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Friday March 6, 2020 vol. CXLIV no. 25
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U . A F FA I R S
ON CAMPUS
Kate Stanton named head of McGraw Center
COVID-19 disrupts spring break travel plans
By Ergene Kim Contributor
By Zachary Shevin and Albert Jiang Head News Editor and Senior Writer
In light of the global COVID-19 crisis, students are reevaluating their spring break plans. On the evening of Wednesday, March 4, the University sent an email to all students concerning the spread of COVID-19, commonly referred to as “coronavirus.” The alert acknowledged that the University has a “limited capacity to provide locations for students to self-quarantine,” noting that certain student travelers returning to the United States “will have to do so at home.” The message also recommended canceling all non-essential travel plans over spring break, “especially if they involve travel to Asia or Europe.” “We expect significant numbers of students to cancel or postpone their spring break travel, and the University is prepared to support those students who choose to remain on campus,” the email noted. This announcement came two days after University President Chrisopher Eisgruber ’83 wrote a letter urging community members to take care of themselves, plan ahead, and stay informed — and a day after Governor Phil Murphy announced New Jersey’s first positive disease test result. Officials confirmed a second positive test in the state on Thursday, March 5. See CORONAVIRUS page 2
SORAT TUNGKASIRI / OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
Katherine Stanton.
Katherine Stanton, Associate Dean of the College, has been appointed as the new director of the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning. Having filled the role on an interim basis since July, she officially was named to the position in February. Stanton’s academic career began in 2003 after she finished her Ph.D. in Literatures in English at Rutgers University. Then she saw that the McGraw Center had an opening. “The McGraw Center posted a one-year position for Interim Assistant Director … so my very first job, the beginning of my professional career, was here at the McGraw Center,” Stanton said.
After one year as the Interim Assistant Director for the McGraw Center, she spent a few more years as Assistant Director, at which point she was responsible for leading the graduate pedagogy program. Stanton then moved back with her family to Cambridge, Mass., where she spent 10 years serving a host of different roles at Harvard University. She was first a Resident Dean of one of Harvard’s Houses, which she said are “analogous to the [residential] colleges here.” As Resident Dean, she lived in the House and was responsible for about 400 students. “I also taught in their Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality program, which I loved. It’s a great program,” See STANTON page 2
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Q&A with Sarah Kliff, health policy journalist By Sam Kagan
Assistant News Editor
Sarah Kliff, an investigative reporter at The New York Times, stands as one of America’s preeminent health policy experts. On March 4, Kliff participated in a discussion, which was sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School, entitled “Obamacare Turns 10: Where Does Healthcare Go Next?” The next day, she sat down with The Daily Princetonian to discuss COVID-19, the price of healthcare, and former President Barack Obama. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity. DP: You gave a talk yesterday entitled “Obam-
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
acare Turns 10: Where Does Healthcare Go Next?” Where are we 10 years after Obamacare? SK: Yes, I think Obamacare is largely standing and intact, which was not guaranteed because, ever since it was passed in 2010, it’s constantly been facing threats of repeal from Republicans, from Supreme Court challenges. But it is working, and it’s become the base for what a lot of candidates in the primary want to build on to different degrees, ranging from Joe Biden’s public option to Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All system. I think it’s seen as largely standing and largely accomplishing its
goals, but also not doing everything Democrats wanted on healthcare, which is why you see this debate happening in the primary season right now. DP: In that spirit, are you of the mind that the next great step for American healthcare is building towards something like what Sanders proposes? SK: I think there’s certainly more work to be done on the costs of healthcare. I wouldn’t come out and say it’s like the Sanders plan or the Biden plan. I think we definitely do see as a lot of Americans struggling with their healthcare bills. I’ve written stories about band aids that cost
$629, or a single MRI that’s, like, $25,000. People are really struggling with those bills, and I think that’s why you see from Senator Sanders, from Vice President Biden, all these proposals that would go pretty far in extending the government’s role in healthcare and extending coverage to millions more Americans. I think it kind of grows out of the fact that one of the things Obamacare didn’t tackle was the unit price of healthcare. DP: I remember reading a story of yours about a band aid that costs that amount of money. How does that happen? See KLIFF page 3
ON CAMPUS
Journalists, professors talk Physicist Freeman J. Dyson dies at 96 about dangers of reporting By Allan Shen and Edward Tian
Associate Editor and Contributor
Associate News and Features Editor
On Thursday, March 5, a panel of University faculty members and New York Times journalists spoke on the increasing dangers reporters face around the world to a packed McCormick 101. The panel included Kim Lane Scheppele, the Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Sociology and International Affairs; Suzy Hansen, a visiting Ferris Professor of Journalism in the Humanities Council; Carol Giacomo, a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine, as well as a visiting Ferris Professor of Journalism and a member of The New York Times’s editorial board; and Gary Bass, professor of politics and international affairs. Scheppele opened the conversation by discussing the recent proliferation of death threats toward journalists. In the United Kingdom, the number of annual recorded death threats against journalists has risen 14 times since 1980, Scheppele noted. “The existence of death threats changes the way news organizations cover things,” said Scheppele, ex-
plaining that security concerns in foreign countries Freeman Dyson, one of the last pressure many news bu- great theoretical physicists of the reaus into closing, mean- WWII era, who walked the Princing the reporters who stay eton grounds alongside the likes of are the ones most dedicated Einstein and Oppenheimer, died — “and frankly most opin- last Friday at 96. ionated.” Dyson’s career spans over seven Repressive governments decades from World War II, when thus use death threats to he was an operations researcher “cull the field” of journal- with the British Royal Air Force, ists and then paint the to his move to the United States, journalists who remain as where he developed a deep friendthe enemy, Scheppele add- ship with Richard P. Feynman GS ed. ’42, to his postgraduate work at the “Death threats also Institute for Advanced Study in change the subject – they’re Princeton, N.J. being reported on, as opDyson died at Princeton Mediposed to something else,” cal Center on Friday, Feb. 28, due she continued, adding that to complications following a fall, death threats lead to self- according to his daughter, Mia censorship and eventually Dyson. EDWARD TIAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN have the power to “change Freeman John Dyson was born Freeman Dyson in his office at the Institute for Advanced Study in the the people who