October 12, 2016

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Wednesday october 12, 2016 vol. cxl no. 85

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First phase of Fields Center revamp done, now a more “welcoming” space

By Winston Lie contributor

In July, the University commissioned a renovation of the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Cultural Understanding to create a more welcoming space for all University students, according to director of the Fields Center, Tennille Haynes.

Haynes explained that this renovation comes as part of the recommendations from a special, student-led task force commissioned by University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83.

The task force sought to suggest specific changes that could improve the quality of life for all students on campus.

The task force was established in the wake of last year’s campus protests, after student groups, including the Black Justice League, demanded more inclusion and acceptance of diversity on campus.

Slated for full completion by the fall of 2017, the first phase of renovations for the building was completed this summer.

Haynes said that the original Fields Center space was not adequate for the programming held there. Although the Center has always served and acted as a facility for cultural awareness and student advocacy, the space itself was described as having “no personality” and simply “did not reflect the program,” Haynes said.

Previously, the Fields Center had a polished wooden interior and khaki-colored walls eliciting the question, “How do we rebrand this space?” That problem has been resolved, according to Haynes.

The new, modern, and colorful décor, accompanied by natural lighting, enhances the spaciousness of the Center. Haynes explained that the interior has See FIELDS page 3

WINSTON LIE :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S

Dillon Gym renovation project nears completion

By Norman Xiong contributor

ACADEMICS

LOCAL NEWS

U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S

Michael Barry ’70 returns Princeton council talks to U. as research scholar Nassau Street revamp

By Abhiram Karuppur staff writer

Michael Barry ’70, former lecturer in the Near Eastern Studies Department, has been rehired by the University as a research scholar in the Liechtenstein Institute for Self-Determination at the Wilson School.

In the May of 2015, after teaching at the University for 12 years, Barry’s contract as a lecturer was not renewed by the University. Undergraduate and Graduate students at the University wrote petitions and personal letters to the administration in protest. Barry was then rehired in the summer by Wolfgang Danspeckgruber, the director of LISD, as a research scholar, where he now studies events happening in the Middle East.

Danspeckgruber did not respond to a request for comment.

Kelly Roache ’12 GS ’15, who

studied under Barry during her undergraduate and graduate years, explained that Barry is able to meld history, politics, art, and religion to fully understand current events in the Middle East and South Asia.

She added that Barry incorporates his past experiences in Afghanistan into his lectures to illustrate his points, and once was able to draw a map of the Mediterranean from memory, down to the last detail about the Italian coastline.

“Dr. Barry frequently draws on anecdotes from his time in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the region to illustrate broader lessons,” Roache said. “[His] keen awareness of the echoes of imperialism also sets him apart from those who might rather downplay this phenomenon and American culpability in the current policy crises we face.”

Barry was born in New York See BARRY page 2

By Hunter Campbell contributor

Mayor Liz Lempert and the council of Princeton discussed the proposed Streetscape Design Standards for Nassau Street, as well as accepted a Mercer County body camera grant in the Oct. 10 open meeting.

While the council seemed enthusiastic about the proposed ideas in the draft, some members expressed concerns about the cost associated with the proposed project.

“It’s not gonna be free and I don’t know whether to think in terms of three hundred thousand dollars, or one million dollars, or sky’s the limit. Right?

It makes a big difference to me in terms of how enthusiastic I wanna be about it,” councilman Patrick Simon said during the meeting.

Among the project goals is to “enhance the appearance,

safety, and pedestrian-friendly experience along the BusinessDistrict of Nassau Street,” according to the draft proposal.

New ladder crosswalks have been proposed for the intersections at Witherspoon Street, Washington Street, and University Place. Such changes would directly affect University students who frequently use businesses on Nassau Street.

Among the proposed changes to the road are “no-parking areas” where there will be on-road space to park between four and five bicycles instead of cars.

There are also proposed changes to lampposts and street lights. The draft outlines how the preferred lamppost is in the Victorian style. To maximize available space on the sidewalk, streetlights will be combined with traffic lights when possible.

This same space maximizaSee TOWN page 4

In Opinion

Today on Campus

Contributing columnist Annie Lu reflects on the Princeton culture of social capital, and contributing columnist Tom Salama discusses additional approaches by which to consider affirmative action policies. PAGE 4

12 p.m.: Latin American Studies will feature lecturer in politics Maria Paula Saffon Sanin, who will give a PLAS talk titled “The Columbian Peace Agreement: A Lost Opportunity for Social Transformation?” 216 Burr Hall.

