“Executive order number one on day one: we’re getting rid of the Immigrant Trust Directive (ITD) here in New Jersey,” Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli told a cheering crowd during the Sept. 22 New Jersey Governor’s Debate.
The ITD is a policy issued by New Jersey’s Attorney General in 2018 ensuring that “victims and witnesses feel safe reporting crimes to local police without fear of deportation,” restricting cooperation between law enforcement and agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
Under a Ciattarelli administration, the ITD could be withdrawn, opening the door
‘Absolutely coming back’: Students get first look inside art museum
Hensler, Emily Chien, & Sena
In an evening featuring music, mocktails, and movies, students received an exclusive first look inside the Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM) on Saturday, Oct. 25.
The preview, which ran from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m., drew an estimated 3,000 attendees and featured Grammy-winning pro -
ducer Jazzy Jeff as its headliner, alongside performances from student groups. Many students expressed that PUAM was significantly more impressive than anticipated, and that they plan on returning for the official 24-hour opening on Oct. 31.
“[PUAM] actually exceeded my expectations. I think the architecture is really beautiful,”
Corinne Jordan ’27 told The Daily Princetonian. “I am definitely coming back — it seems like a
NOCTURNAL GRAVEYARD EXPLORATION SUMMONS UP COMMUNION WITH DEAD
NOVEMBER 14, 1991
to local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Even under Democrat Mikie Sherrill’s potential administration, the ITD’s future is uncertain. Sherrill declined at a recent debate to say whether she would keep the directive, although has historically praised the policy and described it as “a plan that’s working.”
If you’re going to save anything from budget cuts, save climate research
By Isaac Barsoum columnist
In an era of federal funding cuts to Princeton, surprisingly little has been said in these pages about what to prioritize with Princeton’s own resources. Perhaps we’re not sure what deserves saving, or perhaps no one is willing to make the case for saving one program over another. So I’ll say it: Princeton, if you could only choose to save one thing, save the climate research of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory (GFDL). The research done at GFDL by Princeton faculty, researchers, postdocs, and graduate students, funded by the federal government, is world-class, essential, lifesaving research. And if Princeton is interested in being “in the service of humanity,” it would do well to devote both funding and political capital to saving the lab.
GFDL is a climate research laboratory operated by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and located on Princeton’s Forrestal Campus. It hosts a climate research partnership between NOAA and Princeton called the Cooperative Institute for Modeling the Earth System (CIMES). In April, the Department of Commerce, which oversees NOAA, announced the termination of $4 million in research funding for CIMES and two other PrincetonNOAA collaboration projects. In doing so, it declared that some GFDL research was “misaligned with the administration’s priorities” because it promotes so-called “climate anxiety” in “America’s youth.” Moreover, NOAA has proposed to shutter GFDL entirely in its fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, though whether this will actually happen remains unclear.
Alumni and eating clubs initiate dining plan opposition at Princeton-Harvard game
Luke Grippo Assistant News Editor
Powers Field saw two surprises on Saturday: a monstrous 21-point loss at the HarvardPrinceton homecoming game and a plane flying over with a banner reading “dontharvardourprinceton.com.”
Earlier this month, the University announced that all students on campus would be required to purchase a dining plan, effectively eliminating independent status. Since then, opposition to this change has been steadily ramping up, with
the annual Princeton-Harvard football game giving students and alumni the opportunity to publicly express their anger at the change.
The meal plan requirement includes students already in eating clubs and co-ops, who will be able to purchase a $900 Block 32 plan on top of the dues they already pay to their club.
The game marked the official start of the “Don’t Harvard our Princeton” campaign led by the Graduate Interclub Council (GICC) protesting the new dining changes.
“We consider this unwel -
come turn of events to be the most serious threat faced by the Street in our 146-year history,” Robert ‘Hap’ Cooper ’82, Chairman of the GICC and alumnus of Tiger Inn, wrote to The Daily Princetonian in a statement. Accompanying the flyover during the second quarter of the game, hundreds of attendees wore shirts and buttons distributed by the GICC throughout the week.
Aaron Meng ’26, Vice President of Charter Club, told the ‘Prince’ that he attended another event following the game,
See DINING page 6
As the University braces for a nightmarish Halloweekend, The Daily Princetonian revisits the grave of a particular specter haunting campus, cemetery grounds, and our publication itself. Aaron Burr Jr. may have retired in disgrace as the nation’s vice president, but his name continues to stir our spirits, serving Nassau Hall as the University’s resident ghost.
Sena
ELIZABETH HU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Princeton No Kings protest on Oct. 18.
Ciattarelli: ‘Executive
order number one on day one: we’re getting rid of the Immigrant Trust
Directive.’
With less than a week to the New Jersey gubernatorial election on Nov. 4, most independent polls place Sherrill ahead of Ciattarelli by five to ten percentage points. However, an Oct. 22 publication from Rutgers University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics noted that her advantage remains “within the margin of error.”
Conversations around increased immigrant protections in Princeton, according to immigration lawyer Ryan Lilienthal, trace back to the town’s historical treatment of its immigrant population. Immigrants in Princeton have long had a troubled perception of the police, Lilienthal said.
“[Undocumented immigrants] were called ‘walking ATMs,’” he told The Daily Princetonian. “They weren’t allowed to get bank accounts, and so they carried a lot of cash on them. That was one profile of a target of robberies.”
Lilienthal said a pattern of crimes against undocumented immigrants has developed into a general distrust of authori-
ties among immigrant communities even today — a distrust which he said extends to international University students. Lilienthal claimed that, in particular cases, international University students victimized in crimes have “refused to cooperate as a witness for fear of immigration consequences.”
Efforts over the past few years to better enforce the ITD have encountered several obstacles across the state. One such effort is the Immigrant Trust Act (ITA), which seeks to codify the guidelines of the ITD into state law. If passed, the ITA would require a stricter separation between municipal law enforcement and federal immigration enforcement, with violations subject to legal consequences.
The ITA was proposed in September 2024, but has remained at a standstill in its path to legal passage.
“It is a tough political environment for people to feel like they can stick their necks out for non-citizens,” said Molly Linhorst, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “At the end of the day, it’s a human issue, and it’s
an issue of whether or not families can stay together, but it is something that is highly politicized.”
Asma Elhuni, an organizer for local immigrant rights group Resistencia en Acción NJ, pointed to Hoboken, N.J., as an example of a city facing repercussions due to its “sanctuary city” protections for undocumented migrants. Its policies, which Elhuni described as “a version of the ITA,” led to the Trump administration suing the city.
Elhuni, however, told the ‘Prince’ that “the idea shouldn’t be to run away and not get sued — it’s actually to stand up to [Trump] and to actually fight him, because that’s how we win.”
Linhorst argued that several loopholes in the state’s current implementation of the ITD allow police officers to assist ICE. For example, Linhorst said that depending on an immigrant’s criminal and conviction history, information could be exchanged between federal and local enforcement officials. While the ITA aims to resolve these carve-outs, Linhorst explained that they create a “kind of Swiss cheese [effect] rather
than a direct, clear wall between local law enforcement and federal ICE.”
In Princeton, however, officials have delineated a clearcut line between federal and local law enforcement. “The Princeton Police Department does not participate in the enforcement of federal civil immigration matters,” Matthew Solovay, the Chief of Princeton Police, wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’
“Quite clearly, our officers do not take part in ICE operations. [ICE] is not required to notify local police departments before conducting activity in any municipality, and no advance notice was provided during the most recent operations,” he continued. At least 15 people have been detained in Princeton by federal immigration authorities this year.
Still, advocates for the ITA voiced concerns for the future of immigrant rights amid a backdrop of increased ICE raids across the state. The pending ITA serves not only to codify the goals of the ITD, but also to broaden its scope and authority.
“We believe that [the ITD] was a good step by implementing [the directive] throughout the
state, but we really don’t feel it’s gone far enough,” Elhuni added.
“We have plenty of sponsors on the ITA — loads of sponsors. The problem is in the leadership,” she said, pointing to substantial community support in Princeton for the passage of the act and inaction in the Democratic state legislature.
In the lead-up to the governor’s election this November, immigration remains a key voting issue.
“The attorney general who comes next will be really important in determining the future of the state,” Linhorst said. “We are built on and made up of immigrant communities. I hope folks keep that in mind when they go to the polls and think about what kind of state they want to live in.”
Sena Chang is a senior News writer and Features contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She typically covers town topics and campus unions. She can be reached at sc3046[at] princeton.edu.
Teresa Chen is a News contributor from Shanghai, China. She can be reached at tc7069[at]princeton. edu.
Princeton endowment up 11% in rebound in hot market year, but low among peers
Princeton’s endowment generated an 11.0 percent investment gain over the 2025 fiscal year that ended June 30, University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss said in a statement Friday. This marks a rebound in a hot year for markets compared to last year’s historically low return of 3.9 percent and the losses of 1.7 percent and 1.5 percent in FY 2023 and 2022, respectively.
The value of the endowment stood at $36.4 billion at the end of the fiscal year.
Princeton’s results are the second lowest of the six Ivy League
schools who have released endowment results for this year — although the returns have all been tightly clustered. Brown generated 11.9 percent, Columbia 12.4 percent, Dartmouth 10.8 percent, Harvard 11.9 percent, and UPenn 12.2 percent. Cornell and Yale have not yet publicly released results.
The results follow a period of financial turbulence earlier this year, including suspensions in research funding and the threat of a new endowment tax. This semester, all University departments and units have enacted budget cuts of 5 to 10 percent.
“These returns will enable Princeton’s ongoing support for
groundbreaking research, innovative scholarship, and leadership on student access and affordability,” Hotchkiss said in a statement. Payouts from the endowment account for about twothirds of the University’s annual operating revenue, including programs like financial aid.
PRINCO’s portfolio allocation, like most university endowments, is historically heavily weighted towards illiquid alternative assets — like private equity, venture capital, and real assets — and this year underperformed the booming public stock market. Historically, these illiquid assets have generated higher returns based on the principle
that long-term risks are rewarded with higher returns over time — matching the long time horizons of university endowments, which University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has described as like a “retirement annuity.”
According to the 2024 Report of the Treasurer, 78 percent of PRINCO’s total gross managed investments were allocated towards alternative investments, with 42 percent of the total in private equity. Comparatively, Yale reported allocating 95 percent of its endowment towards alternative assets.
Such investments have historically paid off: In the 2021 fiscal year, Princeton’s endowment saw a boom with 46.9 percent re-
turns driven by venture capital (138.5 percent returns) and private equity (99 percent). However, compared to public markets that have recently delivered strong liquid gains, private assets have underperformed in recent years amid relatively slower exits and an increasingly crowded market. The extent to which PRINCO may have adjusted its private equity allocation is unknown. However, Harvard and Yale announced plans this year to sell $1 billion and $3 billion of their private equity holdings in the secondaries market, respectively.
Coco Gong is a head Features editor for the ‘Prince.’
Coco Gong Head Features Editor
U. AFFAIRS
Eisgruber addresses free speech and censorship during book talk at Princeton Public Library
University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 addressed conflicts between free speech and censorship on college campuses during a discussion at the Princeton Public Library on Monday. He was joined in conversation by Deborah Pearlstein, Director of Princeton’s Program in Law and Public Policy.
The conversation touched on many familiar themes in his latest book, “Terms of Respect.” Eisgruber will appear at several public events on campus over the next month to promote the book, including a Nov. 18 event for Yeh and New College West first-years and a Nov. 19 appearance at the art museum.
Eisgruber opened the discussion with an excerpt from the book, arguing that threats to free speech come not from college campuses and younger generations, but from “America’s severe political polarization and the world’s changed communication platforms.”
He also addressed the difference between censorship and controversy through a reference to Judge Kyle Duncan, who was invited to speak at Stanford Law School in 2023. Duncan’s talk was interrupted by student protesters throughout and was eventually cut short.
“That’s real censorship,” Eisgruber said. “It made it impossible for a speaker that some people on campus wanted to hear to be heard, and that should be recognized.”
Eisgruber confronted a similar issue last semester when former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s talk at Princeton was disrupted by a walkout and a pulled
fire alarm. Eisgruber released a statement afterwards denouncing “antisemitic language” used by protestors outside the talk and apologizing to Bennett. The University later barred from campus one man who had shouted down the former prime minister, although it was unable to identify the sources of antisemitic language.
“I don’t want to be trusted to be censoring speech and deciding what speech is good and what’s not. So we have this incredibly broad set of rights that, in my view, is predicated on the idea that it’s better than the alternative,” Eisgruber said.
Both during the discussion and in his book, Eisgruber cited a 2020 paper which found that 46 percent of Americans feel “less free to speak their minds than they used to.”
While he acknowledged that self-censorship is simply “a part of adult life,” he also singled out the incentives of the internet and heightened political polarization as particular causes. He highlighted another statistic from a 2024 Johns Hopkins Poll that around 50 percent of Americans think that the opposing party is “downright evil.”
“If you know that there is a significant probability that somebody may judge you to be ‘downright evil’ when you disclose your political views to them, you have an incentive to self-censor,” Eisgruber said.
Eisgruber’s book was largely completed in January, well before the Trump administration’s most aggressive salvos against the University and its peers. During the conversation, he discussed Trump’s proposed compact to nine universities, including the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, and
Dartmouth College. The compact asked these universities to agree to a set of policies regarding academic freedom, admissions, and other elements of the administration’s agenda in exchange for priority for grants and federal funding. Princeton was not directly invited to the compact, which Eisgruber condemned in a recent LinkedIn post.
“My views are exactly that the strength of American universities … depends on both academic freedom and this partnership that has existed between the government and our research universities for a period of more than 70 years now,” Eisgruber said. “Both of those two things are fundamental. We have to insist on them.”
“I didn’t think we could do this conversation in this public setting without engaging in what’s going on in the country and the administration in the world more broadly,” Pearlstein told The Daily Princetonian after the event.
Eisgruber has been particularly vocal among his peers in pushing back against the extraordinary pressures on higher education brought by the Trump administration. Still, his initial decision to stand up for higher education with his March op-ed in The Atlantic was not an easy one.
“I certainly lost a few nights of sleep before The Atlantic article came out, because I didn’t know what the reaction or the consequences would be,” Eisgruber said. “I had to think not only about the consequences for me, but the consequences for a community that’s represented in part here and that embraces a huge number of different people on the campus.”
He ultimately decided the risks of staying silent outweighed the tactical risks of speaking up. The support Eisgruber would receive afterwards helped him make other decisions going forward.
Following the release of The Daily New York Times podcast
interviewing him about his commitment to higher education, Eisgruber said he had the “unique experience” of having students chase him across the courtyard to tell him they were “really proud.”
“His willingness to speak about his views carves out space for others to do that, not just on the faculty, but among the student body,” Pearlstein said to the ‘Prince.’
In a Q&A session after the conversation, Eisgruber once again reiterated his commitment to freedom of both speech and protest.
“What really would get me worried is if [students] were choosing not to engage with those subjects through the multiple classes that we offer, if they were not writing about those subjects, and I think they’re continuing to do all those things,” Eisgruber said.
Elizabeth Hu is a News contributor from Houston, Texas. She can be reached at eh9203[at]princeton.edu.
Elizabeth Wu Contributing News Writer
ELIZABETH HU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Eisgruber during his talk at Princeton Public Library.
Steward:
‘There’s no path we’re telling you you have to take.’
ART MUSEUM
Continued from page 1
lovely place to study, or just hang out.”
