Thursday, March 28, 2013

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Thursday March 28, 2013 vol. cxxxvii no. 32

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In Opinion Spencer Shen responds to ‘Doing what you love?,’ and Susannah Sharpless discusses the Edwards Collective. PAGE 4

In Street Maggie Zhang talks Breakout trips and Street senior writers defend the ‘Prince’ online community. PAGE S1

Today on Campus 4:30 p.m. A panel will discuss religion in healthcare in ‘Paging God: Religion in the Halls of Medicine.’

McCormick 101.

The Archives

Mar. 28, 1972 Trenton middle school teacher Bob Durkee ’69 is appointed Assistant to the President of the University.

On the Blog Sports Editor Stephen Wood talks senior lineman Catapano’s draft prospects.

On the Blog Intersections takes a restrospective look at anime film ‘Spirited Away.’

News & Notes Harvard loses 4 quiz bowl titles

Harvard was stripped of four National Academic Quiz Tournament titles last week after organizers discovered that a team member accessed information about quiz questions before the tournament.

Tournament officials allege that Harvard student Andy Watkins, who at that time was paid to write tournament questions for NAQT’s high school competitions, accessed NAQT’s administrative website which contained questions marked for his own competitions, The Harvard Crimson reported.

While NAQT said there is no statistical evidence that Watkins’ actions gave Harvard an advantage, the victories were nonetheless voided because of the organization’s expectations of fair play.

Harvard won four category titles from 2009 to 2011. In light of the revocation, the University of Minnesota, the University of Chicago and Virginia Commonwealth University will receive the national championships.

“I regret my breaches of question security,” Watkins said in a statement published by NAQT. “My immaturity damaged my much-prized relationship with NAQT and cast undue doubt on three remarkable accomplishments by three Harvard teams ... I apologize to my teammates, to NAQT and to the community for how my actions sullied three amazing years of competition.”

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

LGBT center hires new coordinator

STU-DYE BREAKS

By Catherine Duazo senior writer

New Program Coordinator for the University’s LGBT Center Andy Cofino began working at the office over spring break. Cofino, who will replace outgoing coordinator Matthew Armstead, defines herself as a “transmasculine, queer artist-activist” and previously worked as a graduate student associate at New York University’s LGBTQ Student Center.

“I’ve been doing LGBT social justice work for a long time,” Cofino said. “I was working with higher education at NYU, and I really fell in love with the field and the work. This position is a really good fit. I really love the programming that comes out of this office.”

At NYU, Cofino was in charge of special programming that involved organizing education activities such as museum visits, working with the student health center, working with transgender inclusion policy and graphic design and social media issues.

In her work with the NYU health center, Cofino tried to educate health care providers at the university to help them understand the experiences of their transgender patients and in improving their language use and empathy.

“There have been reports See PROGRAM page 2

CARLA JAVIER :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Gina Triolo ’14 paints an Easter egg at Frist at an event held by PSEC and the International Students Association at Princeton.

STUDENT LIFE

Student petition for sex survey gets 1,100 signatures

By Anna Mazarakis staff writer

An online petition calling for the commissioning of an updated “Sexual Experiences Survey” has amassed over 1,100 signatures since it was first circulated on March 10.

The petition was authored by Shreya Murthy ’13, Siofra Robinson ’13 and Kellie Valladares ’13,

with input from Kanwal Matharu ’13, earlier this month in response to the publication of a previously unpublished survey from 2008 showing that one in six female undergraduates reported non-consensual vaginal penetration.

“We were definitely shocked when the initial article had come out, but it seems that once we started asking questions it didn’t

really seem like the University was necessarily trying to hide it or intentionally suppress it — more that they had just used it internally and hadn’t necessarily thought to make it as public, as perhaps students would want it to be,” Murthy said.

In response to the petition, Vice President for Campus Life Cynthia Cherrey, Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Re-

sources and Education Program Director Jacqueline DeitchStackhouse and Women’s Center Director Amada Sandoval met with Murthy, Robinson and Valladares on Monday to discuss efforts that can be made on campus to address sexual assault.

“When we met with the students [who crafted the petition], we had a productive See SHARE page 2

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

ACADEMICS

Princeton Club settles lawsuit

Social psychologist Steele examines stereotype threat in higher education

By Angela Wang staff writer

A $10 million lawsuit against the Princeton Club of New York filed by former longtime employee Jo-Ann Garcia was settled in a private agreement, according to Club General Manager Larry Hines and the lawyers of both parties.

The website of the New York Supreme Court indicates that the case was closed on Feb. 7 of this year.

Hines and both attorneys declined to comment further on the settlement agreement.

In August 2011, Garcia, the former club payroll manager, filed a discrimination complaint against the club. She claimed she was wrongfully terminated from her position after 29 years of employment on the basis of age and race discrimination. Although the Princeton Club told her the position was being “phased out” for financial reasons, Garcia said in the suit that she was replaced by a younger Caucasian woman.

Garcia started working for the club in 1981 as a filing planner and was eventually promoted to paymaster and house

cashier. According to a copy of the initial complaint, Garcia said that in June 2011 the Assistant General Manager Evelyn Mendez-Baker told her that Hines wanted “white, native English-speaking personnel.” Following this conversation, Garcia wrote in the suit that the most senior Hispanic employees, including MendezBaker, were replaced by Caucasian employees who received higher salaries.

Mendez-Baker could not be reached for comment.