are at the in the small village of Crawthorne spring of 2019. table.” in Berkshire, England, on Dec. 15, Hansen then discussed 1923. His father was Sir George Dysthe decline of the free press on, a famed composer who became However, he found his stud- under the mentorship of Hans in Turkey under President the director of the Royal College ies interrupted during the Nazi Bethe. Dyson never completed his Recep Tayyip Erdoğ an’s re- of Music in London and fought bombings of London by the Luft- Ph.D. gime, citing her experience to keep it open amid the German waffe in 1940. Dyson, a committed At Cornell, Dyson struck a pivreporting and living in the bombings of the Second World pacifist in his youth, joined the otal friendship with Richard Feyncountry for over a decade. War. Dyson’s mother, Mildred, war effort as a civilian scientist man GS ’42, a young professor at She recalled journalists was a lawyer who later worked as a for the British Royal Air Force’s the time. in Istanbul placing cell- social worker. Bomber Command. “When I came to America I phones in refrigerators beA math prodigy, Dyson entered Dyson initially planned to study had never heard of Feynman, but fore holding in-person con- Trinity College, Cambridge Uni- physics in the Soviet Union after within two weeks I was his friend,” versations, as they knew versity, in 1941 to study mathemat- the war ended, but seeing a dete- Dyson said in a 2008 interview. their lines were tapped. ics. There, Dyson studied under riorating political situation, he deThat summer, Feynman inMany reporters have been some of the greats of 20th-century cided to move to the United States vited Dyson to a road trip across imprisoned indefinitely, physicists and mathematicians, instead. In 1946, he enrolled in the the United States, during which Hansen added. like Paul Dirac, G. H. Hardy, and physics department at Cornell Feynman discussed his newfound See REPORTING page 2
John Edensor Littlewood.
See DYSON page 3
University as a doctoral student
In Opinion
Today on Campus
In two pieces, student guest contributors voice their support for Marshawn Lynch as Class Day speaker.
5:00 p.m.: Actress Mj Rodriguez speaks at “Celebrating 50 Years of Undergraduate Women at Princeton University.”
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McCosh Hall 50
WEATHER
By Marie-Rose Sheinerman
HIGH
46˚
LOW
34˚
Rainy chance of rain:
100 percent
The Daily Princetonian
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Friday March 6, 2020
Hotchkiss: No one has been tested for COVID-19 at McCosh CORONAVIRUS Continued from page 1
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International Travel The announcement reiterated previously announced policies, including the prohibition on any travel to countries assigned a Level 3 Warning by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). These countries currently include mainland China, Iran, Italy, and South Korea. The University’s recommendations also address concerns beyond those nations. The University encouraged all students planning to undertake travel — whether University-sponsored or personal — to postpone their plans. “We ask all travelers to weigh the necessity of any upcoming travel and understand the risks involved, even beyond the current CDC assessment,” the letter noted. The listed risks extend beyond disease exposure, including “the potential for unexpected delays and cumbersome logistics,” which could result in missing work and classes upon returning. Joy Xie ’22 and a classmate originally hoped to visit London over the break. Following the University’s email, Xie is seriously reconsidering her plans. “I’ve been following a number of cases in the U.K. after I saw that Italy was on high alert,” she told The Daily Princetonian. “It has been making me consider cancelling.” Xie said that one of the reasons why she has not pulled out yet is because her airline has not offered a refund. “I just want my money back,” she said. “I am continuing to monitor what is happening in Europe, especially London,” Xie added. “If London goes into an emergency state, I will definitely cancel because airlines will probably be giving out refunds then.” Even so, Xie is less worried about contracting the virus and more concerned about being permitted to return to school. “I will very likely cancel if the University quarantines people after coming back from Europe, because I can’t afford to miss two weeks of classes,” she said. Self-Quarantine In late January, 108 students returning from China
after Intersession were asked to self-quarantine for 14 days. Individuals in self-isolation received “housing, dining, and academic support,” according to Deputy University Spokesperson Mike Hotchkiss — though some students who underwent communal isolation expressed outrage at how they were treated. The latest announcement instructs individuals to selfquarantine at their permanent residences, rather than on campus. According to Hotchkiss, “timing” informs this policy change. “At the start of the semester, guidance from health authorities regarding self-quarantine came just as many students were returning to campus from around the world,” he wrote in a statement. “For spring break, we know there’s the possibility that returning students will need to self-quarantine, and we have the ability to plan ahead.” He added that housing availability on campus “was, and remains, very limited.” The announcement includes a confidential form that all students returning from impacted countries must submit before returning to campus. According to Hotchkiss, “impacted countries” include those listed at CDC Warning Level 3 and Level 2 or State Department Level 4 and Level 3 for COVID-19. These countries include China, Iran, Italy, South Korea, Japan, and Mongolia. Though the United States has only barred entry of foreign nationals from China and Iran, Hotchkiss noted that “the University may ask that students traveling from other locations self-quarantine based on their confidential risk assessment form.” According to Hotchkiss, students whose circumstances prevent them from returning to their permanent residences to self-quarantine must email response@princeton.edu before returning to campus. “Having students return to their permanent residence to self-quarantine is very important because it will help preserve the limited locations for self-quarantine on campus for such situations,” he added. Domestic Disruptions While the University is relying on CDC and State Department assessments when it comes to international travel, these organizations do not address domestic risk. But as the announcement implies, that
does not mean domestic travel is risk-free. “As COVID-19 continues to spread in the U.S., health authorities may determine that self-quarantine is recommended or required following travel to certain affected areas,” Hotchkiss added. “Students should stay aware of the situation in their travel destination and look to current information from federal, state and local health authorities.” As of Thursday night, the governors of Washington, California, and Florida, and Maryland had declared states of emergency. According to The New York Times, at least 200 patients with the virus have been treated in 19 states, and 14 individuals have died from the disease in the United States. As of yesterday morning, approximately 10 members of the Princeton Debate Panel (PDP) were planning to travel to Stanford University this weekend. Last night, they learned the event was canceled, after Stanford recommended campus organizations “cancel or postpone” events involving more than 150 people. According to PDP President Shreyas Kumar ’21, the event organizers gave a number of reasons for the cancellation. “They couldn’t provide enough hand sanitizers or masks because Palo Alto is out of both of those things right now. They couldn’t provide individually packaged food, and they thought it was unsafe to put food out for everyone to
