Today's paper: Thursday, Oct. 17th. by The Daily Princetonian

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Wednesday october 17, 2013 vol. cxxxvii no. 90

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In Opinion Mitchell Hammer discusses how we express our identities, and guest columnist Cameron Langford provides a moral basis for separating rape and party culture. PAGE 4

In Street Margot Yale takes a tour of the art museum, Harrison Blackman defends rocking desk chairs and T.J. Smith perfects your Princetoween. PAGE S1

The Archives

Oct. 17, 1994 College administrators notice a rise in alcohol incidents on campus. Coincidentally, the eating clubs had recently cracked down on underclass drinking.

On the Blog Ben Dinovelli waxes poetic on Princetonian traditions.

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

S P E C I A L S E N AT E E L E C T I O N

SENATOR BOOKER

U. seeks new Newark mayor wins election for U.S. Senate seat Career Services director By Ella Cheng staff writer

The University has advertised for a new Executive Director of the Office of Career Services to “augment the existing strengths of Princeton’s current Career Services leadership,” according to a posting on the University’s jobs website. The job will be a “new senior position” which reports directly to the Vice President for Campus Life and will work with other senior administrators and alumni leaders, according to the announcement posted on the database of open positions. Beverly Hamilton-Chandler is currently the Director of Career Services, the most senior position at the agency presently. Hamilton-Chandler said she was unavailable for comment. The executive director would be responsible for developing and leading an advisory council for the agency, which would include employers, alumni, faculty members, administrators and leaders in employment sectors, according to the job description. The posting also calls upon the executive director to create a “partners group” consisting of students, faculty See CAREERS page 3

LILIA XIE :: ASSOCIATE PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR

Former Newark mayor Cory Booker, who recently defeated former Bogota mayor Steve Lonegan in a race for U.S. Senate, waves.

By Hannah Schoen staff writer

Newark Mayor Cory Booker defeated former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan in the race to fill the seat vacated by Senator Frank R. Lautenberg on Wednesday, the Associated Press reported. At press time, with 99 percent of precincts reporting, Booker was leading

Gabbie Watts previews tonight’s Terrace show featuring the Becca Stevens Band.

News & Notes Intersection closure expected to last until February 2014

the intersection of alexander street and University Place was closed to traffic starting Wednesday to accommodate construction of a new traffic circle near the future Arts and Transit Neighborhood. The closure is expected to last until February 2014, according to an email sent to the University community on Tuesday by Department of Public Safety Administrative Captain Donald Reichling. Alexander Street will be closed from College Road to just north of the new Princeton Station parking lot. The construction has also resulted in changes to pedestrian and bike paths. Students going to and from Forbes College should expect an additional 30 seconds of travel time, College Master Michael Hecht announced the Forbes community in a email. While noise from the construction may reach Forbes, there will be no changes to New Jersey Transit service, parking or taxi service at this time. The Wawa will remain open 24/7.

this frustrating negativity and stayed at home today. But here in New Jersey, more than a million people rejected cynicism and came out on a Wednesday, not in the November, but in the middle of October.” Meanwhile, Lonegan gathered with his supporters in Bridgewater, N.J. where he conceded the race and announced he would retire from politics to build another business. “I’ve spent the last 20 years of my life in politics, serving the people of New See ELECTION page 3

POETRY READING

LOCAL NEWS

On the Blog

Lonegan by a wide margin of 55 to 44 percent. Booker celebrated his victory Wednesday night with an event at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark, according to his campaign. “Look, the truth is obviously clear: Every time you turn on the TV, you see it,” Booker said, according to The StarLedger. “Pundits tell us how little regard we have for Washington, for Congress — how cynical we have become about the work being done in our nation’s capital. It would have been easy to listen to

Cochrane ’81 appointed superintendent of Princeton Public Schools By Jasmine Wang contributor

The Princeton Public Schools Board of Education appointed Stephen Cochrane ’81 superintendent of Princeton Public Schools earlier this month. He is a current assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction at the Upper Freehold Regional District. Cochrane said he discovered his passion for teaching early on in his career, while working at Wheelock College, a private college in Boston that focuses on education and social work. “Except for my time at Harvard, I have lived in Princeton since I was 17 years old,” he explained. “I have a desire to give back to the Princeton community and to the children of this community.” He added that he hopes in the course of his four-anda-half year contract to help bridge achievement gaps and to build PPS into a “lighthouse district” for other schools around the nation. After graduating as an English major, Cochrane worked as an admission officer at the University from 1981 to 1984 and routinely spoke to high school students about the value of higher education. After Cochrane earned a master’s degree in education at Harvard Graduate School and served as residence direc-

