March 7, 2013

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Thursday march 7, 2013 vol. cxxxvii no. 24

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LOCAL NEWS

DeZarn to run for NJ state senate

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In Opinion Prianka Misra discusses ethnic associations, and Lauren Prastien responds to sexual violence statistics. PAGE 4

By Michael Granovetter senior writer

In Street Street Editor Abby Williams goes behind the scenes of “Admission” with Tina Fey, Paul Rudd and Paul Weitz. PAGE S1

The Archives

Mar. 7, 1972 The Princeton faculty voted 89-87 to adopt an academic calendar that would provide a fall break before the 1973 election.

On the Blog Former African American Studies professor Melissa Harris-Perry objected to the Harlem Shake meme on her MSNBC news and opinion show.

On the Blog

Jeff Liu reviews “Amok,” the debut album of Thom Yorke’s side project, Atoms for Peace.

News & Notes

PSE&G customers without power

A reported 1,170 Public Service Electric and Gas customers in New Jersey lost power today as a result of a powerful storm on the Atlantic Coast.

A representative for PSE&G said that most of the outages are concentrated to Central Jersey and are largely the result of downed utility poles from the storm’s high winds.

At this point, PSE&G said it is unclear when power will be restored. The University, a PSE&G customer, was still receiving power from PSE&G as of Wednesday night, according to the PSE&G website.

Equipment malfunction causes wireless outage

University wireless network users experienced a wireless Internet outage of about 45 minutes on Wednesday morning around 11 a.m. due to equipment malfunction.

University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua said that a piece of equipment that controls access to the wireless system to the network malfunctioned and an automatic backup was unable to pick up the wireless connection.

OIT staff are working to determine the cause of the malfunction in both the wireless device and the automatic backup. Mbugua said there is no indication that the outage was caused by inclement weather.

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HORIA RADOI :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

The Princeton University Orchestra rehearses at Richardson Auditorium for its concerts Friday and Saturday, featuring Jeff Li ’13, Louisa Slosar ’15 and Paul von Autenried ’16, the student winners of the annual concerto competition.

LOCAL NEWS

Town awaits consolidation reimbursement from state

By Kristen McNierney staff writer

The newly-consolidated Princeton is seeking $460,000 from the state of New Jersey to cover transition costs incurred over the past year. Before Princeton residents voted to consolidate the Princeton Borough and Township in November 2011, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie informed the municipalities in September of the same year that they would be reimbursed for 20 percent of the consolidation costs.

However, now that the town has submitted a request to the state, it is unclear which expenses are eligible for reimbursement.

During the transition process, which spanned 2012, the municipalities estimated $1.7 million in consolidation costs, Princeton Council President

Bernard Miller said. This February, the council submitted a request to the New Jersey Department of Community Affairs for reimbursement of $460,000, or 19 percent of the final $2.4 million sum, and met with DCAofficials to discuss the reimbursement.

The request for reimbursement outlined a list of total expenses that the two municipalities incurred during the transition period, but town officials said the meeting did not produce a specific agreement and they are still unsure which costs the state will choose to reimburse.

“We have one meeting with them to discuss our request, and we’re hopeful that the state will live up to its promise of 20 percent,” Miller said.

In the 2012 Princeton Township Budget Newsletter, the Citizens’ Finance Advisory Committee had assured tax-

payers that “the state has committed to pay 20 percent of the one-time transition costs.”

DCA spokeswoman Tammori Petty told The Times of Trenton this month that Christie’s offer stipulated that only expenses that were “absolutely necessary” for consolidation would be eligible for the 20 percent return.

According to Miller, it was impossible to lay out the exact costs of consolidation when the governor first made his offer because no one knew what expenses would be incurred. Princeton is the first town in the state to consolidate two previously separate municipalities in over half a century.

“Since this was the first merger, there was no guidebook to follow,” Miller said. “We were breaking new ground.”

He explained that the majority of See JERSEY page 3

Senior Operations Manager for Butler/Wilson Dining Services Donald DeZarn has announced that he will run as the Libertarian candidate in November’s election for state senator of the 14th Legislative District of New Jersey. While his platform includes advocacy for small businesses and free enterprise, he said he also hopes to initiate a dialogue on what he calls “sensitive” issues by openly supporting gay marriage and the legalization of marijuana.

Because the New Jersey Libertarian Party does not conduct a primary election, DeZarn will automatically be nominated at a statewide Libertarian convention on March 16. He will run against the incumbent Democratic Senator Linda Greenstein.

The Republican Party has not yet announced any candidates.

