The 50 cent bump gets us a little closer, but I think we would want
to see more of an increase to make sure that anyone can work here.” This semester, only the salaries of student employees in the lowest pay-bracket are increased; however, student wages are expected to be on the rise in coming years. The Jan. 1 increase in New Jersey minimum wage is one part of a multi-phase plan to set statewide minimum wage at $15 per hour by 2024, outlined in a 2019 bill signed by Gov. Phil Murphy. As a consultant at the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning, Sarah Fry ’24 is among student employees whose position is not in the lowest pay-bracket. While her salary is unaffected this semester, she expressed support for the pay increase for student workers at large. “Every extra bit of cash helps especially for students who need to work as a way to support themselves financially while they’re here,” she said. “It’s definitely a positive change.” Tess Weinreich is a news staff writer and features contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at tw7353@princeton. edu.
As of Tuesday, Feb. 1, the University has lifted its COVID-19 protocol limiting the capacity of in-person events for undergraduate students to 20 people. In an email obtained by The Daily Princetonian, Bryan Blount ’08, the Assistant Dean and Manager of Strategic Communications for the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students (ODUS) told the Interclub Council (ICC) that “The 20-person [capacity limit] has expired, [and is] no longer in effect.” Deputy University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss confirmed this in an email to the ‘Prince,’ writing, “The temporary, 20-person limitation on the number of people in undergraduate student dormitory rooms or suites or off-campus residences has been lifted.” ICC President Schuyler Kean ’22 wrote to the
‘Prince’ in an email, “[I]n keeping with the University’s policy changes and guidance, regular dining will resume.” Kean added, “Large, indoor social events [in eating clubs] are still postponed until further notice, but ‘Welcome to the Club’ dinners and outdoor activities are fine as long as they remain within the confines of the University’s COVID policies.” The University’s COVID-19 Safe Practices website states, “University staff, students or faculty can host indoor and outdoor gatherings and events of any size on or off campus.” Eating clubs are currently involved in spring bicker, hosting both inperson and virtual events. Bailey Glenetske is an Assistant News Editor who often covers current University affairs and politics. She can be reached at bailey. glenetske@pr inceton.edu or on Instagram @bailey. glenetske.
CANDACE DO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Cottage Club, one of the eating clubs at Princeton.
The Daily Princetonian
Friday Feburary 4, 2022
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Jani: We know that a number of schools are starting online to protect the most vulnerable people and also to mitigate the spread PETITION Continued from page 1
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‘commitment’ is stronger than their commitment to student and staff health,” Li said in an interview. “Several students in the disability community have decided to take leaves of absence for their mental health and physical safety,” she added. “Others are in a constant state of anxiety over the possibility of infection, especially now that there are shared dorm spaces with students who test positive for COVID.” Li is an Associate Features Editor Emerita for the ‘Prince.’ The Princeton Disability Collective also expressed disappointment
over administrators latest stance on in-person learning, conveyed in the Jan. 25 op-ed. “[Dolan, Crittenden, and Jarrett] further neglect to acknowledge the risk of long COVID, the increased transmissibility of Omicron, and the particular risk of complications faced by those with pre-existing conditions,” Li said. Jani indicated similar concerns to Li. “Prioritizing the illusion of a completely normal Ivy League semester over some of the most vulnerable people in our community seems like a mistake,” Jani said. Asked to comment on these statements, the University referred the ‘Prince’ back to the op-ed.
“This commitment [to in-person learning] is informed by the significant educational benefits associated with this mode of learning; the success we have already had over the fall semester with our mitigation efforts; and recommendations based on up-to-date modeling of infection rates that were made by the University’s public health team, which includes clinical and faculty experts,” wrote Crittenden, Dolan, and Jarrett in the op-ed. Other universities delayed their in-person semesters, with local universities such as Rutgers-New Brunswick and Columbia University not resuming in-person classes until Jan. 31. Yale delayed plans for the spring semester until Tuesday,
Jan. 25. Pennsylvania State University and the University of Michigan started the semester in person with classes and activities held as scheduled. “We know that a number of schools are starting online to protect the most vulnerable people and also to mitigate the spread and not overwhelm the University Health Services,” Jani said. “It’s also worth noting that we’re not the only group calling for [accommodations].” Last week, the Harvard Graduate Student Union (HGSU-UAW) asked for “increased social distancing in indoor spaces, waivers for mental health costs, undergraduate isolation housing, contract tracing, and improved COVID-19 guidance and
accommodation.” The petition by the PGSU and the Princeton Disability Collective demanded that Princeton prioritize the health and safety of students in the spring. “We have the resources and the time to put a plan in place now for a safe and effective teaching and learning semester. Our health and safety matter. Princeton, start acting like it,” the petition stated. Sidney Singer is an Assistant News Editor who has covered a variety of news on and around campus. She can be reached at sidneysinger@princeton. edu, on Twitter @sidneylsinger, or on Instagram @sidneysinger.
STUDENT LIFE
Princeton students visit U.S. military base where over 6,000 Afghan evacuees await resettlement By Edward Tian
Senior News Writer
On Friday, Jan. 29, a group of Princeton students with the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) and the Office of Religious Life (ORL) traveled 45 minutes from campus to Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst (JBMDL), often referred to as Fort Dix, a U.S. military base in New Jersey where more than 6,000 Afghan evacuees are still awaiting resettlement. In JBMDL, Village 3, Tent 1, a 25-year-old Afghan evacuee asked students, “Who wants to help Afghan people?” Every member of the Princeton delegation raised their hand. According to Katherine Clifton ’15, an organizer of the trip from Princeton’s ORL, the eventual goal for the group is to launch a tutoring program for English and computer literacy that matches Afghan guests with Princeton students. “The most important thing you can do for our people right now is to teach us English,” one of the Afghan panelists, Alin, said. The Daily Princetonian gave all the quoted Afghan panelists pseudonyms, including Alin, for the purposes of this piece in an effort to protect the safety of the individuals’ family members still in Afghanistan. As part of Operation Allies Welcome, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. military
have transformed areas of Fort Dix into a makeshift society, with on-site medical care and three residential sections, or “villages.” Each village has a U.S. military “mayor,” prayer rooms, and educational programming. More than 20,000 Afghan guests, as they are officially referred to by Fort Dix officials, have passed through the villages since August 2021. Students were transported by a government bus to Village 3 — the largest of the three settlements. There, students were permitted to interact with any Afghan evacuee interested in higher education. In addition to casual conversations, formal programming included a panel of Afghan guests, moderated by Amaney Jamal, Dean of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and a Q&A with Brett Dreyer, the Department of Homeland Security’s deputy federal coordinator for Operation Allies Welcome at JBMDL. Dean Jamal introduced the Afghan panelists — pseudonymously, Zaria, Aliya, and Alin — and commended them for their perseverance and patience. Jamal, herself an immigrant to the United States from Palestine, said she felt deep empathy for their trauma, guilt, and sadness from leaving their country. Kennedy Walls ’24, a sophomore studying medical anthropology, told the ‘Prince’ she was particularly “enthralled” by Zaria’s sto-
THE MINI CROSSWORD By Katherine Dailey Staff Constructor
MINI #1
ry. Zaria was as an Afghan medical student who fled from Kabul to Qatar in August, before arriving at Fort Dix. She told the students that her dream was to complete her higher education and become a professor. “What motivates me most is my family back in Afghanistan. They all have the same experiences as me, but they are not here,” Zaria said at the panel. “The opportunities that my sisters, similar to me but younger and smarter, do not have, I would like to use that to at least put a smile on their lips.” Jamal ended the session by asking the panelists whether they had any questions for the Princeton students. Zaria did not have a question. Instead, she said to the students: “Don’t forget Afghanistan.” “Those words really stuck with me,” Walls told the ‘Prince.’ “With how news and media [are] today, it’s easy to latch onto a story then let it fade away, but here we saw that the lives of Afghan refugees have been changed forever.” On the opposite side of the room, Afghan children sat in rows on gym mats while watching television. Some did not understand the English animations, but their eyes were captivated. Three airmen watched over the children; one was Johana Aguilar, a technical sergeant in her 12th year of active duty in the air force, who immigrated to the United States from Panama.