U. dining staff reflect on Harvard strike

By Hunter Campbell contributor

Last week, Boston’s Local 26, a labor union, called for a strike

by Harvard University Dining Services staff. The 600 or so protesters voiced their discontent with low wages and proposed changes to benefits offered to workers by Harvard.

Negotiations between the protestors and Harvard administrators are ongoing, with many dining halls still closed on campus.

In light of the events at Cambridge, several University staff members from across the dining halls on campus have offered their insights into the current working conditions and See DINING page 3

WEATHER

JESSICA LI :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

The multi-year renovations project on Dillon Gymnasium’s locker rooms, support spaces, and pool is nearing a close in the fall of 2016, according to Renovation Program Manager Dave Howell and Project Manager Jarett Messina. The renovations are estimated to reach completion Dec. 8th, 2016.

The renovations are currently nearing the end of Phase 2, much of which focuses on improving circulation of foot traffic throughout the building.

This project includes extensive maintenance work on Dillon Gym’s locker rooms, as well as its support spaces, corridors, and pool.

“The goal of the project was to redo the A-level, which is where the locker rooms are,” Howell said, “And improve circulation,

enhance the user experience, and provide gender inclusiveness through various types of locker room offerings or locker room designs.”

Howell and Messina explained that the expansion of gender inclusivity in the locker rooms entailed the construction of six gender-inclusive toilets and shower rooms separate from the main locker rooms.

The gender-inclusive rooms are equipped with private showers and toilet facilities, as well as individual lockers.

“Anyone can go in there, use those private gender-inclusive rooms, and just put your stuff in a day locker outside that room,” Howell added. “Or, you could choose to go in the main locker room — when they’re open, they’re not open yet, but when they open up — you could choose to go in there like it was See DILLON page 3

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Wednesday october 12, 2016

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CLUB SPORTS ARCHERY

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Unbowed and unbent, Princeton Archery Club finds home on campus

By David Liu Sports Editor

Starting this semester, the Daily Princetonian will publish a weekly feature centered on one of the University’s club sports every Wednesday. Clubs interested in a feature should contact sports@dailyprincetonian.com Just this past Sunday, the Princeton Archery Club unveiled its newly awarded indoor practice space in the basement of Dillon Gymnasium. Though admittedly nothing more than “a really small space in the squash courts”, as described by twotime president junior Shriya Sekhsaria, the new space marks a monumental victory for the close-knit, upstart club; for the first time in Princeton history, the organization will be allowed to practice on campus. From a historical perspective, the victory reflects the years of hard work that alumni, current stu-

Archery Club stored all of its equipment at Uncle Bob’s storage down Route 1 and practiced at the Wa-Xo-Be Archers field, a full eight miles from campus.

Though suboptimal, the agreement with local officials marked a temporary victory for the young club.

While administrators were anxious about the club’s formation, the university’s students sure weren’t. In fact, Field commented, “One of our goals was to take as many people as we could.” By the fall of 2013, the club was making regular car trips out to Wa-Xo-Be with as many as a dozen students attending each practice session. The process of balancing logistics and promoting a sense of welcome quickly created a sense of community within the team.

Then, in the spring of 2014, the club reached another milestone: competing at the Indoor National Championships. After over two years of activism, Field

COURTESY OF PRINCETON ARCHERY CLUB

The Archery Club was recently awarded an indoor practice space, marking the first time the club was allowed to practice on campus.

club’s president, who thereaf-

COURTESY OF PRINCETON ARCHERY CLUB

During the 2015-16 season, the club competed at both the Indoor and National Championships.

Six princtonians medaled in their events at the Indoor Championships.

dents, and community members have devoted to the club.

Sekhsaria is a news editor for the Daily Princetonian.

Just four years ago, an archery club could not be found on campus. More of a myth and legend than a reality, the club seemed like an interesting possibility but one that had not been seriously pursued. However, when eventual club founder Anjalie Field ’15 arrived on campus in the fall of 2011 and realized the club was nothing more than hearsay, the Haverford native decided to take action into her own hands.

Thus in the fall of 2012, Field and a few friends officially sanctioned the Princeton Archery Club. Yet, starting the club was one thing, obtaining recognition and support from the University was another matter. Reflecting on her involvement with the club, Field commented that as an ambitious undergraduate she spent “a lot of time emailing administrators”.

To the aspiring sophomore’s demise, the majority of University response were either negative or unhelpful. Worries regarding the sport’s safety and logistics foreclosed Field’s efforts to obtain official recognition. It was only when local community members offered assistance that the club could begin practice.

Thereafter, for the first three years of existence, the Princeton

had built the club into a legitimate University organization that had survived through the doubts of many.