“I’m absolutely coming back,” Stephanie Ko ’28 told the ‘Prince.’ “We forget, on the day-to-day, where we are and what kind of institution Princeton is — we get bogged down by our classwork and stuff,” Ko said. “But when we get the chance to slow down and look around, it’s very exciting to see the things that we have access to.”
Julianne Somar ’26, an Architecture major, said that “the initial walk-in was quite magnificent. Being able to see what finally has been revealed and unfolded and seeing the grandeur of the space is really, really nice to take in.”
Seven of the nine pavilions within the museum are only partially walled off to the ceiling, creating open galleries. This open space is intended to “awaken a sense of discovery,” PUAM director James Steward said.
“There’s no path we’re telling you you have to take, there’s no sequence,” Steward told the ‘Prince.’ He said that museum-goers are able to discover cultures as they please.
Megan Kang GS said that she was “awestruck” by both the museum’s architecture, and described the curation of the art on display as “very playful and very surprising.”
“One of the first pieces I saw was [a] Rothko next to [an] indigenous painting,” she said. “The curation of old and new is really unique, and something you don’t see in a lot of museums.”
Amelia Melendez ’28 said that once she stepped inside, she was enthralled. “It’s like everything catches your eye ... [there’s] so much information and so many stories.”
PUAM is not only spatially non-traditional, but also visually unorthodox. Its sprawling modern facade stands out compared to its 19th-century neighboring buildings. The building has garnered criticism from students for its hulking stone design and tendency during construction to block the fastest paths across campus.
“I must admit, it was very annoying with the construction blocking all the routes [to class], freshman, sophomore, junior year, [and] part of senior year,” Joyce Chan ’26 said. However, after visiting the museum, Chan felt it was worth the wait. “I wasn’t expecting to see all these rare art pieces on display.” she said.
Students also appreciated the broad range of art showcased in the museum, with collections dedicated to European, Asian, Middle Eastern, and American, among others. The collections also range across different mediums, including pottery, mosaics, landscapes, furniture, and sculpture.
Sophie Gao ’28 highlighted how parts of PUAM art directly related to the rich history of both the city of Princeton and Princeton University itself, providing a grounded perspective that sets the PUAM apart. Charles Wilson Peale’s “George Washington at the Battle of Princeton,” for one, sits at the entrance to the American Art pavilion and was installed in Nassau Hall for over two centuries.
“You realize where Princeton was situated in the context of [American history],” Gao told the ‘Prince.’
Throughout the night, PUAM hosted film screenings of “Night at the Museum” (2006) and its sequel alongside live performances from slam-poetry group Songline, eXpressions Dance Com-
pany, improv group Quipfire! and Princeton University Ballet. TigerTale also released a limitededition pin featuring the art museum building designed by Kellen Ducey ’26.
Luke Reudelhuber ’29, who was working for the event planning company Rafanelli, was in charge of overseeing a puzzle activity featuring paintings in the gallery.
“Tons of people are getting roped in and absorbed into the activity, so [they’re] appreciating the art in [another] way,” he said.
Unlike Reudelhuber, Officer Simon Sosa, one of the many cultural properties officers who will be working at the museum, didn’t expect to spend his nights at an art museum. “When I came
to Princeton as a PSafe officer, I wanted to be more like a police officer,” he said.
“You try to make it fun,” Sosa said. “I like to look at the artwork. Sometimes, if I’m standing for too long, I’ll go read the descriptions.”
The museum will host a 24-hour opening event from 5 p.m. on Oct. 31 to 5 p.m. on Nov. 1, which will be open to members of the larger Princeton community as well as students. Many of the attendees at Saturday’s event planned to return to the grand opening.
Reudelhuber also looked forward to the opportunity to return to the museum as a student rather than an employee. “I’ll get to sort of experience all the levels [and] all the different displays,” he said.
“I feel like the vibe here tonight is really good, but I think next weekend it’ll be even better,” Laura Green ’29 said. “I think the community will want to see it too. It’s a great museum.”
Leela Hensler is a staff News writer and a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Berkeley, Calif. and can be reached at leela[at]princeton.edu.
Emily Chien is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Arcadia, Calif., and can be reached at emilychien@princeton.edu.
Sena Chang is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ She typically covers campus and community activism, the state of higher education, and alumni
Princeton postdoc union and University continue bargaining after nearly a year at the table
After over a year of biweekly bargaining sessions since postdocs voted to form the Princeton University Postdocs and ScholarsUnited Auto Workers union in May 2024, the union has submitted around 40 proposals on issues ranging from healthcare to retirement to relocation assistance. Tentative agreements have been reached on nine articles, including on job postings and sharing of disciplinary information.
Postdoctoral researcher Jessica Ng told The Daily Princetonian that bargaining sessions between the union and the University are still meeting every Monday as they did in the spring. The most recent session was held on Oct. 20. Some issues have been in discussion for many months. For example, Ng and Union bargaining committee member and postdoctoral researcher Katerina Kanevche raised concerns about a University proposal first introduced on Feb. 18, which would allow postdocs to be laid off with a few months’ notice — one month for a one-year appointment, or
longer depending on the length of the contract. The union submitted its latest response on Sept. 3, proposing that postdocs cannot be laid off within the first year of employment, and any layoffs must occur with nine months’ notice. Discussions remain ongoing.
According to Ng, the proposal would permit the University to arbitrarily terminate postdocs, potentially due to lack of funding.
“[The proposal] is basically saying, ‘We want a no-fault mechanism to let postdocs go,’” she said. “You’ve been here for less than a year, and [the University] can lay you off with one month’s notice.”
While Ng said the University didn’t explicitly say the layoff proposal was in response to funding cuts, she also noted that “the timing of it certainly implied that.”
University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss said in a statement that “the layoff proposal is based on the current policy in the Rules and Procedures of the Professional Researchers and Professional Specialists.”
Kanevche and Ng said the postdocs were especially interested in seeking these protections in light of political instability around higher
education and labor rights. “Particularly for postdocs and researchers, there is no other form of support on campus right now besides the rights we win through our union,” Kanevche wrote in a statement.
Potential federal instability is “why we want to have these protections concretized in our contract,” Ng said. “If [federal] laws change and these protections become weaker, let’s make sure that these protections are still in place.”
Kanevche wrote that the tentative agreements reached have helped “ensure strong union operations and representation.” Such agreements include procedural definition in discipline and discharge cases, requiring discipline can only be pursued for just cause, as well as flexibility for postdoc holiday observations.
Ng added that progress is also being made on an article strengthening postdocs’ ability to be listed as principal investigators (PIs) on external grant projects.
Under Princeton’s existing rules, postdocs are eligible to be PIs or co-PIs, unlike other staff such as visiting researchers, who must receive University approval.
The proposal would require the University to respond to a notice of intent to serve as a PI by the funding sponsor’s deadline.
“What happens is that postdocs will ghostwrite these grants. Their PI is like, ‘help, will you help me write this grant?’” Ng said.
“They often don’t understand that you can actually ask Princeton for the postdoc to be recognized as a co-PI on the grant.”
“Some postdocs will either agree to write this grant, but then not get credit for it, and then feel like they didn’t get the recognition they deserve,“ she added. “I’m personally very gratified to see that Princeton has actually made some pretty big movements on that, and we’re coming closer to an agreement.”
Ng said the union’s morale remains steady despite the political climate. “It seems to me like the people who already felt that way [before Trump’s presidency] continue to feel that way, and there’s a lot of people who are really seeing the value in having this collective body, collective voice, collective power,” she said.
Both Ng and Kanevche cited the University’s response to federal policy changes as one of the
union’s greatest challenges. “Since this administration took office, we have seen that the situation has gotten worse and University leadership seems to have become more conservative in their willingness to agree to strong protections for their workers,” Kanevche wrote.
Hotchkiss wrote to the ‘Prince’ that the University’s decisions may be constrained by federal regulations. “Some topics of negotiation are subject to federal law or regulation, and many University research projects are sponsored by the federal government,” Hotchkiss wrote.
“The University’s bargaining proposals take into account many factors, such as institutional values, resources, and priorities, as well as applicable legal requirements,” Hotchkiss added.
Bargaining sessions continue to be held Mondays from 1–4 p.m.
Meghana Veldhuis is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Bergen County, N.J., and typically covers graduate students, postdocs, faculty, and campus unions and labor. She can be reached at mv4991[at]princeton.edu.
Meghana Veldhuis Senior News Writer
CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN University President Christopher Eisgruber ‘83 giving opening remarks.
New Net, New Hub: University expands student platforms with updates to TigerNet and TigerHub
Recent updates to TigerNet, Princeton’s communication platform for alumni and students, and TigerHub, the online student portal for academic and enrollment functions, signal a continued expansion of Princeton’s digital infrastructure.
TigerNet, which houses Princeton’s alumni directory, was recently redesigned to integrate new tools for volunteer administrators alongside a new interface. Meanwhile, a new platform, Stellic, will be used for course planning, degree audits, and academic advising once it is integrated into TigerHub in Spring 2026.
Stellic was selected “for its functionality, software-as-a-service model, and student-centered de-
sign,” University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote in an email to The Daily Princetonian. The program will be accessible across devices, including desktops, tablets, and mobile phones, with a dedicated app currently in development.
Peer universities such as Columbia University and Duke University have already officially designated Stellic as their course planning platform.
The University’s updates to TigerNet — first launched in 1994 — mark the completion of a multi-year transition to the Hivebrite platform, a process that began in 2021.
The choice to broaden access to the alumni directory was made by the Office of University Advancement, whose purpose is to foster connections among Princeton alumni and community members.
“TigerNet is Princeton’s community communications platform, with access for Princetonians only — alumni and students,” Morrill wrote. “The consolidation of all features into one platform reduces the University’s digital footprint. This also provides a highly secure online environment for Princetonians.”
Students will be able to access “all the information the University has on record regarding alumni education, student activities, email address, phone number, and employment history” through the “My Alumni Profile” tab, according to Morrill. Conversely, due to Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) protections, alumni cannot view student information.
The new directory allows alumni to update their profiles, adjust
privacy settings, and control how much information they share.
“Home and business addresses will be hidden as a default setting but can be ‘turned on’ or shared by the alum,” wrote Morrill.
The directory will “help alumni build their networks, both professionally and personally,” she added.
For the first time, students have full access to all aspects of TigerNet, beyond the Alumni Directory. They can now join regional and affinity groups and discussion forums, while class and Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni (APGA) sites remain restricted to members.
There are currently 156 regional groups, 77 classes and the Association of Princeton Graduate Alumni (APGA), eight affinity groups, and 163 forums currently on file in Ti-
gerNet 2.0. According to Morrill, “all regional groups and classes/APGA are represented on the platform.” The development of the new website was adjusted based on alumni feedback. “Extensive directory testing was employed over a period of a few months with both internal alumni staff and alumni who volunteered to test the platform,” Morrill stated. User guides have been developed to help alumni and students navigate the new site.
Haeon Lee is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Brooklyn, N.Y. and can be reached at hl1389[at]princeton.edu.
Emily Chien is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Arcadia, Calif., and can be reached at emilychien[at] princeton.edu.
Conversations around district-wide phone policy gain momentum in Princeton
At a Princeton Public Schools (PPS) Board of Education (BOE) meeting on Sept. 30, attendees discussed calls for a “bell-to-bell” phone policy that would restrict student cell phone use throughout the school day. Nearly a month later, debate over what a district-wide phone policy should look like continues to grow.
“We had a dozen parents email us supporting the bell-to-bell cell phone ban,” Dafna Kendal, the board’s president, told The Daily Princetonian in an interview.
According to PPS Superintendent Michael LaSusa, who joined the district in July, discussions around the
district-wide phone policy were already well underway over the summer. He noted that Gov. Phil Murphy’s call for a statewide cell phone ban in all schools during his annual State of the State address on Jan. 14 brought renewed attention to the issue this year.
“There’s fairly widespread agreement that at our K-8 schools, cell phones do not have a place,” LaSusa said. “Currently, the rules in those schools are that when students are with us in school, their cell phones can’t be on their person.”
In Princeton High School, however, there is no definitive expectation that all cellphones are put away at designated times. “There’s more discretion on the part of teachers as to
what they require of their students when they’re in class,” LaSusa told the ‘Prince.’
Local parent Mary Lundquist, who has three children attending school in the district, also expressed her concerns that students were “physically there but emotionally absent.”
Lundquist’s family is among the 122 families that have committed to the Princeton-specific “Delay the Smartphone” pledge, which stipulates delaying smartphone use for a child until they are at least age 16.
“Phones were designed for adults; they weren’t designed for kids,” Lundquist continued. “High schoolers are still kids.”
District parent and local history
teacher Brian Levinson expressed frustration with what he sees as a lenient approach to managing phone use in schools.
“No way in the world a kid is learning as much if they’re scrolling through TikTok at the same time,” Levinson told the ‘Prince.’ Levinson added that stricter classroom policies in his own teaching experience have helped improve student focus and performance. “It’s been my experience in the classroom that smartphones don’t make for a good learning experience,” he said.
LaSusa acknowledged that parents differ on the extent of acceptable phone usage in schools. “We certainly have a population of parents who believe firmly in a bell-to-bell
cell phone ban across all schools,” he said. “We have other parents who I’ve heard from who believe that students … need to be able to self-regulate, and it shouldn’t be up to the school.” Lundquist disagreed with that view. “Maybe some students are learning management, but I don’t think it is a strong enough reason that all kids should have phones at school,” she said.
LaSusa told the ‘Prince’ that the conversation is “moving along” and anticipates that an official policy could be adopted as early as the beginning of the next academic year. Amaya Taylor is a News contributor from Memphis, Tenn. She can be reached at at9074[at]princeton.edu.
Amaya Taylor News Contributor
Haeon Lee & Emily Chien News Contributors
Cooper: ‘the most serious threat faced by the Street in our 146-year history.’
DINING
Continued from page 1
where many alumni questioned him about the shirts and plane they saw in the stadium.
“People didn’t know. They were like, ‘I saw a lot of people wearing this, and I saw the plane,’ and they were wondering what’s going on,” Meng told the ‘Prince.’ “I was able to have a conversation with them about that. In that sense, I think it was noticeable.”
Meng and Charter President Madeleine Murnick ’26 shared that 150 shirts were picked up by club members when they were distributed earlier in the week.
“I’ve spent the past four weeks talking to our membership about how they’re feeling and their opinions and their questions and concerns,” Murnick told the ‘Prince. “My first and foremost job as an eating club officer is to hear from my club members, and so I’m really going to continue that process.”
Charter’s members have already expressed discontentment with the new
dining system — a decision that the other eating clubs seem to share.
Scott Becker ’26, President of Cannon Dial Elm Club (CDE) expressed that most students in the club are in disagreement with the University’s decision.
In a statement to the ‘Prince,’ Becker wrote that a “majority of CDE members are in agreement with the position of the club’s graduate board” to oppose the new meal plan.
“Our members who are not on aid do not consider a $900 charge as insignificant, as is suggested in University statements,” Becker added.
The sentiments of these clubs is one that, Murnick suggested, is shared among the clubs, who have been in close dialogue with each other since the Sept. 29 announcement.
“We also need students to let the ICC know what they’re thinking and communicate with [University administrators] and let them know what they’re thinking,” Murnick said.
Alumni have also been invited to the conversation. Cap and Gown Club sent an email to alumni suggesting they
write a comment on the “Don’t Harvard our Princeton” website or email University administrators, an alum told the ‘Prince.’
Cooper wrote that the “Don’t Harvard our Princeton” campaign is fighting what the GICC views as a University distaste for eating clubs 120 years in the making, since ex-University president Woodrow Wilson called the clubs “divisive” and “snobbish.”