Garcia added that the club’s discriminatory actions included erecting a wall to separate Hispanic employees from white employees in the accounting department and denying Hispanic employees pay raises while giving raises to white colleagues. As a result, she sued the club for $4 million in personal compensation for the effects of the club’s conduct and for an additional $6 million in punitive damages to deter the club and similar organizations from discriminatory behaviors in the future.

As of Wednesday, Garcia was not employed at the club, a receptionist said. Attempts See NEW YORK page 3

By Elizabeth Paul contributor

Internationally renowned social psychologist and Dean for the School of Education at Stanford Claude Steele discussed his research on stereotype threat and the challenges faced by underrepresented minorities in higher education on Tuesday evening.

Steele explained how stereotype threat, the experience of anxiety that a person feels

when he or she is in a position to potentially confirm a negative stereotype about his or her social group, can cause people exposed to the same situation to have divergent experiences.

He also discussed ways to combat the threat of stereotyping.

Steele’s academic research has focused on psychological threats to individuals, including considerations of self-image, self-regulation and social behavior, according to his faculty web page. He is the au-

thor of “Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us.” Throughout the lecture Steele emphasized that stereotyping influences everyone on a daily basis, whether or not an individual is a member of a minority group. He provided multiple anecdotal illustrations of his personal experience, including his experience with segregation as an AfricanAmerican.

See EXPERIENCE page 2

PARINDA WANITWAT :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Social psychologist Claude Steele discusses stereotype threat and student performance.

ACADEMICS

Study finds American workers less incentivized to migrate between states

By Hannah Schoen Contributor

American workers are getting fewer benefits from migration, according to a new study by economics professor Greg Kaplan and Sam Schulhofer-Wohl, an economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.

In a February 2013 working paper, entitled “Understanding the Long-Run Decline in Interstate Migration,” Kaplan and Schulhofer-Wohl found that declining interstate relocation is due to both an increase in the similarity of the benefits offered by labor markets across the country to workers with cer-

tain skills and to an increase in the amount of information people have about life in different areas of the country.

Discrediting other popular explanations for the decline in migration, such as the aging of the American population and the increase in the number of households with two earners,

Kaplan and Schulhofer-Wohl wrote in the study that their explanations account for at least one third, if not all, of the decline in interstate migration.

The study explains that due to technological advances, people can get more information about a potential place to live by flying there, calling friends who live

there and even researching online. Thus, they are less likely to move to a state where they will be unhappy and want to move to another state.

Kaplan explained that he and Schulhofer-Wohl also looked at what he called the “geographic specificity of occupations” — See ECONOMICS page 3

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The Daily Princetonian

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Thursday March 28, 2013

As undergraduate student, Cofino used arts to explore LGBT issues PROGRAM Continued from page 1

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from multiple universities where trans people have felt uncomfortable with the setting they have been placed in

at times, especially because a lot of health centers are very focused on the gender binary,” Andrew Gonzalez, a graduate student associate who worked with Cofino at NYU, said. “I think Andy wanted to work around that and figure out

what she could do for transgender students in the health care setting.”

As part of her work with undergraduate students, Cofino co-advised a student group of freshmen and transfer students called First Year Queers and Allies that held weekly lessons about LGBTQ related issues.

Cofino has also had a particular interest in using the arts to explore LGBTQ issues.

As an undergraduate student, she conducted interviews with about 100 individuals identifying as LGBTQ and allies from around the world about their experiences with homophobia and transphobia. Based on these interviews, she developed her show “OUT IN THE OPEN: Stories of Queer Oppres-

sion from Empowerment.” The show uses written and spoken word poetry to highlight the subjects’ experiences. Since 2009, “OUT IN THE OPEN” has been performed at colleges and universities across the country.

Selections of the show were put up at NYU as part of Cofino’s focus on the arts in addressing LGBTQ issues.

At Princeton, Cofino will also be finishing her Master of Arts in LGBTQ Studies, Social Justice and Creative Writing at NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study and graduating from the program in May. “Part of the concentration [of the master’s program] is creative writing, so I’m really curious about ways that we can use the arts to talk about social identities and issues like that,”

Cofino said.

Armstead, Cofino’s predecessor, said he is leaving Princeton in search of different opportunities. “I couldn’t see as many growing opportunities for myself at Princeton in that position so I looked elsewhere,” he explained.

He said he hopes to see the LGBT Center continue to provide a strong community for both students who interact with the center as well as those that never enter the LGBT Center during their time at Princeton through external programming. Additionally, Armstead said he would like this community to continue to incorporate other aspects of an individual’s identity, an emphasis that was already part of LGBT programming when he began at the po-

sition in 2009.

“One of the things that the LGBT Center traditionally has done is to really make sure that we’re always aware that there are multiple parts to students,” Armstead said. “I hope the LGBT Center programs continue to speak to multiple facets of identify, whether that is race, class, gender, nationality or identities that are more salient to campus, like being an athlete or a physics major.”

Armstead said he foresees that the LGBT Center will have to take into account the growing size of the community as it considers planning in the future.

LGBT Center Director Debra Bazarsky was unavailable for comment.

Lecture covers challenges faced by minorities EXPERIENCE Continued from page 1

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Steele began to notice an inconsistency when he began teaching at the University of Michigan in 1987. While he found that SAT scores were generally associated with a higher university GPA, African-American students tended to have lower GPAs than other students regardless of their SAT scores, which Steele said was very puzzling.

“What surprised me the

CORRECTION Correction: Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of the March 27 article “Three seniors win $30k Labouisse Prize” mischaracterized the sources of financial support Courtney Crumpler will be receiving.