The 2013 run for state senator will be DeZarn’s first political campaign. He has been employed

by Dining Services for the past 17 years, though he took a yearlong military leave in 2005 to serve in the Iraq War. DeZarn became interested in pursuing a political campaign after “waking up one morning” and asking himself, “What happened to my country that I love?” DeZarn explained that he was inspired to run for office after hearing about the financial struggles of both his neighbors in East Windsor and his colleagues in Dining Services. He added that he believes that both Democrats and Republicans today are limiting the free enterprise system.

“It makes me sick to see our state give out subsidies while the mom-and-pop private businesses don’t get that even playing field,” he said. “No one really has a plan to get us out of this mess.”

DeZarn said that in addition to minimizing government regulation of small businesses, he intends to “start a movement” by generating conversations about marijuana legalization and the rights of gay men and women.

“There are politicians in Trenton who agree with me on these issues, but they’re not willing to be the first to stand up for them for political reasons,” DeZarn explained. “But I’m not a politician, so I have nothing to lose.”

In particular, DeZarn noted that he believes that See ELECTION page 2

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

U. to receive symbolic tiles from Hiroshima bombing

By Lydia Lim staff writer

Hordes of survivors of the world’s first atomic bombing in Hiroshima were rushing toward Motoyasu River on Aug. 6, 1945, only blocks away from the epicenter of the blast. The Japanese citizens, whose bodies were severely burned, jumped into the river in hope of relieving their pain, but many did not survive. Countless bodies were seen floating down the Motoyasu in the days following the bombing, revealing only a small fragment of the destruction that permeated the entire city.

Last August, Hiroshima University bequeathed seven roof tiles that were collected from the riverbed of the Motoyasu to Princeton. The tiles were a gift

in honor of the University’s support of the restoration of the Hiroshima campus in 1951.

Four years after the bombing, Hiroshima University President Tatsuo Morito wrote to universities around the world requesting gifts of books and trees to help the university rebuild its campus.

“Because the atomic bomb had essentially leveled the campus, buildings and all trees, [Hiroshima University was] initially asking for trees, and they asked if, in lieu of sending a tree, to make a monetary donation,” Daniel J. Linke, the University archivist at Mudd Library, said.

Princeton’s then-Assistant to the President Arthur E. Fox wrote back to Morito in May 1951, stating that the University would donate a book to Hiroshima University’s See MOTOYASU page 2

COURTESY OF MUDD LIBRARY

The tiles recognize Princeton’s contribution in rebuilding Hiroshima University.

ACADEMICS

U. researchers develop technique to probe ‘missing heritability’

By Greta Shum contributor

A new University study recently published in Nature has shown that extensive genetic mapping can be used to trace the genetic origins of even the smallest trait variations, providing support for 20th-century scientific arguments that privilege nature over nurture.

The study was conducted by Joshua Bloom, a graduate student in the molecular biology department who developed the project for his Ph.D., and ecology and evolutionary biology

professor Leonid Kruglyak ’87.

Bloom was unavailable to comment for this article.

Thuy-Lan Vo Lite ’12, who worked on the project for her senior thesis, said she enjoyed participating in the investigation of the “missing heritability,” a mystery that has existed in genetics since the 1920s.

“In humans there’s this problem where even in traits that we know are heritable, we can’t really find all the genetic components to fully explain that heritability,” Lite said.

“But in this project, we are able to take a heritable trait

like drug response and find all of the genetic components responsible for the phenotype.

And we can predict the phenotype very accurately from the genotype.”

Lite said the new genetic mapping technique has given new evidence for the genetic “nature” of an organism to dictate every inherited trait.

While the previous technique for tracking genetic features in humans had allowed scientists to understand heritability, the majority of variation in inherited traits has so far been inexplicable. Variations in inherited traits like height and

genetic disease could not be attributed to particular genes.

By default, they had been attributed to an organism’s environment, the “nurture” of “nature versus nurture.”

However, by changing their approach, Bloom and his research team determined that this so-called “missing heritability” can be traced through genes. For many inherited traits, variation in what is expressed can be explained by each trait’s extended network of genes, rather than individual areas of the genome, according to Kruglyak.

Bloom’s technique involved

studying enormous generations of yeast that inherited their ancestors’ genes in ways that the scientists could measure. By crossing two different strains of yeast — one developed in the lab and one from a vineyard — Bloom used simulations and breeding techniques to model and grow extended families.

By using yeast, a very simple organism with a linear genome, Bloom was able to develop a system that simultaneously introduced variety in the gene pool and allowed individual traits to See GENES page 3

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The Daily Princetonian

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Gift honors Princeton’s monetary Dining hall manager announces donation to rebuild Japanese campus Libertarian candidacy for 14th district MOTOYASU Continued from page 1

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library as well as five American dollars for the purchase of a tree.

Although he considered sending a sapling from the United States, Fox said that due to the uncertainties of transportation, Princeton decided to give a monetary donation in the hopes that Hiroshima University would use it to select a native tree to plant on its campus.