The campaign is seeking to protect an “overwhelmingly popular” institution that promotes “a robust and safe social environment for all undergrads at no cost to the University,” Cooper said. “No student at Princeton needs a car or a credit card to have a social life.”
The slogan “Don’t Harvard our Princeton” originates in the ongoing controversy surrounding Harvard University and its social finals clubs. Cooper and the GICC fear that a similar fate awaits Princeton and Prospect Avenue.
“They’ll drive enough of the open clubs out of business, so the remaining clubs can no longer handle 100% of the demand — then they can justify build -
ing a new social/dining system,” Cooper wrote. “As with Harvard, the remaining clubs will become more selective, serving a privileged minority and the pro-club sentiment will begin to reverse. Eventually, they’ll turn the Street into a few nightclubs and B&Bs.”
Both the GICC and the clubs have alluded to future actions in the works, including a potential proposal from the GICC that would suggest making the Block 32 optional, according to Murnick, though the proper handling of this situation is of the utmost importance.
“[Students] don’t want to be required to buy an additional dining plan, and it is troubling that this decision was made without the eating clubs,” she said.
“A red line has been crossed,” Cooper said. “This is an ill-considered and ultimately dangerous policy against which we must all stand firm in opposition.”
Luke Grippo is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’ He is from South Jersey, and typically covers University and town politics, on a national, regional, and local scale. He can be reached at lg5452[at]princeton.
Alumni celebrate Princeton’s 279th birthday at Orange and Black Day 2025
Aitana Camponovo News Contributor
Princeton University marked its 279th birthday on Wednesday, Oct. 22, and alumni returned to celebrate the fifth annual Orange and Black Day with a mix of campus festivities and school spirit.
Over the course of the day, Princeton’s official Instagram showcased the campus’s vibrant fall colors, shared alumni shout-outs, and highlighted the StandUp for Princeton movement. Alumni dressed in orange and black were seen strolling through campus and taking photos in front of Nassau Hall. In the evening, as a
part of the official Orange and Black Day festivities, each residential college dining hall welcomed alumni volunteers with cake, photo opportunities, and handouts about the history of Princeton’s founding.
At Forbes College, alumni Anthony Fittizzi ’97 and Timothy Calvin ’97 greeted students and served cake.
“We are here to encourage you to make sure you come back to reunions every year after graduation,” Fittizzi said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “It’s the biggest party on the planet and it’s a great opportunity to reconnect with your friends who you no longer live with day in and day out.”
Fittizzi and Calvin were close friends during their time in college. After 28 years, they continued to keep in touch through the robust alumni network at Princeton. Both regularly return to campus for events such as Orange and Black Day, football games, and Reunions.
“We are also here to tell current students about what it was like when we were here,” Calvin told the ‘Prince,’ noting that campus life has changed in many ways.
“A bunch of things no longer exist anymore,” Calvin said. The pair reflected on campus transformations, from the renovation of science buildings to the ongoing reconstruction of the Princeton University Art Museum. They also reminisced about the defunct Forbes tradition of sledding down the golf course on dining hall trays.
Dottie Werner, the Coordinator for Alumni Class Affairs, has spent more than 45 years organizing events that bring
Princeton alumni together.
“We started maybe 10 years ago trying to get people to recognize Charter Day and it morphed into Orange and Black Day,” she explained. Charter Day, which was also celebrated on Oct. 22, marks the day when Princeton University was granted its charter as the College of New Jersey.
In addition to on-campus festivities, alumni around the world joined the celebration through KudoBoard, an online platform where they shared photos of their own “DIY (Do-It-Yourself) OBD (Orangeand-Black-Day)” gatherings.
The University also made an effort to include alumni joining the celebrations remotely. “We send out party packs with hats and banners and people will take pictures of their parties and send them in,” Werner said.
While the alumni tradition of celebrating the University’s birthday has long been active, Matthew Morgan ’85, an active member of the Alumni Council, explained that Orange and Black Day on campus is still in its “infancy.”
“In the past, it was more of an alumnifocused event, but Princeton is trying to get students to recognize it as well and enjoy it,” Morgan said.
For Henry Cammerzell ’25, one of the objectives of Orange and Black Day is to help students understand that there is a support system that will “pick them up when they fall down if they just reach out and ask.”
Aitana Camponovo is a News writer for the ‘Prince.’ She is from Washington, D.C.
Timothy Calvin ’97 and Anthony Fittizzi ’97 at Orange
New York City wins,
and it’s not even close: a deep
dive into 2025 Alumni Giving
Princeton’s Annual Giving campaign provides tens of millions of dollars in unrestricted donations to the University from a wide range of undergraduate and graduate alumni, often in smaller-dollar amounts.
The Daily Princetonian obtained documents from the 2025 annual giving campaign and broke down donation data by geographic area and class year. The reports provide a window into the fundraising profile of the University, which prides itself on its loyal alumni and their willingness to donate.
By the end of this year’s Annual Giving campaign on June 30, the Class of 2000 had donated $6,409,989, the highest among all class years. The Class of 1995 came in second, with $6,170,054, and the Class of 1975 came in third, with $5,293,462 raised. The next largest amount raised came from the Class of 1985, lagging around $2 million behind the Class of 1975. For these classes, 2025 marks their 50th, 25th, 30th, and 40th graduation anniversaries, respectively — all major reunions. For the majority of classes, the overall alumni giving totaled between $50,000 and $1,000,000.
Regionally, alumni groups within the United States far outpaced any international ones, according to data collected through July 26 (four days before the end of the giving period). Northern New Jersey alone donated almost double what the continent of Europe did. The cumulative alumni gifts from the region labeled “The Americas,” which encompasses all North and South American countries, except Canada and the United States, was under $10,000. In contrast, donors from New York City had already given over $800,000 just two months into the campaign. The only American regions that donated less than Europe were the Mideast (the greater region around the Ohio-Pennsylvania border) and Great Plains.
The dominance of donations from New York City, New England, and California reflects the regional concentration of wealth in the U.S. as well as where Princetonians favor relocating after graduation. Last year, 30 percent of all Princetonians in the Class of 2025 reported in the 2025 Senior Survey that they would live in New York right out of school, just like the Class of 2024 a year prior.
While the Northeast largely increased its donations relative to last year, areas like the Missouri Valley saw a drastic drop. During the FY 2024 Annual Giving campaign, the Missouri Valley had donated $1,031,428 by June 26, 2024. By June 26 of this year, however, the region had donated only $17,410. These large year-toyear swings in regional donations often reflect changes in large gifts from individual donors.
During the latest annual giving period, however, the University advocated for alumni to donate as part of its “Stand Up” campaign in opposition to the Trump administration.
“[At] least one very large gift [came in] because the person was upset with what the government had done to Princeton, and wanted to [show his support] for Princeton [in] challenging times,” said Charles D. Fox ’75 in an interview
with the ‘Prince’. Fox serves as the 1975 Class Agent, and he and his team helped raise over $5.3 million dollars in alumni gifts in 2025.
For some classes, sentimentality may have played a larger role. “[At] the core, what you have is Princeton as an institution, and the vast majority of people are willing to support that institution, regardless of whether they agree with where things are going politically,” said Tiffany Madigan ’00 in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ Like Fox, Madigan is a Class Agent for her year. “Princeton kind of [outlives] all of those political issues, and that’s what makes it great,” she added, noting that nostalgia, financial stability, and effective communication were large contributing factors to her class’s giving in 2025.
Adding to these usual patterns, Madigan noted that the 25th reunion was particularly important to the Class of 2000, since they “didn’t have [their] 20th because of COVID, and so [they] hadn’t really been on campus together in a decade,” she said.
Undergraduate alumni giving makes up the vast majority of Annual Giving gifts in the second half of the fiscal year. Donations also accelerated in the last week of this year’s Annual Giving campaign. Undergraduate alumni gave almost $53.5 million dollars by the end of June, parents of alumni donated around $1.5 million, and graduate alumni donated just under $2.5 million. The remaining gifts came from “Other Gifts,” a category separate from undergraduate, graduate, or parents of alumni gifts.
Despite alumni participation falling in recent years, Princeton still maintains the highest alumni donation rate in the Ivy League. Even as some regions pulled back in their gifts, others surged, and Princeton’s classes continued to donate.
“[You] don’t pull the rug up behind you, ... [you] help build a ladder so more people can come,” said Madigan.
As uncertainty mounts around funding for higher education, Princeton’s alumni may make all the difference.
Veda Devireddy is a Data contributor for the ‘Prince.’
Veda Devireddy Data Contributor
This Week in Photos
Homecoming Weekend
By Calvin Kenjiro
Grover, Ryland Graham, MC McCoy, Ammaar Alam, and Xin Yan Zheng Daily princetonian photographers
MC MCCOY / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Students walk on top of an ancient Roman mosaic pavement at the Princeton University Art Museum Student Preview.
AMMAAR ALAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
During Princeton’s Homecoming game against Harvard, Roderick Plummer ’72, the University’s first Black starting quarterback, is recognized on the field at halftime at Princeton Stadium.
CALVIN KENJIRO GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Guests walk around inside Prospect House during a ceremony commemorating the naming of 12 rooms after distinguished individuals connected to Princeton on Oct. 22, 2025.
MC MCCOY / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
‘Laocoön,’ Unidentified Artist, on display in the Duane Wilder Gallery during the Princeton University Art Museum Student Preview on Oct. 25, 2025.
RYLAND GRAHAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Nassau Hall surrounded by fall foliage, on Oct. 26, 2025.
AMMAAR ALAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
A pass from Princeton quarterback Kai Colón to Josh Robinson down the right sideline is broken up by Harvard defensive back Austin-Jake Guillory, falling incomplete, during the Homecoming football game on Oct. 25, 2025.
Hum r
U. announces it will begin measuring ‘campus consensus’ by Fizz poll
By Isaac Barsoum Humor Contributor
The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.
On Monday, Resources Committee Chair John T. Groves announced that the University will soon make a landmark decision surrounding dissociation from the parade industry. To measure “campus consensus” on the issue, a poll will be conducted on Thursday at 6 p.m. on Fizz, the anonymous campus social media app.
The poll will reportedly be posted under the question, “Do you love parades?” and have two answer choices: “Yes,” or “I hate America.” For dissociation to happen, Groves said the “I hate America” option would need to amass well over 94 percent of votes in its favor. In response to criticism that the answer choices were biased, Groves told The Daily PrintsAnything that “we are only asking students to be honest about their attitudes toward parades, and by extension, the United States of America.”
The ‘Prints’ requested a detailed statement from President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 regarding the situation. “Vox populi, vox dei,” was his response.
The shift to Fizz follows multiple failed attempts to define “campus consensus” for
dissociation. Though the Resources Committee has previously accepted written comments from community members before shredding them, it recently transitioned to an in-person model, which is now discontinued due to poor attendance of just 13 students and one campus fox.
Dissociation from “Big Parade” has been a priority of campus activists for at least a decade. “We are thrilled that Princeton is considering dissociation from parades everywhere. These parades, especially the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, have no right to exist,” Kent March ’27, the Vice President of Princeton Students Against Parades, told the ‘Prints’ in an email.
Dez Feel ’26, the President of Tigers for Parades, told the ‘Prints’ in an interview that she was delighted to hear that the decision would be made by Fizz poll. “We all know that Fizz is an accurate representation of Princeton students’ opinions,” Feel said. “I am confident that Princeton students will vote to express their love for parades and eschew the America-hating anti-parade ideology espoused by the radical left.”
Shortly after John Groves’ announcement, the Princeton Public Opinion Institute issued a statement condemning the poll’s format.
“We are very disappointed by the lack of a ‘Results’ option in the Resources Com-
mittee’s forthcoming Fizz poll,” they wrote. “Such a misadministration overlooks the wide swath of the student body who might have an opinion on the issue but not care enough to vote.”
It was unclear at the time of publication whether the poll would require Fizz to be de-anonymized, and whether faculty and staff members would be allowed to create accounts on the platform to be able to vote.
Isaac Barsoum ’28 is an Opinion columnist and a contributing Humor writer. He thinks his 209,596 upvotes on Fizz should result in him assuming the University presidency after the end of the Eisgruber administration. He can be reached at itbarsoum@princeton.edu.
Lewis Center for the Arts offers debt maximization workshop
By Nate Voss Staff Humor Writer
The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.
On Tuesday, the Lewis Center for the Arts unveiled “Borrowing Smart,” its new Thanksgiving Break debt management workshop. The program is the brainchild of Theater Professor Owen Cash, who has seen many of his otherwise talented students struggle to
maximize their debt.
“We will start with the basics of forming a deficit, explaining the principles of living in Manhattan and ‘buy now, pay later’-ing Doordashed Starbucks,” he said. “Then, we will move onto digging oneself deeper by asking relatives for money and buying Blockbuster stock.”
In its final weeks, the course will cover enrolling in Master’s programs.
The announcement was met with
excitement among humanities students.
“I was unsure about whether to sign up, but after hearing about the field trip to Trenton to take out a quick loan for a tattoo? I was sold,” said Lotta Dett ’26, whose major is undecided.
“A Thanksgiving program is absolutely perfect! Now I won’t have to tell my grandfather what I’m doing with the $300,000 degree he’s paying for,” added Dee Suhpoint ’28, a Visual Arts
Minor.
Professor Cash is available for questions at owen.cash@princeton.edu. He looks forward to meeting his students and can’t wait to guide them in their journey to accumulate truly generational debt.
Nate Voss ’29 is a staff Humor writer who is torn between being an English major and a future. He can be reached at nv5141@princeton.edu.
Football bike gang NARP$$UCK holds students hostage in Princeton Stadium
By Roberto Sampaio Staff Humor Writer
The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.
In a dire situation’s most recent escalation, electric bike gang NARP$$UCK has taken students hostage in Princeton Stadium. Reportedly made up of disgruntled football players, NARP$$UCK can be identified by their bikes’ breakneck speeds despite traveling distances of at most two feet.
“The football team is tired of being disrespected. Everyone says we can’t do shit. Well, look at us now!” Ferdinand Livingston, the youngest member of the team, said in an Instagram Live. In the same livestream, Livingston — who also goes by Throat Slasher — filmed the gang’s cruel and unusual torture of the hostages, which included watching
their football games, even the ones outside the Ivy League.
While many students only became aware of the situation this week, NARP$$UCK actually made their initial demands over three weeks ago in a University-wide email titled “BOW TO YOUR OVERLORDS NARPS.”
“We want electric vehicles allowed on campus again. We want to cut people in Choi Dining Hall. And most importantly, at the end of the season, we want a MASSIVE, football-players-only pizza party. If our demands aren’t met, we’re gonna lose EVERY single game this season. #BikesOverHikes #FearTheBike,” the gang said in the email.
At the time, it seemed that everyone ignored the email, particularly the University, which made no moves to begin negotiations. In a statement to the Daily PrintsAnything,
University spokesperson Jessica Wilson said, “We don’t negotiate with guys who fumble every other play. We all know they’re gonna lose anyway.”
With their threats going unacknowledged, NARP$$UCK escalated the situation. Two weeks ago, the gang began abducting students from the Jadwin-McDonnell-Fine area, strategically close to Princeton Stadium. These disappearances also went unnoticed.
“Unfortunately, due to the demographics of these students, no one noticed they were missing,” Wilson said. “They’re largely math and physics majors. Statistically speaking, most have no friends.”
Ultimately, NARP$$UCK contacted what they called “the most trustworthy news sources they know” to break the story: Princ-
eton’s Barstool account.
