Welcome to Princeton
LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR
Eden Teshome Editor-In-Chief
Matricu -
lating into col -
lege is a scary experience, in concept. There are a number of things to fret over as a newly- minted Princetonian: selecting room decor, making contemplatingfriends, an academic path, completing the pre-read, taking a prox photo, and packing up your whole life into a few boxes.
The summer before my first year, I felt pressure to be entirely prepared for all that college has to offer. I remember spending ages study- ing my residential college’s floor plans, prematurely scrolling through course offerings, and consuming all the “day in my life” videos I could get my hands on.
That’s the conventional wisdom: be prepared. It’s a message you’ve probably been told your whole life.
For example, take an exam — I’m sure, if you’re reading this, that you have. From the first day of classes, the teach -
er will say to take good notes, because without them you’ll struggle to catch up. Then, a week before you’ll be reminded — ‘Start studying now, and don’t wait till the last minute!’ Ignore the warning, and the 24 hours before the test will likely be grueling. Finally, as you walk into the classroom, you’re holding an extra pen or pencil, prepared for the possibility the one you plan to use breaks. You sit down, with perhaps a few pieces of scrap paper in hand to plan your answers out, and you’re off to the races. We’re conditioned to think that, to succeed, you must be overcautious. There’s an intense environment, as of late, that makes it difficult to avoid getting caught up in the anxiety-inducing narratives of what college life will be. The grown-ups in your life, and the national media, have likely given you an impression of what you will encounter. You may be nervous or scared; maybe ex- cited and ready.
As you prepare to enter Princeton, let go of what you have learned in preparation, and open your mind and heart to a college experience you are not expecting.
Now, I am not say- ing to forget how to study for a test, that will certainly come in handy. But, often, we are burdened by expectations — of how peers will behave, of the ideologies floating around, and of what you’ll learn in the classroom. If you let go, however, you will have what I see as the true Princeton experience; leaving with a changed mind.
60 percent of seniors that graduated this spring told The Daily Princetonian that they have changed their political views, and 78 percent had changed their major at least once. That’s a remarkable amount of change, and not counting how many changed their friend groups, sense of style, or the extracurriculars they thought they would commit to.
When I first matriculated into Princeton, I never thought I would join the ‘Prince,’ much less try journalism. Looking through the listserv with an open mind led me to apply. I’m glad to report that I have not looked back since. There is so much to experience on campus, but honestly, so little time. Here at the ‘Prince,’ we try to help. Through our stories, columns, cartoons, graphs, and more, we work to try to expose the various facets of the Princeton community to each other — so, you can meet and greet the stories and faces you may not otherwise have the chance to.
If you’re interested in joining that mission, I urge you to answer my call and sign-up in the fall. Don’t worry: you don’t need to be prepared, we’ll teach you the ropes.
Eden Teshome is the editor-in-chief of The Daily Princetonian. She can be reached at eic@ dailyprincetonian.com.
Michael D. Gordin appointed next Dean of the College
By Elisabeth Stewart Assistant News Editor
The University has appointed Michael D. Gordin, the Rosengarten Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, to serve as the University’s next Dean of the College beginning on July 1.
His appointment follows a search committee led by University Provost Jennifer Rexford ’91. Gordin will replace current dean of the college Jill Dolan, who in September, announced plans to step down at the end of the 20232024 school year and take a twoyear sabbatical.
The Dean of the College is in charge of the “undergraduate curriculum, residential college system, and other services and resources designed to promote the intellectual development of undergraduates” according to the announcement. They also oversee the admission and financial aid offices.
Gordin is a renowned historian of science and a longtime faculty member who has taken a public stance on the University’s fossil fuel divestment.
“Michael impressed the committee with his infectious curiosity and compelling vision for what a Princeton undergraduate education can and should be, both within and across disciplines,” Rexford, who is also the Gordon Y.S. Wu Professor in Engineering, said in the announcement. “I so look forward to working with him as dean.”
After earning his undergraduate and doctoral degrees from Harvard, Gordin joined Princeton’s history department in 2003. His research has focused on the history of science and relations between Europe, Russia, and the United States.
According to the history department website, Gordin is on leave for the 2023-2024 academic year. He most recently taught a seminar called HIS 398: The Einstein Era in the spring of 2022, which explored Einstein’s “core scientific and philosophical contributions” amid “broader historical issues” such as war, Zionism and Nazism, and the nuclear arms race, according to the course description.
In 2011, Gordin was named a
Guggenheim Fellow and a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow. In both roles, he explored the “common language of science.”
Recently, Gordin served as a cochair for the Princeton steering committee to renew Princeton’s accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education for the first time since 2014. Among other strategic planning initiative goals, the committee evaluated the progress on increasing the student body by 500. In the past, Gordin directed the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts, the Fung Global Fellows Program, and the Program in Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. He also served in 2012-13 on the Committee on Discipline, the body which enforces academic integrity rules for all academic work done outside of class.
Gordin was among the 160 faculty and staff members who called on the University in April 2022 to fully divest from fossil fuels. Princeton announced a partial dissociation plan in September of that year.
In the announcement, Gordin
said he will focus on finding solutions to ch allenges facing students such as “mental health and the aftereffects of the COVID lockdowns on learning” while maintaining the “focused, individualized learning that emphasizes original research and creativity” unique to Princeton education.
“As one of the world’s leading historians of science, Michael Gordin combines scholarly distinction, a deep commitment to undergraduate teaching, and an
appreciation for liberal arts education that transcends disciplinary boundaries and reaches every field at this University,” President Christopher Eisgruber said in the announcement. “He is just the right person to lead the undergraduate college at Princeton, and I look forward to working with him to make an outstanding educational program even better.”
Elisabeth Stewart is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’
‘There’s nothing artificial about artificial intelligence’: Fei-Fei Li on ’28 Pre-Read
By Ethan Caldwell Staff News Writer
On Friday, Feb. 23, the University announced that this year’s Princeton Pre-Read for the Class of 2028 will be “The Worlds I See” by Fei-Fei Li ’99.
The Princeton Pre-Read, inaugurated by President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 in 2013, “introduces incoming freshmen to Princeton’s intellectual life.” This year’s choice comes at a time of growing focus on artificial intelligence (AI) at the University and beyond.
Li is the first Sequoia Capital Professor in Computer Science at Stanford University and serves as co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence Institute (HAI). Last September, Li was included in the 2023 TIME100 list of the most influential people in the AI field.
Also in February, Li was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Award, an honor “conferred annually upon an alumnus or alumna of the undergraduate college whose achievements exemplify Woodrow Wilson’s memorable phrase ‘Princeton in the nation’s service.’”
“I have no idea why I deserve that award … Getting to Princeton as an undergrad was just such an honor for me, and especially in the context of a young immigrant who didn’t have much and didn’t have the fancy resume that my classmates had,” Li told The Daily Princetonian in an interview.
“Attending reaffirmed my admiration for Princeton because my classmates, my fellow students, and my professors, every one of them was just so incredible … So to receive that undergraduate award … I feel so humbled; it’s such an honor,” she added.
A specialist in AI, machine learning, deep learning, and computer vision, Li related
her experiences in her memoir as a researcher, a Princeton student, and a Chinese immigrant in America — a blend of the deeply personal and professional. “The Worlds I See,” apart from its focus on the future of AI, articulates her experience and the difficulties Li faced.
In the press release announcing the Pre-Read, Eisgruber said that Li “writes poignantly about the challenges that she and her family faced, the opportunities they treasured, and her search for a sense of belonging in environments that sometimes made her feel like an outsider.”
Li explained that she did not set out to write a memoir — at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, she was approached by an agent to write a book about AI.
“[My] philosopher friend [John Etchemendy], who’s also the co-director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute, literally called me in the middle of COVID to his backyard and he said ‘This is not good. You have to rewrite it … [because] a lot of technologists can write an AI story’” Li said. “‘But your personal journey is a voice that the young women, the immigrants, the people of all walks of life out there … can identify with.’”
Although Li noted that “it’s not my personality to write a memoir,” she said that she “feel[s] the essence of responsibility to tell the story from that perspective.”
The choice of the Pre-Read aligns with the University’s gravitation toward AI that has developed over the past year.
The Princeton Language and Intelligence Initiative (PLI) was established in September 2023 to furnish resources and talent toward AI research and development under the leadership of director Sanjeev Arora.
In December 2023, Eisgruber
met with Governor Phil Murphy to announce plans for the creation of an AI hub in New Jersey aimed at technological development, research, and ethical considerations. As of February 2024, the PLI has granted $798,000 to 14 different research projects centered around AI and large language models (LLMs).
Li supports the heavy em
phasis placed on AI by uni
versities. She stated that she “feel[s] a sense of crisis that [universities] are inadequately resourced to play the role.”
During the interview with the ‘Prince,’ Li phoned in from Washington, D.C., where she was attending the State of the Union address as a guest and meeting with members of Congress to advocate for a bill under consideration in the Senate. Called the CREATE AI Act, the bill hopes to establish the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) pilot program. The NAIRR will serve as a cloud and data commons for the public sector.
“Human civilization needs our leadership because as our technology and science change, and once in a while they change really rapidly, like what AI is doing right now, which brings inevitable social, political, and economic change,” Li said. “During this period of time of tremendous change, creating public goods is the responsibility of academia.”
“I always say there’s nothing artificial about artificial intelligence. It’s made by humans, it’s deployed by humans, it’s used by humans, and it’s governed by humans,” Li concluded.
While Li advocates for AI on the national stage, her work is inextricably tied to Princeton.
“At the very end of the day, one of the biggest impacts on my life is what Princeton has
taught me: ‘In the nation’s service and the service of humanity.’ And that’s what this book is about. It’s seeing AI through that lens.”
Ethan Caldwell is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’
Michael Gordin, the new Dean of the College.
Scooters banned from campus after August restrictions found ineffective
By Christopher Bao & Ethan Caldwell
Assistant News Editor & News Writer
A campus message issued on Monday, Dec. 4 officially banned Personal Electric Vehicles (PEVs) starting Jan. 25, 2024. More specifically, the ban prohibits use — and “storage, parking, and charging” — of any PEV in the “restricted zone,” which encompasses basically all of campus, according to the message. This is an escalation of an August policy that placed restrictions on hours and speeds within the zone.
The email detailed that this policy change comes on the heels of evaluations of the results of the August restriction. A “third-party consultant” found “nearly the same levels of e-scooter use during restricted hours in October 2023 as those seen in February 2023.” Additionally, the email specifically cited violations of PEV policies, including “exceeding the 10 mph speed limit, failing to yield to pedestrians, operating with two passengers on a single device, and riding while using headphones or other audio devices.”
The University has stressed safety concerns about scooters. In an email to Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) earlier this year, Charles Tennyson, director of Transportation and Parking Services, wrote that the number of on-campus PEV incidents, which are often collisions or injuries, increased from 32 to 54 between the 2021-2022 academic year and the 2022-2023 academic year. Many paths on campus are currently blocked due to construction detours.
The August ban excluded “electric wheelchairs, mobility scooters, or other electric mobility devices specifically designed for and used by an indi-
vidual with a mobility-related disability” — an exclusion that also exists in the current form of the restrictions.
Among scooter users, students found a variety of benefits for the electric devices. Concerns about getting from class to class on time has prompted discussions of lengthening passing time beyond the current 10 minutes.
Chris-Tina Middlebrooks ’27, who purchased a scooter before the Aug. 25 policy was released, emphasized the importance of a scooter for her academic schedule.
“I started looking around and seeing that there were still scooters on campus, which made me inclined to start using my scooter more,” she said, “I do not use it every day, but on days where I might be late to class, or I might need to run and get extra help for office hours, I would use my scooter. So I feel like it’s definitely something that’s beneficial to a lot of people.”
Grace Zhao ’26 said that having a scooter also allowed her to more easily participate in activities outside of academics. Zhao, who first bought a scooter in the spring of 2023, said, “I definitely notice myself going to more social events. I think that was the key point.”
Zhao is a contributing Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
Some students felt that due to a lack of clear enforcement efforts from the administration earlier in the semester around PEV restrictions, there were higher numbers of violations of the policy.
Matthew Okechukwu ’27, for instance, expressed that “In [his] opinion, a ban is a bit too harsh … I feel like with the previous ban, there wasn’t
too much enforcement, thus leading to this ban.”
In addition to instating a ban on the usage of PEVs, the email also details consequences that students could face for vehicles that are “stored, parked, or charged” within the zone, which encompasses all undergraduate residential and academic spaces, as well as athletic facilities: students are expected to remove their electric vehicles by Jan. 25 or face impoundment. Okechukwu explained that last week his scooter “stopped working, so [he] had to issue a replacement, which was coming quite soon, and then [he heard] about this scooter ban.”
To aid students in taking their scooters from campus, the University is offering a free shipping service. The email encouraged students to “ideally [remove] them as you depart for winter break.”
Students with scooters differed on their plans for transportation after the ban. Zhao said that without a scooter, she used to “schedule everything around the bus schedule, which to me was very annoying. She added that the buses sometimes come late, “so if you want to give yourself ample time to make sure you’re not late to your classes, you have to waste some time in that respect as well.”
Other students, like Middlebrooks, are considering continuing to use their own vehicles or purchase them — and what kinds of vehicles remain allowable has caused some confusion.
“Next [semester], I have three classes that are back to back within 10 minutes, and they’re miles apart from each other,” she said. “It’s very troublesome for me to be taking that walk every single day without having my PEV to get to and from my destinations.”
Middlebrooks has considered using an Electric Bicycle (e-bike), which she said so she doesn’t “make a bad impression on [her] professors” for being tardy.
“E-bikes cannot be banned because the motor is attached to a regular bike. That’s something that I’ve been seeing a lot of people utilize, where they are not being restricted or reprimanded because they can ride their bike, but most of the time, they’re using that motor to help them get around,” she said.
The email did, however, explicitly discuss the use of e-bikes, stating that “Electric bicycles in ‘electric-assist’ mode are permitted on campus roadways, but not sidewalks or pedestrian pathways,” though the bikes “may be operated as traditional bicycles on pedestrian pathways.”
The ban will likely continue at least until the completion of long-term campus construction projects. The
email stated that it is “expected that these restrictions will remain in place while the University executes on longer-term projects to create safe, multimodal east-west and north-south corridors across campus.”
Outside of the University, the town is also working to crack down on scooters, currently under a longstanding ordinance that considers scooters as “skateboards,” which are currently banned on certain town sidewalks.
A proposed amendment to the municipality of Princeton’s previous vehicle ban would clarify that scooters are included in the ban. The next public meeting of the town council will be held on Dec. 11.
Christopher Bao is a assistand News editor for the ‘Prince.’
Ethan Caldwell is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’
TESS WEINREICH / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Scooter locked by Blair Arch on Princeton’s Campus.
Narcan, fentanyl test strips now available through UHS
By Meghana Veldhuis Assistant News Editor
Content Warning: The following article includes mention of student death. University Counseling services are available at 609-258-3141, and the Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 988 or +1 (800) 273-TALK (8255). A Crisis Text Line is also available in the United States; text HOME to 741741. Students can contact residential college staff and the Office of Religious Life for other support and resources.
McCosh Health Center has begun offering fentanyl test strips and the opioid overdose reversal drug Narcan for students, according to a Jan. 30 email from University Health Services (UHS). These overdose prevention tools are now available for anyone 24-7 inside the McCosh vestibule. Previously, students could sign up to have Narcan and fentanyl test kits delivered to their Frist mailbox.
The effects of the nationwide opioid epidemic have touched the Princeton community following the tragic passing of graduate student Maura Coursey in January 2023. Coursey passed away off-campus from an accidental overdose of synthetic opioids.
It is unclear whether or not the University policy was enacted in response to Coursey’s passing. Kathy Wagner, the associate director of Health Promotion and Prevention Services at Princeton, wrote in a statement to the Daily Princetonian, “At University Health Services, we stay abreast of public health issues that may impact our students and work to ensure the health and well-being of our students.” Fentanyl overdose is now the leading cause of death for Americans from ages 18 to 45.
Naloxone is a drug that blocks the effects of opiates on the brain and temporarily restores breathing func-
tion in people who have taken harmful opiate doses. Narcan is a brand name for naloxone. Naloxone is not harmful to take even if one is not overdosing, but it does not do anything to help prevent harmful effects of non-opiate drugs. Fentanyl test strips allow for detecting the presence of fentanyl, a highly potent synthetic opioid, in other substances.
According to Wagner, this is not the University’s first overdose prevention policy.
“In [July] 2023, the State of New Jersey included institutions of higher education in their Naloxone Direct Program enabling distribution of Narcan® on campuses throughout the state. Once Narcan® was made available to us through the State, we began distribution of opioid harm reduction materials to anyone who requested them,” Wagner wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’
The University also held a Win-
tersession workshop about opioid overdose prevention, which included training on the use of naloxone and fentanyl test strips. Students can schedule workshops to learn how to use Narcan and fentanyl test strips by
contacting Wagner or UHS.
Clio Hall occupation ends in 13 arrests, sit-in relocates to Cannon Green
By
Thirteen people were arrested after briefly occupying Clio Hall late Monday afternoon, marking a drastic escalation of pro-Palestine protests on campus since the beginning of a sit-in in McCosh Courtyard on Thursday morning. Clio is home to Princeton University Graduate School administration, and is directly south of Nassau Hall.
While protesters were inside the building, approximately 200 people initially gathered outside both the front and back of Clio, chanting and banging on buckets. The back of Clio was blocked off by Public Safety (PSAFE) officers, but was opened periodically to allow administrators, guided by PSAFE, to exit the building.
According to an Instagram post from Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD), protesters occupied Dean of the Graduate School Rodney Priestley’s office to force the University to negotiate. The post read, “Princeton has refused to bargain over our demands through any channels of communication since October. We are taking our demands directly to administration to force Princeton to the table NOW!”
The Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) reported that Aditi Rao GS yelled, “I got arrested so we could get a meeting,” as she left Clio Hall.
This move comes after five days of a pro-Palestine sit-in in McCosh
Courtyard, with divestments from companies with ties to Israel first on the list of demands. Protesters have otherwise avoided being in violation of University policy since two graduate students were arrested on the first day of protests.
There have been no public statements by the University on disassociation. At a concurrent meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Committee (CPUC), Resource Committee Chair John Groves, a chemistry professor, shared that the committee had received a number of emails and phone calls. The Resources Committee deals with the University’s investments.
The committee acknowledges receipt to any individuals and groups bringing issues to the committee before providing information on next steps in a timely manner, according to its website.
“At the current pace, we haven’t had a chance to meet,” Groves said.
Around 4:30 p.m., a large group of protesters left McCosh courtyard and headed towards Frist Campus Center before turning right and continuing to Elm Drive, where they marched to Clio Hall.
At least 15 protesters, including professor of African American Studies Ruha Benjamin, entered Clio at 5:23 p.m. Benjamin and classics professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta exited Clio at 5:30 p.m.
Benjamin and Padilla Peralta are two of six faculty members who requested a special faculty meeting in light of the sit-in.
Also around 5:30 p.m., PSAFE warned people inside Clio Hall that they would be arrested regardless of their University status if they did not leave the building, including two student journalists, POLITICO NJ editorial intern Katie Dailey ’24 and WPRB 103.3 station manager Adam Sanders ’25. Dailey and Sanders exited the building shortly thereafter.
Dailey is a Managing Editor emeritus for the ‘Prince.’
Several dozen protesters locked arms to block the front doors of Clio to potentially prevent PSAFE from exiting with arrestees. They eventually moved away from the doors, allowing PSAFE to exit with two people, who were moved to a TigerTransit bus parked on Elm Drive at the side of Clio Hall. The two protesters were identified by the PAW as Ariel Munczek Edelman GS, a masters of public affairs student, and Sam Nastase, a researcher in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. The Daily Princetonian has independently verified their identities.
“Princeton, you want arrests. This doesn’t end without divest,” protesters in the back of Clio chanted.
A large group of protesters then gathered in front of and around the bus where Edelman and Nastase were held, blocking its path up Elm Drive, banging on its windows, and yelling, “Let them go.” Some wedged green safety cones in the back left wheel of the bus. Large groups of protesters remained stationed at the front and back of Clio, and others encircled a PSAFE car parked in front of the
building.
By 6:26 p.m., 11 people remained inside Clio Hall, and four police vehicles from the Municipality of Princeton appeared on the scene, as well as at least two unmarked vehicles.
“We’re here to support Princeton University,” Princeton Police Chief Jon Bucchere said about the presence of town police in an interview with the ‘Prince.’
After 30 minutes of chaos outside the bus, associate history professor Max Weiss, came to the front with a megaphone and addressed the crowd.
“Here is the situation,” Weiss shouted. “If you don’t trust me, do not do what I say. If you trust me and Zia Mian and the Faculty for Justice in Palestine, consider the following.”
Weiss then asked for the road to be cleared in order for the students on the bus to be released with summonses, to which people began chanting “we keep us safe” and calling for disciplinary charges to be dropped. The crowd did not budge. Director of PSAFE Kinamo Lomon repeated the warning at 6:41 pm. Weiss urged protesters blocking the bus to disperse, but added, “Do what you want.”
At 6:47 p.m., Weiss and Zia Mian, the co-director of Princeton’s Program on Science and Global Security, stepped onto the bus. After a few minutes, they stepped off.
At 6:50 p.m., Edelman and Nastase were released from the bus to cheers and shouts from the crowd.
Less than 20 minutes later, PSAFE officers blocked the back doors to Clio. Around the same time, the doors to PSAFE Headquarters at 200 Elm Drive appeared to be locked.
On the steps of Clio, 75 protesters remained, yelling, “Hold your ground” in response to requests from Weiss and others to clear the area. At the back entryway, a smaller group of protesters linked arms to prevent passage. One speaker said that they had heard from the protesters inside that they should not leave until all charges were dropped. When protest organizers said that students blocking the door were not at risk of arrest, a crowd of students ascended the front steps.
In three batches, all of the protesters inside Clio were periodically released through the front to shouts from the crowd. “We made history,” chanted protestors in the front.
According to an official near the bus, the deadline for the arrested individuals on the bus to turn themselves into PSAFE Headquarters was
7:30 p.m. Edelman was seen outside of 200 Elm Drive at that time.
David Piegaro ’25, who was not participating in the main protest, was arrested outside of Whig Hall, located just east of Clio. He arrived at 200 Elm Drive at 8:03 p.m. It is unclear whether he was involved in counterprotests. He was called an “outside agitator” by Weiss. Witnesses claim Piegaro was pushed down the stairs of Whig. He was seen handcuffed while facedown on the ground at the front of the building.
At 9:09 p.m., PSAFE officers arrived outside 200 Elm Drive to escort the four arrested students who turned themselves in to their dorms. “Alright everyone, cameras on. Who wants to go first?” an officer said. Students had ten minutes to grab items from their dorm that they needed.
Hours after the crowd dispersed, with many protesters continuing the sit-in on Cannon Green, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 called the protest “completely unacceptable” in a statement emailed to the University community.
“All those arrested received summonses for trespassing and have been barred from campus. The students will also face University discipline, which may extend to suspension or expulsion,” he wrote.
Protesters responded, with a marshal for the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” saying, “We’re going to make sure that President Eisgruber understands that we are here to stay.”
The ‘Prince’ has verified the identities of six individuals who were arrested for occupying Clio Hall: postdoctoral researcher Sam Nastase, Ariel Munzcek Edelman GS, Aditi Rao GS, Christian Bischoff ’19 GS, Khari Franklin ’24, and Sara Ryave ’24.
Following the occupation of Clio, Columbia University pro-Palestine protesters have begun occupying Hamilton Hall, the same building where civil rights protesters demonstrated in the 1960s.
Olivia Sanchez is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from New Jersey and often covers the graduate school and academic departments.
Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor and the investigations editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Stockton, Calif. and often covers campus activism and University accountability.
Bridget O’Neill is a head News editor for the ‘Prince’ from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Meghana Veldhuis is an assistant News editor at the ‘Prince.’
LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
A Public Safety truck parked in front of McCosh Health Center.
Bridget O’Neill , Olivia Sanchez & Miriam Waldvogel Head & Associate News Editors
‘This feels like a 1968 moment’: Mobilization in a culture of apathy
By Elisabeth Stewart Assistant News Editor
More than 40 Princeton students laid on the ground in front of Firestone Library on a cold afternoon in February, during a diein to protest Israel’s planned military offense in Rafah. Originally, the protest was supposed to happen the day before, on Feb. 13. However, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the student organization behind the protest — and one that has been at the forefront of recent pro-Palestinian action on campus — rescheduled the demonstration, deterred by forecasts of snow.
On Feb. 12, a similar die-in occurred in front of Harvard’s Widener steps. Its attendees numbered nearly 200.
“At Harvard, the numbers of students who were participating in the die-in was much higher, even though the framing of the event was basically the same,” Emanuelle Sippy ’25, the president of the Alliance for Jewish Progressives (AJP), told The Daily Princetonian in an interview last week.
The lack of what Sippy called a “critical mass” of protestors isn’t unique to the cause, nor is it new for Princeton’s campus. For example, a Feb. 2023 demonstration planned by Divest Princeton — a coalition of climate activists calling on the University to disassociate from fossil fuels — only attracted a dozen students, including the organizers. Such lackluster turnouts at demonstrations are the norm, not the exception at the University, contributing to Princeton’s notoriety as a deeply apathetic campus — one where the vast majority of students are seemingly uninvolved in and unaware of campus politics while a select few activists take the spotlight.
David Brooks documented this apathy in his profile “The Organization Kid,” written after a visit to Princeton at the turn of the millennium: “There are a lot of things these future leaders no longer have time for. I was on campus at the height of the election season, and I saw not even one Bush or Gore poster,” he wrote at the time. “I asked around about this and was told that most students have no time to read newspapers, follow national politics, or get involved in crusades.”
In the past decade, various movements have defied this reputation — including Divest Princeton’s long-term campaign urging the University to divest from fossil fuel companies, the 2015 Nassau Hall sit-in planned by the Black Justice League (BJL), and, now, activism around the conflict in Gaza and the launch of the Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD).
In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ history professor Joshua B. Guild identified the BJL’s 2015 sit-in as “the most active and engaged” he’s seen students, at least, he noted, “up until the present moment.”
The ongoing demonstration for Palestine continues at a scale unprecedented in Princeton’s recent history, uprooting a deep-seated indifference that many have
come to think of as ingrained in the institution’s very identity. The questions remain: Why now and why this cause?
Princeton: The ‘Southern,’ burned-out pre-professionals
“I’ve certainly heard a lot of students complain of generalized apathy on campus,” history professor Max Weiss told the ‘Prince,’ although he notes that “students really do care about sensitive and important political issues.”
There’s a strong consensus among students that Princeton’s campus is apathetic, but asking the question of why retrieves a variety of answers.
According to Guild, “there’s a certain kind of preprofessional culture here” that keeps students focused on their post-graduation trajectories.
“Often, students who come to Princeton have very particular ideas of what they want to do after, whether that’s law school, Wall Street, consulting — a number of different professions that not only require good academic grades, but I think discourage that kind of political activism,” he said.
Sippy agreed that Princeton students are often focused on “the next thing.” Hannah Reynolds Martinez ’22, a member of Divest Princeton, said that “if they weren’t directly impacted by the issues that were kind of at play, a lot of folks were more focused on getting a prestigious internship or joining a club.”
Last year’s senior survey conducted by the ‘Prince’ indicated that 9.5 percent of students intended to go into consulting and 9.3 percent into finance, as opposed to 7.1 percent of graduates who planned to work in the nonprofit or public service industry.
While activists at any school experience burnout from long-term commitment to their causes, and student groups experience fluctuating periods of activity, Princeton’s independent work expectations for juniors and seniors accelerates participant turnover.
“The students that tend to be drawn to Princeton may not be the most ‘activist’ students, in part because of the narrative that we have,” Sippy said.
She referenced Princeton’s reputation as a “Southern Ivy” — a term that refers to both Princeton’s historic ties to the South and the slow-moving nature of its transition to an integrated, co-educational University in the 20th century.
The University did not begin to admit Black students in earnest until the 1940s with the introduction of WWII Navy Program. However, black students did not number in the double digits until the mid1960s. And while the University became coeducational in 1969, nearly 15 years before Columbia University, Princeton’s eating clubs only became fully co-ed after a ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court.
In comparison to other campuses where he has worked and studied, Guild also noted a “deep culture of consensus at Princ-
eton” and a “reluctance to disagree,” both in classrooms and the public forum.
“We value civility. And to a certain degree, I think that’s important,” he told the ‘Prince’ last week. “But I think it can also have a distorting effect in that I think it limits the degree to which people want to outwardly express themselves politically.”
In her email preempting the sit-in, Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun referenced demonstrations at other schools that have “hindered the ability of the institutions to fulfill their educational missions.”
“Against that backdrop, I write to ask for your help in ensuring that we can continue to balance our robust commitment to free expression with our obligation to provide a welcoming and safe environment for all students and for other members of our community,” the email wrote.
And unlike the majority of Ivy League schools, Princeton’s home base is in a suburban region removed from major cities, and “there’s no obvious place to congregate,” Weiss said. Walkouts occur outside of Nassau Hall, the North and South lawns at Frist Campus Center, Firestone Plaza, or occasionally, in Palmer Square, but these zones do not attract the same foot traffic as Harvard Yard or UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza.
“The students are certainly hurried and busy and stressed, but the pace of campus life is actually quite subdued, calm, almost sleepy,” Weiss said.
“They said it was not possible here”
Since Oct. 7, University students on all sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict have led protests and counter-protests, and Princeton is no exception. At first, the reaction centered around vigils, even as rallies popped up at other institutions. Then, as the Israeli counteroffensive mounted, moods shifted. On Oct. 25, hundreds of Princetonians joined other nationwide campuses during a walkout in solidarity with Palestine.
In the fall, Pro-Palestinian organizers with PIAD officially called for divestment from Israel, and reiterated their demands after University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 dismissed the petition at a February CPUC meeting.
“There’s been a lot of divestment precedents here that we are inspiring ourselves from and learning from,” Sophie Bandarkar GS told the ‘Prince’ at the sit-in on Friday.
On Thursday, Larry Hamm ’78 spoke to the crowd about his time pressuring the University to divest from apartheid in South Africa during a series of protests in 1978. And in 2022, following continued action by Divest Princeton, the University announced a divestment from all publicly traded fossil fuel companies.
While the frequency and intensity of Pro-Palestine protests throughout the fall marked an increase in engagement from what is typical at Princeton, all remained mostly uneventful, with limited engage-
ment from national media. However, now campus activism has become more intense.
Following the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampments’ at Columbia University that featured over one hundred arrests, Princeton activists, like those at schools around the country, made the decision to follow suit, marking an escalation from their previous protests.
When planning of this leaked activists were not deterred, even as Calhoun to sent an email to the undergraduate body indicating that any encampment participants may face disciplinary action such as arrest, suspension, or expulsion.
