Reunions 2025 - The Daily Princetonian

Letter from the Editor

Miriam WaldvogelEditor-In-Chief

Dear Princetonians,

This year, it feels like Reunions will happen just like every other year. As I write this letter, more than a week before everyone arrives, fences and tents have already begun dot campus and crowd the courtyards of dorm buildings, golf carts are soon to congregate by Maclean House, and the quantity of orange clothing and tiger ears will grow exponentially over this weekend.

But this has not been a year like any other. Princeton and higher education have been subjected to unprecedented scrutiny from the federal government.

In this issue, you’ll find our coverage of this extraordinary moment on campus. Labs have lost millions of dollars of grant money, forcing research to come to a halt. Students are scrambling to find jobs in public service, government, and other sectors; some are considering switching career paths altogether. Nassau Hall has spoken out, even sued, on some issues and remained quiet on others. The Orange Bubble, it seems, has been punctured.

But as the national conversation frets, student life still rolls on. And the ‘Prince’ has been there to document that, too: bicker, basketball, and the banal indignities of campus construction.

Princeton, in the end, is just its people. Reunions is a reminder of that — of how far the institution has come, of how much further there is to go, and that we love the people we met in the best damn place of all.

Best, Miriam Waldvogel

Miriam Waldvogel is the 149 Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at eic@dailyprincetonian.com.

Special thanks to Reunions Issue Directors Caitlyn Tablada ’27 and Nico David-Fox ’28.

“D ouble M ajors ”

By Joah Macosko

“Lord of the Rings”

Material for a ballerina, pitcher, or violinist

Tracking Trump’s executive actions

NEWS | PAGE 4

In enforcement change, disruptors at speaker events will get single warning, U. says

NEWS | PAGE 4

‘An existential crisis’: The faculty research stopped after research grants suspended

NEWS | PAGE 5

Three weeks after Trump cut Princeton’s funding, no demands have been publicly issued. Here’s what we know.

NEWS | PAGE 5

Princeton freezes most faculty and staff hiring in response to political uncertainty

NEWS | PAGE 6

Department of Commerce announces the end of $4 million in funding of climate risk projects at Princeton

PHOTOS | PAGE 15

Princeton decides: The election in photos

NEWS | PAGE 6

Students in SINSI, other programs forced to pivot after federal government pulls internships

BY LUKE GRIPPO

BY LUKE GRIPPO

BY ANDREW BOSWORTH & LUKE GRIPPO

BY THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN STAFF

BY LUKE GRIPPO

BY DEVON RUDOLPH

BY LUKE GRIPPO

In enforcement change, disruptors at speaker events will get single warning, U. says

By Devon Rudolph Associate News Editor

The University said in a campus-wide email on Monday that attendees at campus events would only receive a single warning not to disrupt speakers, a change to enforcement of its free speech policies following interruptions at several events in the past several weeks.

The move follows an April 8 speaker event with former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that was interrupted on at least three occasions. Some in attendance at the event were upset that a community member, Sayel Kayed, who took part in the disruptions, was not removed fast enough. Kayed shouted at Bennett for two minutes before exiting the building followed by Public Safety (PSafe) officers, a free speech coordinator, and Dean Jarrett Fisher, who often handles free speech-related events. The disruption drew national media attention, including criticism from the Wall Street Journal editorial board.

Following the event, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said the University was investigating the interruptions — which also included the triggering of a fire alarm — and that he had personally apologized to Bennett. Eisgruber was notably not among the signatories of Monday’s email.

This email comes amid increased scrutiny on internal disciplinary practices among peer universities from the Trump administration.  Last week, for instance, Harvard University received demands to change its disciplinary processes and retroactively discipline students involved in several specific pro-Palestine protests, among other changes. These demands culminated in a lawsuit filed against the Trump administration by Harvard on Monday afternoon.

While shouting down speak-

“Recent disruptions have caused us to consider how we might improve enforcement of our rules to minimize disruption,” the email, signed by Provost Jennifer Rexford and Executive Vice President Katie Callow-Wright. “Going forward, attendees at University events should expect a single warning not to disrupt an event or prevent an invited guest from speaking. Disruptive behavior may result in immediate removal from the event and disciplinary action or other consequences.”

‘An

ers has been rare on Princeton’s campus, several events other than Bennett’s were interrupted recently.

On April 15, an event hosted by the Alexander Hamilton Society featuring Daniel Fata, a national security consultant and former executive at Lockheed Martin, was disrupted by several protestors. One protester walked around the room playing music, and several minutes passed before he was removed, despite being warned several times by free speech officers to stop interrupting.

In one exchange, a protester interrupted to tell Fata, “you are literally responsible for all these people dying,” referring to F-35 weapons sold to Israel from Lockheed Martin. Fata responded “Lockheed doesn’t pull the triggers,” and later insisted that a decision to stop supplying weapons was above his pay grade.

The email from CallowWright and Rexford also asked students, faculty, and others to review protests.princeton.edu, a website compiling the University’s regulations around protests and free expression.

“The Princeton University community has distinguished itself by generally navigating a period of contentious

public debates with civility, consideration for others, and respect for rules that protect everyone’s right to hear and be heard. Thank you for making Princeton a model of pluralism, tolerance, and constructive conversations,” they wrote.

The new policy comes a day before another high-profile visit from a figure in Israeli politics. B’Artzeinu Princeton is set to host Dr. Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, for a talk titled “The Demonization of Israel and the Rise of Antisemitism.”

The location of the event was omitted from public advertising for security purposes, a measure recommended by the

Department of Public Safety, ODUS, and the ambassador’s team. The event will also have increased security. Attendees must sign-up prior to the event, all attendees must present a University ID at the entrance, and no bags will be permitted.

Princeton’s Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) has already announced a protest against Leiter’s appearance, set to take place at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22, outside Nassau Hall.

Devon Rudolph is an associate News editor and staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’ She is from northern Virginia and typically covers student life and USG.

existential crisis’: The faculty research stopped after research grants suspended

By Luke Grippo Senior News Writer

Professor of Civil Engineering Peter Jaffé began researching industrial cleaning chemicals 20 years ago. In 2016, he decided to focus his research on developing ways to biodegrade perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS). These chemicals are widely used in everyday consumer and industry products — although we are also exposed to them in our food, water, and air. Dubbed “forever chemicals” for their non-degradability, PFAS can weaken the immune system, increase risk of cancer, and cause other health concerns in humans.

Three years later, the Department of Defense (DOD) took an interest in Jaffé’s work and began funding his research. According to the Environmental Working Group, an American activist group focused on agricultural industry research and advocacy, there are over 723 military sites in the U.S. and U.S. territories that are contaminated by PFAS.

After six years of federal funding, Jaffé says that he and his team have found a way to biodegrade these chemicals. An almost $2 million grant for a field demonstration was the next step. However, this funding was lost on April 1, when several dozen grants awarded to University researchers from NASA, the DOD, and the Department of Energy (DOE) were suspended, reportedly worth at least $210 million.

“We have done a lot of work showing that we can biodegrade these PFAS,” Jaffé told The Daily Princetonian in an interview. “The University has a series of patents out on it, and we need that field demonstration to get people to believe that it works and invest in them [and then] apply it.”

Now, Jaffé is unable to conduct that field demonstration. In the blink of an eye, the work Jaffé had been working on for 20 years has vanished — unless something changes soon, he remarked.

Jaffé is not the only professor who is affected by the freeze. In the wake of the grant suspensions, many professors have been thrown into disarray, worried about how they will be able to pay their researchers and continue their research — research that is changing the world, they say.

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering Elie Bou-Zeid, who lost a DOE grant, wrote to the ‘Prince’ that he believes professors across the country are being directly attacked.

“This is a deliberate attack to weaken and even permanently harm universities like Princeton,” Bou-Zeid said. “As academics, we should have no illusion that this is a misunderstanding or an accident. We are not ‘bystander victims.’ We are the target.”

Several professors said that the University had stepped in to cover expenses for professors and graduate students.

Chemistry professor Roberto Car had a DOE grant supporting the Computational Chemical Science Center (CCSC) suspended. The grant had partly or fully supported five graduate students and five postdocs.

“In the end, the University will come as a helper of last resort — they will essentially guarantee that the postdocs can stay until the end of their current term, and for the PhD students, they will stay until completion of their thesis,” Car said.

“The University is saying, for the moment, ‘let’s use what resources we do have to support people, and

in particular, people more at the junior level, which means often graduate students, whose stipends are coming from these grants, and postdoctoral researchers and junior faculty members,’” Michael Strauss, the Chair of the Department of Astrophysical Sciences, said.

Students, Jaffé summarized, “will be able to get through.”

Physics professor William Jones wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince’ that his group is currently developing a polarimeter — a device that measures the re-orientation of light waves — named Taurus that will “measure fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background.” This project is directly funded by NASA and would fly on a NASA stratospheric super-pressure balloon.

The grants Jones and his student team were receiving helped the group develop highly sensitive detectors known as quantum limited superconducting transition edge sensors, which are integral to Taurus’ functions.

The award was apparently suspended with no explanation by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Jones said.

“Our NASA program officers are not able to provide us any information about the reason or procedure,” Jones wrote.

Jones also explained that should his grant be reinstated, the group might have already missed their best opportunity to launch Taurus. “These launches are only offered every two years, so missing that date would devastate our students and researchers, not to mention our budget,” Jones said.

Strauss also said that there was significant funding lost from the Department of Energy intended for fusion energy development.

“There seemed to be little rhyme

or reason other than it was connected to Princeton,” Strauss said.

The suspension of some grants have had a ripple effect in certain research centers.

Chemistry professor Gregory Scholes wrote to the ‘Prince’ that he lost a grant that supported BioLEC, a center whose goal is “to work out ways of producing energy-rich feedstocks that will give America an economic advantage,” according to Scholes.

“There are many impacts on researcher training, potentially losing expertise for complex experiments, or falling behind other countries at the leading edge of a fast-moving field,” Scholes added.

“I’m hopeful that the situation will be resolved soon.”

Jaffé expressed his sentiment to the ‘Prince’ that he and his team will continue to fight for their research. “We have some momentum left. We have our cultures. We have done something.”

“It’s not that we abandoned overnight,” he said.

Gabriel Vecchi, a geosciences professor, had climate research impacted by the Department of Commerce’s decision last week to end

$4 million in funding to climate research at Princeton.

“Our goal is to minimize any impact on the scholarly progress, education, and career development of … our team,” Vecchi, the Knox Taylor Professor of Geosciences and head of the Vecchi Research Group, wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “I know that our work is valuable to the world and the United States of America.”

While much remains uncertain, professors said they had an urgent need for assistance.

“We’ve managed to develop a full technology,” Jaffé said. “The trouble is, the longer we wait, the more we lose the expertise in the lab … then we lose the know-how.”

“This was 20 years worth of different grants and works and discovery and build-up to get finally out the door, and being this close to end, and it’s being killed. It hurts,” he said.

Luke Grippo is a senior News writer and Features contributor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from South Jersey and usually covers administrative issues, including Undergraduate Student Government, the Council of the Princeton University Community, and institutional legacy.

MC MCCOY / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The Princeton flag over East Pyne Hall.

Three weeks after Trump cut Princeton’s funding, no demands have been publicly issued. Here’s what we know.

By Luke Grippo Senior News Writer

Twenty-four days since the suspension of $210 million in federal grants to the University, Princeton has yet to publicly receive any demands from the Trump administration. Harvard University and Columbia University, both of which had grants and contracts from federal agencies suspended for antisemitism investigations, received a specific list of demands from the Trump administration within 10 days of their funding pauses.

University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 revealed that the federal grants had been suspended in a letter to the University community on April 1. Princeton received a total of $455 million from all levels of government in the 2023–24 fiscal year, according to the 2023–24 Report of the Treasurer, more than double the amount that was recently paused.

The lists of demands received by Harvard and Columbia included reformations of academic programs, auditing of professors, and removals of DEI-related programs. Columbia received their demands six days after they received funding cuts; Harvard received a second list of demands eight days after they received their funding cuts. For Princeton, however, $210 million remains in limbo.

So far, grants from the Department of Energy, the Department of Defense, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration have been suspended. Additionally, the Department of Commerce ended $4 million in funding to Princeton for climate research on April 9.

In an April 9 interview for The New York Times podcast The Daily, Eisgruber said that there had been little communication between the presidential administration and the University.

“All the Trump administra -

tion has said to us and all — actually the funding agencies have said to us — is that the grants are being suspended and there are a small number of cancellations,” Eisgruber said. “They’ve been suspended pending a period of time during which the administration is determining whether or not the grants are in accordance with law. So they haven’t asked us to do anything.”

Other universities who have lost funds, such as Northwestern were not even been officially notified by the Trump administration of the cuts.

In Harvard’s case, the government initially sent a list of demands to the university in private late last Friday. They proved so extreme that Harvard rejected them in a highly public way, issuing a strongly-worded letter from its president, Alan Garber and launching a series of webpages showcasing its research.

In response, the Trump administration froze $2.2 billion of Harvard’s federal grants and contracts. The administration is threatening an additional $1 billion in funding from federal agencies to Harvard Health Research. Harvard sued the administration over the multibillion dollar cuts on April 21.

Eisgruber expressed support for Garber’s stance in a LinkedIn post on April 14, writing that “Princeton stands with Harvard.” Eisgruber’s name later appeared alongside Garber’s on an April 22 letter from the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) calling for “ constructive engagement that improves our institutions and serves our republic.”

Luke Grippo is a senior News writer and Features contributor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from South Jersey and usually covers administrative issues, including Undergraduate Student Government, the Council of the Princeton University Community, and institutional legacy.

Princeton freezes most faculty and staff hiring in response to political uncertainty

By Luke Grippo Senior News Writer

Princeton will freeze most faculty and staff hiring, citing uncertainty around federal funding and a potential increased endowment tax, according to a memo sent to faculty and staff Wednesday morning. The letter, from Provost Jennifer Rexford and Executive Vice President Katie Callow-Wright, follows many other universities adopting hiring freezes in response to funding uncertainty. It represents the University’s most significant response to date to recent federal actions.

Rexford and Callow-Wright’s memo begins by acknowledging federal cutting of research funding, the possible expansion of the government endowment tax, and further restrictions on higher education that have put Princeton’s “longstanding compact” with the federal government “under profound stress.”

The memo lays out four actions to respond to further budget challenges in the coming months: avoiding staff growth except in “mission-critical” circumstances and re-evaluating requests to fill vacancies, postponing faculty searches in early stages, evaluating changes to “major projects … in early planning stages,” and returning the annual employee merit increase pool to “the pre-pandemic norm.” The faculty salary increase pool refers to a percentage of the salary budget dedicated to cover “merit and inflationary increases,” as well as increases for promotions and other special adjustments.

According to an internal memo sent to academic deans, chairs, and directors, the University is postponing “most junior and senior faculty searches that have not been voted on by department faculty as of March 11, 2025,” but offers in cases where voting has concluded will be not be affected. Searches will be postponed until the 2025–6 academic school year.

“This is not a comprehensive list and more serious actions may be required as the external environment changes,” the memo continues. “However, we believe that our best defense against more serious actions in the future is campus-wide exercise of financial prudence now.”

“Our planning is driven by a core principle, which is that in times of financial uncertainty and stress, we must protect our core mission and

ongoing commitments before making new commitments,” it adds, in reference to the University’s obligations to undergraduate and graduate students, early-career academics, and the “strategic initiatives necessary to maintain Princeton’s global leadership in education, science, and society.”

Like many of the University’s announcements in response to actions by the Trump administration, Wednesday’s memo indicated that guidance would continually be updated as potential political changes continue to impact higher education.

“We recognize this is an unsettling and stressful moment in our community, and that there is a hunger for detailed information and specifics,” it reads. “As external circumstances develop, you can expect to hear directly from leaders in your unit about additional information or changes that affect you.”

In the memo, Rexford and CallowWright also asked for departments and units to be prudent with spending.

“On that front, we need everyone’s help. Please look for ways big and small to restrain non-critical spending, which will give us flexibility down the road. Please be attentive and supportive of cost-saving measures implemented in your unit and in other areas,” they wrote. “And most importantly, please stay focused on your work, which is critical to Princeton’s mission of service to the nation and to humanity.”

Until now, Princeton’s response has centered around reassuring the community and providing pre-existing information on topics relevant to higher education. For example, in a January email, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 assured the campus community that while “there is much that we do not know,” the University is working to “ensure continuity of operations and programs should temporary interruptions to funding occur.” Later, at the February Council of the Princeton University Community meeting, he directed the audience to “Keep Calm and Carry On” in the face of executive orders.

The University also launched a website titled “Campus Resources on Federal Actions,” which connects users to web pages that mostly reiterate Princeton’s existing policies about federal research funding, community members’ legal status, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.

The letter also highlights that other

factors are adding to the “uncertainty and disruption” related to federal research funding, citing a potential endowment tax in Congress and mass layoffs at federal agencies that could disrupt services such as financial aid and visa processing.

Princeton is the fifth of the eight Ivy League schools to institute protective financial measures in the wake of actions by the Trump administration.

Alan M. Garber, president of Harvard University, announced on March 10 that the university would be implementing a temporary hiring pause of both faculty and staff to “limit significant new long-term commitments that would increase our financial exposure and make further adjustments more disruptive.” Also on March 10, The University of Pennsylvania announced a freeze on almost all faculty hiring and all staff hiring.

Other universities have also had varied responses to possible funding cuts. Stanford, MIT, and Notre Dame announced staff hiring freezes, but did not freeze faculty hiring. Cornell froze all hiring, and Emory froze most hiring. A common thread between these statements was the preservation of university programs and people critical to their core values.

The memo ends by reiterating some of the language from Eisgruber’s January email to the community: it states that the University is monitoring federal changes, will comply with the law while advocating for the University’s rights, and directs community members to the Campus Resources webpage.

“Please be assured that we have established systems for monitoring and planning against uncertainties and are working hard to be as prepared as we can,” the memo states. “We will comply with the law, stand up for our rights under the law, and use our influence to advocate with lawmakers and policymakers for support of higher education.”

Elisabeth Stewart is a senior News writer and assistant News editor emeritus for the ‘Prince.’ She typically covers religious life, student identity and campus life, and eating clubs and coops.

Luke Grippo is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from South Jersey and usually covers administrative issues, including Undergraduate Student Government, the CPUC, and institutional legacy.

Students in SINSI, other programs forced to pivot after federal government pulls internships

By Luke Grippo Senior News Writer

Bethany Suliguin ’27 was eating dinner before a rehearsal for the Sympoh dance show “Jailbreak” when she received an email from the National Institute of Health (NIH) that the agency would not be conducting internship interviews or extending offers.

Suliguin had already received an offer to conduct research at the NIH Clinical Center. But she learned just three weeks later that the NIH would not be able to take her as a paid summer intern, or even a volunteer. Now, Suliguin will be conducting research at a lab at Yonsei University in Korea.

In the wake of a federal hiring freeze and broader turmoil in the federal government, many students are having to rethink their summer internship plans.

Among those most affected is the Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative (SINSI). Each year, this competitive initiative offers an internship program to six to 10 undergraduates in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), each of whom are personally advised by the SINSI director in finding a summer internship in public service. SINSI also offers a graduate program for first years in the Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree program, where accepted students go on to conduct two years of service in a federal program and return to Princeton for another year to complete their MPA.

Internship acceptances had not yet been extended, so while SINSI students did not lose already-offered positions, they were forced to pivot to different government and service internships, as many

they had applied to had been cancelled.

On Jan. 20, the day of the hiring freeze, Samuel Kligman ’26 received around 10 to 15 emails from various agencies through USA Jobs, the federal government’s job application portal. He was notified that the opportunities he had applied to had either been canceled or would no longer be offered.

“That was definitely a difficult day … [I] had to adopt a glass half-full mindset,” Kligman told The Daily Princetonian. He is currently in the process of looking for another internship.

SINSI Director Gregory Jaczko has also had to pivot.

“This year, because there have not been as many opportunities in the federal government for internships, we have looked primarily to state and local governments, as well as multinational governments for internships,” Jaczko said.

Referring to organizations like the United Nations, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund, Jaczko said that SINSI will be “working, certainly, to establish relationships with those organizations so that students that have an interest in international development and international relations have an opportunity in some of these other organizations.”

Jaczko also shared that “the defense and national security areas don’t seem to be as strongly impacted by the hiring freeze. In fact, the original executive order excluded a lot of defense and national security apparatus, which is not atypical … We have interns who will likely go to the Department of Defense [DOD], for instance.”

Michelle Miao ’26, who initially sought to apply for a position in the Department of Housing and Urban Development

(HUD) or the Department of Justice (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, is among those looking at the DOD for internships.

Miao is a former staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’

In addition to the DOD, Miao will now also be searching for internship prospects at the Department of Homeland Security for a “valuable summer experience.”

“The agencies still functioning normally are the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security. It’s worked out nicely because I’m also interested and have experience with foreign policy and security,” Miao stated.

Thomas Emens ’25, who will be a graduate fellow for SINSI, shared with the ‘Prince’ that the internship he did last year at the Department of Energy no longer exists.

“I’ve been in touch with people I used to work with in the Department of Energy. My supervisor is still there, but [for] people within the Community Jobs and Justice team, two have left under Trump, and the others were reassigned,” Emens said. “An opportunity to do an internship again with that particular team in that particular office won’t be available.”

Emens expressed that he believes this event may allow SINSI to “grow and broaden its focus.”

“There’s a real need across the country for people that have invested all of themselves in service that want to make a genuine difference, and there’s a big need for that at the sub-national level, at the state level, and the local level,” he explained. “Hopefully, the silver lining in all this could be: SINSI [fellows] are going to be making a difference in places where they otherwise wouldn’t go.”

Jaczko shared a similar optimistic outlook. “It’s given SINSI a stronger motivation to reach out and establish relationships with some of these other organizations that we have not traditionally had interns or fellows serve in, in order to give them new opportunities, and then potentially to provide a new pathway for students in the SINSI program.”

Olin Zimmet ’26, a SINSI scholar who will be working with the Alaska state government, believes that students who want to work in service will adapt, regardless of where they work.

“I think that I will get so much out of this state-level stuff. And I think the same of my six colleagues — whatever they’re doing, they’re going to do some wonderful things,” he said. “And at the end of the day, service is service. You can attach the name, federal, state, whatever, to it. But people that want to serve in some form of government will serve, and folks that want to serve will.”

Princeton Internships in Civic Service

(PICS), housed in the Pace Center for Civic Engagement, also had to cancel a large number of internships and job postings.

In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill, on behalf of PICS, wrote that 10 positions across six federal agencies offered through PICS have been canceled.

“PICS hopes to work with these agencies for summer 2026, and our office will remain in communication with our contacts,” she wrote. “Students who applied to any positions that are no longer available are eligible and have been encouraged to apply for an internship during the second round of Pace Center Summer Service Internship applications.”

Luke Grippo is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from South Jersey and usually covers administrative issues, including Undergraduate Student Government, the Council of the Princeton University Community, and institutional legacy.

Department of Commerce announces the end of $4 million in funding of climate risk projects at Princeton

By Andrew Bosworth & Luke Grippo Research editor & Senior News Writer

The Department of Commerce (DOC) announced on Tuesday that it would be ending approximately $4 million in funding for climate change research at Princeton related to climate risks. The announcement characterized the climate research at the University as “narratives” and said the programs were “no longer in keeping with the Trump Administration’s priorities.” The funding for these programs will end June 30, 2025.

These funding cuts come in the wake of dozens of suspended grants from several federal agencies last week, including the Department of Energy, NASA, and the Defense Department, due to an ongoing investigation of antisemitism on campus. Also on Tuesday, the Trump administration announced the freezing of $1 billion worth of funding to Cornell University and $790 million to Northwestern University amid civil rights investigations.

According to the announcement, the end to these awards will “streamline and reduce the cost and size of the Federal Government, consistent with President Trump’s promise for his Administration.”

The programs affected are cooperative agreements between the DOC and the University. Unlike grants, the DOC views these agreements as a partnership, with the recipient providing expertise for the activities and the DOC providing financial assistance and involvement as appropriate.

The first program identified by the DOC is the Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System (CIMES), whose mission is “to address key

questions related to climate science and earth system modeling, providing a bridge between NOAA-GFDL and Princeton University and the wider academic community.” The GFDL (Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory) is located on the University’s Forrestal Campus, and is supported in part by funding from NOAA — the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — part of the DOC.

The DOC argues the program “promotes exaggerated and implausible climate threats.” NOAA previously awarded CIMES $40 million over five years, beginning in 2018. In 2024, the DOC and the NOAA announced $22.78 million in funding to NOAA labs, including over $1.3 million specifically to CIMES.

The second project impacted by the DOC cuts is a research project by geosciences professor Stephan Andreas Fueglistaler. The project began on July 1, 2023, and is slated to end on June 30, 2027. According to the announcement, this research suggests the water availability on earth will fluctuate due to global warm-

ing, which “does not align with the priorities of this Administration and such time and resources can be better utilized elsewhere.”

The final project is also a project by Fueglistaler, and is funded for the same dates. This project, the DOC says, studies changes to precipitation and sea-level rise in the context of climate change risks. The Department argues more targeted efforts are ongoing and this research has a high cost, “diverting resources from more practical and cost-effective solutions.”

The University and Fueglistaler did not respond to requests for comment before publication.

Andrew Bosworth is the Research Editor for the ‘Prince.’

Luke Grippo is a senior News writer and Features contributor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from South Jersey and usually covers administrative issues, including Undergraduate Student Government, the Council of the Princeton University Community, and institutional legacy.

CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

A room in Robertson Hall, the building that houses SPIA.

Princeton President says University will not consider institutional neutrality

By Bridget O’Neill Head News Editor

President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 shared in an interview with The Daily Princetonian that the University will not consider institutional neutrality. The University administration will maintain the current policy of institutional restraint although Eisgruber expressed plans to issue statements “less frequently.”

Under institutional neutrality, universities do not take positions on social and political issues. Peer institutions such as the University of Pennsylvania, Harvard University, and Cornell University have recently released statements pledging commitments to furthering institutional neutrality following highly polarizing Pro-Palestine protests in the spring semester.

“No.” Eisgruber responded when asked if the University is considering implementing institutional neutrality.

“You can’t be neutral about everything,” Eisgruber continued. He specifically noted speaking on behalf of diversity, inclusivity, free speech, academic freedom, and sustainability. “We got to do it … We’re speaking out on behalf of those things. So I think institutional neutrality is just a misleading formulation.”

This selective approach to issuing statements is called institutional restraint, the principle that universities are not neutral but instead value-lad-

en institutions that can take positions in rare cases concerning the core values of the University.

“We have to stand up for our values … I’ve spoken, and will continue to speak boldly for those values, where that’s required, for the institution, and at times beyond the way in which other university presidents are doing that,” Eisgruber said in defense of maintaining institutional restraint.

Still, on certain topics, Eisgruber believes he has an “institutional responsibility” not to speak out.

“Something I share with the people who embrace the idea of institutional neutrality [is that] the University is first and foremost, not itself the critic. It’s the sponsor of critics,” Eisgruber said.

He specifically referenced the Dobbs v. Jackson decision reversing Roe v. Wade as a moment when he felt he should not speak out, despite his expertise in law and other university presidents doing so.