Over the course of the 2015-16 season, the club continued to grow and improve. In fact, Princeton Archery competed at both the Indoor and Outdoor National Championships. In the first, six Princetonians medaled in their respective events. Then, at the outdoor championships, Princeton solidified its national presence when Ben Liu ‘15 achieved the All-American status.

Following the graduation of Field and the club’s founding core, Princeton Archery faced a leadership gap. In the spring of 2015, the club elected the thenfreshman Sekhsaria to presidency. As the new leadership, Sekhsaria confronted a plethora of challenges. To begin, following the graduation of Field and AllAmerican Ben Liu ’15, the club lacked veteran upperclassmen experience. With few juniors and seniors to lend cars for travel, practicing at Wa-Xo-Be quickly became a logistical nightmare.

It was in the summer of 2015 that Sekhsaria began petitioning for on-campus storage of archery equipment. After a summer of proposals, phone calls and negotiations, the club earned their space last fall.

However, this simple step forward was not sufficient for the

Tweet of the Day “I definitely need to be asleep rn but I’m also trying to prove to a friend that the Cubs don’t lose every time I watch a game. Choices.”

Tate Crosby(@ tatecrosby), Defense, Lacrosse

ter sought on-campus practice space. While many administrators doubted that space would be granted so soon, Sekhsaria unleashed a volley of proposals, plan layouts and requests.

At the same time, the club struggled to maintain its sense of community, interest, and commitment. Towards the end

of the 2015 spring, club membership dwindled down to the single digits. According to Sekhsaria, attendance at the club’s weekly brunches captured the organization’s struggle to survive. “For the first three or four brunches, I sat by myself,” said Sekhsaria.

It was only after a grueling recruiting season that the club managed to increase membership. Combined with the coaching tutelage of Liu, Princeton Archery managed to amass a formidable representation at last year’s national championships. In fact, at the 2016 Indoor Championships, three Princetonians placed in the top three for their respective events. Andrew Ge ‘19 placed second in the junior men’s recurve with Stephen Wong ‘19 following in third. At the same championship, Sekhsaria won first in junior women’s barebow. Next, at the club’s second-ever outdoor national appearance, Sekhsaria earned All-East honors and then-senior Logan Lee earned All-American status.

Looking forward to this year, the club hopes to take fully advantage of the new on campus practice space - no longer will transportation and logistics undermine the club’s feasibility.

In addition, this past Septem-

ber, the club garnered an overwhelming level of interest from prospective members. When asked how the club chose its members, Sekhsaria commented, “Ability is not a concern for us. If you keep showing up, you’re going to get good at it. I look for dedication and fit.”

Over the course of the next few weeks, Princeton Archery will prepare to host the annual Ivy Archery Invitational, which originated within the Orange Bubble. Further ahead, the club hopes to pose a larger force at the national championships in the spring.

But before quite plunging into future goals, the team plans to take a few moments to appreciate its new found recognition on campus. Just before her club left for its first-ever national competition senior year, founder Field wrote to the ‘Prince’ detailing Princeton Archery’s journey.

Just before her graduation, Field spoke for the entire club when she reflected, “Learning to overcome challenges is one of the main reason I wanted to bring archery to Princeton. Archery taught me how to face failure and especially how to perform under pressure, a skill every Princeton student grapples with.

It made me a better student and a better person.”

COURTESY OF PRINCETON ARCHERY CLUB

The Archery Club looks forward to hosting the annual Ivy Archery Invitational, which originated at Princeton.

Stat of the Day

No. 14 Tyler Lussi was named No. 14 in the nation overall. She was one of three Tigers named to the top 100.

Follow us Check us out on Twitter on @princesports for live news and reports, and on Instagram on @ princetoniansports for photos!

The Daily Princetonian

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Wednesday october 12, 2016

Barry: Every life I helped save is a way of saving our own humanity BARRY

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in 1948, but spent the majority of his childhood in Paris. He said that he had always been interested in the Middle East and Afghanistan, since many of his family friends were from that region. By the time Barry was 16, he was fluent in four languages, and had learned Persian.

“I developed an interest in Afghanistan at a very young age, decades before the invasion by the Soviet Union,” Barry said. “I was very fascinated by the culture and I wanted to learn more about it.”

He decided to apply to the University because of its beautiful campus, and majored in Near Eastern Studies. When he started to study the history and culture of the Middle East, he realized that he needed to learn Arabic in order to fully appreciate Persian and Middle Eastern literature.

Barry described his time at the University as tumultuous, mainly because of three major events that took place in the late 1960s “It was the height of the Vietnam War and the height of demonstrations against the Vietnam War,” Barry noted. “There was also the coming of black students and women students for the first time.”

He was a member of Students for a Democratic Society and participated in several anti-war demonstrations. During the summer, he would receive funding to go to Afghanistan and live among the nomadic people.

“I traveled to remote mountain areas, and used this opportunity as a pretext to look for 12th Century ruins,” he explained. “I was doing all that and I felt that I had to give myself some academic justification for my very involved interest in the culture.”

After graduating from the University in 1970, Barry obtained a postgraduate degree in anthropology from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, and then returned

to Afghanistan for a year and a half. There, he worked with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and became involved with humanitarian work.

“I realized there that the sight of human suffering is something that is physically unbearable to me,” Barry said. “The only way I can cope with it is if I try to help needy people.”

He noted that during a drought in 1970, he convinced USAID to hire nomads to use their camels to transport food to unreachable areas. This served a dual purpose, as the food was delivered to needy villagers and the nomads were able to use the money from renting out their camels to raise more camels and buy food.

Barry described his time with the nomads as similar to that of living among Native American, but he noted that since the 1970s, that way of life has started to disappear.

“I have memories of waking up at the bottom of a canyon at four in the morning and folding the tents and loading the horses,” he said. “But already what I was witnessing was a disintegration of that way of life.”

According to Barry, the Afghan government was becoming increasingly corrupt and fights would break out in Kabul between radical Marxists and other groups.

In order to further his interest in Near Eastern studies, Barry returned to academia, and acquired a master’s degree from McGill University and a Ph.D. from École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

In the August of 1979, Barry was contacted by Amnesty International and the International Federation of Human Rights after the Afghan government started committing violent atrocities against its people.

After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, he advised these human rights groups on how to coordinate humanitarian assistance, and then traveled to Afghanistan himself in disguise to aid these efforts on the ground.

“I crossed the Pakistani border to enter Afghanistan, which was possible then for people like me,” Barry said. “It was very clandestine and extremely dangerous.”

He was able to document proof of various war crimes committed by the Soviet army, such as instances of people being burned alive, similar to what is happening in Syria today.

“This wasn’t archaeology, this wasn’t art, this wasn’t medieval literature,” he said. “This was raw 20th century warfare.”

Barry helped several witnesses to these war crimes escape, and testified in front of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on these various crimes. He even participated in a personal round of talks with President Ronald Reagan.

“One way of becoming an expert on a great power is to be under its foot,” Barry said. “I have seen what the Soviet army could do.”

In the mid-1980s, Barry returned to Paris and worked with Medecins du Monde, an organization similar to Doctors Without Borders. He was responsible for clandestinely taking teams of doctors, nurses, and humanitarian workers into Afghanistan via the Pakistani border, and then ferrying them to villages in the interior to provide medical care and food. He noted that this was extremely dangerous, due to the presence of hidden explosive mines laid by the Soviets.

“We traveled on horseback because, if there was a mine, the horse would blow up instead of you,” Barry said. “They have sensitive feet, so they can sense if there is something wrong with the soil.”

Not only did Barry transport people into Afghanistan, he helped villagers escape into Pakistan. He noted that they traveled at night and had to cross a mountain in order to get to the border, and the total travel time was around eight or ten hours. Barry emphasized that they traveled at night because Soviet helicopters would bomb the people on the ground during the day.

“What was striking was that the Soviet people were trying to break the Afghan people by killing their animals,” Barry said.

“We were wading in carcasses of dead animals and people, and there were people screaming and mothers looking for their lost children.”

He noted that during this time, he was also becoming concerned about U.S. strategy in the war. He explained that the U.S. was funneling arms and weaponry across the border through Pakistani generals to fundamentalist, extremist Sunni groups that were killing off moderates and Shiites.

He voiced his concerns to the American Embassy in Kabul that these groups would take over once the Soviets were expelled, but was ignored.

“The [American Embassy] laughed and said that the U.S. wasn’t in the business of ‘nation building,’ but in the business of Russia-beating,” Barry said.

In 1984, he was asked to lead a team into Kabul to deliver food and medicine, as the city had been taken over by the Pakistani army and was burning. One of the hospitals had run out of medical supplies, so the mission was extremely urgent. However, Barry’s father had become terminally ill with cancer and was in a hospital in Paris.

“The French humanitarian agency asked me to take a team in and guaranteed to me that if I got the job done in three months, I would see my father again alive,” Barry said.

Once he had crossed the border into Afghanistan, Barry received a message from his brother explaining that his father was not going to make it and Barry had to return immediately. Barry had to decide whether or not to abort the mission and return to Paris.

“We got the medical supplies into Kabul, and a messenger got to me and said ‘Your father has passed away,’” Barry said. “I returned in time for the funeral, but what to do?”

In 1989, Barry joined the United Nations as a team leader on the ground. He explained that once the Soviet Union withdrew from Afghanistan, he began to see modern terrorist groups like al Qaeda start to take shape.

“I got as close to bin Laden as you could get without actually seeing him,” Barry said. “I saw what was coming, and I was horrified.”

Most troubling to Barry was that many of these extremists were well-educated Englishspeakers and included many doctors and professionals from Saudi Arabia. Even prior to the Soviet withdrawal, he witnessed various Taliban and al Qaeda atrocities.

When 9/11 occurred, Barry de-

cided that it was time to take a break from humanitarian work and pursue other interests, such as medieval Islamic art. He was invited by the University’s Near Eastern Studies department to give a course on Afghanistan, and in 2004, he began working with Danspeckgruber at LISD. From 2004 to 2016, Barry began introducing new courses on the Middle East and the Islamic world, such as NES 307: Afghanistan and the Islamic World, and NES 324: Introduction to Later Sufism.

“I was committed to teaching the beautiful aspects of Islamic culture, even though I have witnessed the horrors committed under Islam’s name,” Barry said.

John Nelson ’10, who took Barry’s South Asian Islam seminar, explained that Barry’s experience in Afghanistan sets him apart from other faculty members. He added that Barry cares deeply about cultivating the curiosity and analytic capabilities of his students.

“Barry was always curious about the other academic interests of his students,” Nelson said. “After class, he was always available for a more detailed discussion and was happy to proceed in any language appropriate to the subject, be it Russian, French, or Persian.”

In today’s environment, Barry noted that he is concerned about how Islam and Muslims are being portrayed, and notes that there is a difference between extremist groups and Islam as a whole.

“More and more interest is being directed to extreme fundamentalist groups, at the risk of portraying the whole culture as inherently perverse,” Barry said.

Roache said that the most valuable part of Barry’s experience is the deep empathy he has for the Afghan people.

“Through his stories and analytical approach, he imbues that empathy in his students,” Roache said. “I can earnestly say I’m a better human being for having studied with Dr. Barry.”

Barry is still involved in educational activities both here and in Afghanistan, and he plans to continue pursuing humanitarian causes whenever possible.

“Every Afghan life I helped save, to me, is just the way of saving a little bit of our own humanity, so I try to contribute where I can,” Barry said.

At the LISD, Barry said he has been tasked with coordinating and hosting three main public seminars on frontiers and empires. The first seminar, Frontiers and Empires on Land, will take place from Oct. 13-16, and the other seminars, Frontiers and Empires on Water and Frontiers and Empires in the Air will occur on Nov. 17-19 and Dec. 15-17 respectively.

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Once dull interior now New corridor in lower levels will let brightly, warmly decorated in natural light, provide ventilation FIELDS

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been dramatically improved and the area cheerfully transformed. The once-dull space is now bright, colorful, and spacious, adding warmth and inviting comfort to students walking in.

The walls exhibit vinyl images of student advocates, alumni of color, and various cultural groups. Bold quotes written by current students decorate the walls, and new plush furniture surround these images.

Samuel Santiago ’19, secretary of Princeton Latinos y Amigos, has his message “Everyone should feel welcome in every space at Princeton” painted on the wall. He believes that the renovations are “going to have a positive impact on student life on campus.”

The Fields Center also has new cultural affinity spaces — rooms dedicated specifically to culture and identity-focused student groups, but open to all University residents.

“The majority of the ideas for the new renovations were made directly by students,” Haynes said, calling the project “student-driven.” The initial recommendations came out of the student task force, she said, and a subsequent survey was conducted on student focus groups. The planning and

design team also had various student members on board.

Briana Christophers ’17, a member of the Renovation Steering Committee and current advocacy chair for Princeton Latinos y Amigos, said she believes that “the renovations will encourage more students to engage with the Fields Center, both in events and by connecting with other students in the space, creating a space that empowers current students of color.”

Right after the renovations were completed, Haynes said she observed an increase in student visits.

“We want all students to know about the change and that they have a place here: It’s a student place,” Haynes said.

The Fields Center renovation is only one of the many changes student advocates pushed for last year. Others are ongoing.

Although the University has not agreed to all student demands, it has moved forward on some, such as the Fields Center.

“The great part is … all the decorations are interchangeable, so the Princeton now may not be the Princeton in five years or ten years, [but] we’ll be able to keep up with what the current climate is like … and what’s happening, and so this place might not be the same place in ten years; it’ll be different,” Haynes said.

U. spokesperson: U. provides competitive wages, benefits DINING

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compensations.

“While the pay could always be better, it’s livable,” one dining hall worker said.

The individual continued by expressing great love for their work, and added that, taken together, the wages and the benefits at the position in the University were better than any job that they had previously had.

Another dining hall employee noted that the University’s child care benefits, maternity leave, and disability benefits were unparalleled by any other employer.

In a statement, University spokesperson John Cramer noted that “the University places great emphasis on providing competitive wages and benefits to all of its staff.”

While all of the dining services staff interviewed expressed satisfaction with their jobs, some had critiques of the University’s competitive wage policy.

The third employee explained that there is a general sentiment among their co-workers that dining services employees are not being properly compensated for outstanding work.

They noted that, while the University offers annual raises of up to 50¢ per hour, it is quite often the case that one who is constantly diligent and tending to their work will only receive around 10¢ extra per hour as compensation.

Cramer added that the Office of Human Resources utilizes market surveys to determine reasonable wages and benefits

when engaging in collective bargaining with workers’ unions.

“The University encourages dialogue with its staff members regarding working conditions on a continual basis,” he said.

The Office of Human Resources, he notes, provides workers with a confidential means of communicating to the University their thoughts on working conditions.

In a statement released to the ‘Prince’, Harvard’s Department of Public Affairs and Communications noted that “Harvard deeply values the contributions of its dining services employees.”

“The fact that the average tenure of a Harvard dining hall worker is 12 years is a testament to the quality of work opportunities here,” the statement reads.

However, there is no clear end in sight to the current protests.

While it was the goal of Harvard administrators to settle negotiations with Local 26 this past weekend, no resolution was found and the strikes have rolled over into this week.

In the statement, Harvard further regarded Local 26 as having instigated the protests and accused them of failing to bring anything of value to the negotiations. Additionally, Harvard bemoaned the failure to reach a compromise with HUDS staff, citing lack of commitment by Local 26.

“Harvard’s negotiation team offered to stay until 11:59 p.m. to continue to work on a deal, but Local 26 representatives left at 5:30 p.m,” the statement reads.

A representative of Local 26 could not be reached for comment.

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DILLON

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before.”

Student reactions to the construction of these gender-inclusive spaces have generally been positive.

“I think that’s being more inclusive of people who don’t identify as a specific gender,” Andy Zheng ’20 said. “Which would be a good thing because you’re increasing the embodiment of diversity, not just racially.”

“I feel like that’s a really great idea,” Jeffrey Weiner ’20 said.

“It’s important to have a space where all people feel comfortable and welcome, especially at Dillon Gym, because fitness is such an important part of balancing work with a healthy lifestyle.”

According to Howell, Dillon’s main locker rooms had been in need of renovations for a considerable period of time.

“There was quite a bit of deferred maintenance in that building,” Howell noted. “The

locker room areas at the A-level have not changed since 1946, and they were in dire need of renovations and deferred maintenance.”

Improvements on the locker rooms are the most visible portion of the renovations project, according to Messina. Renovations in those areas have included team rooms for the volleyball teams, a new training room, and a multipurpose room. Less-visible renovations include a complete fire-alarm replacement and improvements to the building to meet fire code regulations.

Dillon Pool, which reopened this past July after being closed since April, also underwent some renovations over the spring and summer. Work on Dillon Pool included fire alarm and sprinkler maintenance, as well as the minor addition of railings to the bleachers.

“For the most part it was just putting in sprinklers and fire alarms,” Messina added.

“We improved it together with yearly maintenance that Campus Rec. had to do on the pool

anyways. So they usually have to drain the pool every year, so we just coordinated their maintenance with our renovations work.”

Recent renovations include the addition of a new corridor on the A-level to improve foot traffic.

“One of the important features of this design is a new corridor on the west side of the A-level that allows circulation across the building that never existed before,” Howell said, “which is a nice feature, providing natural light, it’s a nice open corridor, makes it much more efficient to traverse across the A-level.”

The renovations are being conducted by Atkin Olshin Schade Architects, with Irwin & Leighton, Inc. serving as the construction manager. Neither Atkin Olshin Schade Architects nor Irwin & Leighton Inc. responded to requests for comment.

Planning for the project began in August 2014, with Phase 1 of construction commencing during the summer of 2015.

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Town accepts grants for body cams, traffic enforcement TOWN

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tion would be applied to street signs, where multiple signs will be consolidated into one sign when possible. The draft proposes that signs be given a uniform look by using a black and white color.

The proposal also emphasized greenery, including a proposed increase in trees lining the sidewalk, in an attempt to “provide for biodiversity, drought and salt tolerance, and maintain a broad canopy of shade for pedestrians.”

Public benches will be turned perpendicular to the curb, in order to allow space for more benches. Jim Constantine, of Looney Ricks Kiss, the architectural firm authorized to perform the study, asserted that this change would create space for passengers to open car doors when parked alongside the curb.

Another feature of the draft attempts to limit the number of newspaper racks along Nassau Street. The draft states that “newspaper racks should be consolidated into a single internal cabinet wherever possible along Nassau Street.” This would mean that newspapers and tabloids, if they wanted their publication offered on Nassau Street, would have to reserve a spot within the single integral cabinet installed by the town. The ‘Prince’ currently also has its own newsstands for its distribution.

Council members noted that Nassau Street is one of the many historical districts within Princeton, which will limit the town’s ability to alter it without approval from various state au-

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thorities.

On June 18, Looney Ricks Kiss hosted an open house at the Garden Theater, owned by the University, to get public feedback about the proposed changes to the streetscape. Due to positive feedback, the firm began developing a draft design guideline for Nassau Street. This draft was considered at the Oct. 10 meeting.

There were other ordinances and resolutions passed during the meeting. As a part of the consent agenda, the council of the town of Princeton unanimously passed a resolution accepting the Mercer County body camera grant. The grant is intended as funds to supply local police officers with body cameras. This grant comes several months after a professor from the University in the African American Studies department, Imani Perry, claimed to have been mistreated by police in February of 2016. In December of 2015, the state of New Jersey authorized a $2.5 million in grants going to 176 municipalities, including the town of Princeton.

The grant amounted to $15,000.

The council also unanimously accepted a grant from the Drunk Driving Defense Fund.

The State of New Jersey Department of Law and Public Safety website states that the under the Drunk Driving Enforcement Fund, “police departments are entitled to $95 of the $100 surcharge resulting from a drunk driving conviction in their community.” For the year of 2016, Princeton received $7,350.81 from the fund.

The open meeting took place at the Princeton Municipal Court at 7 p.m.

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Wednesday october 12, 2016

Opinion

Wednesday october 12, 2016

page 5

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Affirmative action: More to it than race Tom Salama

vol. cxl

contributing columnist

D

Do-Hyeong Myeong ’17

URING THE second Princeton Preview for the Class of 2020, the debate team argued whether affirmative action should be based on race or socioeconomic class. The answer is more nuanced than any one-sided view. The best way to structure affirmative action in college admissions is to consider two things in tandem: ZIP code and race.

The most important thing to consider is that minorities disproportionally live in inner cities. Fifty-two percent of blacks, but only 21 percent of whites, live in innercities areas, according to a 2006 article published by the National Housing Institute. Meanwhile, 57 percent of whites live in wealthier suburban regions.

Lower property values in inner-city neighborhoods means less tax revenue to fund schools, and this disproportionally affects black students. Low-income white families, by contrast, tend to live in better neighborhoods than black families who earn a similar amount. So, even if a black family is slightly better off, its children are still more likely to attend an underfunded school. Therein lies the importance of tying affirmative action to ZIP code.

The poor education in inner cities often creates a vicious cycle for low- to midincome African-American families. Educating African-American children is doubly important because, in order to break the cycle, black children need to do more than just a little bit better than their parents did. They also need to be reinforced with an education that can weather the blows

of systematic racism in the workplace. The primary intention of affirmative action has always been to lift up those who have been let down by societal circumstances.

The students in good neighborhoods — regardless of their financial situations — benefit from attending well-funded schools: superior teachers and resources, better standardized testing preparation, and the expectation that most, if not all, students in the high school will be going to college.

So, it isn’t the poor whites in good neighborhoods or the wealthy blacks in the suburbs that need help in college admissions — it’s the poor and disproportionately black students in underfunded districts that need it.

But admissions officers should not use ZIP code as the only metric for enacting affirmative action. Racial diversity is important for its own sake, if nothing else, and needs to be protected. College campuses are a hotspot for intense, opinionated discourse.

It is an incredible thing, and it only happens when smart, young, and different people come together. Eliminate diversity and you potentially eliminate the differing perspectives that make such discourse possible.

Affirmative action through ZIP code and race won’t threaten the admission success of “more qualified” students.

Princeton had 29,303 applicants for the Class of 2020. Plenty of the students not admitted would have thrived here.