Sixty-one years after the University’s gift was delivered, Hiroshima University created an association of students to send roof tiles that survived the bombing to schools worldwide that had supported the university during its reconstruction.

The tiles were collected in January 2012 from the riverbed of Motoyasu River, just a few blocks away from the Aioi Bridge, which was the central target location for

the atomic bombing.

Hiroshima University created the program to spread awareness about the lethal effects of nuclear weapons as part of its mission for peace, explained Lynn Durgin, the special collections assistant at Mudd Library.

Linke said the roof tiles are a “very significant gift.” The $5 monetary donation that the University sent to Hiroshima in 1951 amounts to $44.28 in today’s dollars. Linke explained the symbolism of Princeton’s support was more important than the actual dollar value of the gift.

Durgin said the tiles have been tested by Hiroshima University and are no longer radioactive.

Every year on the anniversary of the bombing, paper lanterns are floated down the Motoyasu to console the souls of atomic bomb victims, a commemoration marked by Japanese spiritualistic beliefs.

A document from Hiroshima University held by Mudd Library explained that during the bombing, the bodies of victims who had jumped into the river were washed away by the high tide and floated down the river in the days following the bombing.

Each roof tile “thus contains the souls of the people whose lives were very regretfully taken away by this tragedy,” the document read.

A letter from current Hiroshima University President Toshimasa Asahara to the University in 2012 explained that the tiles “will forever serve as a memory of 8:15 a.m. on Aug. 6, 1945,” silently conveying the destructive power of the atomic bomb to institutions overseas.

Asahara commended “the selfless, charitable spirit” that Princeton demonstrated to Hiroshima University “as a cherished treasure of human society.”

ELECTION Continued from page 1

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marijuana could benefit many patients. He said that elderly individuals with chronic ailments should be able to access the drug.

DeZarn added that marijuana prohibition laws are “racist,” as he believes certain groups in the population are targeted more heavily than others.

“It’s not only young black males that use marijuana,” he said.

Legalization of gay marriage on a future New Jersey ballot is also an agenda DeZarn said he would like to see.

“New Jersey prides itself on being a progressive state,” he said.

“There are people who support this very much.”

While DeZarn has reached out to Princeton’s American Civil Liberties Union, he said he hopes to make contact with LGBT groups on campus throughout his campaign. While Princeton students are not registered to vote in the 14th district, DeZarn nonetheless said he wants to have the opportunity to meet with such

student groups to “be a voice that they have never had before.” He added that he hopes he can “plug into” fellow Libertarians on campus, although he noted that he is not familiar with many student organizations.

Greenstein said she had not been aware of DeZarn’s campaign before speaking with The Daily Princetonian on Wednesday afternoon. She stated that the announcement of his candidacy will have no impact on her campaign schedule.

“I welcome any and all people into the race, whoever they are,” she said. “Everyone has the right to run.”

Greenstein also said that, while it is not the centerpiece of her campaign, she shares DeZarn’s stance on gay marriage equality and explained that he would not be generating a new discussion by including this view in his platform. She noted that the issue has been brought up in the Senate several times and that she has voted for the legalization of gay marriage in past Senate discussions.

On the subject of the legaliza-

tion of marijuana, Greenstein declined to comment, saying that she would consider discussing the issue with DeZarn in future debates later in the campaign.

DeZarn informed his Dining Services supervisors of his candidacy on Wednesday afternoon.

He said he intends to continue working at the University if he were to be elected.

University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua said that there is no policy that governs employees running for an elected office in their personal capacity. He added that if an employee wished to continue working for the University after being elected to a public office, the University would consider the situation “on a caseby-case basis depending on the requirements of the job.”

At the same time, DeZarn said that he expects the administration and the campus to be receptive to his campaign.

“Princeton’s motto is ‘in the nation’s service and service of all nations,’ and I want to serve my nation,” DeZarn said. “I expect that [the University] would be supportive of my endeavors.”

KATE KANEKO :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

DeZarn will run as the Libertarian candidate for 14th Legislative District senator in November.

Work for the most respected news source on campus.

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The Daily Princetonian

Thursday march 7, 2013

New Princeton seeks to cover transition costs JERSEY

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consolidation costs were associated with the modification of facilities in order to accommodate merging departments.

For example, he said, the original Borough and Township had distinct police departments — each with approximately 30 officers — that were housed in two separate facilities. But after the merger, the departments consolidated into one dispatch center at the former Township police station.

“We had to modify the police facility at 400 Witherspoon to accommodate a much larger department,” he said.

While the joint departments have no more personnel than the sum of the original two departments, a single facility was chosen to house the consolidated department. Other departments,

including the finance department, were subject to similar accommodation fees.