Despite holding back on certain issues, Eisgruber has issued statements on current events to recognize their “momentous character” and “the way in which they are affecting people on campus.” Recent examples include statements on the War in Ukraine and a condemnation of the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. In these statements, Eisgruber shared that he makes sure to use the first person.

The University has also taken actions which would be considered violations of institutional neutral-

ity, most notably divestments from South Africa and companies in Sudan and partial divestment from the fossil fuels sector during Eisgruber’s presidency. Eisgruber pointed out that the University of Chicago, which created and follows the Kalven Report, a guideline to institutional neutrality, never divested from South Africa.

In a speech during first-year orientation, Eisgruber indicated a desire to practice even further restraint. “I have rarely made statements in the past and plan to do so even less frequently in the future,” he said to the crowd.

When asked how he came to this decision, Eisgruber said determining which issues to comment on is difficult. “If we comment on those kinds of things that are in the news, we’re constantly doing this calibration. Do I comment on this event or on that event? How do we get it right?” he said.

He further believes that living in a “highly polarized world” lends itself to recognizing the pragmatic reasons to abstain from certain statements.

Instead, in line with the philosophy of the University being the “sponsor of critics,” Eisgruber said, “There’s more reason just to leave the comments about current events, in particular to our faculty and our students.”

“I have spoken out more, in retrospect, than I would say makes sense for the future,” Eisgruber said in the interview.

Eisgruber shared that this further restraint will take shape in reduced

Faculty approve four new minors, including Native American and Indigenous Studies

By Sena Chang Senior News Writer

Princeton’s faculty approved the introduction of a new minor in Native American and Indigenous studies (NAIS) at the faculty meeting on April 7 along with three other minors in American Studies, Entrepreneurship, and Quantitative and Computational Biology. The NAIS minor comes after  years of student advocacy for Indigenous scholarship.

A dedicated faculty committee within the Effron Center for the Study of America has been actively developing the NAIS minor program for several years. Last semester, the University hired its first Professor of Indigenous Studies in Anthropology J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, who began teaching this spring. In an interview with The Daily Princetonian in April 2024, Kauanui also expressed wishes to establish a minor program for NAIS.

“I’ve only had informal involvement, but I’ve been watching and paying attention to the development of the minor for the last several years … I’m really excited to see it finally happening,” Suzanne Conklin Akbari, a professor of Medieval Studies at the Institute for Advanced Study, told the ‘Prince.’ Akbari works with Indigenous language support and local community engagement with the Lenape, which includes initiatives such as the Unami Language and History Symposium at Princeton held last week.

“The new minor would be grounded in a Native American and Indigenous studies framework that highlights Indigenous governance, histories, and cultural continuity while examining

the lasting impacts of historical structures and the ongoing efforts toward self-determination,” the Effron Center’s proposal reads.

The proposal also highlights “significant student interest” in NAIS, citing consistent overenrollment in NAIS courses and an expansion in course offerings over the past five years. Akbari commended the role of Natives at Princeton (NAP) and their alumni counterparts in calling for the establishment of the minor and “bringing about this accomplishment.”

“I see the approval of the Native American and Indigenous Studies minor as a positive and long overdue step, one that reflects the tireless advocacy of many Indigenous and non-Indigenous students over the past years who have consistently voiced the need for this academic recognition,” Gustavo Andre Blanco-Quiroga ’25, a former co-president of NAP, who has Aymara Indigenous roots, wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’

However, Blanco-Quiroga noted that the introduction of the minor remains “a relatively minor step” in comparison to what peer institutions have done to elevate Indigenous studies.

Until the introduction of this new minor, Princeton was among only three Ivy League institutions that did not offer a formal academic program focused on NAIS. A 2020 opinion piece in the ‘Prince’ also found that Princeton provided the least amount of academic, institutional, and social support for Indigenous students compared to peer institutions.

“Overall, I believe this is an important move Princeton is making toward being recognized as a ‘world-class institution,’ but there

email messages and blog posts in response to current events, although he will continue to “look for ways to speak through what are, in some sense, traditional, long form presidential ways of speaking to issues.”

Eisgruber’s direct rejection of consideration of institutional neutrality differs from peer institutions such as Yale University, which recently set up a committee to consider the policy.

The debate around institutional neutrality is not new. In 2021, following urges from professors, especially conservatives and free speech advocates, to adopt the policy, Eisgruber tasked a subcommittee within the Faculty Advisory Committee on Policy with considering statement-making by units of the University. The committee’s policy recommendation aligned with institutional restraint.

Eisgruber noted that due to the ease of distributing statements digitally, there is sometimes an expectation for statements from him, an expectation he must navigate. For example, in Spring 2022, hundreds of students signed an open letter urging the University to take a public stance on the War in Ukraine, including students from the region.

The University will keep navigating these pressures while maintaining its historic ability to issue statements when its values are challenged.

“Princeton has a broader history which is important to us, where we have recognized that in rare sets of circumstances, the University actually takes positions,” Eisgruber said.

Bridget O’Neill is a head News editor for the ‘Prince’ from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Art Museum to open on Halloween with 24-hour open house

is still a long way to go for Princeton to meaningfully engage with and uplift global Indigenous studies as part of its academic vision,” Blanco-Quiroga wrote.

Three certificate programs were also approved to become minors: American Studies, Entrepreneurship, and Quantitative and Computational Biology. In the past few years, the University has shifted away from certificate programs and has replaced them with new minors.

The two terms are largely synonymous, and a shift towards using the word “minors” is an effort to move away from Princeton-specific terminology. During the transition, students will be able to pursue up to two minors, or a mix of minors and certificates.

Princeton’s efforts in expanding Indigenous scholarship dates back to 1970, when historians, artists, and scholars were invited by the University to its First Convocation of American Indian Scholars. “One of the things that’s really striking about Princeton, I think, is that in some ways, there’s a deep history of Indigenous Studies here,” Akbari said.

“Institutionally, it’s a very particular place, and it will be wonderful to see how [the minor] takes shape.”

Nikki Han is an assistant News editor and a contributing Features writer. She runs the Faculty, Graduate Students, and Alumni coverage area.

Sena Chang is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ She typically covers campus and community activism, the state of higher education, and alumni news.

By Thomas Catalano & Cynthia Torres Associate & Assistant News Editors

It’s not a trick: After several delays, the Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) will open on Halloween, treating the public to a 24-hour open house.

The opening announcement from the PUAM website previewed the two inaugural special exhibitions. The first, called “Princeton Collects,” “highlights transformative works of art donated in honor of the Museum’s new building.” The other, called “Toshiko Takaezu: Dialogues in Clay,” includes the former Princeton Professor and artist’s ceramic artwork, drawing from “traditional Japanese techniques to explore clay and glaze through gesture and abstraction.”

Kayleen Gowers ’25, Founder and President of the Princeton Architecture Club, told The Daily Princetonian, “I’m definitely excited. I think there’s been a lot of anticipation around the new museum.”

“I know they’re hanging some of the artwork now, which is super cool,” she added. Gowers previously published a column in the ‘Prince’ arguing that students should give the new museum building — a hulking structure that has drawn criticism from students for its appearance — a second look.

A University announcement highlighted art pieces that will be physically integrated into the architecture of the building, such as a 16th-century Mallorcan stairway that has been rebuilt in the museum over the past nine months, a Renaissance-era stone window from the Vaucluse region of France, and three ancient Roman mosaics placed under glass flooring.

The months leading into the October opening will see more tours and events at PUAM. PUAM already hosted a “New Museum Perimevter Tour” for museum members on Monday, March

31 and will host more on April 14, May 5, and May 14.

On May 14, PUAM will also host a “Meet the New Curators” event with Curator of Asian Art Kit Brooks and Curator of Provenance MaryKate Cleary at Prospect House for members at the Curator’s Circle and above. There will also be an event for alumni and friends at Reunions 2025 called “Hidden Stories: Preparing a New Art Museum.” At the Event, Chris Newth, a director of collections and exhibitions, and Museum Director James Stewardwill will discuss the journey of preparing the new museum.

Some members of Princeton’s art world have also been preparing for the museum’s opening.

In anticipation of PUAM’s fall opening, the Department of Art and Archaeology announced in an email that its introductory course, ART 100: An Introduction to the History of Art: Meanings in the Visual Arts, would not be offered in Fall 2025 and instead in Spring 2026 and Fall 2026. ART 100 has been offered each fall semester since 2015, but the Spring 2026 course, which will be taught by Rachel Saunders, “will benefit from the reopening of the Princeton University Art Museum in its new building, and will be the first class to use the brand-new galleries as an extension of the classroom.”

As of Jan. 5, Art on Hulfish closed in preparation for the fall opening of PUAM. Art@Bainbridge will remain a permanent gallery space.

Thomas Catalano is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Los Angeles, Calif. and typically covers University administration.

Cynthia Torres is an assistant News editor and an Archives contributor. She is from New Bedford, MA and typically covers University administration.

LOUISA GHEOGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Nassau Hall.

CAMPUS

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ’03 ‘plagiarized’

small portions of his senior thesis, experts say. But how serious is it?

By Sena Chang Senior News Writer

“After Card’s whisper, Bush looked distracted and somber but continued to listen to the second-graders, joking that they ‘read like sixth-graders,’” reads the senior thesis authored by Pete Hegseth ’03, now the U.S. Secretary of Defense.

This sentence is notable for recapping the precise moment

President George W. Bush was informed of the 9/11 attacks. But it is also notable because it is nearly identical to one published by The Washington Post in 2001, two years before Hegseth wrote his thesis.

“After Card’s whisper, Bush looked distracted and somber but continued to listen to the secondgraders read and soon was smiling again. He joked that they read so well, they must be sixth-graders,” the story in The Post reads.

The article is not cited in Hegseth’s paper.

A review of Hegseth’s thesis by The Daily Princetonian, in consultation with three experts on plagiarism, found eight instances of uncredited material, sham paraphrasing, and verbatim copying. But while the three experts all said that the passages violated Princeton’s academic honesty regulations, they differed on whether the violations were serious or too minor to matter.

“There’s no silver bullet here; there’s no smoking gun in terms of a deep example of plagiarism,” James M. Lang, the author of “Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty,” told the ‘Prince.’ “It’s a borderline case.”

Spokespeople from the Department of Defense did not respond to multiple requests for comment from the ‘Prince’ prior to publication. Following the publication of this article, Chief Pentagon Spokesperson Sean Parnell provided a statement to Konstantin Toropin, a reporter for military. com.

“Secretary Hegseth has written five books. He’s written hundreds of papers and op-eds. During the confirmation process, every word was reviewed by top leftwing law firms working in con-

junction with every media outlet in the country. They found no plagiarism because there was no plagiarism,” Parnell wrote. “This is a fake story designed to distract from the DoD’s historic accomplishments under President Trump and Secretary Hegseth’s leadership.”

The ‘Prince’ requested a digital copy of the 90-page thesis, submitted on April 8, 2003, from the Mudd Manuscript Library, which generally makes senior theses available to anyone with a Special Collections research account. The senior thesis represents the capstone of the Princeton undergraduate experience and is a graduation requirement for almost all students.

Entitled “Modern Presidential Rhetoric and the Cold War Context,” Hegseth’s work, submitted to the Department of Politics, analyzes the evolution of presidential speeches from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism. His paper argues that modern presidential rhetoric is largely influenced by prevailing global threats, such as the Soviet Union during the Cold War and Al-Qaeda following 9/11.

An analysis of Hegseth’s thesis through several publicly available plagiarism detection models flagged a total of 12 passages spread out throughout the paper.

To further evaluate the passages, the ‘Prince’ consulted three experts in plagiarism research and copyright who have previously analyzed prominent cases of plagiarism involving politicians or have conducted extensive research on academic integrity. All reviewers assessed the thesis without prior knowledge of the author’s identity.

That manual review found eight instances of uncredited material, sham paraphrasing, and verbatim copying, according to the three experts. The four other passages that they flagged, the experts said, were not deemed to be of significance on a standalone basis, but fit a broader pattern of some form of plagiarism.

While the three experts said that all eight passages violate Princeton’s Rights, Rules, Responsibilities, a set of policies and procedures that govern academic integrity and other elements of

tence as a serious case of plagiarism. “We’re talking 10 or 12 words here … that’s the kind of thing that would raise a flag for me,” he said.

But Bailey does not view this passage, or any of the other seven passages, to be particularly egregious. “Even the ones that were more direct still typically only involve a sentence or two at a time,” Bailey said.

The three experts who reviewed the thesis passages at the request of the ‘Prince’ did, however, unanimously agree that Hegseth’s writing violated Princeton’s Rights, Rules, Responsibilities, which they all agreed contains stricter rules regarding unattributed copying.

State of the Union from February 2003 — more than two months before Hegseth’s thesis was submitted — reads: “The credit for that transformation goes to Mr. Reagan, who signaled the new order in 1982 when he pointed to the gallery to honor Lenny Skutnik, the man who had dived into the icy Potomac to save a woman after a plane crash.”

In his thesis, Hegseth cited the article in a footnote, but did not wrap the text in quotation marks or indent it beyond the regular margin.

undergraduate life, they agreed that not all of the instances could be defined as serious plagiarism.

In recent years, writing from public figures spanning Princeton professor Kevin Kruse, former Harvard president Claudine Gay, and Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch has been accused of containing copied or improperly cited or paraphrased text. Journalists, academics, and plagiarism experts have all raised concerns about the growing use of plagiarism allegations as a political weapon in recent years.

“This is very similar to other allegations we’ve seen over the past year and a half or so,” said Jonathan Bailey, who runs the website Plagiarism Today and helped review Gay’s papers for The New York Post.

‘More gray than black and white’

Achieving a consensus on the definition of plagiarism at large is challenging. The three experts interviewed by the ‘Prince’ differed on which passages amount to serious plagiarism and which are too minor to matter.

“I definitely see more gray than black and white here,” Lang said. In his view, about half of the examples constitute a form of serious plagiarism, while the other half seem to be minor violations of Rights, Rules, Responsibilities.

A passage Lang believes constitutes serious plagiarism appears in a section discussing Kennedy’s speeches during the Cold War.

“Kennedy, who had just given a speech about the need for peace, got carried away and just adlibbed the opposite, saying there was no way to work with the Communists,” Hegseth wrote, using phrases identical to what appears in Richard Reeves’ book “President Kennedy: Profile of Power.”

While Reeves is cited in the paper, including for that particular sentence, no quotations accompany the seemingly identical text.

“In his enthusiasm, Kennedy, who had just given a peace speech and was trying to work out a test ban treaty with the Soviets, had gotten carried away and just adlibbed the opposite, saying there was no way to work with Communists,” Reeves writes.

Lang views the Kennedy sen-

“Under the definitions provided by Princeton’s Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities, it is plagiarism,” Guy Curtis, a researcher at the University of Western Australia who studies academic integrity, told the ‘Prince,’ referring to the body of 12 examples he reviewed. Curtis’s research has been widely cited by scholars in the United States and across the globe.

“Once you get 10 to 15 words in a row by ‘accident’ that happens to correspond with something else — it’s probably not accidental,” Curtis added.

Lang agreed: “It’s definitely a violation of Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities — there’s no question about that.”

Section 2.4.6 of Princeton’s Rights, Rules, Responsibilities stipulates that “any quotations, however small, must be placed in quotation marks or clearly indented beyond the regular margin. Any quotation must be accompanied (either within the text or in a footnote) by a precise indication of the source — identifying the author, title, place and date of publication (where relevant), and page numbers. Any sentence or phrase which is not the original work of the student must be acknowledged.”

On paraphrasing, 2.4.6 states that “any material which is paraphrased or summarized must also be specifically acknowledged in a footnote or in the text.”

Furthermore, Section 2.4.7 establishes plagiarism and false citation as academic violations under the Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline (as opposed to the Honor Committee, which covers in-person examinations).

“If even one phrase is good enough to borrow, it must be properly set off by quotation marks,” Section 2.4.9 reads. All three of these regulations for undergraduates were also present in the version of Rights, Rules, Responsibilities from when Hegseth graduated in 2003.

Hegseth’s thesis also features at least one instance where the source is cited, but the verbatim text is not enclosed in quotation marks.

In a section discussing the impact of television on political rhetoric, Hegseth wrote, “During the speech, Reagan signaled the new order when he pointed to the gallery to honor Lenny Skutnik, the man who had dived into the icy Potomac to save a woman after a plane crash.”

Similarly, a New York Times article about the evolution of the

Though it may seem that including a citation would lessen the severity of the example, Curtis noted that the presence of a footnote may actually make the situation more troubling.

“In some of the instances in this senior thesis, there’s a footnote pointing to a reference, but no quotation marks for material that is, in fact, a verbatim quote. That suggests that the person knows what they were supposed to have done, because there’s sections in quotation marks elsewhere done correctly,” Curtis explained.

While Rights, Rules, Responsibilities does not take intent into account, Lang and Bailey noted that it would be important to distinguish whether Hegseth’s actions were purposeful or accidental.

“But the question is: Was the intent there, and is it more irresponsibility than it is a deliberate effort to engage in an act of cheating?” Lang said.

According to Lang, the examples appear to indicate a “pattern of irresponsibility” rather than a deliberate attempt to mask another’s work as one’s own, which would carry more serious implications.

“To answer the question of whether it violates Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities, it obviously does,” Bailey said. But, he added, “Plagiarism is an umbrella term covering everything from just a few sentences to wholesale copying of an entire work.”

‘The dark ages of academic plagiarism’

In recent years, a number of works from the mid-1990s to mid2000s have faced scrutiny for plagiarism. Among them, a section in Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s 2006 book on euthanasia included alleged instances of plagiarism. Former Harvard President Claudine Gay’s Ph.D. dissertation was written in 1997 and faced immense scrutiny in January 2024.

Gorsuch’s publisher, Princeton University Press, did not retract the book. Gay, on the other hand, requested multiple corrections after allegations initially surfaced.

Bailey termed this period between the mid-to-late 1990s to the early 2000s as “the dark ages of academic plagiarism,” when the internet became publicly available and detection software was limited.

“At that time, there was a mix of cheating typically happening both with internet sources and also, [with] people going to the library and actually copying things right out of books,” Lang said.

Princeton, however, main-

tained clear, rigorous standards for educating and enforcing proper citation and attribution practices in the early 2000s.

Hegseth’s thesis was written for the Department of Politics and supervised by Patrick Deneen, who was an assistant professor before he left Princeton in 2005. Deneen is now a professor at the University of Notre Dame. Deneen wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince’ that he had “no specific recollection” of Hegseth’s thesis, including its content, methodology, or final grade, citing the volume of advisees — usually about a dozen per year — he supervised in the early 2000s.

“There was little time that could be expended on any specific thesis,” Deneen recalled.

Deneen added that juniors in the Politics department were mandated to take a seminar that “covered various research methods and, I believe, academic ethics and standards that would include appropriate use of sources and proper methods of citation.”

Moreover, Princeton’s 2003 version of Rights, Rules, Responsibilities, which reads nearly wordfor-word in the relevant passages around academic integrity as its current version, maintained a firm definition of plagiarism, including protocol for citing electronic sources.

“The requirement to acknowledge sources is not limited to printed material such as books or journal articles,” the 2003 version reads. “At a minimum, acknowledge any information, text or image from the World Wide Web by noting the name and author of the site (if available), the internet address, and the date you accessed the site.”

“In my experience, faculty, including myself, took enforcement of academic standards with utmost seriousness,” Deneen wrote. While Deneen said that not every submission was closely examined for academic dishonesty, he wrote that “high standards were articulated as an institutional norm; suspected transgressions were seriously investigated; and, if warranted, consequential sanctions were handed down.”

“Over the course of my career, Rights, Rules, [Responsibilities] was fairly strictly interpreted, and I would say, narrowly interpreted,” Stanley Katz, a lecturer emeritus of public affairs and history who assisted students accused of violating disciplinary rules throughout the early 2000s, told the ‘Prince.’ Katz added that students caught plagiarizing during this period faced a one-year suspension and a permanent note on their transcript.

On the final page of his thesis — as required by all academic work submitted to the University — Hegseth wrote, “This paper represents my own work in accordance with University regulations” and signed his name.

Even so, in other parts of the paper, Hegseth appears to paraphrase cited texts, but the paraphrased content is identical to a different internet source.

Summarizing David Chidester’s book “Patterns of Power,” Hegseth wrote, “The first, touted by David Chidester, in his book Patterns of Power, argues that Reagan advocated a particular form of ‘American Civil Religion’ in which the state represented that transcendent, supreme power for which individuals in the modern world would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.”

While Chidester is cited, the majority of the text appears to match verbatim from a 1995 internet article by John R. Anderson, where Anderson writes, “According to

David Chidester, in his book, Patterns of Power, Reagan advocated a particular form of ‘American Civil Religion’ in which the state has come to represent that transcendent, supreme power for which individuals in the modern world would be willing to make the ultimate sacrifice.” Anderson is not cited in Hegseth’s thesis.

Hegseth’s thesis also contains verbatim matches of sentences from other internet sources, such as the New York Times article on the State of the Union introduced earlier.

Bailey noted that plagiarism has often been used to fuel politicallymotivated attacks, such as those involving Kruse’s 2000 dissertation at Cornell. Plagiarism allegations against Kruse were raised by conservative historian Phillip Magness.

“[Kruse] was picked because he was called ‘History’s Attack Dog,’” Bailey said. “This was a very political plagiarism scandal,” he continued, citing Kruse’s critiques and corrections of right-wing arguments and his contribution to The New York Times’ 1619 Project. According to Kruse, the University concluded that his actions “did not constitute a violation of the research misconduct policy.”

Curtis emphasized the importance of context in learning from borderline cases.

“In higher education, young people are often working under pressure, and that pressure can bring about errors of judgment or mistakes,” Curtis explained. When students first get caught, Curtis said that “systems to deal with suspected academic misconduct should provide students with due process, be educative, and give them the opportunity to learn from their mistakes.”

Deneen, Hegseth’s advisor, said that he generally relied on his students to correctly represent their work.

“I expect that I was like most professors in generally assuming that submitted papers, theses, and exams solely reflected the work of students, unless there was some warrant in the work that required further investigation,” he wrote to the ‘Prince.’

There is little to no precedent for addressing undergraduate Rights, Rules, Responsibilities violations that are discovered after graduation. In a first for Princeton, an alumnus’s Ph.D. degree was revoked following the discovery of extensive plagiarism in 1990. While the Graduate School’s regulations caution that violations could result in “revocation of the degree” for alumni, the undergraduate version of Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities makes no mention of consequences following graduation.

Whether the offending passages in Hegseth’s thesis were the result of academic sloppiness or a simple oversight, Bailey said that they likely do not merit institutional action now. These instances are “not particularly serious and probably warrant a relatively mild response,” he said.

Bailey continued, “This doesn’t fit the pattern of someone who went into this deliberately, maliciously trying to plagiarize their way to finishing it. This seems like it was just poor writing techniques and poor methodology.”

Sena Chang is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ She typically covers campus and community activism, the state of higher education, and alumni news.

Princeton University Health Services opens doors in new Frist Health Center

By Doug Schwartz Staff News Writer

On Jan. 13, Princeton University Health Services (UHS) officially relocated to Frist Health Center (FHC). The new location is north of Goheen Walk, near the old McCosh Health Center.

The construction of Frist Health Center is part of the University’s efforts to bolster healthcare services for members of the Princeton community.

“McCosh Health Center was built in 1925 at a time when healthcare delivery systems were entirely different than those of today, and Princeton had many fewer students,” UHS Director Janet Finnie ’84 wrote to The Daily Princetonian. “Frist Health Center is larger, but is also redesigned to support efficient and effective healthcare delivery.”

When walking into the lobby of FHC, visitors are greeted by a large open space with tall windows. The building itself is a mix of past and present, with the more modern exterior built around some of the old brick buildings that already existed.

“I was surprised by how big it was and how much natural light there was inside,” Angie Challman ’25 told the ‘Prince’ in an interview.

“Frist Health Center was designed to create a warm, welcoming, and inviting environment for students,” Finnie wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “No matter what entrance you use to enter the building, you will experience a soaring, lightfilled atrium and the Isabella McCosh

Garden, which utilizes biophilic design concepts to increase student and occupant connectivity to the natural environment.”

Finnie explained that FHC was designed with sustainability features, such as using timber to sequester carbon that would otherwise be released back into the atmosphere.

While the construction of the building was deliberate, some students were not impressed with FHC’s outward appearance.

“It looks like a dining hall,” remarked Zhuolin Xiang GS.

“I went inside yesterday, and it was really modern and pretty,” Ladan Abdullahi ’28 said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “It doesn’t really fit the aesthetic of the rest of the college, but it’s pretty nice inside.”

For others, the new building brought greater convenience. FHC includes several new amenities that McCosh Health Center did not have, such as the new intercom system that allows students to talk with a nurse after hours about any problems that may arise.

“I had to get an ice pack for a friend the other day, and it was after hours, so I just went to the intercom system, and it was really efficient,” Yiling Li ’26 told the ‘Prince.’

Li discussed the difficulty in solidifying a same-day appointment in the old McCosh Health Center, telling the ‘Prince’ that, in contrast, “[FHC] was easier.”

When discussing the improvements made for FHC, Finnie remarked that the

new building is equipped with “private rooms and bathrooms for overnight patients in the infirmary, a striking student lounge, a yoga/meditation contemplative space, a new multipurpose room that will be a shared resource for campus partners, and more.”

“The number of offices for counselors was increased, as were the number of exam rooms available to serve students,” she added.

While FHC provides Princeton students and faculty on campus with an upgraded facility for health services, the center’s opening was not an event

Princeton will not pursue dissociation from Israel, Resources Committee says

By Christopher Bao & Luke Grippo Head News Editor & Staff News Writer

A proposal for the University to cut financial ties with entities implicated in “Israel’s illegal occupations, apartheid practices, and plausible acts of genocide” will not move forward following months of deliberation from the Resources Committee, a body of faculty, students, and staff that makes dissociation recommendations to Princeton’s Board of Trustees.

The Resources Committee’s criteria to recommend dissociation includes a need for sustained campus interest, a central University value at stake, and campus consensus. This criteria is meant to serve as a “high bar” for determining whether the recommended stance will be consistent with the University’s core mission. Such recommendations, however, are not binding for the Board of Trustees, who have the final say on dissociation decisions.

In an Opinion piece in The Daily Princetonian announcing the decision on Wednesday morning, Resources Committee Chair John Groves wrote that there was no campus consensus.

“Without the possibility of consensus, there can be no divestment and dissociation at Princeton, and the feedback we received made it plain that our community is sharply and inexorably divided on this topic,” he wrote. “Indeed, our process revealed that a lack of consensus is a defining quality of the Princ-

eton conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

The proposal, first submitted in June by the group Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD), contained specific standards and steps for divestment — the sale of investments held by the University’s endowment — from Israel. Dissociation is a related but broader action that includes research funding and other financial relationships. The proposal included seven criteria for divestment and the creation of a new position: a “Divestment Manager.” The focus on divestment represented a narrowing of demands from the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” which had called for dissociation from Israeli academic institutions, among other demands.