“I can really identify with the guests because I was once there,” Aguilar said. “I tell the ladies to watch television, because that’s how I learned English, by watching cartoons with my kid.” “Everyone was so eager to learn that they copied down everything I wrote on the whiteboard,” said Homiera Walter, one of several United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) volunteers at the base, who taught English at Fort Dix. Walter herself left Afghanistan when she was seven years old; as a resident of New Jersey, she wanted to find a way to give back to Afghan evacuees and now volunteers at Fort Dix through USCCB. “Any Afghan woman would give their lives to get their children educated,” Walter added, “because education has been taken away from them far too many times.” According to Walter, the education system for evacuees was extremely ad hoc when she first started volunteering in October. “There were different formulas for every base. Even in Fort Dix, the education in Village 1 was only run by Afghan guests until a month ago,” Walter said. According to Dreyer, every week, resources and living conditions are constantly improving for the guests, where “drop by drop the river builds.” “At first the tents did not have heating,” said Dreyer, the Homeland Security of-
ficial. Tents are now fully heated and insulated. Initially, the Fort Dix healthcare was reliant on local New Jersey hospitals. “We have since built a hospital with nearly 100 staff on base,” Dreyer added. Since January, evacuees can now also reserve laptop time to access computers. Dreyer also recognized that the operation has not been without challenges, including a measles outbreak and a stillborn baby in the hospital. “A part of the reason we are engaging with institutions like Princeton is to chip away at the enormous strain on resettlement agencies,” said Adriel Taslim, the DHS Vocational Training Lead. In addition to USCCB and Princeton, Taslim also organized educational events from Verizon and Google on Friday. “The experience instilled in me a duty to help,” Walls said. “My biggest takeaway from listening to the guests is that at the heart of what they want is not personal success, but to help uplift other Afghans.” According to Clifton, Princeton could start sending students to tutor Afghan guests as soon as next Friday, Feb. 11. Edward Tian is a news and features writer who experiments with data-driven and alternative story format (ASF) reporting. He can be reached on Twitter @edward_the6.
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The Daily Princetonian
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Friday Feburary 4, 2022
Princeton’s waitlist tendencies mirror those of peer institutions WAITLIST Continued from page 1
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nology (MIT), Stanford University, and the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). Due to inconsistencies in the Common Data Set, the ‘Prince’ collected various depths of admissions information. All of the data continues up to 2020, but data from Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, MIT, and Northwestern begins in 2003, data from Stanford begins in 2008, and data from Georgetown and Penn begins in 2009. Sarah Graham ’03, the director of college counseling at Princeton Day School, a local pre-K to 12 private school, pointed to the randomness of student choice as a key factor in the variation. “All the predictive models in the world, sometimes, can’t necessarily capture the decision-making of teenagers,” Graham said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ She served as an admission officer at the University from 2003 to 2005. “I see that play out year after year too … sometimes it’s really random how teenagers make decisions.” Jeffrey Durso-Finley, the co-di-
rector of college counseling at the Lawrenceville School, a local boarding high school, and a former admission officer at Brown, agreed: “You’re dealing with the natural variation of the inclination of 18-year-old kids. There’s a little bit of randomness to it.” From 2003 to 2020, Princeton offered a spot on the waitlist to an average of 1,153 undergraduate applicants. On average, 823 applicants accepted this offer. Both of these number rarely shifted dramatically — 75 percent of Princeton waitlists that the ‘Prince’ analyzed included between 789 and 906 students. In 2020, the most recent year for which data is available, Princeton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Georgetown, Northwestern, MIT, Penn, and Stanford received a combined total of over 270,000 undergraduate applications. While the number of applications continues to rise, the size of waitlists has not significantly changed from year to year. According to Durso-Finley, the University’s waitlist tendencies mirror those of its peer institutions. “I don’t find the way Princeton operates their waitlist to be substantively different from any of the other hyper-selective schools,” said Durso-Finley, who has worked at Lawrenceville for over two decades. “Their applicant pool is so strong and their matriculation rate is so high, they don’t often need to go to the waiting list because they make
their class based on the modeling they use.” In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ Deputy University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss emphasized Durso-Finley’s claim, highlighting the school’s robust applicant pool. “We are fortunate to have a strong applicant pool each year that includes many highly qualified and interesting students who would make great contributions to the campus,” he wrote. “And each year, there are more such students than we have seats in the class.” During the period for which the ‘Prince’ collected data, a few institutions seem to have admitted students from their waitlist slightly more consistently than others. Georgetown, for example, always accepted at least two students from the waitlist, welcoming 50 or greater during every year except for two. MIT, by contrast, admitted zero students from their waitlist in a third of the years for which the ‘Prince’ collected data. Brian Li ’24, explained that often the same students are waitlisted at multiple highly selective colleges. Li is a head advising fellow for Matriculate, a volunteer college-advising organization that partners highachieving, low-income students
with peer college counselors. “Oftentimes you’ll have many colleges vying for the same candidate and ultimately the student only gets to deposit in one place,” he explained. Durso-Finley said that this phenomenon can cause a ripple effect across the admissions ecosystem. He illustrated the concept through a hypothetical: “A school has a ton of cross-admits in the northeast with Harvard, say. And all of the sudden they get some news that Harvard’s going in for 100 kids. Tufts is freaking out … a big number of those kids might come from their class.” “So, all of [a] sudden,” he continued. “Tufts now has to go in to reflect what they lose to Harvard. Okay, now there’s another school down the chain that’s going to as well … the waitlist numbers are not specific to the institution because how they vary is also affected from other institutions.” Data from this year’s survey of incoming University first-years indicates that at least 39 percent of respondents were also admitted to at least one other Ivy League institution, demonstrating the heavy admissions overlap at peer institutions. Despite their idiosyncrasies and challenges for prospective students and admissions offices alike, widely agreed that waitlists are a necessary part of the college process. “A college needs to meet its numbers,” Graham said. “They don’t want to under-enroll and not admit
enough students, but the other thing at a place that’s a residential community is you can’t over-enroll … the waitlist helps make sure that they can kind of manage that enrollment.” Hotchkiss further confirmed this practice. “Once we know how many of the admitted students plan to enroll,” he wrote in an email to the ‘Prince,’ “we turn to the waitlist to ensure that all seats in a class are filled.” Beyond simply filling seats, waitlists can also help schools address demographic or interest-based deficiencies in their admission pool, allowing admissions officers to balance the incoming class across demographics and interests. “They’re using the waitlist to tweak, to fashion it a little bit more in the way in which they’re targeting,” Durso-Finley said. He later continued, “If a hyperselective school thinks they’re going to go in for 25 kids and they do the analysis of their class and they are over-enrolled in what they predicted the engineering population to be and you’re a kid on the waiting list who’s an engineer, they’re probably not going to go to you.” When examining trends across highly selective institutions, one might be wise to aggregate their data, given that these schools likely draw similar applicant pools. This practice results in noticeably more consistent year-to-year waitlist admission patterns. Variation remains, but it is less regular and less dramatic. Although
“
“You’re dealing with the natural variation of the inclination of 18-year-old kids. There’s a little bit of randomness to it.”
”
Jeffrey Durso-Finley, co-director of college counseling at the Lawrenceville High School aggregating data can smooth trends, this change is also likely driven by the fact that a number of the listed institutions have considerable overlap in their waitlist pools. The University declined to comment on the specific details of its waitlist process and the data the ‘Prince’ acquired cannot fully explain the myriad factors behind waitlist admission. The Common Data Set rarely indicates how many students choose to enroll in a given school after being admitted from the waitlist, and there is no publicly accessible way to precisely assess the overlap between various waitlist pools. Resting at the confluence of overwhelming quantity and unpredictable decision-making, waitlist
acceptance rates at highly selective colleges and universities are subject to significant variation. The processes that govern waitlist acceptances are a combination of secretive and random, creating scattershot results that buck conventional admission trends. Sam Kagan is the Head Data Editor and a senior writer with experience reporting on University finances, alumni in government, University COVID-19 policy, and more. His projects, including the Frosh Survey, focus on numerical storytelling and data journalism. He previously served as a news editor. Sam can be reached at skagan@princeton.edu or on Twitter @thesamkagan.
HEADLINE FROM HISTORY
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COLD WAVE: SUBFREEZING WEATHER REDDENS EARS, NOSES; STATE LAW FORBIDS CHILLY DORMITORY ROOMS FEB 4, 1971
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The Daily Princetonian
Friday Feburary 4, 2022
page 5
T his Week in Photos
By Candace Do
Head Photo Editor
Isabel Richardson
Associate Photo Editor
Students once again gather together to eat inside the dining halls.
ISABEL RICHARDSON / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Murray Dodge Cafe partially opens to offer free grab-and-go cookies.
ISABEL RICHARDSON / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Students walk into Cap and Gown Club, one of the University’s six bicker clubs. This week, sophomores and some juniors are bickering or signing in to join eating clubs.
CANDACE DO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Cartoon
Picking Up The Pieces By Ambri Ma Head Cartoon Editor
page 6
Star Studded
The Daily Princetonian
Friday Feburary 4, 2022
By Jaeda Woodruff Staff Constructor
1 4 8 14 15 16 17 18 20 22 23 25 30 31 32 33 36 37
ACROSS
Autumn mo. “Highway to Hell” band Italicizes Pop star Rita Organizer of a couple’s cruise? Shapely shrubbery Tax org. *Falls apart “Gosh darn it!” Going (over) *___ d’Amérique Columbia athletes Relent Ball park licensee Self starter? Operatic solo Capts.’ subordinates Copernicus’ planetary model ... and a feature of the answers to starred clues
40 Rude awakening 41 Fires (up) 42 Computing pioneer Lovelace 43 “Woah, back up” 45 “To-be-covered” list 48 “Check it out!” 49 *Folds, as a business 52 __ of Capricorn 54 What there’s no “I” in 55 *“No way!” 60 Grp. that opposed March for Our Lives 61 Steak order 62 Broadcasts 63 “Look what I __!”