At print time, there are a staggering two students held hostage in Princeton Stadium. The ‘Prints’ hopes for their quick return. After the story first broke, the University released a statement threatening to put all gang members in no-elevator housing. Within minutes, NARP$$UCK released the hostages and fled the scene. Subsequent interviews with the hostages have revealed that they were not hostages at all, but instead willingly attended these football games. They have since been checked into Trenton Psychiatric Hospital.
Roberto Sampaio ’28 is a staff Humor writer. In other news, he is looking for bodyguards. Must be able to fight large, zooming targets. Serious inquiries only at rs2021@princeton.edu.
CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Pro-Palestine protesters disrupted the P-Rade on Saturday, May 25.
“You A re Wh At You e At ”
By Pranav Iyer
47 Hardwood tree
48 Something to shuck 50 Garbage
52 76ers legend known as “The Answer”
53 Pickled flower bud 54 ____ monster (venomous lizard native to the Southwestern U.S.)
55 Common chili ingredient 59 Have people over 60 _____ Hunt, protagonist in the “Mission: Impossible” movies
Crazy about
Branching diagram
It can be verde or roja
Poetic tributes 1 The sixth 9-Down
Split evenly
“Please, go ahead”
Fend (off)
Arrogant ... or what one might be after consuming 17-, 24-,
and 55-Across? 39 ___ Lingus (Irish airline)
following cold or class
Most popular major for Princeton’s Class of 2026, for short 6 Government prosecutors, for short 7 Texted shrug 8 Steps on the way to the Olympics or a drug approval 9 Magnetoreception, for sea turtles
10 Solved bit by bit 11 Put back on the payroll 12 “I was asleep the whole time,” and others 13 Laid-back
18 Top-____
22 Pulls an all-nighter, say 23 Source of airport pat-downs: Abbr. 24 Style, as in hair 25 Authorize 28 Hint of something 31 Intricate 33 Microbe
35 Pages (through) 36 Palindromic bread 37 Unfinished business 38 It’s the same for all customers 42 Barely scratch (out) 43 Rescuer 44 Ending words of a threat 45 Pretty, in Pamplona 46 What trees do in the wind 48 Infinity symbol sideways 49 Alternatives to Pepsis 51 H.S. class for a future doctor, maybe 53 Wrestler/actor John 56 UPS competitor 57 Illmatic rapper 58 Rejections
USG
cares about making good policy. We need you to care, too.
Marvel Jem Roth Guest Contributor
The typical student consensus at Princeton seems to be that USG is not defined by its policy advocacy, but as the “free sweatshirt” people, the “giver-of-merch,” the party planner, the inconsequential. This is understandable; the sheer scale and reach of Lawnparties, with its $260,000 budget, generates USG’s reputation of being built around programmatic facets. But USG is more than an organization that just plans social events. Its members care deeply about advocating for beneficial University policies, too. But in order for that to happen, more students need to better engage with USG’s decision-making process.
As an appointed member of this USG administration, I oversee the policy initiatives of USG working groups run by U-Councilors and Class Senators. These working groups, in addition to many USG committees, work on relevant policies to students’ struggles from international student experience to civil liberties to mental health. Through this managerial and bureaucratic position, I am, in the words of Lin
Manuel-Miranda, in the room where it happens. I get to witness the intensity and discipline that underlie USG’s work, and the genuine dedication of its members to making a positive difference.
I also see the student body’s dismissal of it.
But USG is more than just Lawnparties. The introduction of early-morning TigerTransit to Princeton Junction around breaks, the transition from certificates to minors, and the reduction of therapy copays to $10 last year were all the results of USG policy lobbying. Years of dedicated advocacy and input to University administrators from USG drove the incorporation of the “Suspension (Not Served)” sanction to the Honor Committee and the lengthening of passing periods.
Unfortunately, policy work isn’t easy. Proposals can die in University committees, or lose steam between USG administration changes. While USG holds autonomy over its own budget and initiatives, when it comes to university-wide policy, USG and students alike have to put their faith in University administrators to be willing to meaningfully and transparently collaborate, hear out demands, and actively address students. Yet, University
Princeton’s
Josh Stiefel Contributing Opinion Writer
Imay be the farthest thing from a vegan.
In Princeton’s dining halls, you can find me eating chicken, meat, or other animal products. At home, I drive a gas-powered car, and am a frequent ice cream eater. I have even been known to enjoy the occasional glass of milk.
Among Princeton students, I stand among the vast majority of students as a meat eater. In fact, this year’s Frosh Survey found that just 6 percent of the Class of 2029 identify as vegan or vegetarian. Meat is a huge part of the typical Princeton student’s diet; in 2023, Senior Opinion Writer Thomas Buckley found that a single Rockey/Mathey dining hall main course used 500 pounds of beef per week. This massive consumption of animal products is a grim sign for students looking to reduce their use of animal products.
Still, with the recent rise of a movement known as reducetarianism, Princeton students are able to contribute to veganism’s moral standards while still en -
administrators sometimes don’t involve USG in their decisionmaking process and side-step USG, despite our direct requests to engage. Take the recent dining and housing policy change, for example.
Still, USG does have members on University committees such as the University Student Life Committee, where co-curricular policies are reviewed, and the Council of the Princeton University Community, where many binding administrative policy decisions are made. While University administration ultimately has many final says, this doesn’t mean that students shouldn’t care about or disregard USG’s efforts.
History provides an example of USG’s advocacy resulting in significant positive change. Since at least 1926, Princeton students had demanded a campus center. In 1988, the University administration formed a Campus Center Committee that moved slowly without concrete proposals. So in 1989, USG responded by launching its own awareness and fundraising campaign, CAMPUS CENTER NOW, and called upon “all members of the University community… to join us in making a Campus Center a reality.”
USG’s energetic policy advocacy led to intensive student government and student body advocacy for the campus center through the year 2000, when Frist Campus Center finally opened. This work would not have been possible without USG’s engagement of the student body, and the student body’s care in USG’s policy goals. Had students been apathetic to USG’s call to action, a campus center might never have come to be.
I write this editorial on USG in my personal capacity as a USG member, and represent only my own opinions. That said, I believe I concur with most Senate members when I encourage all undergraduate students to come to a USG Senate meeting. They are open to the public, including the entire student body, every Sunday in Robertson Bowl 016 at 5 p.m. USG members regularly meet with and question University administrators at these meetings and can connect you to those who can answer your questions, or will get you the answers themselves.
The core of USG’s policy work is undergraduate student concerns. And the best way we learn what the student body wants us to advocate for is if you engage with us. Almost two hundred students
responded to USG’s dining and housing survey, resulting in the administration listening to student concerns and USG advocacy about the new housing and dining policy. You can also join a working group, which are all open to the entire undergraduate student body, to be more involved on USG policy priorities. In a climate of political uncertainty, it is now more important than ever for students to be engaged with university policymaking — and USG is the most direct avenue to engage with administrative decision makers. While USG’s social events — including Lawnparties — are important, especially in times of stress and division, we also represent you. We don’t just plan parties.
On Tuesday, Oct. 28, I will moderate a USG Town Hall Luncheon discussing USG’s current policies and programming in Robertson Bowl 016 from 12:15-1:00 p.m., open to all undergraduate students. Please come. And, in keeping with the spirit of USG’s policy and programming, there will, of course, be free lunch.
Marvel Jem Roth ’28 is a prospective Economics major from Los Angeles and is the deputy project manager for USG.
meat eaters should embrace the reducetarian
joying the occasional hamburger.
Reducetarianism aims to reduce animal product usage and promote healthy lifestyles without adhering to traditional veganism or vegetarianism.
Brian Kateman, the founder of reducetarianism, said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian that the movement originated with one fateful Thanksgiving dinner, when the then-vegan Kateman watched from the sidelines as “the turkey kept going around the table.” Kateman, a vegan at the time, tried the turkey at his father’s insistence, but felt a sense of guilt. That is, until he had an epiphany.
“It’s a wonderful thing if someone wants to be 100 percent vegan or vegetarian, but the vast majority of people struggle to do it,” he said. And so the reducetarian movement was born.
Reducetarianism is not a standard take on a plantbased diet. Instead, Kateman’s movement is aimed at reducing meat consumption without adhering to a complete dietary commitment.
Reducetarians do not make a specific commitment to eating only plants. Instead, the goal is to reduce con -
solution
sumption of animal products enough to make a difference.
“If a lot of people cut back 10 or 20 percent [of meat consumption], that could actually make a much greater difference than getting a small number of highly committed people to go vegan or vegetarian,” Kateman said.
Meat consumption in the United States comes with significant costs. Across the country, approximately 99 percent of all livestock is raised in factory farms. These farms are industrial plants, dedicated to producing animal products with massive amounts of animals in conditions that can be cruel and unsanitary. Factory farms are often associated with high rates of disease in nearby towns, as well as cramped and inhumane conditions for animals.
As recent studies have shown, meat consumption is also a large contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, with every pound of meat eaten contributing to 22 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions. Despite this alarming carbon footprint, meat consumption in the United States shows no signs of slowing over the
next two years.
The good news: It doesn’t take much to change this trend. If the 5,800 Princeton undergraduates committed to a 10 percent reduction in consumption of animal products — around two meals a week — the cutback would be equivalent to 580 people newly committing to veganism.
At Princeton, students have a unique opportunity to contribute to the reducetarian movement. Campus lifestyles are strongly conducive to reducing the University’s carbon footprint — as well as the amount of meat consumption on campus — by gradually chipping away at traditional dining habits. As the reducetarian maxim describes, small measures, when taken on a campuswide scale, can yield tremendous results.
As a University with a stated goal of reaching net zero campus greenhouse gas emissions before the year 2046, Princeton students have to do their part in contributing to this goal.
Sweeping University projects, like the recently completed TIGER geo-exchange plant and the Poe and Pardee Field stormwater retention project, have aimed to
reduce the school’s environmental footprint in terms of utilities. What Princeton is still missing is a strong culture of student-driven climate consciousness. The space of individual dietary decisions is not the University’s to regulate. Rather, it falls on us, as stewards of Princeton’s environmental goals, to do our part in upholding the university’s informal mission “in the service of humanity.” The solution offered by reducetarianism is a perfect fulfillment of this goal, allowing students to have a significant effect on the University’s carbon footprint, while making minute changes to everyday life.
Kateman’s mission of gradual reduction relies on the principle that minor changes within a community can create a ripple effect.
“The greatest hope I have is among college students,” Kateman said. “We need young people to take up the mantle and transform the way that we eat for a better world.”
Josh Stiefel ’29 is a contributing Opinion writer for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Teaneck, N.J.
On dining, don’t Whitman our Spelman
Raf Basas Columnist
At the Homecoming game against Harvard this Saturday, a plane bearing the message “Don’t Harvard our Princeton” soared over the football field. This is the slogan of a movement against the University’s changes to dining. But its critique of the University’s plan is limited: it revolves specifically around opposition to the new requirement for members of eating clubs and co-ops to purchase a $900 meal plan. I certainly oppose any efforts to force students into purchasing something that they do not want. But if we focus only on the threat to eating clubs, rather than the University’s abolition of independent dining — a more immediate and costly change — we’re losing sight of the bigger picture. Alumni also need to mobilize against the eradication of independent dining, which will disproportionately affect lower-income students.
First of all, the elimination of independent dining primarily hurts students from lowerincome families. According to data from the ‘Prince’ 2025 Senior Survey, 54 percent of independent respondents were on full financial aid, as opposed to 21 percent of respondents in eating clubs, which is less than the Class of 2025 as a whole, at 31 percent — indicating that students in eating clubs skew wealthier than the general student population.
But the dining changes for students in eating clubs actually slightly benefit those on financial aid — about 60 percent of eating club members, according to the 2025 Senior Survey. The new meal plan now allows these students to use their dining hall swipes for late meal and breaks — an option not currently available to these students, who are currently on their own when their clubs aren’t open.
The only students who are negatively affected by this change to eating clubs are students who receive no financial aid, who are generally going to be from households making over at least $350,000 a year, based on how Princeton calculates financial aid. For context, these are students from the top five percent of American households. Absent extenuating circumstances like substantial medical bills, $900 a year would be an insignificant sum
for these students’ families.
If our response focuses on a small effect on an extremely affluent group of students, rather than its massive effects on a smaller but comparatively more underprivileged group of students, then our priorities are in the wrong place.
As a collective, Princeton’s eating clubs also have much more organizing power than independent students. There is an entire graduate and undergraduate Interclub Council which interfaces with the University’s administration, while independent students have no equivalent. Independent students need powerful advocates more than eating club members.
Given the removal of independent room draw, students on an incomplete plan risk being far from a kitchen, inconveniencing an affordable source of meals. In addition, the additional financial burden levied upon would-be independent students is much greater than that on eating club members. While eating club members who don’t receive financial aid will have to pay an additional $900, would-be independent students across income brackets will lose out on at least $4,500 if they elect to join the University’s cheapest plan, Block 160. Currently, independent students on financial aid receive direct payouts from the University of up to $10,520.
The issue of this sum is complex. Although students are technically supposed to spend their refunds only on food expenses, students have used funds leftover from their meals to help make ends meet elsewhere. As one independent fullaid anonymous submitted to Undergraduate Student Government in October: “The money I received back due to selecting independent was the difference between having the money to survive/thrive without a fulltime job and not.”
While Princeton has been generous in allowing students to spend that money as they wish with zero oversight, the University understandably may wish to resolve this issue at some point in the future. If this occurs, independent students will need strong alumni representation to ensure their interests in feeding themselves — alongside supporting their families — are well represented. The abolition of independent dining is simply a more pressing issue than the threat to the eating clubs. The latter problem is long-term — for now, the eating clubs are safe — and given the sheer popularity of eating clubs and strength of their support from robust graduate boards, the University faces a long, tough battle to incrementally wear down these clubs. This fight is certainly relevant, and deserves attention, but is not nearly as ur-
gent as the abolition of an entire dining option. Eighteen percent of Princeton upperclassmen, or hundreds of people, have just lost their autonomy over where and how they eat.
Where are the planes, websites, and shirts for independent dining? Among the student population, there has been some resistance against the change — such as Guest Opinion Editor Jerry Zhu’s opinion against it. But there’s been no organized campaign for restoring independent dining. Perhaps independent students feel disempowered. Perhaps it feels as though if they stand alone, they will certainly lose. After all, organizing a movement requires time and capital, which many independent students simply do not possess. But as we’ve seen from the “Don’t Harvard our Princeton” movement, Princeton’s alumni have the resources to organize a mass movement. So if we’re going to push against the University’s changes to dining, we need to focus on all of these changes. Alumni need to stand up for those with fewer resources and resoundingly defend independent dining, too.
Raf Basas (he/him/his) is a sophomore opinion columnist from Elk Grove, Calif. intending to major in English. He can be reached at raf. basas[at]princeton.edu or @raf. basas on Instagram.
‘By devoting itself to saving GFDL’s research once again, with both financial and political capital, the University has the opportunity to truly “Stand Up for Princeton”’
in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences (AOS), in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.
For more than half a century, GFDL has been the United States’ flagship climate research laboratory. The lab’s influential first hurricane model and other climate and atmospheric modeling capabilities are the best the U.S. has. Craig McLean, the former top administrator for research at NOAA who served multiple presidential administrations, told ProPublica in April that GFDL is “the best that there is … it’s really a stunningly impressive and accomplished place. It is a gem. It is the gem.”
Research at the federally-run GFDL, much of which is done by or in collaboration with Princeton University researchers, informs our understanding of the climate in both the short and long term, underpinning everything from immediate hurricane forecasts to predictions of future climate change.