In the months following the initial submission of the divestment request, the Committee received over 2,000 emails and other correspondence on the issue, as well as over 2,300 distinct responses in a community input process started in September. This input process was offered via a digital form on the Resources Committee’s website, which was available to all members of the campus community from Sep. 30 to Oct. 11.

Grove wrote that consensus was not measured by “counting methods” such as tabulating polls, signatures, and messages. However, he wrote that it was “plainly evident from the comments and materials submitted to our committee that there are multi -

ple, divergent, and strongly held views in our community about the topics raised in the dissociation petition.”

On May 13, 2024, President Eisgruber sent a campuswide email announcing that the Resources Committee would be taking up proposals to divest from Israel. Ten days later, the Committee met with PIAD for the first time, marking the start of a lengthy deliberation process.

The Resources Committee initially met to assess the divestment request on May 14 before convening with PIAD representatives ten days later. It also met with PIAD again in the fall, as well as a group of faculty, according to the report.

Princeton’s decision comes many months after peer institutions declined to divest. In October, Brown University Corporation voted to not divest from companies with Israeli military ties. At the University of Pennsylvania, the university’s steering committee declined a divestment proposal in October. Earlier this year, Johns Hopkins also rejected calls for divestment.

Christopher Bao is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Princeton, N.J. and typically covers town politics and life.

Luke Grippo is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from South Jersey and usually covers administrative issues, including USG, the CPUC, and institutional legacy.

that all on campus were aware of.

In a campus-wide email sent on Dec. 5, Finnie and UHS Executive Director John Kolligian Jr. announced key dates related to the opening of FHC, with the relocation of UHS officially taking place on Jan. 13.

Though students and faculty returned to campus from winter recess soon after the reopening, UHS did not send out a reminder to the campus population.

“I honestly forgot the new health center was opening,” Challman explained. “I thought [the building] was

the new res[idential] college.”

“I just found out [about FHC opening] a few days ago,” Li added.

For students looking to take advantage of the new and expanded services offered, the UHS website has been updated to reflect the changes.

The FHC is open Monday through Friday from 7:45 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.

Doug Schwartz is a staff News writer and an associate Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Annapolis, Md., and typically covers town and gown, facilities and housing, and health for News.

Dean’s Date, as you know it, is over

By Luke Grippo News Contributor

Dean’s Date will no longer be the universal deadline for final papers, projects, and problem sets beginning in Spring 2025, when written assignments will begin to be staggered across the final exam period. The decision comes as a response to student concerns regarding assignment pile-up and arranging suitable travel arrangements around the holidays and breaks.

Dean’s Date is the final date all written coursework “including term papers, homework assignments, lab reports, and projects” can be submitted. The date is set by the Faculty Committee on Examinations and Standing and marks the last day of reading period.

In a statement to the The Daily Princetonian, Associate Dean of Academic Advising Cecily Swanson and Senior Associate Dean of the College Anne Caswell wrote that, “The goals of the reformed schedule are to decompress final deadlines and to aid end-of-term planning by releasing final assessment dates for all courses at an earlier date that was possible before. It will eliminate the pile-up of multiple papers due on Dean’s Date that many students currently experience, and will allow students and faculty to make travel plans much further in advance.”

Dean’s Date will remain the final day of reading period and the final deadline for all work due during the instructional period.

Last academic year, a committee consisting of the Office of the Dean Of the College (ODOC) Deans, the University registrar, and administrators from the McGraw Center for Learning, was formed to address these concerns. The Faculty approved the committee’s proposed new schedule at the September meeting.

According to Srista Tripathi ’25, former chair of the USG Academics

Committee, ODOC reached out to the student Academics Committee to gain student perspective on Dean’s Date. The USG Academics Committee, in collaboration with ODOC, sent out Google Forms to the student body to collect feedback on how students felt about their preparation time and coursework during finals week. Tripathi shared that during the Academics Committee’s discussions, student members noted how international students and out-of-state students face difficulties booking travel around the date, particularly around the holidays of the fall term.

The committee also discussed the issue of equity, noting a larger percentage of Dean’s Date assignments were concentrated in the humanities, while STEM departments had staggered finals. Ultimately, the change in Dean’s Date will lead to a more “equitable schedule,” Tripathi said.

This change comes as the University has made efforts to alleviate the burden of travel during reading and finals period. The University announced in February that for the Spring 2024 term, the number of exams students are allowed to take would increase from one to two per day, giving students more options regarding travel. This semester, the University announced the finals schedule a month earlier on Aug. 21 to give students more time to make suitable travel plans.

To accommodate travel concerns and assignment pile-up, ODOC stated to the ‘Prince’ that “The Registrar will publish final assessment deadlines for all courses before the start of each term.”

For now, Swanson and Caswell shared in their statement that more information on assessment deadlines is forthcoming.

“Undergraduates will receive details very soon.”

Luke Grippo is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’

DOUG SCHWARTZ / DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The building itself is a mix of past and present, with the more modern exterior built around some of the old brick buildings that were already there.

U. AFFAIRS| MARCH 2025

U. AFFAIRS | OCTOBER 2024

83 percent of sophomores participate in Street Week, surpassing last year’s milestone

By Justus Wilhoit & Luke Grippo Senior and Staff News Writer

Street Week 2025 has concluded, with all of the 1,263 students who chose to pursue an eating club given a place according to a press release from the Interclub Council (ICC). 83 percent of the Class of 2027 participated in Street Week, up from 80 percent of the Class of 2026 last year. Tiger Inn (TI) remains the most selective club, Cap and Gown Club has reclaimed the distinction of being the most bickered club, and Tower has seen a near 17 percentage point decrease in acceptance rate from last year, from 59 to 42 percent.

Street Week refers to a week of conversations and social events during which many sophomores and juniors explore the various eating clubs located on Prospect Avenue. This year’s Street Week was held from Feb. 2 to Feb. 7.

In a press release issued to The Daily Princetonian, President of the ICC Vincent Jiang ’25 shared that 119 juniors and 1,144 sophomores were placed into the 11 eating clubs.

Last year, the ICC failed to place a small number of students  — less than one percent — into an eating club due to the demand from the unprecedentedly-large class of 2026. This year, the ICC was able to place all students who took part in Street Week activities, as all registered students were required to rank all five sign-in clubs, instead of just two, which was the practice in years prior.

“The Street as a whole has successfully adapted to the larger size of the Class of 2026 and beyond, reflected in our increased numbers with many clubs reaching physical capacity,” Jiang wrote.

The ‘Prince’ contacted officer teams at every eating club, as well as the ICC. Jiang told the ‘Prince’ that “the eating clubs have discussed and we have decided that we are going to

send out one joint ICC press release.”

There are three systems for admittance into the eating clubs. Cloister Inn, Colonial Club, Quadrangle Club, and Terrace Club, all use the “sign-in” system, where students are free to sign up for the clubs, and the students are randomly selected to join a given club based on the space available.

An additional feature of the signin option is the group sign-in, which allows groups of sophomores and juniors to sign-in to the same club with their friends. The ICC shared in their press release that they saw “32 students (across 10 groups) participate in the ICC’s group sign-in feature.”

This was an increase from only 25 students from five groups last year.

Cannon Dial Elm Club, Cap and Gown, Cottage Club, Ivy Club, Tower, and Tiger Inn all use the “bicker” system, where prospective members engage in conversations and games with current members. Clubs then hold member or Bicker committee discussions that determine which students each club accepts. Each student is able to bicker up to two clubs.

Charter Club operates on a third, unique system of acceptance. It is the only club that uses a selective signin process, awarding points to prospective members for demonstrating interest in the club, including by attending events before winter break and during Street Week.

Following criticism for its selective sign-in process during last year’s Street Week, when people who attended 12 out of 14 events were not accepted to the club, then-Charter President Anna Johns ’25 announced in November that there would be changes to make the process more accommodating. Charter would hold 14 point-earning opportunities again in 2025. However, this year, the eating club capped the number of points an individual can receive at nine.

“We hope that what this will do

is reduce some pressure, you don’t have to go to all 14 events, because we stop counting at nine,” Johns said at a panel held by the ICC in November. Charter’s process is non-evaluative, so if more students get nine points and rank Charter first than there is space in the club, membership will be selected via a lottery.

Registration for Street Week lasted from the afternoon of Jan. 26 to Feb. 1. Students had until Thursday, Feb. 6 at 8 p.m. to rank their club preferences, before decisions were released the next day at 10 a.m. The ranking window for the eating clubs opened on Feb. 4 at 8 p.m. and closed on Feb. 6 at 8 p.m. At 10 a.m. on Feb. 7, students received notification of their acceptance to an eating club. Bicker discussions generally start on Tuesday or Wednesday night and can last into the wee hours of Friday morning.

In the press release, Jiang stated that “735 students utilize[d] the ICC’s double-bicker.” Of the total 1,795 bickerees, which included doublebickerees twice, 325 students singlebickered, meaning a total of 1,060 students bickered this year. 203 signed into clubs without bickering.

624 of the 1,060 students were offered spots in Bicker clubs — a five person decrease in accepted Bicker students from last year.

Breakdown of club acceptance rates

TI was the most selective club, accepting 96 of the 395 bickerees for a 24.3 percent acceptance rate, compared with last year’s 25.7 percent acceptance rate. 90 of these accepted students were sophomores, while the remaining 6 were juniors. TI accepted the same number of students this year as it did last year.

Cannon Dial Elm had the highest acceptance rate of bicker clubs this year, offering admittance to 118 of its 196 bickerees for a 60 percent acceptance rate. This was a 1.1 point

increase in acceptance from last year. Cannon admitted 101 members last year.

Tower let in the most members among the Bicker clubs, accepting 143 of the 337 bickerees. This year, Tower saw an increase in bickerees, compared with 278 last year.

While 337 signed up to bicker Tower, only 302 went to Bicker sessions and were thus discussed. Tower had an acceptance rate of 42.4 percent, a decrease of 17 percentage points from last year.

Cap and Gown was the most bickered club with 397 bickerees, reclaiming the title from TI, which was most-bickered last year.. The club accepted an equal number of male and female bickerees, welcoming 100 new members total. The 25 percent acceptance rate is a 2.6 point decrease from last year’s acceptance rate.

Ivy Club had a 30.4 percent acceptance rate, admitting 79 members out of 260 bickerees, a 3.6 point increase from last year. Last year, the club accepted 78 of its 291 bickerees, all of whom were sophomores.

Ivy has prided itself on accepting a small number of students to foster a close community. In 2016, former Ivy Bicker Chair Michael Moorin ’16 told the ‘Prince’ that “we believe Ivy’s small membership is core to its identity.”

Cottage Club welcomed 88 new members out of its 240 bickerees, a 36.7 percent acceptance rate relative to last year’s 33 percent.

Quadrangle Club accepted the most new members among the sign-in clubs, a distinction held by Terrace last year. Quadrangle Club welcomed 155 new members into the club, 133 of whom are sophomores, compared with 102 new members overall welcomed last year.

Cloister offered spots to 86 members, a decrease from last year when they offered spots to 103 members. Notably, almost 14 percent of Clois-

ter’s new members were also offered spots last year.

Charter welcomed 100 members to the club, in line with the 110 accepted last year.

Terrace welcomed 131 members to the club, in line with 143 new members welcomed last year.

Colonial welcomed 120 members to the club, the same number welcomed to the club last year.

Looking ahead, students consider their options

82 percent of students who participated in Street Week were placed into their first or second choice club, an increase from 80 percent last year, according to the ICC. In the wake of Street Week, some students have begun to explore alternate options for their dining plans next year, such as joining a co-op, going independent, re-enrolling in the University dining hall plan, joining a sign-in club, or waiting to bicker again in the fall. However, even getting a spot in a bicker eating club during Fall Bicker isn’t a guarantee: The process has become more competitive with lower acceptance rates and fewer spots available in recent years.

Students will have until 9 a.m. on Feb. 23 to sign in to the open clubs: Cloister, Colonial, and Quadrangle.

Editor’s Note: The article has been updated to reflect the number of students offered spots in Colonial Club during Street Week 2025.

Justus Wilhoit is a head Audience editor and senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Kenosha, Wis. and typically covers Princeton’s eating clubs and co-ops, identity and student life, and the Trump administration.

Luke Grippo is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from South Jersey and usually covers administrative issues, including USG, the CPUC, and institutional legacy, but loves to write in any area.

ISABEL RICHARDSON / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Tiger Inn was the most selective Bicker club in 2025.

The Data Blog: 2028 Frosh Survey

By Madeline Wadsworth, Vince Etherton, Hannah Choi, & Hellen Luo

Data Staff writers & Contributors

Following the release of The Daily Princetonian’s fifth annual Frosh Survey, Data writers and editors analyze and compare the data with other surveys, including past Frosh Surveys and Senior Surveys.

Is everyone an engineer now?, Oct. 10 Science and engineering continue to grow at Princeton, as 35.1 percent of first-year students indicated their intent to pursue a Bachelor of Science and Engineering degree in the 2028 Frosh Survey. This is an increase from previous years, where it hovered at around 30 percent of respondents. This is representative of the larger ambitions of the first-year class, with 41.2 percent of respondents considering a career in engineering among other fields after graduation — the second highest post-grad career aspiration after academia. Three of the five most popular intended concentrations were engineeringbased, with 8.4 percent of the incoming class interested in majoring in Computer Science, 7.9 percent wanting to major in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and 7.5 percent planning on pursuing Electrical and Computer engineering. The popularity of these concentrations comes as the University is building a series of new engineering buildings, set to open in Fall 2025.

In a Q&A with the Daily Princetonian last year, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said that his first priority over the next five years is “rebuilding and fortifying our School of Engineering and Applied Science,” because as the field of engineering rapidly expands, the University wants to prioritize having resources and amenities that support the discipline and all those interested in it. More largely, Eisgruber pointed out that having a “great engineering school” is integral to a “great” liberal arts education. The class of 2028’s interest in engineering reflects the discipline’s increased popularity within Princeton over the past few years. 33.25 percent of the class of 2026 declared a major within an engineering discipline, the second-highest number of engineers since 2017, marking a decrease in humanities majors from 16.7 percent in 2017 to 11.57 percent in 2026. Despite this trend, Eisgruber noted that while the decrease in humanities majors is reflected across Princeton and the nation, the liberal arts curriculum at Princeton ensures that all students are involved in humanities during their time at Princeton. Increased interest and investment in engineering at Princeton follows a national trend: the number of undergraduates majoring in engineering has sharply increased since 2000. It remains to be seen what this means for the future of engineering education.

Madeline Wadsworth is a staff Data writer for the ‘Prince.’

Differing views between athletes and non-athletes, Oct. 4

Non-athletic regular people (NARPs) and athletes are often thought of as opposing categories of Princeton undergraduates. Comprising 18 percent of the undergraduate population, athletes have dramatically different lives compared to those of non-athletes, structuring their class schedule to accommodate daily meetings and practice times as well as weekly travel.

According to the Class of 2028 Frosh Survey, incoming athletes and nonathletes differ significantly in both their lifestyles and views.

Around 58 percent of non-athletes from the Class of 2028 report having consumed an alcoholic beverage — a smaller percentage than their athlete counterparts, of whom around 78 percent reported the same. This figure is a 10 percent increase from last year: around 66 percent of Class of 2027 athletes reported having consumed alcohol prior to their time at Princeton. On mari-

juana use though, Class of 2028 athletes are only three percent more likely to have tried marijuana than non-athletes.

Incoming athletes also report having had more sexual experiences on average than non-athletes. Only 40 percent of athletes reported never having sex, compared to over 70 percent of non-athletes.

Athletes have a higher desire to partake in the eating club scene at Princeton, with over 75 percent of athlete respondents indicating that they intend to join an eating club. According to the 2024 Senior Survey, 93 percent of athlete respondents reported being a member of an eating club at the time they graduated, as opposed to 57 percent of NARPs.

Almost 70 percent of non-athletes from the Class of 2028 report being either somewhat or very left-leaning, whereas only around 10 percent identify as right-leaning. For athletes, however, the percentage of right-leaning respondents is higher, at around 35 percent. And while non-athletes from the United States are most likely to have come from the Northeast, athletes are most likely to hail from the South.

Despite these differences, athletes and NARPs take the same classes, complete the same problem sets, and attend the same parties on the Street. The Class of 2028 Frosh Survey highlights these differences and the many similarities between the two groups commonly thought of as different on campus.

Vincent Etherton is a staff Data writer for the ‘Prince.’

Who takes gap years?, Oct. 3

Approximately 7.4 percent of the Class of 2028 Frosh Survey respondents reported that they took a gap year before coming to Princeton. Among students who delayed their entry to the Orange Bubble for a year, structured programs like Princeton’s Novogratz Bridge Year program, proved to be popular, though preferences for how to spend the year varied across household income brackets and high school background.

Of those who took a gap year, the majority (51.9 percent) participated in a structured program during their gap year. This option was particularly popular among students from non-selective public high schools, with 67 percent of graduates from this background who took a gap year choosing this path. Similarly, 57 percent of students from selective public schools and 50 percent from parochial and religious private schools also opted for structured programs.

On the other hand, working during the gap year was the second most common activity, with 27.8 percent of students selecting this option. This choice was most popular among students from independent private schools, where 64 percent spent their gap year focused on gaining work experience before attending college. Traveling was less common, with only 5.6 percent of students reporting that they spent their gap year primarily traveling.

Among students who know their annual household income, gap years were common among students with an annual total household income below $40k, where 11 percent took a gap year. Gap years were also popular among students with incomes of $500k a year or more, with 10 percent taking a gap year. Comparatively, only  4.8 percent  of students in the $40-80k household income bracket took a gap year, making them the least popular within this group.

Students with household incomes below $40k who took a gap year tended to work, with just under half of students entering the workplace during their gap year. Among wealthier income brackets, structured programs were the most popular option. 67 percent of students with incomes $125-$250k who took a gap year used the time to complete a structured program and 86 percent of students with incomes above $500k who took a gap year chose this option. As household income increased, the percentage of those who chose to work fell while the percentage of those chose to complete a structured program increased.

The 2028 Frosh Survey shows the valuable opportunity that gap years pro-

vide for students to engage in a variety of experiences before entering Princeton. Whether through structured programs, work, or travel, students use this time to gain skills, explore interests, or prepare for the academic challenges ahead — though their preferences for activities during their gap year varied across socioeconomic status.

Hannah Choi is a contributing Data writer for the ‘Prince.’

Patterns in SCEA and legacy admissions, Oct. 2

Single-Choice Early Action (SCEA), a non-binding early admissions process prohibiting students from applying to other private institutions, has long been a distinctive feature of Princeton’s undergraduate admissions process. Among the Class of 2028 Frosh Survey respondents, 38.2 percent were admitted through SCEA. This continues the trend of students being admitted through SCEA, with the exception of the 2020–21 admissions cycle, when the University canceled the early admissions round due to COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the number of students admitted to Princeton through the Questbridge National College Match program increased from 0.8 percent to 9.4 percent for the Class of 2025 and has remained just under 10 percent of the matriculating class since then. The University has partnered with Questbridge since 2006.

For the Class of 2028, only 21.4 percent of students admitted through SCEA gained acceptance from the other Ivy League schools and top institutions listed on the survey. In contrast, 61.2 percent of students admitted during the regular decision cycle and 76.9 percent of those accepted from the waitlist indicated that they were offered admission to other top institutions.

The discrepancy in admission to other universities aligns with data showing that 93.8 percent of students admitted through SCEA reported Princeton as their first choice. While the non-binding nature of SCEA allows students to apply to other universities during the regular decision round, these figures suggest that most students admitted to Princeton early did not take advantage of the process’s flexibility because Princeton was their top-choice institution.

A much higher proportion of legacy and multi-generational legacy matriculants — 63.7 and 65 percent respectively — gained admission to Princeton through SCEA. This trend is echoed as far back as the Class of 2024, which revealed that 75.8 percent of legacy matriculants were accepted early, compared to just 48.8 percent of non-legacy matriculants.

While Princeton does not have an official statement on a preference for legacy applicants, a report by the Ad Hoc Committee on Undergraduate Admission Policy acknowledges a “limited preference” for children of alumni. The authors of the report note that legacy preference “recognizes the University’s special bond with its alumni” — indeed, over 25,000 alumni attend Reunions each year. According to the report, legacy admissions “functions as a tiebreak-

er between equally well-qualified applicants in limited instances;” the authors concluded that the University should continue to practice legacy preference but “continue to carefully monitor [its] effects and implementation.” Through SCEA, Princeton admits applicants who have a clear preference for life in the Orange Bubble — and unsurprisingly, many of them claim Princeton heritage.

Hellen Luo is a contributing Data writer for The Daily Princetonian.

Who joins Princeton’s eating clubs? Breaking down eating club trends.

By Danna Duarte Staff Data Writer

All eleven eating clubs on Prospect Ave. are known for their distinctive communities. As sophomores find their fit in terms of the eating and social community they choose to join for their final two years on campus, they must weigh out different aspects of each club that give them their identity. Interested in diversity? Look no further than Cap and Gown, where seniors report the most racial diversity of all the clubs. If your main concern is booze, Tiger Inn is the place.

These clubs have historically been a large part of Princeton’s social scene, with approximately three-quarters of Princeton seniors reporting they have paid dues to at least one eating club during their undergraduate career. With bicker season concluded and hundreds of sophomores settling into their new clubs, the Daily Princetonian broke down the senior respondents aggregated from the 2022, 2023, and 2024 senior surveys, looking at the most interesting trends on the Street. Every club had a sample size of at least 45 students, with five clubs having a sample size of at least 150 over the three years.

According to the past three senior surveys, 76.7 percent of seniors reported having paid dues to at least one eating club during their time at Princeton.

Across all 3 years, sixteen percent of respondents report being first-generation college students. Cloister Inn and non-club students had the highest percentage of first-generation college students, at 22.92 percent and 26.43 percent, respectively.

In contrast, Cannon Dial Elm Club and Tiger Inn had the lowest percentages, with 7.94 percent and 7.69 percent, respectively. Overall, sign-in clubs — Colonial, Cloister, Quadrangle, Terrace, and Charter — had slightly higher percentages of first-generation students compared to bicker clubs, including Cannon, Cap and Gown, Cottage, Ivy, Tiger Inn, and Tower.

Cottage and Ivy Clubs had the highest percentage of members who reported a household income above $500k, with 29.17 percent and 26.92 percent, respectively.

Overall, 18.6 percent of students who never joined an eating club reported having a household income below $40k, the highest percentage of any category analyzed. Among the eating clubs, Terrace and Quadrangle had the highest percentages of members who reported having a household income below $40K, with 16.56 percent and 16.15 percent, respectively.

71.32 percent of respondents who have been members of Colonial Club identified themselves as Asian. Cottage Club and Tiger Inn had the highest percentage of members who identified as white, with 77.36 percent and 74.44 percent, respectively.

Politically, 43.36 percent of Terrace members identified as leftists/socialists, closely followed by Quadrangle Club, with 32.43 percent of members. Cottage Club and Cloister Inn had the highest percentages of members identifying as very conservative, with 11.11 percent and 7.41 percent, respectively. Out of the respondents from Cap and Gown Club that reported leaning towards one specific side, around 96 percent leaned left.

Terrace and Quadrangle clubs had the highest percentage of LGTBQIA+ identifying members. In comparison, Cannon, Cottage, and Tiger Inn had the lowest percentages. 44.9 percent of students who never joined an eating club had not had sex. Among eating clubs, Colonial (33.8 percent) and Quadrangle (33.3 percent) had the lowest percentage of respondent members who haven’t had sex. In contrast, Cap and Gown (93.4 percent) and Ivy Club (93.5 percent) had the highest percentage of members who reported having had sex.

Students who did not join an eating club reported the lowest average drinking frequency (2.42 on a 7-point scale), with approximately 27.6 percent reporting they have never consumed alcohol in a non-religious context, significantly lower than any club-affiliated group, suggesting that club membership may correlate with higher alcohol consumption.

Terrace and Ivy Club members reported the highest levels of marijuana use, with average scores of 2.99 and 2.67 on a 7-point scale, where a score of 3 corresponds to using marijuana “once a month.” In contrast, Colonial Club members reported the lowest frequency of marijuana use.

It is commonly said that there is a club for everyone on the Street. As class sizes expand and new classes join the eating club system, will Princeton’s eating club communities continue to evolve, or will their identities remain?

Danna Duarte is a staff Data writer for the ‘Prince.’

Princeton decides: The election in photos

By

Veena Krishnaraj, Brandon Lee, Louisa Gheorghita, Annie Rupertus, and Yacoub Kahkajian

The Daily Princetonian Staff

VEENA KRISHNARAJ / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The American flag flies over Nassau Hall on Election Day morning.

VEENA KRISHNARAJ / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The American flag flies over Nassau Hall on Election Day morning.

LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Fox News plays at the College Republicans election night watch party in Robertson Hall 100.

YACOUB KAHKAJIAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN People gather outside of Whig Hall on election night.

LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Students watch MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki in Stokes Lounge at the Whig-Clio election watch-party.

LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Students watch MSNBC’s Steve Kornacki in Stokes Lounge at the Whig-Clio election watch-party.

BRANDON LEE / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN USG Campus and Community Affairs Chair Genevieve Shutt ’26, U-Councilor Aishwarya Swamidurai ’26, and Dean Ian Deas pose for photos at Vote100’s “Donuts and Democracy” event.

By Spencer Bauman Head Humor Editor

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

Following the U.S. presidential election this past Tuesday, the Office of the Registrar saw a sharp increase in the number of politics majors attempting to switch their majors.

An email was sent to all undergraduate students at 12:24 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 6, saying that TigerHub was down for repairs following the “unprecedented number of students attempting to switch departments.”

Though the email did not specify the details of the switches, in an interview with The Daily PrintsAnything, University spokesperson Elle Ector revealed, “Most of these were students trying to drop politics.”

Official documentation obtained by the

‘Prints’ confirms this. Over half of students who had declared politics as of Nov. 1 were enrolled in a different degree program by the end of the day on Wednesday. According to the document, most of these students switched to economics.

However, many economics majors

Hum r

Over half of the Politics department switched majors following the election Dates

By Eliana Du Head Cartoon Editor

switched departments following the election as well.

Ex-economics majors Sue Pligh ’26 and Dee Mand ’26 told the ‘Prints,’ “Yeah, we’re not too sure what’s going to happen, so I think most of us thought it would be best to cut our losses now.”

Further investigation revealed that these economics majors switched to sociology. Even further investigation found that everyone in sociology switched out due to “impending societal collapse” as explained on a hastily-written note taped to the front of a now-empty Wallace Hall.

These sociology majors switched to psychology, who then switched to geoscience, then anthropology, then civil and environmental engineering, and then we lost track.

As of writing, the only majors in which any students are still enrolled are East Asian Studies, French and Italian, and Slavic Languages and Literatures.

Spencer Bauman is a co-head Humor editor, who made a deal with a genie so that he will know the outcome of every single presidential election, but only if he keeps it secret from everyone else. Sorry. He can be reached at sbauman[at]princeton.edu.

AARUSHI ADLAKHA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN. Declaration Day for the Class of 2025.

Hum r

New club aims to entertain humanities majors during midterms week

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

As midterms approach, college students across the country are preparing for an intense week. Brilliant minds are stocking up on electrolytes and protein bars, making sure they get a full three hours of sleep to prepare for an onslaught of calculus and chemistry.