She will be funded solely by the Labouisse Prize. The ‘Prince’ regrets the error.

most was that it went against my preconceptions,” Steele said.

However, Steele found that his stereotype threat theory provided an answer to this puzzle. According to his theory, “the oppression of being a member of a group whose abilities are negatively stereotyped itself can be frustrating enough … to cause systematic underperformance in a group,” Steele said.

When an individual is faced with a situation in which a stereotype is understood to define that person’s demographic group, the prospect of being reduced to that stereotype is upsetting enough to interfere with the individual’s performance. This pressure to perform is increased by circumstantial clues that make an individual believe he or she

does not belong.

To provide evidence for this theory, Steele explained that he gave undergraduate male and female advanced math students a standardized graduate entrance exam. In his first trial, women performed a full standard deviation below men with the same academic preparation.

Steele attempted to remove the stereotype threat by stating that the exam would be unable to pick up on any differences in gender, and consequently, the women’s scores rose to match the men’s.

While stereotype threat occurs on an individual level, Steele emphasized the importance of the much larger sociocultural context. “Stereotypes are a cultural mechanism that brings history forward to present-day life,” Steele said.

With this consideration,

individuals and organizations can attempt to mitigate stereotype threat by changing the way that society is organized in relation to minorities, Steele explained. He provided examples of strategies to address this threat, including reevaluating the representation of cultural minorities in history curriculum and affirmative action. “[Stereotype threat] isn’t tied to something inside a person inside a group,” explained Steele. “It’s tied to the culture.

It’s an explanation that a culture presents to a person when they have a certain experience in a domain.”

Steele’s lecture, “Stereotype Threat: How It Affects Us and What We Can Do About It,” was held in McCosh 50 and was sponsored by the Princeton Public Lectures Series.

Focus will shift to campus use of data SHARE

Continued from page 1

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first discussion on how to continue to further our efforts in this area,” Director of News and Editorial Services in the Office of Communications Daniel Day said on behalf of Cherrey. “During the conversation, we found that the students’ goals aligned closely with much that’s already in progress, such as a potential online education program and expanding bystander intervention initiatives.”

After discovering that the University is currently participating in a national study by the American College Health Association that will survey about 50 percent of University undergraduates on topics that include sexual assault, the petition’s authors said they will no longer push for an additional survey, since one is already in the works.

They said they plan to shift their focus toward determining ways that the data collected on sexual assault may be used on campus. However, they encourage students to continue to sign the petition.

“We think that there will be some sort of publication of data at some point and they will make the final call on that, but we want to direct our attention towards prevention and awareness efforts of sexual assault on campus,” Valladares said, adding that they want to focus on creating “some more prevention awareness initiatives to supplement what already goes on campus.”

The University has not yet received the data collected in the ACHA survey but anticipates completing the analysis of the data this summer and will release it soon after, according to Day. Until that data is released, Murthy, Robinson and Valladeres said they have at least two ma-

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

jor initiatives underway to raise greater awareness for sexual assault on campus, one of which will work in conjunction with SHARE’s Take Back the Night event in April.

“They’re focused on reaching the wider student body,” Robinson said. “It’s less for people that are already passionate about this kind of stuff and more for people that really would never think about it unless they were confronted with it.”

As all of the authors are seniors, they said they hope to be able to incorporate underclassmen in their plans so they can see these projects continue after graduation in June.

“I was very pleased with the response, and I’m glad to see that people are discussing these issues, thinking about the meaning of consent and it looks like the administration has been very supportive,” Matharu said. “It looks like we were successful at bringing this issue to light.”

The Daily Princetonian is published daily except Saturday and Sunday from September through May and three times a week during January and May by The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc., 48 University Place, Princeton, N.J. 08540. Mailing address: P.O. Box 469, Princeton, N.J. 08542. Subscription rates: Mailed in the United States $175.00 per year, $90.00 per semester. Office hours: Sunday through Friday, 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Telephones: Business: 609-375-8553; News and Editorial: 609-258-3632.

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3.28 news FOR LUC.indd 2

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The Daily Princetonian

Thursday March 28, 2013

GLOBAL TRENDS

page 3

T HE DA ILY

Someone take your ‘Prince’? Get your fix online.

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SEAN PAN :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Dean of Peking University’s School of International Studies Wang Jisi discusses Sino-U.S.-Japan relations.

Wrongful termination suit ends privately NEW YORK Continued from page 1

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to reach Garcia for this article were unsuccessful.

The Princeton Club responded in September 2011 by denying all the allegations of discrimination made by Garcia in the complaint. Regarding the conversations between Garcia and Mendez-Baker, the club declined to comment on the allegation, claiming that it did not have sufficient knowledge of the events. The response concluded with a denial that Garcia was entitled to any monetary relief against the club.

“The Princeton Club acted in

good faith without malice or malicious intent,” the answer read.” Each and every employment decision affecting Garcia was taken for legitimate nondiscriminating reasons.

There was no progress on the case until August 2012, when Garcia filed a request for a preliminary conference. A preliminary conference is an initial meeting between both parties’ lawyers to set a schedule for the discovery phase, where both parties gather information from the other and interested third parties.

Garcia’s lawyers also alleged in the request for a preliminary conference that the club had not given a date for Garcia’s deposition despite repeated

requests. The deposition, also known as the examination before trial, is a meeting between both parties in which Garcia would answer questions under oath from the club’s attorney, providing information which could be later used in trial.

No further documents exist after the request for a preliminary conference filed in 2012.

According to the New York Supreme Court, the case is now closed.