eat,” Kumar noted. “They thought it was too dangerous to host a tournament,” he added. PDP had scheduled two more trips during spring break — one to Boston and another to Providence — the status of which are under consideration, according to Kumar. He said he will meet with a University administrator to discuss these tournaments, as well as PDP’s course of action for the rest of the semester and beyond. “I’m a little concerned about next semester,” he added. “Our world championship is in South Korea, so hopefully it doesn’t impact that too much.” According to Hotchkiss, the University is reviewing the status of international student-group trips scheduled for spring break. In general, domestic student-group trips are scheduled to continue as planned. “However, that could change, depending on the best available guidance from health authorities,” he wrote. “We urge students to be prepared to be flexible should circumstances change. We are working with trip organizers on developing contingency plans and communicating with students signed up for trips.” Though concerned about future tournaments, Kumar described the University’s approach to the issue as “pretty appropriate.” “It’s probably better to be safe than sorry on the front end and slowly release these restric-
tions as things get better,” he said. Inside the Bubble New Jersey has identified two cases of the virus in Fort Lee, around 60 miles from Princeton. In addition, there have been 22 cases reported in New York, 18 of which are in Westchester County. Hotchkiss reiterated the University’s commitment to keeping the community informed with new information as it becomes available. “No one has been tested for COVID-19 at McCosh [Health Center],” he confirmed. “We’re not aware of any member of the University community who has met the criteria for testing.” If a case of COVID-19 is discovered on campus, Hotckiss wrote that the University “will share that information with the community.” When it comes to campus life, Hotchkiss noted the University’s commitment “to accommodate all students who choose to remain on campus during break, at no additional cost to the students.” The Whitman College dining hall will be open to all students for brunch and dinner during spring break. Students will also be contacted soon with information on how to register their planned dates for being on campus, to “help with COVID-19 preparedness and response planning and ensure service support, particularly for anticipating dining needs and venues.”
ZACHARY SHEVIN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
McCosh Health Center, which has not yet conducted any COVID-19 tests.
Giacomo: I wasn’t a war correspondent, Stanton began her career until I was — our hotel was bombed at McGraw Center in 2003 REPORTING Continued from page 1
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“There was a cruel ritual where you’re let out of prison and then they just re-arrest you,” she said. “You can tweet about the economy at night, wake up, and be detained that morning.” “Journalism in Turkey can now be equated with terror propaganda,” she said in reference to attacks made on the state-controlled media that proliferates Turkish airwaves. Giacomo began her remarks by describing her first job in journalism, straight out of college. “My biggest risk was having an irate reader shake a finger at me or yell at me over the banister at city hall,” she said, ref lecting on her time at the Hartford Courant. Even as she went on to report on the U.S. State Department and traveled to war zones — “I wasn’t a war correspondent” — she said she never felt that she was in danger. “Until I was,” she said. “Our hotel was bombed … and [someone] was killed.” The panelists’ largely concluded that though cer-
tain risks are inherent to journalists’ work, alarming developments have restricted the ways in which journalists can safely do their jobs. “I wrote an editorial calling for the removal of the Pakistani chief of intelligence,” Giacomo said. “The next day, the ISI [Inter-Services Intelligence] held a conference just to denounce The New York Times. That certainly changed my behavior … I haven’t gone back [to Pakistan] since.” Giacomo also spoke on journalists’ obligation to prove their own value to readers. “There’s a great sense among Americans that a free press really isn’t that important,” she said. “There are people who think the president should be allowed to kill a story. There are people who think anonymous sources are paying newspapers to be anonymous.” Those misconceptions, she believes, have arisen at least in part because of President Trump’s efforts to “denigrate and delegitimize” journalists. “Trump is the first sitting president ever to file a defamation suit against a press organization,” Bass
said. Bass discussed how the public has become “numb” to the horror of the president labeling the media as the “enemy of the people.” The phrase, he noted, comes directly from the Stalinist Soviet Union, when putative “enemies” were condemned to the gulag system. “Trump probably didn’t know that the first time he said it, but it’s been brought to his attention, and he just doubles down on it,” Bass continued. He ended his portion of the panel with a call to action for the audience. “Subscribe to The New York Times,” he urged. “If you already do, subscribe to the Washington Post. If you already do, find another newspaper and subscribe to that.” The panel, titled “Perilous Reporting: The Growing Threat to Journalists in the Field,” was moderated by Eric Gregory, Professor of Religion and Chair of the University Council of the Humanities. The talk, which took place at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 5, was co-hosted by the Woodrow Wilson School and the Program in Journalism.
STANTON Continued from page 1
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Stanton said. After the decade was over, Stanton and her family moved back to Princeton, where she rejoined the McGraw Center as Senior Associate Director for Teaching Initiatives and Programs for Faculty. “My focus was on cultivating relationships with faculty members around their teaching,” Stanton said. In the summer of 2019, after her predecessor Rebecca Graves-Bayazitoglu stepped down, Stanton accepted an Interim Directorship at the University. On Feb. 24, she officially dropped the “Interim.” “It is exciting, and it feels like this wonderful homecoming — the very place where I started my academic career,” Stanton said. Serving as an Associate Dean of the College, she said, allows her to converse with the other senior team and thus develop a very interesting perspective on the college. Seeing the general student experience at its broadest, she said she is able to analyze the big picture of things. Because of her role, Stanton is able to address the two biggest problems that the McGraw
Center presently faces. The first, according to Stanton, is the challenge of having enough space, a common problem across the University. The McGraw Center is currently separated into three different locations across campus, with the most well-known section located Frist Campus Center. The other two branches are located in Lewis Library and on Prospect Avenue, near the E-Quad. The second challenge is tutor recruitment. According to Stanton, it is difficult to find enough tutors and study hall leaders for the program. To fix this, she hopes to hold even more open houses and workshops to publicize to students. There is already a creative outreach system in place, in which the McGraw Center takes personal referrals from the residential college staff. In the future, Director Stanton wishes to expand the program so that it includes faculty as well. “I think we’re a very successful, very robust resource … we have really found an audience among students,” Stanton said. “I want to do the same in our work for faculty, so we also consult with faculty on their teaching, and that work is incredibly inspiring and energizing.”