“We’re in an age of social networking and social media, and so I think students have become very savvy around how to publicize their thoughts and publicize their actions and put pressure on institutions to act in particular ways,” Guild noted.
The sit-in drew hundreds of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members to McCosh Courtyard throughout the day. Crowds swelled to upwards of 250 people during its first day.
Princeton’s sit-in is an unprecedented moment of mobilization on campus, sparked by the national movement sweeping across other college campuses and supported by social media and faculty involvement.
“[What] we have built so far — I feel optimistic about it right now,” Bandarkar said. “I don’t think everyone on campus at any point is going to join us, but I think more and more. I feel confident that more people will at least be aware.”
“This feels like a 1968 moment,” Weiss told the ‘Prince’ before word of a planned sit-in began to circulate. “This feels like a level of student mobilization and organizing, and a veritable national student movement that has not been seen since the 60s.” Protestors have leveraged their awareness of how the demonstration defies Princeton’s generally apathetic context to motivate participants. “They said it was not possible here, and it is possible,” Aditi Rao GS told protesters in a speech on Thursday.
While, Princeton may be defying it’s own expectations with the sit-in, the campus culture has yet to change. McCosh Courtyard is out of the sightline of the surrounding public roads and covered from the view of central campus by a large white tent. As students walk through to head to their classes, the library, or dorm rooms, they sometimes pause, look on, and listen — but, more often than not, they do not.
“In some ways, the narrative that Princeton is only inactive — it’s part of what we’re trying to counter,” Bandarkar said.
Elisabeth Stewart is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’
Labyrinth will no longer supply books for Princeton courses
By Annie Rupertus & Christopher Bao
& Assistant News Editor
After 17 years, Princeton’s coursebook partnership with local independent bookstore Labyrinth Books is coming to an end.
Starting this summer, coursebooks will be supplied through the online retailer eCampus. According to the University and Labyrinth, the split was a mutual decision. Some students, though, expressed disappointment with the switch, as well as surprise. At publication time, there has not been a formal, publicized announcement issued to the University community.
Many students head to Nassau Street at the start of each semester to purchase coursebooks through Labyrinth at a 30 percent discount, which they can return for a full refund during the two-week add/drop period and sell back to the bookstore at the end of the semester.
“The change was based on our mutual agreement that our long-standing system no longer made sense for the store or for the University,” University Spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote in a statement to The Daily Princetonian.
A press release from Labyrinth sent to the ‘Prince’ noted that the bookstore would shift its focus to expand its “used and antiquarian holdings.” They also hope that the shift will allow the downstairs area to include “more flexibly sized event areas, and smaller meeting spaces, as well as remodeled displays and inviting seating.”
eCampus offers new books, used books, ebooks, and rentals. Students will still be able to sell books back, but the University did not directly respond to a question about how buybacks will operate through eCampus. The new website states “More information about this program will be available soon” at the time of publication. Students will still be able to sell textbooks from the 2023–24 school year back to Labyrinth until June 15. Books for summer programs will be available online for purchase starting May 1 and Fall semester coursebooks will be available beginning August 1. Students can order books to any shipping address.
Princeton University Mail Services processes roughly 20 percent of the packages they receive annually between late August and September, reflecting the high volume of incoming
mail during move-in. The University did not directly respond to a question about whether the new coursebook system could further delay Mail Services processing times in Frist Campus Center at the start of the semester, although Morrill did write, “It should be noted that eCampus stocks and houses its own inventory in a stateof-the-art distribution center, offers free 2-day expedited shipping to Campus and has a vast selection of digital resources, as well as providing a guaranteed book buyback price for students displayed on selected titles at the time of checkout.”
The University also did not directly respond to a question about the environmental impact of switching to a coursebook delivery system.
When asked about the transition and potential renovation process, Labyrinth co-owners Dorothea von Moltke and Cliff Simms noted that “the timeline is uncertain, will depend on finances, and may necessitate store closures at different moments.”
The partnership between Labyrinth and the University dates back to 2007. Simms was quoted in a University article upon the beginning of this partnership, saying “Princeton University has taken the changing bookselling landscape in town as an opportunity … to help ensure that there will still be an independent, community bookstore on Nassau Street and that it can meet the University’s own book-related needs, including course books, as effectively and economically as possible.”
Labyrinth believes that the bookstore will still serve a crucial role in University and town community even after the conclusion of this 17-yearlong partnership.
“In continuing to support a postcoursebooks Labyrinth, the University is reiterating the conception it had articulated when they invited Labyrinth to Princeton in 2007: to support a bookstore that serves the needs of both the University and larger community by offering a rich selection of books and program of events,” Labyrinth’s press release continued.
Von Moltke and Simms noted in a separate statement to the ‘Prince’ that the split may have an impact on staff, stating that “approximately a third of our overall revenue has come from coursebook sales. Without coursebook rushes and the preparations, which include receiving, handling, shelving thousands of books, and the labor of returning books to publishers
when they don’t sell, we are now in the process of assessing how many fewer people in different areas of the store we will need.”
Labyrinth Books has made recent headlines due to its workers’ unionization in January, which the store’s ownership ultimately supported. Still, employees have protested ongoing challenges such as “understaffing and intimidation.” Currently, employees and management are engaged in collective bargaining.
In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ Labyrinth Books employee Elise Agnor wrote that “Labyrinth Books claims to be pro-union but they are operating in a way that undermines the Union, and the news about Labyrinth’s contract with Princeton is a prime example.”
She continued, “The Union is focused on trying to negotiate a fair and equitable contract; if management actually wants to be considered a prounion employer, they should act like it and come to the table to negotiate over any changes to status quo, which they failed to do adequately and accurately here.”
Another employee of the store, Meg O’Brien, wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince’ that the news of potential staffing impacts was unexpected, and that “sharing this news with the local newspaper before the terms and conditions of any potential layoffs have been agreed to at the bargaining table is disrespectful to the workers.” She also stated that Labyrinth’s management “must maintain status quo within the store until such a time that an agreement has been reached and ratified.”
The University indicated that the
changes come in part as a result of shifting demand from students.
Morrill noted that surveys of faculty and students conducted in 2023 “indicated increasing demand for digital materials and need for flexibility in assigning readings as the semester progresses,” which also factored into the decision.
Indeed, the owners of Labyrinth told the ‘Prince’ that “Post [COVID-19], coursebook sales have dropped by 50 [percent] from 2019. However, the number of books ordered by faculty remained fairly steady-state. COVID-19 accelerated the availability of most course materials in the form of free PDFs. Ordering, receiving, stocking, and returning unsold coursebooks have demanded the [repurposing] of staff and space for [five] months of each year, but with no sustainable returns on investment.”
Dean of the College Jill Dolan notified faculty of the switch to eCampus at the end of March. Morrill noted that students will receive relevant information over the summer.
As the change has not yet been announced to the student body, all the students interviewed by the ‘Prince’ for this piece were not yet aware of the change, although the new coursebook landing page has been live since at least March 29, according to Internet Archive.
“This is a travesty,” was the initial reaction of Maia Weintraub ’25 upon hearing the news. Although she noted eCampus could potentially be a convenient option, she said, “I just kind of like the feel of going to a real life bookstore and picking up books, and it kind of takes the fun out of it” to order books online.
Although Sharon Leonard ’27 does not envision that the switch will have a major impact on her, she told the ‘Prince’ that she was “surprised because [she] thought that Labyrinth and Princeton had a really strong connection.”
Samuel Kligman ’26 told the ‘Prince’ that he believes the switch in providers should prompt further changes from the University, saying the change is “a major inconvenience and it should already spur the University into subsidizing our books.”
The coursebooks website states that professors must submit textbook orders by April 30 for summer programs and by May 31 for Fall semester classes. “The May deadline for Fall 2024 book adoptions is earlier than usual in an effort to get faculty and staff to start using the new tool before the summer break so we can provide sufficient support and training to all who need it,” Morrill wrote to the ‘Prince.’
“We value Labyrinth’s long service as the University’s textbook provider,” Dolan wrote to the ‘Prince,’ “and we are excited to support our town’s beloved bookstore as it invests in its more targeted scholarly mission.”
Annie Rupertus is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’
Christopher Bao ’27 is an assistant News editor and the accessibility director for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Princeton, N.J. and typically covers town politics and life.
JULIAN GOTTFRIED / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Labyrinth Books, the University-affiliated bookstore on Nassau St.
Extended passing times follow changes to finals period and Dean’s Date
By Victoria Davies Assistant News Editor
Effective Fall 2025, passing times between classes will be extended to 15 and 20 minutes, replacing the current 10 minute period. The plan also suggests opening more room in the course grid for precept and course times.
The Faculty Committee on Classrooms and Schedule brought forth the proposal at a faculty meeting held Monday, April 15. In a proposal memo dated April 3, Dean of the College Jill Dolan wrote that “our campus has grown large enough that many of our students and faculty require additional time to move between their classes.”
The Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and representatives from the Office of the Dean of the College have been considering the extension for some time, initially motivated by the expansion of the University’s physical campus.
According to former USG Academics Committee Chair and current USG Vice President Srista Tripathi ’25,
NEWS | APRIL 2024
“as the campus continues to expand, it becomes more difficult for students to travel between classes, extracurriculars, and other activities within the allocated 10 minutes.”
The proposal explained that “around 70 percent of undergraduates have at least one back-to-back course enrollment each term,” including around 20 percent of students traveling from one end of campus to the other in the 10 minute time slot. These longer distances may include from the Friend Center to the Lewis Center for the Arts, or from McCosh Hall or East Pyne to Frick Laboratory.
Initially, the Faculty Committee on Classrooms and Schedule was considering implementing either 15 or 20 minute passing times, however the proposed scheduling grid contains both passing time options, depending on the length of the classes.
The time most affected by this change will be the morning. Currently, 50 minute classes can be scheduled to begin hourly from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., and 80 minute classes can begin at 8:30 a.m. and 11 a.m. With the proposed exten-
sion of passing times, there will only be three morning slots for 50 minute classes, starting at 8:30 a.m., 9:35 a.m., and 10:40 a.m., giving a 15 minute passing period. 80 minute morning classes will begin at 9 a.m. and 10:40 a.m., giving a 20 minute passing period.
Evening class times will not be affected by the expanded passing times, because, as the proposal explains, “the Registrar’s data also suggest that very few courses are scheduled after the 7:30 p.m. slot.”
The proposed changes will maintain the “unconflicted midday class period” between 12:30 and 1:20 p.m., but move the period to 15 minutes earlier in the day. This class time is often used for language classes, which meet daily. Additionally, the proposed scheduling grid will preserve the 80 minute lunch window for faculty meetings and department events, and the daily “blackout period” between 4:30 and 7:30 p.m.
The proposal also referenced the Campus Mobility Principles from Parking and Transportation Services, which suggest that campus pathways are “not simply walkways” and pass-
ing time “is not simply transit time.”
According to the memo, pathways are “places for conversation and the exchange of ideas” and to engage with faculty and peers outside of formal class time.
Additionally, the proposed grid will reduce conflicts by inviting departments to “use the full range of each teaching time each day and week,” including the rescheduled 80 minute morning periods and the introduction of a standard three-hour class period on Friday mornings.
These changes to scheduling follow a number of other proposed alterations to the academic calendar. The University is launching a pilot program this semester that will allow students to take multiple final exams on the same day — a change that would only affect “about three percent of the current undergraduate student body,” Dolan wrote to The Daily Princetonian in February.
Additionally, the University is moving towards a staggered final assessment schedule to replace the single Dean’s Date deadline. The proposed
staggered deadline “will alleviate the Dean’s Date pile-up because all end-ofterm work, regardless of assignment type, will be spread across the final assessment period,” according to Cecily H. Swanson, the Associate Dean for Academic Advising. USG Academics Committee Chair Vivian Bui ’26 told the ‘Prince’ that “many students have communicated concerns about the finals period, such as feeling overwhelmed with papers being due all on one day and not being able to go home for break earlier due to a long finals week.” While the end of Dean’s Date has not yet been confirmed, the proposed change to passing times was endorsed by the faculty and the new grid will take effect in Fall 2025, “giving departments and administrative offices time to prepare and to shift course scheduling as necessary.”
Victoria Davies is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’
Julian Hartman-Sigall contributed reporting.
Charter Club changed guest policy after conservative professor’s lunch. After headlines, the policy was reversed.
By Bridget O’Neill Head News Editor
The guest policy changed at Princeton’s sole selective sign-in eating club. Days later, it changed again.
On March 26, Charter Club’s President announced a new guest policy in a club-wide group chat. Under the new policy, club members were required to inform the Club Manager and a student officer of guests they invite during meal hours who were not friends or family “for review.”
By April 2, the policy was reversed after an intervention from the club’s Graduate Board. In the seven days in between, debate over the policy rose from the club’s private GroupMe to the headlines of national right-wing publications. Club leadership maintains that the reversal was not due to national media scrutiny.
The controversy, and the specific demographic to which the policy applied — visitors other than friends or family — traces back to a lunch in February.
Charter member, and member of Princetonians for Free Speech, Matthew Wilson ’24 brought his thesis advisor, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence
Robert P. George, to lunch at the club on Feb. 14. George was named an honorary member of the Charter Club in 2012 — a status that enables him to dine and bring guests to Charter. In a column published in The Daily Princetonian on April 1 criticizing the ensuing policy change, Wilson described the lunch as “pleasant and uneventful” and says he followed the club’s procedure for bringing guests to meals. Wilson is a columnist for the ‘Prince.’ More than a month later, Charter Club President Anna Johns ’25 announced the new policy.
In her message, Johns called the club a “sanctuary” for student membership and their friends and family. She requested that members “limit the use of [the] clubhouse space to this core group” and announced the new review procedure.
Johns did not reply to request for comment by publication time.
Immediately after, speculation stirred about what triggered this policy change. In his column, Wilson said that he heard from friends that the policy was a reaction to his February lunch. In a comment to the ‘Prince’, Chairman of the Board of Governors of Princeton Charter Club, Rodrigo Menezes ’13 confirmed that the policy was in response to members’ discomfort at the presence of Professor George, which they expressed to club officers.
“Some members wanted the choice to be absent from the Club around certain guests. The proposed procedure intended to give members that freedom by requiring a short pre-registration,” Menezes wrote.
The announcement immediately caused confusion among members and alumni who were unclear on the reasoning behind the change. After Wilson circulated a petition to the club’s alumni board calling on them to revoke the policy, Johns sent another message in the group chat clarifying that “Charter is
an inclusive private club that will never deny a member’s request to bring a guest to our sanctuary,” but maintained that prior review would still be required.
George is a well-known campus figure, partially due to his leadership of the James Madison Program.
Vocally pro-life, George was referred to in a New York Magazine article from a decade ago as the “reigning brain of the Christian right.” In his scholarship, George has repeatedly argued against same-sex marriage.
“It was a grave error for Charter’s leadership to bend to the demands of a few students who couldn’t stomach the possibility of being within shouting distance of someone whose views challenge their own,” Wilson argued in his April 1 column.
On April 2, conservative national news organizations caught wind of the story.
A Fox News headline read, “Conservative Princeton professor makes members of exclusive campus social club uncomfortable, student says.”
A National Review piece by Abigail Anthony ’23 was titled “Princeton’s Nurseries.” She argued that justifying the policy with the virtue of inclusivity is hypocritical given that “they want a carefully constructed community, presumably one insulated from people who hold different views.”
“I seriously doubt the new policy will be neutrally enforced with respect to political ideology; after all, it was precisely because of George’s conservative views that complaints were raised, since he wasn’t engaging in any disturbing conduct,” Anthony wrote.
Solveig Gold ’17, a former Postdoctoral Research Associate at the James Madison Program and former Princeton undergraduate wrote on X, “One of Princeton’s eating clubs (co-ed frats) has instituted a new visitors policy after a student brought @McCormickProf to lunch—because his very presence at the club made members feel unsafe!”
Professor George responded to the post, writing “So ... Students have to give notice to bring me as a guest for lunch at a club ... that I myself belong to? And, as a member, am entitled to use whenever I like, and bring guests of my own? (By the way, Solveig, when are you available to be my guest for lunch at Charter Club?).”
He later posted “I’m a member of Charter Club. I was made an honorary member in 2012 pursuant to Art. III, Pt. 3 of the Club’s constitution. I’m entitled to use the Club when I like and bring guests.” George is also an honorary member of Ivy Club.
While a national debate ensued, internal debate about whether to keep the policy continued within the Club. In an unusual step, members asked the Graduate Board to “arbitrate the situation and make a decision for the Club,” according to Menezes.
On April 2, at 11:05 p.m. Menezes wrote in an email to members that the Board “is leery of any process that could reduce the culture of civil discourse and camaraderie at the Club” and decided to reverse the policy.
Menezes clarified in his comment to the ‘Prince’ that the board’s decision was based on “civil dis-
course within the community, not pressure from national coverage” and “The Board would have reached the exact same conclusion without national coverage.”
“Our members and alumni reached out, telling us that this procedure could discourage members from bringing potentially controversial guests, limiting the club’s capacity to act as a forum for civil discourse on campus,” he added.
Menezes also noted to the ‘Prince’ that he hopes Professor George or Wilson are not discouraged from coming to the club.
“They are still welcome at the Club, and we aspire to be among the most inclusive clubs on the street.”
Bridget O’Neill is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’
A tradition of excellence: Team Princeton is heading to the Olympics
By Grace Zhao & Tate Hutchins Contributing Data Reporter & Assistant Sports Editor
Princeton’s rich history in academics is no secret, but Princetonians have made their mark in athletics as well — all the way to the biggest stage in the world, the Olympic games. Generations of Tigers have graced Olympic stadiums, with over 154 athletes trading the orange and black for their countries’ flags over the past years — and 25 students and alumni will compete this summer in Paris.
Princeton sent its very first delegation to the Olympic Games at the inaugural iteration of the modern Games in 1896 in Athens, with four members of the Class of 1897 competing for the United States: Francis Lan, Albert Tyler, Robert Garrett, and Herbert Jamison Garrett. The group kicked off a tradition of excellence, bringing home two gold medals, four silver, and a bronze. Since then, almost a hundred medals have been won for Old Nassau.
In the leadup to this summer’s Olympic games in Paris, The Daily Princetonian looked at Tiger Olympians past and present. This deep dive dating back to 1896 uncovered several Olympians not previously listed on Princeton Athletics’ website, prompting Athletics to update their record.
The number of Princeton Olympians has risen over time.
Princeton generally sent between two and eight athletes to the Summer Games from their modern inception in 1896 to 2000. Since the Sydney games at the dawn of the new millennium, at least ten athletes with ties to the Orange Bubble have competed at each Summer Games.
Far fewer Princetonians have competed at the Winter Games. Until 2018, no more than two Princetonians competed at the Winter Games, with many games seeing no Tigers compete. In 2018, Princeton sent three athletes to South Korea, and in 2022, seven Princetonians competed in the Beijing games, the most in a winter games thus far by a wide margin.
Princeton’s athletes don’t merely represent their countries at the games — they also find their share of success on the podium. A total of 216 appearances amounts to 87 medals for those with connections to the orange and black — 32 gold, 27 silver, and 28 bronze. If Princeton were a country, it would have won more medals than 114 out of 156 countries, beating Mexico, Croatia, and Argentina.
Princeton has sent athletes to compete in 23 different sports, 17 of which are a part of the Summer Games. Rowing has produced the most representatives at 43, with Athletics (Track and Field) following behind at 29. Other popular sports are Fencing, Ice Hockey, Swimming, Sailing, and Field Hockey.
Princeton’s history as a male-only institution has contributed to an overall imbalance of 108 male against 46 female
athletes, but since co-education began, women’s and men’s Olympic participation has been roughly equal.
While the majority of Princetonians have donned the American red, white, and blue, many have also elected to represent their countries of origin. Track athlete Thorsteinn T. Gislason ’69 GS ’70 was the first to do so at the 1972 Munich Olympics when he represented Iceland in the 800m race.
Twelve years later at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Princetonians faced one another for the first time with Harold Backer ’85, Mike Evans ’80, and Christine Clark ’83 of Canada beating Christopher Penny ‘85 of the United States in the Men’s 8 rowing event. At the next summer Olympics in Seoul, Backer again raced for Canada, while Deborah St. Phard ’87 represented Haiti in shot put. More athletes have represented other nations in recent years, with eight foreign countries represented by ten athletes at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and at least six other countries represented this year.
This year, 25 Princetonians will represent eight countries in the City of Lights across six sports. Rowing is once again the largest, as nine Princeton rowers will represent five different countries: the United States (four), Great Britain (two), Australia (one), Uganda (one), and Norway (one). At least one more Princeton affiliate will compete in the Olympics as Mo Alkhawaldeh will compete for Jordan in the Marathon. Alkhawaldeh is a Financial and Program Manager for the Politics department. Princeton will also send seven fencers, five of whom will represent the United States. Mohamed Hamza ’23 will represent Egypt for his third Olympics and Sabrina Fang ’27 will represent Canada for her first Olympics.
For the returning athletes, the environment of Paris will be strikingly different from the empty stadiums of the COVID-era Olympics in Tokyo four years ago.
“I think the excitement and hype towards Paris is much bigger than Tokyo since there will be an audience at each event, which will make the competition feel all the more special,” Hamza told the ‘Prince.’ “Having competed in varying environments in Rio and Tokyo, I feel like I’m definitely ready to handle any type of pressure that may come my way in Paris.”
Similar to the usual makeup, “Team Princeton” will be an almost even mix of veterans and newcomers, with ten returning Olympians and 11 first-timers. Two of the veterans are also Olympic medalists. Goalie Ashleigh Johnson ’17 has won backto-back golds as Team USA’s last line of defense in water polo and Tom George ’18 won bronze rowing with Team Great Britain in the Men 8+. This year’s Tigers spread across class years from the Class of 2011 to the Class of 2027.
Princeton’s sheer quantity of athletes at the games has given rise to a number of impressive and notable feats. For example, Nathan Crumpton ’08 has completed the exceptionally rare feat of competing in both the Winter and Summer Olympics, where he represented American Samoa in track and skeleton, gaining notoriety along the way for his traditional Samoan dress during the ceremonies.
Princeton Athletics has often struck gold at the Games, with eight athletes taking home first multiple times. Princeton Ph.D. candidate Brad Snyder has been the most dominant Tiger athlete, raking in six golds across swim and triathlon events at the Paralympic games.
Princeton has no doubt had previous success at the games and the Tigers look to be in great shape to see some Tigers up on the podiums. Johnson and Sekulic will be part of a U.S. water polo team that is a favorite and looking to four-peat, while Maddox’s U.S. 3x3 basketball team, featuring former college superstar Jimmer Fredette, is an overwhelming favorite for gold. Even though expectations can be high, athletes combat that pressure with routine.
“I’m just focusing on my training routine and gaining confidence in my abilities from the work I’m putting in now,” Hamza, currently ranked No. 4 globally, added. “I do take great confidence in having competed consistently well this past season, and it gives me more trust in that what I’ve been doing lately has been working.”
Princeton athletes have made their mark on the Olympics in the past and are set to do so again in Paris. These 25 Tigers join over a hundred Princetonians to represent both their home countries and Old Nassau at the world’s foremost athletic competition.
Grace Zhao is a contributing Data writer for the ‘Prince.’ Tate Hutchins is an associate Sports editor and News contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Strong showings from Princeton’s primary sports — fencing and rowing — add a combined 16 appearances to the two sports’ already high totals — 69 and 34 respectively, prior to this year’s additions. Johnson and rising junior Jovana Sekulic will double Princeton’s previous water polo appearances, while Kareem Maddox ’11 will make a rare basketball appearance in the 3x3 event. Rising junior Beth Yeager, who took a gap year, will become the 15th Princeton field hockey athlete at the Games. Team Princeton will be rounded out with a trio of international track and field representatives, Sondre Guttormsen ’23 for Norway, Lizzie Bird ’17 for Great Britain, and Obiageri Amaechi ’21 with the U.S. trials still in progress.
There are 43 Daniels on campus: Behind the most popular Princeton names
By James Beacham
In the class of 2027, there are two Emily Zhangs. Scratch that — two Emily R. Zhangs.
“Me and the other freshman Emily Zhang have the same birthday,” Emily Ruohan Zhang ’27 told The Daily Princetonian. “We’re the same exact age.”
All together there are four Emily Zhangs on campus, and they are not alone — several undergraduates share the same first and last name.
Our analysis of the Residential College Student Facebook revealed which names — first, last, and full — are the most common among undergraduate students. This study did not aggregate different spelling variations of the same name, meaning that, for example, ‘Claire’ and ‘Clare’ would be counted separately.
There are 2,516 unique first names among Princeton undergraduates. However, roughly one in 16 students have one of the top 10 most common first names at Princeton. Similarly, one in five undergraduates hold one of the 50 most common first names at Princeton. This means that 2 percent of first names account for over 20 percent of all students.
The ‘Prince’ found traditionally female names to have more variation than traditionally male ones. The top 10 traditionally female names account for only 4.54 percent of all names in the undergraduate student body, compared to traditionally male names at 6.09 percent.
Certain surnames appear frequently among Princeton undergraduates. The top 10 last names account for 6.61 percent of undergraduates. Kim is the most common last
name at Princeton with 59 undergraduates, or 1.13 percent, sharing the surname, meaning over one-in-a-hundred undergraduate students share this last name.
In the United States, Smith is the most common last name, held by 0.83 percent of Americans in the 2010 U.S. Census. However, at Princeton, only twelve students, or 0.22 percent of the undergraduates, have this last name. Kim does not appear in the 2010 top surnames. Lee, the second most popular surname among undergraduates, is the 21st most popular name in the U.S., with 0.23 percent of the population.
Each graduating class has a distinct combination of the most common first and last names. Daniel and Kim are the most common first name and last name respectively, both for the Class of 2024 and for the entire undergraduate population.
Twenty-eight unique full names are shared by two or more Princeton undergraduate students. There are three students named David Lee, three named Sophia Chen, and four undergraduates named Emily Zhang. The recurrence of some of these names has caused some confusion around campus.
“Frist sent [another Emily Zhang] my bank statement one time,” Emily M. Zhang ’26 said. She also shared how “the first exam that I took at Princeton, our exam grades got mixed up on Gradescope and she [another Emily Zhang] did better than I did. So it was really bad for me.”
The two Emily R. Zhangs ’27 were placed in the same freshman writing seminar. Emily Ruohan Zhang elected to go by Em for the entire semester to avoid confusion.
James Beacham is a contributing Data writer for the ‘Prince.’
Contributing Data Reporter
Princetonians should be multilingual: expand PDF option for language study
Aidan Gouley Columnist
For students working toward an A.B. degree at Princeton, the foreign language requirement is a core part of their undergraduate education. For those starting at the 101 level, the requirement constitutes an introduction to rigorous language study that will span at least three semesters of college. Though many students test out of intro courses and into intermediate or advanced-level courses, the language requirement ensures meaningful student engagement with a critical field of study.
However, many Princetonians cease language study after completing the core requirement. In light of a disturbing national trend of institutions of higher learning shifting away from foreign language programs, Princeton should seek to defend the value of language study, encouraging students to pursue advanced language study in multiple languages. Specifically, language classes taken beyond the requirement should have a pass/D/ fail (PDF) option.
In the past decade, foreign language enrollments on the collegiate level have tumbled dramatically. In the half-decade between 2016 and 2021, enrollment declined by 17 percent nationally. This decline was only part of the more severe language enrollment decline of nearly 30 percent between 2009 and 2021. This downward trend has dramatically outstripped even the general decline in college enrollment. In all, 961 language programs have been
There is arguably no phrase more penned in this paper than Princeton’s informal motto, “In the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity.”
Last semester, eight separate opinions mentioned it — 14 if you count those published over the summer. It is obvious that Princetonians care about this phrase; it is etched in a medallion on
eliminated nationally, approximately 8.2 percent of all programs at the University level.
Princeton must be cognizant of the practical implications of this decline in language study. The University’s robust language study options is a decreasingly common stance among U.S. institutions. From 2016 to 2021, universities have eliminated 172 German, 164 French, 105 Chinese, and 80 Arabic programs, two of which — Arabic and Chinese — are State Department critical languages. These languages are essential to recognizing and engaging with an increasingly multilingual and interconnected world. Students who study them grow capable of connecting culturally, acquiring knowledge of customs and values through academic work, and engaging beyond the circumscribed bounds of English knowledge abroad.
A cross-lingual connection does not merely pertain to going abroad but is incredibly important to engage with an increasingly diverse United States, where some 20 percent of Americans speak a language other than English at home. Thus, engaging as a multilingual American in an increasingly multilingual environment is incredibly important.
Beyond language study’s sociopolitical implications, Princetonians would be well-served by the opportunity to grow as critical thinkers and learners while studying a second or third language. Presently, the University maintains a high standard for language course rigor. This makes sense to compel students to engage deeply with the content, but those who have already
proven their mastery of these skills should be able to engage with additional language courses in a less demanding manner.
Students who have already completed the University language requirement should be able to utilize the PDF option for introductory language courses. Providing this option would ensure that the bar to entry for any given language remains reasonable in light of the increased demands of study as an undergraduate career progresses. The PDF option would limit student concerns about the effects of language courses on their GPA, allaying the fears of students looking at both a highly competitive job mar-
ket and graduate, law, and medical school admissions environment. Expanding the availability of the PDF option will not undermine the rigor of introductory language courses. Students working toward fulfilling the undergraduate requirement would still be held to the same standards as before. Preserving the rigor of introductory courses is essential to ensuring a robust foundation for further study; the benefit of increased access ought not come at the expense of entering students. Having PDF students in the class will not affect the experience of students in their first language class, especially since these students have already
demonstrated their commitment to the material by enrolling in the class.
Princeton seeks to accomplish a rather noble — and practical — objective by requiring students to study a single foreign language to proficiency. The University should follow this prerogative to its logical conclusion, increasing proficiency in multiple languages — it is both in line with its commitment to service and its fundamental mission as an institution of higher learning.
Aidan Gouley is a freshman from Fairfield, Conn. intending to major in Politics. He is a columnist at the ‘Prince.’
Under a new motto, she flourishes
the course from FitzRandolph Gate to Nassau Hall. But we can’t seem to agree on what it means.
Criticism of the informal motto is not new. Arnav Vyas ’27 argued in the Tory that “service of the nation and humanity” is too superficial a call, and that without a stronger ethical foundation, “each individual is forced to determine what the good is” that orients their service. This criticism has appeared in the ‘Prince’ as well. This past fall, Managing Editor Lucia Wetherill rightly warned against reducing public service to just “not consulting.” Columnist Anais Mobarak flatly rejected the preeminence service takes over other values, like individual liberty, asking whether “working for
the U.S. government” may be antithetical “to being in the service of humanity” because of its past poor choices. And Public Editor Abigail Rabieh aptly recognized last semester that when service is unclear or merely important in name, we risk eschewing the values of humanity and embracing “apathy and moral ambivalence.”