The Princeton Club of New York, its lawyer, Richard Block of Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C., and Garcia’s attorney, April Rancier of Schwartz & Perry, LLP declined to comment on the details of the settlement.

Geographic-specific jobs declining ECONOMICS Continued from page 1

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the extent to which occupations are segregated in certain locations or evenly dispersed over different areas — as well as the differences in wages for the same occupation in different areas. Kaplan and SchulhoferWohl found that segregation and wage differentiation have decreased over the past 20 years.

“Previously, if you wanted to work in finance, you had to move to New York City,” Maria Luengo-Prado, an economics professor at Northeastern University, said. “Today, this is not the case.”

Kaplan said the reasons for the decline in the geographic specificity of occupations is unclear for now. “This fact about decreasing geographic specificity of occupations is fairly new.

Before our work, researchers weren’t so aware of it, and so because of that, there wasn’t a lot of work to understand the cause of it,” Kaplan explained.

One of the paper’s major contributions is its explanation for the decrease in geographic specificity of occupations, Kaplan said.

3.28 news FOR LUC.indd 3

He hypothesized that declining geographic specificity may be due to an increase in technology that allows firms to interact with other firms in different parts of the country, and a rise in the number of service-oriented jobs, though he plans to further investigate this idea with Schulhofer-Wohl.

“Overall, the article is very thorough,” Luengo-Prado said.

“They use a lot of data and are very careful to look at the evidence from different perspectives.”

Some economists still look to other explanations for the decrease in migration. Ahmet Ali Taskin, an economics Ph.D. candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, highlights the role of dual earner families in decreasing overall migration.

“In a sense, [Kaplan] is right,” Taskin said. “There is a decline in both groups, but it’s not uniform.” His research shows that families with two earners have seen an additional drop in interstate migration compared to families with one earner, suggesting that the increase in dual earner families has in fact decreased interstate migration.

Thus, Taskin said the decrease in interstate migration “is not

just coming from the mechanism [Kaplan and SchulhoferWohl] propose.” However, he said that Kaplan and Schulhofer’s paper will be “quite an influential paper in the years to come.”

According to Kaplan, the paper’s contributions extend beyond the field of economics to policy-making, since it tells a “cautionary tale” about some of the policy options that were offered after the 2008 recession.

Kaplan recalled a number of stories in the popular press after the recession that suggested that the reason unemployment was so high was because people weren’t where the jobs were, and they couldn’t move to where the jobs were because to do so was too costly. In contrast, Kaplan’s study suggests that people are not moving because the benefits of moving have decreased.

“We should be wary of jumping to quick policy responses that would stem from conclusions that the decline is due to more difficulty that people have in moving, as opposed to maybe that there are fewer benefits in moving,” Kaplan said, adding that perhaps the decreased benefits in moving that he finds requires no response at all.

3/27/13 11:58 PM

Dave Kurz

columnist

Opinion

Thursday march 28, 2013

page 4

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

Christianity, Response to: “Doing what you love?” marriage and sex

W

hen it comes to Christianity and sex, the assumption is often that Christians don’t want to have any fun at all. Christians have rules, restrictions and regulations ad nauseam, apparently designed to ensure that sexual gratification is repressed at all costs. I want to challenge this perception with an alternative perspective — a biblical one — that gives sex and marriage great dignity. Far from being arbitrarily repressive, the Christian view of sex is beautiful, indispensable for true sexual satisfaction and extremely relevant to how we view sex during our college years.

Whether you are Christian or not, this biblical vision for sex should be of great interest. Why? Because if our sexual engines are designed to run on unleaded gasoline and we’re putting in diesel, then the engine will eventually fail. And even if you determine that the Christian vision for sex is wrong, I still think it is worth respecting and understanding for its inherent loveliness.

The Bible claims that sex and marriage were created and blessed by God from the very beginning of humanity. In Genesis 1 and 2, God creates sex and affirms that it is unequivocally good, a gift intended for pleasure and enjoyment.

Adam and Eve unite as one flesh in the Garden of Eden, in God’s full presence and with his blessing. Just as God orders the physical laws of the universe, so too he orders sex with specific intent for a specific context. That context, the Bible teaches, is the uniting of two halves — male and female — in the sacred covenant of marriage, for God’s people to be blessed by the designs that were written into human sexuality from the beginning.

The crucial characteristic of that design, I think, is that sex does not actually stand alone as a single act — rather, it is the centerpiece of a much grander “package deal” that encompasses far more than the sexual act itself. In addition to the symbolic significance of two bodies becoming one physically, God chose to intertwine sex with lifelong permanence, total commitment and self-giving sacrifice to another person.

Meaning that when a husband and a wife unite sexually, they are uniting not just their bodies but also their emotions, finances, lifestyles, futures, spirituality and very souls. A husband becomes the number-one earthly priority to his wife, as does the wife to her husband. The “package deal” is also crafted to include the blessing of procreation; sex is tied up with producing children and providing a loving context in which they can be raised and nurtured.

Finally, a Christian couple is also called to lifelong mission, to serve together in the particular way that God has called them to be image-bearers of him in the world. In the prioritization of another, the healthy ushering in of new life and the side-by-side mission that a husband and wife experience along with their sexual intimacy, they are blessed by the full grandeur that sex has to offer them.

God’s design mandates that the covenantal promises of marriage be the strong foundation that upholds very good, very pleasurable sex. Let’s consider steak to be a metaphor for sex. Picture a student rushing out the door to a 10 a.m. class and grabbing a leftover Hoagie Haven cheesesteak out of his dorm room mini-fridge. The steak hoagie would temporarily sate the student’s appetite and might even taste ok, but it probably wouldn’t provide the ideal gastronomic experience.