64 Cleans, as a chimney 65 Did groundbreaking work? 66 “Finding Nemo” setting
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 19 21 24 26 27 28 29 31 33 34 35 37 38 39
DOWN
Evening gala Thiss and thaat Alternatives to bow ties? Mandela’s org. Confine Matt of “The Martian” Mon __ Cold-shoulder “A Wrinkle in Time” author Madeleine Subtract a negative Greenpeace or the Red Cross, for short Pin number? Lima-to-Buenos Aires dir. Palindromic member of the fam Work boot feature Daughter of Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise Regrettable occurrence Miscellany Oscorp founder in “Spiderman,” to friends Soon-to-be grads: Abbr. Tank High/low card Set maker? Outs’ opposites __ sapiens Decide not to join, with “out” Topper for 3-Down
MINI #2
40 44 45 46 47 49
Lively Irish dance Frames “You gave me quite __!” Sweetums Fleet “X __ Give It to Ya” by DMX 50 TV host who said “You get a car!”
51 “Old MacDonald” refrain 53 Captain Morgan and others 55 Designs with ® symbols: Abbr. 56 Give the ax? 57 Gator pursuer? 58 Draw 59 Cause of a trip
HANNAH MITTLEMAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
The Minis MINI #3
By Katherine Dailey Staff Constructor
BONUS: Read the top word of all three minis to reveal a secret message
ACROSS
ACROSS
1 Ballet step where the toe meets the knee
1 What Jake Gyllenhaal stole from Taylor Swift, allegedly
6 High-ranking
6 Princeton mascot
7 Rafael who just set a Grand Slam record
7 QB defenders
8 “That’s ___,” in a song 9 Soloist? 1 Punitive
DOWN
8 Played Minecraft, maybe 9 Senate runner
DOWN
1 Annoy downstairs neighbors, maybe
2 Remember the ___
2 Eyelashes, scientifically
3 Important Phoenician city
3 Sitting in a cask, say
4 It might be glassy or icy
4 Actress Zellweger
5 One who might hunt Flotsam and Jetsam
5 Twin of George in “Harry Potter”
Scan to check your answers and try more of our puzzles online!
Opinion
Friday Feburary 4, 2022
page 7
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } vol. cxlvi
editor-in-chief Marie-Rose Sheinerman ’23 business manager Benjamin Cai ’24
BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 second vice president David Baumgarten ’06 secretary Chanakya A. Sethi ’07 treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90 assistant treasurer Kavita Saini ’09
trustees Francesca Barber Kathleen Crown Suzanne Dance ’96 Gabriel Debenedetti ’12 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 Michael Grabell ’03 John G. Horan ’74 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Julianne Escobedo Shepherd Abigail Williams ’14 Tyler Woulfe ’07 trustees ex officio Marie-Rose Sheinerman ’23 Benjamin Cai ’24
146TH MANAGING BOARD managing editors Omar Farah ’23 Tanvi Nibhanupudi ’23 Caitlin Limestahl ’23 Zachariah Wirtschafter Sippy ’23 Strategic initiative directors Accessibility Education Isabel Rodrigues ’23 Evelyn Doskoch ’23 José Pablo Fernández García ’23 Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Financial Stipend Program and Belonging Rooya Rahin ’23 Mollika Jai Singh ’24 Melat Bekele ’24 Sections listed in alphabetical order.
head cartoon editors Inci Karaaslan ’24 Ambri Ma ’24 associate cartoon editor Ariana Borromeo ’24 head copy editors Alexandra Hong ’23 Nathalie Verlinde ’24 associate copy editors Catie Parker ’23 Cecilia Zubler ’23 head web design and development editors Anika Maskara ’23 Brian Tieu ’23 associate web design and development editor Ananya Grover ’24 head graphics editors Ashley Chung ’23 Noreen Hosny ’25 instagram design editor Rowen Gesue ’24 print design editor Juliana Wojtenko ’23 head enterprise and investigation editor Evelyn Doskoch ’23 head data editor Sam Kagan ’24 head features editors Alex Gjaja ’23 Rachel Sturley ’23 associate features editor Sydney Eck ’24 head news editors Katherine Dailey ’24 Andrew Somerville ’24 associate news editors Kalena Blake ’24 Anika Buch ’24 Miguel Gracia-Zhang ’23 Sandeep Mangat ’24 newsletter editors Kareena Bhakta ’24 Amy Ciceu ’24 Aditi Desai ’24
head opinion editor Genrietta Churbanova ’24 columnist editor Kristal Grant ’24 community editor Rohit A. Narayanan ’24 associate opinion editors Won-Jae Chang ’24 Mollika Jai Singh ’24 head photo editor Candace Do ’24 associate photo editor Angel Kuo ’24 Isabel Richardson ’24 head podcast editor Hope Perry ’24 associate podcast editors Jack Anderson ’24 Eden Teshome ’25
head puzzles editors Gabriel Robare ’24 Owen Travis ’24 associate puzzles editors Juliet Corless ’24 Joah Macosko ’25 Cole Vandenberg ’24 head satire editor Claire Silberman ’23 associate satire editors Spencer Bauman ’25 Daniel Viorica ’25 head sports editors Wilson Conn ’25 Julia Nguyen ’24 associate sports editor Ben Burns ’23 Elizabeth Evanko ’23 associate video editors Daniel Drake ’24 Marko Petrovic ’24
John Cardwell ’25 Jack Curtin ’25 Diya Dalia ’24 Jonathan Lee ’24 Juliana Li ’24 Emma Limor ’25 Justin Ong ’23 Xabier Sardina ’24 business associate Jasmine Zhang ’24
146TH TECHNOLOGY BOARD chief technology officer Pranav Avva ’24 lead software engineers Roma Bhattacharjee ’25 Joanna Tang ’24
software engineers Eugenie Choi ’24 Giao Vu Dinh ’24 Daniel Hu ’25 Dwaipayan Saha ’24 Kohei Sanno ’25
THIS PRINT ISSUE WAS DESIGNED BY Dimitar Chakarov ’24 Ariana Di Landro ’25 Mark Dodici ’22 Noreen Hosny ’25
Laya Reddy columnist
I
n a 2021 study by the Financial Times, 16 to 24 year-olds were the least likely to be financially adept of all age groups surveyed. Yet, in a survey conducted by D. A. Davidson & co., “more than 70% of Gen Z respondents said that having greater financial literacy would have helped them better manage their finances,” especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Why does our generation miss out on developing a skill set that could make or break our financial stability? This trend largely stems from a lack of accessible education on everyday finance. As a result, college students must seek out financial education on their own for their long-term success. When traditional schooling prioritizes core academic subjects such as math, science, languages, and social sciences, it often leaves practical education such as personal finance to the wayside. Often, the only instruction young people receive on money, budgeting, insurance, and taxes — all crucial to ‘adulting’ — is from their families. While most of us gain our life skills from our parents, familial instruction in finances can vary greatly based on our parents’ experiences, occupations, and backgrounds. In comparison, implementing formal financial education consistently had a strong, positive effect on individu-
head prospect editors José Pablo Fernández García ’23 Aster Zhang ’24 associate prospect editors Molly Cutler ’23 Cathleen Weng ’24
146TH BUSINESS BOARD assistant business manager Shirley Ren ’24 business directors David Akpokiere ’24 Samantha Lee ’24 Ananya Parashar ’24 Gloria Wang ’24 project managers Anika Agarwal ’25
Making money in the concrete jungle: Financial literacy on Princeton’s campus
Brooke McCarthy ’25 Annie Rupertus ’25 Juliana Wojtenko ’23
AND COPIED BY
Tiffany Cao ’24 and Jason Luo ’25
als’ financial skills in a recent study. High schools have been pushing mandatory personal finance classes in their policy or under state directives, with up to 25 states passing such legislation. However, these one-semester classes are both rarely accessible to low-income students and too short-term to deal with the changing challenges of managing your finances in the long run. Consequently, not being financially adept both prolongs the socioeconomic divide in our country and prevents thousands of young people from achieving financial success over their lifetimes. During an interview with the University’s Financial Literacy Initiative team, I learned how this experience of helplessness can feel amplified at Princeton. Program Development Strategist and first-generation, low-income student Sabrina Fay ’22 said, “For those who’ve never had money to manage before, figuring out how to budget [the] FSI summer stipend and financial aid releases are real problems.” However, financial education is not so far out of reach and is actually within grasp at Princeton. In 2019, the University founded the Financial Literacy Initiative, which is dedicated to “empowering students with the resources needed to cultivate financial wellness during their time at Princeton and beyond.” Outside of their comprehensive resources guide for key personal finance topics, their programming is “geared to helping those who have no experience with money”
ANGEL KUO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Julis Romo Rabinowitz Building.