STEPHEN COCHRANE ’81

tor at Wheelock College, he accepted the position of associate dean of admissions in 1985. The job allowed him to travel the country to speak about the importance of working with young children. “I really became enamored with the mission of this college and the work that most of these young women were putting into working with these young kids,” Cochrane said of his time at Wheelock, when the student body was predominantly female. He began working as Princeton’s assistant dean of students in 1987. “I jumped at the chance of working with students back at West College,” Cochrane said. “But the whole time I was working there, I kept thinking how I could be making a bigger difference in the lives of students, working at the beginning of the educational process instead of at the end.” Cochrane worked with residential college advisors, handled eating club and housing issues and worked with students with disabilities before See SUPERINTENDENT page 2

GRACE JEON :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Poet Ricardo Blanco read poetry as part of the Althea Ward Clark W ’21 Reading Series Wednesday afternoon in Berlind Theatre in McCarter Theatre Center. He was introduced by Joyce Carol Oates. ACADEMICS

Chinese activist Chen Guangcheng calls for universal human rights By Jacqueline Gufford contributor

Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng called for the worldwide recognition of universal human rights and proposed measures to end to the Chinese government’s repression of its people in a lecture delivered at the University Wednesday night. Speaking through a translator, Chen emphasized the need to examine human rights from a global per-

spective in an increasingly interconnected society. “The world has become smaller thanks to information technology and the advancement of other technologies,” he said. “Nations have become closer.” The existence of a totalitarian regime in the world cannot be ignored or left to the people of that nation, because the result will be the erosion of values and respect for human rights worldwide, Chen argued.

A recently appointed fellow at the Witherspoon Institute’s Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution, The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice and the Catholic University of America, Chen Guangcheng is a self-taught lawyer by training who spent his career advocating for the disabled and victims of China’s one-child policy. “Chen is a visionary who looks ahead to a free See CHEN page 2

The Daily Princetonian

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Wednesday october 16, 2013

Cochrane ’81, superintendent: ‘Teaching first graders reading is rocket science’ SUPERINTENDENT Continued from page 1

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the University had created the Office of Disability Services, according to Kathleen Deignan, the current dean of

undergraduate students. “When he was here, he was extremely well-liked. He was energetic, someone who the students were very fond of and we know that he said when he did step down, it was because he wanted to make a big-

ger impact at a public school level,” Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students department manager Janine Calogero said, speaking for Deignan. “He’s a devoted educator who I am sure will be a terrific superintendent of schools.” In what he calls the most naive and important decision of his life, Cochrane left the position of assistant dean in 1990 to teach elementary school in South Brunswick, N.J. “For the first time in my life, I thought I would fail at something,” he said. “I [initially] thought, ‘how hard could teaching nine- and 10-year-olds be?’ I have never forgotten how difficult it is to be a great teacher. Being a mediocre teacher is not that hard.” Cochrane, now 53, never looked back. When asked how his experience and time at Princeton University impacted his work, he said: “I really think about that motto, ‘Princeton in the Nation’s Service.’” He explained that he was inspired by former University president William Bowen GS ’58, who emphasized the importance of K-12 education.

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“Teaching first-graders reading is rocket science. It is hard work,” Cochrane said. “I don’t think people realize that.” Cochrane added that he thinks more Princetonians should consider teaching as a career. “There’s this judgment made that teaching elementary school is babysitting, and not using that Princeton University education the way it should be used,” he said. “The University does teach you to think f lexibly and give you knowledge in a wide variety of areas. It prepares you to look beyond just what you’re doing in the classroom to how you can help improve the system of education. Any time we can take smart, talented, mission-oriented Princeton students and put them in front of kids, we can make an impact.” Cochrane said he would like to see teacher preparation refined at the national level and made more similar to the medical field, with longer residencies and preparation periods. “Being smart doesn’t mean you’re prepared to deal with all the management issues that come with a classroom of over 30 kids,” he said. “It was not the academic content that overwhelmed me, but all the decisions: trying to figure out when kids were sharpening their pencils. Teachers make almost 2,000 decisions a day.” Cochrane called the concept of programs such as Teach for America, one proposed by Wendy Kopp ’89 in her undergraduate senior thesis, “amazing.” He also said he is thrilled that the University now offers a Program in Teacher Preparation. Working his way up from his teaching post, Cochrane served as principal of Hopewell Elementary School from 1994 to 2001, then of Timberlane Middle School

from 2001 to 2004. Cochrane transitioned in 2004 to director of curriculum and instruction at Colts Neck Township Schools, N.J., and finally to the position he holds now