“They’ve pioneered climate modeling … used across the world for different countries’ and different agencies’ climate models,” said Gabriel Rios GS, a graduate student in the Program
“They’ve pushed the boundaries of weather prediction.”
The loss of GFDL research “means the loss of capabilities to forecast extreme weather events like tropical cyclones or floods,” said Sofia Menemenlis GS, another AOS graduate student whose research was partly supported by federal grants until the Commerce Department withdrew funding, in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “I think it’s worth keeping in mind also that GFDL is developing the models that are used to make everyday weather forecasts, and I think that’s immediately useful to people.”
“In addition to the weather reports you see on your phone and to the climate projections that make their way into the news … there’s a lot that we learn in this work that affects other sectors outside of climate and weather,” Rios added.
But GFDL faces a threat to its existence from NOAA’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal, which would shutter it and every single one of its peers. While the loss of GFDL alone would be devastating, the clo -
sure of every federal climate, weather, and ocean laboratory would be catastrophic for our understanding of the climate, the Earth system, tropical cyclones and extreme weather, and much, much more. McLean said that, in sum, the proposed cuts would send us “back to the technical and proficiency levels we had in the 1950s.”
While proposed funding bills maintain similar NOAA research funding, the uncertainty of shutdown negotiations may change that. Losing this research would endanger human lives and imperil our ability to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. It would also likely cost the U.S. government billions of dollars it could have otherwise saved by investing in improved climate modeling and research.
And so, of all the options that Princeton has in this moment — save this, cut that — it must save as much of GFDL’s climate research as it possibly can. To do so will require both increased University funding and political advocacy.
Princeton must fill the $4 million shortfall caused by the government’s pullout and support the impacted graduate
students, postdocs, and their research. This also helps prevent funding opportunists, like fossil fuel companies, from potentially taking advantage of researchers through conditional funding, jeopardizing academic freedom, and steering research away from the public good. The University could also aggressively solicit donations from individual benefactors, foundations, or organizations to provide the funding.
“Princeton has the capacity to fund graduate student and postdoc research, and the AOS program is a Princeton program. So Princeton has the capacity to step in and fund graduate students, fund postdocs, fund the resources they need to do climate science research,” Menemenlis said. Instead, for now, Princeton has paused admissions for new AOS graduate students. Just as the University funds some research and labs, it should do so for Princeton’s climate researchers to preserve a critical public service.
Princeton must also advocate to ensure that congressional funding for NOAA laboratories is maintained. The University has gone to bat for GFDL like this before: In 2011, when
Princeton’s research enterprise, including GFDL, faced potential research funding cuts, the ‘Prince’ reported that “Princeton representatives conducted meetings with the New Jersey congressional delegation and key congressional committees to explain the benefits of investment in science. Princeton was also part of a broader lobbying effort by the Association of American Universities.” By devoting itself to saving GFDL’s research once again, with both financial and political capital, the University has the opportunity to truly “Stand Up for Princeton” — and more importantly, lifesaving research. Some might want to save free food or merchandise from budget cuts — but if Princeton wants to save lives and money and world-class climate research, I say: If you’re going to save anything, save GFDL research.
Isaac Barsoum ’28 is a sophomore prospective Politics major from Charlotte, N.C., who can’t do enough math to get a climate modeling grant but thinks they’re necessary anyway. You can read his column here. You can reach him at itbarsoum[at]princeton.edu.
vol. cxlviii
editor-in-chief
Miriam Waldvogel ’26
business manager Jessica Funk ’26
149TH MANAGING BOARD
upper management
Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26
Isabella Dail ’26
director of outreach
Oliva Sanchez ’26
Accessibility
Bridget O’Neill ’26
Bryan Zhang ’26
creative director Malia Gaviola ’26
strategic initiative directors
Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko ’26
editors at large Research Andrew Bosworth ’26
Education Hayk Yengibaryan ’26
Sections listed in alphabetical order.
head archives editor
Lianne Chapin ’26
associate archives editor
Jillian Ascher ’28
head audience editors
Paige Walworth ’26
Justus Wilhoit ’26 (Reels)
associate audience editors
Catherine Ross ’27
associate reels editors
Natalia Diaz ’27
Loreta Quarmine ’27
head cartoon editor
Eliana Du ’28
head copy editors
Lindsay Pagaduan ’26
James Thompson ’27
associate head copy editors
Coco Xu ’27
Song Ting Tang ’27
head data editors
Vincent Etherton ’26
Alexa Wingate ’27
head features editors
Raphaela Gold ’26
Coco Gong ’27
associate features editors
Mira Eashwaran ’26
Valentina Moreno ’26
head humor editor
Sophia Varughese ’26
associate humor editors
Tarun Iyengar ’28
Francesca Volkema ’28
head news editors
Victoria Davies ’27
Hayk Yengibaryan ’26
associate news editors
Thomas Catalan0 ’27
Devon Rudolph ’28
Cynthia Torres ’27
head newsletter editor
Caleb Bello ’27
Chair
associate newsletter editor Corbin Mortimer ’27
head opinion editor Frances Brogan ’27
community opinion editor Jerry Zhu ’27
associate opinion editors Preston Ferraiuolo ’26 Siyeon Lee ’27
head photo editors Calvin Grover ’27 Jean Shin ’26
head web design and development editors Cole Ramer ’28
149TH EDITORIAL BOARD
Christofer Robles ’26
Members Isaac Barsoum ’28
Frances Brogan ’27
Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26
Preston Ferraiuolo ’26
Anna Ferris ’26
Ava Johnson ’27
Raf Basas ’28
Bryan Zhang ’26
149TH BUSINESS BOARD
assistant business manager
Alistair Wright ’27
directors Andrew He ’26
Tejas Iyer ’26
William Li ’27
Stephanie Ma ’27
Jordan Manela ’26
James Swinehart ’27
Adelle Xiao ’27
Chloe Zhu ’27
business manager emeritus Aidan Phillips ’25
149TH TECHNOLOGY BOARD
chief technology officer
Yacoub Kahkajian ’26
software engineers
Abu Ahmed ’28
Sadat Ahmed ’28
Nicole Deng ’28
Ziya Momin ’28 Kyaw Naing ’28
Minhaz Rajib ’28
Luke Sanborn ’28
Stephanie Sugandi ’27
THIS PRINT ISSUE WAS DESIGNED BY
Juan Fajardo ’28
Kriste An ’28
Marley Hartnett-Cody ’28
Chengyu Fu ’28
Jose Santacruz ’28
Cassidy Critteron ’28 AND COPIED BY
Sarah Li ’28
BOARD OF TRUSTEES
president Thomas E. Weber ’89
vice president David Baumgarten ’06
secretary Chanakya A. Sethi ’07
treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90
assistant treasurer
Kavita Saini ’09
trustees Francesca Barber
Kathleen Crown Suzanne Dance ’96
Gabriel Debenedetti ’12 Stephen Fuzesi ’00
Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 Michael Grabell ’03
Danielle Ivory ’05 Rick Klein ’98
James T. MacGregor ’66
Rohit Narayanan ’24
Marie-Rose Sheinerman ’23
Julianne Escobedo Shepherd Abigail Williams ’14
Tyler Woulfe ’07
trustees ex officio
Miriam Waldvogel ’26
Jessica Funk ’26
Princeton, serve the state by taking public transportation
Vitalia Spatola Contributing Opinion Writer
You’ve probably seen listserv emails with titles like “Need Uber to JFK ASAP!” In the days and hours before every break, Princeton students flood the listservs with requests to split rideshares instead of taking available public transportation to the airport.
Students may understandably be looking to save a few dollars. An Uber to Newark Airport costs between $70–90, which may be slightly more or less if split among four people than the $22.40 cost of a New Jersey Transit ticket.
This isn’t just an isolated incident — far too often, I hear Princeton students who are reluctant to take public transportation, whether it be NJ Transit or the New York subway. But instead of Uber-ing to the airport and other nearby destinations, Princeton students should take public transportation whenever possible — even when it’s slightly more expensive — and actively advocate for increased funding for NJ Transit. As students in positions where we could take an Uber instead, showing that we value public transportation helps preserve access to it for those who need it most.
There are plenty of individual reasons to take NJ Transit instead of Uber-ing. For one, it’s more eco-friendly: an individual’s carbon footprint can be decreased by 69 percent by taking the train instead of driving, NJ Transit estimates. It also reduces congestion because there are fewer cars on the road, and getting stuck in traffic isn’t a concern if you ride the train. Additionally, NJ Transit is generally significantly cheaper than taking an Uber for short trips. A train ride from Princeton Station to New Brunswick Station costs
just $9.15, while an UberX covering the same route at the same time would cost around a staggering $48.93 — more than five times the price of public transportation.
But the biggest reason Princeton students should take the train when feasible is to give legitimacy to the notion that public transit — our most democratic mode of transportation — is a worthwhile social investment. NJ Transit is used by senior citizens and people living in rural areas who have no other way to get around. It’s also an essential means of transportation for lowincome families who can’t afford a car, or people who are unable to drive. Almost 50 percent of NJ Transit riders don’t have cars and make less than $35,000 per year, and 80 percent of individuals who rely on taking the NJ Transit bus do so at least five times a week.
But that accessible transportation is in jeopardy. NJ Transit, grappling with a whopping $1 billion deficit, is in dire financial and operational condition. Years of underfunding from the state have halted necessary expansions and increased the frequency of overcrowding and cancellations. From 2010 to 2018, during Governor Chris Christie’s administration, direct state aid for public transit was cut by 90 percent. In order to stem the financial bleeding, the state sharply increased ticket prices by 15 percent in 2024. This puts the communities who rely on NJ Transit in danger. Not only are their trips becoming more expensive, but NJ Transit — their main method of transportation — is at risk of financial ruin.
Individual riders admittedly might not be able to save NJ Transit alone. According to the FY 2026 Operating Budget, only 31 percent of NJ Transit revenue will be generated through the farebox.
But as Princeton students, we have the duty to support public transportation both in practice and in principle. Using transit creates a culture of using transit, and the more people who use it, the more money NJ Transit can generate.
If you’re concerned about safety, you’re not alone: 40 percent of Americans believe public transit to be unsafe. But as a proud New Jerseyan, I’ve taken NJ Transit, SEPTA, PATH, light rail, and the NY subway — and, although others may have had different experiences, I’ve never felt unsafe. Private transportation doesn’t necessarily mean safer transportation. A sexual assault or sexual misconduct was reported nearly every eight minutes in an Uber between 2017 and 2022. Avoiding the train due to safety concerns is understandable, but every form of transportation poses risks on some level.
Of course, there are valid reasons to take an Uber: if you’re going somewhere the train won’t take you, if you need accommodations, if you’re carrying a lot of luggage. And Princeton students have limited ability to bring NJ Transit back from the brink. But public transit stands for something bigger — a radically egalitarian idea that everyone deserves affordable transportation. When Princeton students ride the train, we implicitly endorse this idea. We have a unique opportunity to shape our culture and signal to others that NJ Transit is worth saving. So next time you’re going to Trenton or Newark International Airport, consider taking the train.
Vitalia Spatola ’28 (any pronouns) is a contributing Opinion writer from South River, N.J. intending to major in Anthropology or environmental studies. She can be reached at vs2172[at]princeton. edu or @vitaliaspatola on Instagram.
ANNIE RUPERTUS / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
A sign pointing to Princeton Station, a terminus of the Dinky.
the PROSPECT. ARTS & CULTURE
Checking off your non-academic Princeton bucket list
By Devon Williams | Contributing Prospect Writer
Princeton never stops moving. People are always rushing across the street, rushing to class, or rushing to submit an assignment on time. It can push us to race through our time at Princeton — the end of our undergraduate careers might come before we are ready if we don’t pause to look around. If we’re lucky, we can check off everything on our non-academic bucket list before that clock strikes grad. Below is my uncompleted bucket list.
Stargaze on the Forbes golf course
As a Rocky resident, the number of times I have walked past Forbes are few and far between, but the view of the golf course and distant yet stately grad tower is quite the sight. The open sky and vast expanse, partially detached from campus, make it a haven from academic worry and looming deadlines. The scenic green space lets the night fully revolve around the shining stars in the sky in contrast to the rest of campus, lit up by academic buildings and dorms. There would be nothing better than just me, my friends, and the moon.
Go picnicking at Carnegie Lake
Just like the golf course, Carnegie Lake feels like an entirely different world from campus. In the fall, its leaves are vibrant and reflect on the placid water. The air is full of the loud but gorgeous flocks of Canada geese, at least when the rowing teams aren’t shouting and cutting through the lake at surprising speeds. This makes it the perfect place to unwind: on a blanket with a book, an NCW coffee club drink, and some snacks from Maruichi.
Take a quick dip in the SPIA fountain
Anyone who knows me will tell you just how much I hate getting my feet wet in the Jersey rain. However, this may be the one case in which I can get past my pet peeve. Jumping in the SPIA fountain is a tradition that some near-graduates participate in as a celebration of their time at Princeton and an optimistic beginning to their post-grad life. Hailing from Menlo Park, Calif., I have seen Stanford graduates jump in their own fountain near Hoover Tower all my life, and it certainly leads to some fun graduation photos. I will definitely be partaking before I take my final steps through Fitz-Randolph gate.
See an old classic movie at the Garden Theatre Princeton has many free activities, and the free movies that run at the Garden Theatre are gems. As the Garden Theatre is over a hundred years old itself, seeing an old classic movie
there would be a perfect afternoon activity. I’ve seen movies ranging from a new retelling of the second half of “The Odyssey” to “American Psycho.” Nothing makes a better study break than grabbing some free popcorn and catching a quick movie across the street with friends.
Taste the seasonal drinks at Coffee Club
Since before Princeton, caffeine has been a significant driver of my academic motivation, for better or for worse. But I could think of a worse caffeine fix than a Slippery Slope banana bread latte, or the Vietnamese coffee-inspired False Dichotomy to motivate my studies. The combinations are ever-changing and seemingly endless, and it would be a shame to miss even one when they brighten up even the most difficult of Firestone lock-in sessions.
See all of the Princeton University Art Museum and the rotating collection at Bainbridge
As an avid art lover and prospective Art History minor, Princeton’s extensive collection feels unreal to me. I’ve been enjoying it in satellite museum Bainbridge, and I’m excited for the new museum’s upcoming opening. Seeing our extensive collection inspires me in my studies and the simple enjoyment of my Princeton surroundings and is the best possible detour. And the best part? Both museums are free — not
just for students, but the whole community. I can’t wait to take advantage of the wealth of history, beauty, and relaxation that the new museum will have to offer.
Stroll the towpath in the fall
If being a California resident has taught me anything, it’s that colorchanging leaves in the fall should never be taken for granted. The towpath and forests behind New College West boast some of the most vibrant arrays of this color, and getting to both stretch my legs and see the stunning nature that is still new to many students not from the East Coast will always be a welcome joy.
Shop at the thrift shops in town
Being a broke college student can seem like a death sentence for a girl’s wardrobe, but it doesn’t have to be. Thrift stores like Greene Street Consignment and Nearly New allow students to find perfect pieces to update their seasonal look without breaking the bank. Greene Street, as a consignment shop, can have some high prices, but you can find plenty of bargains on their racks. Plus, the journey of searching through each article for something that perfectly screams “you” can be half the fun. The accessibility and perfect outing these stores provide are something I won’t forget to take advantage of while I am in Princeton.