and “tuned in to student needs,” according to Suzanne Bellan, Program Lead for the Financial Literacy Initiative. They also recently ran a Professional and Financial Journeys Panel and a General Investing Workshop with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in October. So why should you personally devote time to becoming financially adept now? Princeton students are already committed to rigorous coursework, demanding extracurriculars, and intensive athletic schedules. But while there’s some merit to streamlining your focus in college, it doesn’t account for learning life skills holistically. Having attended the “Professional Journeys Panel,” the advice of Dr. Alana Arnold ’08, a pediatric emergency medicine doctor, struck me as particularly insightful. Despite her well-paying job in the medical field, she spent time becoming well-versed in financial skills. She was convinced that acquiring those skills earlier on, especially when struggling with loans and not earning a salary in medical school, would have greatly improved her finances. Her experience attests to the universal value of being financially adept regardless of background or interests. Every undergraduate has to meet arduous distribution requirements, attend a writing seminar class, complete independent research their junior year, and craft an original thesis project by the end of their time in the Orange Bubble. All of these rigorous requirements are built-in to the Princeton experience to best prepare students for future academic and professional pursuits, but there is no such counterpart for the lifelong demands of personal finance. Today, it’s vital to learn more about budgeting, credit, savings, investing, and other financial needto-know. The onus falls on students to carve out time to prioritize their financial education on campus. Laya Reddy is a first-year from Chicago, Ill. intending to concentrate in economics. She’s an avocado-lover who enjoys a good murder mystery and beach days. She can be reached at lr3956@ princeton.edu.
Let’s actually take a break over winter break Ava Milberg columnist
A
s Dean’s Date drew closer in December and finals were mere days away, all Princeton students could agree on one thing: it was time for a break. After consecutive weeks of intense studying and little sleep, the thought of seemingly endless weeks of unstructured time without any assignments could not be more appealing. However, while a lengthy winter break is wonderful in theory, in reality for some students, it can bring its own challenges. Upon returning to school, I noticed how both myself and many of my classmates remarked that we “did nothing” over break and characterized the past several weeks as “unproductive,” casting them in a somewhat negative light. Why do we tend to see these supposedly restful days as, to some extent, worthless? Perhaps, as we quickly transition from writing lengthy final papers into the wee hours of the night to binging a Netflix series in those same hours, the contrast between our highly productive reading period and our relatively “unproductive” winter break is amplified. Though this contrast may lead us to cast doubt on the benefits of the lengthy break, it is important to realize that unique value exists in slowing down and easing
up. There is significant merit in carving out time for sheer leisure and recreation, whether that be watching Netflix, reading a book, cooking, or any other hobby that falls to the wayside during the busy semester. Without a sufficient break where we actually allow ourselves to take our minds off of school and incessant productivity, our ability to be productive will be inevitably impacted when we need it the most. Thus, instead of viewing the “doing nothing” of our winter break days as falling short of some lofty work-related ambitions, we should recast them in a different light. These days are important precisely because of their nothingness; they serve as a blank canvas, giving us space to explore new subjects, take up new pastimes, and connect with people we have not seen in months. Many students may feel differently and choose to keep up with their high level of productivity over winter break by pursuing internships, jobs, research opportunities, or personal projects. These activities all hold great value and I commend those who have the inspiration and energy to engage in these activities over break. However, for students like myself who find themselves losing steam as the semester comes to an end, it is important to give ourselves time to reset and unwind so that we can be present and productive during the semester.
It is true that too much of anything is never a good thing. If all 52 weeks of the year were filled with endless relaxation, then it might be worth reassessing how we structure our time. However, winter break is only a select few weeks of unwinding that interrupt stressful months of burnout-inducing study. They should be spent in ways that permit a true break — without any guilt associated. Our vacation days will inevitably and necessarily look different than those during reading period. Before winter break I could not even recall the last time I sat and watched a movie in its entirety, but over the break, I did this many times. Rather than viewing this in a negative light and criticizing myself for consuming too much television and not enough “highbrow” literature, I have realized how important it is for me and other students to regard such extensive yet much-needed leisure as a unique opportunity. While the literature is not going away, the nearly boundless free time is. And while we are often convinced that we must fill our days with impressive and fascinating agendas, sometimes what we need most is some bona fide rest. Ava Milberg is a sophomore from New York City. She can be reached at amilberg@princeton.edu.
Opinion
Friday Feburary 4, 2022
page 8
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }
A Collective Voice: Mission Statement of the 146th Ed Board
Daily Princetonian Editorial Board
T
he 146th Daily Princetonian Editorial Board is a group of senior editors and writers dedicated to writing signed editorials that speak on campus and community issues. These editorials are collective endeavors; though often first drafted by the Chair of the Editorial Board, they are edited as a group following thorough discussion and debate, and thus represent the consensus of the group. When consensus cannot be reached, Board members are encouraged to write signed dissents, which will be published alongside the majority’s editorial. The 146th Editorial Board strives to be inclusive, thorough, and action-oriented, using the guiding principles of mutual respect and intentionality in our work. We dedicate ourselves to accountability: holding the University, the student body, and most importantly, ourselves accountable. From University policies to student politics to issues within our own organization, we dedicate ourselves to writing editorials that speak on existing campus conversations and initiate new and sometimes uncomfortable ones that have often been overlooked. We will strive to be advocates of marginalized
groups on campus and to uplift the many voices in those communities whose work on key issues must be spotlighted. The Editorial Board does not claim to represent the voice of any one community. We do not and cannot represent every voice on the ‘Prince’ or to be the voice of the identity groups and communities we individually inhabit; we believe that no one should or can carry the burden of being a representative of their entire communities. Rather, this Board’s pieces will rest on the collective voice of its nine
individual contributors, who have devoted a portion of their year to participating in challenging discussions, understanding each other’s worldviews, and working together to provide what we hope will be insightful and driven editorials. We are a diverse group of editors, hailing from different countries and belonging to many communities. Members of our Board come from the Class of 2023 and 2024 and have all worked in different sections across the ‘Prince,’ from opinion to features to newsletter.
We acknowledge that historically, some pieces written by the ‘Prince’ Editorial Board contributed to alienating and harming marginalized members of the Princeton community. We represent a new generation of Princetonian editors who are committed to elevating voices on campus that have not historically been heard. Do no harm will be our formative principle. In striving to reflect the shift in how the ‘Prince’ approaches its role as a community newspaper, we are committed to using that voice to bring issues that affect
the marginalized members of our community to the forefront. As a Board we cannot speak to the struggles of every identity, and there are going to be topics that fall outside of our daily lives, which is why we ask for you to engage with us and to feel comfortable sending us issues you feel significantly impact members of the campus and town community. Please find our contact information below or reach out on our Contact Us page. 146th Editorial Board Chair Rooya Rahin Members Won-Jae Chang Genrietta Churbanova Omar Jason Farah Kristal H. Grant Caitlin Limestahl Rohit Narayanan Tanvi Nibhanupudi Isabel Rodrigues
BENJAMIN BALL / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
To contact the Editorial Board, email the Board at edboard@dailypr incetonian.com. To submit a Guest Opinion, reach out to opini o n @d a i ly p r in c e t o n i a n . com.
48 University Place, home of The Daily Princetonian.
Letter from the Editor
A community paper, building trust, and the stories that have yet to be told Marie-Rose Sheinerman Editor-in-Chief
In thinking about the role The Daily Princetonian ought to play on Princeton’s campus, I’ve been considering what it means to build trust — on the level of an individual, a group, and an entire community. Late last March, an individual took the courageous step of reaching out to me to tell their story. They were experiencing anguish after being accused of violating the Honor Code, a process that left them feeling powerless and alienated by the university they loved. Reaching out to a reporter wasn’t an easy step for them to take. It involved divulging one of the most difficult moments of their life to someone they had never met. It involved reliving — on a Zoom interview with a stranger — a moment of trauma. For me, that individual’s courage lit the flame. Nearly eight months later, the ‘Prince’ published their story. “Life after accusation: Inside Princeton’s Honor Code,” by the time it was published on Nov. 18, weaved together interviews with eight students who had been through the disciplinary process, three past or current student leaders of the Honor Committee, two faculty members, two administrators, six Peer Representatives, and four
alumni. In the end, the story was over 5,000 words and relied on the work of two student photographers, a web designer, a print designer, a team of copy staffers, no fewer than four editors, and two reporters. But it all started with one person taking a leap of faith and putting their trust in the ‘Prince.’ Working on that story and several others, I saw in the most intimate of ways what it looks like when a community paper works each day to earn the trust of the community it serves. At its core, the ‘Prince’ is a community paper. It’s run by a group of students who live their lives alongside the readers they serve: we eat in the same dining halls and eating clubs, we sit in the same lecture halls and log onto the same Zoom classes, and we’ve been just as impacted by the challenges of the past two years as any of our classmates. Like any good local newspaper, our reporters are members of the community whose stories it is their role to tell. That fact is precisely what makes local and student journalism so vital: No one is better positioned to uplift a community’s stories — and to do so with respect, integrity, and empathy — than the people within it. We at the ‘Prince’ are guided by a sense of responsibility. As an independent news organization, we task ourselves with holding those in power on this campus accountable. I truly believe — in part, because I’ve seen it happen — that we have
the ability to elevate the voices in this community that most need to be heard and to persevere in the face of challenges to craft the difficult stories that need to be told. But we can only be all this and do all this when we have the trust of the community we serve. And that starts with the trust of individuals. Last week — my first on the job — two individuals put their faith in the ‘Prince.’ On Jan. 24, we published the work of AJ Lonski ’23. The moving piece was about his experiences with homophobia on the varsity wrestling team and his call for the University’s ostensible commitment to inclusion to extend to its athletics culture. On Jan. 26, we published an anonymous student’s account of her experience seeking justice through Princeton’s sexual assault reporting system and her argument that Princeton failed her as a survivor.