Yet, one group of students finds themselves lacking excitement: humanities majors. The average English major has 2.4 pages (double-spaced) due at the end of the week, while anthropology and sociology majors have a combined 30 coherent thoughts assigned.

To combat this discrepancy, the University has introduced a new club, FUNdamentals, which hosts activities for humanities majors wanting to feel included in the hustle and bustle of midterms. The club, run by a suite of Princetonbased child psychologists and pediatricians, looks to create a safe and productive environment in which humanities majors can develop the skills they need to succeed.

“My roommate would not stop bothering me, asking me to ‘play’

while I was working on building my rocket,” said MAE major Jean Nyuss ’26. “I finally lost my patience and took her to FUNdamentals, and they were able to keep her entertained for a couple hours.”

The club has been provided with a few Fisher-Price classroom playsets, including brightly colored plastic desks and personalized name tags, in order to create an authentic experience for the students. Upon arrival, chaperones hand out either coloring sheets or

crosswords (for advanced students) along with a variety of crayons and scented markers which, apparently, “smell better than they taste.”

One excited new member of the club, Dom Bass ’28, reports, “I’ve been to the first two meetings, and now, FUNdamentals is the best part of my week! My favorite part of each meeting is the snack break. Last week, we got animal crackers, the frosted kind, as a special treat with our chocolate milk.”

As news of this exciting oppor-

tunity sweeps the University campus, the demand for spots is rising rapidly; according to the club’s president, they may have to move to McCosh 50 in order to make sure every humanities major is “fed, nurtured, burped, and swaddled.”

Francesca Volkema ’28 is an associate Humor editor. She is a prospective English major and is pretty sure she has a paper due at some point. She can be reached at fv1281[at]princeton.edu.

Let’s impress the Class of 2029 this Preview season

By Nic Rohou Contributing Humor Writer

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

Princeton Preview is upon us. On these hallowed Tuesdays, our campus once again looks picturesque and livable as the University attempts to put its best foot forward for the potential members of the Class of 2029. As a student body, it’s our duty to follow suit and convince these prospective students to fork over their much-needed tuition money. Here are our top tips to make this Preview Day an unforgettable experience.

1. The Princetonian Attitude

The first thing these kids need to understand is that life is not all sunshine and rainbows — the grass is not always green and actually often smells of manure. Therefore, to ensure that these future first-years get a real sense of the average Princetonian’s day-to-day, make sure you walk past every group looking as miserable as possible. Appearing as “in the trenches” as you can will help the University look serious and prestigious, further motivating enrollment. Dress up in the clothes that have sat on your chair for a week to show your dedication to studying over doing laundry. Try using buzzwords like “lock in,” “senior thesis,” and “PSET” as much as humanly possible. Bonus points if you manage to break down crying in front of a tour group.

2. Give the Parents Some Love

With new students on campus comes new student families. This is the perfect opportunity to change things up romantically — especially since you’ve already slept with everyone in your hall. Think of all the parents sitting there just begging for you to hit on them. You see that hot mom taking pictures of the chapel? Go up to her — offer her a more personal connection to the University. There’s no better way to get to know these new students than by being intimately familiar with the people that raised them.

3. Ivy Day Competition

You remember all those Ivy League applications that you poured your blood, sweat, and tears into? This is what it was all for. You now have the perfect benchmark to see how you stack up to this new generation of college first-years. Open every interaction with your list of extracurriculars, SAT score, GPA, and college acceptances. Prospective students will love to talk to you all day about why they didn’t apply to Penn because it was “too pre-professional” or about how they “didn’t want to go to Yale anyway.” These conversations are the kind that strong, long-lasting friendships are built off of and are perfect for

vetting who’s going places. Anyone who didn’t get into as many schools as you quite frankly isn’t worth your time, and anyone who got into more is simply a try-hard.

4. Academic Conditioning

It’s important to keep in mind that these students are your future academic peers who you’ll want to set up for success at the University. Therefore, when they ask for course recommendations, make sure you point them to the fundamentals — PHY105, MAT215, ISC, the HUM sequence, and the like. Warn them about time wasters such as office hours, tutoring sessions, the McGraw center — resources they’re better off avoiding since it takes time away from reading their course textbooks from cover to cover. Of course, don’t forget to mention the typical six class per semester recommendation for first-years so they can stay ahead of the game.

It is ultimately the duty of the student body to secure future growth in our alumni network and glorious endowment. Hopefully with these tips, we can achieve this goal by helping to inform the decisions of this new generation of potential Princetonians.

Nic Rohou is a contributing Humor writer whose only memories of Preview Day consist of the roughly 600 a cappella groups who performed. He can be reached at nr9348[at]princeton.edu.

CANDACE DO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN McCosh Hall 50.

By Francesca Volkema Associate Humor Editor

e C lue , r euse , r e C y C le ”

By Maddie Feldman

Fluid analyzed in a drug test 56 Walked to and from

Grammy-winning artist Dua 58 Many a fairytale’s second word

“___ and the Real Girl” (Ryan Gosling film)

62 Animate object in Dora’s

“C entral e urope ”

Jack Noymer

There’s an existential threat to the eating clubs that you need to

know about

Iam writing in my personal capacity as the former President of the Interclub Council to give the University some feedback on an important matter they are currently reviewing. From late 2023 to early 2024, the University hired an outside consulting firm, Huron Consulting Group, to examine the housing and dining undergraduate experience. Last summer, the Huron Group quietly released a 25-page report detailing their findings. The report is as opaque with its methodology as it is sweeping in the scope of its recommendations, the most extreme of which is a proposal on the last page to require all students who reside on campus to purchase a campus dining meal plan — including juniors and seniors currently on an eating club contract.

This course of action would be harmful to the undergraduate experience and poses an existential threat to the eating clubs, potentially forcing many into financial ruin. If implemented, the report’s recommendation would sever past and present generations of Princetonians from their unique and tight-knit communities, reverse decades of progress towards diversity in the clubs, and throw

the undergraduate dining system into disarray. I respectfully call on the administration to disavow this course of action, since the relationship between the University and the eating clubs is ultimately one of mutual benefit.

The eating clubs play a vital role in nurturing Princeton’s undergraduate and alumni communities. The Huron Report itself emphasized that “students who are a part of [an] eating club are more satisfied than those who identify as Independent or have selected a meal plan.” The eating clubs provide a convenient location to eat, as well as a vibrant campus social scene with robust safety measures, including hiring professional bouncers, running SHARE training for members, partnering with PSafe, and defining policies around after-dark events. The rich and longstanding history of the eating clubs also helps members feel a sense of investment in a beloved campus tradition. There’s a reason Princeton has the most loyal alumni in the Ivy League — long after graduation, students who were in eating clubs have a lifelong home on campus to come back to.

However, requiring all juniors and seniors to purchase a campus dining meal plan would threaten these benefits. Few Princetonians would be able to afford both

their eating club fees and a campus meal plan, so requiring such a plan is tantamount to forcing most students to give up their eating club memberships. Notably, the Huron Report does not recommend that the University readjust their increased food budget for juniors and seniors to be higher, which could shield students on financial aid from the worst of the effects. With a decimated pool of potential members, most if not all eating clubs would simply not be able to continue operation — especially in the face of sky-high property taxes, multiple forms of insurance, and rising inflation in the food industry.

The report is, at the moment, a recommendation. But the stakes are high. Every time in the past a club has closed on the Street has been a heartbreaking experience for its undergraduate and alumni members. In particular, stripping alumni of their “home away from home” at Princeton would lessen their connection to campus and the University. According to the Huron Report itself, “Alumni eating club members expressed a high degree of affinity for their club, describing it as a defining element of the residential experience. The eating clubs were cited as motivators for alumni to return to campus.” This is due in no small part to the fiercely proud and tight-knit communi-

ties we are able to form at the eating clubs, which remain near and dear to alumni hearts even decades after they graduate.

Furthermore, following the Huron Report’s recommendation would reverse decades of painstaking and fruitful progress on eating club diversity. The eating clubs today are more diverse in terms of race, gender, and socioeconomic background than they have ever been before. But if all students were required to purchase a campus dining plan, only the most wealthy and privileged Princetonians would be able to afford an eating club membership on top of it. Instead of being able to serve large majorities of Princeton’s student population, the clubs would only be able to cater to the “one percent,” turning into regressive and anachronistic versions of themselves that nobody, especially the current and increasingly diverse membership of the clubs, wants them to be.

Lastly, requiring all juniors and seniors to purchase campus dining plans would negatively impact the general undergraduate dining experience, including first-years and sophomores, as well as the students who choose to remain on a dining hall plan in their upperclass years. The current dining hall options are already crowded, with long lines winding through the serveries

and teeming with unfamiliar faces. Jamming several thousand additional juniors and seniors into an already overburdened and crowded campus dining system would exacerbate these issues, no matter how many gleaming new dining halls rise at Hobson or other farther locations.

Both of us, the University and the eating clubs, ultimately share the same goal: making the undergraduate experience as enriching and rewarding as possible and fostering an enthusiastic and involved alumni community. Adopting the Huron Report’s recommendation to force every student to purchase a campus dining meal plan, even if they have another full meal plan, would be counterproductive to that mutual goal. It would take away one of the most beloved Princeton traditions, reversing decades of progress and worsening the Princeton experience for all students, regardless of whether they participate in an eating club. I am, respectfully, offering my advice to the University to reject this illconceived recommendation.

Vincent Jiang ’25 is the President Emeritus of the Interclub Council, the organization composed of the eleven undergraduate eating club presidents at Princeton University. He can be reached at vincentjiang[at]princeton. edu.

Princeton’s young alumni are no longer donating, and for a good reason

They may have the sense of entitlement,” Larry Leighton ’56 writes of young Princeton alumni who donate at rates far lower than their predecessors. “[T]here seems to be very little knowledge of the importance of philanthropy generally.” In recent years, many alumni have penned “giving pleas” of a similar vein, bemoaning the dying culture of annual giving. But is the reality truly as terrible as these alumni assume it to be?

For many alumni, Princeton’s endowment is a shared point of pride. This sentiment is completely understandable — after all, it was the contributions of their classes that built and ballooned the endowment that we know today.

Yet in recent years, younger alumni have demonstrated a marked decrease in charitable donations, and especially when compared to that of previous classes. Although there may be a manifold of reasons as to why, more and more students have reduced their giving out of concerns about whether the endowment’s investments continue to line up with their values, along with the underlying recognition that the University is no longer sustained on the backs of alumni contributions. Instead of levying accusations towards these young

people and charging them with claims of entitlement or ignorance, the University should take their concerns seriously and work to earn their donations in the future.

The amount raised during annual giving is frankly staggering. Across the nation, the University frequently ranks first in terms of alumni donations among post-secondary institutions. Compared to the national average donation rate of 8 percent, Princeton boasts an impressive average percentage of 46 percent across all classes. Its most recent 2023–24 Annual Giving campaign was enormously successful, raising a total of nearly $67 million. Not only do these statistics rank among the top ten highest totals in Annual Giving history, but they further align with a growing trend: over the past couple of years, Princeton has witnessed a stupendous increase in donations, and record-breaking highs of nearly $100 million.

But the pool of donors is noticeably decreasing. While older alumni have spearheaded efforts to boost class participation, younger graduates have fallen significantly behind. In particular, since the 2000s, the quantity of donations from successive graduating classes have gradually diminished over time. As contributions dwindled, participation has, too. At the turn of the century, donor participation among the five youngest classes ranked at nearly 60 percent. Compare this to the class of 2022, where only 31 percent gave upon graduation. And much of this dropoff came very recently: 52 percent of the class of 2018 made a charitable giving following their graduation.

If it was any other institution, it might be easy to disregard this shift. After all, it is a well-acknowledged fact that younger alumni tend to lack the same degree of financial generosity as their older peers. However, this is not the case at Princeton. As alumni like Larry Leighton ’56 have recounted, the University has always flaunted strong rates of philanthropic turnout due to strong cultural expectations of how a Princetonian education was meant to be “paid forward” for the next generation. Accordingly, this new phenomenon cannot merely be attributed to the natural trends of donation cycles. Rather, this trend represents the beginning of a new structural generational divide in class contributions.

As has been written time and time again, the University does not require alumni donations to sustain its current operations. After all, donations notwithstanding, Princeton’s financial footing is nothing if not secure. Although recent voices have expressed concern for the investment losses of 2023 and successive low endowment gains in 2024, the University’s endowment continues to persevere at $34.1 billion strong and an annual rate of return of 10.8 percent. Even in challenging economic conditions, the University did not face much in terms of financial hardship and estimates for the endowment return continue to project long-term growth.

This is not to say that Princeton’s alumni participation is entirely devoid of meaning. As stakeholders with a vested interest in the institution, their donations continue to supplement a small percentage of the operating budget and promote continued engagement therein. However,

the lacking donations among younger alumni are not as great of a concern as older generations have perhaps framed them out to be. As mentioned above, the University is no longer sustained by the generosity of its alumni and accordingly, it’s entirely understandable that younger graduates do not feel compelled to make a contribution.

If the University still seeks to financially mobilize its youngest alumni, they are not entirely out of options. Principally, Princeton should also take it upon themselves to be more responsive to movements and petitions of the student body.

In recent years, socio-political movements have exerted significant influence on alumni decisions to donate. At present, 3,266 Princeton students, faculty, alumni, and parents have pledged to withhold do-

nations due to Princeton’s investments in fossil fuels. Following the Oct. 7 attacks, many alumni further refused to donate as a means of political protest against the school’s convoluted investiture ties with Israel.

Perhaps, if young graduates felt a stronger alignment with the University’s values and stated interests, a greater sense of philanthropy could be fostered among the student body. However at present, the donor participation of younger alumni is falling short — and that’s okay.

Wynne Conger is a sophomore and prospective SPIA major from Bryn Mawr, Pa. She can be reached by email at wc2918[at]princeton.edu. Her column “Popping the Bubble” runs every three weeks on Friday.

Wynne Conger

OpiniOn COlumnist

Vincent Jiang Guest COntributOr

www.

Your Ivy League experience would not send anyone into a coma

Since I arrived at Princeton, a niche type of content has flooded my social media feed: elite university students documenting the unique experience of attending a selective school. From packed “day in the life” vlogs to sneak peeks at seemingly luxurious dining hall meals, these videos emphasize the privilege, aesthetics, and exclusivity of the Ivy League student experience.

Instagram Reels or TikTok videos about the Ivy League college experience are often harmless. Personally, I enjoy videos with a simple Q&A format, or those where students showcase glimpses of their school’s main green to give a sense of its culture.

But when this content markets the prestige and exclusivity of attending an elite university as central to the student experience, it risks misconstruing the true value of our education as a status symbol and not an intellectual experience. This reinforces the cultural gulf between the academic elite and America at large.

This content often dramatizes the difference between the experience at elite universities and other schools. I’ve seen several TikTok videos with captions like “Things about [Ivy League school] that would send people from other schools into a coma” that, in reality, showcase something mundane that could be found at any university, like placement tests for languages. In doing so, these creators imply that the selectivity of elite universities somehow renders them entirely different from others.

By dramatizing the difference between elite schools and other universities, we play into the obsession with college admissions that has dominated the national discourse and perpetuate an idea of studentbody superiority despite the inequities present in these admissions. In the process, we increase the cultural focus on the exclusivity of these schools rather than the quality of education that they offer. We should be wary of reinforcing this culture of exclusivity for prospective applicants perusing Princeton content online. Content about the unique luxuries of an elite college experience doesn’t just distort how our schools are perceived

by prospective applicants; it also distorts the perception of higher education by the nation at large. In one popular type of video, creators showcase the material luxuries that come with attending an Ivy, flaunting the gourmet cuisine and decadent decorations at events like “Harvard’s fanciest party” or the exquisite Yale holiday dinner, often to hundreds of thousands of likes. By doing so, they reinforce the idea that Ivy League schools provide a luxurious experience for a select few rather than a topnotch education meant to better the world.

The comment section of the aforementioned Yale video demonstrates this adverse effect. Many viewers point out the disparity between the event’s decadence and the poverty in New Haven. If we want to contradict the perception that elite universities are nothing more than finishing schools for the privileged, we need to think carefully about how we represent our student experience online.

Of course, Princeton’s student body remains disproportionately wealthy compared to the entire country, and Princeton students increasingly choose high-paying careers like consulting. In some ways,

we are indeed the out-of-touch elite the media stereotypes. But to dismantle the elitism at Princeton, we first must reject it, not embrace it.

Given the national landscape, the association between elite schools that produce important research and havens for rich kids is especially important to fight. After all, it is well-established that Americans are beginning to lose faith in elite academia, viewing institutions like ours not as bodies to further knowledge for all but as finishing schools for an existing educational elite. In a poll by Gallup in 2023, the country’s confidence in higher education fell to 36 percent, down from 57 percent in 2015. When we outwardly market the privilege and exclusivity of attending an elite university as central to the experience, we only accelerate this loss of confidence. When students highlight only the most luxurious aspects of schools like Princeton on social media, it becomes no easier to convince prospective students who aren’t from society’s upper echelons that Princeton is an inclusive place for them. In this way, the prestige and elitism promoted on social media create a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And with the Trump administration beginning to rescind university funding for bad-faith reasons — including at Columbia and Penn — the way we represent ourselves as a community takes on greater importance. Someone who believes their taxpayer dollars are funding Yale students’ gratuitously fancy holiday dinners might find no problem with withholding the university’s federal funding. Even though that funding is specifically earmarked for worthy causes like research or financial aid, it would be hard to blame them.

In this frightening political landscape, 30-second videos posted to social media may seem the least of our issues. But as students at a school aiming to increase its diversity and impact in the world amid a fraught moment for higher education, it is vital that we accurately convey our institution’s values. That starts by being thoughtful about how we represent the Princeton experience — and the college experience as a whole — on and off social media.

Shane McCauley is an assistant Opinion editor from Boston. He can be reached at sm8000[at] princeton.edu.

Excessive careerism is leading us astray from the humanities

Telling somebody your major can prompt a variety of responses, ranging from impressed gasps to vacant stares. As college students, most of us can probably agree that different fields of study have varying reputations about the careers, success, and income that they potentially bring for their concentrators. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve been asked “what I’m going to do” with a degree in the Humanities, I could take the whole Princeton student body to lunch to discuss my answer.

It’s important to carry our learning beyond Princeton and translate it into action and the generation of more knowledge, income, and personal fulfillment. However, if the entire focus of a college education becomes centered on how it’s going to benefit us professionally when it’s over, we are stripping the value away from learning itself. When designing our educational paths, we should prioritize genuine intellectual interest over exclusively pre-professional considerations. Ambition for the future can add to the meaning we derive from learning, motivating us by connecting class material to an exciting career or future opportunity. But an excessively “careerist” approach to education has consequences. While the learning we do in the present should ideally prepare us for our futures, focusing on the future at the expense of what captivates and inspires us in the present limits our intellectual horizons. We might

miss out on a class we would have loved because it didn’t seem to fit our predetermined career goals. We should model our educational paths based on our genuine intellectual interests, rather than making our academic decisions solely based on whatever we think we want to do with our lives at 18.

Constant worry about what we are going to do post-grad creates an educational hierarchy based on the perceived productivity or practicality of a field of study. This can create assumptions about students’ intelligence and ambition based on their chosen major. Whether or not a subject is perceived to translate to a prestigious career is becoming a more important factor in major selection than whether students are interested in the material they are learning about.

But when we choose our majors based on a rigid career or income goal, any setbacks present a threat to the entire future we’ve built in our heads. Struggling academically doesn’t just represent misunderstandings or a need to seek help. It gets blown up to the scale of a complete career failure. These stakes, for some, make every class much more than a class and every grade more than a grade. It’s getting difficult to stop judging both ourselves and our peers by the metric of predicted career success.

These fears have manifested into what students choose to learn: pursuit of the Humanities has declined over the years as societal standards shift for what constitutes a “practical” career. The flurry of AI development has caused many to discount the value of critical thought

and original written expression, and prompted fear that the careers building from these skills will be replaced by artificial intelligence. In 1999, Princeton’s three most popular majors were History (11.8 percent), Economics (11.6 percent), and Politics (9.3 percent). In the Class of 2024, the three most common majors were Computer Science B.S.E. (12 percent), SPIA (11 percent), and again Economics (8.9 percent). Over 25 years, History dropped from 11.8 to 3.8 percent, and English from 7.5 to 2.5 percent.

Students are increasingly choosing the area of study that they believe will make them the most successful after Princeton, but it may not necessarily be what interests them the most. A survey from the class of 1999 showed that only 51.6 percent of alumni would choose the same major

if they were to redo their time at Princeton. This percentage is relatively consistent across fields of study. Approximately half of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Natural Science graduates would change their major if they got the change, while the number in Engineers is slightly lower, closer to 40 percent. Humanities majors are not generating dramatically higher levels of regret in graduates.

When nearly half of Princeton graduates across all fields of study would change their past major if they got the chance — and when the fields judged most harshly do not correlate with any higher level of regret — why should careerism stop Princetonians from majoring in the humanities, or whichever field they love, as opposed to the field they think they should be in?

Subjects have purpose and meaning

beyond the job they are assumed to funnel into, and education has value independent of career. The percentage of graduates from the class of 1999 who are currently employed in the field of study they anticipated for themselves when they graduated is only 50.3 percent. Over 80 percent of 1999 graduates have made at least one career change. The fact of the matter is that we can’t anticipate the course of our entire lives while we’re studying at Princeton, and we don’t even seem to know once we graduate. We shouldn’t hold ourselves, and each other, back from studying what we love based on assumptions about a future of which none of us can yet be certain.

Lily Halbert-Alexander is a first-year prospective English major from San Francisco. She can be reached by email at lh1157[at]princeton.

vol. cxlviii

editor-in-chief Miriam Waldvogel ’26

business manager Jessica Funk ’26

149TH MANAGING BOARD

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APRIL 2025

Face it, Eisgruber is the man for the moment

AssOCiAte OpiniOn editOrs

Higher education is in trouble. Princeton is in trouble. After Tuesday’s announcement that the federal government suspended some of Princeton’s research grants, it’s clear that we’re already in the crosshairs. At Columbia, after the university appointed an administrative official to oversee an academic department in acquiescence to Trump administration demands, it appears that the integrity of academic freedom is also under attack.

Many university presidents have chosen to remain silent in the face of this attack on academia. Others, such as Michael Roth ’84 GS of Wesleyan University, have explicitly vilified the Trump administration. Rather than taking an overtly political stance against the administration, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has chosen to take a principled stand against the most troubling facet of the recent grant suspensions: their impact on academic freedom.

While support for one’s university president may not be common in the pages of a student newspaper, it’s time for Princetonians to realize that for years, Eisgruber has kept the University on the right course of free expression and academic freedom. He has arguably handled the issues of the past two years the best out of any of our peer institutions, and it’s important in this moment to stay his course.

Princeton has been a model of discourse in the Ivy League in major part because of Eisgruber’s leadership. Eisgruber, who is also the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the University Center for Human Values, is one of our nation’s most esteemed constitutional scholars, with an immense repertoire of First Amendment scholarship, which has informed his leadership of Princeton.

Even before the Trump administration’s recent attacks on academic freedom, there has been a crisis of discourse at America’s universities. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) which defends free speech on college campuses found that 63 percent of students are “frequently” or “sometimes” intimidated to share ideas that differ from their peers. Nowhere is this experience more pressing than our nation’s elite universities, such as at Harvard, where just this semester, a survey indicated that most students are uncomfortable sharing controversial opinions in class.

This phenomenon, however, has mostly escaped Princeton. The Daily Princetonian’s 2024 Senior Survey found that just 18 percent of graduating seniors felt very or somewhat uncomfortable sharing their political views on campus.

Eisgruber has prioritized fostering discussions on free speech, including adding programming to freshman orientation, exposing students to the importance of free expression during their very first days on campus. He has also notably championed Princeton’s policy of “institutional restraint.”

Eisgruber is one of the most senior elite university presidents, managing to retain his position while many peers have been forced out of their offices. To top it all off, he’s writing a book sharing his story of success: “Terms of Respect: How Colleges Get Free Speech Right,” to be published in September.

And now, at the exact right moment, Eisgruber is speaking out in defense of universities, and doing it in such a way that highlights the value of academic freedom. Last week, Eisgruber published an article in The Atlantic pushing back against the government’s attempt to chip away at academic freedom, and reaffirmed his views a few days later in a PBS interview. After Tuesday’s funding freeze announcement, he also appeared on Bloomberg Business’s “Big Take” podcast to maintain his defense of academic freedom.

recent Trump administration attacks on free speech, funding cuts and threats for deportations.”

Eisgruber deflected in response, affirming the importance of speaking about the good of universities but rejecting the idea of directly opposing administration officials. This is, again, a prudent strategy: the administration’s response would trounce the University. If Princeton were to do what the activists ask and look for a fight with the executive branch, Princeton would lose. A single university is certainly no match for the awesome power of the federal government.

In this critical moment for higher education, we implore our fellow students to unite behind President Eisgruber, instead of undermining his efforts to keep us on the right course. Eisgruber is right in saying that we must follow the law while also defending our academic freedom and due process. When Columbia faced funding freezes, little was said by their president before they announced measures implementing all of the Trump administration’s demands. Conversely, on Tuesday, Eisgruber declared that “we have to be willing to say no to funding if it’s going to constrain our ability to pursue the truth.”

We do not envy Eisgruber’s job. But the fact that he has continued to voice his commitment to academic freedom and the strength of the American university is commendable. In a time when Princeton and higher education are under fire, we ought to be uniting against the threats and supporting the academic freedom principles that Eisgruber has championed.

Princeton’s commitment to truth requires discourse. Protection of these sacrosanct values have been fundamental to Eisgruber’s philosophy of the presidency. We should be supportive.

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Under his tenure, barring a few notable critiques, Old Nassau has routinely ranked as one of the schools with the most robust protections for free speech, and overall has developed a culture of discourse respected by students and faculty alike. “Shouting down” speakers, routine at our peer institutions, is relatively rare at Princeton.

But some of our fellow students have expressed their discontent with Eisgruber’s approach. During a Council of the Princeton University Community meeting last week, a student demanded that Eisgruber commit to using his position as chair of the Association of American Universities to “defend all members of the University community from the

Jerry Zhu is a sophomore majoring in Economics. He serves as the community Opinion editor of The Daily Princetonian, and encourages you to submit a response to this piece or write an op-ed for the ‘Prince.’ You can reach him at jfz[at]princeton.edu.

Preston Ferraiuolo is a junior from Brooklyn, New York. He is an associate Opinion editor majoring in the School of Public and International Affairs and can be reached at prestonf[at]princeton.edu or online @NYCPreston.

CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Clio Hall.

Voters then and now: How different roads led to the same vote

By Coco Gong Head Features Editor

It’s 2008. The Jonas Brothers and Carrie Underwood are playing over the radio. “Iron Man” has just been released as the first film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The Olympic spotlight lands on Michael Phelps as the swimmer wins gold in all eight of his events and shatters World Records in seven.

And, a few months ahead, the 2008 presidential election looms.

On Princeton’s campus, students prepare to vote for the first time as November draws near. An abundance of political issues guide their electoral decisions. The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, for example, has just kicked off one of the most devastating financial crises since the Great Depression. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to weigh heavily on the minds of the American people.