A large percentage of the transition costs was also taken up by legal fees, which amount to $340,000 according to The Times of Trenton. These legal costs were incurred in order to make one set of laws for each district, Miller said.

According to Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert, one of the major legal disputes involved the 2012 school board election, which was the last official election to take place between the separate Borough and Township. The election was scheduled for April 2012, after consolidation had been approved, but since the two municipalities had discrete voting districts until June, state law did not specify how the election ought to be carried out.

“We went back and forth with the state trying to get some direction, but since the law wasn’t

giving any guidance, we needed to use our lawyers to figure out what to do that wasn’t going to break the law,” Lempert said.

Another example of these legal negotiations was the standardization of dog license fees. Before the consolidation, the Borough had a dog license fee that was substantially lower than the Township’s, Miller said.

He said a more significant discussion was required to rationalize the distinct zoning requirements between the Borough and the Township.

“In many instances, we turned to the state and asked them to walk us through [these negotiations] from the legal standpoint,” Miller said. “The state said, ‘We’d love to help you, but we don’t have the resources.’ ” In addition to some of the legal expenses, technology costs, including the creation of a common email and telephone system, were also incurred. It is unclear wheth-

er the state will consider these costs necessary for the merger.

Although Princeton did not receive financial support from the state during the transition process, they did receive operational guidance from the DCA. “The state actually had someone working with us all the way through the process,” Miller said.

“That individual was not from the financial side, but from the operational side.”

Miller said the state played a very important role during the consolidation process, but he said he hopes an agreement can be made regarding the finances so that future mergers are not met with the same challenges.

“There are other municipalities that are looking at the possibility of merging,” he said. “If [the state] does not live up to [its] promise, then looking at it from a long-term standpoint, other municipalities are less likely to go through with consolidation.”

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Bloom, Kruglyak published in Nature GENES

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be measured over large scales, Kruglyak said. In this way, Bloom was able to monitor specific variations and account for almost all of the yeast’s genetic features.

According to Kruglyak, while the results are not yet directly applicable to humans, they offer the exciting possibility of understanding every genetic trait with an extensive and large-scale operation.

“We could have done a study of this scale and found that

“In humans... we can’t really find all the genetic components to fully explain that heritability.” thuy-lan vo lite ’12 most of the heritability was missing,” he said. “And so it was pretty cool to see that, at least in the simplified case,

we could actually say that for all of these different traits we really can find 80-90 percent of the heritable traits that we expect to be there, due to these specific well-defined regions of the genome that we can pin down.”

Kruglyak said extending this research to humans could introduce complications because there is no way to monitor human genetic heritage on a similar scale. But he said he found the results exciting as a confirmed case in which biologists’ understanding of genetics was significantly improved with a simpler model.

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Prianka Misra columnist

O

P r i a n k a Mi s r a i s a f r e sh m a n f r o m Ca s t r o Va ll e y, Ca lif. He c a n b e r ea ch ed a t p m i s r a @ p r in c e to n . e d u .

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Friendships at Princeton

n a frigid Thursday night, I donned my gloves and buried myself in a thickly knit scarf and began my trek up campus to Witherspoon Hall. I was coming down with the flu, but I went anyway. I could practically hear my upperclassman friends chuckling, “Oh, freshman,” as I shivered and power-walked toward my reward for a week of 4 a.m. bedtimes: passes to Cloister’s Two Articles Night. As much as I, a California native, had trouble fathoming why my boots were crunching through the snowy debris in the middle of February (just a few hours earlier I had a high fever!), I loved it. I knew that my friendships were bolstered by more than colored squares of paper, but I still felt fortunate to have connections with others that enabled me to enjoy these theme nights.

This was — in part, of course — what college was about.

I had joined several South Asian organizations — the South Asian Students Association, Princeton South Asian Theatrics, Naacho, Princeton Bhangra — that led others to jokingly nickname me “the brown queen.” I wore the crown gladly.

These groups didn’t exist to me before, so I chose to become as involved as I could.

At my high school, I was just the “brown one”: the single token Indian in my grade, at a place that touted its diversity as an integral part of its motto. At Princeton, I met other people who knew about Shahrukh Khan — every ’90s kid’s favorite Bollywood actor — and the real way to enjoy a samosa (no, not the Girl Scout cookie, and yes, soaked in chutney). I was absolutely thrilled, until I arrived back at my room that night with the passes I had obtained.

As I handed one to my friend, she nonchalantly said to me, “I wish I could be ethnic like you so I could get passes to eating clubs.” She wasn’t joking. When I asked her what she meant, she continued, “I just feel like you have so many brown connections that can get you into places. It’s not fair. I wish there were a White Student Association.”