Friday March 6, 2020
The Daily Princetonian
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Kliff: Obamacare didn’t tackle the unit price of healthcare KLIFF
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............. SK: If you look at our peer countries, basically all of them have decided to regulate healthcare prices. They kind of think of it like a utility, something similar to electricity or water. It’s so important to their citizens that they’re going to step in and regulate the prices; otherwise, the providers could take advantage of the power they have — being the only ones who provide this medical services — and really charge high prices. We in the United States have made the decision to not regulate healthcare prices. Hospitals are kind of picking their prices, and even nonprofit hospitals have a lot of incentive to charge high and bring in a lot of revenue. DP: So when you see something like that, is there really zero justification for it? SK: There might be some justification. Obviously, hospitals can’t stay in business if they’re not bringing in any revenue. Where it really starts not making as much sense to me, though, is you just see huge variation between hospitals. You can look at two hospitals across the street from each other and one might be charging five times what the other one is for a very similar procedure. That suggests to me that this is not a rational market. I think this is actually a big challenge that Medicare for All drafters would have to deal with — what is the right price? You don’t want to drive hospitals out of business, right? But you also don’t want patients completely underwater with these big bills. What is the best middle point where you keep hospitals up and running and you keep patients able to afford their bills? And that’s really a question that I don’t think Senator Sanders has answered quite yet. DP: I feel like I see very little examining how ideas in the modern healthcare debate would go about influencing college students. Could you speak to that a little bit? SK: A big one right now is health insurance benefits for young adults. One of the things the Affordable Care Act did was require insurance companies to cover young adults on their parents’ plan through age 26. That’s a big one — before Obamacare, a lot of plans would run out either when you graduate from high school or when you graduate from college. I think the debate around that is a huge one that would affect college students. This might be a little more far afield, but it came up in a conversation I was having with an epidemiologist this week. I’ve been also thinking about the coronavirus on campus. Not to be alarmist, but one of the places a researcher I talked to told me he worries about coronavirus spreading is in college dorms, with such close living conditions. What we know is that these viruses, like the flu, generally spread much quicker in areas where you can’t isolate yourself. He flagged to me college dormitories, [as] it’s one place where it’s really hard to keep someone in isolation because you’re living in relatively close quarters. Luckily, what we seem to know about coronavirus is that it’s not that bad for younger adults. It’s not ACA [Affordable Care Act] specific, but as we’re dealing with this emergent outbreak, it’s something I’m going to be keeping an eye on. What does this mean for college campuses, where you have a lot of people living in relatively tight quarters? DP: Could you expand on that? I was going to ask you about that — what does it mean for college campuses?
SK: Generally, the risks should be lower on a college campus because you have a relatively young, healthy population. That being said, in any age group there are some people who are immunocompromised with some kind of chronic condition who could be at higher risk. Even if you look at a disease like the flu, it’s generally most deadly among the elderly. Anthony Fauci, the [NIAID] Director, was saying at a press conference this weekend [that] “we don’t expect a lot of healthy younger people to die, but we can’t say for certain that there won’t be a few.” You see this with the flu — the deaths are concentrated among the elderly, but there are also some deaths of perfectly healthy people. The one thing I think is specific to college campuses is just the close quarters. Let’s say there was a case somewhere on campus and there was a desire to have students selfquarantine — that might be challenging if you’re sharing a dorm room with another person or you share your bathroom with an entire floor. DP: One of the things that I’ve been really interested about in this spread of coronavirus is that I feel like we lack a reliable and consistent source of information. What are your thoughts about the manner in which this outbreak has been handled by the White House and the CDC? SK: One of the things that’s so hard is it’s just so unpredictable right now. A lot of us journalists, we just don’t know how bad this is going to get, [and] the federal government doesn’t know how bad this is going to get. There are academics doing research in real time, trying to figure out the fatality rate of coronavirus — more and more numbers are coming out, but they can be kind of different from each other. That makes it really hard to think, “what is the threat and how seriously should we be taking it?” In my own experience reporting on the CDC, I’ve had some trouble getting answers from them with the questions I have. Most of my questions and most of my coverage is about the medical billing of coronavirus. Are patients going to be charged when they go to get tested? I recently wrote a story about some patients who were put in mandatory isolation by the government now have outstanding medical bills. In that particular case, I haven’t been able to get the CDC to respond to my questions about whether those bills will be covered or not. That’s just my individual experience reporting on them, I found sometimes it’s hard to get answers. That’s not totally unusual for a government agency, but it does make it challenging for reporters like myself to do our best job to inform the public when you’re having trouble getting information from the agencies you cover. DP: Is that abnormal? Was the Obama CDC similar in that regard? SK: I never covered a pandemic outbreak under the Obama administration. There was Ebola under the Obama administration, but it was just kind of different. We weren’t quite as worried about the spread. I just don’t have a good basis of comparison to say whether this is similar or different than before, because this situation just feels so different from anything I’ve covered. DP: Pivoting just a little bit, in the the grand hope for medical reform in the United States, do you feel like there exists a clock? Are we running out of time for fixing the system? SK: I think what you see looking at our country and
looking across the world is that this happens in stages. The United States created Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. We created, you know, the children’s health insurance plan for low-income kids in 1997. The ACA came in 2010. And that’s not unusual; most countries build their healthcare systems step by step. The thing that does get harder is [that] the longer we let the healthcare industry get bigger, the more effective lobbyists they become. The more entrenched they become, the harder it becomes to effect change. Canada created their single-payer system in the 1960s when healthcare was probably something like 3 percent or 4 percent of GDP. In the United States, our healthcare system is 17 percent of GDP. It’s just such a big structural force — I don’t think it’s impos-
sible to create a system like Canada’s here, but I think it would be more challenging and there’s more things you need to undo in trying to create that system. DP: Do you have any fun, interesting, wild anecdotes about a public figure? It could be, like, “oh my god, I saw Obama on the street one time and he recognized me.” SK: Since you mentioned Obama, one of my favorite weirdest moments of reporting was when Ezra Klein and I interviewed President Obama in 2017. I think it might have actually been his last interview with the press, about the future of the Affordable Care Act. It was very clear that he enjoyed talking about health policy; he was really getting deep into the details. We got like half an hour in, and we realized we’d only
asked two questions, because his answers were so long. It was supposed to only be an hour and at about an hour in, I think his staffers were kind of, like, signaling to him to like wrap up, but he didn’t seem to want to wrap up here. So he kind of looked at Ezra and I and was like, “Do you guys have more time?” And we’re like, “Really? Yeah, we’re good. Like, you’re the president. If you have more time, we will definitely work around it.” So that was just a very fine memory. It felt very gratifying after covering this law for so long to get to talk to him about his views on it and have a really long discussion with him about healthcare. It was pretty surreal. DP: Thank you so much. SK: Yeah, I’m looking forward to reading it.