Contrast this approach with eating a tender, perfectly cooked filet mignon at a fine restaurant in Princeton, such as Mediterra or Agricola.

There’s a pleasant ambience, genteel crowd, good conversation, smooth wine, scrumptious appetizers and maybe some tasteful background music. Eaten in this context, the steak becomes the natural centerpiece it was always meant to be and provides far more pleasure than a leftover.

However, making a reservation at the restaurant, paying for the meal and carving out a couple hours of time required sacrifice. In the same way that there are no shortcuts in fine dining, within Christianity there is no shortcut to the deep pleasure and all-around satisfaction that the best sex — married sex — provides. Sexual union outside of marriage tears apart the beauty of sex by carrying with it a physical promise that isn’t backed up by a public, verbal, life-long commitment to all the other elements of the “package deal.”

God’s design for sex is also beautiful because it does more than provide delight and contentment — sex also reveals the very nature of God. The Bible teaches that the sacrificial character of God is expressed perfectly in the death of Jesus Christ on the cross for the sins of humanity.

This comprehensive, divine love is meant to be reflected in human relationships, within which marriage is the ultimate. Christian marriage is intended to mirror the self-denying love of God; in mutually submitting to and serving one another, both in the bedroom and out, a husband and wife image forth God’s character.

The intensity, passion and commitment that human sexuality was originally designed to overflow with is a reflection of the intensity, passion and commitment with which God pursues us. He has crafted sex as a powerful gift filled with great beauty, wonder and many strings attached.

By aligning ourselves with the way God has created sex rather than trying to conform sex to our own desires, I think we both do justice to the beauty of sex and maximize our own joy.

Dave Kurz is a 2012 graduate from Maryland and current intern at Princeton Faith and Action. He can be reached at dave.kurz@gmail.com.

opinion.3.28.upstairs.indd 3

Spencer Shen columnist

L

ike many freshmen, I am struggling to decide what I should major in, but it’s not because I can’t choose between a “practical” major and a major that I love.

Barbara Zhan brought up that dichotomy in her article “Doing what you love?” two weeks ago, but it seems that postgraduation prospects, especially graduate school applications, rely much more on a student’s grades than his major.

Even if a student chooses to be an ORFE or Wilson School major with the intent of working in finance or public policy one day, he won’t make it there with a subpar GPA. Unfortunately, some majors at Princeton are harder to earn high grades in than others, which ultimately drive students toward “easy” majors and away from “hard” ones.

Good grades in college, at least in introductory classes, are much more related to prior experience with the material than a student’s intelligence or work ethic. Of course, there are the occasional geniuses that can learn completely new material and understand it much better than a student who took that class in high school, but this is the exception, not the norm. Under an ideal system, if a student wants good grades and works hard enough, he will be able to overcome any initial differences in experience, but in reality the student seeing new material for the first time will be trounced by the student who took a rigorous course on that subject in high school almost every time. Sometimes students who have AP or IB credit will retake classes to get easy A’s; I have several friends, most of them hoping to attend medical school, that do

this and make no attempt to hide their motives. Some high schools offer tough courses that are equivalent to AP or IB classes but are not technically part of those programs, and their students are basically forced to take a similar course at Princeton in order to fulfill prerequisites for certain majors, even if they would rather be taking a higher-level class.

Even after only a semester and a half of classes, I have come to realize that math and science are much more unforgiving when it comes to inadequate preparation in high school. Like many freshmen, I’m realizing that I’m not “good enough” at math and science to graduate with an acceptable GPA if I major in a STEM field. I am not alone in this — several of my friends have decided that math, physics, chemistry and engineering are just not feasible majors in light of post-graduation prospects.

However, I have never heard of anybody giving up on majoring in history or philosophy after a tough class in the subject. Perhaps it does occur occasionally, but surely not nearly as often. This is not to say that math and science are harder than the humanities, but they are tougher to break into because the material builds on itself in a way that does not apply to other subjects nearly as much.

Nathan Mathabane’s article “Nothing bad about remedial” mentioned creating remedial classes for STEM subjects as a possible way to level the playing field, but that might not solve the problem as students looking for easy courses could just migrate to those classes instead, and feigning lack of experience is pretty easy to pull off.

It seems as though the only way to major in math or science at Princeton is to have extensive experience with those subjects during high school, as introductory classes are often poorly and

inconsistently taught and professors seem to have little patience for students who are complete newcomers to their fields. The humanities departments are not nearly as prone to this kind of elitism, but some people really want to major in math or science despite a total lack of experience and would feel pretty unfulfilled studying other subjects. In a sense, what you are capable of majoring in at Princeton while maintaining an acceptable GPA is determined largely by what you “majored in” during high school, which defeats the purpose of having the freedom to choose.

The idealistic view that a student can major in anything he wants must be tempered by considerations of external factors, like grades, that can severely hamper post-graduation prospects should he pick a major that is “too hard.”

The phenomenon of students being “locked out” of certain majors is completely against the principles of the liberal arts education that Princeton is so quick to advertise. A school like Princeton should try to make every subject accessible to students without prior experience, but the root of the problem ultimately lies with grades and GPA. While grade deflation has its merits, it is also increasingly making grades a factor in students’ choice of major. If such a policy is potentially forcing students away from studying what they truly want to study for the sake of protecting their grades, maybe it’s time to rethink how grade deflation is being implemented. A student shouldn’t have to spend four years studying something other than what he loves just because what he loves is “too hard.”