Attend a concert or orchestra
performance at Richardson
Although I live in Holder Hall, I somehow never remember to see performances of the most stunning musical acts happening right outside my door until I see buses of off-campus viewers dressed up in their best outfits waiting outside Richardson Auditorium. There are tons of events each month, including performances from Princeton University Orchestra, Sinfonia, Richardson Chamber Players, and more. As someone who loves classical musical and literary traditions, I am especially looking forward to seeing the Princeton Pianists Ensemble’s “Odyssey” show in a few weeks.
On the whole, Princeton offers far more than just a rich academic life. It also provides nature, foods, arts, and experiences that make all of our time here unforgettable. The constant pressure to meet high standards we often set for ourselves and our futures shouldn’t keep us from seeing all that we have access to as Princeton undergrads. In the (overused) words of Ferris Bueller, “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” So go get that coffee and thrift before you no longer live a 10-minute walk away from Nassau!
Devon Williams is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2028. She can be reached at dw9268@princeton.edu.
Ten must-have pieces for your fall fashion wardrobe
Urban Outfitters for a faux fur coat in town.
Hunter boots
As a southern Californian, the grueling heat of summer discourages me from wearing anything other than t-shirts and shorts. In the fall, my true fashion sense comes out of hibernation — oversized coats, chunky scarves, and fuzzy hats. Here are the pieces I think students will be sporting on campus this autumn, based on what I’ve observed in catalogs and upcoming collections.
Peacoats
The peacoat is an ideal light fall jacket. Consider wearing one during October and November before it’s necessary to take the puffer jackets out of storage. Since peacoats often have a high collar, you won’t even need a scarf to keep warm, and you can pair your peacoat with a straight leg jean and a Mary Jane flat or a pointed kitten heel. Madewell’s lineup of coats on Nassau Street could be just the place to find peacoat to add to your wardrobe.
Faux fur
Faux fur is making a comeback. Gap’s recent line in collaboration with Sandy Liang, an NYC-based womenswear brand, included a spotted faux fur coat that complements the recent surge of fur coats on the runway. Whether waist-length or to the floor, a faux fur coat’s chic-ness is timeless. Check out
Princeton’s fluctuating fall weather makes dressing for the season difficult, especially on rainy days. Whether you’re copying Kate Moss in 2005 at the Glastonbury Festival or avoiding puddles, the Hunter boot is a different take from the popular moto boot. While Hunter boots are often sleek and in solid colors, moto boots are an edgier boot and often feature buckles along the side. Hunter boots are versatile and practical for rainy fall days at Princeton and can be styled with a chunky sock peeking out.
Colored and patterned tights
Although a classic sheer black tight remains timeless, a colored tight can spice up any fall outfit. As earthier tones color the natural landscape, grab a pair of muted colored tights, such as a muted mustard or dusty rose pair. To complement a solid skirt while staying warm, dotted and striped tights are another visually interesting option. Madewell sells a host of possibilities.
Straight leg jeans
The baggy jean movement and the brief skinny jean comeback are now competing with a new trend: the straight leg jean. The style was temporarily forgotten during the days of baggy jeans, but I predict that the darker washes of straight leg denim will re-
appear this fall. Ralph Lauren and Madewell both have a wide range of straight leg styles and washes to choose from.
Roll neck sweaters
J.Crew’s The Next Rollneck Generation collection is a key example of the roll neck sweater movement. Roll neck sweaters feature a tall collar that is designed to be rolled over itself. Pair a roll neck sweater with a button-up collar or a chunky scarf to elevate the look.
Knit balaclavas
Since moving to the East Coast, I was shocked by how cold my ears became in the fall and winter — to the point of numbness. Balaclavas and beanies have become my method to combat the chill. Balaclavas are a versatile option that add flair to your outfit, keep your ears warm, and avoid the “hat hair” that beanies can cause. While I often opt for Free People’s line for their quality and range of colors, Urban Outfitters also has a selection.
Barn jackets
While the leather jacket has emerged as a popular choice in recent years, I predict that barn jackets will see a rise this season. Barn jackets have a boxy silhouette with large pockets and snap closures. While the barn jacket can be a lighter option, there are also sherpa or fleece-lined barn jackets for colder
days. J.Crew has a wide variety of barn jackets in their fall collection, often paired with jeans or a skirt with loafers.
Tabi mittens
After Maison Margiela’s iconic tabi flat, a flat that is unique for its split-toe style, tabi mittens are on the rise. As crocheters on Tiktok have already created their own tabi mittens, I predict that brands will soon follow suit. Tabi mittens feature standard glove holes for the pointer finger and thumb and a single glove hole for the remaining three fingers. They’re an alternative to fingerless gloves and regular mittens that will imbue an outfit with a unique touch. Since they haven’t hit Nassau Street’s clothing scene yet, consider scouring Depop or Etsy. The crochet pattern is also available for purchase for the adventurous Princeton student crocheters.
A pop of red
To enhance a basic outfit with a pinch of color, red is a vibrant option that mirrors the hues of the fall foliage. A red scarf, a pair of red socks, or red nail polish, the introduction of a bright color can bring an outfit to life. If you’re feeling particularly full of Princeton spirit, mixing in a splash of orange is also an option.
Monica Zepeda is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2028. She can be reached at mz9063@princeton.edu
If you can’t decide whether to have cereal or bagels for breakfast, Bagel Nook can give you both with a cereal-flavored bagel — or so they say. As a self-proclaimed bagel lover, I was eager to try the famous shop in this town I’ve just started to call a second home. After reading about their unique and intriguing flavors, including an entire cereal-themed line, I set off on a 40-minute walk there, full of anticipation. When I arrived, though, I was immediately confused. I thought I knew what to expect after browsing their menu online, but none of the bagels or spreads were labeled. It felt like picking from a box of mystery jelly beans: colorful and exciting but a guessing game. Thankfully, the staff were kind and patient when I asked for help identifying everything, though there were so many flavors that it was hard to remember.
I decided to sample all the cereal- and snack-inspired bagels: Oreo, Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cap’n Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, and Fruity Pebbles ($2.75 each). I also ordered a quarter-pound of three spreads: Cookie Monster ($3.90), Birthday Cake ($3.90), and Maple Butter ($2.86). With these bright, ornamented treats in front of me, my mouth started watering, even though they looked a little greasy. I tried every flavor combination, each bagel with each spread, expecting to taste 15 distinct creations. Instead, it felt more like three. Nearly all the bagels tasted identical and were plain and underwhelming. Most of the flavor came from the spreads, and even then, only Birthday Cake and Maple Butter were distinct.
The Maple Butter spread had a warm, natural sweetness that reminded me of whipping brown sugar and butter together to make a cookie. The texture was a little grainy in a pleasant way. The Birthday Cake cream cheese was very artificially sweet, as expected, tasting like buttercream frosting. However, the Cookie Monster cream cheese tasted like ordinary cream cheese tinted blue.
Would order again:
especially with the Cinnamon Toast
Crunch and Cap’n Crunch bagels. They paired perfectly with these fairly mild bagels, creating a flavor reminiscent of cookie dough.
Would change something:
The Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cap’n Crunch bagels with the Cookie Monster and Birthday Cake cream cheeses: For the Cookie Monster cream cheese, the color seemed to be the only addition, and it did not add anything to the taste of plain cream cheese. I would change the cream cheese and try those flavors again with more combinations.
The Fruity Pebbles bagel was the only one with any real sweetness. It didn’t quite capture the cereal’s flavor, but it was less bland than the others. However, with the Birthday Cake and Maple Butter spreads, the combo bordered on too sweet, like dessert on dessert.
Would never order again:
The Cocoa Puffs bagel, rather than being sweet, was bland, dense, and chewy like rye bread. None of the spreads helped much, and I could barely taste the minimal Cocoa Puffs sprinkled on top. Only Maple Butter added a hint of balance and flavor.
The Oreo bagel, meanwhile, looked like a twist of rye and plain dough, and tasted just as dull. Even the spreads couldn’t redeem it, though Maple Butter was the closest.
Overall, the bagels lacked the flavor their vibrant appearances promised. The concept was creative, and the designs were certainly Instagram-worthy, but the execution fell flat. Each bagel felt more like a dense roll than a distinct, flavored bagel experience.
The spreads, on the other hand, had potential. Maple Butter was the clear standout: subtly sweet, rich, and balanced. Birthday Cake was enjoyable in small doses, while Cookie Monster was all show and no substance.
In the end, I was more impressed by the idea than the taste. The Bagel Nook’s creations look exciting on social media, and the concept
of cereal-themed bagels is undeniably fun. But in practice, they were disappointingly bland. Their looks were far more memorable than their flavor.
I’d recommend stopping by if you’re curious or want a good photo for your feed. While I enjoyed the Maple Butter spread, don’t expect anything close to a life-changing bagel. You would get similar quality at Princeton’s dining halls.
Eesha Sutaria is a contributing writer for The Prospect and a member of the Class of 2029. She can be reached at eesha.sutaria@princeton.edu.
The Maple Butter spread,
By Eeesha Sutaria | Contributing Prospect Writer
By Monica Zepeda | Contributing Prospect Writer
MC MCCOY / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Nassau Street.
The Prospect
Weekly Event Roundup
By Emma Cinocca, Staff Prospect Writer
1
Art Museum 24-Hour Open House
Oct. 31 at 5 p.m.–Nov 1 at 5 p.m. Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM)
This celebration of the new Princeton University Art Museum will host a wide variety of events, including a Halloween fair, movie screenings, a silent disco, sunrise yoga, and a reading from Pulitzer Prize winning author Jhumpa Lahiri. This event is open and free to all.
4
300 Paintings
Oct. 29–Nov. 2
Matthews Theatre (McCarter)
Inspired by the 300 Paintings he made over six months in an abandoned cake factory, Australian comedian Sam Kissajukian delivers a one-of-a-kind performance covering art, mental health, and much more. Tickets sold on McCarter’s website.
2
“A Moment of Silence” by Mohammad Yaghoubi
Oct. 31 at 8 p.m. and Nov. 1 at 8 p.m. Berlind Theater
“A Moment of Silence” is a work by Iranian playwright Mohammad Yaghoubi. The play addresses the Iranian revolution through a funny and sometimes surrealist lens, and it has been translated into five languages. Tickets are $20 for general admission and $10 for students. Students may use Passport to the Arts to attend.
5
Richardson Chamber Players: “A Little Night Music”
Nov. 2 at 3 p.m.
Richardson Auditorium
Together, resident performing arts faculty, guest artists, and students will perform works by Gustav Mahler, Clancy Newman, and Arnold Schoenberg. Tickets cost $16 for the general public and $6 for students.
3
Shakespeare Masterclass with Nick Hutchison
Nov. 3 at 6:30 p.m.
Drapkin Studio
Actor Nick Hutchison brings his acting and directing expertise to a lively Shakespeare workshop open to all Princeton University students, faculty, and staff. This free-to-attend workshop is hosted by the Princeton University Players, Theatre Intime, and the Program in Theater & Music Theater. This event is free and open to the University community.
6
Paul Lewis, Piano
Nov. 6 at 7:30 p.m.
Richardson Auditorium
Talented pianist Paul Lewis will play a poignant, profoundly human program that includes Beethoven’s Piano Sonata No. 5, a new sonata by Thomas Larcher, and Schubert’s Piano Sonata No. 2. Tickets range from $33-$54 for the general public and are $11 for students. Students may also use Passport to the Arts to attend.
7
Raqs Belly Dance
Presents: Nocturna
Oct. 30 at 6 and 8 p.m. and Oct. 31 at 6 p.m.
Whitman Theatre
Princeton’s only belly dancing group presents a new and moody autumnal take on belly dance. The show promises “dark beats,” “hypnotic moves,” and “one unforgettable night.” Tickets cost $8 for the general public and $7 for Princeton students and faculty/staff.
Jazz Small Group Concert
Nov. 1 at 8 p.m.
Richardson Auditorium
8
“The Crooked Hook of Thornetree Creek”
Oct. 31 at 7 p.m. and Nov. 1 at 1 and 7 p.m. Frist Theatre
This “frightfully original” new play written by Gabe Higbee ’26 and directed by Maggie Rea ’26 promises a spooky atmosphere — perfect for the season. Tickets are free to reserve on the University ticketing website.
10
Kyung Wha Chung, Violin
Nov. 5 at 7:30 p.m. McCarter Theatre
For the first time in almost 40 years, violinist Kyung Wha Chung will return to McCarter to dazzle audiences with her artistry and raw technical prowess. She will play Schumann Violin Sonata No.1, Grieg Violin Sonata No.3, and the Franck sonata alongside pianist Kevin Kenner. Tickets vary in price and can be purchased on the McCarter website.
Vocal ensemble Ekmeles, a group dedicated to performing new and rare works, will perform pieces recently composed by Princeton graduate students. This event is free and unticketed. 11
Princeton Sound Kitchen presents Ekmeles Nov. 4 at 8 p.m.
Taplin Auditorium
WOMEN’S
RUGBY
After four years, two wins,
and
numerous injuries, Women’s Rugby players worry about the program’s future
By Devon Rudolph Staff Sports Writer
In its final game of the season on Saturday, Princeton Women’s Rugby was crushed 7–81 against Harvard (7–0 overall), capping off yet another winless season filled with losses by wide margins. The team has significantly struggled since going varsity four years ago, with a historical record of 2–31.
This year, women’s rugby has been unable to field a full 15 players for a whole match in five of their six games. Halfway through the season there were no fullyhealthy recruited seniors or juniors despite each class starting with three. And since early September, the team has been led by their assistant coach, after their head coach was put on administrative leave.
There are growing pains in any new varsity program. Teams must build a competitive record to attract recruits, all while potentially relying on walk-ons and less experienced players. With fewer recruitment spots than most other varsity teams, though, several players fear that the tumultuous and injury-filled season will have lasting negative impacts on its ability to attract talent to the program — and that Princeton’s athletic department has not been sufficiently supportive in making the team a competitive one.
“We’re always saying that Princeton is striving to be great in all 38 varsity sports, but I guess [women’s] rugby has been left behind,” a first-year on the team told The Daily Princetonian. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.
“We’ve been told by the athletic department that we should be happy that you’re even able to go out there and play with their team,” said another first-year, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.
“[It’s] just an embarrassment that we can’t even field the side, and they’re telling us that, ‘no, you should just be grateful that you can get out there and play.’”
“That’s not the mentality of a varsity team,” they said.
“In any sport, the process of building a varsity program from the ground up is a long one,” Chas Dorman, Associate Director of Athletics for Communications, wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “However, we remain as committed as ever to the long-term success of the women’s rugby program and to the positive experience of the student-athletes who are members of the team.”
There are 13 Division I Varsity Women’s Rugby programs as the sport emerges on a national level, including some of the Ivy League. Princeton currently has four recruits in the Class of 2029, up from three in the last three years — on par with peers like Brown and Harvard, who fielded, respectively, three and four first-year players with high school rugby experience four years after their programs
went varsity. Dartmouth, on the other hand, fielded eight experienced first-year players four years into its varsity program.
This season, all other Ivy League universities with D1 women’s rugby teams have at least double the number of players with high school rugby experience currently on their team.
Women’s rugby relies on walkon athletes to compete, and players say that the recruit to walk-on ratio limits practice capabilities. Coaching staff sacrifice building on recruited players’ skills in order to keep the walk-ons safe, FirstYear One told the ‘Prince.’
Practices are “constantly reverting back to the basics,” with the level being “less intense” and “less efficient,” the same first-year said. The team rarely practices full speed, full contact drills.
Coaching changes have been another factor influencing practices. Head Coach Josie Ziluca was put on administrative leave on Sept. 2, with Assistant Coach Holly Abrams leading practices since her departure. Additional coaches have yet to be hired, though visiting coaches have assisted at some practices and matches.
Ziluca did not respond to several requests for comment from the ‘Prince.’ Abrams declined a request for comment from the ‘Prince.’
In a statement, the team’s captains said they were hopeful for additional coaches to further support the team.
“Coaching makes a significant difference in injury rates and we are working on getting additional coaches this fall, so that will be a great support,” junior utility back Malinka Kwemo, senior utility forward Samantha Handwerk, and senior fullback Ciara Loughran wrote to the ‘Prince.’
Players told the ‘Prince’ that there were fewer injuries last year compared to this fall, some pointing to lack of coaching support as a cause. “We haven’t had really proper coaching safety-wise,” a sophomore said.
Injuries lead to incomplete rosters, preventing the team from fielding a full 15 player side, putting players at risk of injury.
“That not only puts the individual players at risk, because we’re playing with everyone we have on the field, and then still having to make subs if somebody gets injured,” First-Year Two said. One player told the ‘Prince’ that injured players have been rostered in the starting lineup.
In early October, two senior recruits had left the team and the third had been injured. All three junior recruits were injured or coming back from injury, and one sophomore was injured, leaving six fully-healthy recruited players, according to the three players.
Additionally, less experienced players can lead to higher injury rates for themselves, their teammates, and even members of the opposing team, they said.
“People that are newer to the sport are going to have less awareness of both how their body is moving so taking a tackle and if they hit a person in the wrong way, that could cause serious injuries to both themselves and the opposition,” the first-year continued. In addition, new players tend to shy away from contact in their first several games, putting the physical burden on more experienced players.
“Rugby by its nature is one of the most physically aggressive sports for college students,” Kwemo, Handwerk, and Loughran wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “We don’t wear any protective gear besides a mouthguard, and as a result, injuries are not uncommon. We have great support from our coaches. Our athletic trainer ensures safety and rehabilitation and our strength coach incorporates injury prevention exercises into our workouts.”
Some on the team argue that the high-contact nature of rugby should give the team priority for receiving more recruitment spots. Football, which is rugby’s sister sport and the only other full-contact sport offered at Princeton, received 28 recruitment spots for this season.
“We’re making upwards of 10 tackles, sometimes 20 tackles a game, and that’s a huge comparison to football. And that’s normal for a single player to be making near that number in a single match, and you’re doing that every weekend,” First-Year One said.
As injury rates stay high, success rates stay low. The team did not win a match this year, losing 7–54 to Long Island University (2–5 overall), 7–74 to Lindenwood (7–1 overall), 5–76 to Navy (3–5 overall), 33–40 to Queens (2–5 overall), 7–76 to Brown (2–5 overall), and 7–81 to
Harvard. Additionally, the team forfeited a match against Dartmouth due to a lack of healthy players.
“I know that there’s walk-ons in this team that I would trust my life with … but at the same time, you can’t expect a team full of walk-ons all to magically have super amazing rugby skills,” FirstYear One said.
Some players, already frustrated at performance, are equally upset about lack of communication from above. Many players were caught off guard learning from an article online rather than from their coaches or captains that the team had declared a 7s postseason, meaning the team will not be eligible to compete for the NIRA Division 1 fall 15s championship.
“We’re basically playing scrimmages, and the fact that we haven’t had any conversations with leadership or coaches is insane to me,” one player said.
Whether the team will eventually have additional recruitment spots has not been communicated to current players.
“We [the athletic office] regularly have meetings between student-athletes and administrators throughout the year,” Dorman said, adding that “details pertaining to recruiting spots would not be shared with studentathletes.” In a meeting with players earlier this year, Director of Athletics John Mack ’00 said he would be happy to discuss walkon spots, but did not address athlete recruitment, according to several players.
The struggles faced by the team this season could impact future recruitment years. Some players warned that Princeton is “off the radar” for some top recruits due to the struggles facing Princeton’s
team.
“Rugby is so tight-knit and such a small community that everyone that’s played for a while long enough to have a really high rugby IQ pretty much knows everybody else that is at that level,” First-Year Two said.
“I know personally four potential recruits that were looking to come here in the following two years [that] have all reached out to me saying that they no longer want to come,” a sophomore on the team told the ‘Prince.’ “A couple of them have already committed to other places solely because of the issues we’re currently facing recruitment-wise, team-wise, safety-wise.”
The Athletic Department pointed towards the new Women’s Rugby facility in Meadows as “just one example of the University’s continued investment in the program and its long-term success.”
The team’s captains said that they “have been provided the best facilities of any women’s rugby team in the country by our incredible alumni, so our team has benefitted from that investment.”
The ‘Prince’ reached out to all upperclassmen on the team, but did not receive a response.
While hopes of improvement are expressed by the University and some players, the reality of gameplay remains largely uncompetitive.
“I came here to play D1 rugby, and right now, this feels more like a high school level,” said First-Year One.
Devon Rudolph is an associate News editor and staff Sports writer. She is from Fairfax, Va. and typically directs investigative coverage. She can be reached at dr7917[at]princeton.edu.
MEN’S BASEBALL
Mark Shapiro ’89 guides the Blue Jays’ improbable run to the World Series
By Hayk Yengibaryan Senior Sports Writer
When the Toronto Blue Jays eliminated the New York Yankees from the American League (AL) Division Series, Yankee Stadium went silent. Blue Jays President and CEO Mark Shapiro ’89 summed up the moment in five words: “Best sound I’ve ever heard.”
Two weeks later, the Blue Jays defeated the Mariners in a winnertake-all Game 7 to move on to the World Series. After a decade in Toronto, Shapiro has led the franchise back to the Fall Classic for the first time since 1993, where the team now trails the Dodgers 1–2. His measured approach to leadership, shaped at Princeton and refined through 24 years with the thenCleveland Indians and a decade with the Blue Jays, has made him one of baseball’s top executives.
“Being immersed in a setting of incredibly talented, competitive, diverse people with very high standards and expectations for themselves can impact a culture,” Shapiro said of his time at Princeton in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. At the University, he studied history and was a center on the varsity football team.
He asked himself: “What if you could recreate that in a professional environment?”
That question became the cornerstone of his career.
Shapiro wrote his senior thesis on housing segregation in Baltimore, Md. and aimed for the nonprofit world right out of Princeton. Instead, he started working with a developer in Southern California, which he shortly left to seek a “more fulfilling work environment.”
Shapiro got a break through his father, Ron Shapiro, a superagent who represented Hall of Famers Cal Ripken Jr., Brooks Robinson, Eddie Murray, and Kirby Puckett. Introducing him to figures in the industry, Shapiro took an untitled entry-level position in 1992 with the then-Cleveland Indians, which included “picking up guys at the airport and pulling off game reports.”
The franchise grew quickly, as did his responsibilities: from director of player development, to Vice President of Baseball Operations, to Assistant General Manager, to general manager, and finally president for over 24 years.
Now leading the Blue Jays, Mark is one of the few MLB executives overseeing both baseball and business operations.
“I enjoy that high level vision of what it takes to balance the two sides of the operation, both the business and the baseball side,” he said. “Where I focus my time is just where the leverage is … which, at different times a year, is in a different place.”
Through the development of the franchise, Shapiro said he focused on the people. His goal was to “ensure that [the] hiring process is rigorous, strong, and focused, and that our values are clear and evident, and we’re bringing in really talented people and empowering them to make us better.”
He embraced a process-driven
approach that relied on well-selected management as well as players, implementing what he had observed at Princeton.
Since graduating from Princeton in 1989, Shapiro has maintained close ties to the University. Princeton baseball Head Coach Scott Bradley said that relationship began through Shapiro’s father, Ron.
“It goes way before Mark even got into baseball,” Bradley told the Prince. “Mark’s dad, Ron [Shapiro] was one of the biggest baseball agents before Scott Boras came into play and represented a number of my friends in baseball. I knew Ron for a long time, back into my playing days.”
When Bradley was hired as Princeton’s head coach in 1997, Mark quickly reached out.“He said, ‘Look, I love Princeton. I love my whole Princeton experience … any way I can ever possibly help you, you make sure,’” Bradley recalled.
Shapiro’s offer wasn’t an empty one. Bradley said Shapiro was instrumental in helping Princeton alumni pursue opportunities in major league front offices. When former Tiger captain Mike Hazen ’98 started his transition from playing to working in baseball, Bradley called Shapiro.
“The Indians had an internship at the time that they gave to Mike. He mentored Mike all the way to where he is now as a Major League General Manager,” Bradley said.
Mike Chernoff ’03, a former Princeton shortstop, also worked under Shapiro in Cleveland and now serves as general manager of the Guardians.
Beyond mentorship, Shapiro consistently provides access and guidance to the baseball program’s coaches, alumni, and players.
“He’s always been there for us in terms of professional development,” Bradley said. “Anytime I wanted to go to a game, anytime I wanted to go to spring training, anytime I wanted to pick the brain of their coaches, Mark made it happen.”
Bradley called Mark “unselfish” with his time and attention. Even when the Blue Jays faced Bradley’s former team, the Seattle Mariners, in the pennant, Bradley was quick to wear Toronto gear.
“Mark Shapiro has done so much for me, for my family, and for our baseball program in Princeton,” Bradley said. “I could never, ever possibly root against one of his teams.”
Shapiro’s move to Toronto, however, in 2015 came with backlash. Despite a track record of success, Canadian media was critical of an American running the only Canadian team in the league — a franchise that had enjoyed Canadian leadership since the early 80s.
“There was a lot of scrutiny from the media for my family coming in,” Shapiro’s son, Caden Shapiro ’25 said. “When you’re 14, 15, and you’re scrolling and you see that, you feel that,” he added.
Mark Shapiro would continue to face criticism. Despite four playoff appearances between 2016 and 2023, the only squad to win a postseason series under his leadership was the
2016 club — a roster he largely inherited.
Mark Shapiro weathered the criticism by leaning on his foundation. “Public criticism strikes that kind of status, power, fame — that’s not what I draw satisfaction from. My satisfaction comes from leading people to do great things and helping others to be better,” Mark Shapiro said.
Even through that stretch, Mark Shapiro kept pushing Toronto toward his long-term vision. In 2023, the organization finished as the runner-up in the pursuit of twoway superstar Shohei Ohtani, who ultimately signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mark Shapiro insisted that the pursuit of Ohtani was a sign of progress, not failure.
“The narrative that we … came in second on those guys to me is only a positive,” he said. “Ten years ago, there’s not a Japanese player that would have viewed Toronto as a great landing spot.”
He said the organization presented itself well and resonated with superstar talent, adding that “we have attracted a ton of players over the last four or five years.”
At the beginning of the 2025 season, the Blue Jays were yet again in a hard spot, coming off a season where they finished last in the Al east division. Entering spring training, the Blue Jays had the 20th best odds to win the World Series out of the 30 MLB franchises. There was pressure for change, but Mark Shapiro resisted.
“We didn’t make reflexive changes,” he said. “Instead, we took the group that was here, that had a strong foundation, and made adjustments.”
He pointed to one adjustment in particular: Bringing in David Popkins to be the hitting coach. He simplified the data and technology in a way which players could apply.
Moreover, Mark Shapiro orchestrated the largest deal in franchise history with star Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who signed a 14 year, $500
million extension in April. At a time when stars change teams frequently, he viewed Guerrero’s extension as a commitment to stability — the type of identity he has tried to build in each organization he has led.
“The most meaningful piece of that [extension] to me means that a generation or two generations of Blue Jay baseball fans will always have their best player be someone that they know is there and that just doesn’t exist in today’s world,” Mark Shapiro said.
He recalled his own childhood, when he grew up supporting Cal Ripken Jr. and even the later years of Brooks Robinson with the Baltimore Orioles, two members of the Baseball Hall of Fame who spent their entire careers in Baltimore.
“I know that there are kids coming to the games today at four or five years old who at 15, 16, will still be watching Vladdy [Guerrero Jr.] and their entire memory of the Blue Jays throughout their entire childhood, will be that Vlad was the best player and was the franchise player.”
At the end of the 2025 regular season, the Blue Jays became just the 14th team in the divisional era, which started in 1969, to go from worst in the division to best the following season.
Most recently, Mark Shapiro has returned to Princeton not as an alumnus, but as a father. Growing up with access to spring-training dugouts and ball-boy duties for a Major League team led his son, Caden Shapiro ’25, to a spot on the Tigers’ baseball roster.
Caden Shapiro recalled “moments like shagging the outfield as a young kid and talking with legends like Corey Kluber, Carlos Santana, Victor Martinez, and watching Michael Brantley work 7–8 hours before a game in the cage and just sitting there and going, ‘wow, this is pretty special.’”
A second-team All-Ivy selection in 2023, Caden Shapiro finished his
Princeton career with 145 hits, 72 runs batted in, and 14 home runs. In August, he signed with the Pittsburgh Pirates as a minor league free agent and now trains at the team’s academy in the Dominican Republic.
“I have such immense respect for what it means to be a studentathlete there — even more through my son’s experience than my own,” Mark Shapiro said. “My respect and appreciation is deep and profound.”
Caden Shapiro sees this current opportunity as a pathway to coaching, where he eventually hopes to pursue a career. Three generations of Shapiros will have served the sport of baseball. “My grandfather did it on behalf of players against the teams,” Caden Shapiro said. “My dad did it for the teams in the front office. I want to do it for the players on the field.”
Mark Shapiro’s contract is set to expire soon, though reports suggest an extension is expected following the World Series.
“I don’t ever spend too much time thinking about the future,” he said. “If I do a good job wherever I am, the rest will take care of itself.”
As the Blue Jays chase their first World Series title in over three decades, Mark Shapiro insists the win will not define him. Instead, he is excited about building something that lasts.
“We would have given tens of millions of Canadian baseball fans lifelong memories and bonds with each other and bonds around the game,” he said. “That is the reason I got into the game of baseball.”
The silence of Yankee Stadium may remain his favorite sound, but the echoes of a World Series Championship might be a sweeter, lasting hum.
Hayk Yengibaryan is a head News editor, senior Sports writer, and education director for the ‘Prince.’ He is from Glendale, Calif. and typically covers breaking news and profiles. He can be reached at hy5161[at]princeton.edu.
FOOTBALL
Harvard crushes bonfire hopes 35–14 on homecoming weekend
By Lucas Nor Staff Sports Writer
On a beautiful fall afternoon filled with anticipation at Powers Field, Princeton (3–3 overall, 2–1 Ivy League) fell short of a marquee win that would’ve kept the Tigers atop the Ivy League. Coming off of a big win at Brown last Saturday, the Tigers were looking to improve to 3–0 in conference play for the first time since 2018, but No. 17 Harvard (6–0, 3–0) had other plans.
The game was also marked with the Graduate Interclub Council (GICC) protesting a new policy for the 2026–27 academic year requiring all students living on campus, including eating club members, to purchase a University meal plan. The protest saw each of the 11 active eating clubs handing out “Don’t Harvard Our Princeton” shirts for attendees and a plane flying around above the stadium with the corresponding slogan on a banner.
The Crimson offense came into the game averaging a whopping 45 points per game, and they struck first on Saturday in emphatic fashion. Not even five minutes into the game, Harvard wide receiver Cam Henry split the seam and caught a pass in-stride for a 69-yard touchdown. The momentum was on Harvard’s side, but although Princeton went scoreless and was forced to punt on the ensuing drive, the Tigers’ defense stepped up and stopped the electrifying Crimson offense.