McPhee: People would give Dyson the problems no one else could solve DYSON
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theory of quantum electrodynamics. It was on a Greyhound bus on his way back from Ann Arbor that Dyson formulated his thoughts on the paper he would write at Princeton — “The Radiation Theories of Tomonaga, Schwinger, and Feynman” — which convinced the broader physics community of Feynman’s theories of quantum electrodynamics. After Dyson’s work was published in 1949, he briefly taught at Cornell but then took up a position at IAS, which he retained for the rest of his life. Despite his mathematical contributions to the theories of quantum electrodynamics, Dyson did not receive the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics alongside Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga. The theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg GS ’57, who shared the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics, told The New York Times in 2009 that the Nobel Prize Committee “fleeced” Dyson by not awarding him a prize for his work on quantum electrodynamics. Dyson himself was never dismayed about not being a Nobel laureate. “People ask, ‘why didn’t you get the prize?’” he said in a 2012 interview. “It’s much better than if they were asking, ‘why did you get it?’” Among Dyson’s many honors are the Max Planck Medal (1969), the Harvey Prize (1977), and the Wolf Prize in Physics (1981). When asked about the achievement of which he was the proudest, Dyson smilingly replied, “I would say bringing up six kids who are all productive citizens.” According to the Albert Einstein Professor in Science Paul J. Steinhardt, Dyson, famous for being an opponent to consensus, was “extremely encouraging of [Steinhardt’s] work challenging the Big
Bang inflationary picture and proposing instead a cyclic model of the universe.” When asked about Dyson’s greatest legacy for physics as a discipline and profession, Steinhardt wrote, “the example he set for us all.” Dyson was intently dedicated to finding progressive usage of nuclear energy, particularly in the late ’50s, where he spent many months working on the La Jolla campus of General Atomics, a peacetime version of the famous Los Alamos research facilities that produced the nuclear bomb. Ferris Professor of Journalism John McPhee ’53, who spent several weeks reporting on Los Alamos, said to The Daily Princetonian that even among the Los Alamos veterans, “people lionized Freeman Dyson. They would give him the problems no one else could solve.” Early experiences in the war instilled in Dyson a grave responsibility for the role of science and technology. Dyson, who was morally opposed to indiscriminate bombing, wrote in 1981 that “bomber command was an early example of the new evil that science and technology have added to the old evils of soldiering.” Harold A. Feiveson GS ’72, Lecturer in Public and International Affairs and Senior Research Policy Analyst, Emeritus, described Dyson as a visionary thinker with a “religious optimism for the future.” “He knew if we did the right things today, people in the future, looking back, would be grateful,” he said to the ‘Prince.’ Dyson was also a fierce advocate for nuclear disarmament, and ambitious thinker who, while working on Project Orion, envisioned the Dyson Sphere, a hypothetical structure that encircles a star, that would be the ultimate solution to the world’s energy problem. The last time Feiveson recalls talking to Dyson was three weeks
ago, when he invited him to attend a talk on the role of scientists in World War II. According to Feiveson, Dyson’s mind “was as sharp as ever” and even cracked a joke during the talk. When the lecturer observed that in 1942, few individuals were confident that the Allies would prevail, Dyson injected that he “knew the Germans would lose the war.” Dyson, even at 96, was a highly involved member of the Princeton community and continued to welcome students. Last year, four students — Miles Simpkins ’22, Mason Wasserman ’22, Edward Tian ’22, and Satya Nayagam ’22 — visited Dyson’s office after he offered to help them on their documentary project for their freshman seminar, FRS 134: Scientists Against Time. Simpkins, who is a member of the rocketry club, remembered Dyson taking a deep interest in the students. “We mentioned that we were making an attempt at launching rockets into space as students in the rocketry club, he was fascinated and wanted to come to the launch,” he said. “He was kind of a renaissance man, working on many different subjects, from mathematics to nuclear physics to astrophysics,” wrote Chiara R. Nappi, Professor of Physics, Emeritus, in an email to the ‘Prince.’ “[He was a] very nice guy at a personal level. When I got involved in education in the early [1990s], he was one of my cheerleaders.” In an interview with the ‘Prince,‘ Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, Emeritus, and Professor of Mathematical Physics, Emeritus, Elliot H. Lieb described Dyson’s acute mindset. “Dyson had an eye for fundamental questions, and he would always get to the center of the matter,” Lieb said. “He did not waste a lot of time discussing generalities; he was very focused.”