In interviews with The Daily Princetonian, alumni who were on campus during the 2008 presidential election expressed experiencing substantial changes in life experiences, social media, and the way they now approach politics — yet, they all cast their support for Harris in the 2024 election. While the ‘Prince’ reached out to prominent independents and Republican supporters on campus back then, they either declined to comment or did not respond to multiple requests.

At the time, activism around larger, more sensitive issues, like the financial crisis and the ongoing wars, was rare. According to Aku Ammah-Tagoe ’11, now a search consultant at Isaacson, Miller, most students went to populated places like New York or Philadelphia for protests. The bulk of political discussion on campus was formal, taking place over campus publications such as the ‘Prince’ and the Tory and in debate societies like Whig and Clio.

“The prevailing attitude at the time was that Princeton was somewhat apolitical and less open to robust political debate than other college campuses,” Ammah-Tagoe said.

A 2004 ‘Prince’ article described political apathy as a “perennial complaint” at Princeton.

However, not all students were politically averse. Ammah-Tagoe recalled being invested in “the horse race aspect of politics,” keeping track of winning and losing candidates, strategies, and political trends from the physical newspapers that residential colleges delivered every day. She and her friends often sat together in the dining halls, reading The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and other blogs.

Some students involved themselves in class government. One alumna, in particular, has been in the thick of politics since her first year on campus: Lindy Li ’12, a current political strategist and commentator. Li was elected class president at age 17 and held the position for all four years as a student — the first woman at the University to do so — and continued to serve as alumni class president. Li, a frequent guest on cable news and personality on X (formerly Twitter), recently garnered headlines for switching allegiances from a staunch Democrat to supporter of President Donald Trump.

Others aligned themselves with political parties or specific issues. Rob Weiss ’09, the president of the College Democrats at the time and a current associate at Latham and Watkins, recalled

“a ton of enthusiasm and real engagement” despite Princeton’s reputation of being politically muted.

“There was a vibrant set of groups on campus that were doing everything from animal rights to the wars we were fighting overseas,” Weiss said. “Everybody had their own passions that they were really focused on.”

In particular, Weiss mobilized the College Democrats, donating to political causes, knocking on doors to get votes out, and registering new voters. According to Weiss, they visited over 20,000 doors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Virginia. On campus, their membership nearly doubled and the College Democrats became the largest student group.

In addition to students, professors also participated in the wider political discussion, recalled Carly Guerra ’10, a family medicine resident in El Paso, Texas.

“Tons of professors from my time, like Cornel West, were always very vocal about how they felt politically, which I appreciate. I think that’s a really important thing to do, especially on a college campus,” Guerra said.

A lot has changed since 2008, one of the most significant societal transformations being the advent of social media. Digital platforms like Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram have surpassed traditional media as the most popular avenue by which Americans get their news.

Elise Tremblay ’09, a pediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital, noted that this change deviated significantly from the main purposes of social media during her Princeton years. Facebook, she recalled, was mostly used to connect with friends she already knew and stay in touch with people from high school — far from the “echo chamber of political drama” it seems like today.

“I recognize — and this became starkly apparent with our recent election — that who you see on social media reinforces your narrative and what you think is going on,” Tremblay said. “I think it really helps to silo us in a way that is not necessarily productive.”

Guerra echoed the sentiment. In college, she remembered being able to read a newspaper, listen to a radio, or log onto social media and get reliable information without having to “wade through miles and miles of garbage.”

“[Social media] was a way [for] people to engage and share ideas, but it wasn’t this cesspool,” Guerra said. “Twitter is like a cesspool — you go on there, and it’s nothing but negativity [and] toxicity.”

However, not all 2008 voters view social media in a negative light. Jasmine Jeffers ’11, Managing Director of Institutional Giving at StoryCorps, said she spends a lot of time on TikTok and would classify herself as chronically online.

“It’s been interesting both to be exposed to new ways of thinking that I might not have considered based on my own lived experience,” Jeffers explained. “It’s been useful for putting my own experiences into context.”

Like other alumni, Li recalled social media having little influence in 2008 but acknowledged its central role in her career today. A longtime registered Democrat, she recently raised over $2 million for the Harris campaign and represented Philadelphia as a delegate at the Democratic National Convention.

Over the past few years, many of her political opinions have played out on X. However, days after President Donald Trump’s victory in 2024, Li re-emerged as a vocal critic of the Democratic Party, labeling the Harris campaign as a “$1 billion disaster” on Fox News. In January 2025, she was named to the TrumpVance inaugural committee and expressed later on X that she is “excited and optimistic” to work with the new administration.

Reflecting on social media’s impact, Li noted its reach: “I just woke up the other day and I saw that Elon Musk pushed my story up to 213 million people,” she said. “He’s been tweeting my story to all of his followers, and his PAC is retweeting it as well.”

Regardless, social media and the alumni’s broader life experiences have both affirmed and challenged their political beliefs, shaping their decisions four election cycles later.

“My political views are more nuanced, less aligned with any particular orthodoxy, and also, naturally, I’m more jaded,” Ammah-Tagoe said. “In some ways, that cynicism is helpful.”

As an undergraduate, Ammah-Tagoe interned with the House of Representatives. She later worked as a journalist, volunteered for political campaigns, got involved in more local activism, and also experienced periods with little political involvement. While sharing her support for Obama in 2008, she declined to comment on who she voted for in this election year.

“I believe much more deeply in the power of local elections, statewide elections, and also just in the ways that individuals can help each other and communities can bolster each other even when the government is actively attacking us,” she added.

Weiss shared a similar sentiment. Although most of the enthusiasm from his days with College Democrats followed the national elections, he recently spent time at the local level, seeing the policies there and “[talking] to people whose lives and livelihoods are directly impacted.”

Weiss expressed that his political beliefs have remained the same since his time at Princeton: He supported Obama in 2008 and voted for Kamala Harris in 2024. Among his friends and others that he had spoken to since the election, Weiss described feeling a “real sense of loss.”

“There’s this real sense of sorrow and fear that such a huge portion of

the country was willing to overlook the really flawed human being that was selected, and accept, not only the things he said, but the things he’s done,” Weiss said.

Two other alumni also supported Harris this past November. Though leading different lives, they both acknowledged the impact of their personal life experiences on their political views.

Tremblay, who grew up in a Democratic household, gradually participated in political student groups and affirmed for herself the policies that her parents discussed. Rather than understanding why things matter on principle, she sought to understand why things mattered “in the real world.”

“In college, I would have said it’s important that every person has health insurance coverage because that’s a human right,” Tremblay said. “Now, as a doctor, a parent whose children have needed health care, and a person who’s had friends with terrible health crises, I have a more nuanced understanding of what that means.”

Jeffers, who voted for Obama in 2008 and “[blue] all the way down the ticket,” has consistently supported Democrats in every presidential election since — including Harris in 2024. Her career gave her first hand exposure to stark economic inequalities, reinforcing her political beliefs.

“I’m in a field where I spend a lot of time with billionaires and very poor people, and I see both incredible wealth and crushing poverty,” Jeffers said. “Seeing and knowing that we have the collective resources as a city to end those things, there’s no reason why, in my opinion, why we should have so many people sleeping on the streets when there’s so many vacant luxury apartments.”

Other alumni supported Harris far more reluctantly.

“I voted for Kamala, [but] she had not even just minor red flags — she had a whole thing that I did not agree with her, which is the genocide in Palestine,” Guerra said, citing the war in Gaza. “In today’s climate, all of the candidates felt like an unsettling situation.”

Furthermore, Guerra expressed that the presidential election system has also “backed [itself] into a corner” where only candidates from the two main political parties have a chance to win. Any voter who supports a third party, Guerra noted, “either feels, or is made to feel like they split a vote and ruined

everything.”

“The last few elections have felt like this desperate clambering,” Guerra said. “I know this country has never been perfect, but the idea of democracy, sinking claws [in] and just trying to keep hold in desperation — it just feels more and more dramatic every time.”

For some alumni, their frustration with the political landscape led to more than reluctance for Harris — it powered a deeper shift in allegiance. Describing her transition from the Democratic Party to supporting President Trump, Li noted she was “disenchanted with what the Democratic Party has become.”

“Too much of the Party has lured so far to the left, and it’s not the party that we knew in 2008,” Li said. “It’s just not the party that we grew up with.”

She cited issues like immigration, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, open borders, and a lack of a clear party leader, and instead stated that she wanted to be a part of “a party that supports common sense.”

“I’m not going down with that ship,” Li said.

Despite the uncertain political climate, the alumni still offer a few words of wisdom for current students facing political discussion and engagement. Some advised students to involve themselves in politics and underlined the importance of community.

“Get involved, and once you do get involved, you have a greater sense of how much of a difference you can make,” Weiss said. “It takes away from the hopelessness and the sense that democracy is something that happens to us rather than something we participate in.”

“Think about the why and how of how you live your life, as opposed to just what is on your to-do list,” Jeffers added.

“I think the way that we fix this country is by valuing people who aren’t us,” Geurra said. “Don’t lose heart.”

Finally, some encouraged students to expand their perspectives on different viewpoints.

Tremblay invited students to improve the political dialogue: “Take the opportunity to engage in discourse with your peers that you don’t agree with.”

“Read widely, read broadly, listen to a variety of things. Don’t get too entrenched in any one viewpoint too quickly,” Ammah-Tagoe said.

Coco Gong is a head Features editor for the ‘Prince.’

MALIA GAVIOLA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Alumni reflect on how their approach to politics and voting changed four election cycles ago.

The morning shift: Construction workers on campus

By Angela Li, Faith Ho, and Rory Rusnak Contributing Features Writers

Campus is dark. In the distance a bird chirps, and leaves rustle as a squirrel darts into the bushes. Hard-toed boots clank towards the gate.

It is 5:30 a.m., and supervisor Sul Crawford is about to open the Princeton University Art Museum construction site for a long day of work.

Soon workers arrive on the site, and Elm Drive rumbles with trucks and buses carrying materials and workers between the two main construction sites: the art museum and Hobson College. The sound of drilling permeates the air intermittently. During the 15-minute break at 9:30 a.m., strains of a Britney Spears song can be heard on the site. Only later, closer to 10 a.m., does the crowd of students emerge and make their way to class, crossing in front of the trucks and past the sites.

The Daily Princetonian interviewed four construction workers around campus to learn more about the people hard at work in the morning before most students even dream of leaving their beds.

At the start of the day, it’s just one person waiting, and the impassive concrete tucked away behind the construction barriers. Crawford exhaled. “Quiet. Nice and quiet.”

Sul Crawford

On a late October Monday, Crawford took a breather just outside Murray-Dodge Hall in a yellow vest and a white hard hat with his name emblazoned on it. He wore an easy smile and a beard.

Crawford is the first person to open the construction site every morning. He lives in Philadelphia, so he wakes up at 3 a.m. to get ready for the hour-long commute to work. As a supervisor, some of his tasks involve giving other construction workers access to the site, keeping the site clean, and managing deliveries of project materials.

“The hardest part of this job is showing up. Once you show up, the rest is easy,” he said. Later, he would have a half-hour lunch break at noon — he likes to go to Frist Campus Center. His day ends at 2 p.m.

As a seasoned construction worker, Crawford has done all kinds of work. He has built dorms, a new hospital, and a Presbyterian Church. When asked how work at Princeton compares to other projects, he said, “Princeton is real strict, but it’s not a bad thing.”

When asked his favorite part of the job, Crawford said, “Keep it honest, getting paid,” adding, “We got a tight knit crew here, like a family.”

Although Crawford doesn’t interact with students much — mainly being in the job sites other than when he’s at the gates — he has advice for them: “Stay in school and do whatever you’re going to school for.”

Brandon Wesby Brandon Wesby has been working at the Hobson College site for a month.

“So I’m kind of like a Princeton freshman,” he joked. ”We’re in the same boat.”

On site, he directs the traffic of construction trucks, letting them in and out of the gates. Wesby initially had a career in landscaping at a retirement home, but decided a year ago to follow in his brother’s footsteps after seeing the opportunities heavy highway construction opened up for him.

The 42-year-old native of Lakewood, N.J. currently lives in Jackson Township. His day begins at 5:30 a.m., with the hour-long commute across the state to a parking lot near the University.  He then rides a University-provided bus to campus. His work officially begins at 7 a.m., although deliveries do not usually arrive until 7:30 a.m.

Summarizing his experience at Princeton, Wesby — like Crawford — noted a preference for procedure.

“Everything is by the book, by the rules,” he observed. “Safety is first for everybody, and I like the structure they have here.”

Around noon, a cement truck arrived, so Wesby stood up to open the gate for it while parsing out the difference between Class B and Class C construction vehicles to the ‘Prince’ — not included in fear of issuing a less eloquent explanation.

“Look, I’m right back on my butt sitting again,” Wesby said after shutting the gate.

For lunch break, Wesby alternated shifts with his colleague Kenneth. He regularly goes to the Rocky-Mathey Dining Hall either at 12 p.m. or 12:45 p.m. “I love to go to that cafeteria,” Wesby said. “You get a break from here and get to see all the kids.”

Despite seeing students pass by every day, he said he has never had a proper conversation with a student until speaking with the ‘Prince.’

“Everybody is just in their own worlds, so I don’t really stop and ask, ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ he

reflected. “But if you come up to me, I’ll talk back.”

Nevertheless, he has found enjoyment in observing the campus from his seat. “Since I never went to college, it’s so cool seeing them look happy, living their lives, and interact with each other,” he said.

Describing his favorite part of his job, Wesby said, “Thursday payday. That’s the goal, we want to make it to Thursday.”

Looking ahead, Wesby said he hopes to become a journeyman, the top-ranked position in construction where an increased payrate reflects their abundant on-site experience.

“For me, I just went to school,” Wesby explained noting it was run by a construction union. “I don’t have any special certificates, so I kind of started at the bottom of the totem pole and worked my way up. As I’m coming up on 1000 hours, I plan to go back to school for a couple of weeks to learn something else that’ll help me in the field.”

At 2:30 p.m., the construction companies started packing up, taking the shuttles back to the parking lot. From 3 p.m. onwards, Wesby begins his second job: fatherhood. With two daughters and three sons, Wesby spent the remainder of his day helping them with homework and spending quality time with his loved ones.

Donald

Donald has been working at Princeton for three years as part of Local 172, the construction union representing heavy and highway laborers in South Jersey. He has been based at the Art Museum site since April 2023 and lives 30 minutes away from the University.

Donald declined to disclose his last name for privacy reasons.

Describing the nature of his daily tasks, Donald remarked, “Everyday is different.”

He and two of his colleagues, at the time, were working on pulling up the concrete pavers behind

Dod Hall and jackhammering the blacktop road to install new bike racks. The next day, their focus would shift to digging trenches for electricians to set up the light systems near the building.

However, some parts of his routine remain constant. After arriving at 7 a.m. everyday to work — their usual 6 a.m. starting time, he explained, has become impractical due to the later sunrise — Donald stretches for 10 to 15 minutes.

“Now that the building is up, it is quiet,” he noted.

From 12 to 12:30 p.m., he broke for lunch before returning to work until 4 p.m.

For Donald, this job is a lucrative choice.

“With no college education, you ain’t going nowhere else and make the money we make. Depending on your first job, we make more money than you make,” he said, directed to Princeton’s future graduates.

Donald also said he appreciates the safety guaranteed by his job at the University.

“I love working at Princeton. This is site work,”he explained. “You could end up on a highway, [with] a drunk driver on that highway, and you may not ever go back to work again.”

He recounted how his colleague’s foreman was hit four years ago on Route 42 by a drunk driver.

“It happens. Being on the highway is dangerous,” he added. “Here, what’s going to happen to you? Nothing.”

“All you have to do is pay attention. On the highway, you can’t pay attention,” he concluded.

To Donald, construction work entails much more than physical labor.

“No matter what the trade is, if you don’t band together, you are not going to get anything done,” he reflected. “If someone sat out here arguing day in and day out, this building would not be standing up.”

Mike Cisrow

When the ‘Prince’ met Mike Cisrow, his voice boomed over the whir of construction equipment behind him.

“I’ve been in this industry about nine years and at Princeton about 14 months,” he said through the construction site’s metal fence.

Cisrow is a seasoned Princeton worker: Prior to his work at the Art Museum, he was on the team for the Dillon Gym site, a position that had him wake up at 4 a.m. every morning for his one-hour commute from Gloucester Township in South Jersey. Now he gets up at 5 a.m., which he said is the “only downside”  to what is otherwise “a perfect job.”

Unlike the more “secluded” construction sites he’s worked on, Cisrow said he appreciates the scenery of Princeton’s campus. It checks two main boxes for him: safety and cleanliness. Here, too, he has found community amongst his fellow workers.

“Everyone works together,” Cisrow said. “Everyone plays a part in making everything happen.”

Cisrow’s interactions with students, on the other hand, are mostly peripheral observations he makes in his position as gate guard, guiding trucks safe entry and exit from the job site.

He noted that he sees students getting ready to go to class, playfully adding that they regularly look at their phones, not paying attention as they walk near the construction sites.

The rarity of in-person interactions makes them all the more special, Cisrow said.

“Somebody can make your day just by smiling or laughing. Something like this is making my day,” he told the ‘Prince.’

“Like, wow, I’m really being interviewed!”

Angela Li, Faith Ho, and Rory Rusnak are contributing Features writers at the ‘Prince.’

A tale of three sequences: Unpacking lower enrollment in non-Western humanities sequences

By Nikki Han & Sedise Tiruneh Assistant News Editor & Staff

Writer

In a classroom in Jones Hall, students in the Near Eastern Humanities sequence partner up to compete in the Royal Game of Ur. Originating in Mesopotamia in the early third millennium B.C.E., the oldest board game in recorded history awaits students to declare a victor in their class tournament.

This is just one way that Near Eastern Studies (NES) Associate Professor Daniel Sheffield, who has taught the course several times in the past, would encourage his class to “inhabit” the texts they studied. Students were asked to read translations of tablets to reconstruct the rules of the game and then compete during a designated “ancient board game day.”

“It’s just amazing to sit with these students and see them develop strategies,” Sheffield said, speaking to The Daily Princetonian from the backseat of an Uber in London. Sheffield is on leave, completing research at the University of Oxford for the 2024–25 academic year, but still fondly recalled his experience teaching the Near Eastern sequence.

The University began offering the Western Humanities “HUM” sequence in 1992, and expanded into the East Asian and Near Eastern Humanities sequences in 2005 and 2019 respectively. These survey courses provide underclass students with comprehensive exposure to literature, philosophy, art, religion, and more.

The Western Humanities course seeks to offer interdisciplinary cultural lenses into the central question: “What makes us human?”

“We wanted to endow our students with a sense of a canon,” said Professor of Classics Yelena Baraz. “The books they read and the subjects we cover are foundational to Western thought. Though that notion can be contentious in its own right, the course does a good job of setting students up with a great basis for critical thinking.”

Though the reading lists vary slightly each year, students in the Western Humanities sequence read well-known works that span biblical antiquity through contemporary literature. By the end of the two semesters, students have engaged in close reading and analytical thinking which prepares them for the rest of Princeton’s academics and beyond.

Modeled after the Western sequence, the East Asian and Near Eastern Humanities have adapted this model to create more culturally diverse curriculums that equip students with the same critical thinking and global insight.

The East Asian Humanities sequence focuses on the humanities output from China, Korea, and Japan. While rooted in similar academic skills, this sequence seeks to open students to a world of different cultures and mediums, pushing students to engage with texts beyond the more analytical style.

“We talk about diversity, it’s not just the world of the Bible. It’s not just the Western canon, it’s so much more than that,” said Associate Professor of Korean Literature Ksenia Chizhova when talking about the benefits of the non-Western sequences. “We all want to know this shared world and this is the closest we can get to that. You expose yourself to the whole universe of other people, other ways of living the world.”

Similarly, the Near Eastern Humanities sequence focuses on Near Eastern art, literature, philosophy, religion, and science from antiquity to the present. This sequence emphasizes key texts, but also incorporates visual works and material culture, such as coins and pigments.

“I really enjoyed the methodology of the instructors and how they made sure to relate each text to broader themes and trends within Near Eastern literature,” said Davi Frank ’26, who is pursuing a major in NES.

The Near Eastern sequence recognizes that “the cultural contributions of the Near East are viewed through a western lens,” as the Humanistic Studies

website puts it. For example, the world uses 60 seconds and 60 minutes to divide time due to the contributions of ancient Babylonian astronomers. For this reason, the Near Eastern sequence is particularly interested in “the original context from which [these contributions] emanated.” The course aims to convey that the Near East is not just important because of its relation and importance to the West, but also has intrinsic value.

“It’s really just an exciting environment to read texts that really aren’t that well studied with students who are seeing these texts with fresh eyes,” said Sheffield. “For me, that’s really the joy of teaching in a nutshell.”

In interviews with the ‘Prince,’ students and professors engaged in the non-Western sequences described an uphill battle to drum up interest in the courses on par with their famed Western sequence counterpart.

Apart from the fact the newer sequences have only existed for a few years compared to the Western sequence’s few decades, why do enrollments remain much lower?

An uphill battle begins

The brochures that are mailed out with Princeton admissions packets and handed out during the first-year Academic Expo highlight all three sequences equally.

“I feel like we advertise them equally, and in fact, probably more with the East Asian and the Near Eastern, just because their

enrollments have been lower traditionally, than the Western HUM sequence,” said Stephanie Lewandowski, the Program Manager of Humanistic Studies.

Each year, student enrollment reflects that the Western Humanities sequence remains popular, with at least 45 out of 60 of its seats filled in the Fall 2022, Fall 2023, and Fall 2024 semesters.

In contrast, in Fall 2024, only four students enrolled in the East Asian sequence out of a 40 student capacity.

Enrollment for the Near Eastern sequence was slightly higher, with 15 students out of a possible 30, an increase from the 10 students enrolled in the fall of 2022.

For Sheffield, the growth in Near Eastern Humanities enrollment is a testament to the way students have been able to “build the hype of the class and get the word out about what we’re doing.” Still, enrollment for the Near Eastern sequence fluctuates — last semester’s 15 reflects a decrease from Fall 2023’s 22 students. This spring, the Near Eastern Sequence was cancelled.

Lower enrollment, however, isn’t always viewed as a failure of these programs.

“Some of my colleagues in the East Asian department have these really big classes where you cannot engage one-on-one,” said Chizhova, “There’s a benefit to both, but I prefer that more intimate setting. I like to get to know my students, I like it to be

a dialogue.”

“You get to know the class a little better,” Frank said about his experience. “There are advantages for being a little more intimate.”

Still, the lower enrollment rate of the non-Western sequences can affect how students experience these courses, which aim to incorporate both rich interdisciplinary lectures and highly engaging discussion-based precepts.

Some students report that the small cohorts cause a collapse of this style of teaching. The East Asian sequence class Molly Lopkin ’25 took last semester, for example, had four total students, a drop from the previous year’s 14 students.

“Because it was so small, we were in this weird space where I felt like sometimes the professors were doing lecture, but also wanted to be doing discussion,” said Lopkin.  “I wasn’t really quite sure what mode the class was supposed to be in.”

The answer to why these two sequences face lower enrollments might be, simply, that the texts featured in the Western Humanities sequence are more well-known.

“I think with the Western [sequence], students are kind of aware of us and these texts before they’re even at Princeton, right?” said Lewandowski.

Students who hail from the West, as most Princetonians do, might also see the Near East and East Asia as less relevant to their

22,

lives. In teaching the Near Eastern sequence, Sheffield said that he aims to challenge this perception.

“Even though it is a Near Eastern Humanities class, we talk about the relationship, for instance, of Mesopotamian literature to Greek epic and Greek philosophy,” Sheffield explained. He added that since it is “the oldest literary tradition in the world,” the impacts of Near Eastern Humanities on the rest of the world are profound.

Chizhova also referenced the influences of the non-Western cultures on the West. “I think what they [the Western sequence] really have to adopt is thinking about how the non-West feeds into this monstrous identity of the West.”

Another possible explanation for the enrollment disparity between the sequences is the impact of socio-cultural climate on perceptions of the Near East and East Asia at a given moment.

Sheffield explained how the Near Eastern sequence is often impacted by current geopolitical conflicts in the region, which may lead students to have a negative view on the discipline more broadly. “We are often at the whim of the news cycle,” Sheffield said.

“People perceive the Near East in certain ways to do with current events, and we’re always trying to sort of get students to look beyond that,” he added.

Moreover, Lewandowski explained that though some students inquire about the nonWestern sequences, the Western sequences often gain traction among first-years via word of mouth. “What’s happening at those events [like the Princeton Preview and Academic Expo] is people are saying, ‘I had a friend who took the Western,’ or ‘I had a sibling that took the Western,’” Lewandowski said.

The allure of travel perks and

faculty availability in Western humanities

The Western Humanities sequence offers students many opportunities outside the classroom that students of the Near Eastern and East Asian Humanities sequences do not receive. It is impossible to describe the Western sequence without mentioning what many say is its biggest perk: a fully-funded trip to Greece or Italy with your classmates and professors.

“The trip really felt like the culmination of our year’s worth of study,” said Jane Buckhurst ’27, who took the sequence as a first-year and went to Greece the following year. There, Buckhurst and her classmates passed the road where Oedipus is said to have met and killed his father, and stood by the chamber of the temple at Delphi. “It felt particularly special in that while places like Rome are sites of ancient history, Greece was the city of the myths that we had grown up reading about and then studied together.”

Buckhurst is a staff Archivist for the ‘Prince.’

As a scholar who focuses on Ancient Greek philosophy, professor Benjamin Morison recalled that one of his favorite memories from teaching the Western sequence is the first trip he took to Greece.

“I insisted that we go and see the remains of both Plato’s and Aristotle’s schools in Athens, so the Academy and the Lyceum … for me, that was thrilling,” Morison said. “I’m not sure the students were so thrilled, but I was thrilled otherwise.”

Fittingly, the tour guide often booked for the Greece trip is called Aristotle. “He’s an amazing, legendary guide,” Morison said.

“I don’t know if quality is the right word, but the Western HUM sequence is an ‘experience,’” said Lopkin. “It’s much more inten-

sive. You have all these different teachers who are talking about things that they’re experts in. You go on trips. There’s your opportunity to go abroad. The East Asian HUM sequence doesn’t really have that.”

In addition to the trip, the Western sequence is taught by a six-person faculty team each semester, all of whom are experts in their fields. In contrast, the Near Eastern and East Asian sequences are taught by only two instructors each. This variety gives students unique opportunities to learn from faculty members with different specializations, understand the interdisciplinary nature of the humanities, and appreciate different lecture styles.

Professors also benefit from experiencing their colleagues’ lectures. “I’ve learned so many things from my colleagues. And I don’t just mean learned about the ancient world, I mean learned how to be a good teacher from them,” Morison said.

According to Sheffield, the East Asian and Near Eastern sequences also benefit from coteaching, even with just two instructors. He described how seeing professors sit in on the lectures they do not teach lets students “[see] your professor model what it is to be a student.”

However, while the Western sequence is able to have six faculty members teaching across both semesters, the Near Eastern sequence has encountered issues running the second semester due to a lack of available faculty. Sheffield explained that though there are faculty members who focus on the modern Near East, “we’ve had a challenge in getting more faculty to commit to teaching that second half.”