If a student didn’t take any AP exams because his school didn’t offer any AP classes, he isn’t “less qualified.” In fact, the argument of qualification in this context almost always

has its end goal rooted in racism, namely that admission is being taken from a more privileged, successful student and unjustly given to a beneficiary of affirmative action. But such a stance puts too much weight on past accomplishments and does not consider potential. Colleges have a responsibility to admit students that they think will reach the highest level after four more years of education, and it would be wrong to assume that those with the head start that a quality high school provides will automatically end up at the top.

Affirmative action exists in principle to even the playing field between applicants.

We ought to remember that race should not be the only metric for determining the beneficiaries of affirmative action. Socioeconomic class also does not cleanly divide those that have received educational opportunities from those that have not.

The solution is the subtle combination of the two. First, look at students coming from poorer ZIP codes that, therefore, have not been afforded the opportunities that they otherwise might have. Then, emphasize racial diversity, because shifting entirely to an income focus could potentially put a college education out of reach for a significant number of African-American children. Perhaps sometime in the future, when suburban areas are inhabited by fair percentages of people of all races, we can revisit the role of affirmative action. But for now, it is still crucial in the quest for educational equality.

Tom Salama is a freshman from Bayonne, New Jersey. He can be reached at tsalama@princeton.edu.

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Social capital and the pursuit of friendship Annie Lu

Contributing columnist

P

RINCETONIANS ARE an interesting bunch.

I’ve observed, over the past three years, that they’re different from normal people. And not in a snobby, “we’re so much better than normal people” way, but in a weird way. Like, your family kind of weird. A little insular, a little eccentric.

And like a family, they’re very well connected to each other. I often marvel at how some people can always find other people to do things for them, be it helping with an event or receiving tutoring or giving a meal swipe.

They’re very … relational.

There’s been a lot of talk in sociological literature at the turn of the century about how communities are failing in America — people are spending less time in civil associations like rotary clubs and more time at home watching TV by themselves, trying to make up for the inability to form meaningful

social connections by turning to media, or trying to avoid such connections outright because they require a lot of tending.

But the exact opposite seems to be happening at Princeton.

In fact, there’s a strong stigma against people who don’t spend their free time socializing, against simply sitting in your dorm room pondering life instead of going out to the Street, getting together with friends to watch a movie, or attending a study break and freaking out with each other over how much work you have to do. There’s even a stigma against not having someone to eat lunch with. To be a proper Princetonian, it seems, is to be social, and to begin cultivating relationships you can draw on for support, guidance, and resources – what sociologists would term “social capital.”

I suppose we could argue that social capital has been in decline in society at large because people distrust each other more,

whereas at Princeton, we’re all a happy family. But that is far from the case. The student groups that constitute much of the basis for social capital on campus are pretty selective, and we’re all willing to fight to get in. It’s not that there’s much trust or distrust between people.

It’s that there’s a very established way of gaining social capital, a ladder to climb, a goal to reach.

And it’s not so much that everyone comes in wanting to climb it, but that a significant portion of us care deeply about forging connections and have transformed the culture into one in which constant socializing is standard. We begin to think that we must spend our free time socializing in order to “have friends.” We think that because a capella and dance groups are exclusive, they must be intimate, and all the “cool” people we’d like as friends must be there.

But at the same time, what is this system teaching us? It’s

teaching us that selectivity is the right approach, that judging groups of people on surface-level acquaintance is the easiest way of figuring out who you want as your friends, that most of our relationships ought to be shallow and widespread because these sort of relationships maximize social capital, and that the most established organizations in society ought to set the normative goals for acquiring social capital and developing relationships. As we invest more time into structured social activities, we start to blend our social lives more with our public lives and less with our intimate lives. Really though, what has often become lost to many is the idea that our personal lives don’t need to revolve around socializing. We’ve come to devalue friendship and overvalue being social in itself, and we’ve forgotten why we’re doing all this in the first place.

I’ve often heard that Princeton is an amazing place with

a supportive community, and there are genuinely nice people here. I don’t disagree. What I’d like to highlight, though, is that sometimes we forget our roots and why we have such weird idiosyncrasies in our culture in the first place, like this immense pressure to socialize. Let’s take a step back and realize that acting on this pressure is often only leading us towards gaining more social capital, which has a purpose, but isn’t always THE purpose in itself. What many of us really want is friendship, pure and unconditional. And that often comes about in the most spontaneous of ways — through shared struggles together on problem sets, deep late-night conversations, or even the occasional stumbling into each other’s paths on happenstance.

Annie Lu is a Computer Science major from Brandon, Mississippi. She can be reached at daol@princeton.edu.