“I have never forgotten how difficult it is to be a great teacher. Being a mediocre teacher is not that hard.” Stephen Cochrane ’81 newly appointed superintendent of princeton public schools

as assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction in the Upper Freehold Regional District in 2007. “I remember talking with lots of my former classmates at Princeton, about what we’re doing with our lives. Many of them were working on Wall Street, making ten times what I was making. But there wasn’t a single one of my classmates who wasn’t absolutely supportive to the point of almost being jealous of my life, to be doing something meaningful and making a difference in the world,” he said. Judith Wilson, the current superintendent of Princeton Public Schools, announced her decision to retire in March 2013. “You have to be careful as a new leader coming into an institution,” Cochrane noted. “My goal is to listen to people and collaboratively create a vision for Princeton Public Schools.” The economic, cultural and

racial diversity of Princeton Township and high aspirations of the Princeton school board attracted him to this position, Cochrane said. “Princeton has both the resources and the challenges to make it a model, to serve as a lighthouse district, for many districts across the country. The other goal that Princeton has is to focus on the whole child, to allow all these kids to graduate happy, to have balance in their lives,” Cochrane explained. “It’s not just about getting into the best college or that high-paying job. It’s to lead a life with purpose and joy. These are the principles which we must inculcate, and inculcate early.” Lewis Goldstein, assistant superintendent for human resources, public information and community relations at Princeton Public Schools, praised Cochrane’s leadership ability. “Stephen is a very smart guy. He’s well informed in instructional pedagogy. We had a very strong pool of candidates, but Stephen stood out. He’s a great leader,” Goldstein said. Regarding the rigorous Common Core State Standards that New Jersey has adopted, Cochrane noted the importance of staying focused on more than just grades. “There’s a whole new teacher evaluation protocol that ties teachers’ work to test results … But the best districts are the ones who are looking beyond the storm to the other issues that need to be addressed,” Cochrane explained. “The ability to be curious, to problem solve, to think critically — those are the kinds of skills that every district is trying to address in order to close the achievement gap and prepare kids to be successful in a very complex global society, not just to get high test scores.” Cochrane will start in his new position on Jan. 1.

Chen emphasizes global perspective CHEN

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and democratic China,” Simon Center Director Matthew Franck told The Daily Princetonian in an interview. He added that while Chen has no official agenda as fellow at the Witherspoon Institute or its associate organizations, he fills a niche in the organization by bringing practical experience in promoting human rights to the table. “We want to help him to be even more visible and even more effective at advancing his cause,” he said. “We’re just proud to support him in his call for universal human rights.” His appointment at the Witherspoon Institute will last three years, The Guardian reported. Throughout his lecture, Chen cited specific cases of

human rights violations in China and emphasized the role of superpower nations in supporting the call for democratization of the Chinese regime. He also laid out a seven-point plan to rectify the “systematic crimes against humanity that are being committed in an organized manner” in his home country. His plan includes establishing a database of human rights violators, increasing international funding for software that breaks down firewalls as a means to promote internet freedom, encouraging nations to demand that the Chinese government end religious persecution and the “onechild policy,” forming an inter-parliamentary body on human rights, calling on legal experts to publicly support human rights lawyers in China and asking American citizens to contact their representatives in support of

these measures. The need to prioritize the defense of human rights around the world was central to Chen’s proposal. Chen urged democratic governments to use their inf luence to encourage totalitarian governments such as China to adopt the universal values of freedom. “Big or small, as long as we take action … we can say our practical actions have changed the world and made it a better place,” he said. Chen was last on campus in March, when the WhigCliosophic Society presented him with the James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service and he spoke brief ly to the ‘Prince’ about the state of human rights in China. The lecture, titled “China and the World in the 21st Century: The Next Human Rights Revolution,” was sponsored by the Witherspoon Institute.