Fewer available faculty members means that although many students might want to continue for the full year, that is not always possible. “Having a little

bit more regularity in the way in which we offer that would be great,” Sheffield said. However, having more instructors — whether that be faculty members or graduate students — in the classroom has benefits. For the Near Eastern and East Asian sequences, higher enrollments enable the sequences to hire graduate students, according to Sheffield, which is “terrific” because it allows graduate students to “contribute their expertise in the class.”

Last year, the Near Eastern sequence had a graduate student teaching assistant, who had previously worked in the Penn Museum and gave the students tours of museum collections when they went on trips to the Penn Museum and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. “It really just adds an extra layer of enrichment for students when we have those higher enrollments,” Sheffield said. International trips, moreover, are not offered to students in the Near Eastern or East Asian sequences. Instead, students go on a few nearby museum field trips over the course of the semester.

For example, the students in the Near Eastern sequence visit the Penn Museum to see the tablets of the epic of Gilgamesh.

When asked about whether or not she would want the opportunity for an international trip, Lopkin said, “I’m not going to turn down the trip to China.”

Frank also hopes the opportunity for travel increases more generally for students in the Department of NES. “I definitely wish that there was more exciting Near Eastern, like, Middle Eastern travel in general, through the University,” said Frank.

Sheffield was also in favor of international travel, telling the ‘Prince,’ “Having a more serious discussion about international travel is one thing that I think would be terrific to possibly

bring into the course.”

However, he acknowledged that there are geopolitical reasons which might complicate organizing a trip for the Near Eastern sequence. “It’s not that easy to arrange trips to many places that we do study,” Sheffield explained, referring to current regional conflicts. He added, “Iraq, Iran are basically out. We’ve talked about Turkey or North Africa as a possibility, and I hope that we can develop that in the next couple years.”

A path forward for the three sequences

The humanities sequences are and continue to be a cornerstone of the Princeton undergraduate experience, but with evident disparities between the three sequences, faculty are considering ways that they might continue to evolve in the future.

Many professors who spoke to the ‘Prince’ described how the sequences have already evolved. Baraz recollected that the first time she taught the Western sequence, “There was not a single text that was written by a woman. And I was also the only woman teaching the course.”

Now, according to Baraz, faculty have made efforts to diversify the Western Humanities syllabus. Though the syllabus changes each year, authors that will be taught in the 2024–25 Western Humanities sequence include Marie de France, Sappho, Aimé Césaire, W.E.B. DuBois, and Frantz Fanon. If change can intentionally and successfully happen within a sequence, it may also be possible across the three sequences. At least, that’s what professors and students from the Near Eastern and East Asian sequences hope, whether that manifests as increased enrollment, or the ability to go on international trips.

According to Chair of the Council of Humanities and Western Humanities professor Esther Schor, attitudes towards non-Western cultures are changing, too. Even though “there’s just less exposure in high school to [East Asian and Near Eastern] traditions which is limiting the sequences’ reach at the moment,” Schor said, “that will be less true 15 years from now.”

Last fall, the Program in Humanistic Studies tried something new: connecting a faculty member with a postdoctoral researcher to teach the Near Eastern sequence. For Sheffield, this is “one potential way forward in terms of just staffing the class.”

Lewandowski still has more ideas. One potential way to draw more students into the Near Eastern and East Asian sequences, according to her, is to involve students and alumni who took the sequences through a mentorship program.

She also suggested an increase in digital advertisement of the sequences via social media platforms, in addition to the current emails and physical fliers.

As Lewandowski put it, “Nothing is off the table.”

Nikki Han is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Sedise Tiruneh is a staff Features writer and staff writer for the Prospect.

Princetonians struggle to come face-to-face on Israel-Palestine

By Sena Chang & Nikki Han News Contributors

At 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 21, Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of the founders of Hamas, addressed a crowd of 350 in McCosh 10.

Yousef, a brash, outspoken supporter of Israel, rejected the idea of Palestinian ethnicity, stating that the notion was “psychological” and rooted in “a narrative of victimhood.” Yousef was greeted with raucous applause.

“Many people mix between Arab and Palestinian, and within the Palestinian is indoctrination. It’s not an ethnicity, it’s not a race, it’s not a religion, it’s just indoctrination, a political ideology,” he said.

Hosted by Chabad House at Princeton, B’Artzeinu, and Tigers for Israel (TFI), the room of 350 was overwhelmingly filled by members of the public.

At the same time, approximately 980 feet away, an event constructing a case for the legal recognition of Palestinians was underway. Rabea Eghbariah, a human rights scholar and legal expert, was introduced by an applauding audience in Robertson 002 as part of the Princeton Palestinian Studies Colloquium. The event, sponsored by multiple departments on campus including Near Eastern Studies and African American Studies, packed the room of about 120.

Neither event saw protests or any other form of disruption inside or outside the venues, and both proceeded without incident, merely a few hundred feet apart.

Even so, opposition to the “Son of Hamas” event circulated quietly. Days prior to the “Son of Hamas” event, leaders of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives (AJP) had called on community members to boycott the event in an open letter with over 170 signatories. “By allowing speakers like Yousef on campus, Princeton is serving nothing but the perpetuation of hateful rhetoric,” the letter read. “Free speech is important, but so are its limitations.” The group presented the colloquium event as counter-programming to Yousef’s event.

The Center for Jewish Life reportedly declined to sponsor the Son of Hamas event, although the talk was sponsored partly by CJL-affiliated organizations B’Artzeinu and TFI.

These parallel events, isolated and sparking brief controversy without chaos, reflect a broader campus climate on Israel and Palestine that students engaged on multiple sides of the issue described as relatively civil, yet ideologically siloed.

For Associate Professor of Politics and Public Affairs Andy Guess, who studies polarization, dialogue between conflicting perspectives is essential for a thriving University campus, and on a larger scale, for a thriving democracy.

“You’re likely to be able to collectively come to a fuller understanding of something by shar-

ing knowledge and perspectives,” he said. “We learn from each other and we can help each other get past our own blind spots and flaws in each other’s reasoning.”

In an interview on C-SPAN on Wednesday, University president Christopher Eisgruber ’83 touted what he views as the University’s success in effectively providing opportunities for dialogue for students.

“We had a number of different events that allowed people to explore these issues in more detailed ways,” he said, citing speaker events held by Amaney Jamal, the Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA).

“We’ve got to take those conversations on tough issues that are happening on our campuses and elevate them,” he added. “I think we’re doing a good job with that.”

Yet, students across the aisle on the issue reported to The Daily Princetonian that conversation over this one issue is nonexistent among the undergraduate body.

“I don’t really believe there is much opportunity for opposing sides to engage in conversation,” said Mariam Elawady ’26, the former president of the Princeton Arab Society.

A siloed campus climate

To students on both sides of the issue, the weight of the conflict makes such dialogue deeply challenging, and even unbreachable.

For TFI President Maximillian Meyer ’27, the question of whether or not to engage with pro-Palestine groups reflects deeper fundamental differences in perspective. In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ he expressed that it is “difficult to have true conversations with those who refuse to condemn Hamas terrorists.”

At the same time, Meyer is not necessarily opposed to engaging with pro-Palestine activists, but

he is not optimistic that they will engage back.

“Siloization has a simple solution. End it. I am ready to talk and am waiting for anyone who is pro-Palestinian to take my offer.”

When asked if he or TFI has made attempts at dialogue with pro-Palestine groups, Meyer said that the “anti-Israel groups on campus have a proven history of being anti-intellectual and antiengagement. It’s a shame, really.”

Hiba Siddiki ’25, a pro-Palestine supporter, argued that dialogue across different ideological communities is insurmountable, considering the scale and stakes of the current war, invoking the loss of life.

“There are people on one side whose family members, whose people that look like them, are dying by the hundreds of thousands, and you have another side, saying that they feel very apathetic to this, or that they have been supportive of this,” Siddiki said.

“I think that many times when people are very strong-willed in their beliefs and their views, it can be difficult to come to a point where dialogue can exist,” she added.

“You don’t go around asking oppressed people why they don’t have conversations with their oppressors,” Siddiki said.

For students advocating for action from the University, dialogue may be necessary.

The inquiry to divest from Israel currently before the Resources Committee of the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) requires broad campus “consensus on how the University should respond” to the issue at hand for any divestment proposals to be taken into consideration.

But not everyone agrees that discourse is productive. For the pro-Palestine cause, discussion validates the other viewpoint, which they view as a fundamen-

tal wrong.

For Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD) organizer Aditi Rao GS, a year’s worth of discourse has “to some extent, naturalized genocide as an activity.” While students are more aware, Rao believes that this awareness has produced normalization, not outrage.

Elawady believes the student body, more broadly, has become increasingly “complacent,” despite activists on both sides continuing to pursue dialogue. In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ she described how, this semester, “There was an uptick [in discussion] after the invasion of Lebanon … but it quickly died down for many.”

Guess said that this type of divided atmosphere “is not necessarily an unusual dynamic.”

He explained that with any contentious issue, activists will employ “rhetorical strategies … designed to mobilize and energize their members,” but these very same strategies may also “alienate people.”

Opportunities for dialogue

Even during past periods of political upheaval abroad, the campus climate was similarly tense and charged, but discussions were not always so isolated.

In 2014, a 50-day-long conflict erupted after Israel launched an offensive into Gaza, citing Hamas rocket fire and threat of attacks. According to a UN Human Rights Council report, 2,251 Palestinians (including 1,462 civilians) and 67 Israeli soldiers (and six civilians) were killed.

The afternoon following the collapse of an October ceasefire between Israel and Palestine in the Gaza Strip in 2014, over 500 community members marched down Nassau Street, chanting slogans of “Not another nickel, not another dime, no more for

Israel’s crimes” and “Killing each other is a crime, free, free Palestine.”

Community members also called for direct negotiations between pro-Israel and pro-Palestine groups. “Peace cannot be imposed. It can only be reached through dialogue, negotiation and compromise,” a 2014 op-ed reads.

In response, Jamal and SPIA professor (and former US ambassador to Israel) Daniel Kurtzer together created “conversations about peace,” a term they coined, Kurtzer said in a recent interview with the ‘Prince.’ This was intended for student activists on conflicting sides to engage in constructive dialogue and “open their minds to ideas that they had not thought about.” Kurtzer recalled an hours-long dinner at his home that Jamal and about 12 student leaders attended, and how, “it worked to a certain degree.”

“If I had one wish now, after October 7, is that we would have done, or could have done, the same thing,” he said. “There haven’t been that many opportunities to translate October 7 and the protests and so forth into a learning opportunity,” he added, although he did note events that Jamal has hosted.

Jamal, who is Palestinian, did not respond to requests for an interview. She and Keren YarhiMilo, her counterpart dean at Columbia University, held an event last November to discuss the conflict and its implications for college campuses — repeatedly held up by Eisgruber as an example of model discourse. Yarhi-Milo is Israeli and served in the Israeli Defense Forces during mandatory military service.

“If you care about this conflict, we need to be dialoguing with one another,” Jamal said at a similar event held virtually over the

summer. “At the end of the day, university campuses shouldn’t be social media algorithmic outcomes where you only are in your echo chamber.”

University administrators, including Jamal, also discussed student dialogue at a panel in November, highlighting initiatives such as the Rose Castle Society and a mandatory discussion prior to the election about conversations on difficult topics as part of the First Year Residential Experience (FYRE) program. The discussion took place at a meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) — a gathering of top administrations often sparsely attended by undergraduate students.

“I resonate with the sentiment that things are siloed,” Emanuelle Sippy ’25, the president of the Alliance of Jewish Progressives (AJP), said. “And I do think that is a negative thing, in large part because there’s a lot of misinterpretation that happens.”

However, Sippy noted that progressive Jews — especially those who are practicing — “may be a bit outside the paradigm of things just being siloed.” Though Sippy does not identify as a Zionist, she noted that her identity as a practicing Jew “necessitates engaging with the wider... Jewish community, which often means engaging with Zionist institutions and individuals.”

Other Jewish student leaders agreed.

“I would pretty passionately reject the notion that any kind of conversation around Israel or Palestine within the Jewish community has stagnated, or that it’s reverted into echo chambers,” Center for Jewish Life (CJL) student president Stephen Bartell ’25 said.

For Bartell, the event held commemorating the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 is an example of healthy discourse between Jewish groups. In the lead-up to the memorial event, Bartell described how representatives from J Street, B’Artzeinu, Chabad House, and TFI held weekly meetings with the CJL that sometimes became

contentious.

“What kind of things would we choose to recognize or not emphasize?” Bartell recalled discussing with the event’s organizers. As a result, these weekly meetings often ended in “aggravating frustration for some of us,” Bartell recalled.

Despite this, Bartell said that organizers were able to hold a memorial that was “really meaningful for our community.” This sentiment was echoed by Meyer, who acknowledged that there were disagreements in the meeting, but still wrote to the ‘Prince’ that he was ultimately “proud of the event that we produced and of the many voices who took part.”

At the memorial, an emotional Bartell shared memories of his friend, 22-year-old Omer Neutra, who was taken hostage by Hamas. “All human beings deserve the kind of safety, dignity, and hope for a better future that Omer and so many others have been tragically denied this past year,” he stated.

The Israeli military said on Dec. 2 that Neutra, previously believed to have been alive and held in Gaza, was killed in fighting on Oct. 7.

Sippy, alongside those from Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Hindu groups, spoke at an interfaith vigil the following day to grieve “all those killed in the last year in the Middle East.” Sippy remembers the vigil she organized in a similar fashion to Meyer: “We were able to engage people across differences in that event, because we had hard conversations and were honest with each other about what it was that we were trying to do,” she said.

“It’s important that universities serve as a safe space to discuss controversial topics. This should include controversies on both sides of the political spectrum,” SPIA professor Udi Ofer said, reiterating a sentiment shared by University administrators, as well.

“If dialogue didn’t happen on a regular basis, then universities wouldn’t function,” Guess said. “And I think the knowledge pro -

duction function of universities would break down.”

The silent majority

Students who are heavily involved in either pro-Palestine or pro-Israel activism, however, do not actually constitute the majority of the student body. Additionally, the number of students attending pro-Palestine protests has noticeably abated over the past semester, especially compared to the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” After 150 attended a protest on the first day of classes this semester, only about 60 showed at a protest on Community Care Day. 30 people at a die-in on Oct. 5, part of an International Day of Action campaign. 15 people at a protest on the anniversary of Oct. 7.

On the pro-Israel side, only a few dozen students attended a recent pro-Israel protest against United Nations Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who was giving a Dean’s Leadership Series talk.

Princeton has long been documented to be a more apathetic campus than most.

In a 2001 piece penned by David Brooks, he argues that such apathy is archetypal to Princeton students: while students are industrious, intelligent, and morally conscientious, they have no compelling reason to rebel against the status quo through protests or social movements.

Activists on campus, however, reject the notion that students are not engaged because they are inherently apathetic.

“[T]here are a lot more nuances and a lot more reasons why the student body might be nervous to show up,” Siddiki said.

According to Siddiki, part of students’ reluctance to engage can be attributed to the “active suppression and repression of one side’s view through a variety of channels” in the University community, including doxxing and blacklisting from jobs.

Sippy and others concurred with the risk of outside backlash.

“Students who are most marginalized and most visibly Mus -

lim and BIPOC are the most frequently the victims of doxxing efforts,” Sippy said.

Others say that a charged campus environment has led them to be wary of political expression.

“Though I have the right to wear my keffiyeh wherever I want, I know the way that the University has behaved, the way that certain students at this University have behaved, [and] the way that students and faculty at this University have behaved,” Rao said.

“That’s no longer a safe activity for me to pursue.”

Last semester, Rao was one of 13 students arrested for participating in the Clio Hall occupation.

Faculty members involved in the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” last semester have expressed similar concerns. History professor Max Weiss, who walked his students out to the GSE last spring, was placed on probation this October for the remainder of the 2024–2025 academic year.

Gyan Prakash, the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History who taught a class at the sit-in, was issued a written warning “in spite of the fact that none of my students complained.” Prakash said that he has since submitted an appeal, which is currently under consideration by the University.

“It’s fair to say that the administration of the University is meting out discipline to both students and faculty in a manner that both seeks to establish its new rules and procedures — whether or not they were enforced in the spring — and would like to see some kind of chilling effect,” Weiss told the ‘Prince.’ University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince’ that “the purpose of regulation and discipline at Princeton is to protect the wellbeing of the community and to advance its educational mission.”

“Princeton’s rules include an expansive and unwavering commitment to free speech — which includes peaceful dissent, protest, and demonstration. We held fast to that commitment last year and will continue to do so,” Morrill added.

For Meyer, pro-Israel students also face a hazardous campus environment.

“I know that there are definitely students, at least on the pro-Israel side of the issue, who just feel deeply uncomfortable, sometimes intimidated, to share their opinions in the face of a hostile and loud minority,” he said.

Ofer pointed to coming government-level threats to student safety. “I worry that organizations and students who are involved in protest movements on campus will start being the subject of unwarranted federal investigations, whether by the Trump administration or by Congress,” Ofer wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “Such investigations could have a serious impact on the willingness of students to express their views on campuses across the nation.”

“I worry that the incoming administration will begin to punish speech that is critical of Israel’s policies and practices, which will then have a chilling effect on speech and other expressive activities,” he added.

Sippy also pointed out that while students may be informed about the war, they could be choosing to simply prioritize other responsibilities.

“There’s a difference between having a critical analysis and learning about an issue — which is great, and which a lot of Princeton students are open to doing — and publicly taking action,” Sippy noted. Alongside the risk of doxxing, “people are pressed for time and juggling a lot of different priorities,” she said.

Indeed, the number of students who have publicly signed on to various petitions on the matter remains limited. While more than 30 affinity or activist student groups endorsed PIAD’s proposal to the Resources Committee, only 226 current undergraduate students had signed an open letter supporting divestment as of the end of last semester. A petition circulated by Meyer in September opposing divestment garnered nearly 1,300 signatures, only 106 of which were from current students.

Additionally, many students, Guess says, “might not feel that any of the most vocal voices are fully representing them.”

“This is not an issue where there’s literally two positions, right?” He added. “I think there are many, many, many different ideas and perspectives, and certainly more than two.”

By 6:15 p.m. on Nov. 21, both Yousef and Eghbariah concluded their remarks, each receiving thunderous applause. While some attendees lingered behind to discuss the talks with other peers, most donned their coats, filed out of McCosh and Robertson, and carried on with their evening.

“People are thinking critically, but that doesn’t always translate into action,” Sippy believes. “Saying that people are apathetic is a short change.”

Sena Chang is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’

Nikki Han is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’

‘A

massive vacuum of knowledge, expertise, innovation’: Researchers face uncertainties in academia and government amid funding cuts

By Maya Chu Staff Features Writer

In high school, Rishika Porandla ’28 completed seven parttime internships at NASA.

She is supposed to be on a path to full-time employment at NASA after college graduation through the Pathways Program, a federal initiative designed to provide students with paid work experience and a potential pathway into full-time roles within the government. Now, however, this guarantee is uncertain.

“New positions have not been opened for this year, and no official statement has been made about it,” Porandla said. “It just puts the future very up in the air, because we think we get job security with this Pathways Program, but we may not.”

In light of waning federal support for research at the University and various government agencies, early-career researchers at every level are facing fewer opportunities and growing uncertainty. As funding cuts mount, some students and postdocs are reconsidering careers in academia and government.

Porandla is a prospective astrophysics major and an undergraduate researcher at the Princeton Space Physics Lab. One project she hopes to contribute to is to the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, a NASA-led mission focused on dark energy, exoplanets, and infrared astrophysics. However, with over 50 percent of NASA’s science funding in jeopardy under President Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026, the future of the mission is unpredictable.

“You have these big dreams — ‘I want to work here in this office, on this mission’ — but everything is so volatile,” Porandla said.

Amid the federal funding instability, Porandla also faced challenges in securing research opportunities for this summer. She applied to a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded program called Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU), which supports students working on research projects at a host institution over the summer. But after submitting applications to five REUs, Porandla received emails from Vanderbilt University, University of TexasAustin, and Cornell University that those programs were canceled for the summer.

“It’s kind of disheartening to put so much effort into the applications and not get that return,” Porandla said.

According to Inside Higher Ed, at least a dozen REUs were canceled this year due to funding cuts, with project leads getting rejections on their proposals or simply not hearing back at all from the NSF. Porandla says this has widespread implications for many students

interested in research, some of who are now resorting to unpaid internships and missing out on the paid research experience REUs ordinarily provide. This especially impacts historically underrepresented groups, which the program tends to target.

“REUs operate on DEI; they operate on giving minority groups opportunities, and that’s an underlying layer that I think is being ignored right now,” Porandla explained.

Brian Mhando ’26, an Ecology and Evolutionary Biology major, faced a similar situation to Porandla, with his “dream” summer internship being canceled due to federal funding cuts and staff restructuring from the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

“It was a very scary situation at first because I rejected a few internships at that point,” Mhando said. “[By then], all of the really good internships had gone.”

Later, Mhando secured a new internship with the Rakai Health Sciences Program, where he’ll conduct research on HIV and gonorrhea resistance. The program is sponsored by the School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, where Mhando was supposed to complete his internship — however, he was sent to the lab in Uganda due to federal funding cuts.

“I always thought the relationship between the government and universities was something that we don’t touch,” Mhando said. “Funding cuts made me realize how vulnerable that relationship is.”

Instability to university funding also has implications for graduate school admissions, according to Aryan Gupta ’27, a student in the Astrophysics department. In an already competitive process, Gupta expressed his feeling that limited funding opportunities mean he has to work even harder in order to stand out.

“Personally I very much want to go to grad school; that’s my dream,” Gupta said. “It might be much harder for me to get into grad school than it was for me to get into Princeton.”

For those already in graduate school, waning federal support for research is creating uncertainty about their future work.

“It’s the trickle-down effect of everything that’s going on with the partnership, but also the anticipated attacks to the program that is causing all this anguish,” said a graduate student in the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL), who chose to remain anonymous.

The GFDL is a research center operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in partnership with the University. Tucked a few miles southeast from cam-

pus, the lab advances climate research through Earth system models and computer simulations. Despite being home to Syukuro Manabe — the 2021 Nobel Prize winner in Physics — and the birthplace of the first general circulation climate model, the GFDL’s future now sits on shaky ground due to funding cuts.

For one postdoctoral researcher at the GFDL, who also chose to stay anonymous, the path forward is becoming increasingly unstable. He had once envisioned a clear future at the lab grounded in exceptional research, but his plans have now been derailed.

“My plan, and I think the plan of the lab, was to try and find a place for me to become a permanent employee after the two years ended. But now, that’s not happening anymore,” the postdoc said.

In addition to a $210 million pause on federal funding due to alleged antisemitism, the University also faces a $4 million cut from climate research, with the Trump administration aiming to reduce what it labels “climate anxiety.” The administration is also proposing an over 25 percent cut to NOAA funding, with a 75 percent slash to the Office of Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (OAR), which runs the GFDL.

Although the Princeton funding cuts are not directly tied to the GFDL, there remains uncertainty about the lab’s future. The postdoc had originally planned to stay in academia by pursuing federal employment at the GFDL, but with funding risks and a federal hiring freeze, he began searching for university faculty roles instead.

The anonymous postdoc further noted that most faculty searches have been paused. “Universities like Princeton aren’t hiring anymore because they’re scared of what’s going to happen,” he explained. “I didn’t get any professor offers this year because of that.”

In March, the University announced it would freeze most faculty and staff hiring due to federal funding and endowment tax uncertainty. Many peer institutions, including Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, have done the same. For the postdoc, even another postdoctoral contract has been difficult to secure, with universities lacking stable funding to bring on new researchers.

“I know there are tons of postdocs who just struck out on the job market this year,” the postdoc said. “There’s a lot of people looking for ways to survive the next couple of years in academia, and I think a lot of people are just going to leave.”

For Glen Chua, who received a Ph.D. in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences from Princeton in

2025, the unreliability of federally-funded research is prompting him to explore other paths. He is currently a NASA Postdoctoral Program (NPP) Fellow and worries about the impact that funding cuts may have at this point in his career.

Chua expressed that his earlycareer years are critical in establishing himself in research because each postdoctoral contract is so short. “It’s very hard to focus on your work when you’re trying to think, ‘Should I be looking out for myself in some way?’” Chua said. “It’s unclear whether I should be starting to look for a job or other opportunities.”

With research and federal employment opportunities increasingly at risk, Chua is now considering his last resort: entering the private sector.

“The job market in academia has always been very difficult, but now increasingly so. As much as I may not want to directly jump into the private sector, I’ve always been aware that it might eventually be something I need to do,” Chua said. “All this has accelerated that.”

Christine Blackshaw, a fourthyear Civil Environmental Engineering graduate student working in the Hurricane Hazards and Risk Analysis group, shares this sentiment.

“The only other pathway forward to stay within climate [studies] is industry,” Blackshaw said.

However, the private sector may not always offer researchers the opportunity to pursue what they’re interested in. The anonymous postdoc, for instance, says his work is less likely to align with corporate priorities.

“Most of my work isn’t directly applicable to what the private sector is interested in,” he said.

“It’s a little bit more theoretical, [but] I want to do the kind of stuff that I find interesting.” For this reason, he is leaning toward staying in academia.

While Mhando understands the motive for entering the private sector, he aims to dedicate his career to service — something he feels he won’t accomplish working in industry.

“I understand the value of having a Princeton degree and where that can take you financially, but I feel like that would be disingenuous if I gave up on my dreams of helping people just because of one bad government,” Mhando said. “I’ve always wanted to help people, and I don’t think the private sector is where that happens.”

On a broader scale, the shift toward privatizing key areas of research brings its own set of challenges. For Blackshaw, ensuring public access to information is among the most pressing.

“Not all private companies [are this way], but in general, if you privatize climate research

and climate modeling, that means access to that type of critical life-saving information and data is going to become significantly reduced,” Blackshaw said.

The postdoc agrees, adding that privatized research is not always conducive to the most effective scientific inquiry.

“The motive isn’t there to get the best answer, [but] an answer that someone pays for,” the postdoc said. “The investment needed to really answer climate science questions has to come from the federal government, or somewhere where you’re not beholden to the profit motive.”

For early-career researchers, the combined uncertainty around funding, academic jobs, and access to open data has led to a growing sense of disillusionment. Some are beginning to look beyond borders for more stable opportunities, raising fears of a long-term talent drain in American science. In a poll conducted by Nature, over 75 percent of scientists who responded are considering leaving the United States following funding disruptions.

“As someone who’s quite an early-career scientist, I’m really afraid that a lot of the talent, a lot of the leading scientists, are going to go somewhere else,” the GFDL grad student said. “That will leave behind a massive vacuum of knowledge, expertise, and innovation that scares me, because I’m not sure who’s going to be left to fill that hole.”

Gupta, though still an undergraduate, agreed that the lack of funding may encourage astronomers to think about industry-oriented roles or developing skill sets applicable to fields outside of astronomy. To this end, he is currently planning to minor in Statistics and Machine Learning.

“If astro doesn’t work out, at least I have a little bit of a statistical background to get a data science job,” Gupta explained. “I’m picking projects in astronomy that are a little more translatable to the private sector.”