In coming to us with their stories, both of these students showed unyielding courage and strength. And in turn, our team worked to approach their stories with decency and humanity; to do the stories and the individuals at the center of them justice; and to be fearless in the work of serving our community. The work we do as an organization is the work of storytelling. Perhaps the most powerful impact of stories is that they can make us feel less alone. I saw this first-hand in the days after the Honor Code investigation was published. Several students reached out to me privately to say that reading about the experiences of fellow students — particularly first-generation low-income students — with the honor system, had left them feeling less ashamed of and less alone with their own experiences. I’m proud of the stories told
and conversations sparked by my predecessors and I know that each story we tell this year will only be made possible by the trust of our readers, our sources, and our community. Among undergraduates, graduate students, alumni, staff, faculty, and community members, we can uplift each other’s voices, learn from one another, and together, feel less alone. In the words of Jonathan Safran Foer ’99, a novelist and a once-writer for the ‘Prince,’ “I write because I want to end my loneliness.” Books, in his view, “show us that conversations are possible across distances.” With my year at the helm of the ‘Prince,’ my central goal is to foster conversations across distances. Marie-Rose Sheinerman is the 146th Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Princetonian; this letter represents her views only. She can be reached at eic@dailyprincetonian.com.
LOUIS AARON / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Neon sign reading “The Daily Princetonian.”
Friday Feburary 4, 2022
Features
page 9
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }
‘A community where you’re allowed to make mistakes’: Princeton student musicians find opportunity and relief through original music
CANDACE DO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Sam Spector ’24 and the Degenerates performing at Terrace Club.
By Reva Singh and Paige Cromley
Staff Features Writer and Assistant Features Editor
“I’ve been wanting to perform ever since I could open my mouth,” said Sam Spector ’24. At Princeton, Spector found more than a rigorous academic experience — she found a stage and a ready audience. Spector is the lead singer of Sam Spector and the Degenerates, a band with four other Princeton students that performs her original work, often at eating clubs like Terrace. The band is one of many groups and solo acts who make music on campus. These students write and record their own songs in communal studios or even dorm rooms, often debuting these songs on streaming platforms and at live venues on campus. Although they differ in their instruments, music genre, and performing styles, these Princeton student musicians have all made original music an integral part of their college experience, while balancing the academic and social commitments of college life. Eating clubs, radio stations, and dance shows: Performing live on campus On campus, students have performed their original work at dance shows, eating clubs, and even over the airwaves. Akiva Jacobs ’22 performed a live set on WPRB last semester with Jeffrey Gordon ’22. The duo played original songs, written by Gordon. Jacobs and Gordon are both members of Julien Chang and the Deep Green, a band led by Julien Chang ’22. Jacobs says they all met in their first days on campus. “Julien was looking for a band to play his music with, and within two days of being at Princeton, we all met,” Jacobs said. “We had our first rehearsal a week after getting to school as freshmen.” The band has also performed on the Terrace stage fairly frequently. “The first
time we played at Terrace was the most exhilarating night of my life,” Jacobs said. Although their origins are rooted in Princeton, Julien Chang and the Deep Green have massively broadened their audience since their founding. They went on tour during Fall 2019, before the pandemic, playing in New York, Boston, and even Europe. Much like Spector, Jacobs, and Gordon, many other student artists have taken the opportunity to share their music at Terrace. James Walden ’23, the music manager at Terrace Club, emphasizes the importance of live music to the club. “For me, the main draw of Terrace has always been the music,” Walden said. “Seeing friends perform at a couple shows and being in the physical space while hearing the amazing music other students were making really made me fall in love with the sense of community that live music makes.” Walden recalled watching Chang’s band perform, and the energy it brought to the club. “Seeing Julien Chang and the Deep Green perform is something else,” he said. “There’s a kind of unspoken communication that you get to see firsthand. The energy [of] the musicians reflects in the audience and it makes other people want to have a good time and dance.” Rohit Oomman ’24 has DJ’ed at various eating clubs, and often works with singersongwriters on campus during the production process. He also produces his own work from his dorm room. “In my dorm we have a studio setup, with four speakers, guitars and a ton of keyboards — it’s a mess in there,” Oomman said. “My roommate and I have a few people over now and then to record, and I record a few times a week for my singer/ songwriter class. It’s always very impromptu.” Ooman, who also plays jazz sets and DJ’s at clubs in New York City, finds the music scene at Princeton much
more intimate. “We’re in kind of a bubble on campus, because if there’s a show going on everyone kind of knows about it,” he said. “It feels much more like a community where you’re allowed to make mistakes because you’re around your friends.” Student artists have also seized other opportunities on campus to perform original music. Charlotte Kunesh ’24 recently sang at a Disiac Dance Company show, which was the first time she’d performed original songs for a large group. While she’s done musical theater for years, which she says is her biggest passion, singing her own lyrics is different. “I was never scared to perform for theater, but now the character I’m acting is myself. This is so different because I’m basically reading diary entries,” she said. But, now Charlotte says she’s ready to record and perform her songs. “I’m just reaching the point where I feel ready to share the music with more people.” The creative process Spector says the timeline of writing a song varies for her. “For ‘Scalding,’ I literally wrote the whole first verse for it in the shower. I got out with the conditioner still in my hair and sat down with my guitar and notebook and wrote the whole thing in 20 minutes. But there’s a song I released in May called ‘Slip Away’ that I worked on for over a year.” Kunesh has had similar experiences with her own song-writing process. She is currently recording an EP using Ultraviolet Recording Studio, located in the basement of Bloomberg Hall on campus. “Some come together in two hours, some I’ve been working on for months,” she explained. But she usually starts with just one line. “I start with something that I think would be such a
good lyric, I make a tune for that, and everything comes off of that. My notes app is filled with lyrics that I want to use in songs one day.” Spector also explained that the production of her songs, once written, occurs in pieces. “Once I have chords and lyrics and a general song structure, I go section by section and add guitar layers and drum parts,” she said. “Then from there I normally let it sit for a week or two, listen to it a bunch, then if I like it I record it. I start with drums, then add bass and guitars, then vocals, and finally auxiliary stuff.” With students releasing songs on platforms like Spotify and performing at city venues, the community of Princeton songwriters takes on an air of professionalism. But student artists have also emphasized the importance of prioritising stress relief, rather than added pressure, during their creative process. Michael Salama ’24, who started working on his 2021 EP “Forking Paths” over his gap year last year, believes that the songwriting process is not something to take very seriously. “For me, music is just something I like to do, never anything more,” Salama said. “My songs have helped me make sense of a lot of things in my life, and that’s why they are so important to me.” In line with these values, Salama tries to keep songwriting separate from his academic and professional ambitions. “I would never take a music theory class at Princeton, because I would never want to make music something that I have to do,” he said. Similarly, Jacobs chooses not to put deadlines or demands on his songwriting. “It’s been coming very slowly, but I don’t think that’s a bad thing even though everything here is so fast paced. Every couple of months, I write a song, and I’m happy with that.”
The multi-faceted life of a student musician: Balancing it all On top of classes and other commitments, the student musicians interviewed all expressed that they have struggled to work songwriting into their schedules and find a balance. “Being a Princeton student and having homework and extracurriculars, it’s hard to make time for songwriting,” Kunesh said. She tries to find a window almost every day “for twenty minutes to sit down and try to write something.” Jacobs says it’s hard not to prioritize music, which to him “is what things are centered around.” “I don’t like going through a week of not playing much music because I’m doing too much homework,” he said. Though it may be difficult juggling it all, many of these student songwriters turn to creating music as stress relief. “It’s definitely a catharsis and my choice of releasing all the stress that I feel,” Kunesh said. “Whenever anything happens to me, songwriting is my way to get it out.” For Spector, music has also been a positive outlet, and an integral part of her life. “Music has been an amazing creative outlet. I don’t know who I would be if I weren’t making music,” she said. She doesn’t expect to ever stop. “1000 percent, I’m always gonna be writing, recording, and playing shows. That’s not something I can see myself living without.” Paige Cromley is an assistant Features editor and a writer for the News and Prospect sections of the Daily Princetonian. She can be reached at pcromley@ princeton.edu. Reva Singh is a staff writer for the Features section of The Daily Princetonian. She can be reached at rbsingh@princeton. edu.