The Daily Princetonian

Wednesday october 16, 2013

Booker defeats former Bogota mayor ELECTION Continued from page 1

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Jersey the way I thought I best could … and it’s been a wonderful experience,” Lonegan explained. “But I’ve often said that the most noble thing we can do, aside from fighting for this country in the military, is to build a business and create real jobs.” The Journey Following Senator Frank Lautenberg’s Jun. 3 death, Gov. Chris Christie set a special election date for the seat for Oct. 16, nearly 3 weeks before his own Nov. 5 re-election. Politics Professor Nolan McCarty said in an Oct. 10 interview that he thought that Gov. Christie scheduled the election in October instead of on Nov. 5 “because he was worried that a very strong showing by Mayor Booker would detract from his reelection margins.” However, McCarty added that he is curious as to whether or not Gov. Christie is reconsidering this decision. “I wonder now if he’s not having second thoughts, both Governor Christie and other Republicans in the state, about having written off this election,” McCarty said. “They could’ve made it competitive, perhaps, if they had scheduled in November along with the Governor’s election and allowed Governor Christie’s coattails to help a stronger Republican candidate.” But with the general election set for October, the candidates were left with just over 2 months to campaign before the Aug. 13 primaries, and just over 4 months before the Oct. 16 general election. The competition in the Aug. 13 primary included Booker, Representative Rush Holt, who was endorsed by former University president Shirley Tilghman and other faculty, Representative Frank Pallone and New Jersey Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver for the Democratic nomination. Lonegan and physician Alieta Eck competed in the Republican nomination. Both nominees easily defeated their competition, with Booker winning 59 percent of the Democratic vote and Lonegan winning 79.9 percent of the Republican vote. Having secured the nominations of their respective parties, both candidates traveled the state, with Booker visiting Princeton for a “Run with Cory event” on Oct. 2 and for a meet and greet with constituents on Sept. 14. McCarty explained that the campaigning was much more intense in the lead-up to the special election than he ex-

pected it to be. “I’m a little surprised at this point that there still is a campaign,” McCarthy told the ‘Prince’ on Oct. 10. “I think most people thought that Mayor Booker was going to be so far ahead at this point that there wouldn’t be much going on. The fact that, you know, with a short time to go, Steve Lonegan’s only 12 points behind is quite surprising.” Despite Lonegan’s gains, McCarty said that he still expected Mayor Booker to win because of his popularity and New Jersey’s status as a “very Democratic state”. Booker was up by 14 points and 10 points, respectively, in polls taken by Quinnipiac from Oct. 10 to Oct. 14 and Monmouth from Oct. 10 to Oct. 12. These leads were smaller than his leads at the beginning of the general election campaign, when Booker led Lonegan by 27 points, according to a Farleigh Dickinson poll taken from Aug. 21 to Aug. 27. Booker also led Lonegan by 27 points immediately after Lautenberg’s death, according to a Quinnipiac poll taken from June 7 to June 9. Election Day Booker began Oct. 16 by casting his ballot just after 7:30 am at the Roberto Clemente Shalom Towers in Newark, News 12 New Jersey reported. Meanwhile, Lonegan voted at the Recreation Center in Bogata, The Star-Ledger reported. Some students also turned out to vote in the special election, casting their votes at the polling place set up at Icahn Laboratory. Kate Grabowski ’16 voted around noon. She said she came to Icahn “just to vote, and have my vote count.” “This is my first time voting,” Jeremy Cohen ’16 said. Cohen explained that his birthday was slightly too late for him to be able to vote in the 2012 election, but he was happy to not have to wait until 2014 to vote for the first time. McCarty said on Oct. 10 that he expected turnout to be very low because the election was in a “usually non-political year”, a special election, and the single race featured on the ballot. What’s Ahead In a Sept. 15 interview with the ‘Prince’, Booker said that one of the first things on his agenda if he was elected to the Senate would be the economy. “We’re still dealing with the ravages of this economy, and while the economy’s doing pretty good, real wages