Spencer Shen is a freshman from Houston, Texas. He can be reached at szshen@ princeton.edu.

vol. cxxxvii

Luc Cohen ’14

editor-in-chief

Grace Riccardi ’14

business manager

BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 vice presidents John G. Horan ’74 Thomas E. Weber ’89 secretary Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 treasurer Michael E. Seger ’71 Craig Bloom ’88 Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Richard P. Dzina, Jr. ’85 William R. Elfers ’71 John G. Horan ’74 Kathleen Kiely ’77 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Betsy J. Minkin ’77 Jerry Raymond ’73 Carol Rigolot h ’51 h ’70 Annalyn Swan ’73 Douglas Widmann ’90

137TH BUSINESS BOARD business manager Grace Riccardi ’14 director of national advertising Nick Hu ’15 director of campus/local adversting Harold Li ’15 director of web advertising Matteo Kruijssen ’16 director of recruitment advertising Zoe Zhang ’16 director of operations Elliot Pearl-Sacks ’15

awkward precepts

comptroller Kevin Tang ’16 director of subscriptions Elon Packin ’15

caresse yan ’15

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NIGHT STAFF 3.27.13 news Night Chief: Cathy Duazo ’14 copy Sunny Zhang ’16 Jean-Carlos Arenas ’16 Chamsi Hssaine ’16 Emily Shuldiner ’16 design Shirley Zhu ’16 Sara Good ’15 Hannah Miller ’16 Younjoo Yu ’14

The few, the proud, the artsy?

Susannah Sharpless columnist

F

or my whole life, I thought I was going to go to college and become a hippie.

I was going to have dreads and a nose piercing and walk around barefoot in a long rainbow skirt, writing my poetry in sun-soaked rooms.

Instead, I came to Princeton.

I’m not complaining. Here, I’ve found people who share my love of writing, but I’ve also made friends who care about economics, history, math and so on. I like it that way: Having friends with different interests galvanizes my own. The only bad part about this is that their eyes glaze over when I start talking about poetry.

Having wanted to be a poet for as long as I can remember, I am used to this reaction, but I always hoped that, in college, my unpractical dreams would be encouraged. The scornful reactions of my peers exemplify the typical complaint leveled against Princeton: that we perpetuate — rather than challenge — conformity, a criticism that I, along with many others, have written about before.

Administrators know this turns people away from Princeton in the direction of Brown or Yale, a fact which they hate, so they spend a lot of time and money encouraging us to develop our artistic sides. Their latest idea, a collective living program in Mathey that allows 20 studentartists to live together in Edwards Hall, is definitely a step in the right direction. A tight-knit artistic community sounds like exactly what Princeton needs to attract a different kind of student, but in terms of making this a more “arts-friendly” campus, it’s not enough.

Instead of making Princeton a more welcoming school for artists, I feel the Edwards Collective will make inclusion in this community unnecessarily difficult. I’ve written before about my distaste for Bicker and residential colleges, which perpetuate social stratification based off essentially meaningless self-identifiers (Greek connections, number of Barbours owned) or where you were randomly placed your freshman year. I am often frustrated to hear that friends in Mathey receive free poetry books and tickets to poetry events that I do not, simply because I live in Butler. I don’t see how the opportunities created by the Collective will be any different.

I did not join the Collective myself because I had already made plans

to live with friends and found this more exciting than living with a group of people I don’t know.

Beyond this, though, I didn’t quite understand how sleeping in a room next to a sculptor, a guitar player or a filmmaker would make me a better poet than living next to my best friends, who also happen to be talented and inspiring individuals.

I understand, however, that the Collective says it will be more than just a place to sleep, and let’s say this is true. Let’s say the Collective gives these young artists access to special opportunities and resources, inspiring them and bringing them together. Cool! But what are people like me — just as passionate about their work but not a part of the collective — supposed to do? All this does is present me once again with the feeling that I am missing out on something at this school because I am not a part of the group that gets to partake in it.

Then let’s say it doesn’t work. Let’s say that these talented kids keep painting in the art studios, writing in Small World and don’t really get along. Then the Collective is reduced to a purely social identifier, a cool phrase for a sweatshirt, a way for people to let others know they’re artsy without saying so.

Though I really do hope for the former, I fear the latter will be

the case, because the Collective is so unnatural. Forming an “artist collective” first and finding the artists later invalidates the very idea of such a collective in the first place. The ‘Prince’ article about this compares (absurdly) the arts collective to Walden, Hemingway’s Cuba, Matisse’s Saint-Paul-de-Vence, overlooking the fact that these places are famous not because they exist but because of the artists who lived there.

Earlier this year, Phil Mooney wrote a column rolling his eyes at how hard Princeton’s administrators push us to do things with our social lives that make them look good.

While Mooney focused mainly on the rush ban, I think that these same complaints about social engineering can be leveled against the Edwards Collective. I worry that the initative’s real purpose is to give Princeton some pretty pictures for admissions brochures and an easy response to those who come to campus, look at the Woodrow Wilson School and say, “But I want to paint! Where will I go?” Then, the Orange Key tour guide can point towards Edwards and say, “There! That’s where the artists are!”

Yeah, 20 of them. The rest of us, I guess, don’t count.

Susannah Sharpless is a sophomore from Indianapolis, Ind. She can be reached at ssharple@princeton.edu.

3/27/13 11:26 PM

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday march 28, 2013

page 5

Mourning’s foul on Mueller ’91 may have cursed Hoyas to lose to underdogs COLUMN Continued from page 6

.............

referees, but no whistle came.