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The Daily Princetonian
T his Nor’easterHits Princeton
Friday Feburary 4, 2022
By Candace Do
After the first snowstorm of the semester, students and visitors took advantage of the abundant snow to explore campus and go sledding.
Head Photo Editor
Angel Kuo and Isabel Richardson
Associate Photo Editors
Zoe Berman, Justin Cai, and Abby de Riel
Staff Photographers
ABBY DE RIEL / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
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CANDACE DO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
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ANGEL KUO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Friday Feburary 4, 2022
The Daily Princetonian
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CANDACE DO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
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the PROSPECT. The Daily Princetonian
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Friday Feburary 4, 2022
ARTS & CULTURE
Sam Spector ’24 discusses self-destruction and moving on in ‘Best Day of My Life’
Following on the heels of an exhausting, twoyears-and-counting pandemic, the pop music landscape of the day is dominated by soft-spoken harmonies and acoustic backings, the kinds of things that lend themselves naturally to rumination on days gone by — Taylor Swift’s “Red (Taylor’s Version)” and Kacey Musgraves’ “star-crossed” come to mind. There’s a nostalgia inherent to these albums, as if they’re looking back on a time that was, for lack of a more encompassing word, different. In light of all this, that “Best Day of My Life,” a new single from singersongwriter Sam Spector ’24, focuses on Spector looking back on her own experiences isn’t radical or entirely new. And yet the evocative, memorable fervor of Spector’s lyrics in tandem with her musical command and virtuosity make “Best Day of My Life” a breath of fresh air, at once a nod to emo and pop-punk musical influences over the course of the past decade and a stunningly new direction for Spector’s work. Strikingly, “Best Day of My Life” juxtaposes its upbeat, driving musical progression with incisively dark lyricism. “After they suck you dry,” Spector asks the listener, “what’s left except a broken nose and heart?” A combination of Spector’s distinctive voice — cycling between growling, sultry lows and polished, round highs — and a relentless guitar and percussion backing lends these lyrics an urgency and drive that force listeners to the edge of their seats. Indeed, a closer listen shows that Spector is talking not only about herself but also about those around her — about the pain of ripping yourself away from destructive situations and behaviors, even when you know it’s for the best. As Spector illustrates, it’s not an easy feat. Just By Aster Zhang
Head Prospect Editor
seconds after entreating the listener to “stay, just a little longer,” Spector claims that she’s “not home,” emphasizing her struggle with removing herself from an unhealthy situation.
COURTESY OF SAM SPECTOR
When I discussed “Best Day of My Life” with Spector, the confusion and anger that come to mind throughout this song took on a distinctively personal meaning. “I wrote it,” Spector said, “when I was really angry at the society in which we live for encouraging behaviors indicative of self harm — that could be disordered eating habits [or] the use of substances as a coping mecha-
nism.” Spector’s writing is often devil-may-care and flagrant, facetiously entreating the listener to “pick your poison, ’cause they sell it on TV.” However, “Best Day of My Life,” to hear Spector tell it, is about “wishing I could do more to change” media-influenced destructive behaviors, while also divesting herself of them in three furious, percussion-backed minutes. These pervasive lyrical struggles lend themselves, throughout “Best Day of My Life,” to gratifying and innovative musical shifts, such as the song’s bridge into the final chorus. In this passage, Spector layers lyric over damning lyric, resulting in an ever-growing muddle; constantly repeating throughout this passage is the phrase “open your mouth and close your eyes,” which, according to Spector, “references people’s willingness to do anything that will temporarily make them feel better.” “You know that something could be bad for you, but you don’t really care in that moment,” she said. As the passage grows, the original line quickly becomes almost inaudible, as if the listener themself is drowning Spector’s accusation in that same blindness. When that bridge spills over into the song’s final, impassioned chorus, it doesn’t feel the same as it did previously — Spector’s singing feels lighter, unburdened by the tribulations and concerns of others. Buoyed along by its ever-present and upbeat bass line, “Best Day of My Life” suggests a spirited, full-speed-ahead approach to pop-punk that acknowledges the influences of the past while also looking toward what that could mean for Spector’s future. Sam Spector’s new single, “Best Day of My Life,” was released on Feb. 4, 2022. Aster Zhang is a sophomore and Head Prospect Editor for the ‘Prince.’ They can be reached on Twitter at @ aster_zh or on email at brentonz@princeton.edu.
Two years later, back on stage with Triangle By José Pablo Fernández García | Head Prospect Editor
On Wednesday afternoon, as I sat in the first meeting of my French seminar, I found myself writing — in French, of course — a version of the following question: What is the significance of live theater? The exercise was to write the introduction of an essay about a topic on my mind, and thanks to the many hours I’ve recently spent in rehearsal ahead of the Princeton Triangle Club’s show, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the significance and privilege of once again participating in live theater. It’s been over two years since the Princeton Triangle Club premiered a new show on the McCarter Theatre stage. Two years since I climbed up and down the theater’s ladders to hang and focus its lights for the first time. Two years since I first learned new spotlight cues. Two years since I first slowly watched every little puzzle piece come together for a brand new Triangle Show on stage. It’s not the same as the last time, of course. The
Frank Wojciechowski / Courtesy of the Princeton Triangle Club
show’s McCarter premiere was moved from the typical November weekend to January. Our tour was canceled as the omicron variant surged. And, for me personally, the club feels very different. After a rehearsal, I found myself watching a recording of the show that premiered my freshman fall: “Once Uponzi Time.” It brought up more emotions than expected as I saw nowgraduated friends performing the songs over which we initially bonded. I was pulled back to that younger version of myself who worked on that show, the one who was still so unsure of himself. This experience also made me realize a certain pain that I’ve been carrying around for a while: the pain of feeling robbed of time. This past week and a half has been a tough reminder of what could have been. I’ve asked myself too many questions that start with “what if.” And there’s a certain weirdness in mourning
dashed expectations; you’re mourning something that never existed beyond your own mind and heart. So, to that end, being back in McCarter with Triangle this year has been a great privilege. It’s one less thing relegated to the growing pile of things we’ve lost or given up in the past two years. It’s one less thing that cannot happen because the time for it has passed us by. It’s one less thing that has to be totally reduced to a sadder, more isolated version of itself, as so many of what should be life’s most joyous moments have been. This all has left me feeling quite grateful as I’ve watched the new Triangle Show come together. The sound of the pit orchestra tuning their instruments. The kicks of the famous Triangle kickline. The satisfaction of an exquisite set transition. And, of course, the marvelous beauty of painting a stage, a set, and actors with light. They’ve all brought me a great joy that had been missing from my life. And there is something special in each of those experiences, and in so many more moments I’ve gotten to see in rehearsals, for which I don’t exactly have the words to describe. The closest I can get to describing how special this is is by turning to the idea of togetherness. Another question I wrote in that first meeting of my French seminar was about what we may find in smiling, crying, laughing, and feeling so much more, all together in one place, watching the same art being created. I don’t have clear answers to any of these questions. The exercise was simply to write the introduction — nothing more. But whatever the significance of theater, whatever we may find in it, I do know it is significant. And what we can find in it is so worthwhile. José Pablo Fernández García is a junior from Ohio and Head Prospect Editor at the ‘Prince.’ He can be reached at jpgarcia@ princeton.edu.