are declining or stagnating,” Booker said. “We have a lot of places where there’s concentrated poverty, from Cumberland County to Patterson, Passaic, and so I just really want to deal with sort of the economic fairness and justice issues, at a time where, as a United States government, we’re stopping investing in those things” Another issue on Booker’s agenda is the ongoing government shutdown, which he condemned before a crowd in Palmer Square the night of his “Run with Cory” event. “As we look down south right now in DC, we see a lot of things going wrong with our country. It has nothing to do with the right or left. It really has to do with this idea that, are we going to work together as a people to be stronger and better[?]” Booker asked. “We’ve got to start finding ways not only in Washington DC but all over this country [of] bringing people together.” Will Mantell ’14, the president of College Democrats, said in an Oct. 13 interview that Booker had talked throughout the campaign about “key places where he can work across party lines and make the Senate a little less dysfunctional.” Mantell added that he supported Booker’s approach. “I think that that is sort of a good goal for him to pursue. He has shown that he is someone who can work with all different types of [people from] all different ideologies,” Mantell explained. “We really like the idea of having someone who shares our values but at the same time, is going to make Washington work better than it’s working now.” McCarty said that he did not think that Booker’s victory would have a large national impact because it was likely that Booker would vote similarly to Lautenberg. “Mayor Booker’s voting record will not be that different than what Frank Lautenberg’s was,” McCarty explained. “He’ll be a highly visible senator. The question about whether he will be a senator very heavily engaged in the details of the legislative process is not as clear. However, McCarty added that he thought that Booker’s election could make a big difference in New Jersey politics. “It potentially gives the Democratic Party a kind of a counterweight to Governor Christie, a much more highprofile, visible leader of the Democratic Party than say […] Frank Lautenberg,” McCarty explained. “So that may have an impact on New Jersey politics.”

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TRAITOR?

RUBY SHAO :: CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Students present their arguments in the debate, “Is Edward Snowden a Traitor?” Wednesday night in the Whig-Clio Senate Chamber. This debate was hosted by the American Whig-Cliosophic Society.

Tilghman: Agency is ‘work in progress’ CAREERS Continued from page 1

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members and administrators. This posting comes a few months after the departure of former President Shirley Tilghman, who expressed disappointment with the results produced by Career Services. In a speech delivered to the senior class on May 13, Tilghman said she thought of the career advising agency as “a work in progress.” “We’ve made some investments in the last couple of years there, but we’re not doing nearly as good a job in helping you, not just get a job, but how to think about what it is you want to do after graduation,” Tilghman said. “So I would say that’s on my conscience, that I haven’t done a better job in fixing that.” She elaborated further upon her vision for Career Services in

a May interview with The Daily Princetonian, stating that, while she thought the agency was going in the right direction, she had commonly heard students express their impressions that Career Services had a strong emphasis on finance and consulting jobs. In the interview, Tilghman said that such types of jobs have effective recruiting operations, but increasing help for students seeking other career paths has continued to be a challenge. Hamilton-Chandler commented in May that the addition of a new position — the assistant director for arts, nonprofit and public sector — had helped in those efforts. The job advertisement calls for the new Executive Director to “strengthen and expand partnerships with a wide stakeholder base of outside constituencies including employers from all industry sectors.” The announcement specified

that the University is seeking for someone with “experience in higher education, commercial or social enterprise, [or] government or professional services,” with at least a bachelor’s degree. It also stated that candidates should have progressive management experience involving liberal arts students and recent graduates, as well as the skills to establish new institutional relationships and professional networks, reach high standards of employee effectiveness and manage budgets. Christopher Burkmar ’00, the executive director for planning and administration in the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life, will be staffing the position. He declined to be interviewed. The search is led by Chuck O’Boyle of C.V. O’Boyle, LLC, a consulting firm that specializes in searches for higher education talent. O’Boyle declined to comment.

Ryan Dukeman columnist

Ryan Dukeman is a freshman from Westwood, Mass. He can be reached at rdukeman@ princeton.edu.