While funding could eventually be restored, the impact of these cuts could extend past Trump’s time in office. Some researchers worry that the longterm damage to scientific institutions and processes may be more difficult to reverse. The postdoc explained that, for the GFDL, research relies on a continuous transfer of knowledge between generations of scientists.

“If suddenly everything gets gutted and you have to start from the ground up, I think that would just be almost impossibly hard,” the postdoc said. “You definitely can’t get that back in four years.”

Maya Chu is a Features staff writer for the ‘Prince.’

the PROSPECT.

Grammy award-winner Laufey talks identity, improvisation, instruments at McCarter Theatre

By Isabella Dail | Head Prospect Editor

A line wrapped around the side of McCarter Theatre as dusk settled over Princeton’s campus. The people waiting chatted eagerly, some with their phones open and others clutching printed pieces of paper.

Everyone, whether with a digital or physical copy, had tickets in hand to see Laufey, a renowned Icelandic musician. Laufey was the top jazz artist on Spotify in 2022 and won a Grammy for the Traditional Pop Vocal Album in 2024. She has previously performed in venues like the Sydney Opera House and Radio City Music Hall.

However, this wasn’t a packed arena. Instead, Laufey was sitting down for a Princeton-exclusive event — a personal conversation with Anna Yu Wang, a Princeton assistant professor of music.

“I’m feeling so good. Thank you so much for having me. This is such a dream come true. I’ve always wanted to come and walk around this campus, and it’s so inspiring,” Laufey said in her opening remarks, joking that she wanted to “soft launch” Princeton as her new study spot.

The conversation wandered between Laufey’s upbringing in classical music, her breakthrough into improvisational music, her social media presence, and the impact of her cultural and familial background on her growth as a musician.

Laufey credits her background in classical music as informing her prowess in melody today; growing up, she played the cello and piano, instruments she practiced regularly after school. Yet, when she realized that she didn’t want to pursue classical music professionally, Laufey began to consider other avenues for a career in the industry.

“I still knew that I wanted to be a musician and I wanted to find a way to mix all of these different things together, but I hadn’t really found any artists to listen to or follow, and had mixed those worlds together. I guess I kind of just became that. It was a difficult journey for me because I became such a good rule follower through classical music,” she said.

Improvisation — a key component of the jazz genre that Laufey now embraces — did not come so easily after her start in classical music.

“I was mortified. I was so scared every week, and I’d sit in a practice room just trying to figure [improvisation] out, and I barely knew where to start,” she said when asked about improvising for the first time publicly, an experience she faced as an undergraduate at the Berklee College of Music.

As the conversation unfolded, Laufey began to diverge into her identity and its influence on her decisions, particularly as an artist. Laufey

is Chinese and Icelandic, and she grew up splitting her time between Iceland, the United States, and China.

“

“I think being straddled in so many cultures has been such a good thing for me as a musician, because now, I get to travel the world and tour the world, and I’m so innately aware of how big the world is and how many people there are. There isn’t just a group of 400,000 people on an island … that’s Iceland,” she said.

Bringing Laufey to campus was a group effort involving several parties, particularly Princeton Encore and McCarter Theatre. Princeton Encore, founded by Simon Marotte ’26, is a group that looks to bring wellknown artists to campus for Q&A conversations.

been a fan of her for a while because I love jazz, and I play piano, and I really appreciate what she’s doing,” Marotte told the ‘Prince.’

According to Marotte, it took about a year of pitching and negotiating to bring Laufey to McCarter. In the future, he hopes to see her visit campus again and continue a conversation about her music.

I’m feeling so good. Thank you so much for having me. This is such a dream come true.

I’ve always wanted to come and walk around this campus, and it’s so inspiring - Laufey ”

“I was interested in having intimate Q&A conversations … I would love to see artists come and talk about their lives and not just perform,” Marotte told The Daily Princetonian.

Marotte brought a list of dream guest artists to the staff of McCarter, and the team began working on pitches. Laufey, not on Marotte’s original list, came into the fold later.

“For some reason, she wasn’t on the initial wish list. I don’t know why I was not thinking of her … she would be perfect for Princeton because she’s dubbed as Gen Z’s jazz icon. So many members of my generation love her, and I’ve

Marotte is a former head Puzzles editor for the ‘Prince.’ Laufey’s arrival was also a sizable undertaking for McCarter Theatre, both in the process of booking Laufey and the ordeal of preparing the theater for her arrival. The bulk of responsibility was directed to Arts & Ideas, a program housed within McCarter’s services that “connects Princeton University scholarship, campus life and community partners to the work on our stage and behind-the-scenes.”

“We’re a smaller venue than Radio City, and we get major artists here,” Debbie Bisno, Director of University and Artistic Partnerships at McCarter Theatre, told the ‘Prince.’

“We knew that we were going to have to be competitive in a different way … it’s not easy to book the people that we book … and one of the things we can offer is direct and authentic engagement with students and campus,” Paula Abreu, Director of Presented Programming at McCarter Theatre, broke down the lo-

gistics of booking an artist like Laufey in more depth.

“I reached out to the agent. It was a longshot,” she said. “[W]e have these relationships with agents and reps and that makes a difference … when you already have an established relationship, it cuts through a layer. It was actually a quick response,” Abreu told the ‘Prince.’ From there, negotiations about fees and dates began. Abreu also noted that McCarter had to gear up the theater to prepare for Laufey’s arrival.

“McCarter may have worked with artists like this before, but it’s rare that this sort of relationship happens, and it’s delicate in the sense that they come with many more requirements. This informs things like, what does the security look like at our theater, things that we usually don’t have to pay very deep attention to,” she said to the ‘Prince.’

Yet for many audience members, the logistics were worth it, especially with the surprise miniature concert that concluded the event. Laufey slung a guitar over her shoulder and approached a standing microphone. She sang two songs: “Bored” and “From the Start.” The theater became alive as students raised phones to record and sang softly along with her.

Students chanted “blah, blah, blah” along with Laufey, some of the more playful lyrics of “From the Start.” During her performance, Laufey also twisted a lyric or two, telling Princeton she “loved [them] from the start” in some of the last lines of her performance.

Her exit, where she wished students a great semester before leaving the stage, was met with a standing ovation.

Isabella Dail is a staff News writer and head editor for The Prospect for the ‘Prince.’

Beyond the bubble: a review of 2025 winter break tours for Princeton performers

By Luke Grippo | Prospect Contributor

One of the most notable experiences of singers and performers at Princeton is the opportunity to go on tour, immersing themselves in new cultural environments while also sharing their passion for music and theater.

The Daily Princetonian sat down with various a cappella groups and the Princeton Triangle Club to hear about their experiences while on tour over winter break.

Tigressions

All-female group Tigressions toured in Spain with their 15 members.

President Isha Yerramilli-Rao ’26 shared that they stayed a few days in Barcelona before traveling to Madrid, and that the group performed a gig for the students at Brewster Madrid School.

“We sang for the first graders. Then, for some of the older students, we did a larger performance,” she shared. “That was a really special gig because the kids were really little and they loved it. It’s always very rewarding to sing at schools because the kids really appreciate it.”

Tigressions also gave an impromptu performance at Casa Benigna, a small, family-run restaurant in Madrid, on the last night of their trip. “We went to this small family-run restaurant … The owners were singers, and they invited us to sing,” Yerramilli-Rao explained.

The group performed an 80s medley, arranged by group member Julia Kingston ’25. “They loved that so much that they told us to sing for the rest of the restaurant.”

Their performance was met with much praise from the restaurant-goers. “We did another set: We sang ‘When We Were Young’ and ‘Elastic Heart’ for them, which was received very well, and that was really lucky because it was a spontaneous performance,” Yerramilli-Rao said. “Then, they gave -v some dessert and champagne at the end to celebrate.”

Nassoons

The Princeton Nassoons, led by President Robert Mohan ’26, traveled to Puerto Rico over the break. This trip marked a significant change from the group’s usual

Miami Beach winter tour.

Princeton’s oldest a cappella group decided on this change in venue in honor of their tour manager Arturo Cruz Urrutia ’27.

“One of our tour managers, Arturo Manuel Cruz … is from San Juan, Puerto Rico, so he actually proposed … to do this tour to San Juan to show us where he grew up and the institutions that really meant a lot to him; institutions he wanted to revisit with the Nassoons,” Mohan said.

From Jan. 18–25, the Nassoons performed at five locations in San Juan, including the Union Church of San Juan, where Urrutia received a touching welcome from the clergy.

“One of the more sentimental moments of the tour was this concert we gave at the very end of it at the Union Church of San Juan, this beautiful church in the city,” Mohan shared.

“When Arturo went up to introduce himself, he got almost a standing ovation from the whole crowd, because it was his hometown and they went crazy for the fact that he came back and brought his whole a cappella group. That was just a really touching moment for all of us,” Mohan described.

Roaring 20

From Jan. 16–22, the Roaring 20 toured through Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington.

President Angela Kwon ’26 shared that, among their multiple performances at schools and senior homes, one stand-out performance was at Google’s Seattle office.

Many of the Roaring 20’s performances accompanied collaboration with local a cappella groups. “We collaborated a lot with other acapella groups. Even Google had their own a cappella group: We spoke with them, and we sang with the Portland State University a cappella group [the Green Note],” Kwon told the ‘Prince.’

The collaboration with the Green Note has inspired Kwon, regarding the future of the group. “They told us about their competitions and the sets they have. I think something similar like that would be really cool in the future.”

Katzenjammers

The Princeton Katzenjammers (KJs) toured in Japan.

Bianca Del Campo ’27, business manager for the KJs, shared that they performed at the Tokyo American Club, the Princeton Club of Japan, and St. Alban’s Anglican-Episcopal Church. Among their extensive repertoire of songs, Del Campo shared that some of her favorites from the tour were “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” “Caught a Touch of your Love,” and “The Way You Look Tonight.”

The KJs were also invited to Yokohama City University by a Princeton alum to talk with some students and help them practice speaking English.

“He had a very small seminar-style class, teaching them how to communicate with foreigners. They were practicing speaking about their experience in Japan.”

Tigerlilies

President Hanna Hornfeld ’26 and former president Diana Savchyn ’25 of the Tigerlilies, Princeton’s oldest all-female a cappella group, spoke with the ‘Prince’ about their tour.

Hornfeld explained that, “instead of going to a different place, we stayed based in Princeton, and from here, we went and toured, performing at a couple of different schools in the area within driving or public transport distance. It was mostly performances in schools.”

“I think this was one of our more special tours,” Savchyn added. “Even though we’ve been to Paris, Greece, and Japan in the past, we really appreciate our local tours because it helps us stay really connected with our communities.”

Hornfeld shared that one high school that they performed at this tour was actually her alma mater. “One of the first schools that we went to on this tour … was actually my high school,” Hornfeld said. “My choir that I was in in high school is a high-voice choir, so there are no men in it. That choir was actually a big part of where my love for group singing came from, and a big part of why I ended up auditioning for the Tigerlilies.”

Savchyn shared, “It’s super special for us to connect with those students and show them that, yes, you can be interested in a cappella and in music, but also you

can go to Princeton and you can study things like chemical engineering, which is what I do, or comparative literature or neuroscience.”

Footnotes

The Footnotes toured Belgium this winter break, giving many members their first opportunities to visit Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent.

Luke Barrett ’25, former president, and Braiden Aaronson ’25, former business manager, spoke with the ‘Prince’ about their experience.

“During our time there … we got to tour the EU council. We performed for the Canadian mission to the EU, which was also very fun,” Aaronson shared. “We got to perform for Princeton alum and Supreme Allied Commander of Europe for NATO Christopher Cavoli ’87. So lots of fun stuff.”

One of his favorite things about touring with the group, Barrett shared, is “bringing that same high level of music and musicianship, making memories that last a lifetime, and singing in places that otherwise you really wouldn’t have a chance to.”

Triangle Club

The ‘Prince’ also spoke with Lev Ricanati ’25, tour manager for Triangle. This winter break, the club took their original musical “Pageant Pending” on tour.

“We went to DC, then Charlotte, North Carolina, then Atlanta,” Ricanati shared.

“We had a show in Nashville, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Milburn … I looked it up, and it was like the perimeter of the map of Spain, basically, is how far you were driving.”

This tour, Triangle increased their number of shows. “We added two shows this year … We did eight this year to see how it went. And you know, it was really successful.”

Ricanati shared with the ‘Prince’ that “touring is a pretty incredible part of the Triangle experience. It’s like one of the quintessential parts of it.”

Luke Grippo is a staff News writer for the Prince. He usually covers administrative issues, including USG, the CPUC, and institutional legacy.

Behind the curtain at Richardson Auditorium: Turning the spotlight on theater staff

Richardson Auditorium erupted with applause as singer Cécile McLorin Salvant and her musical accompaniment stepped onstage. For the audience, the performance was just beginning. But for the Richardson staff, this show, like any other, was the product of hours, days, and in some cases weeks of preparation.

“Service excellence”

At Richardson Auditorium, an almost 200 member staff consists of volunteers, Princeton students, community members, and University employees. The team’s diverse roles are connected by a common goal of supporting the performer and audience experience. Across the board, the staff of Richardson have gained pride for their work towards this goal, and established a strong community.

Richardson is the main venue for student performances, as well as Princeton University Concerts (PUC), which brings world-renowned guest artists to campus for an accessible ticket price. Richardson staff work with performers to meet their stage needs and create a positive patron experience, following a model which Sharon L. Maselli, Audience Services Manager at Richardson, called  “service excellence” in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.

The Richardson staff fall broadly into two categories: front of house and back of house. Front of house staff interact with the patrons, while the back of house, or production, staff work behind the scenes, running the technical elements of each show.

Back of house

The back of house crew are “the people that you don’t see, but if they weren’t there, the show would fall apart,” Maselli said to the ‘Prince.’

Responsible for lights, audio, and overall show production, the back of house staff play a vital role in the choreography of each show. A lighting specialist works with the artists to create their desired lighting effects prior to and during each performance. Before shows, the crew sets up the stage with instruments and equipment. Professional pianist Jonathan Biss even played both of the Auditorium’s pianos to determine which would be better for one performance.

Once doors open, the stage manager and house manager communicate through headsets about the performance, while production’s job is to cue lighting and audio as appropriate.

“For a concert, we usually say when it starts,” stage manager Julio Montero says. “And then we let the concert go.”

During a concert, other back of house staffers like sound engineers sit at a soundboard inside the auditorium and listen to the music through a headset, adjusting the mics in real time to make sure, as Maselli said, “that the audience hears a combined sound.”  Meanwhile, in a small room filled with sound equipment, another audio specialist records the concert for future listening.

Student employees

While the back of house consists entirely of hired professionals, the front of house team is a mix of part time adult staff, Princeton student employees, and volunteer ushers from the local community. Maselli, usher program coordinator Ayame Whitfield ’21, and Sarah Spalding, student program coordinator, collectively oversee 184 people.

For the Princeton student employees, work at Richardson has evolved into a hierarchical system akin to a career path.

“It became clear to us that students have so many

opportunities at Princeton. It’s amazing what all you can choose. And, we have this job to offer but we want to make it really worthwhile. And, students are so incredibly capable that to have them just come in and hold a door or take a ticket seat is an underutilization of their abilities. So, we thought, let’s create a career path for them to have opportunities for leadership and management development and soft skill development,” Maselli said.

Students begin this “career path” as “Event Assistants,” working with the professional staff and volunteers to create a welcoming experience for patrons, according to the Richardson website. An Event Assistant can become a Lead Event Assistant, Student Manager, and then House Manager, increasing in responsibility and pay as they climb the ranks. A Lead Event Assistant is the right hand to the House Manager, who assists production and supervises student and volunteer front-of-house staff during and outside of a performance. Student Managers, typically students in their junior year, serve as mentors to the Event Assistants. Students are not required to advance.

Talia Czuchlewski ’26 is currently a Lead Event Assistant at Richardson. Describing her job in an interview to the ‘Prince,’ she said, “We have responsibilities as team leaders and also as event leaders.”

During a shift, students, recognizable by their orange scarves, can set up the auditorium prior to patron arrival, be greeters or ushers, or work in the balcony, while simultaneously ensuring audience satisfaction and, as they ascend the ranks, managing other students and volunteer ushers.

“It’s real, hands-on work,” Czuchlewski said.

Part-time employees fill in gaps when students are unavailable. “We do the best we can and whatever we can,” Jocelyn Starr, a member of the adult staff, told the ‘Prince.’

Volunteers Richardson ushers are volunteers, a mix of adult community members and high school students. Many adult ushers came to Richardson through the Joint Ushers for McCarter and Princeton (JUMP) program, which shares ushers between McCarter Theater and Richardson Auditorium, while high school student ushers come to Richardson through the Community Arts Service in Theaters (CAST) program.

Launched in 2023, the CAST program now partners with 10 high schools in the Princeton area, helping students interested in the arts fulfill their community service graduation requirement in a sector with fewer opportunities for service.

“[T]his opportunity to both appreciate and enjoy the arts but also to actively support it through service,” Whitfield told the ‘Prince.’ “That’s a huge part of

the draw of this [volunteer] program.”

A strong Richardson community

Several members of Richardson’s staff told the ‘Prince’ that the best part of their work was not the special concert access as one might expect, but rather the theater community.

“I think we all know each other really well at Richardson,” Whitfield said.

To foster community amongst its workers, Richardson hosts annual holiday parties and a spring dinner, as well as a group training in the fall.

“We have this beautiful Christmas party,” volunteer usher Colleen Marsh told the ‘Prince.’ “We have a meal onstage, and then we have a sing-along … And every spring, we have a dinner with somebody different from the Princeton community.” She added, “They treat us like gold.”

A newsletter highlighting different workers also releases quarterly to all the staff, including students, part-time adult staff, and volunteers.

“One of my favorite things about [working at Richardson] is that I get to interact with a larger community than just Princeton,” Czuchlewski said.

Richardson leaders also emphasize workplace equality. Once they have trained for and shadowed a position twice, anyone can work any position, so on a given night, a student may manage an adult staff member, or the other way around. Plus, since lead staffers Maselli, Whitfield, and Spalding work shows as well, they get on the ground experience of what does and does not work for their employees and volunteers. In fact, Whitfield worked every show last year as the CAST program launched.

“One thing that has stayed true since I started working as Usher Program Coordinator is that the ushers are not afraid to offer feedback. They will tell me if they think I could do something better or if Richardson could do something better … Ultimately, I’m really proud of being in charge of a program like that where people feel comfortable offering feedback, expressing themselves. It tells me that they feel respected and valued enough to give feedback and make what we do better,” Whitfield said.

The staff are indeed proud of their work supporting world-class performances and believe the opportunities at Richardson are underutilized, especially by students. Echoing many of her coworkers, Maselli encouraged students to use their Passport to the Arts to come see shows at Richardson.

“It’s a hidden gem on campus,” Maselli said.

Annika Plunkett is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Newsletter team. She can be reached at ap3616[at]princeton.edu.

‘It’s

Like Dragons’: Inside Princeton Students’ Hidden Musical Haven

You would think that it would be hard to feel nostalgic for a time during which you weren’t even alive, yet that is exactly what I felt when I stepped into the Princeton Record Exchange last Saturday afternoon. Whether it be explosively colorful shelves lining every available surface, bright genre tags hanging from the ceiling, large artist posters lining whatever wall space is out of customer reach, or the sticker-bombed checkout counter, the inside of this seemingly inconspicuous white building is overstimulating in the best way possible.

Established in 1980 by Barry Weisfeld, an avid record collector who had previously been selling out of the back of his van, the Princeton Record Exchange holds a rotating selection of over 100,000 LPs, CDs, and DVDs across a multitude of genres, many of which are on display for customers to spend a lazy weekend afternoon sifting through.

Over its four and a half decades of establishment in downtown Princeton, the store has involved itself with the community via its open offer to buy out people’s collections of physical media at a reasonable price. For all the newly pressed LPs and freshly delivered CDs that clutter the “New Releases” shelves, an equal number of aging collectors’ items wait for a passionate buyer to dust them off. As someone passionate about

not only music itself, but also its culture and fanbase, I felt that the store’s aisles are a haven for music lovers among the Princeton community.

In this day and age, the purchase of physical media may seem like a relic of the past — a mere symbolic, and often deeply personal, gesture of appreciation to your favorite artists. Yet, I still had a hard time walking through the narrow, album-lined aisles without bumping into someone eagerly clutching an LP or noticing a familiar cover at the back of the row.

To my surprise, the store was bustling that Saturday afternoon. As I looked around, I couldn’t help but notice the diversity of customers in every genre’s corner in the store. From elderly couples picking out their childhood classics to young teens rummaging through the new releases of their favorite local artists, it seemed everyone had something in store for them as they flipped through the alphabetized stacks.

After asking around, I found out that that day’s customer base was a relatively even mix of shoppers from Princeton and the surrounding area, as well as visitors from all along the East Coast. Whereas the presence of people who grew up in the LP era was to be expected, young adults seemed to be equally invested in browsing or shopping for such physical media. Even long after they had become obsolete, these records still incite a certain passion among newer generations.

“I think it’s like dragons. You want to see what you own. You like looking up at your wall and seeing all the art and everything,” said Alana, a 29-year-old from New Jersey.

“A lot of the music that I have found isn’t available on all streaming platforms, just for some reason or another,” added Devin, an electrical engineering student in New York and hip-hop enthusiast.

With much of the same fire in their eyes, store veterans from the local community continue to pay frequent visits to check out the store’s everevolving stock. A local jazz enthusiast, Dan, says he’s “here at least once a week for the last 24 years.”

It is the result of this vibrant Princeton community that the Record Exchange, despite the advent of the digital age, continues to thrive 35 years down the line. As the store’s collection keeps expanding, student musicians and music enthusiasts alike can catch a snippet of music history every time they take a trip to Nassau Street. One does not even have to make a purchase to get a meaningful experience from a visit to the Princeton Record Exchange. Whether you want to discover new music, explore regional scenes, or look at vintage singles, the store surely has something to captivate you.

Don’t rule out the possibility of a purchase entirely, however, as exciting finds prove to be commonplace among the store’s regulars. “Well, there was a record that I’ve looked for for 30 years,

that I just found a few weeks ago from Doug Sahm … And so, you know, 30 years, to really be looking for something, and to suddenly have it up here in front of you is exciting,” Dan reflects.

As more students begin to incorporate ventures to the store into their lives, it continues to solidify itself as a crucial component of Princeton’s musical community.

“I think it’s something the Princeton community cherishes as well. It surprises me how often I see people carrying the yellow PREX tote bag around … but I guess people have also found the enjoyment in owning physical music that I feel, and that’s great,” commented Stanley Kong ’26, a longtime visitor of the store. Something as simple as the store’s bright and recognizable bags can reveal a web of shared passion that connects students across all majors and corners of campus.

Whether you plan on supporting the continued trade and sale of physical music, finding a rare record from your favorite obscure artist, learning about music history from its most authentic form, or seeing who else on campus might share your love for the art-form, I believe the Princeton Record Exchange to be a must-see local community attraction.

Eric

Mohorea is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2028. He can be reached at em4523[at]princeton.edu.

By Eric Mohorea | Prospect Contributor

APRIL 2025

By Annika Plunkett | Prospect Contributor

ANNIKA PLUNKETT / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Richardson staff outside of the theater welcome audiences into a show.

‘It’s the

Princeton Way’: The award-winning bakery behind Princeton’s sweet treats

By Gavin McLoughlin & Annika Plunkett

Associate Prospect Editor & Staff Prospect Writer

Between 7:30 each morning and eight at night, Princeton students flood the campus’s seven dining halls. Whether grabbing a pastry on the way to an early morning lecture, enjoying well-deserved cookies with their closest friends, or simply taking a quiet moment to recharge with a slice of cake, students consume around 6,000 desserts daily. While this big number may lead to assumptions that these desserts are mass imported by a faraway dessert company, this couldn’t be farther from the truth.

Hidden below the Rockefeller-Mathey dining hall lies a magical workshop of sweets called the RoMA bakery. Within this bakeshop, 100% of the residential college menus and around 90% of campus’s retail menus are made from scratch daily and shipped to residential dining halls and special events.

Powered by a tight-knit group of five bakers and two delivery people, the RoMa bakery is much akin to Princeton’s Area 51, except instead of possible aliens, it possesses a much more dangerous secret: over 60-year-old chocolate chip cookie recipes.

Marked only by an 8x11 inch piece of paper taped to a pipe above the basement entrance that reads “BAKESHOP,” the RoMa bakeshop is at first unassuming: a medium-sized room perpetually buzzing with the sounds of baking machinery and filled with heavenly smells of cookie dough and freshly baked brownies. The room has a large central wooden table, where bakers pour sheets of brownies, and baking machinery large enough to hold stacks of baked goods the height of an NBA player line the room’s perimeter. Except for a small test table in a corner, everything within the bakeshop feels massive compared to our kitchens at home.

The grand size of everything makes sense when considering the bakery’s immense production. The shop uses roughly 150 pounds of King Arthur flour each shift. The flour arrives in sealed bags that seem more appropriate for a Home Depot.

While most of the bakery’s machinery is remarkably vintage, with countless 50-year-old mixers, one clear exception is the bakery’s cookie machine. Purchased in 2023, the machine can make around 130 dozen cookies and store information on over 1,000 recipes.

Thanks to the machine, Executive Pastry Chef Michael DiLiberto shared in an interview with The Daily Princetonian, “Usually when we do a batch of cookies, it’s around 120 dozen, 130 dozen.”

To work it, a baker loads over 200 pounds of cookie dough into a large funnel on top, electronically sets the machine for the desired type of cookie, and then loads empty trays onto a conveyor belt below. Small balls are then dropped onto the pan under a giant metal vat of dough, which the machine spits out on the other end.

The bakers also use a dough shooter and two large, old mixers. Indeed, while the bakery’s new cookie machine represents an investment in increased productivity, this type of equipment change is rare.

“There’s not many moving parts on the inside,” DiLiberto said, referring to the over 50-year-old mixer. “If you fix them the right way, they will last a hundred years or so,” There is value in using the same old equipment “because it works,” he asserted.

However, beyond the bakery’s robust machinery and resources, the most impressive aspect of the RoMa Bake Shop is its people.

While Princeton students may grumble about getting out of bed for their 10 a.m., the five-person baking team, led by Executive Pastry Chef Michael DiLib -

erto, typically arrives every morning at 3 a.m., finishing their shifts around noon.

The bakery’s early hours and highpressure environment could create a challenging work environment. Yet, the team is incredibly supportive of one another, with DiLiberto referring to the team as a ‘family.’ “The kitchen culture is a tight community. You have each other’s back because there’s no other way to get this type of production done. It’s something that keeps guys like us and women in the business for so long,” Gattis said.

Given the limited time and the massive volume of food required, the bakers are in a constant race against the clock. As Culinary Associate Director Michael Gattis puts it, “Dinner is at five. Lunch is at 11:30. There is no not getting [it] out on time.” In the end, their ability to consistently assemble quality goods all comes down to experience.

The high-quality result of the bakers’ work is a combination of science and instinct, balancing quality and quantity with experience. This experience is essential for many of the bakery’s 50-yearold and older recipes that often contain only a list of ingredients. The bakers simply have to know the method for mixing the dough and how to bake it.