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Sports
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Women’s fencing, now ranked No. 1 in the country, sets sights on postseason success By Wilson Conn
Head Sports Editor
One of the most impressive teams on campus is one you’ll rarely have the opportunity to watch compete. Princeton women’s fencing, which has only competed in meets away from the Orange Bubble this season, is now ranked first overall in Division I. The team achieved the ranking through a dominant performance in the Penn Duals tournament on Jan. 23. They are now an undefeated 19–0 on the season and eyeing a deep postseason run. “I don’t want to say I expected it, but I wasn’t surprised when it happened,” Jessica Lin ’25, an Épée fencer, told The Daily Princetonian. “We have a really strong team … I’m glad our results are reflecting that.” At the Penn tournament, the then third-ranked Ti-
gers knocked off No. 1 Notre Dame, No. 2 Columbia, No. 5 Ohio State, and No. 6 Northwestern en route to a 5–0 record at the tournament. The wins capped off a weekend which saw the women go 7–0 overall, thanks to wins over Johns Hopkins and No. 8 Temple at the Philadelphia Invitational on Jan. 21, as well as an additional win over Yale at the Penn duals. In fencing, there are three weapons: epee, foil, and sabre. Each team presents three athletes per weapon, and each athlete competes in three bouts apiece, making 27 bouts total. At Penn duals, the Tigers crushed Notre Dame and Ohio State by the score of 19–8 and beat Northwestern 16–11. Their closest matchup came in a narrow 14–13 win over Columbia. “Each squad has different strengths,” Lin said. “For women’s epee, Columbia might have been the hardest
[match].” “It was really fun,” Lin added. As a first-year, Lin explained that she was unclear about what to expect going into the season. “I think everyone played their part really well.” As most high schools don’t have fencing teams, many of the fencers are competing in college fencing’s team-based format for the first time. Lin and her fellow first-year teammates have been competing at a high level against the best teams in the country. “In college fencing, everything is a five-touch bout,” Lin explained. A win in a given bout is given to the fencer whose weapon first makes legal contact with their opponent five times. “I feel like there’s a lot of pressure to make decisions pretty fast,” she continued. Lin’s teammate, Maia Weintraub ’25, who com-
petes in foil and won the gold medal in the event at the North American Cup last October, said that team scoring means everyone has to constantly be on their best game. “You can’t just rely on one fencer, because for each squad there are three people fencing,” she said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “If you have one person win all of their bouts, that’s only three out of nine … you need to rely on your teammates and make sure everyone is working at their best.” The team-based format is not without its benefits, though. “One of the reasons I was drawn to this school was because of the people on the team,” Weintraub said. “We have really good team cohesion, and we trust each other.” “Sometimes you have to learn you can’t depend on
yourself for help,” Lin added. “You can rely on the team to help you out.” The Tigers currently sit atop a ranking which sees five of their six Ivy League foes ranked within the top seven. Only Penn is ranked lower, sitting at No. 13 (the seventh Ivy League opponent, Dartmouth, does not have a fencing program). No. 2 Cornell is 18–0 on the year, just one win behind the Tigers. Brown, Columbia, Harvard, and Yale, who occupy ranks No. 4 through No. 7, have a combined record of 47–8. Weintraub said the Ivy League round robin the weekend of Feb. 12 will be crucial in determining the team’s fate. “[Ivies] are big for us,” Weintraub said. “It’s sort of a bragging rights tournament.” After Ivy Championships, the team will head back to Philadelphia for the Temple Duals tournament on Feb. 27 before hosting the co-ed NCAA Regionals on Mar. 12 in Jadwin Gym. This will be the Tigers’ only home meet of the season. Should they progress to Regionals, the Tigers would then travel to Indianapolis for the co-ed National Championship during the last weekend of March. The Tigers have only won this title once in 2013, thanks to dominance in the sabre discipline from Olympian Eliza Stone ’13. “I feel like there’s some pressure … everyone’s been saying, ‘we want the rings, give us Ivies, give us NCAAs’,” Lin said. “Personally, I feel like I need to calm down, stay humble, and keep working. If everything goes as planned, we have a pretty good shot.” Wilson Conn is a Head Sports Editor for the ‘Prince’ who typically covers football, basketball, and breaking news. He is also a senior writer for the Podcast section. He can be reached at wconn@princeton.edu or on Twitter at @wilson_conn.
PHOTO COURTESY OF JESSICA LIN
Jessica Lin ’25 competes at the Penn duals meet on Jan. 23, 2022.
Men’s track and field sets records on consecutive weekends By Caroline Ji
Staff Sports Writer
Two weekends in a row, Princeton track and field has been busy writing the Tigers into the record books. The men’s team, ranked No. 8 in the nation, strung together a series of strong performances at the Wesley Brown Invitational, on Saturday, Jan. 22 at the Naval Academy. Senior sprinter and jumper Andrei Iosivas set a new school record in the heptathlon with a score of 5,715 points, winning the event and claiming the top spot in national heptathlon rankings. Senior sprinter Michael Phillippy surpassed another school record, running 21.31 seconds in the 200m, edging out former record-holder Carrington Akosa ’18 by 0.03 seconds. Sophomore sprinters William Doyle and Andersen Dimon also placed in the top 10, finishing the 400m in 47.46 and 48.0 seconds, respectively. The men’s team continued its strong showing at the Sykes and Sabock Challenge, held on Saturday, Jan. 29, in Philadelphia. Sophomore sprinter Daniel Duncan ran 21.26 seconds in the 200 meters, shaving 0.05 seconds off of Phillippy’s previous record of 21.31 seconds. In addition, first-year
COURTESY OF GOPRINCETONTIGERS.COM
Junior heptathlete Andrei Iosivas competes in the shotput, one of seven events in the modern heptathlon.
distance runner Sam Rodman ran 1:48.10 in the 800m, breaking the previous record by 0.11 seconds. Junior sprinter Ibrahim Ayorinde tied Duncan’s 60m record of 6.71 seconds. Other notable top 10 individual performances from the Tigers
included: Phillippy’s second place all-time performance of 46.73 in the 400m, senior middle-distance runner Sam Ellis’s third all-time performance of 1:48.66 in the 800m, senior distance runner Kevin Berry’s third all-time performance of 7:56.84 in the 3,000m.
Finally, the 4x400m relay team of Phillippy, sophomore middle-distance runner Ladislav Töpfer, Dimon, and Doyle ran 3:12.96 to land fifth in the 4x400m all-time school rankings. This Friday, Princeton runners will have a chance to set
even more records at the Dr. Sander Invitational Columbia Challenge at the Armory in New York. Caroline Ji is contributor to the Sports section at the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at cj1042@princeton.edu.
Sports
Friday Feburary 4, 2022
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MEN’S BASKETBALL
Men’s basketball suffers first loss of Ivy League campaign against Yale, 80–74 By Matt Drapkin
Staff Sports Writer
The Princeton Tigers are no longer undefeated in Ivy League men’s basketball. Despite some late-game heroics by senior guard Jaelin Llewellyn, Princeton (15–4, 5–1 Ivy) was unable to mount a comeback against the Yale Bulldogs (10–1, 4–1 Ivy) in a 80–74 loss. The game snapped the Tigers’ 10 game home-winning streak. “We’ve been on an elevator on the way up to the penthouse all season,” Head Coach Mitch Henderson ’98 told The Daily Princetonian. “This is a great opportunity to see how we can rebound and respond.” Things didn’t look so dire early on for Henderson and company, as the first two plays of the game for the Tigers were electric. Back-to-back dunks by senior guard Ethan Wright and junior forward Tosan Evbuomwan got the crowd on their feet, but the 4–0 lead built through their acrobatics was the largest lead of the game for Princeton. Yale quickly took control and never gave up the lead, using their agility on the perimeter and their physicality inside to cause trouble for the Tigers. Forward Matt Knowling led Yale in scoring with 17 points, while guards Jalen Gabbidon and Azar Swain contributed 14 points each. When Princeton came out in a zone defense following a late first-half timeout, Yale swung the ball from one wing to the other, finding junior guard Matthue Cotton in the corner for a high-arcing threepointer. With 30 seconds to go, the Bulldogs got a stop and turned defense into offense; Swain’s shifty crossover got him enough space to flip up a buzzer-beating layup that put
an exclamation point on their run. At the half, Yale led 43–26. “Knowling really hurt us,” Henderson said. “He was physical, intimidating, and unafraid of us. Cotton got loose for some timely shots. They played with a ton of energy, and they took it right to us.” The Tigers looked to match Yale’s energy at the start of the second half. Leading the pack was junior guard Ryan Langborg, who created instant offense with a pull-up jumper at the elbow, followed by a clean dish to Evbuomwan on the block for an easy lay-up. “The way we started the second half, I thought we might be able to take the lead again,” Henderson said. This jolt, however, was not enough to swing the momentum. Yale maintained a double digit lead all the way until 3:09 remained in the game. This is where things began heating up for Princeton. In a late-game attempt to make a run, the Tigers turned to defense. They hassled their opponents with full-court pressure that forced two turnovers in the final two minutes. “The press got us back in the game,” said Henderson. The Tigers then turned to senior leadership on offense, as Llewellyn hit four tough threes in a row, each with a hand in his face. Ethan Wright’s acrobatic put-back layup made it a one-possession game, 74–72, with 1:07 remaining. Llewellyn stuffed the stat-sheet with a game-high 23 points, six rebounds, five assets, one block, and one steal. Wright and Evbuomwan each added 15 points for the Tigers. With 40 seconds on the clock, Swain hit an and-one fadeaway from the mid-post that pushed the lead to 76–72. His miss at the
PHOTO COURTESY OF @PRINCETONMBB/TWITTER.