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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

Keep it small

n the wake of the announcement that a committee was being created to review grade deflation, another presidential proposal — that of expanding the undergraduate student body — was largely overshadowed in campus discussion. As a possible means of enlarging the University, President Eisgruber ’83 floated the idea of adding a seventh residential college or expanding Forbes College, currently the University’s smallest. Such an expansion, in either form, would be detrimental to both the student body and to the image of Princeton in comparison with its peer institutions. I went to a high school that had for more than 360 years prioritized and treasured its small size, and by the time I graduated, I had for six years personally felt the practical and tangible benefits of such an education. The most obvious of these is that classes were kept very small (before ECO 100, the largest class I’d been in since middle school was 20 people). Maintaining a small school matters because students become more invested in their own education. Even for no other reason than the simple fact that you’re very likely to be called on, you want to come to class prepared. Professors can more effectively teach classes, as they have a better sense of how well each student understands the subject. And everyone is more engaged in a class in which the professor and the students enrolled in the course know each other on at least a somewhat personal level. Furthermore, the abstract conception of a small school building as a “community environment” does in fact mean something. Statistically, in a small school you are more likely to run into people you know, acquaintances become friends more quickly and you can rarely be somewhere without being among friends. You are more likely to have more in common with the friends you make, because you are in each others’ classes, you participate in the same clubs and you go through parallel struggles and experiences. I bought this premise wholly and knew when I applied to college that on some level I wanted to continue to benefit from small classes and a strong school community. Obviously even the smallest liberal arts college would be significantly larger than most high schools, but I didn’t want to suddenly become one of 10,000 freshmen. One of the chief reasons I chose to apply to Princeton, and eventually chose to come, was precisely because of its comparatively small size. The absence of most professional schools measurably puts the emphasis on the undergraduate experience in terms of endowment per student, class sizes and classes taught by professors. And the residential college system breaks the class of 1,300 into groups of about 200 people you’re most likely to see day-to-day and get to know fairly quickly. Preserving all of these goods that are unique to smaller schools should be a key priority, and as such expanding the undergraduate student body seems rather misinformed. One obvious point is that the proposed increase in the student body would be marginal, not radical, and that any effects of dilution or increased anonymity would be minimal. The last expansion after the addition of Whitman College, for example, was only around a 10 percent increase, and the sky didn’t fall down. Class sizes didn’t suddenly balloon. The world didn’t end. But I believe that repeated marginal changes such as these to the student body will in the aggregate make a significant and harmful difference. I believe the current student population is of the right size: Big enough that a wide array of classes and activities can be offered and that you are always meeting new people, but small enough that you aren’t usually one of 450 in a class and that you always see your core group of friends. And while I don’t believe the number 5,200 is some objective standard for the perfect size of a university, I think the current size of Princeton makes sense. Slowly pushing this number higher and higher without a well-justified and case-by-case reason, however, does not. Gradually expanding, while at each step may lessen the initial shock of massive increases, in the long run leaves the same effect. If every 10 years, Princeton adds 150 more students, for example, no one expansion would feel drastic, and in fact each would feel proportionally less so than the last. But over the long-term life of the school, it would radically increase the student body. Perhaps no single increase would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, but looking back years later, the quality and character of the University would be unrecognizable. By decreasing the simple likelihood of running into a given person, you make everyone feel that much more anonymous, that much less known in a place that is supposedly their home. Clubs become more competitive, and classes either increase in size or become harder to get into. This is not a goal that the Princeton administration should be striving toward. Princeton is a small university in a small town. It is designed on some level to feel like home; that is a characteristic not many schools can achieve and is a fragile one that shouldn’t be tampered with.

Opinion

Thursday october 17, 2013

Keep calm and conform on Mitchell Hammer columnist

alfway through Frosh Week, as I sat on the chapel steps with a handful of other freshmen meeting our academic adviser for the first time, I was invited to observe. My adviser asked us to look at the students around us and see how many stood out; how many, out of the thousands of successdriven students at Princeton, all with impressive resumes and exceptional talents, really stood out? She brought to my attention the absence of unnaturally dyed hair, of unconventional piercings and of tattoos too large to be concealed under a suit skirt or a collared shirt among the student body. Since then, I’ve kept a quiet vigil; I have so far seen just one purple-haired boy and caught just a flash of what may have been inked skin underneath a sleeve. While I myself have no tattoos or piercings, and my hair is a nondescript brown (and it is true that many students at Princeton are not exactly the type to have a strong affinity for such things), the complete lack of these individualizers inside Princeton’s microcosm awoke me to a more troubling part of campus culture. It seems some Princeton students are so consumed by their futures and their “employability” in a growing job market that they are willing to shape their own identity around it. Far beyond a healthy preoccupation, future employment is at the forefront of student life and influencing their college experience to