Every one of these perspectives is onto something. There is something hollow about “In the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity.” For as much as Princetonians pride themselves on their commitment to service of the nation and humanity, as a group, they much prefer to proselytize than practice it. But the problem is not that the motto isn’t specific enough — it’s that the motto is inherently contradictory.
The values that lead you to serve your country are not the same as the values that lead you to serve humanity. Princeton’s full unofficial motto falters in its challenge to simultaneously present a university in both “the Nation’s Service” and in “the Service of Humanity.” Such a tension is irreconcilable; work done in “the Nation’s Service” necessarily precludes work done in the “Service of Humanity.”
How could fidelity to the rigid borders, history, and politics of one particular nation possibly further all of humanity, especially when so much of the weight of a single nation
is constantly morally marred by its problems?
Just as rallying behind the furthering of social welfare and altruistic technological innovation may be pursuits done in “the Nation’s Service,” so is working in the jobs that create the technologies responsible for some of the United States’ darkest offenses. While extreme, this reality highlights the question Princetonians must ask when reading our motto: Does serving the nation necessarily serve humanity? If the answer is no, the University is failing Princetonians by asking them to pick which is more important, the nation or humanity.
So it’s time to get rid of the current construction of the informal motto.
To be clear, I am not suggesting — as has been argued — this criticism of “In the Nation’s Service and the Service of Humanity” means we renew our interest in Princeton’s official motto: Dei Sub Numine Viget (“Under God’s Power She Flourishes”).
History is important, but — as President Christopher Eisgruber ‘83 explained at the most recent recasting of Princeton’s informal motto — it is naive to view tradition as a fixed object of adoration, rather than as a projection or trajectory of what the University is, was, and will be. Tradition does not require blind submission and the official motto is no exception to this. But just as tradition doesn’t require
blind submission to the official motto, which is overly preoccupied with the “faith of [Princeton’s] Presbyterian founders” and is anachronistic with Princeton’s self proclaimed purposes of a modern university, it also does not require submission to the part of the unofficial model that we have moved past.
A university that is “In the Nation’s Service” requires far too great a moral dissonance to be a reasonable inclusion in our motto. When Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ’76 suggested adding “the service of humanity” to our motto, she intended to recognize the unique way “everyone can approach their daily work with a passion for making a difference,” regardless of their occupation. It also introduced a value higher than service to the United States: service to all people, all around the world. The addition highlighted the responsibility Princetonians have to “serve people, not just institutions.” Like the lions that preceded the tigers outside Nassau Hall, the time to keep “In the Nation’s Service” has passed. Princeton should pick humanity. Our new official motto should be: “In the Service of Humanity.”
Christofer Robles is the Community Opinion Editor and is concentrating in comparative literature.
ZEHAO WU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN East Pyne Archway.
Christofer Robles Community Opinion Editor
Encampments
are not ‘inherently unsafe.’ Princeton should not arrest or expel students for them.
Early Thursday morning, the Department of Public Safety arrested two graduate students for taking initial steps to establish encampments in McCosh Courtyard. Princeton authorized arrests within six minutes of the first tents being set up.
This comes after five days of alarming crackdowns on student protests at universities nationwide, including the arrest of over 100 protesters at Columbia, over 120 protesters at NYU, and over 47 protesters at Yale. Before today, the University had not made extreme attempts to suppress student speech — and Princeton had stood out for holding a deep commitment to free speech.
But now, Princeton is following other schools’ lead by responding aggressively to pro-Palestine protests. Princeton has a very small window of opportunity to reverse course and mitigate the damage that it has done. The University must reject the repressive tactics that it began practicing this morning and instead follow its tradition of productive dialogue with protesters. We urge Princeton to cease student arrests and to refrain from expelling students simply for engaging in prolonged protest. We also urge the University not to repeat the mistakes of Columbia, NYU, USC, and others in inviting police onto campus to arrest peaceful protesters.
The University’s departure from its free speech ideals began at 10:08 a.m. on Wednesday when W. Rochelle Calhoun, Vice President for Campus Life, sent an email to the student body. Calhoun wrote that “some types of protest actions (including occupying or blocking access to buildings, establishing outdoor encampments
and sleeping in any campus outdoor space) are inherently unsafe.” Thus, individuals involved in these actions “who [refuse] to stop after a warning will be arrested and immediately barred from campus.”
Calhoun’s email, which cited the “disruptions” occurring nationally, was a response to Gaza Solidarity encampments at other colleges and likely also a response to leaked documents about the now ongoing pro-Palestine encampment at Princeton. But Calhoun’s characterization of these sorts of protests — occupations, sit-ins, and encampments — as “inherently unsafe” is incorrect, and endangers our community. Targeting these encampments with immediate arrest and disciplinary action is a break from Princeton’s traditionally respectful and accommodating treatment towards sit-ins and other forms of prolonged protest, and it fails to be “viewpoint-neutral,” as Calhoun claims.
Princeton, notably, has not disciplined students for occupations in the past: In 2015, the Black Justice League (BJL) sat in the office of President Christopher L. Eisgruber ’83 for 33 hours. And in 2019, Princeton Students for Title IX Reform (PIXR) organized a sit-in outside Nassau Hall that lasted nine days. Both protests occurred under the watchful eyes of President Eisgruber and Calhoun, yet protesters were not warned of, or punished with, arrest. In fact, administrators engaged with the protesters, leading to direct policy changes. Destiny Crockett ’15 recently clarified in a statement to The Daily Princetonian Editorial Board that students participating in the BJL sit-in were not threatened with “arrest, just suspension and expulsion,” and ultimately “did not face disciplinary action.” Just because Princeton can legally enforce punishment does not mean that it should, especially in a biased manner.
The current threat of disciplinary action for engaging in “unlawful” actions that result in arrest has not been applied to students who have been subject to legal proceedings in the past. For example, Larry Giberson ’23 — a student who was indicted by a grand jury for participating in the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol by the end of his senior year — graduated from Princeton on time with no disciplinary action taken against him. He has since been convicted for his involvement. The discipline Calhoun laid out in her email, and the arrests undertaken this morning, are therefore incongruent with past precedent.
Despite the fact that they have occured peacefully, and brought about change within the University before, Calhoun seeks to justify harsh disciplinary action against protests like these by characterizing them as “inherently unsafe.” It is true that the encampment here has the potential to stir up discourse, discord, or even counter-protests. But these are reflections of the University’s ideals of open debate, not matters of safety. Claiming controversy justifies suppressing speech under the guise of security and order is out of line with Princeton’s principles of free speech. Indeed, disallowing activism on the basis of its potential for inciting instability because the topic is contentious amounts to censorship. Princeton stopped these protests almost before they started: The Department of Public Safety even prevented students from setting up their tents.
The University must reevaluate its priorities and align its actions now with its previous stance of prioritizing free speech and education. That means engaging in productive dialogue with protesters, as was done with BJL and PIXR demonstra-
tors, and ensuring the continued education of all of its students, including student protesters. We urge Princeton to alter its course now. Do not arrest more students for using activism to engage in contentious conversations. Do not expel any students for participating in peaceful protest. Change the repressive interpretation of University policies outlined in Calhoun’s email on Wednesday morning. This is the only way that Princeton can hope to begin to refurbish its reputation — as a champion of student rights, student safety, and a defender of open discourse.
Signed, 148th Editorial Board
Chair Henry Hsiao ’26
Members Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26
Davis Hobley ’27
Henry Hsiao ’26
Sarah Park ’27
Abigail Rabieh ’25
Christofer Robles ’25
Naisha Sylvestre ’25
Lucia Wetherill ’25
Leo Yu ’27
The 148th Editorial Board is the institutional voice of The Daily Princetonian and consists of nine members: an appointed Chair, two managing editors, the public editor, and a group of five Opinion section editors and columnists. It convenes on an ad hoc basis to discuss issues and current events of interest to the Princeton University community, as well as collectively write signed editorials addressing them, which reflect the consensus of a majority of the Board’s membership. To ensure independence, the Board works separately from the newsroom of the ‘Prince,’ and its members do not cover the topics of their editorials in that capacity for the paper.
The new age of legacy admissions isn’t about preserving culture, but driving change
Since affirmative action was overturned in June 2023, conversations about how to promote campus diversity and fairness in admissions have turned towards criticism of legacy admissions. Affirmative action and legacy admissions are often positioned as opposing forces — they are perceived as respective representations of diversity and tradition. Recently, columnist Sarah Park argued for the acceptability of legacy admissions on account of their ability to foster “intergenerational community” and noted a general negativity about legacy and legacy students themselves. This negativity exists for good reason: legacy admissions perpetuate privilege and have, historically largely benefitted wealthy, white students. But as time goes on, diversity is increasing within the legacy pool, despite the fact that it is still less diverse than our campus as a whole. No longer are all legacies stereotypical, privileged, white kids. As Princeton continues to diversify, legacy will too. If we end legacy now, we are prematurely eliminating the advantages that come from a more diverse intergenerational community.
Legacy admissions can undoubtedly be exclusionary, but as we consider the drawbacks of legacy, we should also consider its poten-
tial benefits. Legacy brings in students with unique historical knowledge about Princeton and greater initial insight into how the school should change in the future. They have the ability to see and illuminate the path towards that change. This insight is particularly special when it comes from legacy families of diverse backgrounds, who can provide firsthand accounts of how Princeton has changed, and stayed the same, in regards to diversity and inclusion. Intentionally removing these students from our campus community would eliminate the potential for growth that an evolving institution of legacy provides.
Though socioeconomic diversity is sparse among the children of Princeton graduates, diversity of race, religion, gender, and sexuality are all found in the modern pool of legacy applicants. This diversity is not only rapidly increasing, but is fairly recent: Princeton was integrated by three black men from the class of 1949, of whom only one graduated. That man, Robert Joseph Rivers, had three children who graduated in the classes of ’81, ’83, and ’86. While Princeton does not publish explicit data about legacy admissions, it’s likely that they were among, if not the first, black legacy students to graduate from Princeton. Black legacy at Princeton has only existed for about 40 years, and the small pool is presumably growing at approximately the same rate with which diversity of the student body grew after integration. Especially since the children of those who benefitted from the beginning of affirmative action in 1963 started applying in the nineties.
The continuing diversification of legacies means new benefits of legacy admissions.
These legacies go further than “play[ing] a role in fostering the intergenerational community Princeton values so strongly,” as Park suggests. They have special knowledge of campus history, tradition, and culture. These students can help us learn from our past to create a better future. This is realized in an incredible lineage of black female Princetonians who truly embody the potential impact of diversifying legacy: Linda Blackburn ’71, Akira Bell ’95, and Samantha Johnson ’23. Blackburn was a member of Princeton’s first co-ed class, Bell and Johnson were, respectively, the first-ever second and third generation female Princetonians, of any race. These trailblazers have paved the way for countless Princetonians after them, and used their unique perspectives to make important contributions to our community. They have publicly discussed their shared hardships and the difficulties of being overlooked as Black female Princetonians, participated in initiatives to foster community among Princeton’s Black alumni, and advocated for continued inclusion on campus. These women used the unique experience of being a student from a marginalized identity on Princeton’s campus, to drive further change for future generations. Having that history memorialized through legacy admissions is an essential tool for understanding diversity and inclusion at Princeton. It is impossible to grow as a community without the perspective of those who experienced these challenges firsthand.
The reason why I was able to share the story of this incredible family, is that my parents were classmates of Bell, graduating in the class of 1995. Without my personal connection to
this history, I probably would not have known their story. For my family, legacy has allowed us to have a more robust understanding of our shared experience as black Princetonians. Being both parents and alumni gives my mom and dad a unique perspective, which informs how they chose to give back to Princeton. Likewise, I draw from their past experiences in my attempts to change and improve our campus community.
We have yet to fully explore and experience the impact that diversity within the legacy pool can have on our campus community. The premature abolishment of legacy admissions ignores the potential impact of increasing diversity. Instead of just ending legacy, we should focus on diversity and institutional memory for change-making. Undeniably, legacy’s primary purpose has been exclusion and elitism, but
changing who is a legacy student also changes the nature of legacy. We should ensure that continuing to include legacy students doesn’t necessarily prevent a student body that reflects the diversity of this country. But we should also recognize that legacies can contribute something unique, not just to ‘preserve‘ Princeton’s traditions, as is often argued, but also to change them. This necessary change can be catalyzed by students who have a robust understanding of past and present campus issues. Time to evolve with each new class will allow the legacy system to realize its potential, driving Princeton forward, and encouraging our community to continue changing with our times, and for the better.
Ava Johnson is a first year columnist from Washington D.C.
Daily Princetonian Editorial Board
CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN A line of Princeton Public Safety Officers facing protesters.
Ava Johnson Columnist
editor-in-chief
Teshome '25 business manager Aidan Phillips ’25
president
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
Thomas E. Weber ’89
vice president
David Baumgarten ’06
secretary Chanakya A. Sethi ’07
treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90
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trustees Francesca Barber
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Stephen Fuzesi ’00
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Danielle Ivory ’05
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Julianne Escobedo Shepherd Abigail Williams ’14 Tyler Woulfe ’07
trustees ex officio Eden Teshome ’25 Aidan Phillips ’25
148TH MANAGING BOARD
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A little bit of grade inflation never hurt anyone
JANUARY 2024 Vincent Jiang
Contributing Columnist
Ever since our much-hated grade deflation policy was lifted in 2014, Princetonians’ GPAs have been steadily trending upwards. According to the Office of the Dean of the College, the average GPA for the 2022–2023 academic year was 3.56 out of 4.00, an increase from the 2018–2019 average of 3.46. In 2005, when grade deflation policies were first implemented, the average GPA was around 3.30. A recent article in The New York Times noted the same phenomenon of grade inflation at Harvard and Yale, and quoted students, alumni, and professors lamenting that a good grade today is “worth less” than ever before.
This narrative unfairly stigmatizes grade inflation, ignoring its broader context and changes in factors that influence grades. Grade inflation is not an inherently bad thing. Just as modern economists say that low, stable, and predictable price inflation is good for an economy, a low and consistent rate of grade inflation can be healthy for a university, and in fact should be expected given increasing competitiveness in admissions at both the undergraduate and graduate level. Our GPA’s pandemic spike of 0.10 over the past five years may be more than the long-term inflation rate, but it doesn’t need to be counteracted with more deflation. Princeton shouldn’t view grade inflation as a problem to be solved, but rather as a phenomenon to be managed.
The underlying assumption of arguments against grade inflation is that GPAs should ideally remain stagnant in the long term. If professors maintain the same grading standards year after year, and each class of students is more or less equally qualified, GPA distributions would indeed remain constant. But the composition and characteristics of each class year have changed significantly between 2005 and now. It’s no secret that college admissions have gotten drastically more competitive in the same time span. The class of 2005 had a 11.7% acceptance rate; the class of 2025 had a 4.0% acceptance rate. Even after the recent expansions of the student body, which saw a slight uptick in the admissions rate (back up to 4.5%), it is still almost twice as hard to get into Princeton today than it was at the turn of the century, and the same is true for all other Ivy League schools.
Subjected to such intense selective pressures, the average Ivy Leaguer has almost certainly taken more AP and IB courses, been forced to develop better time management skills to juggle ever-crazier extracurricular schedules, and been trained to reflexively obsess more about their grades and test scores than ever before. It’s not much of a stretch to imagine that the average Ivy Leaguer is also objectively performing better than ever before in college. After making it through the most ruthlessly Darwinian college admissions process in history, each successive class of Princetonians might really have evolved to be better than their predecessors.
In my anecdotal experience, many alumni freely admit that they would have a tougher time getting in today than they did “back in the day.” That makes the general reluctance to admit the logical corollary — that today’s students continue their habits of excellence after matriculation — all the more puzzling. And if students are getting better, even marginally, a little bit of grade inflation is only to be expected. The only way to maintain equilibrium in that case would be to make grading standards stricter than they were in the past, which we tried already, to disastrous effect, during the years of grade deflation. Let’s remember what we learned from that failed experiment — Princeton doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but within an ecosystem of employers, graduate schools, and peer institutions. The same New York Times article that complained about grade inflation at Harvard and Yale also observed that “G.P.A.s have been increasing at colleges nationwide by about 0.1 per decade since the early 1980s.” Even with Princeton’s pandemic-era uptick in grades to a 3.56 average, we still lag behind Harvard (3.80) and Yale (3.70), whose students we compete against in fellowship applications, graduate school admissions, and job searches. In 2014, Princeton denied that its grade deflation policy had tangible impacts on postgraduate competitiveness, but empirical studies have shown otherwise: even after being provided with candidates’ GPAs in the context of their school’s average GPA, admissions staff and employers still prefer applicants with higher GPAs because of cognitive biases. Imposing grade deflation or grade stagnation when other schools continue to inflate is unilateral disarmament.
One caveat with the analogy between price inflation and grade inflation is that prices can rise infinitely but grades are capped on a 4.0 scale. The nightmare scenario is that after a couple of decades, extrapolating that 0.10 per decade growth rate, the average Princetonian will eventually have a perfect 4.0 GPA. I find that prospect unlikely. The competitive pressure of admissions will presumably plateau at some point, as it already has in the last couple of years with the expansion of the student body, and the shrinking U.S. population pyramid ensures that the total number of 17- and 18-year olds applying will shrink. Accordingly, I anticipate that the grade inflation rate will naturally shrink. The more likely outcome is something closer to what The Crimson has described
as “grade compression,” where the bell curve gets “tighter and taller” as grades get “pushed against the 4.0 ceiling.”
One potential mitigating solution is to bring back the A+ as a 4.3, which was official school policy prior to 2000–2001 and is still how the Law School Admissions Council calculates GPAs today. Another potential way to differentiate students is to put more emphasis on departmental honors, which are explicitly curved relative to the rest of the class. But if the Princetonians of tomorrow are so incredible that they can earn 4.0 GPAs on the same rubric we’re graded on, then they deserve them, fair and square. Professors, especially those who have been teaching for a long time, should certainly not relax their standards — but there’s no reason to mandate raising them either. In short, policies designed to correct for grade inflation cause more harm than good. A modest amount of grade inflation should be expected given the broader trends of a hypercompetitive admissions system that has cultivated a more academically qualified student body. It may make each individual good grade less significant, but this is an acceptable tradeoff against the alternative of deflation. Of course, if grade inflation rates suddenly spike beyond what is reasonably expected, that might require adjustments, especially on a department-level basis. Classics, for instance, might want to take a hard look in the mirror after its average course GPA jumped 0.20 points in one year, as The Daily Princetonian reported in 2020. The goal of the University as a whole should not be to keep grades stagnant. Grade inflation is not inherently a problem that requires an overengineered solution of quotas and curves, but a development to be monitored. As newly appointed Dean of the College Michael D. Gordin prepares to assume his office, Princeton would do well to keep this philosophy in mind. Let’s hope that the University won’t seek to reverse our GPA distribution trends and instead appreciate that low, stable, and predictable grade inflation makes for a healthy and fair academic economy.
Vincent Jiang is a junior concentrating in the School of Public and International Affairs who spent way too much time refreshing the TigerHub grade portal this winter break. A contributing Opinion Columnist at the Prince.
Reactions: What data should the University publicly release?
Lizbeth Reyes, David Hobley, Anais Mobarak, Siyeon Lee, Frances
Brogan & Thomas Buckley
Contributing Columnist, Columnists, Assistant Opinion Editors, Associate Opinion Editor
The University releases data about many different aspects of the University from student demographics to progress towards its sustainability goals. We asked our columnists what other data the University should release for easy public access.
If Princeton is serious about climate change, it should release full emissions data
Thomas Buckley, Associate Opinion Editor Princeton pledged to achieve carbon neutrality by 2046. But what does that actually mean? According to the sustainability action plan, the University’s goal is to reduce emissions from “both direct emissions from on-site energy production and fleet fuel use, and indirect emissions from purchased electricity — by 2046.” Absent from these emissions sources, however, are emissions created by University policies: “scope 3 emissions.” These encompass emissions from upstream sources that are not included in Princeton’s calculations, such as from food purchased for the dining halls, transportation to and from campus for employees and visitors, and pollution created by companies held in PRINCO’s portfolio. Princeton must include this data in their emissions sources.
Having this emissions data gives us better scope on the University’s progress towards its climate goals. The climate impact of these indirect sources can be substantial at Princeton. Just one week of meals at the Rocky-Mathey Dining Hall used 500 pounds of beef, equivalent to burning 56,000 pounds of coal. The 25,000 alumni who travel to reunions every year produce emissions comparable to eight percent of the University’s campus emissions. Taking into account all these sources of emission over time is essential to understanding Princeton’s true carbon impact.
Despite promising to “track and reduce” scope 3 indirect emissions, the University has not made public accounting of the emissions from these upstream sources. The University has pledged to track their scope 3 emissions by ”2026 and beyond.” Doing so would demonstrate a firm commitment to transparency and help keep Princeton accountable to its climate responsibilities, and they should release the data as soon as it’s available.
Thomas Buckley is an associate Opinion editor from Colchester, Vt., majoring in SPIA. He can be reached at thomas.buckley@princeton.edu.
Princeton Administration should begin releasing grade distribution data for individual courses
Davis Hobley, Columnist Semester after semester, Princeton students enroll in countless courses where they are told that their grades will be “curved,” but are often given little to no indication of what that will mean for them. To remedy this problem, Princeton should release grade distribution data for each course on the course offering site so that students can have a sense of approximately what proportion of students receive each grade and of how they are actually performing
in a course during the duration of their enrollment.
At best, certain courses, such as MAT 103, provide a rough distribution of what final grades could look like on the syllabus. For the vast majority of courses, however, course distributions are not available for students to access. When courses are run in this manner, students in courses that are curved don’t know how they are actually performing in a course. This issue is especially troubling when students aren’t aware of what grade they are on track to get until after the pass/D/fail and/or course drop deadline.
Releasing grade distribution data would allow students to enter each course with a more accurate view of what they should expect during the semester. All grades could remain anonymous, and the data could be easily acquired through the registrar’s office.
The Princeton administration releasing these data would vastly reduce the mystery that surrounds grading at Princeton — a change which permits students to approach each of their courses with a clearer understanding of their expectations.
Davis Hobley is a member of the Class of 2027 and intends to major in Neuroscience. He hails from Rochester, Mich. and can be reached through his email (dh2172@ princeton.edu) and personal Instagram (@ davis_20.23).
Princeton should release the income distribution of accepted students
Frances Brogan, Assistant Opinion Editor Princeton should release data on the percentage of accepted students — and the percentage of applicants — who correspond to each income bracket. The University has publicized that 25 percent of the student body pays nothing to attend, a group that constitutes students from families making up to $100,000 a year. But even as Princeton expands accessibility for low and middle-income students, we still don’t know how many students from a middle-class background are represented in each class.
According to The Daily Princetonian’s 2023 senior survey, respondents with household incomes between $80,000 and $125,000 a year were tied with those from families that make below $40,000 a year as the least represented economic group. This indicates that middle income students still face barriers to obtaining a Princeton education. By not releasing this data, the University obscures how overwhelmingly wealthy Princeton remains.
It’s not enough to accommodate low and middle-income students once they get to Princeton if too few of these students are accepted in the first place. It’s also essential to provide and compare the data on accepted students to the general applicant pool. This would further clarify the correlation between income and chances of acceptance.
Frances Brogan is a first-year prospective Politics major from Lancaster, Pa. She is an assistant Opinion editor and can be reached at frances.brogan@princeton.edu.
International students are not a monolith. Make admissions data reflect that fact.
Siyeon Lee, Assistant Opinion Editor
Fourteen percent of the incoming students of the Class of 2027 are international students. These students hail from over 64 countries and represent a plethora of diverse racial and demographic groups. The most recent iteration of Princeton’s first-year admissions statistics for the Class of 2027, however, has failed to reflect this heterogeneity of the international student body. For its next release of first-year admissions statistics, Princeton must better articulate international admissions data.
Under its “Diversity” category, which describes the racial composition of the incoming class, the statistics sheet groups U.S. citizens into various racial categories — Asian American or Black, for example — whereas international students are treated as a demographic monolith, all falling under one category of “International Citizens.” In addition, domestic students are able to see a visual mapping of the 50 states with the number of students that have been
admitted from each, but international students merely receive a list of the countries that are represented amongst the first-years.
There is much to glean from treating different groups of international students as distinct demographic bodies — from a statistical, cultural, and admissions standpoint. Statistics allows international students to make empirically-informed decisions about the schools they apply to, gauge a university’s community atmosphere, and keeps institutional diversity in check. International students are not a monolith, and we must ensure that Princeton’s admissions statistics recognize this reality.
Siyeon Lee is a first-year from Seoul, South Korea intending to major in History. She is an assistant Opinion editor on the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at siyeonlee@ princeton.edu or @siyeonish on Instagram.
Princeton should release testoptional statistics for admitted students
Liz Reyes, Contributing Columnist In light of recent changes by other Ivy League institutions on their test optional policy, it is crucial for Princeton to reevaluate and clarify admissions data that it makes available for its potential applicants. Princeton should release data on the percentage of applicants who have been admitted testoptional versus the percentage admitted with test scores. Doing so would allow prospective students to see how test-optional policies are actually enforced, and whether or not applying test optional really makes a difference in Princeton admissions.
Higher test scores are associated with higher income — colleges are aware of this. Knowing the unique financial makeup of our student population, it is important that Princeton releases the number of admitted students who did and did not submit standardized testing scores. Discussions referring to test optional policies in college admissions also refer to the idea that submitting test scores to test optional schools gives students an advantage in
admissions. To combat this, Princeton should release more complete data on test-optional admissions. Although the common data set — a yearly release of enrollment and admissions data from U.S. colleges — already releases testoptional data on already admitted students, it lacks information on how admission rates differ from test-optional versus non-test-optional applicants. By categorizing and releasing admissions data based on test-optional status, Princeton can provide much-needed transparency on the admissions process in light of abrupt test policy changes across the nation.
Liz Reyes is a first-year contributing columnist from Cherry Hill, N.J. intending to major in SPIA. She can be reached at lizbeth. reyes@princeton.edu.
Princeton should be transparent about legacy admissions
Anais Mobarak, Columnist Legacy admissions are typically thought to yield “more generous donors” because alumni parents are often in better financial positions to make contributions. Some have even questioned “Would America have such a powerful donation culture in the absence of legacy admissions?” Just as Princeton celebrates and provides data on its fundraising efforts, it should do the same for legacy admissions to clarify this potential fundraising interrelationship. This data should include the average ACT/SAT scores and GPA for students who receive a boost in admissions for being a legacy student, or for whom legacy status is a “tie-breaker,” as President Eisgruber put it.
Releasing data on the fundraising effects of legacy admissions would help the University make this practice transparent. If Princeton believes that legacy admissions are a worthwhile tradeoff given their fundraising benefits, it should own the fact that it continues to use a non-merit-based factor in admissions to meet its financial objectives.
Anais Mobarak is a junior from Newton, Mass. studying chemistry. She can be reached at am7880@princeton.edu.
JEAN SHIN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Joline and Campbell halls.
Get Princetonians back to innovation, not exploitation
Eleanor Clemans-Cope Head Opinion Editor
In a world overflowing with challenges, from the existential threat of the climate crisis to growing economic inequality, innovation is a beacon of hope. But not all kinds of innovation contribute equally to human flourishing. As Princeton heads into the 21st century, it is crucial for us to discern between the transformative and the trivial: are we innovating for a better world, or just bigger profits?
I grew up hearing stories of the innovation of old — in the 1980s, in a lab under an hour’s drive away from Princeton, my grandfather invented a process for creating high-quality semiconductor repeaters that vastly improved AT&T’s trans-Atlantic cable. His friends in the lab down the hall helped create the fiber optic system of the cable. They all worked at Bell Labs — “The Idea Factory” — AT&T’s research arm where inventors worked on projects from the trans-Atlantic cable to the transistor. This was the innovation of the 20th century. Contrast this with the barrage of emails in my Princeton inbox, touting insights on securing startup funding for your plugin or app or seminars on “how to be a venture capitalist.” In the face of the climate crisis, ecological breakdown, and escalating inequality, our generation faces a dire need for hard and often phys-
ical innovation. But the flavor of entrepreneurship promoted by Princetonians feels small-scale and greedy; although there are exceptions, the prevailing culture is narrowly focused on small tweaks fueling profits using existing technologies rather than innovating the groundbreaking, transformational technology and institutions that our world urgently needs.
A few examples of what Princetonians are putting time and money into:
Prospect Student Ventures supports companies including a payto-play marketplace for employee hiring, a company that says it will “revolutionize healthcare” with “payer-focused solutions that enhance efficiency and maximize value” (read: focus on extracting higher profits for health insurance companies, not on health), a plug-in that scans your online grocery shopping cart for nutritional value, and a higher-profit, easier way for wealthier people to invest in real estate or become a landlord.
TigerLaunch promotes companies who offer a way to skip the line at concert venues for a fee, a way to send songs to “music influencers” for a fee, and a way to port schedules between different web platforms.
And this isn’t limited to student-run organizations: the Keller Center eLab boasts companies selling an extension for food delivery to get on campus, a discount resale platform for overproduced clothing, a grocerylist-creating integration, and a plug-in for carbon offsetting at checkout while shopping online (by the way, carbon offsets don’t and can’t help achieve net zero
greenhouse gas emissions).
Clearly, this kind of “rent-seeking” — an activity that exploits an information gap or presents commodities to consumers differently — is the easiest way to reap profits with very little innovation. “Rent-seeking,” a term coined by economist Anne Krueger, refers to profiting through market manipulation rather than by contributing to productivity. Though the term often describes lobbying or policy influence, it’s also a useful way to describe other types of efforts to amass wealth with minimal productivity impact.
The phenomenon of rentseeking innovation goes beyond Princeton: it is epitomized by companies like DoorDash and Uber and represents a significant departure from the spirit of genuine problem-solving. The “innovation” of these companies is to find more cost-efficient ways to sell an existing product (i.e. takeout, rides) — and for these companies who have made it big, the insight is generally new ways to exploit labor.
These rent-seeking services often provide a product that people want to consume — and they can even have a positive impact — but they fall short of the transformative potential that innovation can bring us and that Princetonians are uniquely positioned and resourced to realize. These companies do not address the pressing issues that demand our attention and ingenuity, like electricity storage, biodiversity restoration, sustainable materials, water accessibility, large-scale carbon capture, affordable and sustainable housing, education innovation, redistributive finan-
cial vehicles, medical advances, and effective mental health treatments, to name a few. We can’t afford to use our time on rent-seeking — wringing out the dregs of profit by making broken systems run more smoothly when we so desperately need innovation that tackles problems systemically.