Opinion
Friday March 6, 2020
page 4
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }
When you said ‘we,’ did you really speak for ‘us’? A statement in support of 2020’s Class Day Speaker Marshawn Lynch Manuel Stefano Castaño Kiki Gilbert Nathan Poland K. Stiefel Guest Contributors
S
hortly after the announcement of Marshawn Lynch as the 2020 Class Day speaker, a small group of graduating seniors took it upon themselves to hastily denounce the invitation on behalf of the entire class. In a short period of time, many major media outlets have sensationalized this story. Though it appeared as if these writers were entrusted intermediaries of the class’s opinion — delivering the message of a disappointed Princeton community — this framing is unequivocally wrong. It must be stated plainly and unmistakably: those few students, no matter how vocal, did not truly speak for “us,” the University community, nor the approximately 1,300 members of the senior class. In light of this, the many of us who had words proverbially shoved into our mouths without permission, consent, nor consultation have chosen to decisively rebuke the initial op-ed in its entirety. Considering that the authors of the original piece were most concerned with transparency, it’s telling that they themselves made no efforts to seriously engage with the Princeton community about their concerns. Instead of directly citing opinions other than their own, the authors invoked the simultaneously vague and collective “we,” “us,” and “members of the senior class” to express and defend their points. Who exactly is the “we” these authors are referencing? Despite what had been written about the entirety of the senior class of 2020, a significant number of graduating seniors affirmed the choice of Marshawn Lynch as this year’s speaker. A simple questionnaire widely distributed around
campus on Tuesday afternoon found that out of 327 seniors — over one-fourth of the graduating class — about 73 percent of respondents expressed interest in hearing Marshawn Lynch speak at Class Day. The survey was anonymous but verified the respondent’s Princeton email address in order to prevent multiple submissions. While this quick survey is far from conclusive, we — as the authors of this piece — are attempting to ground our claims in the opinions of the Class of 2020. We believe it deceitful and unnecessary to hide behind the veil of an imaginary collective in order to validate our opinions and inflate their perceived importance. On that point, it is concerning that Marshawn Lynch was seemingly the catalyst for this rallying cry of “reforming the speaker selection process.” To many students and some observers beyond this campus, the original open letter serves as little more than a thinly-veiled ad hominem attack against Lynch. After all, why would the op-ed authors not decry all previous Class Day speakers invited under this opaque selection procedure for lack of sufficient student input? Indeed, the authors do the opposite — lauding the invitation of Cory Booker and Ellie Kemper. If this was truly about the selection process, where was the op-ed when the Class Day Committee was formed last spring? Why the silence on the selection process until only after Marshawn Lynch had been selected? As the authors’ affirm themselves, something about Marshawn Lynch’s selection seems counter to the logic of previously selected speakers. The very inclusion of Lynch muddles whatever it is the selection committee is looking for — it makes it “[inevident] what the set of criteria for nomination are.” Perhaps we can elucidate on some of the differences between Lynch and the past 19 speakers. Since the tradition of selecting a Class Day speaker,
which began in 2001, Marshawn Lynch is only the third person of color, one of three first-generation, low-income college students, and the first professional athlete invited to speak. Although the op-ed alleges that there needs to be a connection to the University — or, by extension, New Jersey — Lynch is the 11th speaker invited without any connection to either the state or the University. Moreover, like previous speakers Chevy Chase, Ellie Kemper, and Baz Luhrmann, Lynch’s primary pursuits are not achievements always recognized within academia. The op-ed, however, seems to suggest a different set of concerns that are particularly troubling. By virtue of the article’s hasty generalizations of Lynch’s merits, it seems natural to conclude that the authors are really taking issue with Lynch’s eloquence, his contributions to society, and his ability to inspire and demonstrate leadership to Princeton’s graduating class. Intentionally or not, this invokes the trope that black people are innately inarticulate, as well as reinforcing the hurtful stereotype that athletes have nothing else to offer beyond their physical prowess. With regards to leadership, while the authors of the piece commended previous speakers for giving voice to the people of their community, they blatantly undervalued how Marshawn Lynch has done the same through his Fam1st Foundation and “Phones for the Homeless” initiative. As the Class Day Committee has suggested, we must start a conversation about what our shared values and perspectives are as a graduating class — understanding that shared is not the same thing as common. Sharing involves taking as much as it involves giving; listening as much as it does speaking; connecting as much as it does reflecting. For over 200 student-athletes, Lynch can speak to the largely unrecognized herculean effort
required to be both a disciplined, competitive Division I athlete, as well as a dedicated student. Nearly 17 percent of the students in our class are among the first in their families to attend college and, as a first-generation college student himself, Lynch is a beacon of inspiration that sets a powerful example of lifting his community with him as he climbs. Besides this, for many black students, Lynch encourages them to be who they are — proudly and boldly in the face of antiblack constraints on hairstyles, language, and expression. For some of our classmates, Marshawn Lynch is the first Class Day speaker they’ve genuinely been excited for. To Marshawn: While the few sometimes seem to speak louder than the many, many of us are thrilled to have you, and we hope to welcome you with minds as open as our arms. It is a privilege and an honor to have you on our campus and learn from all that you have to give. And for those that still question whether a speech can be expected, speaking at Class Day is an uncompensated role, and therefore it is not an honor to be the speaker but an honor to be the audience. Marshawn Lynch isn’t coming so he doesn’t get fined. He is coming because he graciously accepted to do so and chose to share and contribute to one of our final moments together as an undergraduate class. The real question is whether we can find the humility and willingness to engage and to be — in Lynch’s own words — “’bout that action, boss!” Nathan Poland is a senior majoring in African American Studies. KiKi Gilbert is a junior majoring in African American Studies. Manuel Stefano Castaño is a senior majoring in Politics. K. Stiefel is a senior majoring in Chemistry. They may be contacted at npoland@princeton.edu, kiarag@ princeton.edu, mgc@princeton. edu, and kstiefel@princeton.edu, respectively.