align with desirable employee skills. To Princeton students, an aspiring investment banker with tattoos winding down his arms is seen as one without a job. Piercings and tattoos are the extreme; their absence is simply one representation of the careerdriven attitude that rules students at Princeton. What really is being lost is the sense of originality and freedom that is historically attributed to the greatest intellectuals of human history, and that I once associated with the academic seats of America. Coming to Princeton, genius for me was embodied by a classic photo of Einstein, his wild hair at all angles and his tongue sticking out. I expected much of Princeton to have a similar quirk of brilliance, some rejection of the status quo in favor of groundbreaking pursuits. However, I’ve noticed that many here have their sights set instead upon a secure profession, repressing the penchant for questioning conventions that education attempts to foster. Instead of focusing their talents and their lessons toward avant-garde ideas, many students are inclined to construct a resume — and therefore an identity — around their preconceptions of employer desires. The job is the end and the education merely the means. Even worse, pursuits that do not directly correlate with students’ future employment goals often are cast by the wayside in favor of activities more likely to impress corporate giants and Wall Street icons. This issue is a national epidemic, and understandably so with the economy still reeling. But as students at one of the most prestigious colleges in the world, we should be

challengers rather than conformers. As we learn and grow on this campus, we should be creating an identity independent of current standards and using this individuality to redefine our environments. Our aim should be to analyze and to formulate, not to accept to ensure security. This university is meant to promote this sort of exploration; I find it almost disrespectful to focus a large portion of our energies on ensuring a comfortable career with little regard to Princeton’s appeal for individual innovation. The senior thesis alone is evidence enough to show the value Princeton places on personal and creative thought. Yet some students I’ve talked to anticipate the thesis as the addition of a published work to their application, not the unique and individual production that the thesis seeks to be. I agree that consideration for our future is prudent, but it is imprudent for us to become absorbed by such restrictions. Change is progress, and if we — the brightest of the next generation — do not instigate such change, it will never happen. And if nothing I’ve said has been compelling, consider all the black-suit, crew-cut would-be investment bankers, all with identical resumes built on identical principles and aiming for identical employment. Not one of them stands out, not one is memorable. Then consider the hundreds of people I encounter on campus daily, all gifted and all with impressive lists of credentials, but not one of which I remember — not one, that is, except for the one purple-haired boy. Mitchell Hammer is a freshman from Phoenix, Ariz. He can be reached at mjhammer@princeton.edu.

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 Kathleen Kiely ’77 treasurer Michael E. Seger ’71 Craig Bloom ’88 Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Richard P. Dzina, Jr. ’85 William R. Elfers ’71 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John G. Horan ’74 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Betsy J. Minkin ’77 Alexia Quadrani Jerry Raymond ’73 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

Culture shock

vol. cxxxvii

director of recruitment advertising Zoe Zhang ’16

Lizzie Buehler ’17

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director of operations Elliot Pearl-Sacks ’15 comptroller Kevin Tang ’16

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No, no, no: An examination of ‘Unless There’s Consent’ Cameron Langford

guest columnist

olumnist spencer shen recently argued that SHARE’s new “Unless There’s Consent” program lacked the ability to reduce sexual assault on campus. No program, in Shen’s view, can reduce or eliminate Princeton’s sexual assault numbers, because nonconsensual sex is the inevitable result of a beer-sodden campus culture. For Shen, where there is alcohol, dim lighting and dubstep, rape is all but unavoidable. Like columnist Isabella Gomes and many of my Facebook friends who linked to the article in angry or bewildered statuses, I strongly disagree with Shen. I find something deeply problematic with his assumption that where there is alcohol, there will necessarily be rape — and that this is a reality to which Princeton students and administrators must resign themselves. It’s true, of course, that rape is more likely when alcohol enters the picture, but insofar as rape depends on one or both parties being in a (presumably drunken) state that makes consent impossible. Just as you cannot get into a car accident without getting in a car, as one example, you cannot have drunken sex without drinking. Fine. Where Shen goes wrong is in