Part of the problem is that Princeton’s “startup culture” is just not well-suited to attack today’s problems. The overwhelming profit incentive, no matter how insignificant the “solution” provided or how small the profit, leads to rent-seeking. We need new structures for innovation, ones that are strong, well-funded, and full of scientists and other transformational thinkers — we need a new Idea Factory modeled on Bell Labs. Princeton could be that, and undergraduate students can and should be involved. Princeton and its community of innovators have a pivotal choice. True innovation involves
the technological breakthroughs of basic science and medicine, systemic reform of law and policy, and the collective teamwork of building robust public institutions to support human flourishing. Princeton has the talent, resources, and responsibility to lead this charge. By embracing this more ambitious vision of innovation, we can pave the way for a future where it catalyzes societal transformation. We can’t afford to settle for the illusion of progress.
Eleanor Clemans-Cope (she/her) is a sophomore from Rockville, Maryland intending to study economics. She spends her time making music with Princeton University Orchestra and the Triangle Club and good trouble with Divest Princeton. She can be reached on Twitter at @eleanorjcc or by email at eleanor.cc@princeton. edu.
Princeton should lengthen the semester to reduce burnout
Julianna Lee Columnist
The fast pace of campus life is nothing new to Princetonians. Even as a junior, I can attest that my first week of classes was spent scrambling to sort my schedule out. During my second week, I spent hours at my eating club engaged in Bicker discussions that lasted well into the early morning. While my third week should have ideally been spent recharging, I was completely occupied with catching up on work and other commitments. Then, boom: before I had even realized it, a quarter of the semester had already passed. To help relieve the burden of this packed semester, Princeton should lengthen its academic calendar by two weeks to match those at peer institutions.
Princeton’s semesters are notoriously short. Princeton will begin its 2024–2025 academic
year on Sept. 2, 2024, and the last official day of classes is on Dec. 5, 2024. The following two weeks are then devoted to Reading Period and final exams. The spring semester begins on Jan. 27, 2025 and ends on Apr. 26, 2025.
Conversely, Yale’s fall semester will begin on Aug. 28, and their fall term classes will end on Dec. 6, making their semester almost a week longer than Princeton’s. Likewise, their spring semester is two weeks longer, beginning on Jan. 13 and ending on Apr. 25. Similarly, at the University of Pennsylvania, the fall semester will begin on Aug. 27, and their reading period will not begin until Dec. 10. Their spring semester will begin on Jan. 15 and end on Apr. 30. Yale and Penn aren’t outliers; the average U.S. semester is 15–17 weeks long, significantly longer than Princeton’s 12 weeks plus exam period.
The consequences of these shorter semesters are clear — after four years of Princeton, burnout is not uncommon. I remember a friend telling me last year as he was graduating, “I feel bad for you guys. I’m on
my way out of Egypt, and you’re here for two more years.” He added, “This life is unsustainable. We can only do this for four years, and not more.”
But how is it possible to only do this for four years? If learning, pursuing our interests, and spending time with friends are inherently fulfilling endeavors, we should be able to continue forever. The mere fact that many of my senior friends are eager to graduate, and that many others have chosen to take time off their sophomore and junior years, are testaments to burnout from Princeton’s unrealistic standards.
The experience of needing to balance many commitments is not unique to Princeton –many other institutions maintain high standards of rigor. Princeton students, however, are under an additional layer of stress because of the rushed semester. Many students often feel as if they have no time to rest and are constantly rushing towards the next break. Maintaining one’s relationships and one’s well-being while taking advantage of opportunities at Princeton should not feel like
a chore.
By starting semesters earlier (the last few weeks of August in the fall and the middle of January in the spring) Princeton can take steps towards reducing burnout. Student academic performance may improve with a lengthened semester. Research has shown that spacing out study sessions over a longer period of time benefits long term memory. A process known as “forgetting and retrieval” illustrates that people tend to forget what they learned the first time around, and it is the reinforcement at a later point that jogs the memory. As almost any Princetonian can attest, cramming before an exam does not facilitate retention.
Yet, Princeton’s twelve week semesters can often feel like one big intensive cramming session. Just as it is a good practice to space out study sessions, it may also be a smart decision to extend the semesters, with shorter breaks in between the fall and the spring.
Shorter semesters may permit longer breaks, but many students often take this time to work. By shortening winter break by two weeks, Princeton
can encourage students to actually rest rather than feeling pressured to fill those weeks with more things to do. Having done a virtual Princeternship the winter of my freshman year, I would rather have spent that time recuperating than taking on more work. Many of my fellow Princeterns have expressed the same feelings. Princeton, and most other universities, have a long summer break precisely for this purpose, to allow students to pursue internships, jobs, and travel. Students need winter break as a time of rest. It doesn’t make sense for the semester to be so intensive, especially when there is a clear solution to lighten the intensity: extending the semester. Princeton should opt for a fourteen week semester like most other universities to alleviate student burnout. Slow and steady is better than all or nothing.
Julianna Lee is a junior from Demarest, NJ, majoring in Politics. She can be reached at julianna. lee@princeton.edu. Julianna is a big fan of road trips and has been to 43 states.
CANDACE DO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Frick Chemistry Laboratory.
“FROM ABOVE”
By Ryland Graham Assistant Photo Editor
The Golden Ticket: FLI at Princeton
Receiving admission to Princeton can feel like a golden ticket into a prosperous future, especially for first generation and low income (FLI) students. But what is it like once they get here? Today on Daybreak, we delve into the FLI experience at Princeton, the resources available for FLI students, and what access to the Ivy League really means. Listen in.
Every year, the Muslim Student Association (MSA) puts on one of its biggest events of the year: the Fast-a-Thon. For one day of Ramadan, the MSA invites students of all faith backgrounds to participate in the daily fast and activities of an observant Muslim. Today, Daybreak revisits Fast-a-Thon and examines how it brings the University community closer together.
By Twyla Colburn, Synai Ferrell, Daniel Jung, and Fikir Beyene
By Twyla Colburn, Fikir Beyene,& Yusuf Abdelnur
In Photos: The Clio Hall Sit-in
By
Administrators including Vice President for Campus Life Rochelle Calhoun and Assistant Vice President for Public Safety Kenneth E. Strother, Jr. react to the sit-in after leaving the CPUC meeting on April 29.
Calvin Grover
Sam Nastase, a postdoc, is arrested and led out of Clio Hall before being put on a Tiger Transit bus.
Calvin Grover
A protester faces off with PSAFE in front of the bus.
Ryland Graham Princeton Police Department officers supported PSAFE during the sit-in.
Ryland Graham
Calvin Grover, Ryland Graham, Louisa Gheorghita & Ammaar Alam
Associate Photo Editor, Assistant Photo Editor, Head Photo Editor & Staff Photographer
Aditi Rao GS gives a speech after exiting Clio Hall.
Ariel Munczek Edelman GS gives a speech after being released from the bus.
Ryland Graham
Members of Faculty for Justice in Palestine read a list of demands behind Clio Hall.
Ryland Graham
Protesters celebrate after sit-in participants were “de-arrested” according to organizers.
Calvin Grover The crowd continues to swell as the sun begins to set.
Ryland Graham
Clio Hall stands silent after the sitin moves to Cannon Green to set up a new encampment.
Louisa Gheorgita
Calvin Grover
AA.B., abbrev. Artium Baccalaureus, or Bachelor of Arts. Though called B.A. at most other schools, it’s still your typical liberal arts degree. For the same strange reason we have “certificates” instead of “minors,” you’re receiving an “A.B.” instead of a “B.A.” Unless you’re an engineer, of course. See “B.S.E.” Academic mediocrity, n. The subject of a 2022 quote by Eisgruber on mental health. Divisive topic on campus.
Acaprez, n. Name of the group that represents Princeton’s 8 most prestigious acapella groups. You can only hold membership in one group — they host auditions together. There are acapella groups on campus that are not recognized by acaprez. Yes, there is a heirarchy within the acapella scene... welcome to the Ivy League.
Adviser, n. 1. Faculty member assigned to first-years to assist in course selection. Usually a specialist in a field totally unrelated to yours. 2. Faculty member assigned to sophomores with an unclear role. 3. Faculty member assigned to juniors and seniors to provide guidance in writing junior papers and theses. All vary widely in quality of advising and level of engagement.
Alcohol Initiative, n. A trustee-sponsored attempt to reduce alcohol consumption by throwing huge sums of money at undergraduates for alternative activities.
Alexander Beach, n. Princeton’s version of a beach. Lacks sand and water but is filled with lots of bodies in bathing suits on sunny spring days. Located in front of Alexander Hall on the northern end of campus. See “Poe Field.”
All-nighter, n. Grim, dusk-to-dawn studying or writing marathon in which sleep is postponed indefinitely. Often procrastination-induced and caffeine-fueled. Usually followed by prolonged periods of hibernation. Your freshman 15 will probably be 60 percent the food you eat during these. Welcome to college. Alumni, n. pl. Those who came before. Gosh, they sure do love the place. Prone to wearing abominable combinations of orange and black. See “Reunions.”
Arch sing, n. Event where a cappella singing groups perform a few of their favorite tunes in campus archways. Good singing and great acoustics, but the novelty can wear off quickly. A large percentage of the audience is made up of group members’ significant others (or wannabe significant others) and roommates. See “jam,” “Blair Arch.”
BBaker Rink, n. Ice rink located down-campus where the hockey teams practice. The USG sometimes holds free Skate Nights where you can take dates.
Band, n. The University scramble band. Football halftime shows are occasionally funny and always tasteless. Often uses unconventional instruments, such as a plastic Santa Claus and stop signs. Hard to miss in their extremely plaid orange blazers as they parade through libraries on Dean’s Date or serenade the hapless on Valentine’s Day.
Barstool Princeton, n. A wildly popular Instagram account affiliated with the sports media company, Barstool. Posts Princetonoriented memes that are pretty hit or miss — some upperclass students will say it’s “gone down in quality” recently.
Beer, n. Beverage of choice on Prospect Avenue. Some clubs try to impress potential mem-
bers by serving such brew-house delicacies as Killian’s or Yuengling, but eight times out of 10 it’s just watered-down Natty Light.
Bicker, n. Princeton’s multi-day equivalent of fraternity or sorority rush for the seven selective eating clubs. During Bicker, club members meet sophomores and other upperclass students to determine whether they are worthy of membership. “Worthiness” is determined in a variety of ways. As divisive as it sounds. See “sign-in club,” “double Bicker.”
Blair Arch, n. That large, pretty arch across from Richardson Auditorium. Campus landmark and frequent site of a cappella jams. Saving grace of Matheyites. See “Mathey College.”
Blair Tower, n. Former home of despised sophomores who lucked out during residential college room draw and got amazing rooms with amazing views. Now used as classrooms and housing for resident graduate students and a few faculty members in residence.
Bomb, v. To do miserably on an exam. Translates to a range between A-minus to actually failing. See “Orgo,” “grade deflation.”
Bonfire, n. Tradition of lighting an enormous bonfire on Cannon Green to celebrate the football team’s victories over both Harvard and Yale in a season. Involves singing praises to Old Nassau as effigies of John Harvard and the Yale bulldog are burned in a fiery inferno. Pretty much as cultish as it sounds. Keep your fingers crossed for the next one.
Boot, v. To toss one’s cookies, worship the porcelain god, barf, puke, vomit, ralph, regurgitate, spew chunks, whistle carrots, etc. Usually engaged in as part of a “boot and rally,” with hopes of rejoining the party.
Breakout Trips, n. A collection of civic engagement trips planned and led by students and funded by the Pace Center for Civic Engagement. Participants are selected by application (and you thought your application days were over — you’re in for a rude awakening). Trips take place over fall and spring breaks. Past trips have examined arts in Philadelphia, school technology in Boston, immigration in Arizona, farming in Florida, and other social issues.
Bric-a-Brac, n. Princeton’s all-class yearbook. Make sure you show up on time for picture day and get all your friends to sign HAGS at the end of a school year! Don’t. High school is over. See “Nassau Herald.”
Bridges, nickname, CEE 102: Engineering in the Modern World. 102: Engineering in the Modern World. Counts as an HA for science kids and an SEL for humanities kids. In past years, the final has involved literally memorizing pictures of bridges. See “P/D/F.”
B.S.E., abbrev. Bachelor’s of Science in Engineering. Though called “B.S.” at some other schools, there’s no b.s. in Princeton’s engineering degree.
Bubble, the, n. The metaphorical orange bubble that surrounds campus, keeping us in and the real world out. Also called “The Orange Bubble.” Usage: “Back in the bubble!”, “Welcome to the bubble.” To be used sparingly.
Business Today, n. Glossy campus business affairs magazine with large alumni coffers where ex-Future Business Leaders of America gather to talk Goldman. See “i-banking,” “consulting.”
Butler College, n. Residential college with the newest buildings prior, of course, to the construction of New College West and Yeh College. Located what used to be far down-campus and now is the center of campus.
Frist Campus Center. A food pickup spot during Ramadan.
Campus Club, n. Defunct eating club purchased by the University to hold events. Home to Coffee Club. See “Alcohol Initiative,” “Coffee Club.”
Campus fox, n. The fox that resides on campus, most often spotted up campus. Although multiple foxes have been spotted at once, campus legend says there is only one campus fox.
Cannon Club, n. Bicker club known for its three taprooms. The club plays host to a large proportion of athletes, especially field sports.
Canvas, n. Software to check your coursework. Princeton’s very late step into the modern world of college education. Successor of Blackboard
Cap & Gown Club, n. Consistently the most bickered club, Cap has a self-proclaimed reputation for being “chill and diverse.” Some of its classic night out themes include Capmandu and Boxers and Blazers.
Carl A. Fields Center, n. Properly called the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding, but colloquially known as CAF. A building located on Prospect Avenue that hosts events and programming aimed at celebrating diversity.
Carnegie, Lake, n. Five minutes from campus, five miles long. Scenic venue for crew but too slimy for swimming. Gift of Andrew Carnegie so that Princeton could have a crew team, after then-University President Woodrow Wilson, Class of 1879, asked him for money for University construction. Wilson’s reported comment: “We asked for bread, and he gave us cake.”
Carrel, n. Like the all-male student body and the old pub in Chancellor Green, carrels are the newest addition to the ghosts of Princeton past. For better or for worse, you will never know the four-by-six-by-eight-foot metal study closets in Firestone Library where seniors locked themselves around February to emerge in April with 30,000-word theses. Don’t worry, you’ll get study spaces that aren’t fire hazards. See “thesis.”
CD, abbrev. Culture and Difference. A distribution requirement that began with the Class of 2024, and the only requirement that can be satisfied concurrently with another. Interdisciplinary requirement whose applicable courses are in many fields.
Certificate, n. The traditional Princeton term for minors. The faculty approved the creation of actual minors last year, so for now we have a weird combination of both certificates and minors. Your certificate or minor area of study must be addressed in some capacity in your thesis. Too many people take Statistics and Machine Learning (SML). See “thesis.”
Chapel, n. Site of religious services and opening exercises at the start of every year until the class sizes got too large. Third-largest university chapel in the world. Contrary to Orange Key legend, it wasn’t built by a Yalie.
Chancellor Green, n. Gorgeous library attached to East Pyne featuring stained-glass windows and amazingly comfortable couches. Naps happen here.
Charter Club, n. Club located extremely far down Prospect Avenue, near the E-Quad. After a rebrand, one of the most coveted club on the street with lots of competition for selective sign-in spots. Site of Friday debauchery.
CJL, abbrev. Center for Jewish Life. Selfexplanatory building on Washington Road. Popular lunch spot regardless of religious affiliation due to its central location.
Clapper, n. Part of the Nassau Hall bell that the incoming class tried to steal each year. The logic behind the age-old tradition is that if the clapper is stolen, the bell signifying the start of classes won’t ring, so classes can’t be held. After
Geoffrey MacArthur ’95 fell from the tower in 1992, the administration decided to remove the clapper permanently.
Cloister Inn, n. Sign-in club known for hosting a high percentage of water-based athletes. Popular street destination for first-years since it’s PUID.
Cluster, n. Where a whole bunch of computers congregate. Features printers which are often jammed, toner-less, or otherwise malfunctioning; staplers that are often broken or empty; and people scowling at the movies they have to watch for class. Scattered throughout campus.
Coffee Club, n. Student-run coffee shop in the taproom of Campus Club and the lobby of New College West. Cheaper alternative to coffee shops on Nassau Street.
Colonial Club, n. Sign-in club that at one point claimed Friday nights from Charter. Often serves hard cider on tap.
Committee on Discipline, n. The University body responsible for investigating academic integrity and other disciplinary offenses. CA, abbrev. Community Action. Week-long pre-orientation activity built around service trips in the Princeton, Trenton and Philadelphia areas. Like Outdoor Action, but with showers.
Consulting, n. What many of your classmates will go on to do. No one actually knows what consulting means, but they do know it brings in the bucks. See “SPIA.”
Co-op, n. Upperclass dining alternative in which members share cooking responsibilities. Vegetarians, try 2 Dickinson St.; omnivores, stick to Brown, Real Food, or the International Food Co-ops.
Cottage Club, n. Officially called “University Cottage Club.” Bicker club populated by athletes, Southerners and the wealthy. Known for its spring Sunday Fundays, darties with various themes that can always be counted on to feature beer and American flags. CPS, abbrev. Counseling and Psychological Services. Office of therapists located on the third floor of McCosh, available to you free of charge. See “McCosh.”
C-Store, n. A godsend with everything from nail clippers to bulk candy, found on the first floor of Frist.
DDaily Princetonian, the, n. What you’re reading now. Your one true source of information on life, the universe, and everything, as well as the only daily newspaper on campus and one of the oldest college dailies in the country. Available for free everywhere. An absolute good. A force for justice in an unjust and cruel world. Administrators cringe before its unquestioned power. Completely independent from the University. Also known as the ‘Prince.’ Dinky Bar, n. Where seniors and graduate students who are too mature for the Street go for expensive cocktails.
D-Bar, abbrev. Debasement Bar. Sole hangout for graduate students, located in the basement of the Graduate College. According to reports, highly awkward. See “Grad College,” “graduate student.”
Dead Week, n. Week between the end of finals and graduation, when seniors and students employed for Reunions hang out and try to do as little as possible. This can take the form of group vacations to the beach. See “Reunions.”
Dean’s Date, n. The last day of reading period, when course papers are due. Stress reaches all-time high as students realize the number of pages they have left to write exceeds the num-
Cafe Vivian, n. A once swanky, but now mostly closed food joint on the first floor of
ber of hours before the deadline. To combat this stress, students over time have created many traditions, including the Band playing around campus and in Firestone and a midnight meal in the res colleges. See “all-nighter.”
Dei Sub Numine Viget, phrase. Latin motto on Princeton’s seal. Translation: “Under God’s Power She Flourishes.” Unofficial version: “God Went to Princeton.”
Dillon Gymnasium, n. Recreational center in the middle of campus open to non-athletes. Contains a pool, squash courts, multipurpose rooms, a large gym, and a fitness center. Site of loud Zumba and spin cycle classes.
Dinky, n. Our version of the Hogwarts Express. Mini-train that takes you to Princeton Junction for connections to the real world. Flashpoint of battle between town and University.
Distribution requirements, n. Princeton’s plan for a true liberal arts education. Ensures STEM students take copious humanities classes, and humanities students take a few STEM classes. See “P/D/F.”
Double Bicker, n. Initiative begun somewhat recently in which bicker clubs allow sophomores to bicker two clubs at once. See “Bicker.” Down-campus, adj. n. Located on the part of campus closer to the lake, down the hill. Begins roughly at Dillon, ends at the lake. Synonyms: “South.” Usage: “It’s a little further down-campus than Edwards.”
EE-Quad, abbrev. Engineering Quadrangle. A collection of academic buildings where engineers spend all their time. Very, very far east from central campus.
East Pyne, n. Pretty building up-campus near Firestone Library that houses language departments, the department of comparative literature, and the department of classics.
Eating clubs, n. Eleven large mansions on Prospect Avenue that serve as the hub of upperclass student life. What you would get if a fancy dining hall had a baby with a sorority/ fraternity house. You probably weren’t allowed to ask questions about them on your tour. Biggest reason that Princeton is still considered elitist by the outside world.
EC, abbrev. Epistemology and Cognition. Distribution requirement with no discernible meaning. Filled most frequently by philosophy and psychology classes. See “P/D/F.”
Eisgruber, Christopher, n. Your fearless leader. Eisgruber ’83 ascended to the University presidency from the position of provost in 2013. Seems to have forgotten that this isn’t high school and assigned you summer reading. Well-respected in academic circles.
EM, abbrev. Ethical Thought and Moral Values. Distribution requirement once filled with Peter Singer’s “Practical Ethics,” in which one of the most prominent philosophers of our time convinces you to stop eating meat. He’s since left the University, so good luck figuring out your “values” now.
Entryway, n. Self-contained section of a dorm or classroom building. Most frequently found in older buildings, which were built to be riot-proof. Only way to get from one entry to another is to go outside and back in again or go through the basement or up to the top floor. Partly because of this system, you may never meet the person who lives on the other side of your bedroom wall.
E-reserves, n. Catalogs of off-centered scans of many required readings. Thank your professors when they offer these in place of Pequod packets. Bow down to professors who are able to photocopy readings not upside down. Curse all professors as you wait for 300 pages of readings to print. See “Pequod.”
FFall break, n. Week-long vacation immediately following fall midterms. Implemented in the 1970s when campus activists demanded time off before Election Day to campaign for their favorite bleeding-heart liberal congressional candidates. A prime road-trip week. See “Breakout Trips.”
Fine Hall, n. The name of that extremely ugly brown building rising high above the earth down-campus behind Lewis Library. Contains the math department.
Fire inspection, n. Twice-a-semester unannounced visit to your dorm room, before which you should frantically hide illegal appliances under your blankets and un-tape your door to avoid fines.
Firestone Library, n. The mothership.
Books on books on books (on shelves.) Large behemoth of a library containing books on every subject imaginable, as well as asbestos. Popular study spot. Deathly quiet. See “carrel.”
First College, n. Once Princeton’s oldest residential college. Now primarily a shallow hole in the ground. On the site of the future Hobson College.
FitzRandolph Gate, n. Gate in front of Nassau Hall. If you walk out the center gate while an undergraduate, you will not graduate. Of course, that’s just a legend. Try it and let us know.
Fizz, n. A social media app popular with campus youngsters which has replaced TigerConfessions as the hub of campus gossip.
Forbes brunch, n. The concession Princeton had to make to Forbesians to ensure they wouldn’t drop out. In exchange for living in The Land Far Far Away, Forbesians get a chocolate fountain on Sundays. Is it a fair trade? That’s for you to decide.
Forbes College, n. The res college rumored to exist just west of the Lewis Center for the Arts and Wawa. Only visited by non-Forbesians on weekends due to its fancy brunch spreads. See “Forbes brunch.”
Franzia, n. Brand of boxed (read: dirt cheap and sickeningly sweet) wine. Goes down easy, comes back up more painfully. See “boot,” “Tower Club.”
Frist, n. The campus center. Home of the student government, mailboxes, and chicken tenders. A fun and relaxing place to socialize and study as long as you don’t take introductory Chinese. Not to be confused with First. See “Late meal.”
Fraternities, n. pl. First-years, avert your eyes. Groups of males that gather to drink and make lots of grunting noises. First-years are not allowed to rush Greek organizations. Those who do face suspension. Not a big presence on campus, but they may be your ticket into a bicker club.
Frosh Week, n. The week before classes, when sophomores and upperclass students reacquaint themselves with campus life and “meet” the first-years, who are kept busy by an array of University-sponsored activities. Prime time to drink copious amounts of alcohol amid nighttime mosh pits in the eating clubs’ backyards. In recent years, actual Frosh have been banned. You can thank the Class of 2022 (and the pandemic, if you’ve heard of it). See “McCosh.”
FYRE, abbrev. First-Year Residential Experience. A group of “required” assemblies and zee group meetings that begin during orientation, and end sometime during first semester. Cover important topics such as diversity and inclusion.
GGarden Theatre, Princeton, n. Community theater. Shows mostly artsy films as well as a few big-budget flicks. Good first date. Occasionally offers free movies for students sponsored by USG.
Graduate College, the. n. Commonly called the “Grad College.” A mythical castle across the golf course behind Forbes rumored to be inhabited by those they call “graduate students.” Undergrads like to climb its tower to take pictures of the view and eat in its dining hall on Thursday nights, when dinner features specialty food stations with made-to-order sesame noodles, quesadillas, etc. See “D-bar.”
Grade deflation, n. Former university policy to limit A’s in courses to 35 percent of grades per department. Although the official policy ended, its residual effects still exist on campus. Extremely controversial and a source of many a dining hall debate and Princeton’s unofficial motto, “It would’ve been an A at Harvard.”
Graduate student, n. An individual smart enough to translate Kierkegaard into 14 languages but mostly isolated from campus life. Many are forced to live roughly one mile from central campus.
GSRC, abbrev. Gender and Sexuality Resource Center. Name is self-explanatory. Located in Frist. Replaced centers formerly known as the Women*s Center and LGBT Center.
HHA, abbrev. Historical Analysis. Distribution requirement that can be fulfilled by, you guessed it, a history class.
Head, n. Faculty member who acts as den mother or father for the first-years and sophomores in the residential colleges. Hoagie Haven, n. A Princeton institution,
best known for catering to the late night wishes of drunken eating club go-ers. Now with earlier closing times, the small hoagie shop on Nassau Street still serves up sandwiches filled with things like french fries, chicken tenders, multiple burger patties, and buffalo sauce, often in combination. Tied with Wawa for the most dangerous of drunk-food destinations.
Holder Howl, n. A moment of collective campus catharsis at midnight each Dean’s Date when students gather in Holder Courtyard in Rocky to release a primal scream of fear and frustration. See “Dean’s Date.”
Honor Code, n. Institution through which University exams are policed. Students sign pledges agreeing not to cheat on exams and to turn in those who do. Taken very seriously. See “Committee on Discipline.”
Hookup culture, n. A semi-significant feature of the social scene which is the topic of significant online debate.
Hose, v. To render helpless. Most often done to rejected Bicker prospects, who are hosed at their doorstep. Fraternities, sororities, and a cappella groups hose, but don’t worry — a literal hose is typically not involved. See “Bicker.”
Houseparties, n. Pseudo-bacchanal scheduled for the weekend after the end of spring semester classes. With theses complete and exams two weeks distant, eating clubs host wine-filled formal and semiformal dinners. The only ones who have it bad are juniors finishing (starting) their JPs and first-year males, who aren’t invited.
II-banking, nickname, investment banking. banking. What many of your classmates will go on to do. Similar to consulting in its level of money and level of pointlessness. ICC, abbrev. Interclub Council. Group made up of the 11 eating club presidents. Coordinates relations between Prospect Avenue, the municipality, and the University.
Independent, adj. n. Upperclass student who joins neither an eating club nor a University dining facility. By graduation, they’re either a great connoisseur of Princeton’s restaurants, a great cook, or a great mooch. Many live in Spelman Hall.
Interactor, n. Upperclass B.S.E. student who helps advise B.S.E. first-years, especially at the beginning of the year. Periodically checks in and hosts study breaks.
Ivy Club, n. Bicker club with a reputation for elitism, mahogany, and international students. Its women’s bathroom may be the most photographed part of Princeton, after Blair Arch. Ivy Inn, n. The one and only “bar” in Princeton. Right near Hoagie Haven. Definitely “end of the night” vibes.
JJadwin Gymnasium, n. Gym for varsity athletes and
sports located far, far down-campus, informally called “Jadwin.” Site of varsity basketball games. Not Jadwin Hall.
Jadwin Hall, n. An academic building south of Fine Hall that contains the physics department. Not Jadwin Gymnasium.
Jam, n. An event at which one or more a cappella groups sing, commonly under an arch.
JP, abbrev. junior paper. Lengthy independent work for juniors meant to prepare them for the senior thesis. Some departments require one; most require two. Tragic reminder of impending mortality.
KKeller Center, n. Center located near the E-quad that sponsors events, classes, and programming related to entrepreneurship and innovation. Stop by before you drop out to work on your start-up full-time.
Kiddie lit, nickname, ENG 385: Children’s Literature. 385: Children’s Literature. Perennially over-enrolled course that people think will be an easy LA. Beware — it’s quite large and grades are heavily deflated.
LLA, abbrev. Literature and Arts, a category of your distribution requirements. See “kiddie lit.”
Late meal, n. The only thing that makes upperclass students jealous of first-years. In theory, an option for students who miss dining hall meal times. In practice, free noms and mixers See “Frist.”
Lawnparties, n. Afternoon drink-a-thon and dance-a-thon on the lawn of each eating club, held in early fall and at the end of spring Houseparties. Known for importing great bands and creating a massive influx of sundresses on Prospect Avenue. Traditionally, an explosion of preppy clothing.
LCA, abbrev. Lewis Center for the Arts. Beautiful, modern building complex that serves as Princeton’s home for the arts. Safe haven for theater kids.
Lectures, n. pl. Oft-missed speeches by professors that constitute the foundation of the
Princeton education. Try to attend a couple so you can tell your parents that you are making the most of their tuition dollars.
Lewis Library, n. Large, modern science library located down-campus across Washington Road. Its treehouse floor is an especially popular study spot featuring many windows. List, n. Method that bicker clubs use to determine who can enter for a night out. What first-years and sophomores agonize about getting onto. Why juniors and seniors in these clubs get texts from younger students they barely know.
Listserv, n. The reason your Gmail app continuously gives you notifications. A main line of communication between campus groups and their members. Most common iterations include your res college listserv, filled with messages ranging from dance group ticket sales to political manifestos, and the free food listserv, which is exactly what it sounds like.
Lot 32, n. Parking lot located just outside of campus, far down Elm Road, where your upperclass friends’ cars are located.
MMathey College, n. Residential college located just south of Rocky. A collection of loosely associated buildings with no central quad. Shares a large, picturesque dining hall with Rocky.
McCosh Hall, n. A large, sprawling series of lecture halls up-campus in which many of your introductory-level large lecture classes will be held. Also features smaller seminar rooms mainly used by the English and History departments. Desks are small, cramped, and wooden; bathrooms are difficult to find. Site of the infamous bat incident, where a bat caused an interruption so large that an Econ lecture ended early.
McCosh, abbrev. McCosh Health Center. 1. n. Located just south of Frist. You go here when you’re too drunk to go to your room but not drunk enough for the hospital. Areas of expertise: mono and asking women if they’re pregnant. 2. v. Sending your too-drunk friend to the infirmary, or getting sent yourself. Usage: “We had no choice but to McCosh him,” or “Frosh week was so messy, I got McCoshed.”
McCosh Walk, n. Walkway extending from University Place on the west to Washington Road on the east. If there weren’t hills, you’d be able to see clear from one end of campus to the other. Features many puddles. Stop by around 4:55 p.m. on Dean’s Date to watch your friends sprint.
McGraw, abbrev. McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning. Academic support center that offers one-on-one and group tutoring for many introductory courses, as well as other resources for students. Located in Frist. Also a good study spot.
Murray Dodge, n. Free cookies and tea but be prepared to hand over your prox as collateral. Also don’t forget to wash your own mugs once you’re done. Try the matcha tea cookies if you dare. This place is an extremely popular study spot, so go at off-peak times if you want to get a seat.