With these statements, she made me question all of my South Asian friends at Princeton. I understood her hunger for passes — it’s no secret that passes serve as an epicenter of freshman nightlife at Princeton. But her final comment unleashed a slew of questions in my mind. Did I only have close friends or feel a sense of community on campus because I was Indian? Were all of my connections solely based on the commonality of our ethnicity, not on similar values or personalities? I remembered an excerpt from a book I had read for my freshman seminar: In his collection of essays called “White,” Richard Dyer talks about white people’s perceived lack of shared identity and cultural belonging. I thought about what it was like to be on the other side of this situation. Was it harder to fit in and find a niche as a white student at Princeton?

Admittedly, I was angry and bitter about my friend’s comment. I reflected on the reason why I was in these student groups and why they existed in the first place. They were designed to allow students like me — who didn’t necessarily have groups to express their identity, whose names were always accompanied by a pause in roll call, who had to explain in kindergarten that they were not the Native American Indian but the “other” type — to finally belong. The undeniable sense of shared identity in these groups let me know that I was not alone in my experiences and that they add a richness and depth to my story that I should appreciate rather than scorn.

But if you — yes, literally any of you, regardless of race, culture or ethnicity — wanted to join our groups and learn about our traditions, you could. Given the number of student organizations we have here that aren’t based on race or cultural identity, I am certain that you do not have to be “ethnic” to find your place here. I don’t just have friends because I am “brown.” I have friends because I have interests: being a cultural leader, volunteering, dancing, acting. Every member of these cultural clubs and organizations has different hobbies and interests. You don’t have to be “ethnic” to fit in with us because we don’t label ourselves that way. Before “Indian,” we are athletes, artists, scholars and more.

Getting over the automatic assumption that you don’t belong in certain cultural groups is not a simple feat, but from what I have seen, we appreciate non-South Asian members to an even greater extent for their interest in exploring our movies, music, food and lives. Although I can’t speak from their perspective, non-South Asian members seem to enjoy being in these organizations as well, immersing themselves in new traditions and historical fabrics. We all can learn something from those who already understand that, when it comes to Princeton’s student groups, cultural barriers are simply imagined.

Opinion

Thursday march 7, 2013

Shruthi Deivasigamani

Cutting weeds

Columnist

S

itting in my adviser’s office with four days to the official start of my freshman fall, I glanced over my course registration form over and over again. I was still in the process of mentally settling into the fact that this was college, that finally my days would be filled with classes I’d love and my nights with readings I’d be elated to do. My outlook was naive and optimistic, and somehow, as if to underscore that, I’d ended up with a schedule that granted me a beautiful fourday weekend every week. My adviser glanced over my course load and nodded.

“Looks good.” And then she chuckled. “I bet you’re going to love that 8:30 Orgo.”

“I heard that that’s a weeding technique,” I said, recalling something my Princeton Preview host had told me, verbatim, several months before.

“So people who aren’t serious about being pre-med just drop out of that.”

She nodded. “Sounds about right.”

I honestly didn’t think too much of it. In high school, I had gotten up five times a week at 6 a.m. Surely I could do twice a week at 8 a.m. But as I quickly realized, seemingly endless late labs that are scheduled perfectly the night before lead to doing work far into the single-digit hours.

Orgo had quickly become the bane of my existence. I was trudging through a class that seemed hard enough, even without the additional “weeder” element of it being early in the morning.

Complaining about an 8:30 Orgo class might seem petty, but I think it’s reflective of a bigger problem.

The idea that there has to be a filter between 18- and 19-year-olds who absolutely know they want to go to medical school and 18- and 19-yearolds who are just open to the possibility is a little disheartening. Orgo is a difficult class as it is, and classes in the morning are arguably the least conducive to staying awake and paying attention. Indeed, when I walked into McCosh 50 on Tuesday mornings last semester and slipped into my cold, wooden seat, more people were asleep than awake before lecture had even started.

I don’t think the concept of “weeders” is warranted. I’m speaking specifically of additional measures taken so that, presumably, a particular class is as inconvenient as possible and only the most serious decide to embark on the endeavor. There shouldn’t be an established idea that people who aren’t serious about being pre-med, for example, shouldn’t dabble in the required course load because of how unforgiving the curve is or how inconvenient the classes are.

The fact of the matter is: Who is serious about anything at the age of 18? Colleges, and Princeton in particular, encourage you to explore your interests, expand your horizons and do things out of your comfort zone. However, there seems to be an unsaid rule that there are only some things that can be explored outside of your comfort zone. You often hear of people dabbling in French literature or creative writing, but never in chemistry or ORFE. The latter two are among those courses saddled with an unforgiving reputation. You’d be hard-pressed to find someone studying Orgo out of his sheer love for benzene rings and acetone. Discouraging students from embarking on a

vol. cxxxvii

particular career path by making the career path as difficult as possible runs the very obvious risk of boxing out students who may actually be talented in the field but never got the opportunity to develop their passion because they were dissuaded in the beginning.