assuming that the two unavoidably go hand-in-hand and that rape inevitably and inescapably follows from alcohol consumption. Sure, nonconsensual sex may require being in a state too drunk to consent, but that doesn’t mean that a drinking culture must necessarily lead to a culture in which 1 of every 8 undergraduates is raped. I, like Gomes, argue that we can have one without the other — and, perhaps more to the point, we can have a culture of one that does not endorse or shrug off the other as mere collateral damage. To examine my argument more closely, let’s consider a less controversial example, one set outside of sticky eating club dance floors. Say that, after graduation, a Princeton alumna named Alice moves to New York City. One night, Alice visits her friends, who live in an apartment several blocks from hers. At two a.m., she leaves for home and takes a shortcut through a dimly lit street, even though she knows that more murders occur in such settings than on major thoroughfares. Then, while walking along this dark path, a man emerges from the shadows, holds a gun to Alice’s head, and kills her. The question is, as with alcohol-induced rape, to what extent is Alice responsible for what happened to her? After all, her decision to walk along a dark street

ultimately resulted in her death — isn’t she, in some way, culpable? And yet, our intuitive response is that Alice is not responsible for her murder (at least not in any moral sense); the murderer is. The important distinction to draw here is that between causal and moral responsibility: Just because someone’s actions, like walking on a dark street or drinking to excess, ultimately cause some consequence doesn’t mean that we find the person who performed those distantly causal actions morally culpable for that consequence. Instead, we say that the person who intended to cause the consequence — that is, the rapist or the murderer —is at fault. To go farther back than that direct causal link is to open up a space in which it becomes permissible to argue that people are responsible for the more distant consequences of their actions: that Alice caused her own death simply by moving to New York City, or that students cause their own rapes simply by matriculating at Princeton. The Alice example starts to disentangle the link Shen proffers between rape and alcohol. But it also acknowledges the reality that – just as Alice’s risk of death increased when she chose to walk along the dark street – the risk of rape increases when alcohol enters the picture. To understand a risk, however, need not be to accept

it, or more specifically, to accept responsibility for it. (That is victim blaming, plain and simple.) And it is certainly not to endorse it. Shen’s argument, under this construction, becomes absurd: He essentially argues that one consents to nonconsensual sex by consenting to party culture. But to “implicitly support” a campus culture that, many steps down the line, sometimes results in rape is a different thing entirely from “implicitly supporting,” or consenting to rape itself. Princeton’s current rape rates are not a reality we need to accept on face. As Gomes points out, rape and party culture can be separated, and change can be effected, with programs like “Unless There’s Consent.” Perhaps the one thing Shen is right about is that we can’t change a “college culture” that revolves around drinking and sex. (Nor, in my opinion, should we.) But we need not, as Shen argues, throw our hands up and conclude that nonconsensual sex is the inevitable price we pay. Instead, we need to shift the conversation, as “Unless There’s Consent” has attempted to do, away from victim-blaming and towards prevention. Cameron Langford is a politics major from Davidson, N.C. She can be reached at cplangfo@princeton.edu.

The Daily Princetonian

Thursday october 17, 2013

BY DEBBIE YUN DESIGN STAFF

THE

NUMB3RS

FELINE FOOTBALL PRINCETON DEF. LAFAYETTE

1950

Yards of sophomore kicker Nolan Bieck’s longest field goal that day, a career high

PRINCETON

Number of passing TDs quarterback Quinn Epperly has in the past 2 games

Number of turnovers the Tigers forced in the game

LEOPARDS

TOTAL OFFENSE

401

182

RUSHING YARDS

158

265

PASSING YARDS

243

TURNOVERS

FIRST DOWNS

28:19

TIME OF POSSESSION

31:41

33.3%

3RD DOWN CONVERSIONS

38.9%

LAFAYETTE

TIGERS 447

20 0 6 0 11 10 14 7

LEOPARDS

The last time the Tigers scored 40+ points in three straight games

page 5

BY QUARTER 1ST QUARTER

RUSHES 9

PASSES 16

2ND QUARTER

3RD QUARTER

RUSHES 5

RUSHES 6 PASSES 16

4TH QUARTER

PASSES 6 PASSES 17

RUSHES 17

Number of sacks by the Tigers

NET YARDS

83 yards passing

101 yards passing

55 yards passing

26 yards passing

41 yards rushing

26 yards rushing

27 yards rushing

88 yards rushing

POSSESSION TIME

7:07

6:14

Number of points the Leopards scored in the second half

Total number of tackles for a loss by the Tigers

5:19

9:57

FALL ON

CAMPUS

PHOTOS BY GRACE JEON AND RACHEL CHOI, CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS