The Daily Princetonian: November 18, 2022

The next 5 years: Q&A with Eisgruber

By Sandeep Mangat Associate News Editor

For the first time in four years, The Daily Princetonian was granted a sit-down interview with University President Christopher L. Eisgruber ’83. The interview, which took place on Friday, Nov. 11 in Nassau Hall, included topics such as student men tal health, affirmative action in the admissions policy, and the expansion of the facilities of the School of En gineering and Applied Sciences. This Q&A has been broken down into five sections by topic.

STEM Expansion

The Daily Princetonian: You have recently been approved for at least another five years at the helm of this institution. If you had to pick just one, what would you say is your top priority for the next half-decade?

Christopher Eisgruber: If it’s just one, it has to be rebuilding and fortifying our School of En gineering and Applied Science. I think we’ve got a terrific group of faculty working in a 1962 build ing that looks depressingly like my high school. That’s not the set of facilities we need for the 21st century, and you cannot be a great liberal arts university in the 21st century without having a great school of engineering. So if I had to pick just one, we’re not going to get it all done during the next five years, but we’ve got to make a lot of progress in that direction, basically, in filling in those holes right now that are out there above

FACULTY

Western Way [Ivy Lane].

DP: Staying on that same topic then, it seems like over the course of the past decade, B.S.E. depart ments, like computer science, have expanded while humanities departments, like English, have shrunk in popularity. For in stance, engineering students out number students in the humani ties by more than two-to-one. You mentioned expanding the engi neering school; but at the same time, do you see the shrinking of

SAMEER A. KHAN / FOTOBUDDY

the humanities at the school as a problem? Do you think it changes the fabric of the school?

CE: We think the humanities are essential to the liberal arts education that we offer at Princ eton, and I frankly think they’re essential for every student. And I suspect that Dean Andrea Gold smith in the engineering school would agree that one of the great strengths of our engineering school is the opportunities for

EISGRUBER

After visual arts professor used n-word in seminar, University finds no violation of policy

By Paige Cromley Senior News Writer

On Nov. 3, visual arts professor Joe Scanlan said the n-word while posing a question to students during his VIS321: Words as Objects seminar. He used the word during a discussion about a poem by Black poet Jonah Mixon-Webster’s poetic an thology “Stereo(TYPE).”

Scanlan, who is white, is a tenured professor and art ist with a history of racial ly charged art projects. In the classroom on Nov. 3, he used the n-word when ask ing students how the word functioned in the text. Mul tiple students in VIS321 told the The Daily Princetonian that Scalan’s use of the word was not a direct quote from the poem, but his own words.

Scanlan said he disagrees with the characterization that he didn’t cite MixtonWebster. In an email to the ‘Prince,’ he wrote, “In fact I was citing his poem ‘Black Existentialism no. 8: Ad infinitum; Ad Naseum,’

which runs for almost 20 pages and consists entirely of one word, the n word, spelled with an ‘a’ instead of ‘er.’”

After Omar Farah ’23, a Black student in the class, raised an official complaint about the incident to the University, the Office of the Provost concluded that there had not been a viola tion of the Policy on Dis crimination and/or Harass ment following an initial assessment of the situation.

Farah is a Managing Edi tor for the ‘Prince’; they recused themself from the news coverage of this inci dent.

Following the use of the word, multiple students in the class told the ‘Prince’ they felt uncomfortable continuing to be taught by Scanlan, and some called for his firing.

David Smith ’24, a Black student in the class, told the ‘Prince’ that he believes Scanlan should be fired. “They can’t fire him for say ing that word, but they can fire him for being incompe

tent and intentionally caus ing harm, of which I think he did both,” he said.

Smith is a social me dia staff member for the ‘Prince.’

After Scanlan asked the question during the class, Farah told the ‘Prince’ that there was “shock in the classroom” and some si lence before they asked, “Are we really having a dis cussion where you can say that word?”

Scanlan responded with a defense that the word had ended in “-a” instead of “-er,” Farah and mul tiple other students in the seminar independently told the ‘Prince.’ After this ex change, Farah left the class room.

According to multiple other students who re mained, Scanlan continued to defend his choice to the class, saying that he felt the use of the word was neces sary to have an academic conversation about the piece. A few other students also left before the end of

Committee on Naming to consider proposal to remove Witherspoon Statue

By Lia Opperman Assistant News Editor

During a meeting of the Coun cil of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) on Nov. 14, Nakia White Barr, the assistant vice president in the Office of the President and the secretary of the CPUC Committee on Naming, announced that the Committee is considering a proposal to re move or replace the statue of John Witherspoon.

“Over the next few weeks, the naming committee will be hold ing listening sessions for faculty, students, staff, and alumni to share their views on the issue,” Barr said.

This announcement comes after a petition for the removal of the Witherspoon statue circu lated in the inboxes of students and faculty this summer and was discussed with University Presi

dent Christopher Eisgruber ’83 earlier this fall, who referred the group to the CPUC Committee on Naming, according to the three graduate students who started the petition.

The petition, which garnered almost 300 signatures by the time of publication, recommended that the statue be removed and that the current text surrounding it be replaced with a plaque with a description of Witherspoon’s legacy, in line with the language on the Princeton & Slavery proj ect website.

“John Witherspoon, Princ eton’s sixth president and found ing father of the United States, had a complex relationship to slav ery,” the website reads. “Though he advocated revolutionary ideals of liberty and personally tutored several free Africans and Afri can Americans in Princeton, he

U. AFFAIRS

CPUC discusses dissociation, institutional neutrality, campus grief

By Olivia Sanchez and Abby Leibowitz News Contributors

On Monday, Nov. 14, Univer sity officials, staff, and students gathered for the second Coun cil of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) meeting of the semester to hear updates on dissociation from fossil fuels, reports from committees, and discussions on how to approach campus grief.

The Council also discussed facility staff workers’ grievanc es, the new Learning and Edu cation through Service (LENS) program, updates on the new minors program, and the up coming Wintersession.

Institutional neutrality, Witherspoon statue

Sociology professor Shamus Khan announced that University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 requested he lead a subcom mittee to create a policy for “statement-making by units of

the University.” Khan said these policies would not apply to indi vidual faculty members making personal statements.

These policies will not apply to individual faculty members making personal statements.

Eisgruber said at the meeting that his request to Khan comes in the wake of “increasing con cerns” brought by individuals “about statements that are ap pearing on websites, and are worried that those statements may at times create a sense that certain opinions are orthodox or required at the University.”

Concerns on institutional neutrality and free speech have come to the surface in recent months in the wake of a series of incidents related to academic freedom. Earlier this month, Eis gruber announced the commit tee in Princeton Alumni Weekly.

“I recently asked a faculty committee to consider whether Princeton should have a policy regulating the discretion of aca demic or administrative units

ANGEL KUO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Jones: Dropping the class feels unfair to me because I’ve been producing work for it

the seminar.

Scanlan has been a pro fessor at the University since 2009, and he former ly served as director of the Visual Arts Program from 2009–2017. He has previous ly faced public criticism for racially-charged art proj ects, for years, he created art under the guise of a fiction al Black woman, a character he made up named Donelle Woolford. In 2003, Scanlan’s Paydirt exhibition included a self-portrait with what ap peared to be brown paint or dirt on his face, which was criticized by some as blackface.

According to Scanlan, his Paydirt piece was made in Birmingham, England, “not [in] reference [to] blackface but the long history of so cial justice [photography] of working men, mostly coal miners and factory workers, with dirt on their faces.”

On the morning of Nov. 6, three days after the inci dent, Scanlan sent a mes sage to his students via Canvas, writing that he “was trying to make a point about Jonah Mixon-Webster demonstrating the empow ering effect of how a single word has gone through an alchemical transformation: coopted, materially recon figured, and redeployed as concrete poetry.”

“I did that very badly and, in doing so, harmed you,” he wrote in the post. “I apolo gize profoundly for that.”

He continued, “I don’t expect you to forgive me, or even fully trust me from here on out, as that would be an understandable reac tion. But I do hope we can continue working together through the end of the se mester.”

Following the incident, Farah reached out to the Director of the Visual Arts Program, their residential

college dean, and their aca demic advisor. Cheri Bur gess, the Director for Insti tutional Equity and EEO for the Office of the Provost, in turn contacted Farah to discuss the incident on the afternoon of Friday, Nov. 4. Farah said they filed an ini tial complaint regarding the incident during the meet ing.

On the evening of Mon day, Nov. 7, Burgess followed up with Farah, writing in an email to them that “the vice provost has conducted an initial assessment of the in formation provided and has determined that, given the academic context in which the word was used, it does not implicate the Policy on Discrimination and/or Ha rassment.”

“While the word used was offensive, it was clearly within the context of aca demic freedom and, there fore, protected expression,” she wrote. “For these rea sons, this office cannot initiate an investigation of your complaint.”

In the email, Burgess quoted the University’s Statement on Freedom of Expression, which states that “the University’s fun damental commitment is to the principle that debate or deliberation may not be suppressed because the ideas put forth are thought by some or even by most members of the University community to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or wrongheaded.”

Burgess also noted that “if the alleged conduct would not, even if substantiated, constitute a violation of ap plicable policies, then the complaint is dismissed from further review.”

“The dismissal of a com plaint during the initial as sessment is not subject to appeal,” she wrote to Farah.

Asked to comment on the incident, University Spokes person Michael Hotch kiss wrote in a statement

to the ‘Prince’ that “Princ eton guarantees all faculty and students the ‘broadest possible latitude’ to speak freely inside and outside the classroom. Speech is only restricted under narrow ex ceptions that do not apply to this incident.”

“Our rules recognize that these free speech protec tions apply to words and ideas that people may find ‘offensive, unwise, immor al, or wrong-headed,’ but these protections are essen tial for Princeton’s truthseeking mission,” Hotch kiss wrote.

After receiving the ini tial email from Burgess on Monday, Farah submitted another complaint online through the Discrimina tion/Harassment complaint form. In response, Burgess sent them a follow-up email.

“I understand that the de termination of the initial assessment is disappoint ing to you,” she wrote. “The University’s policies guide how we evaluate claims of

verbal harassment, espe cially when they intersect with the principles of free expression.” Although the University maintains that its policies were not violated, Burgess noted in her initial email to Farah that “the department leadership is exploring ways to address the impact of this experience on you and the other affected students and to support your academic well-being.”

“It has been deemed that what Scanlan did was pro tected by freedom of speech and academic freedom,” Jeffrey Whetstone, Direc tor and Professor of Visual Arts, wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’

“But still, students are wary of going back into the classroom. Some outright refuse to return. At least one has dropped the course. They also told me that they are afraid of grade retali ation,” he wrote. “We are trying to address that ad ministratively and come up with a plan where students feel that they will be treated fairly and with respect.”

Whetstone said that “the racial slur used in Professor Scanlan’s ‘Words as Objects’ class has directly harmed students in that class” and also “others more indirect ly — our faculty, staff, and other students — ones not even in the course.”

In Farah’s view, the course has been permanently com promised as a result of Scanlan’s speech.

“There’s no path forward for any of us in this course under his instruction,” Far ah said. “It’s a difficult situ ation for all of us, because we’ve spent eight weeks now creating work for the class.”

On Nov. 10, the day of the next scheduled class, Scan lan announced to his stu dents in a Canvas post that he would not be present at class time, which they could use as an open studio.

In his post, he wrote, “I suspect some of you are struggling with whether you want to come to class today, either because of my behavior or because it would suggest your accep tance of that behavior.”

“I want you to be able to continue working on your art while I work with VIS and the Lewis Center to see what arrangements we might make to help the class move forward. We would welcome your input in that regard,” he continued.

At least five students did not attend the seminar on Nov. 10.

“I went back before class started today and removed all my pieces from the classroom,” said Nathalie Charles ’25, a Black student in the seminar. “I don’t feel comfortable around Joe Scanlan.”

“I believe that Professor Scanlan should be fired,” she continued. “And I be

lieve he should have been fired when he did blackface. When you do something as hurtful as using a racial slur in order to provoke students in your class to a certain end, you should face the consequences of that.”

When the ‘Prince’ asked Smith, one of the Black stu dents in the class, if he was returning to class, he said, “No, absolutely not. I’m not gonna go at all.”

“I was assured by the [Vi sual Arts] administration that there would be some sort of arrangement fig ured out. I was assured not to drop the class,” Smith added.

Other students expressed that they were uncertain of whether they would return to the class.

“Dropping the class feels unfair to me because I’ve been producing work for it,” said Azariah Jones ’25, a Black student in the class. But if nothing changes, she said that she would “be con flicted about going to class and it would probably be a no.”

Grey Raber ’23, a white stu dent in the seminar, said, “If Black students in the class feel uncomfortable return ing, then I won’t.”

When asked what she would like to see moving forward, Jones said that she “would like an apology, a very sincere apology, and something that indicates that he understands the gravity of what happened.”

“I want him to understand what he did incorrectly,” she continued, “and for the Uni versity to grapple with what that means for every Black student, because it’s so much more than a singular incident with this professor in this particular class.”

Other students in the seminar echoed Jones’ sen timents about the broader implications of the incident for the University commu nity.

“I cannot emphasize [enough] the level of indig nity that was placed upon the Black students in that class, and this institution has to grapple with that,” Farah said.

At this time, according to the website of the Office of the Registrar, 11 of the 12 available seats in the class remain filled. In addition to VIS 321, Scanlan is listed as one of the instructors for VIS 221: Sculpture I, and is set to teach VIS 222: Sculp ture I and VIS 418: Extraor dinary Processes next se mester.

Paige Cromley is a junior who writes for the News, Fea tures, and Prospect sections of the ‘Prince.’ Please send correc tion requests to corrections@ dailyprincetonian.com.

Managing Editor Omar Farah ’23 has recused themself from all coverage related to this incident.

CANDACE DO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN 185 Nassau Street, which houses the Visual Arts Program.

himself owned slaves and both lectured and voted against the abolition of slavery in New Jersey.”

The website goes on to explain in more detail the complicated history surrounding Wither spoon and his views on slavery.

The petition that called for re placing or removing the statue was started by Waner Zhang, Kathryn Rech, and Brenden Kolb, all of whom are graduate students in the Department of Philosophy.

Zhang, Rech, and Kolb wrote a joint statement to The Daily Princetonian and explained their process of starting the petition, communications with Eisgruber and members of the Committee on Naming, and the outcome they hope will come as a result of their efforts.

“[Eisgruber] indicated to us that, in all questions of remov ing iconography, the Board of Trustees follows the advice of the CPUC Committee on Naming,” they wrote. The group delivered the petition to the Committee, and also elaborated on some of the petition’s points in the feed back form provided to them by the Committee.

In the CPUC meeting, Barr stat ed that the concern with the stat ue, which was installed in 2001 in Firestone Plaza, “is with regard to the aesthetic considerations and the placement of the statue.”

“The Committee will evalu ate this question with consider ation of established principles to govern renaming and changes to campus iconography which pro vide among other things that the process should be open to com munity input,” she added.

Zhang, Rech, and Kolb said they started the petition after hearing concerns from individu als in the Department of Philoso phy and in the wake of an opinion column published in the ‘Prince’ last fall. Before the petition was circulated, they said that an unof ficial committee had started in their department around the start of the calendar year to address the statue.

“The basic line of reasoning we hit on as a committee was, we think the statue should be removed, because we believe it has an adverse impact on a major public University space by glori fying Witherspoon and holding him up as a model of humanity,” they wrote.

“Because Witherspoon was a

slave owner and an opponent of abolition, we believe this eleva tion of Witherspoon is more than inappropriate, and can create a sense of dissonance with the Uni versity’s claim to be ‘in the service of humanity,’” they added.

The group argued for an in formational plaque to be put in place of the statue as a way for the University to “remember With erspoon without exalting him in the way that the statue does.”

If the statue is not removed, the group wrote that an informa tional plaque recognizing the nu anced aspects of Witherspoon’s legacy, “in contrast to the purely positive plaques currently in place,” would be an improvement. But they argue that “the statue itself is grand enough that it will continue to exalt Witherspoon even if written criticism is pres ent nearby.”

“We think adding a plaque does not remove the problem with the statue,” they wrote. “[The] Univer sity can take this as an opportu nity to create a more friendly and more inclusive environment for students and community mem bers of color.”

The CPUC Committee on Nam ing was originally developed as an ad-hoc committee in 2016 to increase University community involvement in naming build ings to recognize individuals who would bring a diverse presence to the campus. The Committee has remained a part of CPUC as nam ing concerns have persisted in the campus community.

According to Barr, invitations to faculty, students, staff, and alumni for listening sessions re lated to the proposed statue re moval will be going out soon. The Committee on Naming’s website includes a feedback form through which members of the Univer sity community can share their thoughts and recommendations.

“The Committee welcomes your engagement on this impor tant process and looks forward to hearing a range of perspectives,” Barr said.

“We hope that [the University community] agree[s] with the petition, and pass[es] on a rec ommendation to the Board of Trustees that the statue should be removed,” Zhang, Rech, and Kolb added in their joint statement.

Lia Opperman is an assistant news editor for the ‘Prince’ who often cov ers University affairs, political cover age, and student life. Please direct any corrections requests to corrections@ dailyprincetonian.com.

By Alexandra Politowicz Contributing Constructor

Remembering former ‘Prince’ production supervisor Brian Smith

By Justus Wilhoit News Contributor

Brian Smith, a former production supervisor for The Daily Princetonian, has passed away at the age of 66. Smith served on the ‘Prince’ for 24 years, from 1986 through 2010, after being brought on by longtime production supervi sor Larry DuPraz.

Smith’s professional du ties at the ‘Prince’ includ ed helping with the pro duction and layout of the newspaper at a time when the ‘Prince’ was transition ing to modernized printing and just starting to have a digital presence.

“He would always lay out the ads first and then we would know how many inches we had for various stories, and we would know how long our stories could be. When we were finished with our story, we would send them over to Brian, who would lay them out and put them in the news paper,” recalled Christine Whelan ’99, the 122nd Edi tor-in-Chief for the ‘Prince.’

However to many of his friends, family, and men tees, he was so much more than his professional job description. Smith was also an artist: during his time at the ‘Prince,’ the newspaper would present two annual awards, “Ath lete of the Year” and “Stu dent of the Year.” For the recipient of each award, he would draw a portrait of them and present it at the newspaper’s annual ban quet.

He would also often host the ‘Prince’ alumni bar becue during Princeton’s annual reunions celebra tions. He was described by many as kind, calm, and patient.

“[Brian] always exuded a deep sense of calm and pro fessionalism, and you were always constantly learning [from him] and striving to make the ‘Prince’ an even better and more technologi cally advanced paper,” said former ‘Prince’ Director of Advertising Sales and De velopment Katie Ko ’09.

“Brian never threw up his hands with me, no mat ter how late at night it got or how dense I was being,” said former ‘Prince’ Arts Editor Elise Meslow Ryan ’94.

Though many of Smith’s mentees came to Princeton to receive a formal degree and took classes under var ious professors, some ad mitted that through their extracurricular ventures at the ‘Prince,’ they felt a greater connection with Smith.

“I spent more time with Smith than really any other specific member of the faculty at Princeton. I think that’s true for a lot of people,“ said Tom We ber ’89, former Chair man of the Class of 1989 Daily Princetonian Man aging Board and current President of The Daily Princetonian Board of Trustees.

Whelan echoed a simi lar sentiment, remarking on the things she learned from Smith during their many interactions.

“While I had many won derful professors who in spired me academically, when it came to how to get a job done and how to show up day after day, that was Brian,” she stated.

Rick Klein ’98, the 121st Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Prince,’ recounts a mem ory he shared with Smith where the two embraced after hearing the Yankees had won a game over the radio in 1996, the same year the Yankees went on to win the World Series.

“We gave each other a big hug, it was such a nice, genuine moment. He was as much a part of that pa per as any student there ever was,” Klein shared.

“I think the difference between him and a profes sor would be that he was doing the work alongside us,” Klein added.

Smith’s legacy is pres ent in many of his men tees, some of whom went on to work and hold large positions at the Washing ton Post, NBC News, ABC News, and CNN, among

others, with some stating that Smith contributed to the reason they’re success ful today.

“[Former ‘Prince’ staff ers] were populating the ranks of journalism and to know they came through Brian’s classroom in recent decades to me spoke really loudly and proudly about that legacy,” said Klein, who works as the political director at ABC News in Washington, D.C.

Joe Gesue ’93, a for mer sports editor for the ‘Prince,’ commented on Smith’s influence on his career and success.

“I’ve been fortunate to make a career in media, and I’ll never forget how [his] influence and guid ance helped me take those first crucial steps down this path,” he said.

Gesue works as the se nior vice president for NBC Olympics & Paralympics Editorial and has worked on Olympic primetime shows since the Sydney Olympics in 2000.

“I think we were lucky to have someone from that side of our lives who took his role as mentor and teacher as seriously as he did,” Weber added.

Though Princeton un dergraduates came and went over the years, Smith stayed in touch with many of them after they married and had kids of their own. It is this willingness to en gage students that will be missed most by all.

Smith is survived by his loving wife of 44 years, Sharon Smith; his son and daughter-in-law, Ty ler and Maggie Smith; his daughter, Olivia Smith; his brother, Dr. Mark Smith, of Stockton; his sister, Dr. Maureen O’Brien, Hono lulu, Hawaii; and many loving cousins, nieces, nephews, dear friends, and beloved pets.

Justus Wilhoit is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’ Please direct any corrections requests to corrections@dai lyprincetonian.com.

COURTESY OF CHRISTIN WHELAN Brian Smith in

Eisgruber talks mental health, affirmative action, role of activism, faculty diversity, financial aid

EISGRUBER

our engineers to engage in this broader liberal arts education. So you’re right; there’s a trend — that’s not a trend at Princeton, it’s a trend across the nation — where we have fewer students who are majoring in the humanities. We are concerned about that, and we want to continue to invest in the humanities.

If you look out [Nassau Hall’s] windows, you have an extraordi nary project there to create a new Princeton University Art Museum that is important to the humani ties. I’m really proud that when we increased graduate stipends this past year we, unlike some cam puses, did those across the board, recognizing the importance of supporting students in the hu manities, along with students in other fields. We believe that it’s continuing to be important to in vest in the humanities, and we’re doing that.

DP: Still on the topic of the growing engineering school, do you see the expansion of STEM playing a role in the University’s obligation to climate change re search?

CE: Climate is obviously one of the existential threats, but there are concerns about water, about biodiversity, about the air that we breathe, and, as our faculty have pointed out, these things are all connected in complicated ways. So we think it’s very important to invest in that research. Some of that will occur through the School of Engineering and Applied Sci ences, and obviously in the last campaign, we invested in the An dlinger Center for Energy and the Environment. But, it’s really im portant that we’re also building new facilities for the environmen tal sciences above [Ivy Lane]. That’s in addition to what we’re doing for the engineering school, and there are other important priorities as well. We were thrilled to be able to rededicate what used to be the Princeton Environmental Insti tute as the High Meadows Envi ronmental Institute last year, with a new endowment that we raised for it. The High Meadows Envi ronmental Institute and its leader ship are really focused on the idea that this isn’t just about science and it isn’t just about engineering. It’s also about public policy, social science, and the humanities. So if you look at the High Meadows Environmental Institute and the affiliated and member faculties, that includes humanists, and that connects back to our last question. We really see these problems as requiring integration across the disciplines.

DP: Engineering also tends to be a male-dominated field. For instance, at Princeton’s School of Engineering, 29 percent of gradu ate students and 20 percent of fac ulty are women. Do you foresee the expansion of the engineering school aggravating these gender disparities, and is there a plan to address that issue?

CE: I do not see it as aggravat ing; on the contrary, I see it as part of our commitment to continue to diversify that field and every field. And one of the things that is fundamental to what we do is a conviction that in order to be excellent, you have to be adding talent from every sector of society. I think it is notable, for example, that right now, we not only have a female Dean of the School of Engi neering in Andrea Goldsmith, but we have a female Chair of Com puter Science in Jen Rexford and a female Chair of Civil and Envi ronmental Engineering in Kather ine Peters. One of the things that growth helps you to do is to con tinue to focus on diversity. And we have leaders throughout the school of engineering who real ize how important that is. I point to someone like Professor Howard Stone, who’s the Chair of Mechani cal and Aerospace Engineering. He himself obviously is a white male but one of the things that he’s real ly been cognizant of is the impor tance of this diversity to the future of the discipline of engineering and to the future of his depart ment, and you’ve seen significant gains as a result of the work that he and his colleagues have done there. So I think as we continue to grow, we will also continue to diversify. And it’s actually easier

to do that when you’re in a growth mode than when you’re in stasis.

Affirmative Action

DP: To stay in the lane of diver sity and focus on something that’s been in the news in the past couple of weeks, the Supreme Court’s de cision on the affirmative action case — which might come out next spring — is unlikely to be fa vorable to the University’s current policies. I was wondering how, if at all, the University is preparing for that reality?

CE: We are obviously watching very closely these cases, and we’re seriously concerned about them. I remember encountering the af firmative action issue for the first time when I was in high school, which is now a depressingly long time ago, over 40 years. If you had told me at that time that 40 years later, you and I would be sitting at a table, having a conversation about the same issues again, I wouldn’t have believed it. I would have said: look, I believe in what my country is doing, and we’re go ing to overcome the differences in education, policing, health care, and employment that have made these policies necessary and important today, and I just can’t believe we’ll still be talking about them 40 years later. But, we are talking about them because we haven’t made the progress we should make as a society. So, to get the diversity and the talent and the excellence that we need, these policies have proven important to what we do.

On the question of “how do we prepare,” we’re always looking for ways other than affirmative action and other than the use of race in admission to achieve diversity. We were just talking about the faculty, and when it comes to faculty hir ing, we’re not able to take advan tage of what the Fisher and Grut ter decisions make available in the area of admissions. We’re already in a world where we’re not permit ted to use race as a factor in hiring decisions. So we have to work on things like expanding the scope of the pools we use for hiring. We have to be asking ourselves, are there criteria we may have habitu ally used as proxies for excellence? And if we get better at this, can we

therefore, we have to be thinking creatively and proactively.

I spent part of this week earlier reading the oral argument tran scripts in the case and I think there was a collection of the justices who may not be particularly sympa thetic to affirmative action but also realize that it gets very tricky to say that race, unlike anything else that gets considered in holis tic admission, can’t be considered in some way. So they seemed alert to some difficulties [that] I think would be very serious. For ex ample, the exchanges during the oral argument were about issues such as, “What if a university has a question that asks students to reflect on experiences, disadvan tages, prejudices, or other things that may have affected either their application and the credentials in it or their ability to contribute to the university community?” What happens if the university asks a question — like that which is race-neutral on its face — and then somebody gives an answer that makes reference to race? Is the university uniquely prohibited from considering that factor, or is it allowed to consider that factor along with all others? That ques tion is hard to answer if one goes in some reflexive, colorblind di rection, which I think is inconsis tent with the Constitution itself.

I think it’s going to be very hard to figure out exactly how we re spond until we know how the Su preme Court works out some of these really hard questions that would be posed if they mistakenly reverse 40 years of well established precedent that do a good job of implementing the ideals of our Constitution.

Mental Health

DP: At your address to alumni at Reunions this year, you dis cussed the mental health crisis impacting students nationally and in our community. The men tal health task force has made a variety of recommendations that will be implemented soon — for instance, expanding CPS [Coun seling and Psychological Services], more funding for outside counsel ing, and improving awareness of mental health resources for firstyear students. Ultimately, those

about this and you get a lot of dif ferent anecdotes, and often those anecdotes focus on agendas or is sues that people may be interested in. But very rarely are they actually responsive to the breadth of this very troubling epidemic.

To go to the second part of your question, I think high aspiration environments, and that includes academically rigorous environ ments, are fully consistent with and helpful to mental health. I think part of what creates mean ing and connection in our lives is engagement and demanding col lective enterprises. Again, I think we need to be driven by data on these kinds of issues, but I don’t see any reason to think that high academic standards and the desire to achieve and be excellent is any thing but consistent with strong mental health. Whatever it is peo ple are doing, we need to provide the right support, and that’s what that report from the [Undergradu ate Student Government] and our Campus Life team and others who participated is all about. But as I said, I think high aspiration en vironments are consistent with mental health and I don’t see any evidence that academic laxness or academic mediocrity would some how be better from the standpoint of mental health.

DP: Something that’s also un fortunately pertinent to this year is grieving among students on campus. Would you say the Uni versity has an obligation to help students who are grieving, and if so how can that support be pro vided?

CE: We want to support our stu dents in all aspects of their life and a large part of what our residential life teams — including but not limited to our Office of Religious Life, for example — do is find ways to support students as they deal with the challenges of life in many different aspects.

All of us have felt deeply the losses that have occurred on this campus over the past year. One of the strengths we have as a cam pus is our ability to respond per sonally and communally to those losses. We also know that students may be grieving individually or personally even when the campus as a whole is not. There are times as people go through their experi ences at Princeton they may suf fer very great losses in their own family and may feel lonelier un der those circumstances because the people around them are not experiencing the same thing, and we want to be able to support stu dents under all of those circum stances. People grieve in different ways and we have to recognize that as they do so.

those people.” I’m not going to give grades or credit in this. I think one thing that is really important to understand about Princeton’s process, which is quite strikingly different from what goes on on other campuses, is that the crux of it is reaching a community judgement about a kind of cam pus viewpoint or consensus. It doesn’t mean everybody agrees, and they clearly do not — there are people who think we went too far and there are people who think we didn’t go far enough. But it does mean that we spend a lot of time through the [Council of the Princ eton University Community] and the CPUC Resources Committee having these conversations on campus to understand where the campus community as a whole is [on a topic].

If we were to do something in response to a particular group on campus without it reflecting the deliberations of the entire com munity, including those who disagree with that group, then we would be unfaithful to this process and to our set of norms around this. There’s no doubt that the activists played a significant and important role in contribut ing to these conversations. I think the most important contributions come when reasons are supplied to those discussions — this is in tended to be and, to be successful, has to be, a reason-driven process. I’m really grateful to everybody who contributed reasons for that.

I look at other universities and I feel like [Princeton’s process] is so different, and in my view, bet ter, than the processes that go on there. At least as I understand the Harvard process, if you want to call it that, there was suddenly an announcement that came down ex cathedra and unexplained. I think it’s better to have the commit ments we do and have the discus sions we do and I’m really grateful for all the people who paid atten tion and took this seriously and made their voices known. I think it’s really important that people feel they can speak up when they want to speak up in the voice of activism. I also think it’s really im portant that people feel they can speak up when they want to dis agree with activists, and I think our process has to include all of those voices.

find talent we weren’t otherwise finding?

We’ve been able to make prog ress by doing that and by looking for other ways to take down bar riers, and so we’ve got to do that in the admissions area. We’ve got to be doing it even if affirmative action remains available to us as a choice. But, for the reasons I was alluding to earlier, we have to rec ognize that’s going to be hard to do in this era. And the evidence that it’s going to be hard to do is what’s happened in Michigan and Cali fornia. Those are universities that also care deeply about diversity and equality; they are universities led by creative and competent peo ple, and they haven’t been able to make it up. So that’s sobering, and we will look at the options that are available to us. We will do our best to be creative within the limits of the law. But we can’t pretend that it’s going to be easy.

DP: It seems like the reality around this case is pretty stark. For instance, the ACLU said that a “decision blocking universities’ ability to consider race will almost certainly mean a significant drop in the number of students of col or.” I think back to Dobbs — many people expected the decision to come down the way it did, but it still was a slap in the face when the actual decision was handed down. I was wondering if that stark re ality is present in conversations you’ve been having with other University officials?

CE: Yes it is, and I think your question is insightful in the sense that we have to recognize the things we may have taken for granted for roughly half a century might be about to change, and

resources are sometimes termed by psychologists as “aftercare.” Do you see the University playing a role in preventing crises from happening in the first place? Do you see there being a tension be tween the rigor and productivity demanded of Princeton students and student mental health?

CE: First of all, on the question of preventing crises, we’re ad dressing what I would call a men tal health epidemic in the country. I think it is important for us to be working together with our re searchers and with researchers at other institutions that may have capacities we don’t to understand the foundations of that epidemic and, where it’s possible, either for us to implement changes or to help in the research of those changes.

I think it’s important to under stand what it is we are facing. It is a phenomenon that is affecting an entire generation right now. It is affecting all college-age students and is affecting high school-age students, and I emphasize collegeage because it’s not as though this phenomenon is restricted to a few colleges or to colleges in general. In fact, the evidence I’ve seen sug gests it may be even more severe outside of colleges.

So we’re dealing with a societal phenomenon I think is important for us as a country — and probably more broadly than that because I don’t think the United States is unique — to find ways to address that. To do that, I think we need better diagnoses and understand ing of what’s happening than we have right now. I think those diag noses and understandings need to be data-driven. You talk to people

DP: I’m thinking more from a logistical sense — for instance, if a student is grieving and has to take time off class. Beyond the Office of Religious Life, do you see the University needing to play a more significant role in accommodat ing such scenarios?

CE: I think we have a program of accommodations designed to recognize the set of challenges that students face in any period going through the University. Different students will face those challenges in different ways, and that structure is designed to re spond to that. So I think that’s go ing to be dependent on individual circumstances.

As I said, all of us in the course of our lives and in the course of our time as students are going to face these challenges. We want to be able to be supportive and re spectful and recognize the differ ent ways in which people need to respond and the needs they have under those circumstances. But I think those supports and accom modations are there in the way that they should be.

Activism and Service

DP: Going back to the issue of climate change, some have cred ited news of the University dis sociating from several fossil fuel companies to decades of student activism on campus. To what ex tent do you see student and alum ni activism as having played a role in the University’s decision?

CE: It certainly played a role in the University’s decision. I don’t think it’s my responsibility or that it would be appropriate for me to come up with a scorecard and say, “Well, it was to this extent these people and to that extent,

DP: Shifting gears again, the University often boasts about graduates such as Alan Turing ’38, Elena Kagan ’81, Sonia Sotomayor ’76, and James Madison. However, it seems relatively rare that Princ eton graduates go on to lead such distinguished lives of public ser vice. Specifically, for instance, the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) 2022 Annual Report noted that only seven percent of graduates planned to work in the public sector. To you, how does that statistic square with Princ eton’s informal motto of “In the nation’s service and the service of humanity”? More broadly, what specifically is it about a Princeton education that instills values of public service?

CE: I don’t think you even men tioned Maria Ressa ’86, who is my latest favorite example — people say “What good is a Princeton Eng lish degree?” and I say, “Uh, well, let me tell you.”

To go to your question, of course she’s not typical — most of us are not going to win Nobel prizes. But what strikes me about Princeton alumni is how many of them have stories about different ways in which they are giving back and paying forward the benefits of their education. During the pan demic, I would point to the Tigers Helping website. Lots of these con tributions weren’t ones that were going to be celebrated on the front page of The New York Times or the Wall Street Journal, they weren’t going to be the recipients of ma jor awards, but they were made by people making a difference in their professions and communi ties.

And that connects to what I think is the way in which Princ etonians make a difference across different disciplines. All of us are blessed to have a place on this campus — and I have felt blessed in my life to have been a student and a faculty member here. That gives you opportunities that are rare in the world. And I think your obligation as somebody who has experienced those rare blessings is to ask “How do I pay it forward?

“I think high aspiration environments, and that includes academically rigorous environments, are fully consistent with and helpful to mental health.”

How do I make a difference in the world for the better with what I’ve done?”

You can do that in just about any profession. It’s not a matter of “Do you go to the public sec tor? Do you go to the Peace Corps? Is this profession OK? Is that one better?” It’s how you do those jobs. And you can go into public inter est jobs, government, or the public sector and do bad things, either in the way you execute your job or in the way you treat the people around you. You can become the CEO, for example, of a corporation and when you pay attention to what impact your operations have on the environment, how you’re opening up opportunities for tal ent in your company, how you treat the people who work for you, you’re “in the nation’s service and you’re in the service of humanity.”

So, to answer your question specifically, I don’t think the ques tion of being “in the nation’s ser vice or in the service of humanity” is about the percentage of SPIA graduates going in one direction or another. I think those of us who are physics majors are [just] as capable of contributing to the nation’s service and the service of humanity.

The education here — from the courses you take, to the mentor relationships you have, to your extracurriculars — should imbue you with that concern, that ques tion of “Alright, I’ve been blessed in my life in various ways, how do I pay it forward?” So if you’re a soft ware engineer, and you’re produc ing outstanding code, you should

also be thinking about what that code means for the world. How is it affecting people? How am I affecting people in my relation ships? Hopefully that will come out of your liberal arts education.

Equity and Inclusion

DP: I want to discuss with you what’s been a key priority for your administration, which is expand ing financial aid. The latest an nouncement on this front puts Princeton far ahead of its peers in terms of material aid. To look at this priority through a new lens, what do you see as the University’s role in making the Princeton ex perience more equitable for low and middle income students once they’re here?

CE: One of the reasons we made the improvements of financial

aid we did is that we think some of those changes will enhance students’ ability to thrive. So, we eliminated the student’s earnings requirement, for example, because we think that will give students more choices that are important

have to make sure we’re provid ing the kinds of opportunities that will enable them to succeed and flourish in all the ways they should. Part of what the Emma Bloomberg Center does is research where there are opportunities to do more on our campus, where we can learn from other campuses, and where they might be able to learn from us.

DP: I want to finish by discuss ing the University’s commitment to diversity inclusion. According to the 2021 DEIB report, 76 percent of tenured or tenure-track faculty members were White. Asian and Black faculty members’ numbers were at 11 and four percent, respec tively. Does the University plan to recruit more non-white faculty members in the coming years and if so, what specific steps will be taken?

tions, but we can never set a quota or say simply that we’re going to recruit more people from a par ticular group.

In the wake of that reckoning with racism, it was really the fac ulty who came forward and said, “We need to do something about this. We’re not making progress at the speed we can.” At the end of the day, I have no capacity to search in chemistry, the chemistry depart ment has to care about searching, they have to be able to answer the questions that I just put forward because they’re the ones who can find the great chemists from all backgrounds. Likewise, in every single department, every group of faculty has to be asking them selves, “What is it we can do to diversify our ranks with the qual ity and the excellence upon which we insist?”

to have, both for their time on campus and for the summer, even though campus jobs have their own benefits.

But your question is one that we’re always asking ourselves. One of the reasons we established the Emma Bloomberg Center for Ac cess and Opportunity and worked so closely with Khristina Gonzalez [Bob Peck ’88 Director of the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity] is that we know, as we’re bringing on super talented students who may not have had the advantages in preparation that some of their peers have had, we

CE: So one of the major com mitments that that we made in the wake of the national reckon ing with racism after the murder of George Floyd was to redouble our efforts to diversify our faculty. Here I’m going to underscore again what I said earlier: we are subject to legal limits in how we do that and everything we do needs to be within the scope of those le gal limits. So we can work hard to diversify our pools. For example, we can ask questions about where there are structural barriers we need to address or remove. Are we using certain kinds of credentials as a proxy for research productiv ity when we really care about the quality and caliber of research? So we can ask all those kinds of ques

And so we set an aspirational target — these numbers aren’t good enough, but let’s see if we can increase the number of un derrepresented minorities by 50 percent over a period of five years by doing the things that we’re al lowed to do. We have been mak ing progress as a result of that, and I credit people top to bottom within the University on that. You cited the 2021 report. In the 2022 report, I think we’re expecting it in December, the numbers will show significant progress over the last couple of years.

Eisgruber: There are good reasons for engineering connections with sectors of the fossil fuel industry

CPUC

Continued from page 1

to publish opinions on behalf of the unit,” the president wrote. “I expect the committee to make rec ommendations to the faculty in the spring semester.”

In addition, Council members unanimously voted to approve the creation of the CPUC Committee on Naming as a standing commit tee. The Committee on Naming, originally developed as a temporary committee in 2016 to increase Uni versity community involvement for naming buildings, has remained a part of CPUC as naming concerns have persisted.

Nakia White Barr, the assistant vice president in the Office of the President, also serves as secretary of the Naming Committee. She announced that the committee is considering a proposal to remove or replace the statue of John With erspoon, which was placed in the Firestone Plaza in 2001.

“[The Committee] will evaluate this question with consideration of established principles to govern renaming and changes to campus iconography which provide among other things that the process should be open to community input,” Barr said.

Dissociation update

In the wake of the University’s dissociation from 90 fossil fuel companies in September, Eisgru ber gave a presentation elaborating on the University’s announcement, which included the criteria that must be met for dissociation to oc cur. The criteria according to the presentation are:

“1. An issue attracts considerable thoughtful and sustained campus attention. 2. The request or proposal for dissociation pertains to a central University value, in this case, the University values around our com mitment to sustainability. 3. The University campus can reach con sensus on how to respond.”

Eisgruber elaborated on the timeline towards dissociation from the fossil fuel industry that began in 2020. He acknowledged that these efforts started with Divest Prince ton, as students in that group held up signs in the back of the meeting room throughout the presentation. Eisgruber emphasized that the re cent announcement towards dis sociation is an initial step toward achieving a net zero endowment.

He also stated that the bar for dissociation on the basis of disin formation was determined to be “exceedingly high, especially in the absence of quantitative standards and in light of the University’s com mitment to embracing the vigorous exchange of ideas.”

“The board may in the future identify companies that meet this exceedingly high bar,” Eisgruber added.

Additionally, the University plans to establish a new fund to sup port energy research to offset lost costs due to disassociation.

Eisgruber then responded to a question from Divest organizer Alex Norbrook ’26 about when Princeton will refuse all fossil fuel funds for research.

“There are good reasons for engi neering connections with sectors of the fossil fuel industry, that benefits can come from collaborations,” Eis gruber said. “Those collaborations are valuable in terms of the research that they produce.”

In a follow-up question on whether Princeton will continue to support BP, an oil and gas company which has been sued by the state of New Jersey for spreading disinfor mation, Eisgruber responded that “is a very loaded question, there are many disagreements about the value and extent of disinformation.”

Campus grief

Audience members heard from Vice President for Campus Life Ro chelle Calhoun about campus ac tion following the recent campus tragedy when Misrach Ewunetie ’24 passed away.

Calhoun mentioned efforts to build stronger community con nections, the need to pause and re member, the campus community’s commitment to investing attention in smaller intact communities, and increasing visibility of comprehen sive administrative responses.

Turning to next steps, Calhoun recapped ideas that were discussed at a campus community break fast, including an idea for a “wind phone” proposed by Chioma Ug wonali ’24 and Stephen Daniels ’24, a Wintersession restorative prac tices workshop, a service of remem brance, Community of Care meals, and a mental health luncheon to be hosted on Dec. 8.

Other topics included in Cal houn’s presentation were a cell phone-free day, suspending classes, using art as a tool to explore grief, and creating a place to reflect and commemorate our losses.

Facilities staff grievances

In the portion of the meeting dedicated to pre-submitted audi ence questions, two facilities work ers asked why raises promised in 2020 were not instituted for nonunion workers when union and nonunion workers work side-by-side. (The ‘Prince’ was unable to verify the identities of the workers.)

One explained that he “has been here for 46 years and this is the first year that non-union workers didn’t

get a raise.” The staff member ex plained that the raise would have been helpful in light of inflation.

In response, Eisgruber and Uni versity Provost Deborah Prentice both explained that human resourc es should take the matter up with the Priorities Committee, which is in charge of negotiating salary pools.

LENS, minors program, and Wintersession

The new LENS program was an nounced by Kimberly de los Santos, executive director of the Pace Center for Civic Engagement.

She clarified the intention of the LENS program, stating that the University offers opportunities for students to engage in paid service internships, which will make these positions more accessible for stu dents.

The meeting concluded with an overview of the transition from the certificate program to minors pro gram and stated that the program will be available starting with the Class of 2025.

This was followed by an an nouncement of Wintersession’s 2023 expected offerings, which will include courses taught by Dean of the College Jill Dolan and Eisgruber.

The total number of offerings is ex pected to exceed 500.

CPUC’s next meeting will occur on Monday, Dec. 12 from 4:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. in Frist Campus Center’s Mul tipurpose Room and is open to all University community members.

Olivia Sanchez is a news contributor for the ‘Prince.’

Abby Leibowitz is a news contributor for the ‘Prince.’

Please direct any corrections requests to corrections@dailyprincetonian.com.

Sandeep Mangat is an Associate News Editor for the ‘Prince.’ Please di rect any correction requests to correc tions@dailyprincetonian.com.

“I think one thing that is really important to understand about Princeton’s process, which is quite strikingly different from what goes on on other campuses, is that the crux of it is reaching a community judgement about a kind of campus viewpoint or consensus.”

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Leaves fall, holidays arrive

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Natalia Maidique, Zoe Berman, Guanyi Cao, George Gan, and Gigi

Peer Representatives now formalized as advocates for students facing Committee on Discipline

By Isabel Yip Assistant News Editor

Students are now able to turn to Princeton Peer Rep resentatives for support if ac cused of academic violations by the Committee on Disci pline (COD), formalizing an additional resource that had previously been reserved for those accused of Honor Com mittee violations.

Prior to this year, Princeton Peer Representatives, a stu dent group that provides ad vice and support to students accused of academic integrity violations, was authorized to work only with students fac ing accusations through the Honor Committee. However, this past spring, peer repre sentatives were trained to be able to attend hearings before the Committee on Discipline by Dean Joyce Chen Shueh, Secretary of the Committee on Discipline and Senior As sociate Dean of Undergradu ate Students.

Peer Representatives are now listed as a resource for students in official communi cations they receive when in formed they are being accused of violations by the COD.

The Honor Committee, separate from the Committee on Discipline, consists of 15 elected students in charge of investigating and upholding the Honor Code for all in-class examinations, including inperson finals, midterms, and quizzes.

The Committee on Disci pline investigates and decides on violations regarding aca demic work that takes place out of class, including assign ments like papers, problem sets, and lab reports. Eighteen members, including students, faculty, and administrators, assess cases of academic mis conduct.

Peer Representatives sup port students both emotion ally during the process, as well as formally with defend ing themselves during inves tigations and hearings.

Peer Representative cochair Caroline Subbiah ’23 told The Daily Princetonian, “We’re there to clear up the process.”

“Peer reps are there to help support students throughout a process that is otherwise very odious and difficult to understand and not well ex plained,” Peer Representative co-chair Zach Sahin ’23 added.

Students undergoing in vestigation through the COD were previously allowed to invite any member of the Uni versity community, including fellow students, to help them through the process. But Peer Representatives were not ex plicitly offered as advisers to students undergoing COD in vestigations as they were dur ing analogous Honor Com mittee investigations.

Last semester, Peer Rep resentatives were officially listed as a resource for stu dents going through the COD process, following commu nication between the Peer Representatives and students members of COD, according to Chen Shueh in a statement to the ‘Prince.’

In the COD process, during a student’s initial meeting with the Committee, they are informed of resources avail able.

“Those resources would in clude your director of stud ies, certain faculty trained as advisors, some CPS advisors, and then peer reps. At that point, you have to take the initiative to reach out,” said Sahin.

Conversations about the official authorization of Peer Representatives as advisors

for students and the training of Peer Representatives by the COD followed the group’s for malization over the course of the past few years, including the inclusion of the group’s description in Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities.

According to Sahin, previ ous perceptions of the stu dent group as a team of “gung ho defense attorneys that were very adamant about the rights of the student and their ability to remain innocent,” impeded on the Peer Repre sentatives’s involvement with the Committee on Discipline.

“They thought that we were potentially preventing the truth by being such adamant defendants of the students,” he said. “After conversations, they’ve seen the benefits that a student representative can have.”

Faculty members like deans have traditionally been listed as resources for students un dergoing investigation, be cause of their ability to help students with accommoda tions and planning in the event of suspension, accord ing to Chen Shueh and the co-chairs of the Peer Repre sentatives.

“If a student is put on disci plinary probation, the deans can continue to follow up with the student during the period of probation and answer any questions that arise,” Chen Shueh said in a statement. “If a student is suspended, there may be academic or curricular considerations that the deans can assist the student with, as well as practical questions about how suspensions work that the deans can help an swer.”

Speaking about the dif ferences between the Honor Committee and the COD, Sub biah said, “Even though they both deal with academic in tegrity cases, they really are two very separate bodies.”

The proximity of Peer Rep resentatives to students’ cases of academic integrity viola tions differs between the two committees.

Sahin described how the Honor Committee informs the Peer Representatives of cases and students who have meetings with the commit tee. “We put two peer reps on standby in case the student requests us,” he said.

With the COD, the part of the process is lacking.

“With the Committee on Discipline, we’re not told about any of the cases, we’re not told that there’s a case in the pipeline, nothing like that,” Sahin said.

Additionally, representa tives serve different roles during hearings for the Hon or Committee as compared to the Committee on Discipline.

For the Honor Committee, “the peer representative may clarify or supplement [the student’s] answers, question witnesses, and make final re marks,” Chen Shueh wrote.

But for the Committee on Discipline, peer representa tives cannot “answer ques tions for a student,” but they “can ask any questions they believe are relevant, prompt a student to raise a particu lar point, and make a closing statement during the hear ing.”

Chen Shueh is scheduled to host a second training for new or returning Peer Representa tives this month.

Isabel Yip is an assistant news editor who typically covers Uni versity Affairs and student life. She is a sophomore from Miami, Fla. Please direct corrections requests to corrections at dai lyprincetonian.com

By Hope Perry Staff News Writer

Wilglory Tanjong ’18, owner and founder of luxury handbag compa ny Anima Iris, sat down for a Q&A on Sunday, Nov. 13, at the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality and Un derstanding with Max Jakobsen ’24, president of the Princeton African Students Association (PASA).

The event was co-hosted by the Black Business Association (BBA), PASA, and the Princeton Associa tion of Black Women (PABW).

Victoria Agwam ’23, co-founder and co-president of BBA, and Eliza beth Poku ’24, external relations of ficer of BBA, introduced Tanjong, who entered the room to applause from the audience.

Jakobsen then called for a mo ment of silence to honor PASA member Misrach Ewunetie ’24, who passed away last month. Following the pause, Jakobsen thanked the crowd, and Tanjong encouraged audience members to reach out for support.

“Definitely do know that myself and other Black alumni are think ing about you guys, are standing alongside you, ready to support [you] in any ways that you guys might need from us,” she said.

When she was an undergraduate at the University, Tanjong majored in African American Studies. After graduating, she went directly into the corporate world — but found that it wasn’t the right fit. “I under stood what kind of car I could have, maybe what kind of home I could have,” she said. “I just wasn’t excited by that.”

Tanjong took a leave of absence from her job just a few months after starting.

Jakobsen asked Tanjong how she was able to go on the leave of absence that eventually led to the inspiration to found Anima Iris. “A lot of people don’t know this, but a lot of these corporate jobs have — essentially — insurance for you,” Tanjong told the crowd. “So it’s a disability leave of absence.” After a formative few months during her leave of absence, which

she spent traveling in Africa and meeting with entrepreneurs as a part of a video series called “African Hustle,” Tanjong eventually ended up in Dakar, Senegal, where she met a community of artisans.

“All these materials come togeth er, and they can make jewelry and can make my handbags and it was just so amazing to me,” she said.

She fondly recalled her experi ence in Dakar. The artisans she met made 50 handbags she brought back to the United States, where she re turned to her corporate job for a few months before quitting to work on Anima Iris full-time in March 2020.

“I closed my laptop and didn’t look back,” she said.

Tanjong also discussed the chal lenges she faced while getting her M.B.A. at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied while simultaneously running a cross-continental busi ness. During a given week in 2019 she would attend her classes, and on the weekends she would fly to Senegal to be on the ground with her artisans in their atelier. “I would do that twice a month, I would go to Africa for the weekends,” she said.

When describing her approach to crafting Anima Iris as a brand, Tan jong emphasized the importance of the brand’s Afrocentrism.

“We can change the way people see Africa through luxury retail, provide jobs, and take money from people buying these bags and re cycle that back into these families,” she said. “That could change so much.”

“I had this vision of building the next big Gucci, Chanel, etc. — but coming out of Africa,” she contin ued.

Notably, Beyoncé posed with the bag on Instagram in 2021.

Chisom Nwadinobi ’25, who at tended the event, told The Daily Princetonian she felt inspired by Tanjong.

“Her notion to create [an] African, luxury Black brand is very inspiring and makes me want to mobilize and utilize my time at Princeton and make sure I come out of here with something bigger than just a de

gree,” Nwadinobi said.

To Jakobsen, Anima Iris facili tates African pride. “I think a lot of Africans share this experience of having parts of your culture not feel valued and not feel celebrated,” he said.

“What your brand does,” Jako bsen continued at the event, “is it actually makes people feel proud of their heritage and proud of their country. People are proud that this is a bag that is handmade in Sen egal, in Africa.”

After the event, Camille Reeves ’23, editor-in-chief emerita of Tiger Trends, Princeton’s fashion maga zine, told the ‘Prince’ that she views West Africa as the “next big market in the fashion industry.”

“I’m so glad [Tanjong] was able to make that point, and really say, not only is taking African designs into your inspiration important, but employing and empowering African communities in your work is equally if not more important,” Reeves said.

On Wednesday, Nov. 16, Tanjong will lead a promotional campaign for Anima Iris, where she will be driving around New York City in a branded truck, using a bullhorn to encourage people to come to her pop-up shop. At the event, she re marked on how that reminds her of her time as an undergraduate.

“I was on a bullhorn [at Princ eton],” she laughed. “I was doing student activism, yelling at Presi dent Eisgruber.” Tanjong was in volved with the Black Justice League (BJL) during her time at Princeton, a Black student activist group that led protests on campus, including a 32hour sit-in of University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83’s office in Nassau Hall.

Anima Iris’s pop-up shop will be on Friday, Nov. 18, and Saturday Nov. 19, and PASA is planning to organize a trip to visit.

Hope Perry is the head podcast editor and a staff news writer at the ‘Prince’ who has covered USG, U.S. politics, and student activism. Please direct any cor rections requests to corrections at dai lyprincetonian.com.

Wilglory Tanjong ’18, founder of Anima Iris, shares story behind her ‘Afrocentric’ brand at PASA event

Hum r

Midterm emotional support dogs

By Sophia Varughese | Humor Contributor

As finals approach, the beloved dogs brought in as emotional support animals dur ing this year’s midterm week have notified the University that they will not be returning for reading period or fi nals week.

“Yes, it’s technically our job to be pet by hu mans, but it’s just too damn much. All this touching, it just feels invasive. Our bodies aren’t being respected,” said Charles, a sophisti cated and well-groomed borzoi.

Louis, a fed-up french bulldog said, “These f*cking kids think they’re stressed?! My job is literally to be touched by hundreds of people everyday. Yeah, it sucks, and yeah, I’m

f*cking stressed about it, but I don’t go rub bing people’s back and stomach to make myself feel better! I’m too expensive for this bullsh*t.”

Ruby, a sweet-looking basset hound and a fan favorite during mid terms week, said, “I’m just… I’m just not into that anymore. I don’t know what else to tell you.” Ruby refused to elaborate on this com ment. She did mention, however, that her tellall memoir “I’m Glad My Owner Died” will be available on Ama zon Prime Video just in time for the holiday season.

A University spokes person responded that, for finals, the dogs will be replaced with cows,

goats, and other tradi tional farm-raised live stock.

“You know what? They’re cheaper, and they won’t f*cking com plain,” they explained. “When those dogs come crawling back because they lost their health

insurance, we won’t give a sh*t.”

Sophia Varughese ’26 is a contributing Humor writer who is excited to ride the cows during fi nals. She can be reached at sv1456@princeton.edu.

Survey suggests 15% of seniors are just two first-years in a trenchcoat

By Spencer Bauman | Associate Humor Editor

A survey recently conducted by the data section of The Daily PrintsAnything found that roughly one in seven members of the class of 2023 are in real ity just two members of the class of 2026 stacked on top of each other un derneath a trenchcoat.

The survey was re leased following ris ing suspicions of these “pseudo-seniors.” Indi viduals in trenchcoats were seen sneaking into eating clubs, while repeatedly shouting the word “thesis” in order to blend in. Oth ers began to notice these strange individu als when “a mysteri

ous third arm” would come out the front of the trenchcoat to grab some food. Further suspicions were raised when a loud cartoonish burp would sound from underneath the trench coat, followed by the visible first-year slap ping their forehead in embarrassment.

In a memo sent to all undergraduate stu dents, administration reassured the student body that “all necessary measures are being tak en” to combat this issue. Such measures include thorough screenings at eating clubs and the lowering of all Univer sity doorframes by two

feet. The University hopes the second mea sure will cause these “frosh stacks” to exag geratedly topple over while trying to duck under the unreasonably low door frame.

Following the release of the memo, a video message was posted on the Princeton Univer sity Instagram page, showing Dean of the College Jill Dolan wear ing a trenchcoat and attempting to debunk the “myth” of the “fro sh stacks” and assuring the students that “we — sorry — they do not exist.”

Some students point ed out that the Jill Dolan

in the video looked and sounded slightly differ ent from how she nor mally does, to which she replied, “I caught the freshman plague and I got a haircut.”

The ‘Prints’ will con tinue to update moni tor the situation and update this piece, as the situation evolves.

Spencer Bauman is a sophomore majoring in chemical and biological engineering, and he hopes Dean Dolan will send him an email saying she loved the article. He can be reached (by Dean Dolan) at sbauman@princeton. edu.

refuse to come back for finals: “It’s just too damn much”

FLICKR / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0

“Emotional support dogs need emotional support too,“ say emotional support dogs.

A Lot On Your Plate By Fizzah Arshad | Staff Cartoonist

“The Raven” writer, for short

Less laborious

QB’s 6-point feat

They may work with your PAA or RCA

Certain noisy Hasbro toy

...baked in ___ (nursery rhyme)

Golfer’s pocketful

Neruda wrote one to his socks

AZ MLB team, to its fans

Confirms someone’s age

Stark patriarch in “Game of Thrones”

By Alexandra Politowicz Contributing Constructor

With the IHRA definition of antisemitism, the CJL alienates left-wing Jewish students

of

Progressives Guest Contributors

Dear Rabbi Gil Stein lauf, CJL Staff, and Princeton Commu nity, We write as left-wing Jew ish students who are dismayed and alienated by recent com munications from the Center for Jewish Life (CJL), a commu nal space where all students — and Jewish students in particu lar — should be welcomed and supported.

On Friday, Nov. 4 — just days after the Israeli election, which further emboldened right-wing extremists and the radical Ka hanist party Otzma Yehudit — the Princeton Committee on Palestine (PCP) sent a letter to the University student body calling for students to boycott Israel Tiger Trek, a Universitysponsored trip which is set to occur Jan. 21–28, 2023. In the statement, PCP raised concerns that Tiger Trek threatens to le gitimize Israeli apartheid and engages with companies that have ties to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

A few days later, on Nov. 7, Rabbi Gil Steinlauf ’91, Execu tive Director of the CJL, sent out an email to the Princeton community. The email con demned the statement made by PCP. Unfortunately, Steinlauf decided to use the PCP’s email as an opportunity to spread an exclusionary, right-wing mes sage that made it clear that Jews who are not sufficiently Zionist are not welcome within the CJL community.

Steinlauf wrote that PCP’s “message crossed a line by en

gaging in age-old, classic an tisemitic references to child killing, using well-known ‘dog whistles’ like Jewish ‘elitism,’ and rhetoric about colonialism which undermines Israel’s right to exist.” Apparently, any stu dents — even Jewish students — who are concerned about the IDF’s documented and long history of killing of Palestin ian civilians or the fact that Princeton sponsors trips that coordinate with companies that serve the IDF are guilty of antisemitism. Steinlauf also wrote that claiming that “Israel is not a legitimate democratic state” crosses the line into an tisemitism.

If we take Steinlauf at his word, then we are to under stand that anyone who recog nizes Israel as a place where millions are subjected to mili tary occupation, and civil and human rights abuses abound, is an antisemite.

According to Steinlauf’s let ter: “Attacks on educational initiatives like Israel Tiger Trek have no place at universities such as Princeton, which is dedicated to the free and open exchange of ideas, and which challenges students to engage with those who have different views.” If Princeton and the CJL are dedicated to the “free and open exchange of ideas,” antioccupation organizers must be included in that declara tion. And the CJL must abide by its own policies, in which they claim that the organiza tion will not “promote racism or hatred of any kind.”

The letter continues: The CJL “emphatically supports Israel’s existence, legitimacy, and se

curity as a Jewish and demo cratic state while also seeking a peaceful solution to the IsraeliPalestinian conflict that allows all residents of the region to live with dignity, security, op portunity, and freedom.” The CJL’s purported commitment to “dignity, security, opportunity, and freedom” in the region is antithetical to villainizing discourse that deflect from Is rael’s human rights atrocities, and moreover, is incongruent with the institution’s choice to cosponsor and encourage par ticipation in trips, such as Ti ger Trek and Birthright, that are devoid of critical thinking about the Israeli government and human rights abuses.

Steinlauf’s understanding of the PCP email is connected to the CJL’s endorsement of the In ternational Holocaust Remem brance Alliance (IHRA) Work ing Definition of Antisemitism. This definition, adopted by the IHRA in 2016, is not as “direct and simple” as Steinlauf would like to have students believe. Instead, the IHRA definition is a highly political and con troversial lightning rod, which states that “the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity” or “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist en deavor” are examples of anti semitism. These are vague stip ulations that have been easily abused in order to delegitimize Palestinian activism.

Is claiming that Israel should not exist as a Jewish-majority state, instead as a multination al, secular one, an example of

antisemitism because it might deny “the Jewish people their right to self-determination”? What about claiming that the State of Israel is a racist or colo nialist endeavor, a position that many scholars — including nu merous Jewish scholars — have adopted?

Of the 11 examples of anti semitism included in the IHRA definition, seven include men tions of Israel. This makes clear what the aim of the IHRA defi nition is: to silence criticism of Israel under the auspices of combatting antisemitism. Even one of the definition’s authors, Kenneth Stern, has pointed out the ways the definition can been used to equate antiZionism and antisemitism, thus censoring criticism of Is rael, and argued that its adop tion should not be the Biden administration’s top priority. Stern said that doing so would constitute asking the adminis tration to “use the instruments of state to silence people with whom we might disagree.”

The CJL’s response to PCP and the endorsement of the IHRA definition makes light of the very real work that needs be done to combat actual anti semitism, increasingly stoked by right-wing movements in the United States and abroad. Either the CJL would like to pre tend that no Jews on campus share these criticisms of Israel or it is comfortable sending a message that such Jews do not belong in its community.

Steinlauf’s statement is part of a pattern among conserva tive thinkers to excise those who are not Zionist enough from the Jewish community

entirely, replacing them with right-wing — often non-Jewish — allies. We saw this recently with Pennsylvania Republican gubernatorial candidate Doug Mastriano making blatantly antisemitic remarks, and his wife offering the defense of “we probably love Israel more than a lot of Jews do,” or when former President Donald Trump at tacked American Jews for being insufficiently loyal to Israel. Students should not be fooled by this faux anti-antisemitism, as the real threats to Jews to day increasingly come from right wing movements such as Trump’s Republican Party. In prioritizing the protection of Zionism over the protection of Jewish students on this cam pus, the CJL betrays the cause it claims to care so much about. The Princeton Jewish commu nity, and Princeton students in general, deserve better than this political stunt masquerad ing as an attempt to fight anti semitism.

The Alliance of Jewish Pro gressives

Signed, Ben Gelman ’23

Emanuelle Sippy ’25 Martin Mastnak ’25 Chaya Holch ’23 Sakura Price ’23

Zev Mishell ’23

Jack Toubes ’25

Adam Sanders ’25 Sara Ryave ’24 Alan Plotz ’25

Dylan Shapiro ’23 Nate Howard ’25

Letter to the Editor: The ‘Prince’ ignored context about my citation of Mixon-Webster’s poem

Joe Scanlan Guest Contributor

To the Editor:

Last week, The Daily Princetonian ran an article about the fact that I said the nword in my course VIS321: Words as Objects. While this did happen, the infor mation in the article about the context of that utterance is insufficient. That mo ment was grounded in the author’s long-term interest in the word and how it func tions in his poetry, as well as the pedagogical progression to the analysis of a poem where a word functions as an object. While I regret not discussing how we would discuss that word, I main tain that engaging with that poem was a critical part of the class’s pedagogy.

Regarding the events in VIS321, we first must en gage “Stereo(TYPE),” Jonah Mixon-Webster’s first poet ry collection that contains the poem we were discuss ing in class that day, which the ‘Prince’ did not substan tively describe. Mixon-Web ster’s poetry is not shy about wrenching and provoking his readers — through his versatility in the form of his poetry, as well as his vocab ulary — but I don’t gather that he makes these formal and conceptual choices to indicate that some people are allowed to read his po ems and others not. Nor do I think he intends for all willing persons to be able to read his collection, but for only some to discuss it. Mixon-Webster’s abiding in terest in and prolific use of

the n-word is demonstrated in a blogpost for the Poetry Foundation titled, “Poetics of the Iterative: On the Nword in Black Poetry & Lan guage (Part I).”

It’s unfortunate that the ‘Prince’ did not provide any broader context for VIS321 either, since a paragraph on the structure and pedagogy of the class, at least, would have helped frame what happened on Nov. 3. As writ ten, the article made it seem as if I dropped an n-bomb out of the sky. I did not.

VIS321 is more a visual art class than a writing class, so naturally we look at a lot of artworks that are composed of single words or phrases. In other words, artworks that are as much object as text, or words that have undue significance or weight attached to them. Some examples would be Eugen Gomringer’s “Wind”, Augusto de Campos’ “Lin guaviagem”, Edward Rus cha’s “SPAM”, Adrian Pip er’s “My Calling Card”, Kay Rosen’s “The Forest for the Trees”, and Glen Ligon’s “Untitled (America)”. Given this focus, I feel it would have been politically evasive and intellectually dishonest of me to ignore an artwork dedicated to the single-most weighty word in the Eng lish language — the n-word — should an opportunity present itself. Thanks to the publication of MixonWebster’s book last year, the opportunity did; hence my decision to include four of his poems and the above mentioned blogpost on the course reading list.

The readings in the course

were arranged in a clear and meaningful progression, from a global analysis of the osmotic nature of human ity’s first alphabets (Jared Diamond), to an examina tion of a life-long working and reworking of material (Lydia Davis), to the origi nal set of emojis (Shigetaka Kurita), and the concept of a poem that writes itself (Em mett Williams). The reading list concluded with two fo cused and complementary examples: a single object that behaves like a word (Bruno Latour’s essay on the Berlin key) and a single word that behaves like an object (Mixon-Webster’s “Black Ex istentialism No. 8: Ad Infi nitum; or Ad Nauseam”).

That is the context for what took place in class on Nov. 3, when we first looked at Mixon-Webster’s stated interest in craftsmanship, the variety of forms in which he writes — monologue, prose poem, free verse, concrete poem — and then passed the classroom copy of “Stereo(TYPE)” around so that everyone could see “Black Existentialism No. 8: Ad Infinitum; or Ad Nau seam” on the page, as well as read it in its one-word entirety. When the book came back around to me, I cited the text of that poem by posing a question using the n-word.

I am extremely sorry that I overestimated my famil iarity with my students and assumed that we could enter a discussion of this 20-page, one-word poem about the nword without first making some ground rules about limits for the usage or even

the discussion of the word at all. As I have heard loud and clear from my students, that was a grievously hurt ful overestimation on my part. I also regret, in hind sight, not realizing that it would have been helpful to take a moment to reiter ate the pedagogical path of readings and assignments that had led up to this par ticular moment and word. Not doing so was also a mis take.

In my defense, I can only say that, up to that point, I felt the students were so enthusiastically engaged in their coursework that I was confident we could have this discussion. Clearly I was wrong, and for that, I sincerely apologize. I wish I could undo the harm that this gross misreading of the room has caused.

At the same time, I take the printed word seriously and have great respect for any author who manages to

get their work published. When words are printed on pages, those pages are bound into a volume, and that volume is made avail able for my consideration as a reader, that’s significant to me. I feel I have the right and obligation not only to read those words but also share and discuss them. I cannot think of any accept able attenuation of this fun damental aspect of critical thinking and language.

I have many such critical thoughts about Mixon-Web ster’s poem — why it is a significant and even a land mark achievement in the history of Concrete Poetry. Given the current mood on campus, I will keep those thoughts to myself.

Joe Scanlan is a Professor of Visual Arts at Princeton. He served as Director of the Visual Arts program from 2009-2017.

Alliance

Jewish

CANDACE DO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

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Princeton must do more in its Indigenous advocacy efforts

Gisele Bisch Assistant Opinion Editor

In the Hawaiian lan guage, there exists a fundamental proverb: i ka‘ōlelo nō ke ola, i ka‘ōlelo nō ka make. “In the language there is life, in the language there is death.”

While it’s predominantly said to illustrate the need to perpetuate ‘ōlelo Hawai‘i (Hawaiian language) for the sake of Native survival and empowerment, a sec ondary interpretation is equally important: our language — what we say or claim — has tangible, sometimes critical, im pacts.

The idea of language’s ability to affect and trans form our communities is especially relevant when looking at the Universi ty’s current advocacy for Indigenous representa tion and empowerment. As it stands, the Univer sity is doing nowhere near enough to educate its com munity about the Indig enous land it stands on or the Lenni-Lenape people native to it. Equally so, Princeton is not providing sufficient Indigenous edu cational resources to its full capacity.

This is not to discredit the efforts that Princeton has made to expand its In digenous educational and representational resources — like its growing prev alence of land acknowl edgments or Indigenous courses — or to disregard the fact that some efforts require more time to be properly established. Yet, as Reverend Dr. J.R. Nor wood, a former Tribal Councilman for the Nan ticoke Lenni-Lenape, was quoted as saying in these pages, land acknowledge ments (and, in my eyes, the University’s steps in other Indigenous-focused op portunities, too) “should be viewed as a beginning and not an ending.”

First, the University’s

progress on land acknowl edgements should be far from its “end” goal. In or der to create a community more aware of the Native land it resides on, Princ eton must set policies around land acknowledge ments, rather than merely presenting them as option al.

One may argue that regu lation may incite more land acknowledgements that are empty and performative. However, the standard ization of such practices could provide a greater opportunity for Princeton faculty and academic or so cial event coordinators to distribute more informa tion on the Lenni-Lenape people — and the legacy of colonization that Native people have persevered through.

As English and Ameri can studies professor Sar ah Rivett also noted, land acknowledgements can be “meaningful if done with care and in accordance with Indigenous proto cols.” To ensure that this occurs, Princeton could showcase ways that ac knowledgements should be properly done by pub licizing aforementioned Indigenous-led protocols or successful examples of land acknowledgements from past events on the In clusive Princeton website.

Land acknowledgments provide a segue to ampli fying the history and cul ture of Indigenous groups of the respective lands be ing acknowledged. With these additional efforts, Princeton would encour age more members of the community to partake in learning about Indigenous groups and to fulfill their obligations as settlers on Lenni-Lenape land.

Besides land acknowl edgements, more formal education on Indigenous studies should be imple mented at the University beyond just a few courses per semester. As Norwood has also emphasized, es

tablishing an Indigenous studies major and minor would be a true, substan tial act of Indigenous ad vocacy.

If Princeton seeks to “build relationships with Native American and In digenous communities and nations through academic pursuits” as the Universi ty’s website claims, then I’d assume that a formal Indig enous program would be a natural endeavor to ful fill these goals, especial ly given the extensive re sources at the University’s disposal. As an Indigenous person myself, enrolling in a formal Indigenous pro gram here would have been one of my top priorities if it were made available.

Yet the University doesn’t seem to be acting on this goal. I understand that the creation and im plementation of a program curriculum or department board, as well as finding adequate faculty to teach more courses, would be a lengthy process. However, at the very least, Princeton could communicate where the institution stands in terms of any progress on this venture.

For now, the lack of transparency on the issue does nothing but showcase the opposite of the values Princeton claims to hold. If the University genuinely cares about the commu nity of the land it has es tablished itself on and the other Native communities it has claimed to empower, its current actions are not enough. Likewise, its cur rent language of claiming to “build relationships” with Native peoples will be nothing but performa tive until and unless more steps are taken.

Gisele Bisch is an assistant opinion editor and sophomore from the North Shore of O‘ahu (Hawai‘i). She can be reached at gb8528@princeton.edu.

THIS PRINT ISSUE WAS DESIGNED BY

Dimitar Chakarov ’24

Avi Chesler ’25

Malia Gaviola ’26 Annabel Green’26

Keith Matanachai ’26 Brooke McCarthy ’25 Zach Williamson ’26 Juliana Wojtenko ’23

’25

My professor used the n-word in class. Princeton’s inaction is indefensible.

Omar Farah Guest Contributor

Content Warning: The fol lowing opinion guest contri bution includes quotations of a racial slur.

Joe Scanlan has held many titles across prestigious art and academic institutions — including his current position as an art profes sor here at Princeton — but none carry more precision in defining his career than racist. With both literal and conceptual blackface in his portfolio — the latter referring to his controver sial entrance into the 2014 Whitney Biennial under the name Donelle Woolford (a black female artist of his in vention) — Scanlan’s career has been marked with one racially-charged stunt after another, each purporting to be artistic and academic but consistently failing to approach either.

Last week, Scanlan pulled one more stunt — he used the word “nigga” in my Thursday afternoon semi nar, VIS 321: Words as Ob jects. Unlike other incidents in Scanlan’s history, egre gious in their own right, this time the harm of his reckless racial provocations fell upon myself and the other students in his class room. Scanlan unleashed racism in his capacity as a professor at a university that has legal obligations and supposed policy frame works to protect students from racial harassment. So far, these obligations have gone unfulfilled, and the policy frameworks in place have failed. The Princeton pedagogy seems to priori tize white professors’ in terest in racial provocation over the well-being of its Black students. The Univer sity’s conduct is indefen sible, and my community will not accept this contin ued indignity. It ends now.

For class on Thursday, Nov. 3, the students in VIS 321 were assigned to read poems from the Black art ist Jonah Mixon-Webster — one of which used the n-word. For the first 10 to 15 minutes, the class was filled with long pauses, un sure voices, and timid argu ments. Instead of tactfully responding to the class climate and empathetical ly guiding us through the difficult material, Scanlan decided to exacerbate the situation. About 15 minutes into the discussion, Scan lan posed a question that included a piercing and un mistakable “nigga.” He was not directly quoting the text.

As the word hung in the air, I lobbed a question to make sense of what I had just witnessed: “Are we re ally having a conversation where you can use that word?”

Scanlan responded that his utterance had ended with an “a” and not an “er.”

I packed up my things and left the classroom.

That night I emailed But ler Dean Rashidah Andrews and Visual Arts Director Jeff Whetstone, still man aging nausea from the day’s events.

This is the part where I describe what it felt like to hear the n-word. Did I freeze? Did I fume? How did my body feel? You’re not getting that — and there’s a reason.

I cannot and never will attempt to describe the feel

ing that word elicits. I am aware that there is always a thirst for this part of the narrative: probing for the extent of the wound of the word, appraising how large it is, how deep it is, how long it takes to heal, ask ing “does it really hurt if I press down hard on it?” But white people already know how deep that word cuts. As James Baldwin and others have rightfully pointed out, white people created the construct of the nigga in the first place. They know how it operates. They know the violence it holds, and that is the very reason why some of them use it.

Feigning ignorance, white academics often still use a disingenuous interest in the nature of the slur’s impact to justify their rac ist antics. This was cer tainly true for Lawrence Rosen, a Princeton an thropology professor, who used the word “nigger” in his 2018 class. Rosen alleg edly justified his use of the word, saying the slur was worthy of analysis given its “gut punch.” Univer sity President Christopher L. Eisgruber ’83 endorsed Rosen’s racist pedagogy, which puts Black students in harm’s way for the “intel lectual” pursuits of white professors, stating, “I re spect Professor Rosen’s de cision about how to teach the subject in the way that he did by being explicit in using very difficult words, and they are very difficult words.”

I will not explain how it felt to have that word and its venom unleashed on me and my Black classmates. That act serves to validate the very experiment that Scanlan and Rosen want to pass off as academic but is, in fact, just cruel.

On Sunday morning, three days after our semi nar, Scanlan sent our class an apology, via Canvas, which demonstrated his continued misunderstand ing about the nature of his conduct. He “profoundly apologized” for the way in which he went about mak ing his “intellectual” point — never ceding ground that the point was indeed of aca demic value.

I appreciate Scanlan’s ac knowledgment of the way, as he noted in his apology, he had “harmed” his stu dents. However, I find his sensitivity to that harm,

only in the wake of the in cident, insufficient and ultimately insincere. It is hard to believe that it was this classroom discussion, after 60 years of life, that first educated him on the pain felt by Black people when white people utter the n-word. And if it indeed was my reaction and that of my Black peers that first educated Scanlan about the word’s harm, we are not lab rats for such a learn ing opportunity. Professors at the University are here to teach, not to harm. Al though apology and reflec tion are welcome, it does not change the harassment that we faced as students, nor the University’s obliga tions to protect us in the wake of such behavior.

Scanlan’s demeanor dur ing the incident and his history prior to it contex tualizes the class discus sion as a perverse and likely intentional provocation — one that amounts to harass ment.

Joe Scanlan has risen to the prominence he now en joys as a result of his racial ly offensive performances. Blackface, “conceptual” or otherwise, has been at the center of his “art practice.” This latest performance cre ated what I believe reaches the University’s standard for harassment: “intimidat ing, hostile, or offensive en vironment … regardless of intent” — harassment that the University is obligated to investigate and act upon.

Is the University going to enforce this provision? And, at this point, what ex cuse exactly can the Uni versity rely on to avoid dis ciplinary action? A white professor used the word “nigga,” and every detail of the case makes it worse: his flippant body language, his unwillingness to drop the subject upon clear student distress, and his history of deeply offensive behav ior. If this situation does not meet the standard for harassment, then what be havior is deemed egregious enough for the University to take action?

I strongly advocate for free speech. My father grew up under the Barre regime in Somalia, and I was raised with a strong appreciation for the right to speak freely. But free speech does not mean we should tolerate ha rassment, and it should not stop us from insisting upon

consequences for reck less and harmful speech. University policy seems to agree. The policy draws a clear distinction between protected speech and ra cial harassment, but the investigation process lacks the rigor to appropriately differentiate between the two. If the University had conducted a more thorough investigation, I sincerely believe it would be consid ered racial harassment. But, according to Princeton, it isn’t.

On Friday, Nov. 4, the day after the incident in VIS 321, I was contacted via email by Cheri Burgess, Director of Institutional Equity and Equal Opportunity Em ployment, asking to meet. We met for only 25 min utes, which allowed for me to give a brief overview of the incident without time to provide the contextual details that are at the heart of distinguishing between protected speech and ha rassment. I didn’t even feel the need to say that there should be a follow-up meet ing. I was sure that Burgess and her office would con tact me on Monday to learn more. That was naive.

On Monday evening, I re ceived an email from the Provost’s Office, informing me that the “vice provost has conducted an initial assessment of the informa tion provided and has de termined that, given the academic context in which the word was used, it does not implicate the Policy on Discrimination and/or Ha rassment.” The letter went on to state that “the dis missal of a complaint dur ing the initial assessment is not subject to appeal.”

I was and remain floored by a process so swift and so scant. It is difficult to believe that such an inves tigation meets the Univer sity’s obligations to any of the parties involved.

This Tuesday, after I sought legal counsel and filed my complaint again, this time through an online portal, Burgess made her self available for another meeting if I had any “sub stantive information” that “could potentially change the outcome of the initial assessment.” It took hours of self-study on civil rights law and University policy just to formulate my online complaint and try to get the University to reconsider.

The University has failed me and my fellow students. They failed us with their hiring practices that let someone with Joe Scanlan’s history into our classroom. They failed us when the ini tial assessment of the inci dent was rendered without enough time or care to de liver a just and reasonable verdict. They failed us in their obligation to provide a learning environment that is not hostile and offensive. And they continue to fail our entire community un til students’ concerns about this incident are heard and the process responsible for adjudicating complaints like this is reformed. As long as the University con tinues to defend the abuse of students as “academic rigor,” none of us are safe.

I call on the Office of the Provost to launch a thor ough investigation into the incident, one that meets their obligations to pursue a “reasonable” inquiry into the events last Thursday. I am calling on the Visu al Arts Program to cancel VIS 321 and repudiate the idea that there’s anything academic to be gained from this type of harassment. Additionally, the Univer sity needs to ensure that students who have worked for eight weeks are able to receive credit and a grade without any further in struction from Scanlan. Finally, I am calling for a formal and public apology from the University for the indignity of this incident and the institution’s role in exacerbating the harm through its negligent re sponse. This institution needs to restore its moral compass. You shouldn’t be able to harass students and keep your job. Except at Princ eton where — for now — you can.

Editor’s Note: In the pro cess of publishing this piece, the ‘Prince’ took several steps to ensure the veracity of the claims including confirming with other students and re viewing emails and documents relevant to Farah’s interaction with the University.

Omar Farah is a senior from Alberta, Canada concentrating in Religion. They are a Manag ing Editor for the 146th Board of The Daily Princetonian; this guest contribution reflects their views alone.

the PROSPECT. ARTS & CULTURE

The Cause: the days are long, but the months are short

By Joshua Yang | Contributing Prospect Writer

Recently, I’ve been listening to Tommy Le froy’s “The Cause.” Throughout the indie track, a narrator describes how she loves someone who is too busy pursuing some nebulous, allconsuming cause to ever reciprocate her love. “You believe in whatever you want … [while] I’ll always be smaller than the cause,” she realizes. “How could I ever be enough?”

I’m a philosophy major, a journalist, and a writer. At the start of this semester, I joked to my friends that I was shedding all worldly connections to eke out a monk-like existence reading texts, studying philosophy, and writ ing nonfiction. It’s my chosen cause, after all.

I deeply care about what I do: I spend Fridays away from Princeton on journalism reporting trips, I grab meals with professors, I carefully word and re-word the questions I ask in class. I demonstrate the “intellectual vitality” I so earnestly bragged about on my college applica tions. Nobody can say I am not a true believer, a true zealot.

And so, although perhaps I shouldn’t, I catch myself sympathizing more with the person the narrator hopelessly loves than the narrator herself.

The cause works like this: the days are long, but the months are short. I read papers from philosophers both famous and obscure, sensi ble and idiotic. The stack of used books I prom ise myself I’ll read later grows taller and taller with each passing day. I rub shoulders with eminent professors I’m still somewhat afraid to talk to. My laptop, Muji notebooks, gel-ink pens, and cappuccinos are my best friends. I type and re-type out paragraphs and pages, try ing to figure out how good nonfiction is struc tured. I think, think, think. I’m always writing. At one in the morning, I stare up at the hazy night sky while trundling back to my room alone, whispering to myself, “I regret nothing.”

But the cause also works like this: one No vember afternoon, I look around for the first time in weeks and wonder, “How is winter al most here already?” Shivering from the chilly air, I take in the crunch of red-brown autumn leaves underfoot, the way the chapel’s sheer sandstone walls bask in the golden hour glow. The rustle of wind through empty branches. The faraway orange hue of the striped sunset. The moment the streetlamps around Firestone Plaza quietly flicker to life.

What have I missed? Do I believe what I whis per to myself?

Socrates famously declared, in defense of a life spent in contemplation, that “the unexam ined life is not worth living.” Chasing after the cause, then, is nothing more than living this examined life. I do not mean to complain: I chose this life, this examined life, for myself. I love the cause. Yet I can’t help but feel that lov ing the cause means I have little space left for loving streaky sunsets, or the wind whipping through my hair, or autumn fading to winter.

Recently, over lunch, my friend — a fellow philosophy major — told me, “I need to find a hobby, something that I do just for fun. But the problem is that everything I pick up ends up being something I need to have fit into my life story.”

I also understand what my friend is saying. If I am not chasing after the cause, I am eating, partying, chatting with friends, meekly follow ing the whims of those around me. Sometimes, this inability to exist outside the confines of the cause makes me anxious. Sometimes, I just want to laugh it all off and create a life for my self where I am grotesquely, unimaginably free, a life where I have no attachments and no sub stantive opinions about this world. In this life,

I don’t need to care about the cause. Who will care what I think? Who will care what I write? But the answer is never far from my mind: I will care, I do care, I care a lot, I care too much. Often, the cause protects me from looking too deeply within myself; the cause excuses all of my shortcomings. The cause tells me minor foibles shouldn’t weigh on my mind. Who cares about a moment of panicked doubt when there is all of analytical philosophy itself to return to?

Other times, late at night, the questions come back, doubled in fury and strength. Why is there no separation between what I love in my work and what I love elsewhere? Why can’t I just be content completing problem sets, complain ing about them all the while? Why have I let my life become subsumed so easily, so alluringly, by a vague, nebulous cause?

Then it starts all over again: some new, glit tering normative theory captures my attention, I have a reporting trip to prepare for, and I must push these thoughts out of my head. The cause awaits. The examined life beckons. And I regret nothing.

Joshua Yang is a contributing writer for The Pros pect at the ‘Prince.’ He can be reached at joshuay ang@princeton.edu or on Twitter at @joshuaqy ang.

Self essays at The Prospect give our writers and guest contributors the opportunity to share perspec tives. This essay reflects the views and lived experi ences of the author. If you would like to submit a Self essay, contact us at prospect@dailyprincetonian. com.

JOSHUA YANG / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

New College West’s Coffee Club: new location, same great taste

By Isabella Dail | Contributing Writer

Princeton’s quintessential, student-run coffee shop has finally moved into the residential colleges. The New College West (NCW) shop had its grand opening on Oct. 30, marking the second location for the café. Overlooking the lush green of Poe Field, Cof fee Club’s newest location is housed within NCW’s Addy Hall. The modern location is a stark contrast to Coffee Club’s original location in the basement of Campus Club on Prospect Avenue.

The NCW café occupies a cozy corner within the sleek building. Soft ceiling lamps illuminate the dark floors and wood-paneled walls. An assortment of cushy chairs in different colors and patterns ac company the small tables, which are perfect for a laptop and a steaming cup of coffee. A grand piano separates the open seating arrangement from the lounge, while large windows allow for natural light and prime views.

As I approached the counter, I was invited by a balloon display that spelled out “celebrate” and a chalkboard of drink options. The lineup includes the same well-known drinks from the Campus Club location. Overwhelmed by the number of choices, I requested the advice of three friendly baristas, who recommended the new fall drink: the honey carda mom latte. By the time I arrived at 3:30 p.m., most of the snacks, which Coffee Club buys from The Gin gered Peach, a local bakery, were long gone. I selected a brownie, a classic option.

The honey cardamom latte was the embodiment of a fall drink. The honey balanced spice with sweet ness, and the use of cardamom gave the drink earthy and herbal notes, pairing beautifully with the slight bitterness of the coffee. The harmony of the differ ent flavor groups added depth and uniqueness to the drink, elevating it beyond a traditional latte. As someone who enjoys especially strong coffee, the drink was a little milky for me, and the ground car damom added a slight grittiness that occasionally caught in my throat. However, given the perfect fall feeling of well-balanced flavors, I would still highly recommend the latte, especially during this time of year.

The brownie was a delightful spin on a classic dessert and paired wonderfully with the latte. It had a dense, fudgy texture inside, while the edges had a crisp, flaky quality. It had a deeply chocolatey flavor, complemented by a nutty undertone. Melted choco

late chips added to the overall richness and textural diversity of the treat. The brownie was sweet, but not overwhelmingly sugary. Instead, it was a perfect af ternoon snack before a late night of studying.

The next day, I returned to NCW’s Coffee Club at a significantly earlier time. The line was a bit longer, filled with tired students eager for a morning pickme-up. However, the pastry selection was also far more expansive, and only a few of the most popular items were missing. I whipped out my punch card, ordered a chocolate chip banana muffin and a vanilla iced latte, and enjoyed a late breakfast.

The iced vanilla latte is a classic cold drink that Coffee Club does exceedingly well. The drink had subtle tones of vanilla that enriched but didn’t over power the drink. There was also a slight sweetness that balanced the vanilla without being too sugary. The drink was on the milkier side, but the espresso shot added a deep coffee flavor and provided a wel come energy boost. Even on a crisp fall day, I deeply enjoyed the iced latte.

The chocolate chip banana muffin was a great breakfast item, especially on the go. The large chunks of chocolate added a velvety texture and rich choco late flavor. The muffin itself was dense and sticky from the banana, providing a nice contrast to the chocolate mixed throughout. The muffin top was a crisp cover to the moist, soft muffin underneath. The muffin had a strong banana flavor, so I would especially recommend this item for all the banana lovers on campus.

NCW’s Coffee Club is a fantastic addition to Princ eton’s coffee scene. It has a warm atmosphere, deli cious drinks, and a great variety of pastries — al though they very quickly sell out. Head over to NCW to “celebrate” Coffee Club and be sure to grab a honey cardamom latte while you’re there.

Isabella Dail is a member of the Class of 2026 and a con tributing writer for The Prospect at the ‘Prince.’ Please send correction requests to corrections@dailyprincetonian.com.

Extinguishing the poet with my tears

By Kyung Eun Lee | Contributing Writer

The last time I tripped over a rock and cut my hand, I didn’t cry. It hurt so bad I think I even laughed a little. Instead, the last time I cried was after reading a poem. Writing right now, I find it a bit absurd. But after sitting with a couple of silly words on a gloomy Wednesday afternoon, I found myself repeatedly running my eyes over Baudelaire’s “Correspondences,” forgetting each word as I read it.

My eyes stood fixed like the subject of a pho tograph in long exposure; everything that passed behind and walked in front of me was blurred. Not even just in metaphor — after I put the book down, I thought about the rest of my day so as to shake off the indeterminacy of the poem, but I couldn’t remember what I had already done, where I had al ready been, what I needed to do, and where I needed to go. I had forgotten — forgotten routine, forgotten time. All because I had forgotten how to read.

We learn at a certain point — whether in school or through experience — that when a poet asks us to read his words, we should contextualize his language. Understanding the written word comes with the contextualization of the self behind it. What situation was the poet in? Had he just traveled to a foreign country? Was he secretly writing about his previous lover? Was he trying to recreate the first bite of a good peach? Why? Why did he write? I skim the structure of the text, taking note of the title and subtexts that hint at the poet’s ultimate

truth. Searching for the etymologies of suspicious terms, the syntax of a particular arrangement, and protruding repetitions, I keep an unrelenting stare. I’m wary of every clue and warning, traces of mean ing that the poet has delicately placed in between the lines. The signs direct me horizontally and ver tically, and even what’s not there — in the margins and breaks — constitutes the very essence of his message.

Yet somehow, when I manage to reach the end of the last stanza, I’m left with more uncertainty and indecision than I started with. Suddenly, I’ve lost any and all sense of trust in the poet. How would I know if there were secret truths hidden in details invisible to the human eye? I want to peer into the keyhole, catch something, see something, dig out the truth stuck deep within the earth, rip out these curtains, and shatter the window. Between the rhythm, repetition, distance, and rupture, between contradicting words and never ending yet bounded lines, I struggle to grasp meaning. I’m dreaming with my eyes open; everything is perfectly muffled and blurred — there are shadows everywhere but they refer to nothing.

I sought to bring substance to those shadows — I need to put thought into words so that I know I’m not actually dreaming, but I’m indecisive and noth ing sounds good enough. How does one bring real ity to dreams?

I sat, confused and stunned. I didn’t even know what I was reading anymore. The words meant noth

ing to me, and I started to wander off into different directions. I picked up Robert Frost’s “The Figure a Poem Makes” because if anyone was going to correct me, it had to be the poet himself. Finally, someone told me what I needed to hear: the logic of poetry works such that it is “more felt than seen ahead like prophecy.” Indeed, I had been endlessly searching for the prophecy that would guide me to the truth. But a poem can’t be “worried into being.” It holds its own pace. We can’t force meaning into our in terpretations; rather, we let it come to us in a later realization.

What makes poetry an art form is the spiritual, oceanic feeling it gives us beyond the ability to artic ulate meaning into words. It’s all about the ambigu ity and uncertainty one feels in between two words, such as “round quadrangle.” What do you make of that? No one has the same understanding of the word “red,” so when it’s strung along in the line of a poem, we fill the excess with our own individuality. And this is not a symptom, but actually the nature of poetry itself. The poem is open and incomplete until the reader comes to reconcile it in her own eyes. To read — whether it’s poetry, literature, cap tions, or another person’s lips — is to feel. It’s not to know why, but to ask, “so what”? We might seek to know the truth to everything, but what if there is no mysterious truth in the meaning of words? What if all there is is what’s said and done? What if there’s actually no reason why?

When I talk to my friends in the humanities about reading, we often share the same qualms about knowing things for certain. We all feel the incessant anxiety of the right interpretation or the correct reading of everything. But we also share similar ex periences of feeling words, not just knowing them. The latter is where originality in thought lies. In ret rospect, I don’t think there’s a single class I’ve taken where I wasn’t delighted by others’ interpretations of the readings. I love knowing what other people know — not the facts or the articulated words, but how they capture the moment of ambiguity in the concept behind those words — I love feeling what other people feel. But sometimes, I forget the beauty in oblivion and indeterminacy that is so constitu tive of living and feeling.

Sometimes I grow impatient — I need someone to tell me exactly what I should know so I can ex tinguish the slow burn of reading poetry. Even my compulsion to know the why to things sometimes leads me to seek theoretical explanations. It’s all part of the process. We’ve all done it before, I suppose, laughing at ourselves after falling down. I remem ber the first time I started to laugh after crying a little bit. Perhaps it’s the same with reading. Every time a poem blinds me and I forget how to read, I remember how to feel again.

Kyung Eun Lee is a contributing writer for The Prospect at the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at kl4617@princeton. edu or on Instagram @entertainmentkyung.

ISABELLA DAIL / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The NCW Coffee Club’s Grand Opening

The Prospect 11

Weekly Event Roundup

As temperatures drop in Princeton, students are moving their recreational activities indoors. Luckily, plenty of arts and cultural events are being held over the next week, all in heated buildings.

Here are 11 recommendations for arts and culture events happening on campus.

1. Photo History’s Futures: Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa and Lesley Martin

Hosted by the Princeton University Art Museum and the Department of Art and Archaeology Friend Center Room 101 Nov. 18, 5 p.m.

In commemoration of 50 years of photography, the Princeton University Art Museum and the Department of Art and Archaeology are hosting Stanley Wolukau-Wanambwa and Lesley Martin to speak on their new publication series, “The Lives of Images.” Students interested in explor ing photography will be able to hear exciting new perspectives on how images function in a cultural context.

3. “Adamandi”

Lewis Center for the Arts McCarter Theater Nov. 18 and Nov. 19 at 8 p.m.

its opening weekend, “Adamandi” is having two showings this weekend at the McCarter Theater. The dark academia horror musical follows three queer students of color as they go to great lengths to prove their worth for a graduation honor. The musical is written by Mel Hornyak ’23 and Elliot Valentine Lee ’23.

5. A Playhouse Panopoly: Beloved Stories, Reimagined

The Playhouse Ensembles

Lee Rehearsal Room, Lewis Arts Complex Nov. 20, 4 p.m. – 5 p.m.

A new production by the Playhouse Ensembles is being presented in the Lewis Arts Complex this Sunday. The Playhouse Choir and The Princeton Playhouse Orchestra join together to perform their new arrangements of songs from beloved musicals such as “The Wiz,” “Hadestown,” and “Into the Woods.”

7. Being: Monday Morning Yoga

Organized by the Office of Religious Life University Chapel Nov. 12, at 8 a.m.

Need a refresher to get you through class after a busy weekend? Attend an accessible-for-all yoga class at the University Chapel on Monday. The class teaches the integral nature of “pranayama, mindfulness, and connecting deeply with oneself and nature.” Attendees are advised to dress comfortably and bring a yoga mat and a towel or blanket.

9. Fall 2022 Fabric Logics: Textiles as Sculpture Show

Lewis Center for the Arts Lucas Gallery, 185 Nassau St. Weekdays from Nov. 21 to Dec. 2, open from 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.

2. Boquitas Pintadas — “Freda” movie screening

The Department of Spanish and Portuguese 010 East Pyne Nov. 18, 7 p.m. – 9:30 p.m.

Join the Department of Spanish and Portuguese on Friday for a screening of the movie “Freda.” The film, featuring debut actress, activist, and filmmaker Gés sica Généus, makes history as the first film by a female Haitian director to be nominated for an award at the Cannes Film Festival. The film follows the story of a university student living with her family in a poor neighborhood of Portau-Prince, as she navigates the dangers of her chosen path.

4. Víkingur Ólafsson:

Piano

Princeton Department of Music Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall Nov. 20, at 3 p.m.

Víkingur Ólafsson — “the new superstar of the piano” — is coming to Princ eton. The Icelandic pianist brings with him the ability to breathe life into clas sical conventions, inviting listeners to rediscover the works of legendary com poser Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Those interested in hearing the international sensation live in-person can do so in Richardson Auditorium this Sunday. Tick ets for the event are on sale: $10 for students and $30 to $50 for the general public.

6. Verse/Chorus: Songwriting Workshops with Kamara Thomas

Lewis Center for the Arts Wallace Dance Theater Nov. 20, 4 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Stop by a workshop to sharpen your musical lyricism with Princeton Arts Fellow Kamara Thomas and her methods to achieve effective songwriting. Piano and guitar are provided, with the opportunity to bring your own in strument to the session.

8. My Big Fat Interfaith Thanksgiving

Hosted by the Office of Religious Life Chancellor Green Rotunda Nov. 21 at 5 p.m.

Want a taste of Thanksgiving food before returning home for break? The Of fice of Religious Life is hosting its annual “Big Fat Interfaith Thanksgiving Dinner” this Monday. The gathering provides space to celebrate community and reflect on gratitude. Vegetarian and Kosher options will be available. A. Revathi, a trans woman activist, performer, and author, enacts her life as a Tamil trans woman finding community, building solidarities, and discovering the joys of writing and performing. The performance will be translated and moderated by Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow and Lecturer in Anthropology Aniruddhan Vasudevan.

10. Taste and See

11. HERE YE, HEAR YE!!! An Exhibition by

Mark Thomas Gibson

Lewis Center for the Arts

Hurley Gallery, Lewis Arts Complex

Weekdays until Nov. 23, open from 10 a.m. – 8 p.m.