The problem seems to be at its apex in the sciences, engineering and the pre-med track. It seems that every issue of Newsweek, US News or The Huffington Post decries America’s inability to keep up in the evergrowing and ever-globalizing realm of STEM. Why, then, is it so important to weed out students who think they might be interested in these fields? Manipulating the variables so that Orgo is as unaccommodating as possible seems counterproductive. These factors are the reason that STEM has such an unfavorable reputation among young students. By weeding, colleges are only reinforcing preexisting negative stereotypes that dissuade people from so much as trying it out.

I understand that classes are difficult so that students who would never realistically make it through medical school, for instance, will get the hint sooner rather than later. But additional weeding techniques, like scheduling difficult classes early in the day or encouraging a reputation of absurdly difficult grading, deny students the opportunity to do the best they possibly can. Princeton should be nurturing toward students embarking on difficult paths, not cold and unforgiving.

Shr uthi Deiva s igam ani i s a f reshm an f rom Creskill, N.J. She can be rea ched at shr uthid @ pr in ceton.edu.

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Losing face, setting precedents Lauren Prastien

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awoke on Monday to find an email from a good friend with the subject line “happy monday” containing only a hyperlink to the comments section of an article on The Daily Princetonian’s website. Assuming correctly that the unenthusiastic, all-lowercase “happy monday” was meant to be read with an exasperated sigh, I was transported to the responses to Khim’s controversial leak of the results of the 2008 Sexual Experiences Survey. Among the typical misogynist ravings of our beloved ‘Prince’ peanut gallery was the assertion that Princeton’s position in the public eye should be taken into account when releasing the statistic that one in six female Princeton undergraduates said they experienced “non-consensual vaginal penetration.”

This sentiment was expressed by Director of the Women’s Center Amada Sandoval in a recent ‘Prince’ article, in which she expressed that “anything about Princeton goes international, practically, and no other universities do that, so does Princeton want to be the one to say that this many of our students are sexually assaulted?” She added that “there was no ‘real benefit’ to releasing it because ‘a story that Princeton’s rates of students who have

been assaulted is on line with national averages is really not a story.’ ” I would argue that Princeton should be the university to own up to its statistics about sexual assault. It is true that we are very much in the public eye and about as vulnerable to scrutiny as any university can be.

But I feel this is all the more reason Princeton should have made the results of the 2008 Sexual Experiences Survey public.

We can agree that the idea that “nothing ever happens at Princeton” is just as silly and absurdist as any other Triangle song. However, it is also severely harmful. By relegating sexual assault to what we consider the fringes of society — dark alleys, abandoned warehouses and basically any location featured in the opening credits of “Batman Beyond” — we delegitimize those cases that are not as cinematic or obvious.

Had Princeton released these statistics back in 2008, the University could have made an important demonstration in the fight against sexual assault: Hiding behind FitzRandolph Gate does not shield a person from the potential of being a victim of a violent crime, nor should it shield a person from the consequences of perpetrating these actions. Sex crimes are not absent from places like Ivy League campuses.

Safety is, unfortunately, not a guarantee that comes with your SAT score. Ivy League campuses, just like any other, must take active steps to prevent these crimes from happening.

If the Amherst rape scandal back in October of this year and the recent controversy at UNC over an assault survivor publicly addressing her experience have taught us anything, it is that a university’s efforts to cover up cases of sexual assault cause even more damage than the crime itself, both to the university and the crime’s survivors. As a university in such a public position, Princeton had the opportunity to own up to its statistics and, contrary to what Sandoval told the ‘Prince,’ make a story out of this.

Because there is a story here. It’s the story that when an Ivy League school’s numbers are in line with the national average, the issue of sexual assault is truly a national — and international — issue. Even if the iconography completely excludes male victims and the statistics are a bit hazy in terms of whether or not Princeton students were the actual perpetrators of the sexual assaults, they still demonstrate the fact that rape is not simply a matter of class or education and that sexual assault is a problem in both the real world and the Orange Bubble. Princeton could have taken this as an opportunity to

say, “We recognize that sexual assault is a problem of national importance, especially on college campuses.

We recognize that Princeton is not immune to this issue. So, as a university in the public eye with the potential to inf luence the behavior of other universities and greater national movements, we are going to set a precedent by taking steps to alleviate this problem by raising awareness of this issue, owning up to our shortcomings and taking a firmer, more public stance on cases of sexual assault on campus.” I hope that Princeton takes this incident as an opportunity to move in that direction. I am not comforted by the idea that one, instead of two, members of my Tuesday afternoon seminar have been sexually assaulted, but I would be comforted by a legitimate, substantiated promise of change.