It’s hard to see much on the video, but any good Princeton fan wholeheartedly believes he was fouled, and some neutral parties agree. Mueller demurred in the postgame press conference before admitting Mourning might have whacked his hand, but head coach Pete Carril was more emphatic, famously saying, “We’ll have to take that one up with God when we get there.”

Thanks to the refereeing gods, Georgetown moved on, and Vitale could ditch the pom-poms. But karma always gets its vengeance. Because the Hoyas denied college basketball the ultimate Cinderella story, a 16-over-1 upset, they are now cursed to lose to a heartwarming underdog in every NCAA tournament.

Jinxes work in mysterious ways, so nobody really knows why it took nearly two decades for the Curse of Kit Mueller to fully kick in. Sure, the Hoyas have never been back to the championship game after reaching three finals in the 1980s, and they suffered an

eight-year stretch at the turn of the century in which they made but one NCAA tournament, but the curse first truly reared its head in 2008. As a No. 2-seed, the Hoyas sailed through the first round and had a 17-point lead against No. 10 Davidson in the second — until breakout star Stephen Curry led the Wildcats to an improbable comeback.

After missing the tournament in 2009, Georgetown was victimized by the curse again in 2010, becoming the first three-seed to lose its first-round game in four years when an unknown Ohio team dropped 97 points. The following season, the Hoyas were stomped in the first round by 11th-seeded Virginia Commonwealth, which went on to the Final Four; as a three-seed last year, they were again dropped by an 11-seed, North Carolina State.

This year’s tournament marked the curse’s shining moment, as Georgetown was given a No. 2-seed but matched up against the most entertaining NCAA tournament team of my lifetime — FGCU, a 16-year-old school with a millionaire head coach who is married to a former supermodel, and a team that

turned its Fort Myers hometown into Dunk City. With the curse on their side, the Eagles alley-ooped and danced their way to a convincing victory, and karma smiled once again.

Are the Hoyas condemned to a string of first-weekend

letdowns forever? Not quite.

Remember, the curse started as fate’s payback for a 16over-1 stunner that never was.

Therefore, Georgetown can be freed from its torment only when a 16-seed finally does pull off the ultimate upset.

There is some hope for the Hoyas. Sixteen-seeds Southern and Western Kentucky gave Gonzaga and Kansas scares last weekend, and last year, UNC-Asheville nearly took down Syracuse. In the last two tournaments, three

15-seeds have toppled twos, and that’s not so far from a 16-over-1. With more parity in the college basketball world, major first-round upsets have become more common, and someday soon, a 16-seed will triumph.

McMunn’s 9 points help Princeton cruise to win W. LAX

Continued from page 6

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but the Tigers were not finished yet. A third yellow card against Columbia gave Princeton a manup opportunity and free position.

Sivilli passed off to Bruno on the crease for a goal with 1:21 remaining. Bruno sent the last goal of the night past Columbia’s keeper with 45.4 seconds left to play.

There was additional exciting news for the Tigers this week as

3.28sportsUPSTAIRS 5

senior attacker Sam Ellis was invited to join the Israeli National Team. This is the team’s inaugural season, and it will travel to Canada this summer to compete in the 2013 World Cup. Looking for their first road win of the season, the Tigers travel to Ithaca on Saturday for an afternoon showdown against Ivy League competitor Cornell. The Big Red lost by one to Penn last weekend but have league wins against Columbia and Harvard under its belt.

3/27/13 11:55 PM

Sports

Thursday march 28, 2013

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } WOMEN’S LACROSSE

Kevin Whitaker Sports Editor Emeritus

The Curse of Kit Mueller

L

ast friday, Georgetown became just the seventh No. 2-seed to lose a firstround game in the NCAA tournament, getting run out of the gym by Florida Gulf Coast University in the most spectacular and dunk-filled upset in March Madness history. 2013 marked the fifth consecutive tournament appearance in which the Hoyas were toppled by a double-digit seed. Some have blamed head coach John Thompson ’88 or the team’s Princeton Offense-inspired tactics, but the real reason is something more supernatural: The Hoyas are doomed by the Curse of Kit Mueller.

Kit Mueller ’91 is one of the best basketball players in Princeton history; the two-time Ivy League Player of the Year ranked second on the program’s all-time scoring list for two decades until Doug Davis ’12 and senior Ian Hummer passed him in the last two seasons. But in the greater college basketball world, Mueller is perhaps best known for two points he didn’t make.

In 1989, Princeton earned its first NCAA tournament bid in five years after winning the Ivy League with an 11-3 record. The Tigers’ reward was a 16-seed and a first-round matchup with No. 2-ranked Georgetown. The tournament had expanded to 64 teams only four years earlier, but it was already clear that 16-over-1 upsets would be extremely unlikely — and that was especially true for a team from the Ivy League, as Princeton’s predecessors from 1986-88 had lost their first-round games by an average of 40 points.

Before the 1989 tournament, rumors swirled that the Ivy League and other small conferences might soon lose their automatic bids if their futility continued.

At the start of ESPN’s broadcast, commentator Dick Vitale said if the Tigers beat Georgetown, he would put on a Princeton cheerleading outfit for the team’s second-round game. Twenty minutes later, Vitale was all but being fitted for skirts, as the Tigers shockingly led 29-21 at halftime. The Hoyas raced back, but thanks to Princeton’s backdoor cuts and stingy defense, the lead went back and forth until the end. With one second left and the one-seed leading 50-49, Princeton inbounded the ball to Mueller, who turned and fired — and was blocked by Georgetown center and future NBA All-Star Alonzo Mourning.