NNARP, n. Non-athletic regular person. We are here and we are proud.
Nassau Herald, n. Princeton yearbook containing only the senior photos. To get all the other stuff you associate with yearbooks, you have to shell out some extra cash for the Bric-aBrac. See “Bric-a-Brac.”
Nassau Weekly, n. Also “the Nass.” A weekly tabloid co-founded in the early 80s by a dude who now runs The New Yorker. Known for humorous “Verbatim” section, which is filled with random overheard quotes from around campus, and for printing other random musings. See “WPRB,” “St.A’s.”
netID, n. The part of your email address preceding “@princeton.edu” and your username for most campus websites.
New York City, n. Just an hour-and-a-half train ride away. Sometimes certain classes take you there for free.
NCW, abbrev. New College West. One of Princeton’s newest pair of residential colleges. Located at the far-southern end of campus. Not yet named for a donor. Has a Coffee Club and a ceramics studio. See “Yeh College.”
Nude Olympics, n. Sophomore rite of passage banned in 1999 as part of an effort to reduce drunken revelry. Celebrated by running
naked through Holder Courtyard at midnight on the night of each year’s first snowfall.
OOA, abbrev. Outdoor Action. Week-long pre-orientation program that sends half of the incoming class into the woods to get dirty and make friends. There’s no action on Outdoor Action, but there’s always frosh week to get to know a new friend even better.
ODUS, abbrev. Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students. Oversees campus organizations, undergraduate student government, and various student centers. A source of funding for your student group.
OIT, abbrev. Office of Information Technology. Controls the University’s computer and Internet systems. Runs a tech clinic in Frist. Old Nassau, 1. phrase. Nickname for Princeton University, derived from Nassau Hall. 2. n. School song.
Orange Key, n. Campus tour-guiding group. Don’t believe everything they told you on your tour.
Orange and Black Ball, n. Campus-wide ball resurrected after a decades-long absence. Lots of finger food. Similar to prom. Orgo, abbrev. CHM 301/302: Organic Chemistry. Soul-killer. Separates the kids from the doctors.
PPAA, abbrev. Peer Academic Adviser. Student available to give first-years academic advice. Shows up sparingly at zee group study breaks.
Pace Center, n. Civic engagement powerhouse on campus that encompasses Community House and the Student Volunteers Council. Sponsors Breakout trips during school breaks and distributes large amounts of money for service projects. See “Breakout trips.”
Palmer Square, n. Town square located just across Nassau Street from the University. Home to preppy stores, specialty boutiques, and townies.
Patton, Susan, n. An alumna of the Class of 1977 who wrote an infamous Letter to the Edi-
tor to this paper discussing advice she would give to her daughter, namely her belief that Princetonian women should “find a husband on campus before [they] graduate.” Draw your own conclusions.
PAW, abbrev. Princeton Alumni Weekly. The nation’s fourth-oldest weekly magazine, published by the Alumni Association, far less than weekly.
Pay with Points, n. A very new USG initiative that gives underclassmen $150 a semester to spend at an ever-growing list of restaurants in town. Frequently (and deeply incorrectly) referred to as Paw Points.
P/D/F, abbrev. pass/D/fail. Grading option developed to facilitate a true liberal arts education. Designed to allow students to take a class that expands their horizons with the guarantee that their GPA won’t tank. Unless you get a D. Or fail. See “distribution requirements.”
PEV, abbrev. Personal electric vehicle. What the University calls electric scooters, which are banned on campus as of December 2023. If you bring one to campus, it will likely be confiscated while you’re in lecture, beware! While electric bikes should be a part of this policy, it’s not enforced — seriously, watch out, they’ll run you over. See “P-Safe.”
Pequod, n. 1. Fictional ship in Herman Melville’s “Moby Dick.” 2. Outrageously expensive photocopied packets of required reading that often resemble the whale. Promised to become free during every USG election. Don’t hold your breath. Found in the U-Store.
Physics for Future Leaders, actual name of PHY 115A. name of PHY 115A. A physics course explicitly designed to introduce non-scientists to just enough science to ostensibly be able to make decisions. Future leaders who are also scientists should seek an actual education elsewhere. See “P/D/F.”
Pickups, n. pl. Nights on which Princeton’s many, many selective clubs and organizations greet new members by showering them with champagne, Silly String, etc. in their dorm rooms and then taking them elsewhere for revelry.
PMC, abbrev. Princeton Medical Center. The destination you absolutely don’t want to end up after a night out. Getting PMCed is a much more expensive alternative to getting McCoshed. See “McCosh,” “boot.” 2. Princeton Model Congress. Event for high schoolers, staffed by students who get to stay in D.C. for free. Not to be confused with the former.
PMT, abbrev. Princeton Mock Trial. A very competitive traveling competition team, that’s a little bit cultish. If your friend joins, you will likely never see them again on the weekends. See “Cap & Gown Club.”
Poe Field, n. Large oval field at the far southern end of campus where club and intramural sports teams hold practices, sunbathing frequently occurs, and barbecues are sometimes held. See “Alexander Beach.”. Shut down for construction and closed until 2026.
P-Rade, n. Annual procession of ridiculously spirited, multi-generational alumni sporting black-and-orange costumes. Takes place at the end of Reunions. See “alumni,” “Reunions.”
Pre-med, n. A student hoping to go to medical school. Generalized anxiety and cutthroat behavior varies per person.
Precept, n. Discussion between a small group of students and a preceptor (a grad student or faculty member) to supplement lectures. A unique feature of Princeton’s education system inaugurated by Woodrow Wilson. Vary widely in quality. Never truly mandatory. Prefrosh, n. What you are until you arrive on campus.
Pregame, 1. n. Name for any gathering held prior to a night out on the Street. Usually a source of hard liquor. Usage: “birthday pregame,” “frat pregame.” 2. v. To consume drinks at a party held on campus prior to a night out on the Street. Usage: “Let’s pregame at John’s birthday party before heading to T.I.” Princeton, n. 1. The University to which you have committed the rest of your life (including your future earnings). 2. The affluent suburban town in which your blissful Orange Bubble is located.
Princetoween, n. The night on which all of campus collectively celebrates Halloween, irrespective of the actual date. Typically the Thursday before Fall Break.
Prospect, abbrev. 1. Prospect House. Formerly the University president’s home in the middle of campus. Now a faculty dining hall and the site of end-of-semester fancy dinners for various organizations. 2. Prospect Garden. The gardens surrounding Prospect House; popular venue for Houseparties photos. 3. Prospect Avenue, a.k.a the Street. 4. The Prospect, the ‘Prince’ section for arts, culture, and stu-
dent life.
Prospect 12, n. The ultimate drinking challenge: one beer at every eating club in one night. A favored item on senior bucket lists. Most commonly conquered on Princetoween or Dranksgiving. Although only 11 clubs are operational, the 12th is Campus Club.
Prox, 1. n. Common name for PUID, or the Princeton University TigerCard. 2. v. To unlock a door by holding your PUID close to an electronic sensor. Usage: “Could you prox me in?”
See “PUID.”
P-Safe, abbrev. Public Safety. University cops responsible for regulating parking, ignoring room parties, and opening doors for lockedout students.
PTL, abbrev. Post-Thesis Life. The time of year after seniors have turned in their thesis, but before graduation, where they have no responsibilities in life. A time well spent but poorly remembered.
PUID, n. 1. Your University ID. Your key to admission at the library, sporting events, and eating clubs. Can be used to charge food purchases to your student account. Eating club members sport special stickers on theirs. 2. Method sign-in clubs use to determine who can enter during nights out. In this case, if you’re a student and have a PUID, you’re good.
See “prox.”
QQCR, abbrev. Quantitative and Computational Reasoning, a distribution requirement that forces humanity students to do math again.
Quadrangle Club, n. Sign-in club commonly known as “Quad.” It’s the club with the best drinks because it has a license to serve hard liquor. The eating club Jeff Bezos ’86 belonged to.
RRCA, abbrev. Residential college adviser. An upperclass student who lives in your hall and provides free food (see “study break”), condoms, and answers to questions like what to do when your roommate hasn’t showered in five weeks. See “Zee group.”
Reading period, n. Week and a half to catch up on work at the end of each semester. Originally intended as time to do independent research, it is now a time to sleep in until 2 p.m. and to read and write everything you haven’t in the past semester. Dean’s Date happens at the end.
Recal.io, n. Website students use to plan their courses for each semester. Has all possible courses and precepts so students can optimize their classes.
Residential college, n. Your home at Princeton for at least your first two years of college. There are now seven residential colleges on campus: Rocky, Mathey, Butler, First, Whitman, Forbes, Yeh, and New College West. Each college varies greatly in amenities, types of rooms, and location, but they all provide a sense of community, and more importantly, a source of free gear.
Residential College Facebook, n. Great, value-brand Tigerbook, since its apparent collapse. See “Tigerbook.” Easiest way to stalk your peers.
Residential college staff, n. Well-meaning faculty members who work for your residential college and have varying degrees of helpfulness. Skilled at clogging your email inbox. Includes the Head of College, Dean of College, Director of Studies, and Director of Student Life. Reunions, n. Beer-saturated gathering of alumni during the weekend before Commencement for drinking, fellowship, and the P-Rade. Good excuse for students to delay returning home for a week at the end of the year. Reportedly the event with the second-highest level of alcohol consumption, after only the Indy 500. See “P-Rade.”
Richardson Auditorium, n. Enormous performance hall located up-campus across from Blair Arch. Rival, n. What Princeton lacks as the third wheel in HYP. What Penn thinks we are. Rocky College, abbrev. Rockefeller College. Northernmost residential college known for gorgeous Gothic architecture. Rocks for Jocks, nickname. GEO 103: Natural Disasters. See “P/D/F.”
RoMa, nickname. Rockefeller/Mathey College dining hall. Looks like the Great Hall in Harry Potter; both were modeled after Oxford. Room draw, n. Computerized process by which students select rooms for the upcoming year. Conspiracy theories abound about the
supposed randomness of the process: People with high social security numbers, third letters of their last names near the end of the alphabet, and Minnesota addresses may receive better times.
Route 1, n. A large, divided road about a fiveminute drive from campus along which realworld institutions like movie theaters, malls, Walmarts, discount liquor stores, and chain restaurants can be found. Proof that you are, in fact, in New Jersey.
Rush, v. To move very quickly toward something. n. 1. An aquatic plant. 2. A process you are forbidden to know anything about. Shhh.
SSA, abbrev. Social Analysis. Distribution requirement that can be fulfilled by a large variety of courses in the realm of humanities and social science.
Safety school, 1. n. Yale, Harvard, Penn, etc. 2. phrase. Popular chant at basketball games regardless of opponent.
SEL, abbrev. Science and Engineering with Lab, a self-explanatory distributional requirement. See “Bridges.”
SEN, abbrev. Science and Engineering, Nonlaboratory, a self-explanatory distribution requirement. See “Physics for Future Leaders.”
Sexile, v. To render your roommate homeless after a successful date or night out. Etiquette in case of sexile should be discussed with your roommate ASAP.
Shared meal plan, n. A system by which one can be a member of both an eating club and a residential college, with meals split between the two. Also known as the dream. The number of slots available vary widely by club.
Sign-in club, n. Eating club that takes members through a lottery system rather than Bicker. Also has convoluted variants. See “Charter.” Squirrel, n. A furry friend and foe. Cute when scurrying around campus. Pesky when scavenging in your dorm room. Scary when rabid. Not scared of people. Comes in brown, gray, and black varieties.
Sororities, n. pl. Groups of women who gather together to take pictures in dresses and “network.” There are only three at this school: Kappa Kappa Gamma (“Kappa”), Pi Beta Phi (“Pi Phi”), and Kappa Alpha Theta (“Theta”). Firstyears are not allowed to rush Greek organizations. It may be your ticket into a bicker club, or a way for people to instantly stereotype you.
SPIA, abbrev. School of Public and International Affairs. Formerly selective concentration for students interested in becoming bankers or consultants and learning the language of bureaucracy, as well as those rare folk who actually do want to save the world through government (but will probably end up in banking or consulting).
SPIA fountain, n. Idyllic fountain and pool located in Scudder Plaza, north of Robertson Hall. The entire student body can be found taking photos here pre-Lawnparties. Popular wading spot in the spring, especially after SPIA theses are submitted. Beware of skateboarders.
Stars for Stoners, nickname. AST 203: The Universe. Purported to actually be a somewhat difficult class involving actual equations. See “P/D/F.”
St. A’s, n. “Secret” literary society with unclear purpose and unknown meaning. See “Ivy Club,” “the Nass.”
Street, the, nickname. Prospect Avenue, home of the eating clubs and center of University nightlife.
Studio 34, n. Late-night convenience store in the basement of Butler College known for its French bread pizzas.
Study break, n. Code for free food. At any given time, there is a high chance some study break is happening around campus. Most common benefactors of study breaks include res colleges, RCAs, and clubs.
TTerrace Club, n. Sign-in club known for artsy types, vegans and stoners. Popular endof-night stop for all of campus. The only eating club not actually located on Prospect Avenue. Thesis, n. The T word. Major senior pastime, required of every A.B. student and some B.S.E. students. Most are close to 100 pages. Often replaces socialization, exercise, happiness, etc. in the spring.
T.I., abbrev. Tiger Inn. Bicker club known for raucous, beer-soaked parties and heavy preponderance of bros.
Tiger, n. 1. Princeton student or athlete. 2. Mascot dressed in tiger-skin suit who capers
and cavorts at football games while trying to avoid attacks by the opponent’s band. 3. Campus humor magazine of erratic quality and publication schedule. 4. Striped predatory jungle cat.
Tiger Confessions, n. Facebook page run by an anonymous student where students can submit any thoughts, questions, ideas, etc. they have. Keeps getting shut down, but keeps returning in slightly different iterations. Like a cat, it seems to have nine lives.
Tigerbook, n. Database containing every Princeton student and information such as their class year, major, and most importantly, a photo. The single-most useful tool you will encounter in your time at Princeton. Not always operational. For an alternative, see “Residential College Facebook.”
TigerHub, n. Poorly named and poorly designed software to fulfill administrative duties such as enrolling in courses and checking grades. Have to reload the page three times before it works.
Tower Club, n. Bicker club known for firstyear-friendly dance floor and taproom, as well as heavy preponderance of theater types, a cappella groups, and SPIA majors.
Triangle Club, n. Undergraduate musical theater group that writes and stages an annual extravaganza of song, slapstick and dance. Famous for the drag kickline and alumnus Jimmy Stewart ’32.
Twenty-One (21) Club, n. Secret drinking organization founded in 1881, composed of 42 male juniors and seniors who consume 21 beers in 42 minutes at an annual contest. Members are culled from bicker clubs, fraternities, and sports teams.
UUSG, abrrev. n. Undergraduate Student Government. A group of aspiring politicians who are responsible for the multiple free orange t-shirts shoved into the back of your dresser.” Up-campus, adj. n. Located on the part of campus closer to Nassau Street, up the hill. Begins around Dillon Gym and extends through Rocky. Synonym: “north.” Usage: “From here, go up-campus to find Brown.” U-Store, n. Officially, the Princeton University Store. Located at 36 University Place, across from Blair Arch. Sells food, dorm items, and school supplies. Overpriced, but great location.
WVWa, The, n. Campus colloquialism for the Wawa convenience store. Located between the Dinky and Forbes. Popular late night meal spot, but prepare to wait an egregious amount of time on nights out.
Whig-Clio, abbrev. The American WhigCliosophic Society. Centuries-old debate society that hosts such topical events as the Annual Latke versus Hamantaschen Debate. Whitman College, n. Residential college that bears a striking resemblance to the castle in Shrek. As the newest college, built in 2007, it has air conditioning and very nice rooms.
WPRB, n. Student-run, community-supported independent radio station located in the basement of Bloomberg Hall. See “Terrace Club.”
Writing Center, n. Single-handedly responsible for helping first-years survive writing sem. Offers individual appointments to help at any point in the writing process.
X
Y
Yeh College, n. One of Princeton’s newest pair of residential colleges. Located on the farsouthern end of campus. Hybrid Dr. SeussSoviet architecture. See “New College West.”
Z
Zee group, abbrev. Group of advisees. The 20 or so first-years frequently found under the wing of a residential college adviser. May or may not become close friends over the course of the year. Statistically, at least one permutation within the group will hook up.
‘We Can Fix Princeton’: Inside TIGER, the University’s new geoexchange facility
By Raphaela Gold Associate Features Editor
When I toured the West Energy Plant last year, Energy Plant Manager Ted Borer promised that he’d show me the new energy plant when it was complete. Borer stayed true to his word, and just over a year later, I found myself striding past Prospect St. and down Broadmead St. on a chilly February afternoon to see the building for the first time.
After greeting me at the door, which was surrounded by wood paneling and emblazoned with the name “T.I.G.E.R.” in bold white lettering, Borer and his colleague Saurabhi Mishra led me down a hallway to a bright conference room. Borer noted that this room was a space specifically meant for conversations like ours.
For the first time in history, Princeton is producing a portion of its energy more efficiently than before and sometimes without the combustion of natural gas. This feat is made possible with the help of pipes 70 stories deep, two thermal energy storage tanks that can hold around 4.5 Olympic-sized swimming pools each, and TIGER, the affectionately dubbed and recently constructed Thermally Integrated Geo-Exchange Resource building.
“I can’t tell you how many times already people have come for talks and presentations,” he said.
According to Borer, some U.S. government agencies have already expressed interest in visiting the plant, and this past January, Princeton’s campus caught the attention of the New York Times.
Entering the building, we took our seats at either end of a long table as Borer allowed me to question him for over an hour about what had changed since our interview last year. As it turned out, there were many developments to catch up on.
Over the past year, the team has continued to install geo-exchange bores across campus, under East Garage, Hobson College, Meadows Softball Field, Poe Field, Roberts Stadium, and Whitman Lawn. The bores are about six inches in diameter and 850 feet deep.
“That’s equivalent to a 70 story building,” said Borer, comparing the length to 30 Rockefeller Center in New York. “It’s just a really deep hole.”
Each hole houses HDPE vertical piping which doubles back on itself at the bottom to create two parallel
pipes. These act as the arteries of the geo-exchange circulatory system. So far, about 1000 bores have been installed. By 2033, Borer expects that they will total 2000.
Through these bores flows water which circulates through larger pipes in the TIGER facility. We would take a closer look at these pipes later in the tour, but first, Borer took me into the control room and introduced me to Dave Sousa, the plant operator.
Sousa was watching the temperature cursors on a screen to maintain the proper levels of cold and hot water. He explained the information he was seeing on the screen in real time. “He’s thinking about reliability … making sure students get what they need,” explained Borer.
The system operates as a thermal piggy bank. In the summer, the system draws heat from buildings into water, which is sent underground through piping to gradually warm subterranean rock. When the weather gets cold, the system pumps the heated water up through pipes to warm the buildings once more.
Although the system heats and cools the ground on an annual cycle, Princeton has a continuous need for both heating and cooling year-round, regardless of outside temperature. Even on the coldest day of February, the University extracts heat released from lasers, electron microscopes, CT scan machines, and computer facilities. Likewise, stored heat must be delivered for activities like handwashing, showering, and dishwashing despite the warmth of August weather.
In other words, plant operators like Sousa must balance satisfying the campus’ immediate needs and heating the daily thermal storage tank. Anything left over is stored in the seasonal system.
The control panel provides Sousa with the information on the automated process; though, he also occasionally needs to step in and change something.
After chatting with Sousa, we were finally ready to see the pipes in the equipment room. The conference room had been quiet, but as we neared the heart of the facility, the steady whirring of machinery crescendoed, and I noticed a faint rubbery scent. If I hadn’t known better, I would have assumed I was gazing upon an indoor waterpark full of twisting, vibrantly colored slides.
Borer explained the plant’s simple
color coding system as I soaked it all in. The green pipes contain chilled water going out to campus and back. The blue pipes are going down to the geo-exchange field and back. Finally, the orange pipes carry hot water out to campus and back.
Each pipe is marked with a sticker bearing a “secret code,” with abbreviations and numbers that the plant staff can understand.
At one point, Borer asked me to feel the metal attached to a pipe. The pipe is insulated, but a bit of heat escapes. Because there is always some hot water going through the system, it was warm to the touch — probably 105 or 110 degrees, Borer estimated.
Borer explained that the water going through the pipes also travels through daily thermal storage tanks, which are located outside, adjacent to TIGER. Each tank holds 2.2 million gallons of water. This water serves as energy storage media, meaning that the water is heated and cooled, but not gained or lost. “It’s a closed system. That is important,” Borer noted.
Borer pointed out an air-dirt separator pointing into a drain in the floor, which filters debris particles out of the water and pumps any solids through the drain out of the plant. It looked like a wide vacuum, but one which ejects particles outwards rather than sucking them in.
If any of this equipment breaks or needs repair, the plant staff can open the glass walls, manufactured with built in fritting to protect against bird collisions, so that a new piece of equipment can easily be installed, while the old one is removed.
Borer noted that it was difficult to source many of these materials, as the geo-exchange technology is so new. The facilities team looked “all over the world and certainly all over the country for the right things and the right skill sets to install them. It’s not like [they] just went to Home Depot,” said Borer.
Additionally, acquiring the materials was expensive. Though he couldn’t tell me exactly how much, Borer confirmed that the combined systems cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and it is as of now unclear how much of that will be incentivized by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The University is still working with outside counsel and tax advisors on what they can and can’t claim under the IRA. According to Borer, the cost could swing 30–40 percent based on
the answers to those questions.
The geo-exchange installation continues despite these challenges, and, even after it is fully in use, the University will continue to maintain its cogeneration plant. The two plants will ultimately operate in tandem.
In the past, the cogeneration plant has played a crucial role during severe weather events, allowing the University to continue operating even when the regional power grid failed. “Because we had on-site cogeneration, we were able to be a place of refuge to the community,” Borer explained. He added that because of climate change, the University needs to be prepared for more storms in the future.
This might involve buying generators that run on diesel, one of the most polluting forms of fuel. Therefore, though Borer knows that the University needs on-site, controllable power generation, he hopes to run it as infrequently as possible. “If I run the diesel generator or something like that 100 hours a year, it will save us money, and then I can have it during the next horrendous weather event,” he explained.
One significant difference between the cogeneration plant and TIGER is a shift in architectural ethos. While the cogeneration is housed in an unassuming “concrete block and metal siding,” the University wanted TIGER to stand out aesthetically to mark the importance of what it housed. Borer remembers working in a Philadelphia power plant that was built in the 1920s. He recalls soaring windows that let in the light, mahogany railings, and a restaurant up over the turbine hall floor where you could see power for a whole city being generated.
“It was exciting back then,” Borer explained. “So now we have this new and novel and exciting and dynamic thing, and we wanted people to look at it and say: look how impressive this thing is and to learn what best practices in energy look like.”
Although the system is still far from complete, many buildings are already running on the district hot water system, including New College West, Yeh College, Bloomberg Hall in Butler, Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Thomas Laboratory, Carl Icahn Laboratory, Jadwin Gym, and Caldwell House. A part of Dillon Gym is also connected, and soon, the Art
Museum will be as well.
Though the first month’s report has not yet been published, Borer reported that the plant’s performance “looks amazing.” When Borer predicted what the plant’s coefficient of performance would be last year, he expected it would be around four. Right now, according to Borer, it’s measuring between 4.5–5.
“That means we’re delivering to this campus 4.5 times the energy we’re putting into the plant,” Borer explained. He expects the plant will do even better this summer, adding, “I cannot dream of seven, but it might be as high as six. Come back and ask me!”
Though Borer enjoys the aesthetic of the plant and spending time in the new TIGER, his favorite part of his job is looking at spreadsheets. “I’m such a nerd,” he joked, then explained “This is not theoretical, this is not a research project. We can do this on a community scale. We can do this for 15,000 people. What I want to do now is show that this is also financially attractive.” Borer’s spreadsheets help him work towards the goal.
Borer is intent on sharing this technology and its possibilities outside of Princeton. “We can fix Princeton,” he said. “But what I want to do, and what many of us want to do, is make a bigger impact.” He hopes that in the future, Princeton can help peer institutions learn how to “walk this path.”
As the tour came to a close, we took a moment to step back and look around the equipment room one last time. The machinery was still gently whirring, and a green light glowed at the top of a four-light system, indicating that all was well, and the plant was safe.
When Borer reflects on the progress the team has made, he said that he feels very proud. He emphasized that the project was a team effort, involving hundreds of people, and to see it finally performing well is “super exciting.”
He added, “The bigger context is we’re trying to get Princeton to carbon neutrality, and we’re trying to get others to carbon neutrality. This is showing: ‘Yeah, you can do that.’”
Raphaela Gold is the associate Features editor and a head Archives editor.
RAPHAELA GOLD / DAILY PRINCETONIAN Energy Plant Manager Ted Borer explains the screens in the control room.
‘Translating
and
transcribing
knowledge’:
The
collaborative effort to make Princeton’s Mesoamerican collection open-access
By Synai Ferrell
Three floors under Firestone Library in Special Collections, a group of Princeton first-year students are translating a collection of largely untouched documents from Nahuatl — an endangered, indigenous Mesoamerican language — into English.
In 1949, Robert Garrett, Class of 1897, donated 18 Mesoamerican manuscripts and documents to the Princeton University Library (PUL). Spanning from the 16th to 20th centuries, the donation included pictorial manuscripts, maps and land documents written in Latin, Spanish, and Nahuatl, an Aztec language native to the Nahua people of central Mexico.
Since Garrett’s donation, PUL has now digitized 236 Mesoamerican items.
Many of these manuscripts have remained untranslated, until professor Nadia Cervantes Pérez, a lecturer in the department of Spanish and Portuguese and current instructor of FRS152: Translating Mesoamerica, recently began working on them last year.
In 2023, Pérez received a Magic Grant from the Humanities Council for her project, “Translating Mesoamerica: Learning about Indigenous Cultures through Princeton’s Nahuatl Documents from Colonial Mexico & Central America.”
Although Pérez does not identify as indigenous, she explained that she was interested in learning more about Nahua culture to understand her own Mexican heritage.
“I wanted to see what parts of my culture had those roots and how we still have them today,” Pérez said.
The goal of the project is to produce an open-access platform that provides contextual information about the Mesoamerican collection at Princeton University Library. Native speakers, postdoctoral researchers, and students will collaborate to create content for the platform.
“I’m trying not to be the one that provides knowledge, but the one that learns with them,” Pérez explained.
The platform has served as the foundation for Pérez’s Translating Mesoamerica freshman seminar. In the course, students learn about how Spanish colonialism impacted indigenous communities of Mesoamerica, with a specific focus on Nahua people.
Although some students, like Amanda Hugas ’27, had never studied Nahua culture, readings have helped them to understand the history of colonialism in Mesoamerica.
“In the beginning of the semester, we would go over our readings that we’ve done. So we often have explored the relationship of what colonialism did to the Nahua culture, how it was affected, how it was transformed,” Hu-
gas said. “So we did lots of readings exploring that relationship between the conquistadors and the Nahua natives.”
Each week, students also engage with Mesoamerican archival materials in Special Collections to understand Nahua history.
For students like Alexandra Montgomery ’27, trips to Special Collections are essential to the learning experience.
“When you’re looking at these old manuscripts, it’s easy to assume that the little details don’t mean anything,” she explained. “But when you look closer at it, everything has a deeper cultural meaning behind it. It’s really cool to just look at a culture with a worldview that’s different from the Western worldview and analyze how that different worldview impacts everything about their systems of writing, their symbols, their language.”
According to Alanna Radlo-Dzur, a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Art and Archaeology, there are approximately 1 to 1.5 million Nahuatl speakers in Mexico and around the globe. As an endangered language, the revitalization of Nahuatl represents a “means of reclaiming sovereignty and expressing sovereignty for indigenous communities all over the Americas,” Radlo-Dzur explained.
This semester, students have been challenged to develop skills in transcribing and translating Nahuatl manuscripts.
“Nahuatl is completely different as a language from the Romance languages that a lot of people are familiar with. The whole grammatical structure is different. Some of the sounds don’t exist in romance languages,” Montgomery noted.
Nahuatl is an agglutinative language, which means that phrases that would require sentences in English can be expressed in one word in Nahuatl. Once a week, students learn and review Nahuatl grammar to help them understand Nahuatl manuscripts.
“It’s definitely a very different experience translating and transcribing knowledge. But it’s been really rewarding to figure it out in the class,” Montgomery added.
Additionally, students must research and analyze an archival object from Nahua civilization for the final group project.
Montgomery and Hugas are working on transcribing a Nahua land deed together. Other pairs will examine documents such as maps and the Bible.
“I’m really excited to look forward to the whole context of where these pieces came from, and how much we can discover,” Hugas said.
Pérez would like to teach more courses similar to Translating Mesoamerica in the future. “It would be interesting, and it would be useful if Princeton could offer classes in indig-
enous language as well,” she added. By examining Nahuatl manuscripts, students grasp the value of Nahua civilization that has been hidden by Spanish colonialism.
“I think it’s an incredibly important thing to learn as a college student because indigenous people, especially in the Americas, have been very erased from the public consciousness,” said Montgomery.
Over time, Westernization has decreased the visibility of indigenous cultures in Mesoamerica, but Translating Mesoamerica emphasizes “a change in attitude within the scholarly community of being able to recognize that other ways of knowing, understanding the world and our place in it are of equal value,” Radlo-Dzur explained.
For Hugas, Translating Mesoamerica has transformed her understanding of the role of indigenous culture in history and the importance of learning “how history is preserved and how people will look back on your culture hundreds of years from now.”
“More than anything I want students to take away to value respect and understand how important our cultural diversity is,” Pérez echoed.
Synai Ferrell is a contributing Features writer and staff Podcast writer at the ‘Prince.’
A Palestinian prime minister, at home in Princeton
By Miriam Waldvogel Associate News Editor
Salam Fayyad is fascinated by how Princeton works.
In the scope of the global political stage, Fayyad’s current title — a visiting senior scholar in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) — is one of the less significant roles he has held. His office, a second-floor suite in Bendheim Hall with plenty of beige wall still showing, gives few hints that he was once the secondmost powerful man in the Palestinian Authority.
Fayyad served as prime minister from 2007 to 2013, pursuing a reformist agenda that included improving security, strengthening the economy, and reducing corruption — a “technocratic revolutionary,” New Yorker writer David Remnick ’81 called him. His philosophy of “Fayyadism,” as it became known, centered around building the institutions of Palestinian government to achieve statehood. International observers noticed, and in 2011, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund declared that the Palestinians were ready.
But while he was widely respected by Western governments and many Israelis, Fayyad struggled with building a popular image at home, and he resigned in 2013 over policy friction with President Mahmoud Abbas.
In the aftermath, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman called Fayyad’s government “the best Palestinian peace partner Israel and the U.S. ever had.”