The bakers also internalize the scientific nature of baking, adjusting their process as they bake to account for humidity and ingredient substitutions. Further, during Princeton’s summer downtime, the bakeshop experiments with new recipes and ingredients and modifies recipes for scale and new machinery.

“They’re tried, they’re tested, they’re approved, and then they go into our database,” Gattis explained.

While many of the bakeshop’s recipes rely on tried-and-tested methods, there is still room for innovation. For example, for Women’s History Month this year, the team pioneered baker Kayla Burg’s

Chocolate Dirt Pudding recipe, one of her family’s favorite recipes, inspired by the time she spent helping her parents in their garden growing up. As they do with all family recipes, the bake shop worked with Kayla to preserve the integrity of her family recipe, while adapting to serve the whole campus, balancing family tradition with innovation. In many ways, the bakeshop is a direct continuation of the ideals Princeton represents, blending tradition, innovation, and community. This message remained constant throughout the tour, perfectly embodied by Gattis’s comment, “Part of the scratch cooking is the campus dining’s initiative to move away from processed foods … for the health and wellness of our students. There’s a cost involved with it, but … it’s the right thing to do … it’s the Princeton Way.”

Learning from the bakers at RoMa Bakery revealed one of Princeton’s largest not-so-hidden secrets and demonstrated how the “Princeton way” applies to far more than just academics. As each of RoMa’s bakers demonstrates day in and day out, the Princeton Way is about challenging yourself, working for others, and educating yourself about the past to better the future. Therefore, the next time you grab a perfectly golden brown danish on a rush across campus, take a moment to appreciate the “heart and soul” that goes into it. As Gattis expressed, “Every bite that you take … you take a piece of [the staff] with you. And that’s what food is all about.”

Gavin McLoughlin, a member of the class of 2028, is an associate editor for The Prospect. He can be reached at gm9041@princeton.edu.

Annika Plunkett is a staff writer for The Prospect and a member of the Newsletter team. She can be reached at ap3616@princeton.edu.

Palestinian food comes to Princeton with Ayat

By Lulu Petit | Staff

The toasted, herbal smell of oregano, sumac, and thyme fills the air. Colorful dishes in rich shades of yellow, green, and red cover every table. A ceiling of greenery brings the outside in, and an open view into the kitchen promises fresh, made-to-order dishes in Princeton’s newest restaurant.

Another New York City restaurant has hit the streets of Princeton — Ayat, a slightly upscale Palestinian restaurant with a plethora of traditional dishes as well as American-fusion dishes. With five New York City locations as well as one in Allentown, Pa., Ayat’s latest outpost is located on Spring Street, where the all-vegan American comfort food restaurant Planted Plate used to be located. According to their website, Ayat’s cuisine and atmosphere find their roots in familial comfort and hospitality — an atmosphere so great that the restaurant earned the 74th spot on the New York Times’s Top 100 Restaurants in NYC.

To see if the Princeton location lives up to the fame of its New York counterparts, I visited Ayat on a cool Friday evening.

I arrived with my group before the dinner rush around 5:30 p.m. and was seated right away. Although the restaurant is relatively small, a full-wall mirror made the space feel expansive and open. We were immediately served steaming hot pita along with olives, olive oil, and za’atar, a season -

ing spice common in Middle Eastern cooking that usually contains a mix of toasted sesame seeds, dried sumac, oregano, thyme, and sometimes marjoram. Ayat’s blend tasted woody and nutty with a strong oregano presence balanced by the other herbs. The pita had just the slightest crisp on the outside, while the inside was soft and fluffy.

The menu has a wide selection of both appetizers and entrees. Some are more traditional Palestinian dishes like fattat lahma, a six-layer dish with lamb, rice, chickpeas, and more, as well as kebabs, shawarma, and dips like baba ghanoush. The restaurant also offers American-fusion options like their wood-fired pizzas, including options like “pizzawarma,” which features shawarma meat and halloumi cheese as toppings, and “falafel frenzy.”

We ordered tabbouleh, hummus, and falafel with tahini sauce. Less than ten minutes after ordering, our appetizers arrived. The tabbouleh — a mixture of parsley, fine bulgur, tomatoes, onions, olive oil, and lemon — was bright and fresh, balancing out the deeper, richer flavors of the other appetizers. The falafel was super crispy on the outside while still soft and herby on the inside. Dipped in the nutty tahini sauce, it was absolute perfection. Next to such strong appetizers, the hummus held its own, with a subtle lemony undertone and a dash of paprika on top to complement the silky smooth and salty dip.

About 20 minutes later, our entrees arrived. By this time, it was almost 6 p.m., so every table in the restaurant was taken, and there was a line out the door. For my entree, I ordered a small chicken kebab. My plate came with a heaping portion of moist and flavorful turmeric rice, spring salad mix with balsamic vinaigrette, small pieces of grilled chicken colored orange with seasoning, and a small bowl of yogurt sauce to tie it all together.

While there was certainly enough food on the plate to constitute a meal, I noticed right away that there were only a few pieces of chicken. Considering I paid less than $16 though, there was plenty of food for its price. The chicken was juicy and had a warm, spiced flavor that made up for its small portion. The star of the dish was the yogurt sauce, which was tangy and brought a bright, fresh flavor.

At the end of the night, we ordered two desserts and Arabian coffee for the table. The dessert menu was surprisingly extensive but had a few items that didn’t fit with the Palestinian theme, like tres leches cake and Nutella cheesecake. However, there were also more traditional options, such as basbousa, a cake made from semolina, as well as the desserts my table ordered: baklava and kanafa.

Kanafa is akawi cheese that is first coated in crispy flakes of semolina dough and crushed pistachio and drenched in a sweet, honey-like syrup. The kanafa was a masterpiece — the golden semolina dough and syrup

were balanced by the nutty topping and the mild but salty cheese, which was soft and stretchy. The baklava, on the other hand, had a crisp and flaky texture that practically melted in our mouths due to the amount of syrup it was soaked in. While the crushed walnuts inside and pistachio topping balanced the sweetness, it was complemented more so by the coffee. It was served in a traditional Arabian coffee pot with tiny teacups for each person. Unlike American coffee, the grounds are left in the pot along with cardamom. While I couldn’t taste the cardamom directly, it cut the bitterness of the strong coffee.

Ayat is now the third NYC-based chain to come to Princeton — first came Mamoun’s Falafel, which is currently celebrating the tenth anniversary of its Witherspoon St. location; then came Maman in November 2022. This trend makes me wonder: what other NYC staples might we see coming in the next few years? Could a Levain Bakery or a Joe’s Pizza appear? Or maybe Xi’an Famous Foods?

Regardless, Ayat ensures the future of the Princeton dining scene is bright. With its warm, friendly atmosphere and delicious menu, Ayat is a welcome addition to the food scene in town.

Lulu Pettit is a member of the Class of 2027 and a staff writer for The Prospect from the suburbs of Philadelphia. She can be reached at lp3153[at]princeton.edu or her Instagram @itslulupettit.

LULU PETTIT / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Front entrance of Ayat on Spring St. in Princeton.

LULU PETIT/ THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN. The baklava dessert.

LULU PETIT/ THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN. Indoor dining area of Ayat.

Men’s fencing wins back-to-back Ivy League titles, first outright in 12 years

By Matthew Yi Assistant Sports Editor

The Princeton men’s fencing team, ranked 3rd in the country, continued their dominant performance in the Ivy League, capturing their second consecutive conference title with a thrilling 14–13 victory over No. 2 Columbia at The Palestra in Philadelphia on Sunday. This win was the Tigers’ first outright Ivy League championship since 2012.

Heading into Sunday’s final

rounds, both the men’s and women’s teams remained undefeated. With the men sitting in first at 3–0 and Columbia right behind them at 2–0, the stage was set for a thrilling showdown.

Saturday’s strong performances across all weapons helped the Tigers battle through tough matches, including a narrow 14–13 victory over Penn and a decisive 15–12 win against Harvard. Sophomore epeeist Alec Brooke led the épée squad with an outstanding 8–1 record on the

first day.

The Tigers, securing hardfought victories over No. 7 Yale, No. 4 Penn, and No. 13 Harvard, looked to defend their Ivy League title with their final match against Columbia. The match didn’t disappoint.

With the Ivy League Championship on the line, the Tigers were up 13–12 and needed a win from Brooke in order to secure the Ivy League Championship.

“There was one épée and one foil match left, and Alec’s match was the first one up. We knew if he won, we would win the whole thing,” sophomore épéeist Alexander Liu told The Daily Princetonian.

As the pressure mounted, the weight of the situation became clear to Brooke.

“At the start of the day, I was feeling confident as I had fenced well the day before and felt ready for the final matchup.” Brooke told the ‘Prince.’ “I knew I was the last match, and as other weapons were finishing, I knew that if I won, we would win the championship, but if I lost, we would lose it.”

With the entire stadium watching, Brooke stepped up and delivered the final touch, lifting the Tigers to victory and clinching the Ivy League title in dramatic fashion.

“It was sudden death. I tried

to spend extra time to compose myself, and it worked … I scored that last touch, and we won.” Brooke said. “It was one of the hardest mental moments I’ve ever had in my career … At the end of the match, I just remembered being so relieved.”

The score was finally settled, and the Tigers clinched the championship, winning 14–13.

“After I took my mask off and saw the whole team running at me cheering, the moment fully started to sink in that we had won the championship,” Brooke said to the ‘Prince.’

Throughout this tournament, Princeton’s success was driven by standout individual performances, particularly in épée, where the Tigers dominated this competition. Brooke (10–2) and Senior épéeist Nicholas Lawson (9–2) earned First Team AllIvy League honors.

“I feel so proud to be first team all-Ivy as it tells me that I was doing well to help the team as much as I could,” Brooke told the ‘Prince.’ “Last year, in my first year, I also ended up 2nd individually, and even though I’ve been close to first place both years, I’m happy that I’ve been fencing consistently.”

First-year foilist Allen Chen

(8–4) led the foil team and also secured a First Team All-Ivy selection, while junior saberists Matthew Limb (7–5) and Adam Lai (6–5) earned Second Team saber honors.

“I’m super proud of Allen. Being a first-year in this intense environment is not easy, and he fenced so well. It was super impressive, and he beat a lot of strong opponents. We’re all super proud of him,” Liu said to the ‘Prince.’ Princeton’s épée squad dominated this tournament. Against Yale, they swept their bouts 9–0, with Brooke, Lawson, and Liu leading the charge. The épée dominance continued against Penn (8–1) and Harvard (5–4).

“We have a really talented group of fencers. At the beginning of the season, we weren’t fencing as well, but over the last few weeks, we’ve really turned it up a notch,” Liu said to the ‘Prince.’

With Ivy League play behind them, the Tigers will look to continue to build off their momentum as they shift their focus to the upcoming NCAA regionals on March 11.

“Regionals is a different atmosphere. We will be training super hard every day and look to beat the best,” Liu said.

Matthew Yi is an assistant Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

Junior star Xaivian Lee enters transfer portal and will ‘test draft process’ ahead of senior year

By Hayk Yengibaryan

Junior star guard Xaivian Lee’s agent announced via ESPN on Friday that he intends to enter the transfer portal. Lee will maintain his college eligibility and also test the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft process once more, doing so less than a year after withdrawing from the 2024 NBA Draft to return for his junior season at Princeton.

“These past three years at Princeton have been the most meaningful of my life,” Lee wrote in a statement posted to his Instagram story. “This place has shaped me as a person and challenged me. It gave me a platform to chase my dreams and now Princeton is a place I know I can always call home.”

Lee enters the portal with a “Do Not Contact” tag, a designation indicating that he is proactively managing his recruitment and does not wish to

be approached by programs unless he or his agent initiates contact.

The decision comes after a season in which the Ivy League preseason favorite Tigers fell in the Ivy Madness semifinals and assistant coaches Brett MacConnell and Lawrence Rowley were not retained. MacConnell recruited Lee, who emerged as a standout following his rookie year.

“Xaivian shared his decision to enter the transfer portal,” Head Coach Mitch Henderson ’98 wrote to the Daily Princetonian. “He’s a tremendous member of this program and we support him in exploring what’s best for him as a person, student and basketball player”

In two seasons as a starter, Lee has cemented himself as one of the best players ever to wear the Orange and Black. A two-time unanimous first team All-Ivy selection, this season Lee became the first Tiger to record a triple-double, after an 18 point, 13 rebound, and 10 assist performance against St Joe’s. Lee secured a second triple-double in the Tigers’ final game of the regular season against Penn.

Across his sophomore and junior seasons, Lee consistently delivered. In the 2023–24 season, he averaged 17.1 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game, becoming one of just five underclassmen nationally to average

at least 16 points, five rebounds, and three assists.

He followed that up with an even stronger junior campaign, posting 16.9 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 5.5 assists per game while leading the Ivy League in assist-to-turnover ratio. Lee notched two 30-point games in each of the past two seasons and hit game-winners against Columbia and Dartmouth.

“To my teammates — ya’ll know what it is,” Lee wrote. “There’s no other group I would’ve rather gone through the ups and downs with.”

While many expected Lee to declare for the NBA Draft after this season, transferring was thought to be less likely. The latest Bleacher Report mock draft projects him as the 52nd overall pick.

In the modern National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), the high levels of name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation attracts successful student athletes to stay in college and forgo the pros for a year or two. Lee’s decision represents this fundamental change in collegiate sports.

Lee immediately becomes one of the most sought-after players in the transfer portal and is expected to draw interest from high-major programs across the country. Given

his recent success, Lee will receive significant NIL interest, with offers likely exceeding seven figures.

Without Lee, the Tigers lose their primary playmaker and leader, and the outlook for next season becomes far less clear. While players like sophomore guard Dalen Davis and junior forward Caden Pierce, a former Ivy League Player of the Year, are expected to take on larger roles, his departure could prompt others to re-evaluate their own futures with the program.

With Lee now in the portal, he is eligible to be contacted by other programs immediately. The spring transfer window closes on May 1, giving him a few weeks to weigh his options before making a decision. Lee ended his statement by saying, “To the faculty, fans, and community — I wouldn’t be much without you. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to represent you, I have nothing but love and gratitude for the school. I hope you continue to follow my story as I willl always do the same.” This story is breaking and will be updated as more details emerge.

Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate News editor, senior Sports writer, and education director for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Glendale, Calif.

Senior Sports Writer

COURTESY OF @IVYLEAGUE / X.

The men’s fencing team celebrates a match win on the way to their Ivy League championship victory on Sunday afternoon.

Former Tiger star Chen ’24 taken 30th overall in WNBA Draft, third Princetonian ever

By Emilia Reay & Harrison Blank Staff Sports writer & Head Sports Editor

Former women’s basketball star point guard Kaitlyn Chen ’24 became the third former Tiger to be drafted in the WNBA on Monday night. The Golden State Valkyries selected the three-time Ivy League Player of the Year with the 30th overall pick, the sixth pick of the third round.

Chen joins Abby Myers ’22 and Bella Alarie ’20 as the only Tigers taken in the WNBA draft in the league’s 29 years. The three former stars of the Orange and Black helped drive women’s basketball’s five straight Ivy League regular season and tournament championships from 2018 to 2024.

Chen was a standout point guard during her time at Princeton. She led the Tigers to three regular season and tournament championships each, and she also helped the team win two NCAA Tournament games. She holds the third-best assist record in Princeton program history as well. In 2023, Chen was named Ivy League Player of the Year.

Chen stood out not only in the Ivy League but brought the same energy and basketball IQ to Storrs, CT, for her fifth and final year of eligibility. Chen spent the 2024–2025 season with the University of Connecticut Huskies, who won the NCAA championship just eight days ago.

“I had a good feeling that she

[Chen] might get drafted, just her career at Princeton and the season she had at UConn— I think she would add a lot of value to a WNBA team,” Head Coach Carla Berube told The Daily Princetonian. “So, yeah, I was optimistic about the chances.”

Chen followed in Coach Berube’s footsteps by playing for the Huskies. When Coach Berube played college ball at UConn, she was a part of the 1995 team that brought the trophy to Storrs for the first time, now, 30 years later, one of her own players was an integral part of the 12th UConn national title. This shared experience has strengthened Berube and Chen’s relationship with each other.

“Of course I’m a huge UConn fan regardless of if she [Chen] were there, and it just made it even more incredible to watch them win their 12th National Championship with Kaitlyn as the starting point guard; it was pretty special,” Berube added. “It was great having some of my Princeton alums there watching it, my whole staff; we had a blast.”

At UConn, she averaged over 20 minutes, almost seven points, and nearly three and a half assists per game while appearing in all 40 games. She is one of three Huskies drafted last night, including Paige Bueckers, the number one pick overall, and Aubrey Griffin, the 37th selection of the draft.

Chen’s selection comes as a slight surprise, as ESPN’s final

mock draft did not predict her being taken in any of the draft’s three 12-pick rounds. SBNation’s final mock draft also did not have Chen as a selection. But Golden State is taking a chance on Chen’s ability to run the offense as a floor general, and to win.

“With basketball, I just sort of let it take me on this journey, and I haven’t really had any expectations from the start,” Chen stated in a press conference shortly after she was drafted. “And I was lucky enough to have such a great time at Princeton and be so successful there and I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to come

to UConn. So, I think I’m just taking everything as it goes, and it’s been a pretty great ride so far.”

Chen is also not the only Ivy League player to get drafted this go-around. Harvard’s Harmoni Turner was selected by the Las Vegas Aces in the 35th pick of the draft. Last year, three Ivy League players were drafted to the WNBA, although none played for the Tigers.

Chen will return back to her home state of California to play for the Valkyries, one of two new expansion teams for the 2025 season. Golden State will play their first ever game in franchise his-

tory on May 16 against the Los Angeles Sparks when the WNBA kicks off.

“She [Chen] plays with a lot of joy, she finds joy in things,” Coach Berube told the ‘Prince’. “I think that she is just a really really great teammate and hopefully she continues to do that—off the court, on the court, really showing the Valkyries what a benefit she will be to their franchise.”

Emilia Reay is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’

Harrison Blank is a head Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

In Brooklyn, Tosan Evbuomwan ’23 nets a new path

By Hayk Yengibaryan Senior Sports Writer

BROOKLYN, N.Y. — Out of the 41 former Ivy League basketball players currently playing professional basketball, only one of them is in the NBA — former Princeton star Tosan Evbuomwan ’23.

On Jan. 1, ESPN reported that the Brooklyn Nets had agreed to a two-way contract with Evbuomwan. A two-way contract allows a player to split time between the NBA and the G League.

“I’m not thinking about any of that,” Evbuomwan told The Daily Princetonian when asked about the challenges of being on a two-way contract. “I’m here trying to just stay present and every opportunity I get, whether it’s with the Brooklyn Nets or the Long Island Nets, just trying to show how I can contribute to winning and just continue to get better.”

However, Evbuomwan has primarily been with the Brooklyn Nets, playing in 20 games thus far and averaging nearly 10 points per game in 24.3 minutes per game.

“We believe that he can be a special player,” Nets Head Coach Jordi Fernández told the ‘Prince’ before the Nets game against the Hornets on Monday, Feb. 10.

“From the first day, he walked in like he belongs on both ends of the floor,” Fernández continued. “He is super mature. Everything you ask him to do, he gets it right away and he does it. He communicates, he’s efficient, he’s a worker, he’s a pro.” Last season, Evbuomwan had stints

with the Detroit Pistons and Memphis Grizzlies, playing in a total of 17 games. In those 17 games, he averaged just under six points per game.

“Coming in with some games under my belt, I kind of knew what to expect a little bit more,” Evbuomwan said. “I’m more confident out there on both ends of the floor. That comes with the experience.”

Evbuomwan has had particularly big responsibilities on the defensive end of the ball, matching up with the likes of Kevin Durant and Lamelo Ball.

“[It’s] something that I think will allow me to play in this league for hopefully a while, being able to match up with those guys, be physical, disrupt their rhythm.”

For Evbuomwan, a key to his success has been his coach, Fernández. Before taking on the Nets gig, Fernández was a player development coach with the Cleveland Cavaliers, where he worked closely with Kyrie Irving and Tristan Thompson, amongst others.

“He did a great job of just bringing me up to speed with everything, as did the rest of the coaching staff and the guys,” Evbuomwan said. “He gave me a lot of confidence from the minute I walked in to go and be impactful and kind of do what I do.

Evbuomwan was quick to impress the Nets. On Jan. 3, in a G-League game for the Long Island Nets, Evbuomwan scored 39 points. Following this performance, he has been with the Nets since making his debut on Jan. 4. In just his third game with

the team, Evbuomwan scored 13 points and had seven rebounds in 29 minutes of action.

Just days later, Evbuomwan had the best game of his career against the Utah Jazz. In 24 minutes off the bench. Evbuomwan led the Nets in scoring with 22 points on 88 percent shooting from the field.

made his mark off the bench �� pic.twitter.com/jVCCwtceka

— Brooklyn Nets (@BrooklynNets) January 14, 2025

“I don’t think the mindset was any different,” Evbuomwan explained. “Maybe the ball happened to find me a little more often, and I just stayed aggressive.”

Following the Jazz game, Evbuomwan has scored in double figures on six more occasions, most recently on Feb. 5, when he scored 15 points against the Washington Wizards.

“Tosan has been a great addition to the group for many reasons,” Fernández said. “We’re happy with him, but we want him to keep working and getting better.”

With 37 career games, Evbuomwan has already played the fifth-most NBA games of any Ivy League player since 2000.

When asked about his thoughts on the Ivy League being viewed as a tier below most Division I leagues, Evbuomwan brought up Princeton’s success against power-five programs.

“We [Princeton] have a great record against high-major teams. We love to play high-major teams. We love to schedule more each year.”

During his time at Princeton, Evbuomwan improved drastically. In his rookie season at Old Nassau, Evbuomwan averaged just under four points per game. However, in his following two seasons, Evbuomwan averaged over 15 points, six rebounds, and five assists per game.

“Coach Henderson and the rest of the staff just did a good job of always demanding more from me, wanting me to be the best version of myself,” he said. “Princeton will always be dear to me, and anything I can do for those guys, I’m always available.”

As Evbuomwan blazes the trail for Princeton basketball, other members of the men’s team have their own professional aspirations. Junior standout guard Xaivian Lee, for instance, has the same agent as Evbuomwan (George S. Langberg) and was slated as the 51st pick in a recent

mock draft by Bleacher Report.

“I’m super proud of him,” Evbuomwan said. “I think he has a real shot, and I think he’ll be great. Hopefully, I’ll see him here shortly.”

As Evbuomwan looks ahead to the future, he’s not looking to rush anything.

“[I] never take these opportunities for granted,” Evbuomwan explained. “I want to stick in this league and play in this league for a long time, so no kind of timeline or pressure on any next deal or anything like that.”

“Just continue to play, continue to try and just be impactful positively to winning and let the rest take care of itself.”

Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate News editor, senior Sports writer, and Education Director for the ‘Prince.’

PHOTO COURTESY OF @PRINCETONWBB/X. Kaitlyn Chen ’24 cutting down the net after winning Ivy Madness in 2023.

MEN’S FOOTBALL | DECEMBER 2024

Princeton Football posts first losing season in 13 years: What went wrong?

By Alex Beverton-Smith Assistant Sports Editor

As the Tigers took their final knee to see out the clock and end the season — up 20–17 against Penn — they were able to enjoy a small glimmer of delight in an otherwise dim season. Princeton football won just three games total in their worst season since 2011.

It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what went wrong for the Tigers this year, in part because it’s hard to find much that went right.

Individually, there is a lot of good to be said about many of the players — across all sides of the ball — but they never quite managed to come together as a coherent unit. Inopportune mistakes made by individual players at big moments, as well as a combination of injuries, tough competition, and a lack of adaptability doomed the Tigers’ season.

Before the season began, it was evident that big changes to the team’s lineup — including the starting quarterback, linebacker squad, and offensive coordinator — were going to impact the season’s success.

But how specifically did these issues affect the team?

On the offensive side of the ball, the team week-on-week fundamentally couldn’t prevent quarterback sacks putting them time and again in tough positions — forcing three-and-outs and losing yards. The team ranked 122nd out 123 colleges in the NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) for sacks allowed, conceding 44 sacks, 288 yards, and an average of 4.4 sacks per game.

This comes down not only to the at times poor decision-making of firsttime starter junior quarterback Blaine Hipa, but also to the offensive line and offensive coordinator. The O-Line, all of them having started most (if not all) of last season, never seemed to be on the same page with Hipa, and was never able to figure out this large problem.

The Tigers also didn’t do enough to get the ball to key senior wide receivers Luke Colella and AJ Barber. The pair both got fewer yards than they did last season: Barber going from 582 to 437 yards this season and Colella going from 620 to 562 yards.

Both got slightly fewer receptions than last season too. This along with ranking last in the Ivy League for rushing — 102 yards per game — contributed to a struggling offense.

Ultimately on this side of the ball, the buck stops not only with first-year offensive coordinator Mark Rosenbaum but also with head coach Bob Surace ’90. The Tigers’ struggles on offense are a continuation from last year — where they ranked 6th for total offense — and during the off-season they haven’t seemed able to develop their playbook or fundamentally improve this aspect of the game under the new OC.

Defensively, the Tigers also had a decline from last season, going from first in the Ivy League for total defense to fourth this season. Nevertheless, time and time again the team relied on their defense for its success.

The losses of linebackers Ozzie Nicholas ’24 and Liam Johnson ’24 were always going to impact the team and this was especially evident towards the start of the season.

Injuries to key players on defense such as junior linebacker Sekou Ro -

land, senior defensive lineman Ryan Ives, and senior linebacker Jackson Ford also had a disproportionately large effect across the season as a whole. At one point before the Dartmouth game on Nov. 8, coach Surace told The Daily Princetonian the team had more than 35 players on the injured list and thus out of the game.

Although there were times where individual errors may have resulted in questionable coverage, it’s hard to find fault with defensive coordinator Steve Verbit’s schema as he enters his 39th season of coaching at Princeton. Coach Verbit’s resumé speaks for itself and points us more towards personnel as the issue this season.

As a result of injuries, players such as first-year linebacker AJ Pigford were elevated to a far higher snap count and whilst he excelled in his role, he was moved around positionally as were many other players on defense. Linebackers became defensive ends, safeties played linebacker, and corners were moved to safeties.

On special teams, some coaching errors in games such as Dartmouth cost the team on punts or kickoffs and these only furthered the Tigers’ struggles, often in key moments.

As Surace often repeated to the ‘Prince’ throughout the season, injuries can’t be an excuse for losses. On defense, they could account for some of the failures, but a lack of adaptability offers a more broad reason for the team’s failure on both sides of the ball.

On the whole, too many key features of the team were novel and the team’s structure — practice methods, playbook, personnel — weren’t able to adapt to the challenges they faced. Injuries didn’t cause the team’s failure but merely added to the many problems they faced.

Next season, they will be hoping to build off Hipa’s year of experience at the key quarterback position, get offensive coordinator Mark Rosenbaum more comfortable in his role, and build on what may be a transitional year with many key senior players graduating this season.

Alex Beverton-Smith is an assistant Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

PHOTO COURTESY OF PRINCETON FOOTBALL / X

The Tigers will have a lot of work to do in the off-season if they want to return to their winning ways.