Senior forward Elijah Barnes warms up prior to the Tigers’ conference duel against Yale on Jan. 29.
free-throw line put the ball in Evbuomwan’s hands. The Princeton senior put his head down and muscled his way into the paint for an and-one shot off the glass, although he too failed to convert from the charity stripe, leaving the Yale lead at 76–74. After Evbuomwan was able to force a Yale guard to dribble the ball out of bounds of his own foot in the press, the Tigers got the ball back and were in a position to make a big play, down two with 20 seconds on the clock. Once again, the ball found Evbuomwan. The drop step over his left shoulder gave his team a chance to tie it up, but just missed off of the back of the rim. Yale secured the rebound, and knocked down their free throws to seal the deal. As a team, Yale shot 78 percent from the free-throw line. Princeton shot 44 percent. Even though they could not walk away with a win, Coach Henderson said that these kinds of losses may have valuable lessons.
“There’s so much that happens when you lose, things that you can’t really emphasize when you win — a difference in a halfstep, or a foul here or there,” Henderson remarked. “I think there’s going to be dozens of opportunities for teaching moments.” Moving forward, the Tigers plan on tuning up their performance at the start of games to avoid early deficits. “It should have been a wakeup call a long time ago with our slow starts,” Jaelin Llewellyn told the ‘Prince,’ “but this one is definitely a punch in the face. We’ve got a lot of work to do.” The lack of energy within Jadwin Gymnasium hasn’t helped the team get off to quick starts this season, either. Princeton has had to play their last five home games without many of their fans in attendance because of the University’s COVID-19 protocols, which states that only “students, faculty, and staff who are fully compliant with the University’s COVID-19
protocols” are permitted as spectators. “It’s been dead,” Henderson said. “Completely dead.” “It’s a huge difference,” added Llewellyn. “Seeing the people that you know and that you care about in the crowd is a real morale booster.” The luxury of having a home crowd in attendance will have to be put on hold. Princeton will travel to Ithaca for the first of a two-game road trip on Friday, Feb. 4 to matchup against Cornell (11–6, 3–3 Ivy). In their last matchup on Jan. 8, Princeton edged out a 72–70 victory thanks to a buzzer-beating three-pointer from sophomore guard Matt Allocco. On Saturday, Feb. 5, the Tigers take on Columbia (4–14, 1–5 Ivy), whom they already defeated in Jadwin Gym earlier this month. Matt Drapkin is a staff writer for the ‘Prince’ sports section. He can be reached at mattdrapkin@ princeton.edu or on Twitter at @ mattdrapkin.
Men’s swimming and diving topples Yale, falls to Harvard at HYP meet MEN’S SWIMMING AND DIVING
By Nolan Musslewhite Senior Sports Writer
The Princeton men’s swimming and diving team pushed through a wintry trek up to Yale’s Kiphuth Exhibition Pool this past weekend for the annual Harvard-Yale-Princeton (HYP) tri-meet. The Tigers put up a solid performance to cap off their dual-meet season, besting Yale 189.50–163.50 but falling short of Harvard 228–125. The results bring Princeton to a 7–1 record in Ivy League play, with Harvard as the sole loss. Though the team had hoped for a go at Harvard, the results are a strong showing coming out of the challenging winter training period which saw the team return to campus on Dec. 27, nearly a month before the rest of the student body. “We are pleased to wrap up dual meets with a solid win over Yale and a 7–1 record,” said Head Coach Matt Crispino. “Harvard is a very good team, but we look forward to another shot at them in February. The Ivy League championship is the focal point of our season and all our training since the fall has been geared toward peaking four weeks from now.” Indeed, Ivy League championships — at home from Feb. 23–26 — will bring an electrifying home-pool advantage at DeNunzio Pool, and the Tigers will be finely tuned for the competition. Swimming in particular demands seasonal adjustments in training that mean punishing training periods followed by weeks of taper, or reduced training load, that prepares
athletes for high-caliber races. Taper increases power in the water, allowing swimmers to fine-tune their technique, and readies their minds for racing. The Princeton Tigers will experience this process over the coming weeks, setting them up for a better shot against Harvard at the end of February. Despite coming up short of Harvard, the meet at Kiphuth showcased excellent swims and dives across the board and a particularly strong effort to get the upper hand over the Yale Bulldogs. The 4x50 Freestyle Relay kicked off the swimming events, with a third-place finish from the A Relay of sophomore Brian Lou, senior Nathan Yates, first-year Brett Feyerick, and sophomore Nicholas Lim. Feyerick had an especially firstrate swim, splitting 19.56, the fastest of the Tiger relay. After fourth- and sixth-place finishes in the 200 Freestyle (headlined by Harvard’s dominant Dean Farris), a strong third-place finish in the 100 Backstroke from first-year Tyler Hong, and close four-five touches from Lou and junior Joshua Brown in the 100 Breaststroke, Princeton topped the podium for the first time in the 200 Butterfly, with junior Captain Raunak Khosla finishing first in a dominant 1:43.49, almost a second and a half ahead of Harvard’s Jacob Johnson. The Tigers met headwinds in the 50 Freestyle, taking eighth and ninth behind speedy Harvard and Yale efforts. The event was especially robust, with nine swimmers seeded under 20 sec-
onds. The Tigers roared back to take gold in the 200 Individual Medley (IM). Khosla again took first with a commanding 1:45.43. He capped off the race in trademark fashion, powering through an impressive back-half effort, besting Harvard’s Gunner Grant by 1.47 and 1.74 seconds, respectively, on the breaststroke and freestyle legs into the finish, getting to the wall 1.85 seconds ahead of the field (1:47.28). Khosla’s victory displayed his Ivy League dominance in breaststroke and final-leg IM endurance. Hong also finished fourth in 1:47.75, within half a second of Grant and Harvard’s Michael Zarian. Junior Dylan Porges, the team’s leading distance swimmer, pushed through a punishing 1650 Freestyle to take first in 15:09.11. After a grueling 64 laps of a more-or-less dead heat, the race came down to the final two lengths. Porges, pushing off behind Harvard’s Shane Washart, exploded in a stunning final 50yard effort to get to the wall 0.31 seconds ahead. His final 50 split was 25.39 — 0.79 seconds faster than Washart’s 26.18. In the second relay of the meet, a strong Princeton A 4x100 Medley Relay placed second. Hong, Khosla, Lim, and junior Max Walther comprised the team. The Harvard effort was particularly robust, with a time of 3:07.34, with only Walther outsplitting his Crimson counterpart. The Tigers placed second in the 4x50 Medley Relay as well, with Hong, Brown, Lim, and Lou putting up excellent swims
to outtouch a chasing Yale A Relay by 0.06 seconds. Harvard once again put up a very strong medley relay performance, outsplitting all Princeton swimmers on the relay. Khosla returned to the top of the podium yet again in the 400 IM, finishing first in a blistering 3:48.52, a whopping five seconds ahead of Harvard’s Michael Zarian. Khosla crushed the field in the breaststroke leg, beating Zarian by more than four seconds in the third leg of the race. Princeton found sprint success in the 100 Freestyle, where Walther placed second in 44.02, right at his personal best of 43.99. In the 200 Backstroke that followed, Hong placed third in 1:46.12, a strong finish. Lim placed fourth in the succeeding 100 Butterfly, outtouching Harvard’s Aayush Deshpande by 0.04 seconds. Princeton then went six-seven in the 500 Freestyle, with Porges finishing just ahead of sophomore John Ehling. Khosla returned for more glory, winning the 200 Breaststroke in 1:56.09, setting a Yale pool record in the process. In an outstanding second-half effort, Khosla pulled ahead of Harvard’s Jared Simpson, thrashing him by over a second in both of the final two legs after a deficit from the opening two laps. With his magisterial 200 Breaststroke performance, Khosla sealed the deal as the standout star of HYP; he won all four of his individual events and set a pool record. In the final relay of the meet, the 4x100 Freestyle Relay, the Tigers placed third in 2:56.40, with Brown, Lou, junior Jonathan
Pollock, and Walther making up the A Team. Throughout the meet, the divers also put up a solid performance. They took second and third in the 1-meter dive, with first-year Taso Callanan placing second in 340.15 and senior Colten Young placing third with 334.95. In the 3-meter dive, Taso Callanan placed third with a score of 355.60, Young placed fourth with 351.20, and first-year George Callanan placed fifth with 343.65. “Overall, it was a very strong performance from the team,” said Walther. “It is always difficult to go on the road and face our two strongest competitors in the league, but I think we managed that well. Raunak Khosla was the standout performer with four event wins, but the entire team showed how deep we are, which will be key at the Ivy championships in three weeks.” This HYP was also special for the team’s seniors, coming off the heels of a victorious senior meet against Navy. “It was the last dual meet for our four seniors: Quinn Rademaker, Colin Reilly, Nathan Yates, and Colten Young,” said Walther. “[They all had] strong performances in the pool and on the diving boards.” The team looks forward to the four weeks ahead as it prepares to host Ivies in DeNunzio on Feb. 23–26. Stay tuned for an exciting meet. Nolan Musslewhite is a senior sports writer at the ‘Prince’ who typically covers swimming. He can be reached at nmusslewhite@princeton.edu.