Entitlement and class in response to Class Day speaker selection Jack Tait
Guest Contributor
U
pon reading the open letter published in the Daily Princetonian criticizing the choice of Marshawn Lynch as Class Day speaker, I felt compelled to respond. As a FLI student, I identify with many aspects of Mr. Lynch’s experiences that were not discussed or valued in the authors’ arguments. I hope this response sheds light on the value of those experiences as well as the implicit entitlement that I felt ran through the letter. The main point of this response is to highlight the implied sense of entitlement that runs throughout the authors’ arguments. In demanding that students be able to — directly or indirectly — make a list of potential candidates, the assumption is that shortlisted speakers would almost certainly accept the invitation. In reality, why would a speaker ranked anywhere but first on the list accept an invitation while knowing they are a backup option? We should be grateful that any speaker, of any public stature, devotes their time each year to impart advice on us — without financial compensation — as we leave Princeton. This gratitude, of any kind, was a stark omission. By not acknowledging the gen-
erosity of Mr. Lynch or the efforts of the Class Day Committee and administrators involved in the process, the authors display a sentiment which makes me deeply uncomfortable: that we are somehow deserving or entitled to more. This implication is rooted in a dangerous assumption that the University’s reputation bestows upon us a right to privileges such as public figures speaking to us at Class Day. It is precisely this reputation of elitism that has plagued the University, a reputation that the current administration and student body have fought hard to dispel. Unfortunately, the open letter has made it clear that we still have some strides to make. The suggestion that Mr. Lynch’s lack of previous connection to Princeton renders him unable to be Class Day speaker is an argument that I find especially hard to accept. From growing up in a low-income community, to being a first-generation college student and studentathlete, Mr. Lynch in fact represents — to some degree or another — a large chunk of Princeton students. By claiming that his connection to Princeton is too weak, the authors sideline Mr. Lynch’s and others’ shared lived experiences. On a personal level, during my time at Princeton I have often desired to hear more from those who come from a background similar to my own. While I of course ap-
preciate that Mr. Lynch does not represent a relatable presence for all, which speaker would do so? To argue that Mr. Lynch does not represent the student body is to argue that the backgrounds of people like myself are not valuable. The background of Mr. Lynch not being that of a “typical” Princeton student is in fact one of the strongest reasons for my excitement at his acceptance of this role. The insularity of Princeton’s campus and community is well documented. The Orange Bubble is both a blessing and a curse that reflects the scope of resources that Princeton provides as well as the fact that, for most students, there is not necessarily a need to engage with our surroundings beyond FitzRandolph Gate. Graduation, however, is the moment at which we both symbolically and literally go forth from this campus and forge our individual paths in the world. It is perhaps the time at which we are made to think most about our identities as both Princeton students but also as people belonging to a much wider world than this small New Jersey town. By contrasting Mr. Lynch’s apparent lack of connection to Princeton or New Jersey with those of Ms. Kemper and Mr. Booker, the authors suggest that a non-Princeton experience is somehow too foreign or not worth hearing. This is not only disparaging,
but also not backed up by previous Class Day speaker choices. Stretching back to every Class Day speaker this millennium, one finds just six Princeton alumni. Graduation is all about the graduating class leaving this campus and moving to a new chapter. I personally don’t particularly want to spend another hour listening to someone discuss their time at Princeton. While this is certainly a personal preference on my behalf, there can be no doubt that Class Day speakers with no obvious Princeton-related experience offer a rich, valuable perspective. Criticizing a choice of speaker for not having Princeton connections is, again, an embodiment of the entitlement that runs through the article. Mr. Lynch, just like any speaker, is not everybody’s cup of tea. Not being an alumnus, however, does not invalidate his words. In fact, as we embark on our journey outside of this campus, I argue that it makes his non-Princeton perspective all the more salient. To Marshawn Lynch, the Class Day Committee, and the Princeton administrators and other students involved in organizing graduation: thank you. Jack Tait is a senior in the politics department from London, United Kingdom. He can be reached at jtait@princeton.edu.
editor-in-chief
Jonathan Ort ’21
BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Chanakya A. Sethi ’07 treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90 trustees Francesca Barber David Baumgarten ’06 Kathleen Crown Gabriel Debenedetti ’12 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 Michael Grabell ’03 John G. Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Betsy L. Minkin ’77 Alexia Quadrani Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 Kavita Saini ’09 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 Abigail Williams ’14 trustees ex officio Jonathan Ort ’21
144TH MANAGING BOARD managing editors Benjamin Ball ’21 Elizabeth Parker ’21 Ivy Truong ’21 Cy Watsky ’21 Sections listed in alphabetical order. chief copy editors Lydia Choi ’21 Anna McGee ’22 associate copy editors Celia Buchband ’22 Sydney Peng ’22 head design editor Harsimran Makkad ’22 associate design editors Abby Nishiwaki ’23 Kenny Peng ’22 head features editor Josephine de La Bruyère ’22 head multimedia editor Mark Dodici ’22 associate video editor Mindy Burton ’23 head news editors Claire Silberman ’22 Zachary Shevin ’22 associate news and features editor Marie-Rose Sheinerman ’22 associate news editors Naomi Hess ’22 Allan Shen ’22 head opinion editors Rachel Kennedy ’21 Madeleine Marr ’21 associate opinion editors Shannon Chaffers ’22 Emma Treadway ’22 editorial board chairperson Zachariah Sippy ’22 head sports editors Tom Salotti ’21 Alissa Selover ’21 associate sports editors Josephine de La Bruyère ’22 Emily Philippides ’22
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Recycle your ‘Prince’!
Features
Friday March 6, 2020
page 5
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Small subjects, big findings The Princeton Baby Lab
MINDY BURTON / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Dr. Casey Lew-Williams, co-director of the Princeton Baby Lab. “Anyone above age 3, I deem almost adult-like,” he laughed.