“Add another nail in the coffin of the two-state solution,” Friedman wrote at the time.
On Monday, the Palestinian Authority saw a major shakeup with the resignation of Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and the rest of the cabinet. Recent diplomatic efforts spearheaded by the United States have envisioned a revitalized authority that could govern post-war Gaza.
For all his prominent accomplishments on the international stage, Fayyad has remained a relatively unassuming figure on campus since coming to Princeton in 2017.
“You’d think that he’d have a bigger ego, but he really doesn’t,” Dan Kurtzer, the former United States ambassador to Israel, SPIA professor, and longtime friend of Fayyad, told The Daily Princetonian. “He’s shy in many respects.”
Having spent the better part of a decade in this small campus in New Jersey, Fayyad has immersed himself in the routine of Princeton life.
“I liked about Princeton its selfrunning character, the sense of things all systematized and happening when they’re supposed to happen,” he told the ‘Prince.’
In an hour-long interview, Fayyad remained focused on classically Princeton issues: student-centered campus conversation, civility, and institutional neutrality.
His adoption of the archetypal Princeton persona goes further. Like many of his colleagues, Fayyad himself was reluctant to directly engage on the issues of pro-Palestinian activism and protest that have embroiled American
college campuses since Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7.
“It’s not that I don’t have views. I don’t want to really get into this controversy,” he said. “I really would like to stay within the confines of the most strategic, longerterm conversation on this issue.”
What Fayyad means by longterm conversation is, quite literally, a conversation: the kind of lively but civil debate and discourse among students that universities are argued to be all about.
Creating that environment is another matter. For Fayyad, it starts with ensuring that administrators and professors remain neutral in order to avoid unfairly influencing student opinions. Because of this, he doesn’t teach classes specifically on Israel or Palestine at Princeton. Instead, he’s taught graduate courses on Afghanistan and the Arab Spring. His undergraduate class, SPI 322: Public Policy Issues in Today’s Middle East, focuses on public policy, capacity building, and economic development issues in the Middle East, with some focus on Arab states.
“This is how much I care about independent thought,” Fayyad told the ‘Prince.’ “No Israel-Palestine for me.”
“He was very upfront about the fact that it was not a class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on Palestinian affairs,” Jake Brzowsky ’21 said, who took Fayyad’s class in the spring of 2019. Brzowsky was Fayyad’s only undergraduate thesis advisee and served as student board president of the Center for Jewish Life during his time at Princeton.
“He was extremely accessible,” Brzowsky recalled. “He was always available to discuss whatever was on your mind or his mind or regardless of whether it was directly connected to the course content or the thesis topic.”
But for all his sincere focus on campus, Fayyad coming to Princeton was not originally in the cards. In 2017, he was tapped to serve as the United Nations special envoy to Libya. In an abrupt decision, Trump administration officials blocked the appointment — a move meant to bolster support with Israel.
Upon hearing this news, Kurtzer said, “It took about 15 seconds for me to pick up the phone and to call him and to ask whether or not he would want to come to Princeton, if the University was prepared to bring him on.”
Kurtzer had known Fayyad since 2002, when he was the United States ambassador to Israel and Fayyad was finance minister of the Palestinian Authority. The second intifada was near its peak, and the authority was strapped for cash due to the economic downturn and Israel’s withholding of tax revenues it normally collected for the Palestinian governing body.
Kurtzer recalled inviting Fayyad and a senior Israeli official over to his residence for lunch, a move that inaugurated “a couple months” of negotiations between the two sides. It was eventually agreed that the Palestinians would receive the tax revenue, but that an international auditor, paid for by the United States, would supervise its disbursement.
“It was so important that the agreement was based on trust,” Kurtzer said. “But when the two sides reached an agreement, they let [the U.S.] know that they no longer needed the international auditor because trust had been built up to a point where Israel was ready to start releasing the funds and was sure that Fayyad would disperse them properly.”
Fayyad’s voice on Palestine has remained sought-after internationally, especially after Oct. 7. He has written in Foreign Affairs about “day after” political plans for peace in Gaza, appeared on Christiane Amanpour’s CNN show on the future of Palestinian leadership, and spoke on the Ezra Klein Show about his statebuilding agenda.
Fayyad’s writings “haven’t just been academic pieces,” said Udi Ofer, an Israeli-American professor in SPIA who occasionally chats with Fayyad over coffee. “They have framed the way the State Department is thinking about these issues, the way thinkers and other academics are thinking about these issues.”
In January, Fayyad was even floated by several news outlets, including the New York Times, as a potential replacement for Abbas. However, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that he had not been approached about a potential Palestinian leadership role. Fayyad also recently told the Middle East-focused news site Al-Monitor that he is not involved in official “day after” discussions.
In the meantime, Fayyad has “thrown himself into Princeton life,” Kurtzer said. Fayyad lives in town and takes long walks around campus most mornings, “even if it’s sub-freezing,” he said.
In many ways, Fayyad seems truly compelled by Princeton and its student life — how they group together, how they learn, and what they talk about.
“I’m fascinated by how institutions function and how wedded to the status quo people become sometimes. That, in many ways, inhibits progress,” Fayyad said.
He generally observed that “students are happy here,” he said. “It was something that stands out. I haven’t changed my mind on it.”
“There’s something about the way the program is designed and the manner in which students are treated,” he added. “Students are made to feel the place is for them and about them.”
But Fayyad also expressed frustration with a perceived insularity among students centered around identity, especially in relation to controversial issues.
“People have a natural tendency to congregate around identity. There’s nothing wrong about that,” he said. “But if you do only that, that limits the scope for your intellectual, social, cultural development.”
“It could also sow the seeds of division, polarization,” Fayyad added, arguing that controversy sometimes develops from “people kind of taking positions that are more related to their identity than anything else.”
In order to foster discourse, Fayyad argued that University professors and administrators should maintain a fairly strict lev-
el of neutrality. He gave his own decision not to teach about Israel and Palestine as an example.
“I don’t think it’s really appropriate for me to teach my own experience,” Fayyad said. “Give the nature of leadership structures to [students], they begin to see things a little bit the way I tell the story, and that’s not very healthy.”
In the same vein, Fayyad expressed concern about University administrators issuing statements on broad issues outside campus.
“Why should there be the expectation that the University president issue a statement on a world issue, a crisis?” he asked, adding, “When it’s not something you do for a living every day, you begin to wonder, why are we doing this?”
Among University administration, the most prominent voice on the conflict has been President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, who issued a short statement on Oct. 10, condemning Hamas’ attacks on Israel. In January, he addressed the conflict and its ramifications on campus in his State of the University letter, later drawing condemnation from some pro-Palestinian student activists for not commenting on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
At a recent meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Committee, Eisgruber said Oct. 7 was of “special historical significance and cruelty and I think that that warranted a statement of a rare kind.”
Fayyad said instead that University officials should be making efforts to reach out and converse with students in smaller settings.
“I’m talking about having lunch,” he said. “It’s amazing how much you will discover you can accomplish if you do things this way, as opposed to directive this, directive that, directive the other thing.”
While he doesn’t teach classes directly focused on the conflict, Fayyad himself has been a frequent guest speaker at University events on Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East over the years, including a panel with Kurtzer in the days after Oct. 7.
“That’s one way in which you can make students feel the place is about them,” Fayyad said about panels and speaker events.
Fayyad also stressed the importance of civil conversations.
“[There’s] nothing wrong with being passionate about things. For heaven’s sake, I am,” Fayyad said.
“But there needs to be civility.”
And compared to many of its peer institutions, the broad sweep of Princeton’s discourse seems to have been far milder, especially in the first weeks after Oct. 7. During that period, which included fall break, conversation on campus largely focused on vigils and mourning the dead and displaced. Events were hosted by the Center for Jewish Life (CJL), Princeton Chabad, the Alliance of Jewish Progressives (AJP), and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)
“On the whole, if you ask me, most certainly by comparison to what I saw and read about happening elsewhere, this is as orderly as it could have been,” Fayyad said, referring to Princeton’s climate.
At other campuses, the political
climate was far more contentious during that period. Columbia closed its campus to the public on Oct. 12 in response to competing pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protests. At Harvard, students who were allegedly affiliated with a controversial statement that called Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence had their names and faces displayed on a billboard truck that drove through campus; some later had social media profiles and hometown information published online.
Since then, Princeton has seen a number of protests in support of Palestine, which are typically greeted by smaller counter-protests in support of Israel. The most recent one drew hundreds of attendees. As of late, protests have shrunk down to within a hundred. Princeton’s protests have largely gone on without major disruptions — unlike at Columbia University, for example, where students attending a pro-Palestine protest in January were allegedly sprayed with a hazardous chemical.
At the recent meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Committee, pro-Palestinian student organizers protested Eisgruber’s comments on a petition to divest the University’s endowment from certain companies associated with Israel. But they did so silently, holding up signs with a green thumbs up or red thumbs down in response to his answers to student questions.
In contrast, last weekend at Stanford, pro-Palestinian student protestors disrupted a Family Weekend welcome session, interrupting the president and provost with chants like “Palestinian blood is on your hands.” Elsewhere, students have staged hunger strikes and organized sitins to demand their institutions act in support of Palestine.
However, “orderly does not mean not passionate, does not mean not vibrant, does not mean being introverted. It means exactly the opposite, but done in an orderly way,” Fayyad noted.
Of course, all this discourse isn’t just for the sake of discourse. “With this dialogue, I think you can really achieve enormous progress and cut the distance between you and the students,” Fayyad said.
The students — that was what Fayyad kept coming back to. Not himself, not administrators, not the wider conflict, but the students.
“He’s so humble,” Ofer said. He recalled hosting a documentary screening on campus about Fayyad’s work on Palestinian statehood as prime minister and inviting Fayyad to a question-and-answer session afterward. “[Fayyad] was like, ‘Sure, if you want to, but you know, why would people want to watch a documentary about me?’” Fayyad is not prime minister anymore. He’s on campus, and that’s exactly where he wants to be.
“Fewer speeches, more conversations. Fewer speeches, more conversations,” he repeated.
“How about that for a slogan?”
Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’
Princeton Pictures brings movie magic to campus
By Chloe Lau Staff Features Writer
“Film is the best artistic medium. It combines every aspect of art. It’s visual. It’s audible. But at its core, it’s human,” said Connor Odom ’26. Odom first got into film in fifth grade, when he acted in a small role in a short film. He transferred to Princeton in fall of 2022, after working for seven years full-time in the videography and film industry.
“I’ll never forget it,” he added. “It changed my life, being on set and seeing the whole operation around me — all the lighting, the directing, the energy.”
But upon arriving at Princeton, Odom found that there was “no film community on campus.”
“There were a lot of people that were across campus that had [an] interest in doing film,” Odom said, “but there wasn’t an outlet for that.”
Similarly, Hailey Mead ’24 had served as treasurer of Princeton Film Productions, but she said it dropped off in 2021 due to disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, however, when students flocked to the “Oppenheimer” filming in East Pyne courtyard, she realized lots of students were still interested in film.
Looking to rebuild the campus film community, Mead, Odom, and Kate Stewart ’25 founded Princeton Pictures (PPic) in the fall of 2023. Mead is the PPic president, and Odom is the vice president. Stewart is the co-director of PPic’s Princeton Film Festival in the spring. In its first year, the club has grown to approximately 150 members.
A production-based film club, PPic’s crew works hands-on with all the fundamentals of film production, from screenwriting, casting, and filming on set, to sound directing. In this way, PPic distinguishes itself from networkingfocused film clubs like Princeton in Hollywood or clubs focused on film screenings and reviews like the recently restarted Princeton Film Society. Before PPic, students gained hands-on experience through the Princeton Film Productions group, which last held a 48-hour film festival in December 2022.
“I would love to see in my lifetime more Princetonians be directors and writers,” Odom said. “And I think that starts with clubs like this existing and people having the chance to be on set.”
“We started at ground zero,” said Mead, who worked to start PPic as her entrepreneurship certificate project. The team began with formulating the club’s infrastructure and processes and
focused outreach at activities fairs, social media, and word of mouth. In the fall, 25 students — serving as screenwriters, directors, producers, sound supervisors, and editors — produced two films: “Passenger” and “Paint Loss.”
Passenger
Eric Fenno ’25 wrote and directed the nine-minute film “Passenger,” a romance that follows a girl’s songwriting process to cope with her boyfriend’s car crash, with the narrative flashing between past and present.
“Combining music and visuals is something that I think is really interesting,” he said. “Music sets the tone and even provides characterization. It creates a whole atmosphere for the movie.”
Though Fenno had pursued small independent projects with friends or for classes, “Passenger” was the first time he had an entire crew behind him.
“It’s important to know that as much time as I spent working on this film, I didn’t make it,” he said. “There are so many different elements that I technically oversaw, but a lot of the time [I] left it to the people who were specialized in those areas. An army of us made it.”
Fenno came to understand all the “little things” to pay attention to during filmmaking: weather changes during outdoor scenes, motion alignment between takes of running shots, and the inference from unpredictable background noises such as a baby crying.
“It’s a lot of fun, but filmmaking is no joke,” Fenno said. But when everything comes together, he added, “You really get a sense of that movie magic.”
The “Passenger” director added that film as an art form makes him see beauty where he wouldn’t have found it before.
“There are so many stories or images you come across every day that can easily be dismissed as ordinary life or even negative,” Fenno said. “Film has allowed me to see a lot more of those things as beautiful stories or images. Especially around [campus], there’s so much to be seen and to be heard — it makes me really appreciate a lot of those things more than I would have.”
Paint Loss
Paige Morton ’25, an art and archeology major with a concentration in film and a varsity basketball player, started making YouTube videos when she was 14 years old and fell in love with video editing.
“When I got to college, I took a narrative filmmaking class,” Morton said, “and that really just changed my life. I really felt like I found what I love to do
in that class, and then I became a film major.”
Morton wrote and directed the original script of “Paint Loss,” a nine-minute comedy and horror film. The plot follows two girls in an art class about painting the people they grieve — Marilyn paints her missing boyfriend, who the second girl, Bonny, was holding hostage. Jealous of Marilyn’s boyfriend for being the best art student, Bonny held him hostage to produce a painting that would earn the approval of her art teacher.
“I had been thinking about horror movies, and I kind of wanted to put a little fun spin on them,” Morton said. “I also wanted to utilize the dark academia vibe [on campus] and the energy of the troubled psycho artist.”
When it came time for staging and production, Morton noted the “raw energy” on set. “Everyone’s kind of willing to do whatever it takes,” she said.
Morton said she was impressed by the openness of the PPic community, explaining, “There are people from all different experience levels, which is awesome. Receiving only a budget of $500 from ODUS, she noted, “We don’t have these crazy Hollywood budgets, so you have to be super creative with your limitations.”
As a first-time producer on “Paint Loss,” Mead gained insight into the collaborative process.
“I’ve learned to totally trust the people that I work with and trust the decisions that the directors make,” Mead said. “When I was on set for ‘Paint Loss,’ everybody was smiling and just having a really good time on set.”
The Premiere
The club’s most notable event was a
red-carpet premiere of the two studentproduced films on Dec. 12 in McCosh 10. Fancy attire was encouraged at the event, which included photographers and a Q&A with Morton and Fenno after the screening.
With a total of 220 attendees at the premiere, Morton remembered feeling very nervous, but noted that she still had a good time with her basketball team, friends, and film crew.
“It’s always scary to show your work in front of people,” she explained. “I’ve never really felt comfortable doing that, and I don’t think I will ever get chill about that. But overall, it was so fun.”
One of the attendees, Madison Linton ’24, said it was her first film premiere and that she was impressed by the contrast between the two films.
“The stark difference between the genres pulled a large group of people together,” Linton said.
“The amount of community that [PPic] have been able to build in just the past year has been incredible to be able to watch and experience,” she added.
“I’m really looking forward to what they produce next.”
Beyond the premiere, Odom and Mead share the larger goal of creating a supportive campus filmmaking community outside of an academic context. Odom explained that because film requires more technical equipment than other art forms, it requires more funding and is less accessible.
There is no official film major or minor on campus. Students can either major in Art and Archeology or minor in Visual Arts, with a concentration in film. Only 4–8 students are accepted as visual arts film minors every year.
“That’s kind of the problem,” he said.
“You have people like me, who have worked in the industry, who are applying against someone who is newer to the art form but has an actual interest in the art form, but won’t get the chance to do it because the department is so small.”
The VIS department did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication. The Daily Princetonian has previously reported on difficulties with high demand for VIS resources and funding.
As PPic looks ahead, Mead also emphasized staying faithful to the PPic’s DEI values while deciding on new scripts for production.
“[Our goal is] to have more diverse stories be told,” Mead said. “We are hoping to expand into new genres this semester and make sure we have a strong infrastructure to support that growth.”
This semester, PPic will be directing “Double Dash” and “The Reverie,” which are thriller and horror/mystery films, respectively. The club will host a Princeton Film Festival (PFF) instead of a premiere, which will take place over a few days in April to include more screening events and workshops.
Through PPic’s larger-scale initiatives, Odom said that his ultimate goal for PPic to be comparable to larger arts communities on campus, like theater and dance.
“A lot of things in museums are hard to identify with [on] a human level,” Odom said, “but movies and TV have this way of connecting to us on a human level that other art forms can’t.”
Chloe Lau is a staff Features writer for the ‘Prince.’
PHOTO BY MICHELLE TANG ’26.
Paige Morton ’25 leads the cast and crew of her directorial debut “Paint Loss.”
the PROSPECT. ARTS & CULTURE
Trenton Arts at Princeton ‘taps’ into local creative community
By Isabella Dail |
While Saturday mornings may be a quiet time around most of Princeton’s campus, the Lewis Center of the Arts is bustling with activity — and performers’ instruments. Every Saturday, buses congregate in front of the arts complex, dropping off Trenton middle and high school students for a morning of performances.
The weekly program, Saturday Morning Arts (SMArts), is a part of a larger organization called Trenton Arts at Princeton (TAP), a collaboration between the Department of Music, Lewis Center for the Arts, and Pace Center for Civic Engagement. SMArts, one of TAP’s most notable programs, brings together Princetonians and Trenton students through a shared love of the arts. On rehearsal days, the middle and high school students arrive in the morning, where they are provided with a quick breakfast to fuel hours of rehearsals. From then until the early afternoon, the students divide into one of four categories: dance, orchestra, choir, or theater. Princeton students involved in TAP assist in teaching the students and guiding their rehearsals.
Each week, a Princeton performance group also provides a demonstration. Previous performers have included the a cappella group the Nassoons, the chamber music group Opus, and the dance group eXpressions.
“I especially enjoy seeing the Trenton students interact because really special relationships are being built with the private teachers. Sometimes, I’ll have students there for four more years, and it becomes really special,” Princeton alum Lou Chen ’19, the current coordinator of TAP and director of the group’s orchestra, told the ‘Prince.’
As a sophomore, Chen founded the Trenton Youth Orchestra with Joseph Pucciatti, who directed the Trenton Central High School orchestra and bridged a connection between the high school and Princeton. The program began as a fledgling organization stationed in a small house in Trenton for at-risk youth. As it grew into Trenton Arts at Princeton, funding from the Department of Music, Lewis Center for the Arts, Pace Center for Civic Engagement, and Office of the Provost provided the opportunity to bus the highschoolers to campus and increase the staff. Chen acts in an administrative role in organizing TAP’s
programs, both fostering connections across campus and Trenton and training Princeton students. For Chen, these relationships are an essential part of his work.
“Seeing people interact, who otherwise maybe wouldn’t be interacting, because of the barriers that exist to getting people to Trenton or to Princeton, is very rewarding,” he said.
Princeton students have several opportunities to become involved in TAP. For students seeking a slightly less demanding commitment, there are options to meaningfully assist with SMArts that require less time. Students can volunteer to teach a group of students or, for a more personalized experience, students can lead individual workshops, where they work weekly with one student and build a personal rapport between musicians.
Students interested in taking a larger role within the organization can apply for a Trenton Arts fellowship, a paid student position within the organization. Fellows lead one of the four arts groups and participate in weekly meetings with their cohort. However, TAP is also flexible in engaging Princeton students who do not see a current role that suits their interests.
“If there is a need that you think you can fill, join our team. That’s how we’ve gotten some of our best students engaged. It’s because they were nontraditional fits for the program but found someplace where they could give help. And we’re always open to innovation,” Chen noted.
TAP is an opt-in program for both the college and high school participants, so all students involved have a passion for the arts and a commitment to the program. For Trenton Central High School students, TAP exists as a way to expand the skills that students already learn in school. Trenton Central High School students join Small Learning Communities that provide a focus to their studies. One of these communities is the Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) community. For students in the VPA, TAP acts both as a supplement and an expansion of their primary education.
Andy Seabert, a teacher leader of the Visual and Performing Arts program, has seen the increased opportunities that his students have found through TAP.
“There’s room for multiple arts. TAP allows students who are maybe focused on one art a chance to experiment with another art outside of their
high school schedule. When they’ve got core classes, and sports and other things going on, they don’t always have the room for that second experience. I think it helps them become more well-rounded as artists and creators,” Seabert said.
While support from student leaders is a way for Trenton students to hone their performance skills, TAP is also a creative outlet for Princetonians themselves. Fellow Charlotte Defriez ’26 became involved when she wanted to continue practicing the violin while engaging with a new community. Since then, SMArts has become a highlight of her work, interacting with both Princeton and Trenton high school students.
“I just love the community. I want to be doing this on my weekends. It’s just amazing,” said Defriez.
TAP’s upcoming 5th anniversary showcase will be held in Richardson Auditorium on Apr. 6. Tickets can be found on the Princeton Ticketing website.
Isabella Dail is a member of the Class of 2026 and head editor for The Prospect at the ‘Prince.’
The Spring Street Mural: Inspiring the Princeton community through public art
By Regina Roberts | Associate Prospect Editor
Located on the back of the store Village Silver, the once blank wall on Spring Street has become a canvas. The Spring Street Mural, coordinated by the Arts Council of Princeton (ACP), has displayed original art to the town of Princeton since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the summer of 2020. As a part of the ACP’s public art initiative, the blank space was first painted to both promote the community and beautify the area — its first mural was titled “Stronger Together.”
The idea for a mural on Spring Street originated with Maria Evans, the Artistic Director for the ACP, and Melissa Kuscin, the Program/Marketing Manager. During the start of the pandemic, Kuscin and Evans were walking around town and noticed that the streets were unusually quiet. They knew that they wanted to utilize art to uplift the community but were not certain of a location until they found a blank wall in the middle of town.
“I saw that wall that is on the side of Village Silver on Spring Street, and I texted a picture to Maria,” Kuscin said. “It was a text between the two of us that was just like, ‘we need to do something.’ That’s where it all started.”
The Spring Street Mural’s rotation of artwork — with a new mural about every three months — sets it apart from other public art sponsored by the ACP. Since the idea was pitched as a rotating mural, artists do not paint their murals directly onto the building, but instead paint on a canvas that was built specifically for the project to facilitate painting new murals over old ones. ACP Executive Director Adam Welch believes that the mural rotation helps residents stay engaged with the artwork.
“When you first see something, you have an experience with it that is outside of the everyday, and it might slowly age and become less impactful,” he said. Therefore, the artwork on the murals is designed to be topical, either featuring messages or pictures that relate to a theme. During election season in 2020, the ACP did “a vote mural, which was a lot of people’s favorites, because it was just right in your face, like a sign of the times,” said Kuscin.
Through the artist rotation, the ACP can also support more local artists. In the beginning stages of the project, the first few murals were made by the ACP mural team. Now, the ACP has created an open call on their website for artists to submit mural proposals.
They primarily look for submissions from local or tri-state area artists. The ACP aims to provide spaces where local artists can showcase their work, especially since the Princeton area does not have as many galleries as major cities like New York or Philadelphia. “We want to make sure that the artists that are here get as much access as possible to those sorts of opportunities,” Welch said.
Since its first piece in July 2020, there have been ten different murals featured. Currently, “Blooming” by Amilli Onair, a Franco-American artist, is on display. The mural depicts two women with flowers facing each other. Onair’s artwork often features women and flowers, and the idea of two women facing each other is re-
flective of the Princeton community.
“It feels really meant to be that [Princeton] would be the place where the two women were facing each other because I really do feel like within the community, you don’t ever do things by yourself,” she said.
The flowers on the mural are all from places Onair has lived, but she also points out that the variety of florals signify the diversity within the Princeton community. “I like to make things that go beyond the like, ‘Where are you from?’ ‘What do you do?’ It’s like, I’m from all these different places, I can take up all of this space, I can work with all of the people around me that are from different places,” she said.
Onair applied for the mural through
COURTESY OF THE ARTS COUNCIL OF PRINCETON
“Stronger Together”
‘If you can’t beat them, confuse them’:
the ACP’s open call for artists. While she has painted in both New York and California, community murals are her favorite kind of work. “You can kind of tell that it’s something that the community really appreciates,” she said. After being accepted in mid February, Onair worked on a few iterations of the design then came to Princeton to paint the mural for two days before it was completed.
The Spring Street Mural is just one of the public art projects that the ACP oversees. Since its inception, finding places for public art has become even more important to the ACP in order to increase accessibility. “Public art just demolishes every barrier to entry. It is for the people, by the people,” said Kuscin. Even though the Arts Council building features a curated collection of art, the ACP believes that it is necessary to create art that intersects with community members’ daily lives. They emphasize that art does not need to be understood to be enjoyed.
Welch says that more ACP public art is underway with plans for a mural at the new Avalon Bay apartment complex and a totem pole supported by the National Endowment of the Arts that will be at an indoor location.
Four years since its first iteration, the Spring Street Mural continues to be a Princeton staple, with each new artist helping to uplift the community. Onair sees the impact of her work first hand. While finishing “Blooming” she was approached by a resident who she recalled saying, “I just want to let you know that I just had a really hard day, and I really needed to see this.”
Regina Roberts is an associate editor for The Prospect and contributing staffer for the Podcast section of the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at rr8156[at]princeton.edu, or on Instagram @regina_r17.
Academy Award-nominee Jeffrey Wright’s words of wisdom
By Tyler Wilson | Senior Prospect Writer
Jeffrey Wright, star of the 2024 Academy Award-winning film, “American Fiction,” doesn’t think we Princeton students will take his advice. After all, as he said, we’re young. The celebrated actor is the father of two college-aged kids — he knows how stubborn young adults can be. However, it would be a mistake to not consider his words deeply. This is a man who has an impressive filmography: one that ranges from “Angels in America” to “The Hunger Games,” “James Bond” to “Westworld.” He has worked with the likes of legends such as Mike Nichols, Wes Anderson, M. Night Shyamalan, Sam Mendes, and Spike Lee; he was also cast in Lee’s remake of the Akira Kurosawa classic “High and Low” alongside Denzel Washington.
Most recently, Wright starred as writer Thelonious “Monk” Ellison in Cord Jefferson’s debut feature “American Fiction.” His performance earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor. Meanwhile, Jefferson won Best Adapted Screenplay. On March 19, after an evening screening of his “American Fiction” at the Garden Theatre, Jeffrey Wright sat down with Julian E. Zelizer, Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton, for a Q&A session.
At the event, Wright was upfront with the fact that his work is eclectic — he told the audience that he loves to “inhabit other spaces,” while acknowledging “that’s probably too pretentious” but “magical.”
“If you can’t beat them, confuse them,” he continued.
Wright admitted, “I’ve talked too much in the last months,” now that awards season has come and gone. To him, an awards campaign is like a political campaign. It’s about swaying voters, but more importantly, it is about getting as many eyes on a film as possible.
“American Fiction” was made on a relatively small budget of $7 million (Wright quipped that this was equivalent to the breakfast burrito budget on his recent blockbuster “The Batman”). For a movie of such a small budget, awards can help expand its viewership scope to a broader audience.
At the end of the day, Wright said that everyone who works on a film just wants to be recognized and affirmed, like the characters in “American Fiction.”
Wright’s character, Monk, is an author frustrated with a literary establishment that often disregards his work. While the literary establishment expresses disinterest in Monk’s work (mostly modern adaptations of classical pieces from antiquity), it profits from narratives rooted in exhausted Black stereotypes. Under a pen name, Monk writes the exact kind of vulgar, heavy-handed, trope-riddled novel he lampoons. He submits the manuscript to publishers as an elaborate middle finger to their predominantly white executives. They love it, and the novel becomes a major hit. Monk must consequently reckon with his hypocrisy as money, film deals, and awards are poured upon him. Wright and Jefferson construct-
ed Monk to be an unreliable narrator. “American Fiction” tackles divisive, contemporary topics, especially focusing on art and the Black experience. However, the film is not a moralizing tale. Wright noted that the thesis of the film is not delivered by any of the characters in a verbose, theatrical argument. Rather, it lies somewhere in between their perspectives, or as Wright described, “on the table in front of them.” The only clarity in the narrative, then, is the tender journey that Monk takes to reconnect with his family. As Wright had put it, the film is also “about a man returning to love.”
The film is thought-provoking and demands discussion. It is a comedy, and Wright hopes that by “allowing us to laugh” the film “provides an open invitation” to discussion. Wright noted that people are often afraid to confront each other, but hopes that at Princeton we are more “sophisticated.” The opening scene of “American Fiction” is set in a college classroom as a contentious discussion ignites between Monk, a professor, and one of his students. This argument leads to Monk’s subsequent dismissal by the university. Clearly, the conversation does not go well for the film’s protagonist, but Wright believes that it is adeptly approached by Jefferson from a filmmaking perspective. It shows how quickly discourse can unravel when driven by stubbornness and hostility. Wright maintains that we should not be afraid of mature discourse, nor should we be afraid to satirize it in our art. Critically, as Wright noted, we must
also not be afraid to infuse challenging art with earnestness. This is, once again, shown through the core of “American Fiction” being Monk’s journey toward love. Wright argues that there is cynicism in our pop culture, a cheapness. During the discussion, he asked, “Where is the beauty?” He then proposed, to much applause, that “we need to get back to beauty, otherwise we are doomed.” He finds the Miles Davis cover of “Autumn Leaves,” which plays during the closing scene, to be the film’s most beautiful moment. The song comes from an era of pop culture that was unapologetically beautiful, and it perfectly contrasts the persistent tension of the film.
When asked if he had any advice for young people, Wright took the audience back to his college days. As an undergraduate at Amherst College, he switched majors from political science to theater (not much of a leap, he joked). At college, Wright had the opportunity to explore, which allowed him to progress towards his authentic self. By doing so, he nurtured his creativity. Wright urged all undergraduates to make mistakes — he claimed that there is no better time than now to do so. “Give thought to nonconformity … embrace it.” He continued, “Follow your own lead.” Take heed of this advice; it comes from one of the great artists of today.
Tyler Wilson is a senior writer for The Prospect and Humor at the ‘Prince.’
was the first mural on Spring Street in July 2020. Its message was intended to uplift the Princeton community during the lockdowns.