As a university in the nation’s service and in the international conscience, Princeton should be the university to say that its students are sexually assaulted and set the precedent for improving. Perhaps, at the risk of losing some face, Princeton could save some skins.

Lauren Prastien is an anthropology major from Fair Lawn, N.J. She can be reached at prastien@princeton.edu.

3/6/13 11:14 PM

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday march 7, 2013

page 7

“Enchilada Steve” a two-sport captain

MEN’S SWIMMING & DIVING

ON TAP

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mom. Wait, what are those things called? Overalls. Not dungarees, overalls. That’s what [senior Will] Schleier always wears to my games.

A: My own songs. I’ve recorded my own songs on GarageBand. I’m a terrible singer.

Q: The ax-man?

A: It’s a loser way of saying I play the guitar.

Q: What genre?

A: They’re a blend of rock and roll, alt, indie and R&B. I’m quite musically talented, so it’s a little hobby of mine. I’m the ax-man.

Q: Where did you get the nickname “Enchilada Steve”?

A: I had to eat 10 enchiladas at On the Border when I was a freshman, and I threw them all up.

Q: Do you have any rituals that you go through before you play a game?

A: For squash season, stop eating to get skinny, and for baseball, eat a lot to get nice and healthy. I guess that’s what my “game plan” involves: Eat a lot, or don’t eat at all.

Q: If you could be a top professional athlete, what sport would you pick?

A: Definitely not squash. Probably golf.

Q: Weirdest thing that’s happened to you during a game?

A: I stole second base my freshman year.

Q: What was your welcome-to-college moment?

A: Sleepwalking into my neighbor’s room naked in the second week of school.

Q: Who is the quirkiest member of your squash team?

A: That’s going to have to be [freshman] Vivek Dinodia. He doesn’t get American culture quite yet, and he’s quite funny, quite quirky.

Q: What about baseball?

A: [Junior] Damian Keller. It’s an inside baseball joke.

MEREDITH WRIGHT :: ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR EMERITUS

The Tigers will go for their fifth-straight Ivy League championship this weekend at Brown, starting Thursday.

Q: What is the most embarrassing song on your iPod?

Ancient Eight grads play big roles behind the scenes COLUMN Continued from page 1

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managers, and there are more opportunities for quantitative analysts who may not have playing or scouting experience.

That has opened doors for Ivy

3.7sportsUPSTAIRS 7

League graduates at very high levels. Six of MLB’s 30 general managers attended Ancient Eight schools, and Indians assistant GM Mike Chernoff ’03 is rumored to be one of the top candidates for future openings.

In the NBA, Geoff Petrie ’70 of the Sacramento Kings is the

league’s longest-tenured general manager, while Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo attended Cornell and Rockets GM Daryl Morey, a co-chair of the Sloan conference, earned an MBA from MIT. As sports continue to evolve and younger members of front

offices move up the ladder, expect to see even more quantitative-minded people running sports teams in the future.

Chances are, the next player who has a Linsanity-like breakout won’t come out of the Ivy League — but the general manager who finds him just might.

3/6/13 11:09 PM

Sports

Thursday march 7, 2013

page 8

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } THE ANCIENT EIGHT Kevin Whitaker Sports Editor Emeritus

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MEN’S BASKETBALL PARITY WHEEL The men’s basketball Ivy League race has proven to have many twists and turns this season, as every team has suffered losses to multiple opponents. This wheel shows any team can lose on any given weekend.

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KELLY RAFEY AND EMILY TSENG :: DESIGN STAFF AND MANAGING EDITOR

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On Tap

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On Tap with ... Steve Harrington

By Victoria Majchrzak associate sports editor

With the start of the baseball season last weekend, senior Steve Harrington entered the last of his eight varsity sport seasons during his collegiate career. Harrington, a versatile first baseman and outfielder, is also a member of the Princeton squash team, as is his sister, freshman Tara Harrington.

He clinched the semifinal victory in last year’s CSA national championships, where the Tigers would go on to snap Trinity’s 13-year winning streak and take the national title. Harrington sat down with the ‘Prince’ to discuss golf, Todd Harrity and enchiladas.

Q: Where are you from, and what is it like there?

A: I’m from Philly, so it’s a lot like here. It’s like 45 minutes away — so close to home, close to my mom coming and doing my laundry for me — so it’s nice.

Q: Did you start playing squash or baseball first?

A: I started playing baseball out of the womb, and then I actually grew up playing tennis and didn’t start playing squash until I was 10 or 11.