By Mindy Burton associate video editor
Ever wondered what’s going on inside a baby’s head? The developmental psychology lab — better and more pleasantly known as the Baby Lab — might have an answer for you. The lab strives to increase scholarly knowledge about how babies learn to see, talk, and understand the world. “We are interested in understanding how we learn at the beginning of life and why early learning is so consequential,” said Associate Professor of Psychology Casey Lew-Williams. Lew-Williams co-directs the Lab with Assistant Professor Lauren Emberson. No developmental period proves more critical to success and well-being than the newborn years. The brains of babies and toddlers absorb the entire meaning of their environments — language, social interaction, visual information — without even the ability to speak. “Before they can talk to us,” said postdoctoral fel-
low Dr. Elise Piazza, “babies’ brains are showing fairly sophisticated representations of the social world. They’re engaging with adults in communication in a way we can now start to measure with these new neuroimaging techniques.” Piazza is responsible for one of the Baby Lab’s most significant recent accomplishments: the first study of how baby and adult brains interact during play. Piazza spent months measuring the brain activity in babies and their adult caregivers as the two played together. Even as early as one year into life, found Piazza, babies’ brains showed a heightened activity when interacting with adults as opposed to during alone time. She found as well that — strikingly and heartwarmingly — during faceto-face communication, the adult’s and baby’s brain displayed synchronized wavelengths in the same regions. Put simply: when adults play with babies, the two brains establish a connec-
tion. Piazza’s research required her to monitor brain activity. And when it came to that, she and her colleagues encountered an issue. Neural synchrony is typically measured through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) testing that requires the subject to lie still in a scanner for prolonged periods of time. Those restrictions made MRI technology impractical — if not impossible — for squirmy subjects. That’s where Piazza’s aforementioned innovative neuroimaging techniques came in. She made use of another testing system, functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), where a subject wears a cap with wires to image brain activity. With a grant from the Schmidt Fund, Piazza and her colleagues were able to design these caps for various head sizes. In theory, that made them perfect for babies. Reality proved more nuanced; more than half of the infants either refused to wear the cap or took it off completely. But less fussy
babies and their adult playmates both wore the fNIRS caps, allowing the team to measure coupled changes in brain activity across both parties. “By using some contemporary methods for data collection, we’re actually able to get quite a bit of information from babies even though their skill set is very limited,” Lew-Williams said. “They can look, they can listen, they can turn their heads, move their eyes, and we can capitalize on those very simple behaviors to learn a lot about cognition and sociality in our species.” Over 1,000 families visit the lab each year. Many encourage their friends to visit, too, according to Lew-Williams. The Lab has worked diligently to make their “Baby Tiger” logo known through community events, such as advertising at pre-schools, in hospitals, at festivals, and even on social media. The researchers relish the opportunity to study the brain at its most crucial stages of development,
Revealing the truth, one story at a time.
and the babies seem to have a fun time too. The waiting room of the lab is filled with books for all ages, a colorful carpet, and toys to play with before starting the experiment. Each child is able to stay with their parents the entire time and is given a slew of thank-you gifts at the end: a Baby Lab t-shirt or a book, and, as a gift for Mom or Dad, a reusable water bottle or a canvas bag, as well as financial reimbursement for travel expenses. A day in the lab doesn’t only help scientists understand more about human interactions and how our brains develop and learn. It provides them as well with the joyful privilege of interacting with Princeton’s littlest tigers. “It is very rewarding to work with kids,” Piazza said. “They kind of wear their hearts on their sleeve and to get to see them light up and just have a blast during play or singing with the experimenter … it kind of gives you this instant gratification that you don’t get from adults.”
Sports
Friday March 6, 2020
page 6
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } MEN’S TENNIS
Men’s tennis defeats ODU, MTSU Tigers climb to No. 18 nationally, return to Jadwin Sunday By Sophie Cantine contributor
Men’s tennis spent this past weekend playing two matches at Jadwin Gymnasium’s tennis courts, defeating Old Dominion University and No. 31 Middle Tennessee State University. The Tigers kicked off their weekend with a match against ODU on Saturday. They finished the match on top, beating ODU 4–3. One point was acquired through two victories in the doubles matches: sophomore Justin Barki and junior Damian Rodriguez won their No. 2 doubles match 6–2, and sophomores Bill Duo and Karl Poling clinched the win in their No. 3 doubles match 7–6. The remaining three points were claimed
through the singles matches; Barki won his No. 3 singles match, senior Davey Roberts won his match at No. 5, and sophomore Will Peters also won a close match 7–5, 6–3 against ODU’s Vidal at No.6. The Tigers continued their momentum into Sunday, where they decisively beat nationally ranked Middle Tennessee State University 4–1. In the doubles matches, Barki and Rodriguez once again won their doubles match at No.2 6–3. Meanwhile, Duo and Poling at No. 3 won all six of their games against MTSU’s Max Rauch and Francisco Rocha. In singles, Barki had another strong match, beating his opponent 6–3, 6–0. Then, Peters won his match 6–2, 6–2 at No.4, and Duo
finished his match with a 6–1, 7–5 victory. After the successful weekend, Princeton men’s tennis now has a record of 11–4. “Both Old Dominion and Middle Tennessee are tough teams, and getting through the weekend with two solid wins was a real positive,” said junior Ryan Seggerman, who played No. 1 doubles and No.2 singles in both matches over the weekend. “Guys like Justin and Davey were undefeated over the weekend and getting wins quickly, so when they’re playing well, it gives the rest of us a lot of confidence as a group.” After the wins over the weekend, the Tigers also climbed six spots in the Intercollegiate Tennis Association’s NCAA Division I
rankings from No. 24 to No. 18. This ranking, announced on Wednesday, is the highest Princeton men’s tennis has ever ranked under its current head coach, Billy Pate. “I know myself and the guys are really fired up about that,” said Seggerman concerning the team’s updated ranking. Both Poling and Seggerman also jumped onto the singles rankings after previously being unranked. Poling is now ranked No. 113, and Seggerman is not far behind at No. 124. In the doubles rankings, Seggerrman and senior Payton Holden are ranked No. 16, and Barki and first-year Thomas Bosancic are also ranked at No. 66. Princeton men’s tennis
will continue to play matches over the next two months, with its Ivy League Championships in mid-April and the NCAA qualifying and national championships in May. “Going forward, we just want to keep playing well and give ourselves a good chance to win Ivies and make the NCAA tournament. I think we have put ourselves in a good position to accomplish both of those goals, so it’ll be really fun to see how it plays out,” Seggerman said. The Tigers’ next match will be this weekend, when they head to State College to face Penn State on Friday before returning to Jadwin Gymnasium to play William and Mary and NJIT on Sunday.
COURTESY OF PRINCETON ATHLETICS
Sophomore Justin Barki won his singles match at #3 against ODU last weekend with 6-0 and 6-4 games.
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“A gift from @PUTIGERS alumna Cynthia Paul ‘94 and her husband Scott Levy will help build a new @PUSoftball stadium on the new Lake Campus: https://bit.ly/38oVkeh” Princeton University (@Princeton), softball
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Sophomore forward Sarah Fillier of women’s hockey scored an average of 1.86 goals per game this season, ranking second in the nation.