Princeton faculty and alumni shine at the Tony Awards
By Charlie Roth | Prospect Contributor
“And the Tony goes to … Jane Cox!”
Director of Princeton’s Program in Theater & Music Theater Jane Cox won her first Tony Award during Sunday’s ceremony. She was awarded the Tony for Best Lighting Design of a Play for “Appropriate.” It was her first win and fourth Tony nomination, each time for Best Lighting Design of a Play.
“Appropriate” writer Branden Jacobs-Jenkins ’06 also won his first Tony for Best Revival of a Play with his first-ever nomination. He serves as a member of the Lewis Center for the Arts’s Advisory Council.
“This year is particularly exciting because I’ve never been nominated on a show where so many people were also nominated — so it feels like a bit of a party for ‘Appropriate,’” Cox wrote in a statement to The Daily Princetonian.
“I’m not a big fan of awards in general — I don’t think you can say one lighting design is really ‘better’ than another at this level,” Cox continued. “However, it’s wonderful to get to go to a Very Fancy Party with so many of my favorite colleagues — I know many of the people nominated, and I’m seated in a row of people where I know everyone — so we’ll have a great time and enjoy celebrating with each other.”
Cox praised Jacobs-Jenkins as “one of the great writers of our time,” and described director Lila Neugebauer as “one of the smartest people I’ve ever
JANUARY 2024
been in a theater.” She also noted her excitement to work with an all-women led lighting team that included fellow Princeton theater faculty member Tess James.
Cox and Jacobs-Jenkins were two of eight Princeton-affiliated nominees this year. Lecturer David Bengali ’04 was nominated Best Lighting Design of a Musical with Bradley King for their work in “Water for Elephants.” Bengali is a self-described projection designer, and told the ‘Prince’ in a statement that being nominated was an exciting and interesting experience, especially because there is not a Tony for projection design.
“It feels like a once in a lifetime experience,” Bengali wrote. “I’m really excited for people to tune in from home and get a taste of the really fabulous talent of all these performers, and hopefully folks will be inspired to make the trip to see some Broadway shows!”
“I studied computer science and engineering while also being very involved in theater,” Bengali wrote of his Princeton experience. “My career ended up being in the latter, but math, engineering, and technology remain indispensable parts of my artistic practice. The way in which the Princeton experience provides opportunities for people to be interdisciplinary is very valuable.”
Additionally, Jeff Kuperman ’13 was nominated for Best Choreography with
his brother, Rick Kuperman, for their work in “The Outsiders”; Princeton Atelier Visiting Lecturer Jiyoun Chang was nominated for Best Lighting Design of a Play for “Stereophonic”; and previous lecturers Santiago OrjuelaLaverde, Andrew Moerdyk, and Kimie Nishikawa were nominated as a collective known as dots for two Tonys, both in Best Scenic Design of a Play for their work in “An Enemy of the People” and “Appropriate.”
Charlie Roth is a Prospect contributor and senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’
How USG Movies secures early premieres
By Connor Romberg | Assistant Prospect Editor
As the Jan. 7 Golden Globes kicked off the 2024 awards season, the movie “Saltburn” seemed to be on everyone’s mind. Entertainment Weekly called the film a “perverse, psychosexual thriller of the highest order,” featuring startling scenes of bathtubs, graves, and a celebratory dance number (if you know, you know). From its prominence on TikTok to its trending soundtrack featuring MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” and Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder On The Dancefloor,”
“Saltburn”’s popularity has persisted long after its Nov.
showed “Saltburn” eight days before its limited theater release. USG Movies Committee Chair Tyler Wilson ’26 wrote to the Daily Princetonian that the “USG Movies Committee was contacted by the PR agency that represented Saltburn in the greater Philadelphia area.” The agency thought that “Saltburn,” a movie about young adults attending Oxford, would be fitting for college students and therefore reached out to Princeton for a screening.
“Saltburn” isn’t the only movie to which USG Movies has gained early access. Wilson said that the committee
pitched “Saltburn” had contacted the committee about “The Boy and the Heron.”
The committee also exclusively screened A24’s “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” which follows a Black woman’s life in Mississippi across several decades. The film uniquely cast four different actresses to portray the protagonist at four different ages in her life. Wilson told the ‘Prince’ that this screening didn’t come through the aforementioned PR representative, but rather the committee’s existing connections with A24 — a studio known for its original, genuine, and some -
show up to a USG Movies screening and find a seat without any pre-registration.
The advanced screenings also featured heightened security. During the screening of “Saltburn” at the Princeton Garden Theatre, Kiran Masood ’26 observed there were security guards that “wandered around during the movie to make sure [they] weren’t on [their] phones,” and recalled that audience members were told security was there because it was an advanced screening.
With winter break wrapping up in the coming weeks, the USG Movies Committee hopes to continue offering advanced screenings in the spring. Wilson told the ‘Prince’ that the committee is “already in contact with A24 about doing more screenings in the second semester,” and “hopeful” that they can continue to maintain the relationship that allowed them to screen “Saltburn” and “The Boy and The Heron” in advance. However, nothing is confirmed as of right now.
“I am passionate about the theatergoing experience and the conversation it inspires,” Wilson said. “By hosting advanced screenings, USG is able to encourage students to engage with new, exciting films alongside their peers in their intended environment — the cinema.”
To stay updated on when the next advanced screening hits a campus screen, students can follow USG Movies on Instagram at @princetonusgmovie. Whether it is a shocking slow-burn like “Saltburn” or a moving drama like “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” stay tuned to see what is showcased next on the silver screen.
Connor Romberg is an assistant editor for The Prospect from Winneconne, Wis -
“LINCOLN CENTER MAIN” BY ROBERT MINTZES / CC-BY-SA-3.0
From p-sets to papers: a reflection on my path to Declaration Day
By Donaji Mendieta-Silva | Prospect Contributor
On March 31, 2024, my friend and I realized that we had not officially declared our majors on TigerHub. We headed back to their room and settled into the cozy common room. It was incredibly anticlimatic as we both had expected a confetti graphic to appear. They were officially Neuroscience, and I was officially English. While their academic plans had slightly shifted, declaring Neuroscience had been their plan for a long time, whereas we both knew what declaring English had meant for me. While the declaration process was
simple and straightforward, my path to declaring English was anything but. I applied to Princeton for chemistry and I spent my first three semesters completing the prerequisites. Adjusting to college and Princeton was difficult as a first-generation, low-income student, but I told myself that it was supposed to be hard, and that I would thank myself later. I was miserable in most of my STEM classes and struggled with belonging. I finished my freshman year exhausted and ready to do anything but chemistry during break. I spent the summer in Tallinn, Estonia for eight weeks, studying Russian through Princeton. While I was excited to return to Princeton and see my friends again, I dreaded the p-set packed schedule and anxiety-inducing semester. My sophomore fall semester was one of my worst semesters. I had friends and different communities on campus that I had lacked the year before, but I was completely burnt out and often too exhausted to even see them. In addition to my incredibly low energy levels, my anxiety levels were also the highest that they had ever been. Nothing was helping. One night, when neither my medication nor grounding techniques were calming a massive anxiety attack, I called my parents and asked them to take me home. Once we were home, my parents sat me down and expressed their concerns for my health. I remember my mom telling me that Princeton was like a toxic boyfriend to me, and that I should reconsider how I was spending my time here. That night, I realized that something
TIGERALERT: Raccoon Bite
By Valerie Neske | Contibuting Cartoonist
had to change. I knew that a small part of me had always wanted to study literature, but I had convinced myself that I would never be able to get a job with a humanities degree. I was also deterred by shame. I was worried that my friends and my peers would view me as a failure, as someone who wasn’t smart enough to be a STEM student. There is, undeniably, a widely spread bias that surrounds the humanities. I also felt that I was letting down other women in STEM. It took many conversations with friends to realize that irrational fears were holding me back from what I genuinely wanted to do. This semester I was able to take classes that I wanted to take for the first time. My interest reflected in my class attendance and the effort I put in my work. Next semester, instead of battling through p-sets, I’m excited to become engrossed in a novel in a class like 19th Century Fiction and have a sense of belonging and joy in my academic experience.
Donaji Mendieta-Silva (she/they) is a member of the Class of 2026 and is a contributing writer for The Prospect at the ‘Prince.’
AMMAAR ALAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Outside view of McCosh Hall.
MARCH 2024
Raccatouille
By Madison Anderson | Staff Cartoonist
WOMENS SOCCER | MARCH 2024
Sophomore star Pietra Tordin shines on the international stage
By Lily Pampolina Sports Contributor
In her first appearance for the U-20 United States women’s national soccer team, Pietra Tordin subbed in for the second half of the game. Weaving through the box past three defenders, she struck a shot into the far left corner of the net, securing the team’s only goal in a 1–0 win over Colombia. This was not her first taste of success on the international stage, nor was it the first national team jersey she has donned.
Tordin’s parents are native to Brazil — the soccer capital of the world — making her eligible to compete for the Brazilian national side as well as that of the United States, though she will soon have to pick one.
The sophomore midfielder for Princeton women’s soccer has spent recent months attending international training camps for both the Brazilian and American U-20 national teams, and her presence has been nothing short of commanding.
Tordin began her time with the Brazilian national team in late 2023.
“We have a really good dynamic [on the Brazilian team], and I’m friends with all of them,” Tordin said. “I feel like they play a calm game, and they’re very creative offensively, which I like.”
In a December 2023 friendly match, Tordin scored the tying goal for Brazil against France. Soon after, in January 2024, she was called up to the United States’ camp.
“The U.S. started to show some interest in me, and that was really cool,” she said. “I knew the U.S. played an intense game, … [and] I felt like I could learn a lot.”
Despite her time with the Brazilian national team,
Tordin always aspired to play for the American squad.
“My family is Brazilian,” she explained, “so I never really know what I identify as, but I guess growing up in America, it was always kind of my dream to play for the U.S., so I think I’ll stick with them for now.”
Tordin hopes to suit up for the USWNT at the U-20 World Cup that is set to take place in Colombia this August. Rosters will be finalized for the team in May.
After a sophomore campaign that saw Tordin earn All-American honors and numerous Ivy League awards, the aforementioned training camp invites began rolling in — though her soccer journey began long before she set foot on Princeton’s campus.
She has dabbled in other pastimes, but for Tordin, it has always been soccer.
“I played basketball and flag football growing up,” she said. “And it was fun, but soccer always stuck. There was always soccer,” though the game looked a little different back then.
“I grew up in Miami, Fla., and growing up there, there weren’t any female club teams I could play for. So, I ended up playing with boys until I was 13,” she said smiling. “After I turned 14, I couldn’t keep up with the boys anymore, so I went to play for a girl’s team about 40 minutes away.”
Tordin played for this club until she was 16. After that, she made a big decision.
“I decided to quit for a year,” Tordin revealed. “I quit my sophomore year of high school and took the year fully off.”
Tordin recalls feeling burnt out from the sport, believing that taking a break was the right move to recharge and rekindle her love for the sport.
“I never wanted soccer to get past the point of
competitiveness and into rudeness,” she explained, emphasizing the important role of respect in fostering positive team dynamics.
Tordin’s family was extremely supportive of her decision. “They always told me to do what makes me happy,” she said. “They’ve always had my back.”
After her break, Tordin returned to the game with a positive mindset. She joined her high school team during her junior year of high school, finding the environment more welcoming and collaborative.
“The players led the team; it taught me a lot about soccer being a community,” she said.
It was around this time that she decided to pursue playing soccer in college.
“I was like, if college is anything like playing in high school, I’ll probably love it,” she said. “Soccer is so much better when I’m playing with my friends.”
As Tordin flirted with the idea of playing at the collegiate level, she began getting recruited by Princeton.
“I really liked the campus and the overall vibe. I also just really bonded with the coaches, so I decided to commit, and here I am,” she said laughing.
This fall, Tordin will enter her junior year at Princeton. She has racked up a number of impressive accolades during her time at Princeton. In her first two seasons as a Tiger, Tordin joined one of only five players in history to score 20 goals in both their rookie and sophomore seasons. In her debut season, Tordin earned the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award. Tordin also earned All-American honors in the 2023 season, alongside senior defender and captain Madison Curry.
Reflecting on her favorite experiences of the past season, Tordin said her favorite on-field moment was her goal against Georgetown in September. This header off of a cross from teammate Drew Coomans proved to be a game winner, ending the match 3–2 in favor of the Tigers.
Additionally, in another September game, Tordin put up all of the team’s goals in a 4–0 win over Army West Point. This performance earned her Ivy League Player of the Week, an accolade she would win three times during the 2023 season.
When asked about her transitioning role to an upperclass student on the team, Tordin admitted that she has always been on the quieter side.
“I’ve never really seen myself as a leader if I’m being completely honest,” she said. “I can see myself slowly becoming more vocal, because I’m so close with all of my teammates, but I don’t think that I’m the one leading, just lending a helping hand if my teammates need it.”
Vocal or not, Tordin does not let it affect her gameplay. She is a versatile field player, able to play in both the midfield and the offensive third.
“Coming into Princeton, I kind of knew my place as a [first-year], I wasn’t about to come in here and steal a position,” she said jokingly. She explained that she was used to being a forward, but was willing to learn new roles.
“This year, I played out wide, so that was interesting because I had never played out wide before. I was definitely adjusting to what the coaches
needed from me and how they wanted me to play that position,” Tordin explained.
She finished the season with 12 in-conference goals, the second-highest total in the Ivy League.
Princeton ended their 2023 season in a nail-biting loss to Texas Tech University in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Regular time proved to be scoreless, but the Tigers fell to the Red Raiders in penalty kicks, 4–3.
At a school as academically rigorous as Princeton though, performance on the field is only one of a number of responsibilities student-athletes have a lot on their plate. Luckily, Tordin says she has been able to manage her workload well.
“Coming into Princeton, I adjusted pretty quickly,” she recalled. “I try to time manage and usually that works well.” Tordin plans to major in Economics. She admitted, however, that with her national team call-ups, the past two semesters have been more difficult to tackle.
“Last semester, I missed like four weeks, which is a lot,” Tordin said. “I had to catch up a lot by myself, there was no way around it. Usually, I was staying up pretty late.”
Yet, Tordin says that this workload did not affect her gameplay.
“I try not to focus on school when I’m away. I try to give my full attention to soccer, for sure,” she explained.
When she is on campus, Tordin says a typical day can vary in intensity, but she and the team usually start very early in the morning — though Tordin doesn’t consider herself a morning person.
“Today, I woke up at 6 a.m. for a lift with the team. Lift starts at 6:40 a.m. and we are usually out around 8-ish,” she said. “The team is definitely more excited than me in the morning. I show up half-asleep, but once we start the lift, I’m back to normal,” she joked.
On a typical day, Tordin says she usually has two or three classes and practices in the afternoon for about two and a half hours. After class, the team will usually grab dinner together. She finishes the night by doing work.
Tordin says that she feels lucky to be surrounded by such a great group of teammates.
“I’m close with all of them, we make jokes with each other and make fun of each other, but when it comes down to playing soccer, they always give me good feedback and stuff, so there’s a lot of respect.” She says that there is a strong dynamic on and off the field — much like the one that brought her back to the sport after a year off in high school.
So, what does the future hold for the young superstar? She plans to graduate from Princeton and pursue a professional soccer career.
“Honestly, I don’t see myself doing anything other than soccer for a long time,” she said smiling, well on her way to realizing her aspirations.
Lily Pampolina is a Sports contributor and contributing Audience creator for the ‘Prince.’
PHOTO COURTESY OF @PRINCETONWSOC/X.
After a standout sophomore campaign with the women’s soccer team, Pietra Tordin has turned focus to the international stage.
Meet the man behind the Tigers’ athletic equipment: Clif Perry
By Coco Gong Staff Features Writer
Behind every Princeton slam dunk is solid footing, powerful momentum, weeks of training, and a committed support staff.
Meet Clif Perry, director of athletics equipment operations and the leader of the support system behind the University’s 38 athletic teams. For almost two decades, Perry has devoted himself to athletic operations, from placing million-dollar orders for Nike gear to laundering uniforms for almost 750 student-athletes on a daily basis.
Outside of Princeton Athletics, Perry has served as president of the nationwide Athletic Equipment Managers Association, which aims to promote and improve the profession. Perry is also active in children’s health initiatives, including the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, for which he dyes and shaves his hair every year to raise money for children’s cancer research.
The Daily Princetonian sat down with Perry last week to discuss his career and his management philosophy.
This interview has been edited for clarity and concision.
The Daily Princetonian: To start off, how would you describe your role on the basketball team as the equipment manager?
Clif Perry: I’ve been here almost 20 years, and my role has changed over the years. When I first started, I was actively involved with all aspects of both the men’s and the women’s basketball teams. Until COVID-19 hit, I was based in Caldwell Fieldhouse and working with all the teams all the time and adding support for football. Now, I’m the primary person for football. I don’t make as many day-to-day decisions for basketball, but I still help oversee the designing of the uniforms and practice gear, things like that.
DP: You mentioned that you work with many different sports, like football and basketball. What was your path to becoming an equipment manager for Princeton?
CP: When I graduated from college, I wanted to be a coach, and I spent the next nine years teaching and coaching in the state of Florida. I missed being in college athletics, so when I found out that there was a national organization called the Athletic Equipment Managers Association, I contacted a guy at Florida Atlantic, and he told me about the membership procedure and the test that you had to take to become certified. And I did all that. So my wife and I took my one-and-a-half year old daughter and moved to Annapolis where I worked at the United States Naval Academy for a year as an equipment room intern. When that ended, I was offered the job here at Princeton, and I accepted.
DP: How would you describe your current responsibilities as equipment manager in relation to your previous roles as a teacher and coach?
CP: In some respects, it’s the same in that I still interact with student-athletes, which I really enjoy. Instead of formal lesson plans, Nike is kind of like my lesson plan. The thing that most people don’t know is that when we order gear from Nike, you have to have it ordered by Halloween for the following school year. So, I don’t know who the new students are going to be. All of our orders start coming in around June, and if we were at a bigger school — one of the Power Five schools — they would come in pre-logoed. Our stuff all comes in blank, so there’s nothing on it, and then we send it out to get “Princeton Basketball” or “Princeton Football” or whatever logoed onto the clothing item. There’s definitely a lot of planning ahead.
DP: That sounds like a lot of work. What’s your relationship with your teams?
CP: When I was based in Caldwell Fieldhouse — so pre-COVID-19 — my relationship with the teams wasn’t very close. I dealt mostly with the coaches. Occasionally, a student-athlete would come by if they needed something. Now that I’ve moved out to football, my office is just off the football locker room. I’m with those guys every day and sometimes more than I’d like to be. [Laughs]
DP: What are some of your favorite memories with the teams?
CP: There’s been a lot of them. I think the biggest thing is when you see the true joy on the athlete’s faces when they win, whether it’s a game or a conference championship, because you know it’s a memory that they’ll have forever. Five years from now at Reunions, they’ll all come back and be like, “Hey, remember this, remember that?” And you’re like, “Oh, yeah!” Those are the ways that you realize you made a difference, because when you’re slogging through the day-to-day, you don’t recognize that. The reward is three, four, five, 10 years down the line when they come back, and they still talk about those kinds of things. That makes you feel appreciated when you might not be in the moment.
DP: For sure. For basketball, March Madness is on the horizon. How are you feeling about their prospects, and how are you preparing for the season?
CP: March Madness is always one of those weird things, because you want the team to do well, advance, and go as far as they can, but you also know that the Ivy League presents a lot of challenges that a lot of other places don’t. The back-to-back for basketball — having a Friday night and a Saturday night game — is something that the other conferences don’t experience unless they’re actually in the conference tournament. The other thing that’s so tough is that the Ivy League usually only gets one team
in the tournament. If you don’t win the tournament, then you don’t go to the national tournament. It puts a lot of pressure on the kids. And you, being a student here, you know what it’s like to go through the rigors of a Princeton academic schedule. Then, throw into that 20 hours of practice, games, lifts — those are all things that the people who don’t know, they just don’t know. It’s all about preparation and getting all the things that they need and having them ready, whether it’s a favorite pair of shoes or making sure that their stuff is washed so that they have it; athletes are superstitious, right? [Laughs] It’s a lot of planning and getting things ready, so that they have everything they need and can worry about making a three-point shot instead of whether or not they have the right undershirt on.
DP: Yeah, it sounds like the athletes have a lot of dedication.
CP: They definitely do. Unless you’ve been here and gone through the academic rigors, you don’t really understand what it’s like, right? Our students are up in the E-Quad, taking electrical engineering and still trying to do a senior thesis. Last year, there were kids at March Madness and they were worried about their senior thesis that was due in three weeks.
DP: In addition to your work at Princeton, you’ve also held leadership roles in the Athletic Equipment Managers Association. Could you speak about your work there?
CP: Like I said, 21 years ago, when I first found out about the Association, it was something that I didn’t know existed. When I got hired here, I was a certified equipment manager and found out about the regional Association district, did work at the district level, and worked my way up and was on the Board of Directors for the organization for 14 or 15 years. The last four, I was the president of the Association, and everybody was on my case to run for reelection. At the time, looking ahead, I realized that the way convention fell and the way that Princeton’s academic calendar fell this year, graduation would have been a week later. I figured that I probably needed to be here for my daughter’s graduation — that was more important than being involved in the Association, so I took a step back and decided that I was going to be here.
DP: That’s wonderful. Outside of the work with the Association, you have also been involved in service-oriented projects, from donations to children’s hospitals to shaving your head for the Saint Baldrick’s Foundation. Can you describe these projects, and where your inspiration comes from?
CP: Saint Baldrick’s is a funny one for me, because I’d never heard of it. A friend of mine from back home in Florida was like, “Hey, I’m shaving my head for this charity, and you should do it too,” and I was like, “Yeah, right.” [Laughs] And it became a game. It was fun, right? So, this weekend, I’ll dye my hair. I’ve dyed my hair for prob-
ably the last 15 years, because when people see you with a different hair color — especially older people — they’re like, “Well, geez, why is your hair colored” “I’m going to shave it off” “What are you shaving it off for?” So, it becomes an easy tie-in to be able to talk about the program. So, I do one haircut a year, and this year, it’s on March 9. This is my 17th year of shaving my head, and I raised right at $200,000 in that time.
Children’s cancer is something for me that is just hard because anything that prevents you from being able to be you and do whatever it is that you’re called or led to do — you should be able to experience that. When you’re going to chemo or radiation and walking around with no hair at six, seven, eight, 10 years old, it’s going to be hard. Our younger daughter — I don’t know if it’s the second or third year that I did it — the first thing that she went to after being born was the head shave. Later that year, she got sick. It wasn’t cancer — she’s fine now and everything, but she was in the hospital for two weeks, and I remember seeing those kids and realizing that some of those parents would walk out without a child. And it was like “OK, I can go around with a bald head if it raises money and it’s for a good thing.”
So that’s why I’ve continued to do it.
DP: That’s a really great mission. Do you have any hair colors that you’re thinking of this year?
CP: Green is usually a staple right around the event because it’s right around Saint Patrick’s Day, and green is the color of money, obviously. But a couple of people have been on my case about doing it orange because it goes better with what we wear every day, so I’m going to do it orange this year to start out.
DP: That sounds so fun. Why is it important for you to incorporate service into Princeton? Whether that’s in athletics, or more generally.
CP: I mean, it is the motto of the University, right? You can’t be here for 20 years and not pick up on it. I think when you get to a certain age, you realize that the things in your life are there for a reason. How hard is it to smile? How hard is it to do one act or three acts of kindness a day? It’s easy
to hold the door open for somebody. You know, maybe it makes that person’s day. All it takes is five or six people a day making a difference in somebody else’s life and maybe some of the garbage that goes on in society doesn’t happen, so I’m hopeful that it carries over.
DP: What do you think is special about Princeton Athletics?
CP: I would say that one of the positive things about having been around here the last 20 years and working in athletics is the success of the department. It’s crazy how much our coaches and our student-athletes are driven to be successful. We have seven other teams in the league, and we traditionally do better than all of them. It’s not because of admissions letting in the best athletes. It’s because the kids come in, and they’re motivated and driven to be good. The coaches [work with] the kids in bringing out the most of their potential.
Whether you win all the time or lose all the time, the job is the same. It’s just more fun when you win, right? [Laughs]. Then everybody’s in a better mood. I think that the staff that we have down in the Athletic Department is really good. It’s a lot more fun, I think, not only for our kids in our department but also the campus in general when things are successful. When you’re watching March Madness and you know our basketball team is winning the first-round game that they’re not supposed to win — the sense of community on campus is so much better. It doesn’t matter if it’s basketball, field hockey, or lacrosse — we’re successful in a lot of them. I think being surrounded by good staff and good colleagues really makes a difference in the dayto-day. There’s a lot of people. It really takes a whole community to make it work.
Coco Gong is a staff Features writer for the ‘Prince.’
PHOTO COURTESY OF JARED MONTANO. Perry repairs a football player’s helmet during a game.
WOMEN’S BASKETBALL | MARCH 2024
Get Stops: How women’s basketball’s defense led to their dominance
By Tate Hutchins Assistant Sports Editor
70–25 is a score you usually see in a video game.
In mid-February, it was quite real on the scoreboard in New Haven, as the final buzzer sounded after the women’s basketball team thrashed the Yale Bulldogs. It marked the 15th consecutive win for the Tigers.
Holding a Division I team to 25 points across 40 minutes seems absurd, but this type of defensive dominance has grown common for this year’s squad.
“I don’t think we have any special schemes, that sounds like we’re doing something evil,” head coach Carla Berube jokingly told The Daily Princetonian. “We kind of fall back to just playing fundamentally sound, especially on the defensive end.”
Despite what Berube may claim, what Princeton has done to opposing offenses during her tenure has been at least slightly evil. They’ve allowed just 51.7 points per Ivy League contest this season — every other team in the conference allows 60 or more points on average.
The Tigers have lost just three Ivy League games during Berube’s tenure. No other Ivy League team has been ranked in the AP top 25 since 1980 — the Tigers have done it all four years under Berube.
The Tigers’ worst postseason finish under Berube so far has been a loss in the second round of the NCAA Tournament. The rest of the Ivy League has seen the second round of the tournament just once.
There’s no doubt that Princeton has been nothing but dominant through Berube’s tenure, but how have they reached this high level? Their team motto for the last few seasons has been “Get Stops,” and the suffocating defense served up by the Tigers has been the force behind that. In a world where the transfer portal has taken over college basketball, Princeton’s player development has produced leaders up and down the bench. Coupled with high-profile, competitive games against high-ranked opponents early in the season, the Tigers have all of the tools they need to make another run in March.
Defensive Roots
When Berube took over the program for the 2019-20 season, there was an immediate culture shift on the team. The defensive identity that they are so comfortable with today began when she took the helm, as
they went from allowing 63.7 points per game to just 47.6 on their way to a 26–1 season before their opportunity to make a run in March Madness was spoiled by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The current offense, led by senior guard Kaitlyn Chen, has increased the tempo and created more overall possessions each game, leading to higher-scoring games. Although the Tigers’ faster pace has led to higher-scoring games — and thus a higher points-per-game from their opponents — since Berube first joined, their defense remains where their stellar success has come from.
“We’re going to work really hard on this end of the floor and make you take a tough shot or create a turnover or shot clock violation or things like that,” Berube said. “It’s who we are … we love to play defense.”
The defensive identity that Princeton women’s basketball has become known for is deeply rooted in the style of play Berube learned in her collegiate career and her staff utilized in their previous roles. A college player at powerhouse UConn, Berube finished her playing career with a 132–8 record and made a name for herself as a lockdown defender.
As a former player herself, and leader of a staff who almost all played at the college level, Berube recognizes the unique environment of college basketball.
“Once I’ve opened lines of communication with my players, their experience within our program is of utmost importance to me,” she said. “You know, wins and wins are great. But for me, I want to make sure this is an experience that they’re really enjoying … they really are students first but don’t have to sacrifice the basketball piece.”
After her college career, Berube found even more success as head coach of Division III Tufts University for 17 years. As a preview of her accomplished leadership at Princeton, they regularly found success and perennially made deep runs in the Division III tournament, fueled by a focus on strong defense.
As Berube transitioned to Princeton in 2019, she brought former players and staff to form the core of her coaching staff at Old Nassau. Assistant Coach Lauren Dillon and Director of Basketball Operations Lilly Paro both played under Berube for the Jumbos, while Assistant Coach Lauren Battista had the same role at Tufts.
“We joke about some of the plays that we run now, I was running back at Tufts when I was a point guard for Coach Berube,” Dillon told the ‘Prince.’ “Obviously, we have
some different personnel out here at Princeton than we did at Tufts. But a lot of the concepts have stayed the same.”
Dynamic duo forms core of Tigers squad
Berube’s reputation for leading a defense-focused team has not gone unnoticed in the Ivy League. Senior forward Ellie Mitchell is a two-time reigning Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year and the runaway favorite to win the award once again this season. Mitchell has been at the heart of the Tigers’ defense since arriving in Berube’s first year.
“I think it’s very easy to care about the offensive side of the game, but it’s harder to care about the little things and getting stops and that is what defines Ellie. It’s the work ethic. It’s the little plays that create the big ones,” Dillon said.
Fighting for everything from loose balls to rebounds is what has made Mitchell a star and a leader for Princeton. At 6’1”, she is the tallest starter for Princeton and has pulled down an average of 10.3 rebounds a game for the Tigers. Without Mitchell, much of the Tigers’ dominant defense would dissolve.
“I always say after a game that I’m so glad she’s on our team, because it would be really bad and just frustrating to have to play against her,” Berube said in praise of Mitchell.
While defense is and will remain Princeton’s calling card, no great team is complete without a dangerous offense.
Senior guard Kaitlyn Chen is the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year and has been the floor general who takes the reins for the Tigers offensively. Leading the way by averaging 15.5 points per game for Princeton, Chen is the one that the Tigers turn to in crunch time.
“Kaitlyn can score at literally every position on the floor but she’s getting double and triple teams, and she knows when she needs to jump up and kick out and find the open player,” Dillon said about Chen. “This year, she’s become a floor general and a really good passer.”
No stage has proven to be too big for Chen this season.
A close road test against Villanova? A career-high 31 points.
The stifling defense of then No. 3 UCLA while back home in SoCal? A team-high 24 points that took the Bruins to the buzzer.
A double overtime slugfest against Seton Hall when Princeton shots weren’t falling? 21 points and game-clinching shots.
Chen is built for the big stage and will be looking to pick up her third-straight Ivy Madness Most Outstanding Player award in New York in just a few weeks.
“Kaitlyn’s at her very best when something’s not drawn up, and she can just create,” Berube said.
Paired with Mitchell’s defensive prowess, Chen and Mitchell have proven to be the driving forces behind the Tigers success under Berube’s leadership.