Mueller immediately turned and looked for the

SHANNON MCGUE :: FILE PHOTO

Sophomore attacker Erin McMunn had a career-high nine points and six goals Wednesday night as the Tigers downed Columbia to remain 2-0 in the Ivy League.

Lions prove no match for Tigers

By Beth Garcia senior writer

The women’s lacrosse team made it look easy Wednesday night, defeating Columbia by a score of 18-7 to extend its all-time record against the Lions to 16-0. Princeton (5-3 overall, 2-0 Ivy League) remains unbeaten on their home turf at 1952 Stadium, but without a road win so far this spring. The Tigers COLUMBIA 7 are one of three teams that are still undefeated in Ivy League PRINCETON 18 competition, tied for first place with Penn and Dartmouth.

An excellent team effort helped propel the Tigers past the Lions (1-8, 0-4), with several standout performances leading the charge offensively. Sophomore attacker Erin McMunn scored six goals and added three assists for a career-best nine point game after earning Ivy League co-Offensive Player of the Week honors on Monday. Freshman attacker Alexandra Bruno also had a career night, tallying six goals, including two converted free position shots. Junior goalkeeper Caroline Franke made eight stops in net.

“We were happy with the way we played,” junior midfielder Sarah Lloyd said. “We possessed the ball

See COLUMN page 5

on attack and took higher quality shots which allowed us to be productive, especially in the second half. And on defense, we tried to pressure them into mistakes which worked pretty well for us.”

After winning the opening draw, Princeton managed to dominate the game from start to finish.

Junior attacker Mary-Kate Sivilli struck first for the Tigers with 23:28 left in the first half and her goal was quickly followed by McMunn’s first goal of the night just 44 seconds later. Finishing low, McMunn netted her second goal of the half to put Princeton ahead by three after 10 minutes of play.

Columbia answered back with two goals, the second off of a free position shot, to narrow the margin to one halfway through the first half. After the Lions got a yellow card, the Tigers took advantage of their man-up opportunity as McMunn fed senior attacker Jaci Gassaway in front of the crease.

A Columbia goal brought the game back within one point, but then Princeton went on a five-goal streak in the final seven minutes of the half. Bruno netted her first free position goal after a second Columbia yellow card. One minute later, senior midfielder Charlotte Davis scored on another free position. McMunn completed her first hat trick at 4:34

NIVEEN’S LEGACY

with a hard shot that soared past the keeper. Shortly after, she passed from behind the net to sophomore midfielder Erin Slifer, who was cutting hard to goal and scored. Lloyd drove hard to the right side and scored with under 30 seconds remaining in the half to send the teams to the sideline at the half with the Tigers ahead 9-3.

At the start of the second half, Columbia scored two quick goals and proved that they were not going to let Princeton take the win easily. Held scoreless for the first 10 minutes, the Tigers then answered back with back-to-back goals. Davis netted her second and McMunn her fourth, working it in front of the crease and shooting high. Columbia’s next goal came off of another free position at 12:13.

Mirroring the first half, the Tigers went on a second five-goal scoring run in under five minutes. Slifer assisted Bruno to start it off. Sivilli helped McMunn net her fifth of the night off of a quick stick finish. Bruno grabbed her third and fourth goals one after the next, with the latter being assisted by McMunn. Lloyd tallied her second point as she assisted McMunn on her sixth and final finish of the game. Columbia’s final goal came with just under four minutes remaining,

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS vs. DePaul Dec. 13, 2011

Facing a top-25 opponent in DePaul, Rasheed had one of the best games of her career, scoring 23 points and grabbing 18 rebounds (a career high), including seven on the offensive end.

The impressive performance was not quite enough for the Tigers, however, as they fell 78-67.

A LOOK AT ONE OF THE GREATEST CAREERS IN PRINCETON BASKETBALL HISTORY

points per game

rebounds per game

3

assists per game

5

steals per game

2

’09 - ’10

2

’10 - ’11

Rasheed was injured for the majority of the 2010-2011 season but she posted an impressive 16.4 points per game, 7.3 rebounds per game, 2.8 assists per game and 2.4 steals per game before injuring her ACL in December.

’11 - ’12 ’12 - ’13

nd in league

1 1

15.4

st in league

16.9

st in league

16.9

rd in league

8.8

1 2

st in league

8.8

nd in league

DESIGN BY MANAGING EDITOR EMILY TSENG AND DESIGN STAFFER KELLY RAFEY

9.0

th in league

5

2.9

th in league

2.9

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rd in league

3.3

nd in league

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vs. Kansas State March 17, 2012

In her second NCAA tournament game, Rasheed put up 20 points, nine rebounds and six assists for the Tigers, playing all but three minutes of the game. The Tigers lost, but the three-point deficit was the closest the Tigers have ever come to an NCAA tournament win.

vs. Rutgers Nov. 29, 2012

nd in league (tie)

Throughout Rasheed’s four years on the team, she has helped the Tigers achieve many milestones. One of these was a win over Rutgers early this season, which was the first time Princeton had beaten their neighbors since 1978, ending a 12-game losing streak to the Scarlet Knights.

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st in league

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PHOTOS BY SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER SHANNON MCGUE, ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR EMERITUS MEREDITH WRIGHT, SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER GREG PENG & STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER KATHYRN MOORE SOURCE: DAILY PRINCETONIAN COVERAGE, GOPRINCETONTIGERS.COM

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3/27/13 11:55 PM