View the works of 2021–2022

Hodder Fellow Mark Thomas Gibson next week in his exhibition which visualizes how we navigate the information in our minds on a daily basis. The exhibition, described as “one part town crier, one part Twitter feed, one part government protester, and one part inner mono logue,” inspects our social fabric in the context of a “heavily mediated world.”

Hosted by the Office of Religious Life Murray-Dodge 206 Nov. 22, at 12 p.m.

Hear from different perspectives and ask questions in this weekly discussion regarding contemporary issues, such as “politics, sexuality, race, interfaith relations, joy, grief,” and more. Attendees are advised to bring lunch.

Visit the Lucas Gallery on Nassau Street in order to view new work by students in the “Fabric Logics: Textiles as Sculpture” class. Students work with 3D fabric construction, weaving, knitting, knotting, and other media to create sculptures. The class, supported by the Program in Visual Arts, is taught by MJ Daines.

Returning again after

Jaden Sharp | Contributing Writer

Football suffers first loss of season at Yale, 24–20

By Nishka Bahl Sports Contributor

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — On Sat urday afternoon, Princeton football (8–1 overall, 5–1 Ivy League) fell to Yale (7–2, 5–1) in a 24–20 battle in New Haven. This was the Tigers’ first loss in their otherwise unde feated season and it cost Princeton their first-place ranking in the Ivy League. Yale and Princeton are now tied on top of the Ivy League stand ings with a 5–1 conference record each.

The game was one of the most anticipated of the season as the Princeton-Yale rivalry is the sec ond-oldest in college football. Hav ing already defeated the Harvard Crimson (6–3, 4–2) in Cambridge in October, Princeton looked to se cure their second consecutive bon fire with a victory over Yale in the 144th all-time matchup between the schools.

Coming into this game, how ever, more than the bonfire was on the line, as the winner of every Princeton-Yale game since 2016 has gone on to win at least a share of the Ivy League title, while the loser has missed out on the championship. A Princeton win would have ensured that the Tigers would at least tie for the 2022 Ivy League Championship, while a Bulldogs victory would keep Yale’s chances to clinch the champi onship alive.

“I think students talk about all that; it’s not something we talk about,” Princeton head coach Bob Surace ’90 said about the extra nerves on the team due to the rival ry and Ivy League Championship implications. “You know, watching the last couple of games Yale played, we study it well, and that is what you concentrate on.”

Throughout the season, the Yale offense has demonstrated strength, leading the Ivy League in scoring offense, total offense, and rushing offense. However, the Princeton de fense currently leads the Ivies in all three defensive categories, which promised a tough contest.

“[Yale] just won their last game 69–17, so we expected a dogfight,” Surace told The Daily Princetonian.

Right from the start, the teams were evenly matched. Princeton

WATER POLO

kicked off the first quarter with a messy, penalty-heavy 13-play drive down the field. After an offside call on Yale and two penalties on Princeton for illegal formation and holding, the drive ended with Yale defensive back Brandon Benn inter cepting junior quarterback Blake Stenstrom on the Yale 24 yard-line to give the Bulldogs possession.

Yale responded with a similar drive down the field to the Princ eton 32-yard line, which ended in junior linebacker Ozzie Nicholas intercepting Bulldogs quarterback Nolan Grooms, leaving the score at 0–0 after each team’s first posses sion.

Princeton was unable to convert their turnover into points, failing to gain a first down and quickly handing the ball back to the Bull dogs. Yale took over at the 50 yardline and put together a 12-play drive that resulted in the first points on the scoreboard. Yale running back Joshua Pitsenberger ran the ball one yard into the end zone to make the score 7–0.

The Tigers responded with a quick, five play, 75-yard drive down the field that culminated in Sten strom connecting with senior wide receiver Michael Axelrood for a 42yard touchdown that tied the game at 7–7.

Princeton football did not have to wait long to strike again, as Yale gained only seven yards on their three-play drive before handing the ball back to the Tigers at the Princeton 31 yard-line. The Tigers successfully drove back down the field with two long passes from Stenstrom to senior wide receiver Dylan Classi, one for 18 yards and a first down and the other for 28 yards and a touchdown.

With the score now 14–7, Yale at tempted to drive down the field. After a four minute, 10-play drive, the Bulldogs made it to the Prince ton 37-yard line. The Tigers’ defense then made a stop and forced a punt, only to respond with a quick, four play possession ending with a punt as time ran out in the first half.

To start the second half, both Yale and Princeton went three and out on their first possessions, punt ing back and forth. The Yale offense then picked up, starting their next

possession with a 49-yard run by Grooms, which set up a 14-yard touchdown pass to Bulldogs wide receiver Chase Nenad on the second play of the drive, making the score tied at 14–14.

Princeton’s next drive featured an 11-yard run by Stenstrom for a first down, but the Tigers were un able to move the chains a second time. After Princeton made an un successful 4th down attempt, Yale regained possession on the Princ eton 43-yard line. Starting in Tiger territory, the Bulldogs’ kicker Jack Bosman kicked a 44-yard field goal after only a 17-yard drive, giving Yale the lead at 17–14.

The Tigers then regained posses sion, but once again, the Yale de fense prevented Princeton’s offense from gaining much. Eight plays and 18 yards later, the Tigers had punted the ball back to the Bulldogs.

The Yale offense once again charged down the field. This sixplay, 59-yard drive ended in Grooms running for a 19-yard touchdown, extending the Bulldogs lead to 24–14, and making it a two-score game at the end of the third quarter.

“Their quarterback is a tre mendous athlete,” Surace told the ‘Prince’ in reference to Grooms. “He gave us fits at times. We were pre pared for what they showed, but when two good teams play, it is go ing to come down to small things, and they got us.”

Princeton and Yale each punted back to each other once before the

Tigers offense showed some life, largely due to the strong chemistry between Stenstrom and Classi, who connected for a combined 41 yards on this drive. To cap off the drive, Stenstrom completed a 22-yard pass to senior tight end Carson Bobo for a touchdown, but the Yale defense blocked sophomore kicker Jeffrey Sexton’s point after touchdown (PAT), bringing the score to 24–20.

On the ensuing Yale drive, Princ eton defense held the Bulldogs to a punt, giving the Tigers another chance to close the gap. After sev eral short pass completions by Stenstrom, Yale defensive linemen Alvin Gulley Jr. and Clay Patterson both sacked Stenstrom on back to back plays for a combined loss of 10 yards. Momentum shifted towards the Bulldogs defense, and Benn in tercepted Stenstrom for the second time this game.

With 3:20 left in the game, Yale regained the ball thanks to the in terception. The Princeton defense attempted to stop the Bulldogs, while preserving enough time on the game clock for them to score a touchdown. The Tigers succeeded in this endeavor, but with only 1:35 left on the game clock to score by the time the offense got the ball back.

While fans nervously glanced between the dwindling game clock and the field, Stenstrom completed quick, successive passes, targeting Classi, Bobo, and senior wide receiv er Andrei Iosivas on the sidelines to

drive down to the Yale 15-yard line. The time ran out with an incom plete pass shot over Classi’s head in the end zone, and the Bulldogs’ 24–20 victory was final.

“It was a great game. It comes down to a play at the end,” Surace said. “We made our mistakes, and we have to correct them and get bet ter for next week.”

Princeton fans will have to wait until next season for another chance at participating in the bon fire tradition, but the season is not over yet. A Princeton victory next weekend over Penn (7–2, 4–2) would ensure the Tigers get at least a share of the Ivy title, the 14th in program history, and their second consecu tive, having shared the title with Dartmouth last season. A Yale vic tory over Harvard would do the same for the Bulldogs, but should Princeton win and Yale lose, the Ti gers can win the title outright, and vice-versa.

“We always focus on stopping things teams do well,” Surace said, looking ahead to next week’s Penn game. “We did a good job defending deep balls and things of that nature. We did not do a great job on the running game, and we are going to have to tighten that up.”

Bahl is a contributor

‘A real privilege’: brothers Keller Maloney ’23 and Pierce Maloney ’24 reflect on water polo careers

By Hayk Yengibaryan Sports Contributor

From growing up together in Los Angeles to playing together for the Tigers, the Maloney brothers have a lifetime’s experience of supporting each other in and outside of the pool.

Keller Maloney ’23 is a captain of the Princeton men’s water polo team. His younger brother Pierce Maloney ’24, who has been by his side since childhood, is another key contribu tor to the success of the Princeton program.

It seems as though love for water polo runs in their family. The broth ers’ history with water polo traces back to their father, who played at Harvard University and was an in strumental figure in the founding of the program in Cambridge. When the brothers were 12 and 11 years old, their mother began to encourage them to play water polo.

“The pool was freezing, we were wearing a tight, uncomfortable bathing suit. We hated it at first,” Keller told The Daily Princetonian.

While there wasn’t a ‘love at first sight’ moment for the brothers when they initially stepped into the pool, they soon developed a passion for the sport.

Their first interactions with the sport began at the L.A. Premier Water Polo Club, headed at the time by cur rent Stanford University head coach Brian Flacks. Flacks was also the high school coach for Harvard Westlake, where both brothers attended school. As coach of the school’s team, Flacks won four California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section Cham pionships.

“Flacks was the most critical fig

ure in our development as players. Keller and I have had the privilege of being coached by both Brian Flacks and Dustin Litvak, two of the best coaches in the United States for water polo,” Pierce told the ‘Prince.’

Pierce’s best memory before com ing to Princeton was winning the Division I CIF Southern Section Championships during his senior year of high school. He called it “one of the most rewarding moments be fore coming to Princeton.” Coinci dentally, it was a moment he had the opportunity to enjoy with current Princeton teammates senior Ryan Neapole and junior George Caras, both of whom are also Westlake alumni.

Of course, Pierce also joined a third Westlake teammate at Princ eton — his brother, Keller. For Pierce, playing with Keller goes beyond the bond they have as brothers.

“[Playing with Keller] is a real privilege,” Pierce said. “He is a won derful leader and consistent on every team I have been a part of. He’s been the most dedicated and competitive member.”

Likewise, Keller had nothing but praise for his younger brother.

“He makes the biggest plays con sistently. I’ve learned a lot from him, and he’s driven me to be a better play er,” Keller said.

While both brothers are now at Princeton, they were recruited by two different coaches — Keller by the former Princeton head coach Luis Nicolao and Pierce by current coach Litvak.

Keller described how deeply upset he was when he found out that Nico lao had left Princeton: “I felt like I committed to something that was no

longer present. The rug was pulled underneath me.”

Despite his initial reaction, Keller was ecstatic when Litvak was an nounced as the new head coach. The Maloneys’ cousin had been coached by Litvak in California and spoke highly of the newly announced coach.

Keller had an amazing season in the pool as a first-year in 2018, posting 35 goals and 42 assists. He helped the program qualify for the National Collegiate Athletic Asso ciation (NCAA) tournament for the first time since 2015. Unfortunately for Keller and the Tigers, they would go on to lose to George Washington University in the opening round of the NCAA tournament.

A year later, Pierce became one of Litvak’s two recruits at Princeton.

“It was one of the more satisfy ing days of my life,” Pierce told the ‘Prince,’ recalling the moment he committed to the Princeton admis sions process.

After a year apart, the two broth ers would finally play together once again in 2019. That fall, the Maloney brothers combined for 69 goals and 54 assists. While the team did not qualify for the NCAA tournament, the brothers’ impact early in their collegiate careers heralded the suc cess to come. Keller was named to the Northeast Water Polo Conference All Tournament Second-Team, with Pierce earning an Honorable Men tion.

With the 2020 season canceled due to the pandemic, the two ath letes gained an extra year of eligibil ity in the NCAA. Taking advantage of this, Keller and Pierce reclassified to the classes of 2023 and 2024, re

spectively.

After a nearly two-year hiatus, the 2021 season was highly anticipated by both brothers, as well as the rest of the team. That season, the Tigers set a program record with 26 wins and subsequently qualified for the NCAA tournament.

The Maloney brothers combined for 81 goals and 57 assists. Keller was named NWPC player of the week three times, First Team All-NWPC, and NWPC All Tournament First Team.

For Keller, the highlight of the season was winning the conference championships at home a year ago.

“The game itself was great. We came back to win after being down three goals. The energy from the crowd the entire game was spectac ular,” Keller said. “When the final whistle blew, 30 to 40 of the students jumped in to celebrate with us. It was magical.”

In the first round of the NCAA tournament, Pierce would go on to score a hat trick and provide two as sists against Fordham, advancing them to a contest with No. 2 UCLA.

Unfortunately for Princeton, the game resulted in a loss, but it did not take away from what was a historic season.

This year, the two have contin ued to help Princeton make history, providing 69 goals and 66 assists so far. Perhaps the most special mo ment this season was beating No. 3 Stanford (20–4, 0–3 Mountain Pa cific Sports Federation), coached by none other than Flacks, their child hood coach. The win also marked the first time Princeton had beat a Big 4 school (California, Stanford, California-Los Angeles, or Southern

California) in program history.

“Keller and I have a deep apprecia tion of what it takes to beat Flacks in a game. It was a really great feeling,” Pierce told the ‘Prince.’ “However, though it is making history, we have bigger goals for the season.”

“The opportunity to see Flacks on a pool deck is one I’ll cherish for ever. He has been my closest mentor and one of my best friends. He has been instrumental in my growth as a player and person,” Keller added. “It was weird hearing Brian’s voice during the game. It took me a second to recognize that he was not not my coach. The moment is one I’ll remem ber forever.”

The Tigers are in the midst of an other historic season and will have a chance to break the program record for wins, set last season. The win against Stanford is just a step in the right direction.

With the season coming to an end, the Maloney brothers now only have a few more games of water polo together in their lifetime. They are now in the home run stretch of their season, with every game potentially being the end of their season, and more importantly, the end of the 11year journey for the two.

“Water polo has been the thing that has given me the most in life and what I have given most to. Imagining not playing it anymore is scary to me, and it is a part of [my] identity,” Keller said. “There’s a part of me that wants to hold on and cherish every second I have playing this sport and playing with Pierce.”

Nishka

to the Sports section at the ‘Prince.’ Please di rect any corrections requests to correc tions at dailyprincetonian.com.

CONNOR ODOM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The Tigers will have a chance to win a share of the Ivy League title next weekend against Penn.

Hayk Yengibaryan is a contributor to the Sports section at the ‘Prince.’