Princeton then produced one of their best drives of the season, going 97 yards in 12 plays highlighted by stellar play from senior quarterback Kai Colón. The drive comprised eight completions on 10 attempts for Colón, capped off with a 17-yard toss to junior wide receiver Aidan Besselman, evening up the
FIELD HOCKEY
contest at 7–7 after the first quarter.
Although Harvard answered back with a long drive of their own, Princeton played perfect “bend don’t break defense,” stopping the Crimson in the red-zone and forcing a field goal. A passheavy offensive scheme placed the Tigers in Harvard territory, but the Crimson defensive line stood tall and stuffed the Orange and Black on four consecutive runs, forcing a turnover on downs.
With only six minutes to go in the first half, Harvard now had the ball and was ahead on the scoreboard. This was a danger zone for Princeton, as the Crimson had everything on the cards to steal the momentum and get their offense clicking. Yet, only four plays into Harvard’s drive, quarterback Jaden Craig forced a long cross-field throw that was intercepted by junior defensive back Evan Haynie and returned for 24 yards.
Just two plays later, standout junior running back Ethan Clark caught a pass from Colón, breaking tackles and racing down the sideline for a 51-yard touchdown pass. Princeton was now up 14–10 with just a few minutes to play in the half, and with the energy infused into the Tiger faithful on homecoming weekend, true belief in an enormous win was brewing. Unfortunately, the rest of the first half proved to be disastrous for the Tigers. Harvard answered Clark’s touchdown with a field goal, cutting the Princeton lead to just one. On the ensuing Tiger drive, Colón was hit hard as he threw a pass that landed in the hands of the defense. Harvard capitalized on the interception with a touchdown just seconds before halftime and completed a shovel pass on a two-point conversion that gave them a 21–14
lead heading into the locker room.
“Moving forward we have to continue what we do well and learn from our mistakes,” Colón said to The Daily Princetonian. “We will watch the film and clean up those mishaps and learn from them”.
As expected, the rivalry matchup provided several emotional moments, big plays, and crazy twists and turns just in the first half alone. However, it was obvious that Harvard was dominating in the trenches. The Crimson thoroughly outgained the Orange and Black on the ground, and by the end of the game had ran for 161 more yards than Princeton.
As for the passing game, Colón was put under much more pressure than his counterpart under center. This Harvard domination at the line of scrimmage set a worrying tone for the rest of the game, and it was indeed in the trenches where the Crimson would fully take control of the contest.
Princeton’s offense was stifled
throughout the second half, and apart from a missed 46–yard field goal at the end of the third quarter, the Tigers were rarely a threat to score. Harvard’s offense, on the other hand, found the form they’ve performed with all season. With a balanced attack and an exhausting nine-minute drive, Harvard found paydirt deep into the fourth quarter. After a quick three-and-out from the Princeton offense, the Tiger defense trotted back out on the field after a fatiguing previous possession. Harvard took note and marched down the field, almost entirely using the running game to get in the endzone and seal the deal on Saturday afternoon. At the end of regulation, the Crimson won 35–14 and remained a perfect 6–0 on the season.
Although the three-possession loss to rival opposition was disheartening, the Tigers still have several positives to take from this game. Princeton was able to produce a few long, sustained drives
against top defensive competition and was able to yet again force turnovers on defense.
“Thought we did a lot of things really well throughout the game,” Colón told the ‘Prince.’ “Just had some self-inflicted wounds at times.”
With a loss to Harvard, the hopes of a bonfire for the Tigers were dashed early in the season for the fourth consecutive year since 2021. The Class of 2026, having never seen Princeton Football beat both Harvard and Yale during the season, will go their whole Princeton tenure without a bonfire.
The competition won’t get any harder for the Tigers, but they’ll need an A-grade performance to bounce back and get a win against a Cornell team (2–4, 1–2) that just earned their first conference win of the season. Kickoff is set for 1 p.m. next Saturday in Ithaca for a test of resilience for Princeton.
Lucas Nor is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’
No. 2 field hockey beats No. 15 Brown 2–1
By Emilia Reay Staff Sports Writer
No. 2 Princeton (12–3 overall, 5–1 Ivy League) beat No. 15 Brown (9–5 overall, 3–3 Ivy League) 2–1 to complete their perfect 6–0 away game record this season.
Princeton clinched their spot in the Ivy League Tournament prior to the matchup, alongside No. 4 Harvard, who will host the tournament Nov. 7 to Nov. 9.
In the first quarter, Princeton came out with strong defensive pressure, holding Brown without a single shot. With less than two minutes gone on the clock, Princeton was in the Bears’ circle and earned a corner, but they were unable to connect. Then, another corner came with ten left in the first, but Brown saved the Tigers’ shot.
Going into the second quarter, the matchup remained scoreless; however, Princeton was clearly in control.
The second quarter followed
the same Princeton prowess, but again, no goals were scored. Two corners went scoreless before Brown recorded their first shot of the game with four minutes left in the half. Junior goalie Olivia Caponiti, who made the save, was voted NFHCA Division 1 Defensive Player of the Week last week.
Brown was not able to collect a single attack corner in the first half, a testament to the Tiger defense. Princeton was also kept scoreless, waiting for one of their opportunities to drop as they headed into the half.
“One thing we talked about at halftime was just being patient and trusting it was going to happen,” Head Coach Carla Tagleinte told The Daily Princetonian. Princeton started with possession in the third quarter and kept pushing offensively. At eleven minutes, the Tigers created a succession of three corners within a minute. This was when Princeton finally pounced on their scoring op -
portunity.
From a chaotic corner, sophomore defender Izzy Morgan initially miscontrolled a ball before it came back in her direction after missed shots from teammates and she took her chance. The shot from the top of the circle gave the Tigers the lead and Morgan her second goal of the season. One goal in field hockey can mean everything.
“I think some of that validation helped release some of that pressure [to score a goal],” Tagleinte told the ‘Prince.’
The majority of the fourth quarter continued to be dominated by the Tigers. Sophomore midfielder Molly Nye came up big with the insurance goal for Princeton with just a little more than seven minutes to play. Nye, who had a one-on-one opportunity with the Brown goalkeeper, received a beautiful ball from sophomore forward Pru Lindsey. This was Nye’s fifth goal of the season, and Lindsey’s fifth assist of the season.
“I think something that we have been working on is getting ahead of the ball and looking forward in transition. This game I led for the ball and then Pru sent a perfect pass forward which set me up to score” Nye told the ‘Prince.’
Even though this game was a top-20 contest, Princeton was expected to make easy work of Brown. The Bears did not go away without a fight.
Brown received their first corner at five minutes in the fourth quarter, and the ball found a Bear on the side of Caponiti’s goal. It was sent across the cage and slipped past the goal line, cutting Princeton’s lead to one.
“I was super glad Molly had secured our second goal just a few minutes earlier because it gave us some cushion that allowed us to stay in the lead,” Morgan said to the ‘Prince.’ “I was thinking about how we needed to play composed hockey and protect the ball with smart possession through the
end of the game which we were able to do to secure the win.”
Within moments after their first goal, Brown had an opportunity to tie up the game. Caponiti, however, did what she does best and saved the shot.
After that, the Tigers were dealt two yellow cards giving Brown the numbers advantage on the pitch and an even better chance to tie the game up.
Brown was awarded an attack penalty corner with just under three minutes to go but could not make anything of it. The Tigers took back control with a series of corners in the final two minutes. Brown was trying to run the field and get the ball into Tiger territory, but to no avail as the clock expired.
The Tigers will look ahead to their final Ivy League regular season game against Columbia at Bedford Field next Saturday.
Emilia Reay is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince’ and the Spanish Language
Pilot Program Director.
PHOTO COURTESY OF AMMAAR ALAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Princeton Football face Cornell away next week in their next Ivy League matchup.
MEN’S SOCCER
Victory on the road: Men’s soccer cruises past Yale 4–0, secures spot in Ivy Tournament
By Leila Eshaghpour-Silberman Staff Sports Writer
Last night in New Haven, men’s soccer (11–1–2 overall, 5–0–0 Ivy League) cruised past Yale (2–8–3 overall, 1–3–1 Ivy League) in a 4–0 victory, securing their spot in the Ivy League Tournament. The win continues a dominant run that has landed them at the number one ranking in the NCAA Division I RPI rankings.
The Tigers scored four goals in the first 35 minutes and maintained their comfortable lead throughout, relying on their deep bench to give their starters a rest. The game saw first career goals for junior midfielder Liam Beckwith and senior midfielder Sam Vigilante in the 4–0 rout.
Princeton arrived in New Haven ready to secure their spot.
“Our expectation was to win,” senior forward Danny Ittycheria wrote to The Daily Princetonian after the game. “We knew if we listened to our coaches’ tactics, played together, and fought for each other, then we would get the win.”
The first few minutes featured high energy from both sides. A few seconds after kick-off, Yale’s Simon Adjakple body-slammed senior midfielder Jack Hunt, despite Hunt being nowhere near the ball.
“Once Jack Hunt got a body check on the first play, I knew it would get the boys fired up,” Ittycheria said.
Princeton carried this energy through the game, putting high pressure on the Bulldog defense, with a shot and two corner kicks in the first ten minutes of the game. After a stretch of intense pressure around Yale’s 18-yard box, 15 minutes into the game, the Tigers broke through.
After the ball fell at Ittycheria’s feet on the right side of the field,
just outside the 18-yard box, the forward made an incisive touch forward, powering by his defender. Ittycheria sent a perfectly slotted ball behind Yale’s backline to the far post for Beckwith to tap into the net, marking Beckwith’s first career goal.
“It was a long time coming,” he told the ‘Prince.’ “I am glad I was able to help the team come out on top today.”
With Princeton maintaining a stringent pressure on the Bulldogs, Yale only managed to get their first shot off around 20 minutes into the game, which junior goalkeeper Andrew Samuels smoothly tipped over the bar.
The Tigers quickly responded to this attempt, adding to their tally with a goal by Vigilante less than three minutes later. A deflected ball fell at the foot of Beckwith, who took a blistering shot from 20 yards off. The Bulldogs managed to batter it away, but Vigilante quickly pounced on the open ball, lifting it into the top right corner of the net for the second goal for Princeton and the first in Vigilante’s Princeton career.
Vigilante continued his offensive pressure, earning Princeton a penalty kick in the 28th minute. Ittycheria stepped up to take the kick.
Yale goalkeeper Conrad Lee attempted to psych out Ittycheria, leaving the right side of the goal open. Ittycheria was unfazed, confidently slotting the ball past Lee into the top left corner of the net for his eighth goal of the season.
“I’ve been practicing [penalty kicks] in training and found a good routine to block out the noise and the keeper trying to play mind games,” Ittycheria reflected.
“Going at my own pace really allows me to just focus on myself and hitting the ball,”
Five minutes later, junior forward Bardia Hormozi served up
a moment of magic. Receiving the ball around 35 yards out, Hormozi spun around, taking a quick touch to the right before slicing by the left side of his defender, completely throwing the Bulldog off balance. He blazed towards the goal, charging forward 30 yards.
Unfazed by the two Yale defenders closing in on either side, Hormozi drove towards the goal, sliding the ball smoothly into the far left side, scoring Princeton’s fourth goal.
With Hormozi’s tally, Princeton easily finished out the remaining few minutes of the half, holding the Bulldogs to zero goals. The dominant defense, coupled with four goals, made for what Head Coach Jim Barlow ’91 called Princeton’s ‘best half of the year’.
“To score four goals in a half, especially in a conference game, is
a testament to the quality we have going forward,” Vigilante said.
The confident Tigers returned from the half ready to build off the first half. Princeton stayed composed, controlling possession and the pace for the rest of the game. Barlow took the Tigers’ strong lead as an opportunity to utilize his deep bench, subbing off some of his starters in favor of some players who hadn’t gotten as many minutes this season.
While Yale had a few chances off free kicks throughout the second half, the Princeton defense easily neutralized these. A crunching foul on senior defender Stephen Duncan earned Yale’s Andrew Seidman a yellow with eight minutes left in the game, earning a cry of uproar from the Tigers’ bench. The rest of the game passed by easily, with Princeton ending the
second half 4–0, having subbed every position at some point during the half except for the two center backs.
This victory over Yale guarantees Princeton’s participation in the Ivy League Tournament and marks the Tigers’ 12th game undefeated in what has been a historic season.
“This win is just another step towards some of our year-long team goals, and is a testament to all of the hard work and dedication that the team has put in this year,” Beckwith noted.
As they continue preparing for the Ivy tournament, the path forward for Barlow is simple.
“We are just trying to get better every day,” Barlow told the ‘Prince.’
Leila Eshaghpour-Silberman is a staff Sports writer for the ‘Prince.’
Specter Is Haunting Princeton!”
By Lola Horowitz Contributing Archivist
As All Hallows’ Eve looms, Princetonians look to embrace their orange and black and wreak havoc at Eating Club costume parties for the Halloween season. Princeton has celebrated October with pumpkin heads and skeletons decorating the window ledges of Blair and Little Hall while black cats roamed in the campus shadows, but we must all be wary of supernatural forces far spookier. This week in history, The Daily Princetonian resurrects the specter said to haunt Nassau Hall: vice president Aaron Burr Jr.
Following his funeral in Nassau Hall in September 1836, Burr 1772 was buried just beyond FitzRandolph Gate, in Princeton Cemetery, at the foot of his father’s grave. Known
as the “Westminster Abbey of the United States,” this hallowed plot of American history is home to some of this country’s eminent deceased, from U.S. president Grover Cleveland to signer of the Declaration of Independence John Witherspoon.
On Oct. 23, 1980, Associate News Editor T. Keating Holland ’82 reported on the various “ghosts and ghouls making Princeton their haunt,” from Hamilton Murray 1872 meddling with the floorboards and lighting at Theatre Intime to a British soldier slain in the 1777 Battle of Princeton wailing in Holder Hall.
“Twentieth-century skepticism and a touch of academic snobbery may have relegated many of Old Nassau’s ghost legends to obscurity,” Holland wrote, “but a flock of ghoulish tales have survived the test of time.” Of the superstitions and
spooks recounted, though, Burr’s ghost tale was missing.
Those who believe Aaron Burr’s shade drifts about the town and haunts what was then the sandstone College of New Jersey existed far before Holland’s article. On the first nighttime deluge of every fall semester, “[s]ophomores would herd a bunch of first-classmen down Witherspoon St. to see Aaron Burr arise” in a longstanding but sinceforgotten late-1800s tradition.
Burr’s entombed body may be cast six feet deep, but his face is cast in plaster and resides above ground at his Alma Mater: Burr’s death mask, a lifeless likeness, was taken immediately after his death and donated to the University Library by Laurence Hutton, an American essayist and Princeton Lecturer of English.
While Burr is immortalized in
ghost tales, he is scarcely commemorated on campus. Aaron Burr Hall is an eponym for his father and otherwise, there is little trace of Burr in hung portraits or erected statues. Even so, early American history and his scandals — he killed Hamilton and was alleged to have committed treason against the United States — preserves him in Princetonians’ memory. Before Princetonians stampede towards Prospect Street — or hit the books — at the witching hour, they could take inspiration from their predecessors by paying a visit to Old Nassau and the iron-fenced cemetery two blocks down.
Lola Horowitz is a contributing Archivist for the
They might just get the chance to feel a chilling shiver at the passing shade of Princeton’s dear son and America’s reviled politician.
‘Prince.’
PHOTO COURTESY OF @PRINCETON ATHLETICS Men’s soccer dominates Yale, clinching a spot in the Ivy League Tournament.