I got an early start with baseball because my dad played, and I got a late start with squash because it doesn’t exist in downtown Philadelphia very much. I didn’t find it until I moved to the suburbs around 11 or 12.

Q: What do you think you are more talented with, a baseball bat or a squash racket?

A: The baseball coach has often referred to my bat as a magic wand, so people call me “the Wizard” with the baseball bat, but I’d like to think I’m equally talented with both.

Q: What was it like being a co-captain with Todd Harrity?

A: Oh God, I guess I’m part teammate, part co-captain; I’m part his father, part his babysitter, part his married husband. It’s a very unique relationship. It’s definitely given me a lot of insight in what it’s like to have a 10-year-old son who likes to play squash.

Q: If you were to start playing a third sport, what would you play?

A: I’d definitely do golf, no doubt about it. I can’t wait until I’m done with squash and baseball because I’m going to play golf for the rest of my life.

Q: Whom do your parents choose to watch when both your and your sister are playing?

A: They choose to watch me because I’m the favorite child.

Q: Whom do you most like to see at your games?

A: I gotta make a shout out to a bunch of people for this one. Definitely the gorilla is one of my favorites, the Orangemen, my dad, the homeless man in the dungaree trousers, Ian Hummer and my See ON TAP page 7

MERRILL FABRY :: FILE PHOTO

Senior Steve Harrington has won Ivy League championships with two different teams.

Ivy alumni fill pro front offices

A

round this time last year, “Linsanity” was taking America by storm.

Fans packed Madison Square Garden to watch the undrafted 6-foot-3-inch point guard, who revitalized the New York Knicks with a series of increasingly awe-inspiring performances. Nearly overnight, Lin went from career backup to national celebrity, appearing on backto-back covers of Sports Illustrated and becoming the lead story for mainstream outlets like CNN. Lin’s story was compelling because of his unusual background, partly as an Asian-American starring in the NBA but also as a Harvard graduate making highlights in a major American professional sport. Some Ivy League athletes have certainly had successful careers at the professional level — Princeton alumni Chris Young ’00, Will Venable ’05 and Ross Ohlendorf ’06 have a combined 20 years of experience in Major League Baseball, and Harvard’s Matt Birk just won a Super Bowl ring as the Baltimore Ravens’ starting center — but stories like Lin’s are still the exception rather than the rule. No Ivy Leaguer had played in the NBA since Yale’s Chris Dudley in 2003, and none have been drafted since current Penn head coach Jerome Allen in 1995.

That is not to say, however, that the Ivy League has no influence on professional sports. Indeed, Ivy League graduates are some of the most powerful players in all of America’s most popular leagues — but they make their impact in front offices, not on the field.

I spent last weekend at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, an annual forum for presenting and discussing advancements in databased analysis of sports, where you couldn’t throw a stone without hitting two or three Ivy League graduates. Of roughly 100 featured panelists, most of whom were team executives or media figures with a quantitative bent, 21 attended Ivy League schools for undergraduate or graduate education, and another dozen studied at peer schools like MIT or the University of Chicago.

The Ivies’ representation was fitting, because Ancient Eight graduates have been a part of sports’ analytical revolution since it began. One of the first industry insiders to embrace a scientific approach to the game — “sabermetrics,” as it became known in baseball — was Sandy Alderson, the Oakland Athletics’ general manager in the 1990s, who attended Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School. Paul DePodesta, a numbers-oriented Harvard graduate, later joined the A’s as an assistant general manager at the young age of 25; he worked underneath Billy Beane, who became the public face of sabermetrics in “Moneyball,” the bestselling book written by Princeton alumnus Michael Lewis ’82.

Analytics has often been portrayed as an insular field within the broader sports community, a bunch of numbers nerds fighting to make their voices heard in a world of athletes, scouts and decision makers. That schema might have had some truth a decade ago, but it doesn’t anymore.

Pro sports teams have realized that they can benefit from new business strategies, including but not limited to quantitative analysis. Meanwhile, the scope of “analytics” has broadened; this year’s Sloan conference included panels on labor relations, injury prevention and mixed martial arts.

As a result, analytics and sports management have become irrevocably intertwined. Nearly every major-league baseball, football and basketball front office employs quantitative analysts, and most of their work is taken seriously — 29 of 30 NBA teams sent a representative to last weekend’s conference, as did many MLB and NFL organizations. That doesn’t mean teams have fired their scouts and run their entire organization on statistics; improved decision-making processes can take many forms — for example, some baseball teams have built databases to aggregate and analyze qualitative scouting data.

With innovations within the sports industry occurring at a rapid pace, and with analytics becoming more and more important — for proof, just look at the nearly 2,700 people who trekked to Boston for the sold-out Sloan conference — more is required of today’s general See COLUMN page 7

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3/6/13 11:10 PM