A complete team
While Chen and Mitchell have rightfully had the spotlight, the entire team is filled with talent. Sophomore guard Madison St. Rose won the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award last season and has proven to be a crucial multi-level scoring threat, averaging 13.9 points per game with 40 triples across the season. First-year guard Skye Belker has shown maturity and playmaking skills beyond her years, while senior forward Chet Nweke has also emerged. She started the season coming off the bench without much playing time, but she broke into the starting lineup during Ivy play and has reached double-digit points in six of the team’s last seven games.
And these are just the current starters.
The Tiger bench regularly outplays the opposing bench and has gained lots of experience in lopsided Ivy games. Come Ivy Madness and March Madness, an Ashley Chea triple, Parker Hill block, or Tabitha Amanze rebound could make the difference down the stretch.
“Everybody knows about Kaitlyn, everybody knows about Ellie and Maddie, but I think you can’t just focus in on them,” Berube added, emphasizing the importance of the Tiger bench.
And no matter the score or situation, the energy on the bench is always high.
“We love going through the photos and the videos after every single game because we see our bench is on their feet, jumping up and down, celebrating the big moments, the little moments, the times where we’re not playing our best, they’re there [on] a consistent basis,” Dillon added.
Shining on the national stage
The team’s success has led to national spotlight. Ivy League teams rarely find themselves on national television or gaining traction in March Madness projections, but Princeton has done both throughout the season.
“I think through our success over the past few years and this year included, we
started to demand the attention of people in the area and all-around,” Dillon explained.
A big part of the attention has come from repeated strong showings throughout a tough non-conference schedule for Princeton.
An obstacle for high-level Ivy teams hoping to make it to March Madness has historically been a weak strength of schedule, since many of the 14 games of Ivy play are ones in which they are heavily favored. This translates into lower March Madness seeding and lower positions in metricsbased rankings like the NET rating, since league wins are perceived as them securing easy wins, rather than picking up meaningful victories.
However, Princeton has already been through the gauntlet this season, starting the season off by traveling far away from Jadwin to take on then-No. 3 UCLA, No. 20 Oklahoma, and No. 19 Indiana. They grabbed national attention by breezing past Oklahoma by 14 and scaring UCLA by taking them to the buzzer in a three-point loss.
“If we’re fortunate to be playing in the postseason, that’s why we play those games. We want to challenge ourselves so that we’re ready for it,” Berube noted. “They’re different kinds of teams … [with] different styles of play, and really wellcoached teams, and so it’s helped us in this Ivy League season.”
Madness lurks on the horizon as March arrives
The tough early tests the Tigers have faced will come in useful down the stretch this season. After they close out their final conference game against Penn, they’ll turn to Ivy Madness at Columbia.
It certainly seems like everything is gearing up for a Princeton-Columbia Ivy League championship game in the hostile Levien Gymnasium — where the Tigers lost their only league game this year, snapping their 15-game win streak.
“It’ll certainly be a challenge, but I think we’ll be ready for it,” Berube said.
The two teams split their regular season series, and neither has lost to another conference opponent.
Any March Madness predictions made before the season is over should be taken with caution, but the Tigers look to be in good positioning to make the tournament due to quality wins and their Ivy League success.
ESPN’s latest bracketology projects them as a nine-seed currently — within the top 11, which typically is the cutoff for making the tournament as an at-large bid, even without a conference tournament win.
Postseason expectations are certainly high, just as they were last season, but the team is ready.
“Our goal is to make it into the second weekend — the Sweet 16 — and I can see that happening,” Berube explained. “We’ve talked about the student-athletes that we have and the support that we have here. We can keep this thing rolling and taking the program to new heights.”
But just how high will they go? March will tell all.
Tate Hutchins is an associate Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’
CLUB SPORTS | DECEMBER 2023
From hobby joggers to regular racers, Princeton Running Club offers a home for allinternational stage
By Max Hines Staff Sports Writer
Rain or shine, the Princeton Running Club (PRC) doesn’t miss a day of training. Encompassing casual running, subelite racing, track events, and social gatherings, the group’s activities center around daily practice, which consists of either an easy run or a pre-structured workout.
“We gather outside of Dillon Gym at 4:45 p.m. on the weekdays and 10:00 a.m. on the weekends,” said Caroline Coen, ’25, PRC’s vice president, in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “We’ll have a group of people who want to run at faster paces, medium paces, and then a little bit of a slower pace — and different distances, too.”
Once these pace groups form, as Coen says, “you discuss how far you want to go, which route you want to take, and the kids [break] off from there. We’ll also typically do announcements at the beginning of practice.”
Daily runs with friends usually range from four miles for the slower pace group to eight for the fastest, with variations on any given day and twice weekly workouts. Workouts are predetermined and explained ahead of practice, but PRC still offers flexibility for those who would rather run something other than the prescribed intervals.
“The presidents often send out weekly emails telling us what the planned workouts and the easy runs are,” James Ding ’25 said. “On the days themselves, if you don’t feel like running a workout, there are usually people who want to run easy runs too, so I enjoy that flexibility.”
Running with others, as opposed to running alone, is a key draw for many to PRC. “I can run by myself, but it’s just very boring,” Yair Gritzman ’27 told the ‘Prince.’ “When I run with Running Club, I can go like five or six [miles] because there’s this social aspect that I can be pushed a little more, which is nice … it’s good to just be with other people.”
Gritzman added that PRC members inspired him to recently run the Princeton Half Marathon. “I would have never imagined doing a half marathon,” he said. “I remember talking to people during my runs, and some people were training for marathons. [It] really helped me as a runner progress[ing] from running 5Ks to longer distances like I ran in the Princeton Half.”
In addition to pushing each other to run farther and faster, the social aspect of daily runs helps foster the unique community that PRC has built. PRC’s president, Wiley Kohler ’25, says that this sense of community inspires him to come to practice day after day and is a main reason why PRC is such an important part of his life on campus.
“It’s a really great community that is super consistent, in a way that you don’t often find in a way that’s so non-academic at Princeton,” Kohler said. “There are so many people who I’m able to see, friends I’ve made every single day that I see every single day, and that maybe I don’t interact with at all under other circumstances. But we’re all committed to showing up and running every single day.”
A sizable contingent of PRC members race throughout the year, inspired by the friendly, motivated culture. PRC attracts both seasoned veterans of high-school track and cross-country and first-time racers.
“Our competitive side entails going to races in the fall cross-country season with the National Intercollegiate Running Club Association and the spring track season with a large mishmash of [races],” Kohler shared.
The cornerstone of the fall cross-country season is NIRCA Nationals, which occurs at a rotating site usually in the Midwest or Mid-Atlantic. While the club usually sends members to compete for personal bests and enjoy the experience of a large race rather than to win, PRC members have experienced success at Nationals before, such as when Savannah Carnahan GS ’22 won the women’s race in 2021. Kohler shared that 2021 Nationals was his favorite memory from Running Club. “I felt like I was really part of the community and really excited about my own running, and [I] felt like I was at my peak,” he told the ‘Prince.’ “It was just very satisfying and super exciting to hang out with all these people I’d become friends with.”
Following the fall cross-country season, racing shifts to the track. On the track, the emphasis shifts from crosscountry length — eight kilometers for men and six kilometers for women — to much shorter distances, highlighting the strengths of PRC’s sprinters.
“The sprints part of Running Club is a group that’s been burgeoning in the past couple years, [and] it’s been exciting to see them grow and really become part of our team,” Coen said. “Sprinters typically do compete with us in the winter and the spring specifically. During competitive season, they will train at the indoor track at Jadwin.”
At the Jadwin track, sprinting practice often commenc-
es later at night, when varsity teams are not using the facility. While this is the only time and place sprinters can hold specialized practice, it poses a challenge: striking a balance between recognizing separate skill sets and maintaining a unified community.
Maintaining a community is a key focus of the club’s officer corps. For example, Kohler says that while there are no weekday morning practices, this isn’t for lack of thought.
“I think the biggest limitation is essentially [that morning runs] would lead to fragmentation; I think 4:45 for most of the school year works pretty well for everyone,” Kohler said. “If we were to have multiple practices in a day … there’s a bimodality to when people will show up and people will not be able to know everyone in the club as well.”
As Kohler stated, 4:45 p.m. is not the set time for the entire school year. During the winter months, there are also 3:45 p.m. runs for those who can make it when the sun is still shining. For regular, devoted members like Fiona Logan-Sankey ’24 and James Ding ‘25 , this is a rare point of dissatisfaction.
“I do feel like it divides up the group in a way that’s a little bit unfortunate,” Logan-Sankey said. However, Logan-Sankey noted that, “I think it’s really good for people that are able to run at that time to be able to run when it’s still light out.”
In contrast, Ding expressed a reservation regarding the smaller group sizes and more limited pacing options with two practice times, saying that “sometimes only the more fast members come, and sometimes I kind of feel pressured to join them because there isn’t an intermediate group that I could hop in.”
Given the stratification that can occur during differently paced runs and workouts, social events play an important role as the common thread to unite PRC members.
“Beyond [daily runs], we have some set events every week to encourage the group to really interact beyond just the people they run with every day,” Coen said. “On Tuesday nights, we gather for study sessions. We also have ‘Forbes Friday’ dinners every Friday night.”
Kohler echoed this sentiment, claiming that increased social interaction has been a key goal of his presidency, which ends at the end of the calendar year.
“My vision in my presidency has been to get social events and running events that encourage people to intermingle more and to include people who aren’t currently part of Running Club more in that community.”
While the social aspect of PRC is important, many still cite running adventures as their favorite experiences.
“My most fond memory from running club is my freshman year,” Logan-Sankey said. “I went on this fun adventure run with Hayden [Burt ’22 GS ’23] and Sarah Brown [’23], and we swam in the Mountain Lakes lake. It was really epic.”
Ding, who grew up in Singapore’s warm climate, shared a winter memory of running the Pretty Brook route. “I hadn’t run in snow before, so it was especially crazy for me because I hadn’t even seen snow; I was really scared of falling,” he said. “Over time I just slowly got used to it, and I really enjoyed it because I thought the landscape looked so beautiful and magical with the snow — across the bridge, over the water.”
Naturally, other Running Club members also have their favorite routes around the Princeton area.
“Number one is Pretty Brook,” Ding added, once again praising the route from his fondest memory. “It took me two years to know how to run it, but now I know [where] I’m going. I also really enjoy running Institute Woods.”
Gritzman spoke of a route known to almost everyone who has run at Princeton. “I used to go to the towpath two to three times a week,” he said, “but now it’s always dark at 4:00.”
Coen added a classic PRC route: “I really like a route that we call Bean Fields” she explained. “It’s about a seven-mile route, so for a day when you want to have a bit of a longer run and see some pretty nature, it’s a really pleasant route.”
All its activities notwithstanding, PRC remains a group with a very simple main identity.
“We’re essentially, at our core, a group of people who run together,” Kohler said.
Max Hines is a contributing writer to the Sports section of the ‘Prince.’
PICTURE COURTESY OF CAROLINE COEN
Princeton Running Club following the 2023 NIRCA Regionals at Lehigh.
FOOTBALL | APRIL 2024
From practice squad to prime time: Andrei Iosivas ’23 earns his stripes in the NFL
By Hayk Yengibaryan Associate Sports Editor
After Andrei Iosivas ’23 completed his first season at Princeton, he met with football head coach Bob Surace ’90. Iosivas had only featured in practice and J.V. games that season. Despite not taking snaps for the Tigers’ first team, Surace delivered promising news to the Honolulu native.
He told the wide receiver he had NFL potential.
“That was really eye-opening to me,” Iosivas told the Daily Princetonian. “And that really showed me how they felt about me, and how the program felt about me.”
Four years later, Iosivas caught his second touchdown pass for the Cincinnati Bengals under the setting West Coast sun in front of 71,655 fans at Levi’s Stadium playing against the future NFC champions, the San Francisco 49ers.
From Oahu to Central Jersey to the Midwest, Iosivas had realized the potential his coaches saw in him in the Orange Bubble, joining only eight Hawaiian high school graduates in the NFL.
“Andrei’s talent was evident early on,” Surace wrote to the ‘Prince.’
The Road to Nassau
The talent Surace noticed was recognized long before Iosivas got to Princeton. Iosivas was a dual-sport athlete who competed in varsity football and track at the Punahou School in Honolulu, Hawaii. Born in Japan to Romanian and Filipino parents, Iosivas moved to the Aloha State after his dad received a job offer during his childhood.
With the guidance of his uncle Tom Hintnaus, the school’s pole vault coach and a former Olympian, he made the varsity track team his first year of high school. His ties to New Jersey started early, as his sprints coach and mentor Gary Satterwhite was an all-state sprinter at Rahway High School, just 45 minutes up Route 1 from Princeton.
“Andrei always had natural ability and he learned through many talks and hard work that the only way to be great at anything was to put in the work,” Satterwhite wrote to the ‘Prince.’
At a practice during his sophomore year of high school, Iosivas was scared
to race a stronger teammate because he did not want to lose. That day, Satterwhite had a conversation with the teenager that stuck with him forever.
“If you think someone is better than you then you have already lost before you get to the starting line,” Satterwhite said. “That conversation stuck with him throughout his career and it showed up during his junior year when he had no fear and he attacked everything thrown at him. To this day we still talk about that conversation.”
Iosivas’s journey was far from easy. Coming out of high school, the 2018 Punahou School grad was a zero-star recruit. His most attractive asset to college coaches was his GPA. Following camps with Princeton, Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth, Iosivas received offers from the Tigers and the Big Green.
While Iosivas hoped to stay in the sun at Stanford, he left “The Big Island” to continue his journey in the much colder Northeast with the Princeton Tigers.
“When he mentioned Princeton I told him that was a great school for him and a great environment to be in,” Satterwhite noted.
“I did tell him when you get to Jersey, you have to go to a diner and get a pork roll sandwich, that is the Jersey version of Hawaii’s favorite salty meat…. spam!”
Jack of all trades
At Princeton, Iosivas continued the lifestyle of a dual-sport varsity athlete at the collegiate level, playing football in the fall and competing in track in the spring.
His impact on the track team was felt immediately. During his first year, he won the Heptathlon at the Ivy League Championships. The following season, he defended his title and was named the “Most Outstanding Field Performer” after the meet.
“There is little that Andrei does that would surprise me, especially after he won the Ivy League Championship in the Heptathlon his [first] year with about one month of training in most events,” Surace added. “The adjustment to the NFL can be hard for most rookies, but Andrei is a very cerebral player, and that helped him adapt to professional football early.”
Iosivas had a breakout year in both sports during his junior year. In the fall, Iosivas led the football team with five touchdown catches alongside 41 receptions and over 700 receiving yards. A record-breaking year in the spring saw Iosivas win the heptathlon at the indoor Heps for the third time and finish fourth at the NCAA Indoor Championships in the heptathlon with 6069 points, which broke the Ivy record. Furthermore, his 6.71 in the 60 set a NCAA indoor meet record.
“Track is what put me on the map lowkey,” Iosivas said. He ran the fastestever 60-meter time of any heptathlete ever at the NCAA championships.
In football, Iosivas continued to impress. During his senior season, he led the Ivy League with 66 receptions, 943 receiving yards, and seven touchdown catches, earning himself national recognition and several accolades.
“Andrei’s Princeton teammates and coaches both respected and loved him,” Surace told the ‘Prince.’
One of the teammates who saw Iosivas’s journey firsthand was Dylan Classi ’23. Classi was a fellow wide receiver who started at Princeton in 2018 alongside Iosivas. Taking a gap year in 2020 to maintain his athletic eligibility, he graduated with Iosivas in 2023.
“He’s one of my best friends,” Classi told the ‘Prince.’ “He’s extremely humble. By the time he had left, he had solidified himself as one of the top receivers to ever play at Princeton.”
Like Surace, Classi pointed out Iosivas’s work ethic as a factor behind his success.
“He came in everyday and worked hard to ensure that he’s in the position he is today. Everything he has right now, he’s worked for. He’s been the same person through it all.”
Iosivas started to garner professional attention after the end of his senior season. Forgoing his senior year with the track team, Iosivas competed in the senior bowl and participated in the NFL Draft combine.
“His desire to want to be great was second to none and that’s something that certainly rubbed off on me,” Classi added.
Iosivas went on to be selected in the sixth round of the draft by the Bengals,
becoming the first Princeton receiver to ever be drafted in the NFL.
“One of the best memories I shared with him would be the day he got drafted,” Classi recalled. “It was amazing just to see one of my best friends dreams come true in person. It truly was a great moment and I was so happy that I got to share such an important part of his life with him.”
He displayed his potential right away. In three preseason games, he totaled 12 receptions, 129 yards, and one touchdown for the Bengals.
The NFL lifestyle
“From day-to-day life, it’s pretty much like a regular job,” Iosivas said about his new gig.
With the Bengals, Mondays are a halfday consisting of lift sessions and meetings with the coaching staff. Tuesdays are the team’s day off to recover and get ready for the week ahead. Wednesday and Thursday feature full-team practices that take up the majority of the day. Lastly, Friday is dedicated to red-zone practice and is the second half-day of the week before travel on Saturday.
The Bengals charter planes from Delta for games away from Cincinnati.
“I usually just like to watch anime on the flight,” Iosivas said. Life for the rookies is not always sunshine and rainbows, as many are expected to fulfill their “rookie duties.”
Iosivas got a taste of this during the season when he and two other rookies had to cover the check at a team dinner.
“We had a rookie dinner, but it was split between like me, Charlie Jones, and [Shedrick Jackson],” Iosivas said jokingly. “So it wasn’t like a humongous bill because they knew we weren’t first or second-rounders. I didn’t have that much money, you know, like, so they kind of knew to just not make me go broke.”
In addition to learning new plays and route trees, he also had the difficult task of ensuring the candy and snacks were always stocked in the wide receiver room.
“If [the candy and snacks] weren’t [stocked], they would get pretty mad,” Iosivas noted.
“It’s football, no matter what level you’re playing it at.”
Outside concern for Iosivas centered largely around how a rookie from an FCS Ivy League program would fare in the NFL — a league where nearly 70 percent of its players are athletes from schools in Power Five conferences. This didn’t faze Iosivas.
“I think the biggest transition is just the playbook, you’re in a new system, you need to learn all these new concepts, these new plays,” Iosivas told the ‘Prince.’ “But once you’re out on the field, it’s not too different. It’s football, no matter what level you’re playing it at.”
He added, “There’s a lot of great athletes on the field… but you just got to go out there and not overthink things and just play the game that you’ve been playing for so long.”
Iosivas silenced those concerns in Week 6 when he caught his first touchdown pass in a home game against the Seattle Seahawks.
“I think my first touchdown was obviously one of my most memorable moments,” Iosivas added. “It came on my birthday. My family and friends were there to see that, so that was pretty cool.”
At Cincinnati, Iosivas was part of
one of the best wide receiver rooms in the NFL. Headlined by pro bowler Ja’Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Tyler Boyd, there was no shortage of receivers Iosivas could learn from during his rookie season.
“When you see them in action, you can understand the movements, you can understand the nuances of their game, how they win, and what they focus on to make them a good receiver,” Iosivas told the ‘Prince.’
A turning point for the Bengals came in Week 11 when franchise quarterback Joe Burrow went down with an injury and was replaced by Jake Browning.
“No one wants to see your franchise quarterback go down, you know, I mean, he’s arguably the best quarterback in football. He’s the only one who can, you know, stack up with Mahomes at the end of the day, in my opinion.”
As the Bengals lost Burrow for the remainder of the season, Iosivas stepped up to perform. One of the defining moments of the season for Iosivas came in the last week of the regular season in a home game against the Cleveland Browns. With the Bengals out of playoff contention, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor utilized his bench, giving Iosivas a have a high usage role on offense, finishing with five receptions, 36 yards, and two touchdowns.
In the process, Iosivas made history, becoming the first Princeton football player with two touchdowns in a game since Dutch Hendrian Class of 1924 — Hendrian made these touchdowns in the same year he graduated, shortly after the end of World War I.
Looking ahead to his sophomore year in the NFL, Iosivas will have the opportunity to take yet another leap. With starting receiver Tyler Boyd set to depart in free agency, Iosivas will have a chance to start for the Bengals next season. His likely competition will be Charlie Jones and Trenton Irwin, two other receivers for the Bengals. Iosivas recognizes this opportunity and his work in the offseason has been indicative of this.
“I’ve been going three sessions a day for like the past two months now just grinding as hard as I can just to be the best receiver I can be,” Iosivas told the ‘Prince.’
For Iosivas, his rookie season provided him with key lessons.
“Just trust yourself. I would say the biggest thing about being in the NFL is just your you know, trusting yourself trusting the work that you’ve put in.”
With a healthy Burrow and Chase and Higgins set to be one of the most dangerous wide receiver duos in the league once more, Iosivas and the Bengals hope to be back to competing for the Lombardi Trophy in the 2024-25 season.
“Andrei is a winner,” Surace added. “He will be successful in whatever role he is asked to perform. I’m excited to see him help another team in Orange and Black win a championship.”
“I’m coming for it all this year,” Iosivas said excitedly.
“The goal for every season is to win a Super Bowl. And, you know, whatever role I’m in, I’m going to do my very best to make sure that we get there.”
Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’
PHOTO COURTESY OF ANDREI IOSIVAS
Iosivas became the first Princeton player to score two touchdowns in an NFL game since 1924.
MEN’S BASKETBALL | FEBRUARY 2024
Xaivian Lee has a P-set to do
By Julian Hartman-Sigall Assistant News Editor and Sports Contributor
Up twenty against rival Harvard and already flirting with a triple-double in front of NBA scouts, he was just having fun.
He caught a pass 26 feet from the hoop with five seconds left in the play clock. Two dribbles later, he picked the ball up in a swinging motion to avoid the strongside help defender. With the shot clock at two, he lept, turning his back from the basket and throwing the ball up with his right arm fully extended. He was lying on the ground before his layup went in.
Few students were in attendance at Jadwin Gymnasium during the winter break game, but the stands were packed.
Two possessions later, he caught the ball on the right wing, gave a hard right jab that sent his defender three feet backwards, and threw up a shot, backpedaling before it went in.
A minute later, he dribbled the ball up the court, high stepping after he crossed halfcourt to disorient his defender. Without glancing at a teammate and with the entire shot clock to work with, he rocked into a stepback three that hit nothing but net.
The next trip down the floor, he waited as his teammates ran to the other side, ensuring he was isolated against his defender. Two crossovers later, he hopped backwards into a deep three that, again, touched nothing but net.
His teammates on the bench stood up with their jaws dropped and hands over their heads.
This is not normal Ivy League basketball.
Mercifully, Coach Mitch Henderson ’98 subbed him out before he could get off another shot. ***
Xaivian Lee ’26 grew up north of the border in Toronto, Canada. When he was five, he played basketball for the first time at a camp sponsored by famed Canadian player Steve Nash, where they used a small ball and miniature nets.
“I did not like basketball,” he said with a laugh. So, he played baseball, and it was his main sport through most of his childhood.
As a 5’7” freshman on the junior varsity basketball team, he hit his growth spurt late in the game. He began to focus on basketball, eventually transferring from the Crescent School in Toronto to the Perkiomen School in the distant suburbs of Pennsburg, Pa. ahead of his senior year. Despite playing for a competitive club team, Lee received little attention from recruiters, partially due to a high school career interrupted by Canada’s stringent COVID-19 measures.
“No one really knew about me just because being from Canada and COVID, so I just hadn’t played,” Lee said.
Princeton was his only Division I offer.
“In terms of the recruiting circuit, you have an Asian kid who’s 170 pounds. So, he gets judged differently in that little bubble,” Cordell Lewellyn, a Canadian former basketball player, told Sportsnet. com. “Sometimes when you get caught up in just who’s who and if you’re not sixfoot-seven, 210, 215 [pounds], if you’re not banging on people, dunking on people, sometimes you fly under the radar. And he flew under the radar.”
During his first year at Princeton, Lee’s profile remained low. Last year’s team was led by now NBA player Tosan Evbuomwan ’23 and Ryan Langborg ’23, who exploded during the team’s March Madness run and then transferred to Northwestern for his fifth year of eligibility.
On his very first play, the ‘Prince’ reported at the time that Lee “showed no
signs of first-year jitters,” describing how he “caught the ball on the left wing, stared down his defender, and calmly knocked down a spot-up three-pointer with a hand in his face” in the Tigers’ narrow victory against the Northeastern Huskies at the 2022 London Basketball Classic Championship.
Despite his comfort on the court, Lee received little opportunity for playing time. Backing up Langborg, then a senior point guard, he averaged playing just over 13 minutes and fewer than five points per game on inefficient shooting. Fine for a freshman, but nowhere near the 30 minutes that fellow freshman Caden Pierce ’26 spent on the court.
During the team’s March Madness run, which saw rotations tighten, Lee played nine minutes across the three games. He was only able to muster a single point.
When the team beat Yale in the finals of Ivy Madness to clinch a spot in March Madness, it was Lee’s birthday.
“I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday because it was the biggest game of the year. So I need[ed] to lock in,” he said. ***
When I opened the door to Xaivian’s room in the attic of a dorm built over a century ago, I found him with his characteristically messy hair and a few friends sitting on his couch watching a YouTube video.
“You know that guy who made the documentary about Jared McCain,” he asked, referencing Duke’s star point guard known for his viral TikToks. I nodded along. “He’s coming here to make one about me.”
“Can we do this while walking?”
“Sure,” I said.
We walked down three flights of stairs to exit the building. I found a young man holding an expensive DSLR with a chunky lens waiting for us. Xaivian introduced us, and I learned that he was the founder of a media company, focused on Asian-American basketball players, who was visiting campus to make a video about Xaivian.
“What Xaivian is doing is historic,” the founder I heard him later say collecting his own interview tape.
After all, in the last few months he has become a TikTok sensation — with videos about him reaching hundreds of thousands of views. He is averaging 18 points a game. Among players used in at least
28 percent of possessions, his offensive rating of 120.6, ranks third in the country. And Princeton’s men’s basketball team, who lurched into the national spotlight with their Cinderella run to the Sweet Sixteen, refused to revert to obscurity. Instead, the team has remained relevant with a 9–0 start which earned them votes for the top 25 ranking — an unheard-of feat for a men’s team in the Ivy League. He has been the subject of Instagram posts by Bleacher Report and BallIsLife. He was interviewed live on ESPN.
A Korean-Canadian studying at the number one school in the country becoming an NBA prospect is quite an underdog story.
“There’s not that many other people who look like me and play like me at this type of level,” Lee said. At any game this season, groups of small children, many of them Asian, can be seen trying to catch a pregame wave from him.
He’s earned the nickname Korean Fried Chicken because, according to one viral TikTok, “he’s an absolute bucket.” (He thinks it’s hilarious.) And he’s garnered comparisons to fellow Asian Ivy league hooper, Jeremy Lin, who achieved superhero-like status during his stint with the Knicks.
I wondered aloud how much his life had changed since we met as freshmen on Community Action.
“My life was the exact same as it was a year ago,” he told me. “Everyone here is so focused on what they’re doing. Everyone thinks they are the best at something, so ... I don’t ever get noticed or anything.”
***
Lee spent the summer playing for the Canadian National U-19 team in Europe, eventually playing in the FIBA world cup. By the end of the summer, Lee was the team’s primary playmaker and highest scorer. But this was not what Lee had anticipated.
“My number one goal was just try and get on the team and get the gear and a jersey just because playing for your country is crazy,” Lee said. Another goal of his was to “travel to Europe.”
“I knew I should be on the team. But I didn’t think I was actually gonna make it just because it’s easier if you’ve already played with [Canadian Basketball].”
Beyond representing the true north on the national stage, Lee spent much of the summer at the gym, putting in the
work to sharpen his game ahead of the upcoming season. Many of Lee’s peers had a sense that his time was about to come.
“All summer I’ve been in the weight room, so just trying to put on a bit more mass I think will help me,” Lee told the ‘Prince’ in an interview in September.
When I asked his backcourt partner, senior guard Matt Allocco recalled, “He was young and skinny but super quick, super shifty, and he was really tough to guard. I remember at first, I was like once this kid gets in the weight room for a little bit then he’s gonna be a problem.”
***
This year, despite losing three of their starters, including their two best players, the team had momentum to build from and a reserved place in the national psyche following their famed three-game March Madness run. It is in this environment that the team has taken off — during their 9–0 start, the team’s NET rating was eighth in the country — with Lee proving to be the unquestionable star of the Tigers’ squad, both on and off the court.
Lee was lucky to play 20 minutes in a game last season — now, he’s exceeded that time in every in-conference game. His points per game have skyrocketed from just 4.8 to 18. In just Ivy League play, Lee sits atop the conference, edging Brown University guard Kino Lilly Jr. by less than a point to average 19.6 points per game.
Lee’s performance does not come as a surprise to his teammates.
“The people who knew him knew that he was going to make a big jump, you know, the people in the program knew it was only a matter of time and that happened pretty quick,” Allocco said. “Now, he’s obviously one of the best players in the country.”
And fans cannot get enough of him.
Last year, one could waltz into Jadwin Gym and have their choice of seat. But this year, students are arriving early to stake their claims. The Feb. 10 game against Penn was the first sell out since 2002.
Much of the attention comes from people he has inspired.
“Anytime you can affect the next generation it’s really special and means something and you should not take that for granted and appreciate and receive that as a blessing,” Lee’s mother, Eun-Kyung Lee, said in an interview with ‘Prince.’ “It’s
been incredible to see that.”
Other attention is from fans who have taken interest in his unique archetype. Lee, intentionally or not, certainly plays into the role that has earned him extra attention — a basketball star from a school more known for producing Nobel prize winners and Supreme Court justices than athletes.
During their March Madness run — far before he gained so much attention — Lee and a few fellow first-years made a viral TikTok showing them doing calculus homework at the Sweet Sixteen hotel.
In a recent postgame interview that later went viral, he said, “A lot of guys were kind of tired. I personally felt terrible today. I had a bunch of homework. So when we get into the locker room, I play a little Fortnite and all the guys are buzzin’.” (Yes, there was a console in the locker room.)
When I asked Lee if he was playing into the stereotype, he knew exactly what I meant.
He laughed. “It sounds like I was, [but] in the moment I really wasn’t trying to. I was really just answering the question like I actually had an econ P-set that night before that just fucking blew my shit. I was tired that day.”
Despite his star power, Xaivian Lee is still just a college student.
“The world doesn’t stop because we’re playing basketball, everyone has schoolwork. Obviously, on a regular day where you have a game, I’m gonna have to do some work,” he said. “I find when I do work before a game I’m not as stressed because I’m not thinking about the game.”
What he has enjoyed most about his newfound quasi-fame is the mixtapes — essentially, basketball’s genre of fan-edits.
“When I was younger, I used to always watch Sharife Cooper mixes, Tre Mann mixes, all those things. No one would ever film us play. The one [thing] that made me realize that I’m starting to make it in terms of that was when there’d be so many people come to film my games, to post videos and stuff,” he told me.
“I’m not fazed by it anymore at all. But if younger me saw that, he’d be like, damn.”
Julian Hartman-Sigall is a Sports contributor and an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’
RYLAND GRAHAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN