The Daily Princetonian: April 5, 2024

Postdocs move towards first academic union on campus

Correct the curves: Princeton’s intro STEM courses are inequitable Opinion

Yushra Guffer Contributing Columnist

Above all else, Princeton prides itself on the academic rigor of its curriculum.

After announcing their intent to file a petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to form a union, approximately 50 postdoctoral scholars delivered a letter to Nassau Hall on Monday calling on the University to remain impartial during the anticipated election to unionize. “We’re here to ask the administration to play fair in this election,” Har -

rison Ritz, a postdoctoral researcher at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute (PNI), told The Daily Princetonian in an interview.

In an opinion piece in the ‘Prince’ on Sunday, organizers with Princeton University Postdocs and Scholars (PUPS) wrote that over 65 percent of postdocs have signed union cards, well over the 30 percent threshold required to petition for a NLRB election. The card campaign went public in December.

PUPS plans to file with

the NLRB on Tuesday, which would make it the first academic union ever on campus to formally seek an election. The NLRB first ruled that graduate students and teaching assistants at private universities were eligible for collective bargaining in 2016. The first postdoctoral workers union was formed in 2018 at Columbia University under the umbrella of the United Auto Workers (UAW), through which PUPS is also seeking recognition.

Once the petition is filed,

However, while the University’s high standards of excellence and fast-paced environment may be valid goals to strive for, not all students are able to keep up with the pace.

After all, Princeton admits applicants from all over the world. Consequently, incoming students come from several different types of academic backgrounds, including private schools, charter schools, public schools both resource wealthy and resource lacking, vocational academies, and community colleges. Because of this wide variety of academic backgrounds, there is naturally a disparity between the collegiate preparation and academic training of the incoming students. This

disparity is especially apparent for first-generation-low income (FGLI) students who often disproportionately experience greater difficulty in keeping up with Princeton’s high standards of academic rigor.

In order to effectively address this disparity, Princeton needs to re-evaluate the difficulty of the STEM introductory courses and implement equity-oriented solutions that directly address the different levels of student preparation. After all, the level of academic rigor at Princeton can only be truly effective if all students are first able to work on a level playing field.

Even as a first-year at Princeton, I quickly became acutely aware of the range of academic backgrounds among my peers. I felt as though this disparity was especially evident in introductory courses. Throughout high school, I was a student who enjoyed and performed well in math, and I would definitely say

Class of 2028 admitted, first class following affirmative action ban

By Meghana Veldhuis Assistant News Editor

In the third year of an expanded undergraduate class, the University offered admission to the Class of 2028 this past Thursday, March 28. March 28 was this year’s ‘Ivy Day,’ the day that most Ivy League schools release their regular decision results and is traditionally the day in which Princeton accepts the majority of the next year’s class.

Data for the accepted Class of 2028 has not yet been published. In December 2021, the University announced that it would no longer release admission data during admission cycles, but a more

“

detailed report of the class would follow later in the year.

The Daily Princetonian spoke with some students who were accepted to Princeton’s Class of 2028 on Thursday.

This year’s admissions round was a historic first in the absence of affirmative action, which the United States Supreme Court struck down in June 2023. This is the first admissions cycle at the University without formal consideration of racial diversity since 1963.

“Personally, I have no idea how affirmative action affected my application — I would have to see the demographic shifts in the incoming class to see if I was given

THE NOTED FRENCH WRITER’S ADDRESS

”

6, 1900

an advantage or disadvantage based on the court ruling,” said Ryan Li of Naperville, Ill., who hopes to pursue his interests in computer science and join a dance group on campus.

Evan Carpenter of Owasso, Okla., who plans on majoring in neuroscience, said, “I definitely really feel for everyone who was affected negatively by it because that must be really difficult. It’s definitely just a really hard situation.”

Helin (Helîn) Taskesen, who currently lives in Seattle, Wash., but is originally from Diyarbakır, Turkey, explained that she “was the first in [her] family to go to high school and survive the college application pro -

cess in the United States … This acceptance means a lot to [her] community back in Diyarbakır.”

Taskesen is interested in majoring in Operations Research and Financial Engineering with certificates in computational mathematics or optimization and quantitative decision science.

“I would like to say that I am not in support of its overturning, and that I believe equity should be pursued on every college campus, as higher education shouldn’t be blocked off based on socioeconomic hullabaloo, which is, factually, deeply correlated with racial privilege,” Li explained. In light of the affirmative

action ruling, the University has updated its application process so that applicants “reflect on how your lived experiences will impact the conversations you will have in the classroom, the dining hall or other campus spaces.” Taskesen told the ‘Prince’ that she still talked about her ethnicity and gender in her application. She expressed that she fears “that may be why [she] got in or that people might think [she] got in through that.”

“I started my application for Princeton pretty early after Princeton released their prompts,” said Steve Ta, who currently lives in Wichita, Kan., but moved from Viet-

This Week In History

In honor of the first week of National Poetry Month, The Daily Princetonian explores a 1900 lecture delivered by French Symbolist poet Monsieur Henri de Régnier. The poet, renowned during his time for his contributions to French literature, gave a guest lecture at University Hall, in which he acknowledged women’s contributions to literature as both subjects and creators of art. Today, Princeton’s creative writing department is composed of mostly female professors, and poetry groups on campus have become places of gender and identity expression.

By Ethan Caldwell & Miriam Waldvogel Staff News Writer & Associate News Editor

PHOTO BY CALVIN GROVER

Protesters chanting and holding a banner in front of Nassau Hall.

Ryan Li of Naperville, Ill.:

“Personally, I have no idea how affirmative action affected my application”

ADMISSIONS

nam three years ago.

“Even though it took me a long time to craft the best essays to present myself well, Princeton prompts brought to me a sense of appreciation in allowing me to fully express myself and reflect on the long life journey that I have been through in both countries I have lived in: Vietnam and the US.”

Prospective physics major Vedant Aryan from Wallingford, Conn. said that he applied to the University “ironically.” “As I studied the history of physics breakthroughs, Princeton kept coming up.”

Ta, a prospective computer science BSE major, said “the independent study nature of Princeton mostly attracted me here. It creates an aspiration for me to further delve into my realm of knowledge and present a senior thesis in the topic that I will be a professional in for my future career.”

Admitted students also ex-

plained how visits to campus convinced them to apply.

Aryan explained, “I also hung out with my close friend during my campus visit, and she seemed extremely happy and super excited, so that’s when I knew I definitely wanted the chance to join Princeton’s community.”

Kweku Akese from Auburn, Mass. told the ‘Prince,’ “I applied to Princeton because two friends of mine go there and really like it, and I also had heard about how undergrad focused they were, which I thought was super cool.”

After getting through this application round, most members of the prospective Class of 2028 are excited for a future at Princeton.

Ta told the ‘Prince,’ “I was in my shift of my tutoring job, and I was sneaking to use my phone to check the result. I screamed out when I saw the acceptance letter, which captured the attention of the students in the class. I put my phone away after that and held in myself a triumph of victory. ‘Finally the American

Dream came true,’ I thought.”

“I went through a period of so much rejection and waitlisting that I got super discouraged about how everything would turn out. Little did I know I just had to wait a bit longer,” Akese said. “I’m the first person in my family to get accepted into an Ivy,

so it’s not only super cool, but an honor to have the opportunity to hopefully encourage more to hope for the same.”

Akese plans on majoring in molecular biology on a premedical track and is excited to get involved with a cappella groups on campus.

Regular decision is the last in the University’s organized decision rounds for this admissions cycle. Early decision and QuestBridge match results were released in December 2023.

Meghana Veldhuis is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Princeton to aim for 70 percent financial aid, 22 percent Pell Grant eligibility for undergraduate

By Thomas Catalano Assistant News Editor

On Tuesday, March 26, the University announced new enrollment goals aimed at bolstering socioeconomic diversity. Princeton will strive to enroll an undergraduate student population that is, at a minimum, 70 percent need-based financial aid eligible and 22 percent Pell Grant eligible. A committee of the Board of Trustees also recommended growing the transfer program, continuing legacy preferences in tie-breaking scenarios, and ensuring that recruited athletes are representative of the greater student body.

These goals were put forth by the board’s Ad Hoc Committee on Undergraduate Admission Policy that was formed in July 2023 in the wake of the Supreme Court decision preventing most universities from considering race, ethnicity, and national origin

in the admissions process. The committee’s conclusions and recommendations were published in a report, dated March 14.

The committee found that “in the changed legal environment, the University’s greatest opportunity to attract diverse talent pertains to socioeconomic diversity.”

In November, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 wrote a column titled “Bending the Socioeconomic Curve in Selective College Admissions,” where he discussed overcoming socioeconomic adversity as a form of merit that ought to be considered in admissions. “We train our Admission team to recognize that persevering through socioeconomic disadvantage is a direct indicator of potential success in college and beyond,” Eisgruber wrote.

Martin Flaherty ’81 is a visiting professor in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA),

whose work focuses on constitutional law. “If — and one would assume that this is going to be the case — increasing socioeconomic diversity increases racial diversity, that is less a function of the conditions of socioeconomic diversity. What it’s a function of is that there is a correlation between race and [socioeconomic] class in the United States,” he said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.

The committee worked with Vice President and General Counsel of the University Ramona Romero and Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Karen Richardson ’93 to ensure that the recommendations for the University’s admissions policies and practices are compliant with the Supreme Court’s ruling.

“There is no legal problem with setting a goal related to socioeconomic diversity,” Richard Kahlenberg, an American author and lawyer who specializes in

enrollment

educational issues, particularly affirmative action, said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “The Supreme Court treats decisions to classify students by race very differently than they do classifications by socioeconomic status.”

The University’s new goals for enrolling more low- and middleincome students follows a trend towards increased financial aid eligibility among undergraduate students in recent decades. Starting in Fall 2023, Princeton’s financial aid program expanded to cover all expenses to attend the University for most families making up to $100,000 annually. Sixty-seven percent of the Class of 2027 currently receives financial aid, meaning the new goals aim to raise eligibility by three percent.

Kahlenberg said that he “applaud[s] the idea that they [the University] are setting some numerical goals, not just declaring, in general, ‘we want more socioeconomic diversity.’” He commented on the three-percent increase, explaining that he considers the University’s new enrollment goal “a modest change.”

In addition to new goals for undergraduate students receiving financial aid and Pell Grants, the committee’s recommendations include growing the transfer program, which announced an expansion to 100 students in 2022 after being reinstated in 2018. This month’s report from the ad hoc committee called for the University to “continue to increase the size of the program over time” and did not provide a specific magnitude or timeline for the change.

Athletic recruitment was also highlighted in the report — the committee urged the University to continue to uphold the principle that athletic recruits should

be representative of the greater undergraduate student body both academically and socioeconomically. “Their pursuits and accomplishments after graduation are impressive and generally indistinguishable from those of their non-athlete classmates,” the report noted.

The report also discussed the “limited preference” given to legacy applicants, a hotly-debated issue in the wake of the affirmative action ruling. “The legacy preference functions as a tie-breaker between equally wellqualified applicants in limited instances,” the committee found. This tie-breaking preference benefits fewer than 30 students per year on average, and approximately 70 percent of legacy applicants are denied admission each year. However, 30 percent of legacies are admitted, as opposed to the 5.7 percent acceptance rate for the Class of 2026 — the last class Princeton published admissions data for.

The committee wrote that “the pool of alumni children who apply for admission will soon be at least as diverse as the overall pool in those respects” and that, as a result, the legacy preference will benefit an “increasingly diverse population.”

Considering these factors, the committee endorsed the “continued, limited use of the tie-breaker legacy preference.”

The trustee committee’s report did not include a deadline for implementing the committee’s recommendations, nor did it suggest specific implementation strategies, but said that the University “must be relentless” in its endeavors to enroll more students from low- and middleincome backgrounds.

Thomas Catalano is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Hall on a

“We’re here to ask the administration to play fair in this election.”

POSTDOCS

Continued from page 1

both the University and the NLRB have seven days to respond.

Other formally recognized unions on campus represent facilities and dining hall workers and the Department of Public Safety, and library employees. Princeton University Library Assistants represents employees at University libraries, excluding professional librarians. As of March, Princeton Graduate Students Union was still conducting its card campaign.

The petition at Monday’s event — separate from the formal NLRB petition, and signed by nearly 150 postdocs — requested that the University “not attempt to influence postdoctoral workers against unionizing.” After assembling in front of the Architecture Building, participants walked to Nassau Hall and delivered a copy of the letter, spanning several feet and printed on bright orange paper, to the arms of an administrator waiting outside.

“We strongly believe that a constructive relationship between PUPS-UAW and the Princeton administration will benefit the overall quality of research and instruction at Princeton,” the

letter read.

Postdoctoral organizers used the same tactic in January 2023 to call for a salary increase, days after the University raised salaries for postdocs by almost 20 percent.

“We’ve seen at other universities trying different things, trying different kinds of legal maneuvers, trying to carve up the bargaining unit into different cohorts, and we think that’s ridiculous,” Ritz said. “Postdocs in those cases have all still won their union. Why delay?”

“We have received the letter and are committed to continuing our support for our postdoc community. We look forward to constructive engagement as this process unfolds,” University spokesperson Jennifer Morrill wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’

May Huang, a postdoc in the Princeton Department of Geosciences, said she hoped to see “more genuine, realistic conversations [from the University] with us because … sociology research indicates that unionization is the way to go. There’s a movement in the entire country.”

Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Ethan Caldwell is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’

By Ryan Hunstein Contributing

Student groups express frustration with reserving Richardson and other performance spaces

By Caitlyn Tablada News Contributor

Reserving Richardson Auditorium, the largest performing arts space on campus, is presenting a problem for student-led performance groups at Princeton. The auditorium, renovated in 1984 to become a world-class concert hall, is one of the most coveted spaces for student performances.

“I think it’s always been a dream of people in Opus to perform in Richardson,” said Albert Zhou ’24, who serves as the president of the undergraduate chamber music collective Opus, in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “Richardson is just such a nice space to perform music in, and we would just love the opportunity to use it at some point.”

However, reserving Richardson for shows has caused frustration among student groups like Opus due to its high demand.

“It’s frustrating how long the waiting list is,” Zhou said, adding that the list is at least two years long. “I’m a senior, so even if I managed to get Opus on the waiting list, I won’t be here by the time we finally have the chance to get Richardson. Half of the club will no longer be here.”

Sean Park ’24, the former president and current member of the student a capella group Roaring 20 (R20), also shared his experience with reserving Richardson for performances in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ While R20 secured the space for their 40th anniversary celebration last year, they had to reserve Richardson “about a year in advance of the event.”

“I do know [securing Richardson] was quite the struggle just because there were a lot of groups that wanted to bring back their events that they couldn’t do for the past few years because of COVID and school closure,” said Park.

“Post-COVID, it’s gotten more difficult for student groups to reserve Richardson [in a timely manner]. It’s just a long list of student groups that are constantly waiting to get access to Richardson, to be able to showcase themselves and their work, on a big stage like that. Because there’s nothing really comparable to that on campus,” he added.

When asked about how Richardson could attempt to expedite the reservation process, Park claimed that the biggest improvement would be their transparency with student groups.

“We just really wanted to un-

derstand how the reservation process works [with Richardson], and we were only able to get that information once we reached out … I’m assuming there are still a lot of groups left in the dark about this information too,” he said.

In contrast, Associate Director of Performing Arts Services Kathleen Coughlin wrote in an written statement to the ‘Prince’ that the process for reserving Richardson is “fairly quick.”

“We will respond back within a week of your request. If the requested date is not available, the venues team works with students to consider alternative dates,” Coughlin wrote.

In response to a question from the ‘Prince’ about the two-year waiting list, Coughlin wrote, “If the space is available, reservations are typically confirmed within a week of the request. The challenge is that the space is heavily used, especially by the Department of Music, so availability is limited. Because of the dense schedule, it is difficult to book multi-day performances, which is something many student groups request.”

Beyond Richardson, the increase in the number of student groups at Princeton due to the growth of the student body — in addition to the desire to bring back in-person performances after the COVID-19 pandemic — has led to increasing difficulty for student groups to reserve performance spaces in general.

“We’re just generally frustrated with the difficulty in getting performing spaces here,” Zhou said. “We can sort of understand that with a really nice space like Richardson, we are sympathetic to the fact that it will be difficult to get that space. But I think compounded with the fact that it’s hard to get other nice spaces too, it’s led to a lot of frustration

for us.”

Department of Music professor David Kellett, who has directed multiple productions in Richardson, shares similar sentiments to Zhou. He wrote in an emailed statement to the ‘Prince’ that the biggest issue for student performance groups is the University’s lack of a “dedicated proscenium stage (with an orchestra pit and appropriate support staff) that may be utilized 100 percent of the time by the faculty, students, and courses.”

“The creation of the Lewis Center for the Arts was certainly a huge addition for the arts community in general and for students in the performing arts,” Kellett wrote. “With all that work and expense, however, it did not add that big performance space. I think we are seeing many problems with student productions struggling to find adequate spaces to do their performances across campus. I am not sure we shall see a solution for quite some time.”

Starting with the Class of 2026, the University implemented a four-year plan to increase the size of the undergraduate student body by 500 students. “We’re getting more students, and student groups are getting bigger in response, but we’re not getting more performance spaces to go with that. I just think a lot of issues could be solved if the facilities available to arts and music groups would grow along with the size of the student population,” said Zhou. The former president of the Performing Arts Council Chris Park ’24 reiterated Zhou’s sentiment in a ‘Prince’ column last week.

Caitlyn Tablada is a contributing News writer for the ‘Prince.’

LOUISA GHEORGHITA

Princeton alum Trey Farmer ’93 arrested for possession of child pornography

By Miriam Waldvogel Associate News Editor

Roy “Trey” Farmer ’93, a prominent figure in various Princeton arts and alumni spaces, was arrested for alleged possession of child pornography on Friday, March 22.

Farmer served as one of the cochairs of the recent 30th reunion of the Class of 1993. As a student, he was involved with a number of music groups, including the Cha-

pel Choir, the Glee Club, and the a cappella group the Katzenjammers, where he served as business manager. He was also a member of Campus Club and wrote his senior thesis on the philosopher Philo of Alexandria.

Farmer continued to be active in some University organizations as an alum, providing logistical support for the Katzenjammers and the Glee Club when they toured through Southwest Florida in 2013 and 2020 respectively.

“It came as a shock. We are supporting each other through this,” said the Katzenjammers in a statement to The Daily Princetonian. The Glee Club declined to comment.

After graduation, Farmer worked in telecommunications and private equity. He was also the president and board member of Queer Princeton Alumni (QPA). He was removed unanimously from these positions by the board of QPA on Wednesday, according

to a statement by the group.

Farmer was also the chair of the Committee on Regional Associations and served on the board of the Princeton Internships in Civic Service (PICS).

“Mr. Farmer is not currently a University volunteer,” said University Spokesperson Jennifer Morrill in a statement to the ‘Prince.’ Farmer also serves on the board of the New York Philharmonic.

As reported by NJ.com, the

Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office received a tip about child sexual abuse material in January that it alleged was linked to Farmer.

Farmer’s arrest has attracted the attention of some conservative news outlets, many of them focusing on his involvement with QPA.

Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Frist Health Center construction continues past working hours, disturbing some student residents

By Victoria Davies

Assistant News Editor

As construction continues across campus, overnight work has been occurring on the site of the new Frist Health Center. While the Princeton Town Ordinance limits the hours construction can occur to between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., the University is exempt. A resident of Scully Hall, Julia Zhou ’24, noticed and reported the latenight work to Public Safety (PSAFE) on two separate occasions since the start of spring break, telling The Daily Princetonian that the late-night noise and light are disruptive.

In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ Zhou explained that she had been hearing and seeing construction as late as 1 a.m., including a “sustained beeping sound” and people in highvisibility clothing working with cranes in the construction site. Zhou

STUDENT LIFE

expressed that studying in her room is difficult with the noise from the construction, and the late-night work meant that, for her, “it’s really hard to start sleeping.”

Princeton Town Ordinance requires that construction cannot occur at any time on Sundays, or later than 6 p.m. or before 7 a.m. on all other days of the week. On Saturdays, work cannot begin before 8 a.m. Outside of these times, construction can only go ahead “in case of urgent necessity in the interest of public health and safety.”

Work outside normal hours of operation also requires the “prior procurement of a permit … by the municipal engineer or building official,” in accordance with the terms of Section 21-2(i) of Princeton Town Ordinance.

According to University Spokesperson Jennifer Morrill, the overnight work on the site for March 19 was

deemed necessary as it “impeded a driveway” and therefore posed unsafe conditions for workers during regular working hours. A shift was scheduled for 3–11 p.m. on Tuesday, March 19, but “the crew ran into an issue and the planned finish by 11 p.m. ran late.”

Morrill added that it is “not required to obtain a permit for work taking place within campus,” but the University’s “practice is to involve the municipal engineer when impact issues, such as overnight or late-night noise, are anticipated.”

The Frist Health Center construction site sits at the intersection of Guyot Lane and Goheen Walk near Butler College dormitories. The Frist Health Center is set to replace McCosh Health Center as the location for on-campus healthcare services.

While students were not directly notified of the late-night work, Morrill explained that “students have been

informed through various means including mirror decals in all public restrooms on campus that they can reach out to the Facilities Service Center regarding concerns about construction.”

Additionally, Section 2.2.1 of Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities says that “dormitory residents concerned about excessive noise should feel free, at any time, to call the public safety officers for assistance.”

Zhou told the ‘Prince’ that she first contacted PSAFE on Tuesday, March 12, during spring break, then contacted them again on Monday, March 18, due to the disturbance caused by the noise.

She explained that the construction workers “finally left around 2 a.m. and then they started up again at their usual time in the morning” of March 19. On March 12, the site was cleared before PSAFE arrived.

Morrill wrote that the “work was scheduled for spring break week. Due to adverse weather, the project extended into the following week.” This work has now been completed, according to Morrill.

The construction of Frist Health Center is expected to be complete in 2025. While the use for the current McCosh Health Center has not yet been announced, ideas such as a graduate student center and a campus pub have been proposed by students.

Other students have expressed frustration at the ongoing campus construction, suggesting it has been “widening the existing chasm” between different areas of campus and creating dissatisfaction and frustration regarding circulating campus.

Victoria Davies is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Tower President to lead the ICC for the first time in 14 years

By Justus Wilhoit & Nandini Krishnan Senior News Writers

President of Tower Club Vincent Jiang ’25 was elected as Interclub Council (ICC) President on Monday, March 18, according to a press release from the ICC. Jiang is the first ICC President to also be the President of Tower Club since Martin Scheeler ’11, who was elected to both positions in 2010. The ICC elections follow new officer regimes taking over the 11 eating clubs that line Prospect Avenue.

Jiang is a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.

The ICC is an organization that is composed of 11 undergraduate eating club presidents who meet weekly to “discuss club policies, student life projects, and best practices to ensure a safe environment for all members and visitors to the clubs,” according to the ICC’s official website. The ICC elects its officers internally among these 11 presidents. Additionally, the ICC coordinates with University administrators and organizations, as well as the Graduate Interclub Council (GICC) — composed of eating club alumni who help manage the clubs’ financial decisions “to address topics of campus-wide concern regarding student life.”

Jiang takes the helm of the ICC at a time when Tower has expanded to its largest membership in at least the last quarter century. In 2024, Tower accepted 165 new members, compared to just 141 the year before.

Joining Jiang to lead the ICC as vice president is Anna Johns ’25, President of Charter Club. This

marks the second-consecutive year where Charter has had representation in the top two slots at the ICC — former Charter President Mia Beams ’24 served as ICC President last term. Like Tower, Charter experienced a rise in popularity this year, with the club’s selective signin point cutoff rising and several students who ranked the club first unable to be offered membership.

A new role, ICC Chief of Staff, will be filled by Alexandra Wong ’25, President of Cloister Inn. The new role will cover the “oversight and coordination between all eleven clubs’ officers and chairs.”

The ICC also manages Street Week — the admissions process for sophomores who would like to join an eating club during the second week of the spring semester.

The press release emphasized that the ICC will continue work with previous officers and “will also draw lessons from the experience of the Class of 2026 during Spring Street Week 2024.” This past Street Week, the ICC accommodated the largest sophomore class in Princeton’s history, with a very small group of students unable to be placed in an eating club by the ICC system due to a lack of space in sign-in clubs.

Interest in the eating clubs remains high, reflecting the ICC’s important role in overseeing Street Week. During Street Week 2024, about 80 percent of the sophomore class signed up on the ICC website to bicker or sign-in to an eating club. A total of 1,207 students were placed in eating clubs, with only 629 students being accepted into bicker clubs.

While interest in Street Week remains high, overall participation in the eating club system has declined over the long-term, with the percentage of students graduating without being a member of an eat-

ing club having doubled since the mid-1990s.

Wong will serve as the inaugural holder of her role, while Jiang and Johns will succeed Beams and Josh Coan ’24, respectively.

Justus Wilhoit is a senior News writer and an assistant Audience editor for the ‘Prince.’

Nandini Krishnan is a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’

“Fresh start ”

By Emma Simon Staff Constructor

"Seriously?"

Native of Endor

Before, once

25 Exasperated cry

26 *What Princeton students live in, with "the" 30 Brothers of folklore

32 Cry for help 33 Pack animals 34 Small class

Pen brand 39 Take a break 40 *Conspicuous postitons 43 2020 Pixar movie starring Jamie Foxx

46 Head honcho, for short

Poseidon's attendants 51 Bert's roommate 53 ___ Paulo 55 Lauder of cosmetics 56 *iPad accessories

Sixteenth prez

61 What this clue serves as / An example of, though not / A very good one

Killed it, slangily

"Kaplooey!"

Discretion 65 Agricultural portion often brought as an offering ... or a hint for the starred clues 69 Tennis star Huber

Unoccupied

Dante's unit

Russia, once

Attractive

Declares emphatically

Troublemakers

"Someone already told me" 3 Subtitle of "Anna" by the Beatles 4 One of twelve in a Princeton semester

Abbr. after a price listing 6 Nilla or Kit Kat

Little green men, in one conception

Against against

Slanted letters

Considers 50 Appears as if

Response to a mouse

Volume equal to 0.002 pints

___ Theatres

Witherspoon of film

Jost's cohost

Where 47-Acrosses dwell

Annie and Harry, for example 45 Examines, as a question

The Minis

By Ryan Hunstein Contributing Constructor

Sean who wrote "The Plough and the Stars"

Kleenex alternative

"The Addams Family" cousin

Opposite of rights

Submerge

Greek "T"

Anger

Friend of Buzz and Woody

Mens ___

The following content is humorless and totally unoriginal

Abigail Rabieh Public Editor

The following is a column from the public editor. If you have questions or concerns regarding the paper’s coverage and standards or would like to see her cover a particular issue, please contact publiceditor@dailyprincetonian.com.

Content warning: This piece contains mention of suicide and sexual assault.

If I had begun this column with a joke, you would probably already have stopped reading. I am not a particularly funny person: no one’s ever hired a public editor for her humor. Lucky for us all, The Daily Princetonian employs staff who can do this much better than me. The Humor section creates content which leverages emotional responses in order to make readers laugh, contemplate campus issues, or, at the very least, open our website. However, since the section’s inception, the leaders of the ‘Prince’ have failed to treat satirical content with the unbiased and judicial eye to which all content of a newspaper should be subjected, hindering the freedom of their writers and the contributions they can make to campus dialogue.

The satire section was born out of the platform Emma Treadway ’22 submitted to the ‘Prince’ staff during her ultimately successful candidacy for 145th Editor-inChief (EIC) of this paper. It declares her intention to “launch a brand new section, publishing a few satirical news columns per week” to build on the former tradition of publishing a joke issue from the Daily PrincetOnion.

According to former Head Humor Editor Liana Slomka ’23, the section was renamed the Humor section under the next EIC in order to give space for the publication of pieces that did not consist of biting newsworthy satire and thus could bring more readers and writers to the paper. Whereas writing satire consists of crafting poignant or pointed pieces which draw upon comedy or absurdity to shape campus dialogue, explained Slomka, humor pieces could take forms which engaged with easier subjects with the simple goal of making people laugh, which would ultimately facilitate more productive satire pieces when they were relevant.

“I remember feeling that it was sometimes easier to crank out an easy and somewhat harmless piece even if it wasn’t particularly meaningful,” she said. “I think that’s part of the idea of encouraging writers to keep writing so that when there is a difficult subject, they feel empowered to write about it.”

Yet the culture cultivated by the leaders of the ‘Prince,’ in which the permissible topics to be used in humor are limited and removed from difficult campus dialogue, is not empowering writers to accomplish either. In conversations with former and current Humor

writers, many shared the common complaint that members of Upper Management (UM) at the ‘Prince’ consistently limit the author’s freedom to choose what jokes to make and filter humorous content through an overwhelmingly progressive perspective focused on minimizing potential emotional responses to crafting an interesting point.

At the ‘Prince,’ all content goes through a production process in which it must be approved by at least two members of UM — which consists of the EIC and the managing editors — before it is published online. This includes fact checking, editing for writing clarity and concision, and ensuring that content meets editorial standards for reporting. Managing Editor Lucia Wetherill, who oversees the Humor section, explained that when UM reads a Humor piece before approving its publication, they look for a clear joke, a relevancy to campus, and a level of cleverness, wittiness, or intentionality.

“A Humor piece may not always fit my sense of humor,” Wetherill said, but emphasized that with each piece, she ponders “could it feasibly fit someone else’s sense of humor?”

However, in the process of making such determinations, UM has and continues to impose limits upon the issues and individuals writers are able to utilize in service of a joke.

When Contributing Humor Writer Sawyer Dilks drafted a historical satire piece last semester in order to “comment on the common Thanksgiving celebrations we were all taught in school” and “point out Princeton’s lack of acknowledgement of its historical treatment of Native Americans,” he said, he found that the article which was published “ended up removing the humor which actually made it effective commentary.”

Despite the fact that Dilks is of Native American ancestry and no member of UM at the time was, he noted that they edited his piece to remove its provocative nature.

“The original was definitely supposed to catch a reader offguard by having them acknowledge the insensitive perspectives that are very present in society,” he said. “I think ultimately [it] was too much of a sock-in-the-face for UM.”

Determining what constitutes acceptable fodder for satire is no doubt a political endeavor: it involves making decisions about who can be put at unease and which issues can be leveraged to invoke an emotional response. When this is done at a managerial level, it harms the general mission of the newspaper. Nonreporting sections offer writers a unique forum for free expression and readers the chance to interact with a broad range of opinions and perspectives. Head Humor Editor Spencer Bauman noted that the ‘Prince’ leadership generally determines these standards on progressive ideals.

“The whole point of satire is to make people feel uncomfortable and to exaggerate things to the point that it feels abnormal,” he said. “But to go in the newspaper, everything has to go through that

first filter of political correctness, which also has to do with the fact that a lot of people on the ‘Prince’ are interested in that sphere of campus community outside the newsroom.”

While the tendencies of the leaders of the ‘Prince’ are only representative of larger societal trends, Bauman said, the lack of effort to fight their presence serves to warp the coverage included in the paper in a distinctly political way.

“The only people that [the Humor section is] allowed to offend are the people we’re allowed to offend, like the administration or the people who the ‘Prince’ views as an other.” he said.

In my conversation with Wetherill, she emphasized that the ‘Prince’ adheres to editorial standards which require staffers to “punch up” rather than “punch down.”

“Humor by nature is a creative section, and we want to make sure that [writers] have the freedom to explore their individual voices. I don’t think that needs to be in conflict with having standards as a publication,” she said.

A core tenet of editorial integrity is considering the harm that journalism can do to its readers and wielding the power of the newspaper as a trusted source with intentionality. Oftentimes, this involves revealing critical information which might harm the few in the service of the many — doing what Wetherill called punching up by serving the communities who need institutional representation the most. The mission of humor — which is to raise emotional responses in its readers — can sometimes feel in tension with this goal. Editors are understandably loath to risk the carefully cultivated trust within their community for a single piece.

UM often appears to fail to consider that satire is, in fact, also in service of truth-telling and trustbuilding, which are core journalistic functions. That is, in fact, one of the purposes of having artistic and non-objective sections: offering a platform for a diverse array of authors to flex their creative muscles in interpretation of the best way to ensure their audience “come away from the ‘Prince’ more informed and better connected.”

To this end, writers should be afforded the opportunity to make that decision themselves.

“I would like the liberty to make fun of everyone,” Bauman said. “How else can I write for the entire campus?”

Staff Humor Writer Michael Hwang recently published a piece on this very subject, declaring  “Woke editors, stop censoring my brilliant pieces.” While he noted that the piece was not inspired by any particular incidents of censorship, he shared that UM asked him to change sample headlines of pieces that had been rejected in his fictional account.

“The joke headlines that I put there were supposed to be intentionally provocative, because the joke is that I’m complaining that I can’t publish these pieces when they’re clearly offensive to people,” he said. “So, I do think changing those joke headlines to be not provocative at all is kind of silly, because that just defeats the purpose of the joke.”

Hwang clarified that he generally appreciates UM’s sensitivity and urge to avoid angering readers. However, he explained that he disagreed with some of their philosophy on the purpose of the section.

“They don’t really make a distinction between making fun of something and just using something as a vehicle to deliver a completely different joke,” he said. “You can’t mention certain things at all, even if you’re not making fun of them.”

When asked about topics which are off-limits to humor writers, Wetherill gave the examples “sexual assault” as well as “racism” and “suicide.”

“There has been a lot of campus conversation about student death, and I do not see an appropriate avenue for that in the Humor section,” Wetherill said.

Of course, I am not suggesting that writers engage in racism or make jokes about suicide. But the attitude that discussing serious situations in ironic or satirical manners makes light of them severely limits the ideas represented in Humor coverage. Despite the fact that, as in any non-reporting section, it is the views of the writer alone represented by the piece, UM

often asks writers to rewrite sections which discuss complex situations or make use of populations which may have stereotypes associated with them.

This semester, for example, a managing editor once declared that a piece in which the possibility of being found nude by fire inspectors was satirized could not use a female name for the protagonist, as women make up the majority of sexual assault victims. Such a sentiment is a disservice to the point of satire, which involves using humor and emotion to interrogate uncomfortable situations. If those situations cannot be represented, the dialogue will remain unchanged and uninterrogated.

“To make any real point, one has to use real issues, and to avoid those issues stops us from being able to combat them effectively,” Bauman said. “And we remove them from the discourse.”

Indeed, limiting those who are allowed to be involved in a joke to non-marginalized populations and unserious issues forces writers to paint the community in a homogenous and simplistic way.

Humor, as with any qualitative judgment, is subjective: it would be impossible for someone to write a compendium of what writers are and are not allowed to say. This is why it is essential for writers of artistic and non-neutral content to be given the broadest possible latitude with their speech: to do otherwise is to narrow the scope of the paper in service of a particular political ideal. If the ‘Prince’ is going to publish satire, it is imperative that it cultivate a culture which respects and uplifts humor as a creative tool. This involves encouraging writers to make informed decisions about what stereotypes, critical issues, and cultural knowledge they will leverage as they undertake work which will make readers laugh at the very least, and, at the very most, think.

Abigail Rabieh is a very serious junior in the history department from Cambridge, Mass. She is the public editor at the ‘Prince’ and writes to address issues of journalistic quality and ethics.

editor-in-chief

Eden Teshome ’25

business manager Aidan Phillips ’25

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

president Thomas E. Weber ’89

vice president

David Baumgarten ’06

secretary Chanakya A. Sethi ’07

treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90

assistant treasurer

Kavita Saini ’09

trustees Francesca Barber

Kathleen Crown

Suzanne Dance ’96

Gabriel Debenedetti ’12

Stephen Fuzesi ’00

Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05

Michael Grabell ’03

Danielle Ivory ’05

Rick Klein ’98

James T. MacGregor ’66

Julianne Escobedo Shepherd

Abigail Williams ’14

Tyler Woulfe ’07

trustees ex officio Eden Teshome ’25 Aidan Phillips ’25

148TH MANAGING BOARD

Ryan Konarska ’25

Naisha Sylvestre ’25

director of outreach

Lia Opperman ’25

Accessibility

Tess Weinreich ’25

Lucia Wetherill ’25

creative director Mary Ma ’26

strategic initiative directors

Christopher Bao ’27

Education

Charlie Roth ’25

head

Financial Stipend Elaine Huang ’25

Sections listed in alphabetical order. public editor Abigail Rabieh ’25

’26

’26

’27 head audience editor Paige Walworth ’26

associate audience editors Zach Lee ’26

Amparo Sanchez ’27

head copy editors

Nathan Beck ’25

Bryan Zhang ’26

associate head copy editors

Lindsay Padaguan ’26

Elizabeth Polubinski ’25

head data editors

Andrew Bosworth ’26

Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko ’26

head features editors

Sejal Goud ’25

Molly Taylor ’25

associate features editor

Raphaela Gold ’26

head graphics editors

Luiza Chevres ’26

Noreen Hosny ’25

head humor editors

Spencer Bauman ’25

Sophia Varughese ’26

associate humor editors

Sam McComb ’25

Mya Koffie ’27

head news editors

Bridget O’Neill ’26

Annie Rupertus ’25

associate news editors

Julian Hartman-Sigall ’26

Olivia Sanchez ’26

Miriam Waldvogel ’26 (Investigations)

head newsletter editor

Kia Ghods ’27

assistant business manager

associate newsletter editors Victoria Davies ’27 Sunney Gao ’27

head opinion editor Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26

community opinion editor Christofer Robles ’25

associate opinion editors Thomas Buckley ’26 Wynne Conger ’27

head photo editors Louisa Gheorghita ’26 Jean Shin ’26

associate photo editor Calvin Grover ’27

head podcast editor Vitus Larrieu ’26

associate podcast editors Senna Aldoubosh ’25

Theo Wells-Spackman ’25

head print design editors Avi Chesler ’25

Malia Gaviola ’26

head prospect editor Isabella Dail ’26

associate prospect editors Russell Fan ’26

Regina Roberts ’26

head puzzles editors Sabrina Effron ’26

Joah Macosko ’25

associate puzzles editors Wade Bednar ’26

Lindsay McBride ’27

head sports editors Cole Keller ’26

Diego Uribe ’26

associate sports editors Tate Hutchins ’27

Hayk Yengibaryan ’26

head web design and development

editors Yacoub Kahkajian ’26

Vasila Mirshamsova ’26

148TH BUSINESS BOARD

Jessica Funk ’26

business directors Gabriel Gullett ’25

Andrew He ’26

Jordan Manela ’26 Robert Mohan ’26 Kok Wei Pua ’25 My Ky Tran ’26 project managers Jason Ding ’25 Kaustuv Mukherjee ’26

Tejas Iyer ’26

148TH TECHNOLOGY BOARD

chief technology officer

Roma Bhattacharjee ’25 lead software

’26

It is vital that the University explore equity-driven solutions to help alleviate stress surrounding these introductory STEM courses.

STEM

Continued from page 1

that my two AP Calculus courses were my favorite classes. Once I entered Princeton, I enrolled in a required BSE math course MAT 201: Multivariable Calculus, following Princeton’s AP and SAT guidelines for placement. However, I quickly grew to dread math class. It was not long before I was struggling beyond belief in the course. I was attending both weekly tutoring sessions and office hours just to complete the homework. My usual study habits no longer worked, and the curve did little to help my grade. Increasingly, I noticed that when exams came around, students with prior experience in multivariable calculus or with stronger academic backgrounds tended to perform better and affect the curve. After all, these are students who are essentially forced to retake a course similar to one they have already taken.

MAT 201 is just one example of Princeton’s many difficult introductory STEM courses. For instance, COS 126: Computer Science — An Interdisciplinary Approach is presented as a rudimentary course geared towards students of all levels. However, it is infamously difficult for students who have no background in coding, due to its fast pace and time-consuming weekly programming assignments. As one student review indicated: “This course is [not] a beginner friendly environment.” Another example is MOL 214: Introduction to Cellular and Molecular Biology. I struggled in MOL 214 due to my high school’s lackluster science program. Although there are more accessible biology courses than MOL 214 offered at Princeton, those courses don’t satisfy degree requirements for STEM majors. Introductory physics cours-

es also similarly trap students with expectations of background knowledge and prior experience in the subject. Since you can only place out of physics by taking an exam that tests both mechanics as well as electricity and magnetism, students who have taken either course in a prior year are stuck retaking the subject.

Princeton should implement specific solutions in introductory STEM courses to address the inequity of educational backgrounds. Currently, Princeton does provide a variety of different resources for students who may feel out of their depth in these introductory STEM courses. For instance, the McGraw Center provides both individual tutoring as well as group study halls for many of these courses. However, for popular courses, these programs tend to fill up quickly. Office hours with professors and TAs are also offered, but these resources also tend to become crowded as the course’s workload intensifies. Another potential resource is the Scholars Institute Fellows Program (SIFP) through the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access & Opportunity. They offer precepts and weekly math tables where students can get help from the other students and faculty in a more relaxed environment. In the SIFP precepts, instructors discuss problem-solving strategies, work on tailored problem sets, and provide individualized support. Although I believe that SIFP precepts are especially helpful for intro classes, SIFP primarily benefits students who are FGLI. Consequently, students who came from disadvantaged high schools, but are not under the FGLI umbrella, are unable to access SIFP’s resources and support. Therefore, I believe the University can still take additional measures to specifically address the present inequity.

It is vital that the University explore equity-driven solutions to

help alleviate stress surrounding these introductory STEM courses. A potential solution may include allowing or even encouraging students who have previously taken an equivalent course to test out. As a result, students who have previously taken a similar or equivalent course will not be forced to retake it, and can instead be placed at an education level that more accurately matches their academic background. Though some students may still elect to enroll in the course regardless, by providing this option, this will help to filter out students who are already familiar with the content. Additionally, it can help prevent a negative curve by leaving these introductory courses for students who are not familiar with the material. Another possible solution may be to implement a predetermined curve that is not dependent on how well students are currently performing in the course. In certain courses, curves can easily change from semester to semester and may often depend heavily on the performance of certain wellperforming students — making it unfair for others. Ideally, a curve should be beneficial to students regardless of the performance of other students in the course. Furthermore, it might also be helpful to allow introductory courses or prerequisites to be taken on a Pass/D/Fail (PDF) basis, so that students don’t have to worry about their GPA so early in their academic career.

In order to address the disparity in students’ academic background, it is essential that Princeton identify and implement solutions in introductory courses, where the equity “gap” tends to be most apparent.

Yushra Guffer is a sophomore contributing columnist majoring in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

Room draw for students with housing accommodations is actually unaccommodating

Reed Marthers Guest Contributor

Housing accommodations made my Princeton experience possible. While other students might have preferred a single, I and many others needed one. I am so grateful to Undergraduate Student Housing for allowing us to be prioritized in the room draw process to receive a room type that fits our needs. Having a single made my freshman year feasible. Unfortunately, I have recently learned just how terribly unaccommodating the housing and the room draw process can be.

The University’s current treatment of students with housing accommodations is unacceptable. For these students, room draw can deepen feelings of isolation and exclusion from the rest of the student population. A program that was supposed to emphasize equity has turned into something that does the opposite since students with accommodations are expected to accept any room offer or else lose their necessary accommodations.

On Feb. 16, I, along with others with accommodations, received our draw assignments. While nonaccommodated room draw involves forming groups and being assigned a time to frantically select a room of the group members’ choice, accommodated housing simply works by submitting a request for accommodations, getting approved, and then being assigned a room each draw

cycle. As a freshman, it did not originally dawn on me that I would have no say at all in my placement for the next year. Thus, when I checked the housing portal, I was rather disappointed with my assignment.

Many students tend to argue that students who get accommodations are put at an advantage for room draw. When I tell people that I don’t need to draw because I have a guaranteed single, the first response is usually a comment on how lucky I am.

Yet, while I am grateful that my accommodations provide me a single, I also recognize that is frankly the bare minimum Princeton can do for me — I need an accommodated room. Anyone with accommodations needs an accommodated room. Because of my need for rooms that fit my accommodations, I am already severely limited in the rooms that I can comfortably live in. However, my accommodations do not limit me to the extent that only one room in my entire college can accommodate me. In fact, rooms that match both my location preferences and accommodations still appear on the available rooms list, even after all students with accommodations have been placed into a room. There are other options, options that I would have happily chosen to live in, if given the opportunity.

It is inherently a disadvantage that students without accommodations are allowed privileges not afforded to those with accommodations. Such students can pick both

their room’s size and location, to a certain extent depending on draw time. Yet, I was informed in a phone call with a Housing Engagement Specialist who said the only way to change my rooming situation was to reject my accommodated room, and enter the regular room draw where I would not be guaranteed my accommodations. Through this process, Princeton is creating a situation in which some students get to choose their room and others are assigned one, choosing between housing and life at Princeton being comfortable or intolerable. I, or any student, should not have to choose between accepting what room I have been offered or losing my accommodations.

This problem is not unique to me. My current suitemate was placed in a jack-and-jill in a very noisy area for next year, and while her accommodations technically do not list anything about noise, it is understandable that she would not want to live there. Another student with accommodations was given a room on the first floor in an entirely different building from her “pre-draw, pull in” roommate — a roommate that can join a pre-draw housing contract with or near a student with accommodations — and was consequently forced to choose a room that did not fit her accommodations. There are easy solutions for this problem. The easiest way to solve this would be by allowing students to see all of the rooms that match their accommodations. Students would be allowed to to rank their

preferences among their options, similar to how non-accommodation room draw allows students to pick their most preferred available room. University Housing could then divide rooms by acknowledging individual student preferences and comparing them with those of other students. Housing would then attempt to give students a room that ranks high on their list, especially if students have diverse location preferences.

While I will most likely be stuck in a room I do not want to live in, at the very least the process should

be amended for future students. Students with accommodations are forced to take the room they have been offered, even when it presents them with serious disadvantages, or otherwise lose a key aspect of their safety at Princeton.

Reed Marthers is a first-year intending to major in SPIA from Atlanta, Ga. You can contact her at rm6521@princeton.edu.

Keep the Performing Arts Council alive

Chris Park Guest Contributor

Before my first day as president of the Performing Arts Council (PAC), my predecessor told me that the role would be easy because I could let the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Studies (ODUS) take the reins. Looking back at my term from February 2022 to February 2023, those words held a kernel of truth.

I witnessed the Fall 2022 TigerNight go without a dress rehearsal because of orientation conflicts, the cancellation of This Side of Princeton (TSOP) — an arts showcase for accepted students — due to a shortened Princeton Preview, and incomplete Passport to the Arts data followed by lack of communication from TigerCard services. Out of those three events, PAC was only able to contribute a meaningful change to just one: rescheduling TSOP as a virtual event. But that was not because we just let ODUS take over. It’s because we lacked the necessary authority to make changes that would benefit students. Now, with zero candidates running for the most recent election, PAC’s days seem numbered. But the answer to students’ dissatisfaction with arts coordination is not the end of PAC, but rather a stronger PAC with more student engagement.

So what does PAC actually do?

The Performing Arts Council serves as the liaison between student per-

forming arts groups and ODUS. Its purpose lies in facilitating communication between student groups and administrators, organizing school-wide shows like TigerNight, and distributing resources — rehearsal studio space as well as Frist and Whitman Theatre performance slots. To note, PAC can assign its performing groups which weeks they can perform, but they have no control over the location or date for University events. Traditionally, all PAC members have experience in student performance groups, which crucially informs their decision making. This sounds fantastic, in theory. So why has PAC frustrated so many student artists over the years?

Crucially, the resources available for each PAC group have continually decreased over time. While more performing arts groups have emerged over the past few years, the number of performing arts spaces are not keeping pace. Between 2018 and 2022, the number of groups increased from 32 to 37. At the same time, PAC has lost the First dance studio and First black box but gained no new spaces. Furthermore, the varying needs across artistic disciplines, group sizes, and performance schedules also mean that compromise almost never results in equality when distributing resources. For instance, Aerial Arts Club only rehearses in New South Main — a very popular dance studio due to its size and flooring — because it serves as the

only space that allows for proper hanging of aerial art equipment. However, since many groups don’t get first-choice studios and times, it makes sense that students have concluded that distribution discrepancies signal biased favoritism towards certain groups, rather than considering them an accommodation for others. PAC’s lack of capacity only exacerbates this situation.

But there also exist fixable issues that PAC cannot address because the council only intermediates. It can send plans as a representative of student groups, but the organization lacks executive power or a seat at the table that can actually influence many of the outcomes. For instance, when we organize TigerNight or performance space distribution, we collect all student group information, provide the guidelines, and draft a plan based on said guidelines before sending it to ODUS or the staff facility managers. However, PAC does not get to be a part of the conversation when it comes to the date and location of TigerNight, any initiatives for performance space development — such as the recent lighting updates in the Frist and Whitman Theaters —, nor space to discuss not just the purpose, but also the impact of events like TigerNight. Furthermore, PAC’s limited authority means that it can only take a reactive role when things go wrong, rather than participating in proactively solving problems. The council does not have enough in-

volvement within the administrative infrastructure. Even when PAC has tried to proactively reach out to administrators in ODUS or arts programs — such as our investigation into Passport to the Arts data for a joint project with USG — it resulted in communication delays or even complete oversight. From this lack of coordination, we failed to execute a lot of our initiatives or to resolve many issues in a timely manner due to lacking necessary information or permission. I believe that if PAC has tangible sway with and access within ODUS, the organization can create significant changes in service of the artistic student body.

If the council is as powerless as I say, then was my predecessor correct? Should PAC give up and leave it all to ODUS? Absolutely not, and history proves it. The rehearsal and performance space managers during my tenure devoted immeasurable hours into organizing schedules and responding to feedback, including excessive amounts of vitriolic comments. Throughout the turmoil, they achieved the best possible outcomes within the constraints. Not only that, they took the extra step by drafting systemic change of outdated distribution systems.

After 500+ emails and dozens of meetings, I can state this with certainty as the former president: The current purpose of PAC is to investigate, compile, and reveal the truth about what happens behind

the artistic scene. It would be ideal if PAC had more authority, like an official ODUS position, and could do more. But even if it comes in the form of another apology email over insufficient space, the council needs to exist as the source of insight into the logistical, material, or administrative reasons behind the limitations in rehearsal space or performance opportunities. By providing this information, PAC establishes the foundation for student performers to debate these topics and give informed feedback on the next audition schedule, TSOP, or construction site for artistic space. This helps create a unified and informed student perspective that PAC can accurately depict to the administration.

I hope our artistic Tigers will consider the following. If PAC ever ceases to exist, not only will students forfeit total control over the distribution of resources, they will lose direct access to a hub of information pertinent to their everyday functions as performers. So, for the next PAC administration: rise to the challenge, find appreciation in the thanklessness, and serve the Princeton artistic community as a representative voice. For everyone else, criticize, support, and keep the Performance Arts Council alive with your involvement.

Sanghyun “Chris” Park ’24 is a former president of the Performing Arts Council. He can be contacted at sanghyun@princeton.edu.

ZEHAO WU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

We must not let eating clubs be ideological safe spaces

Matthew Wilson Columnist

On Feb. 14, just like many hundreds of other Princeton students, I stopped by my eating club — Charter — to have lunch. I brought two guests, one of whom is a professor who has taught me in several courses and is also my senior thesis advisor.

The lunch was pleasant and uneventful; it was Ash Wednesday, so neither my professor nor I ate very much. I was careful to follow the club’s internal procedure for sponsoring guests, filling out the appropriate guest meal slips under the supervision of a club staff member. After we finished, we went to class — he’s teaching a graduate seminar this semester in which I am a student.

I thought nothing more of it — until more than a month later on March 26, when Charter’s president, Anna Johns ’25, announced an abrupt change to the club’s visitors policy. In order to maintain an “inclusive environment” and communicate that Charter is a “sanctuary” for its members, Johns wrote in a clubwide group chat, visitors who are not family members or friends would henceforth not be permitted to enter the club during its “hours of food service operations” without prior approval from undergraduate officers, club staff, and the alumni Board of Governors.

Within minutes following the announcement, I learned from friends that the policy had been crafted in direct response to student complaints about my Feb. 14 lunch with my professor. After seeking out the club manager, I learned

more: A “group of membership” — whose identities and precise numbers were unspecified — felt “caught off guard” when they saw my professor in Charter, and they were deeply upset by his presence. In the future, at minimum, they wanted “the right to not be in that space” at the same time as him. After receiving their complaint, the club acceded to their demands.

While the club manager attempted to assure me that the new policy was viewpoint-neutral and not meant to single out any particular “belief systems,” claiming it was merely intended to further the value of “inclusivity,” she declined to affirm that my professor would be permitted to enter Charter’s premises in the future. The undergraduate officers, the alumni board, and club staff would have to consult with one another “to make sure it’s okay” — and, even in the event his entrance was approved, a “general consensus notice” would have to be sent out beforehand to all Charter members, warning them of the date and time the professor would be in the building so they would have the opportunity to stay away.

Despite the club manager’s assurances, the claim that Charter’s new policy was neither ideologically-motivated nor intended to target anyone on the basis of their beliefs is clearly false. I have been a member of Charter for more than two years, and not once was I required to seek permission for the many external guests and visitors I brought into the club building. This new regulation was enacted in direct response to my hosting of a professor whose well-known, and wellreasoned, convictions are at

odds with those of some of my fellow Charter members — and whose simple presence was evidently enough to make people feel unsafe.

But the notion that merely being in the vicinity of someone whose views you find objectionable qualifies as a legitimate threat to your safety, health, or well-being is patently absurd and should not be validated by any authority, Charter’s leadership included. It’s even more preposterous because the complainants did not speak to the professor or interact with him face-toface. The simple fact that they had to eat lunch in the same building as him — a respected professor at this university who many Charter students have taken classes with and even praised — was too much to handle.

Adding on to the embarrassment is the fact that just seven years ago, Charter was using the prospect of dinner with this same professor to raise money for the club. According to Charter’s 2017 annual report, a “special Charter Club dinner” with the professor was arranged as a reward if the club met a fundraising benchmark. After the goal was met, the professor was “received enthusiastically” for dinner at the club with “25-30 undergraduate members and their guests,” who enjoyed “a very special evening with one of Princeton’s most impressive scholars” at the most “welcoming eating club in Princeton.” At some point within the past seven years, one of Princeton’s most acclaimed scholars and teachers went from honored guest to a threat to Charter’s “inclusive environment.”

On March 29, after I began circulating a petition to the

club’s alumni board calling on them to revoke the policy, Johns sent a note to club members clarifying that “Charter is an inclusive private club that will never deny a member’s request to bring a guest to our sanctuary.” But her new announcement left the bulk of the policy — the requirements of prior approval and issuance of an advanced warning to all club members — intact. Indeed, even if the club’s leadership were to permit my professor — or another person whose opinions were disliked by some of my fellow Charter members — to enter the club at a specified time and place, the mandatory warning is risible.

I imagine it would look something like this ridiculous-sounding message: Dear Charter Community: We are notifying you that Professor X will be attending lunch today at our club. We wanted to notify everyone so that you can take ample precautions to ensure you feel safe and can make an informed decision on whether or not to come to lunch today.

The fact that issuance of such a notification to all club members is now mandatory would be nothing short of laughable if it weren’t so disheartening. It was a grave error for Charter’s leadership to bend to the demands of a few students who couldn’t stomach the possibility of being within shouting distance of someone whose views challenge their own. No campus organizations, eating clubs included, should surrender to the proponents of illiberalism and ideological intolerance in the way that Charter’s leadership did here. Indeed, seeking to suppress, punish, or exclude peo -

ple with whom one disagrees — especially when they are people who are famous for making arguments, adducing evidence, and giving reasons — flies in the face of the intellectual posture of humble truth-seeking we as students are called to adopt. Such attitudes — which this policy condones — defy the spirit, if not the letter, of the University’s regulations protecting free speech and unencumbered discourse.

The eating clubs, like the University as a whole, must avoid becoming ideological echo chambers or so-called safe spaces where people go to avoid the risk of having their convictions or worldview challenged. Unfortunately, Charter’s new visitors policy — enacted to protect students from those whose ideas and mere existence they erroneously and ridiculously believe threaten their safety — does just the opposite. The new policy is intellectually indefensible and must be immediately revoked.

I’ll close, gentle readers, with a question for you. The fact that you will know the answer immediately tells you all you need to know about what’s really going on here. Who was the professor in the story? Was it Dan-el Padilla Peralta, whose presence was objected to by conservative Catholic and Evangelical students outraged by his rejection of their “traditional” beliefs? Or was it Robert George, whose presence was objected to by progressive students outraged by his relentless questioning of their left-wing ideological convictions?

Matthew Wilson is a senior studying political theory.

Princeton postdocs and scholars are united on unionization, and we’re ready to vote

Postdocs and scholars across Princeton want a union. For the past year, we have been talking with our colleagues and signing union authorization cards. These cards demonstrate our support for collective bargaining through a union. A supermajority of all postdoctoral researchers and Associate Research Scholars — over 65 percent — have signed authorization cards, clearly showing the majority desire for a collective voice and better working conditions.

On Tuesday, postdocs and scholars are filing with the National Labor Relations Board to form a union. We call on the administration to allow us to hold our election this spring without interference.

As postdocs and associate research scholars, we have worked hard for our positions at Princeton, and we want to continue doing the best research and scholarship of our lives. But as it currently stands, we have little say in our working conditions. We lack priority for housing that our salaries can afford, and we often have no meaningful representation on University governing bodies. A major driver of this precarity is the transient nature of our jobs: Many of us are only here for a few short years. It’s incredibly difficult to build community and advocate for

ourselves when there is little tying together the generations of postdocs and scholars at Princeton. A union can help change that.

With a union, we could negotiate as equals with Princeton to shape the terms of our employment. We could secure improvements to pay, benefits, and working conditions that reflect our values and address our needs: more affordable housing, more affordable childcare, and other improvements to our compensation and treatment at work. With a union, we could join a growing movement of postdocs at peer institutions who are taking similar action. Postdocs at Mt. Sinai just won a $72,500 base salary and three-year subsidized housing guarantees. International postdocs in the unionized University of California system enjoy multiyear appointments and OPT extensions that simplify their visa process. With a union, we could win those same benefits and more.

Holding a vote as soon as possible will empower the voices of postdocs and scholars who have made their desire for a union crystal clear. In a strong display of public support, 141 postdocs and scholars representing 41 departments across Princeton have signed an open letter urging the Princeton administration to allow postdocs and scholars to proceed to a speedy union election. At 1 p.m. on April 1, postdocs and scholars are meeting at the Architecture Building lawn to

deliver this letter to administrators in Nassau Hall.

We hope that the Princeton administration will respect the will of the supermajority of postdocs and scholars and let us vote in a fair election. However, we’ve seen peer institutions use legal maneuvers and delay tactics to discourage unionization campaigns. Postdocs coming from Harvard University may remember how the administration invalidated hundreds of votes by supplying incorrect voter rolls. Administrators at universities like Columbia University, University of Chicago, and University of Pennsylvania tried to delay union elections through legal challenges claiming that postdocs and graduate students aren’t real employees. In all of these cases, postdocs and graduate students got their vote and won their union.

We’ve also been disappointed to see how administrators at other universities have tried to disrupt elections by trying to split up the bargaining unit — the group represented by the union. At Caltech, administrators petitioned to remove groups of postdocs from the bargaining unit. Postdocs won the ability to stay together, and voted for unionization with a four-to-one majority. At Columbia University, administrators specifically tried to divide postdocs and associate research scholars. These groups also won the right to vote together, forming the first postdoc union at a private university with a two-to-

one majority!

Postdocs and scholars at Princeton stand united in our campaign. Despite our diverse fields of study, talking to postdocs and scholars across the university has made clear that we share remarkably similar experiences and needs. Whether we are officially called Postdoctoral Researchers or Associate Research Scholars, we are hired to term-limited appointments and have virtually the same roles and responsibilities. We are all in the same uncertain and temporary stage of our careers. Princeton’s own policies mandate that Postdoctoral Researchers either be promoted to the Associate Research Scholar position after six years, or face termination. We all consider ourselves ‘postdocs,’ and many of us don’t even know our official title. We ask that the Princeton administrators do the right thing and not attempt to divide us.

Princeton administrators have remained relatively neutral in this campaign so far, which we sincerely applaud! They have not deployed the same divisive rhetoric and tactics that we’ve seen at other universities. Perhaps they are inspired by our neighbors in New Jersey: At Rutgers University, graduate students and faculty have shared the same union and been on a common contract since 1972! We know that Princeton has this same collegial spirit, and can see that unionization in higher education is the new normal.

We are driving progress across countless academic fields, and the research environment we help create makes Princeton a top destination for students. We are proud employees and members of the Princetonian community. But to do our jobs effectively, we need a seat at the table to help shape the conditions that allow us, and our scholarship, to thrive. By supporting a swift and fair election process for postdocs and scholars, Princeton can demonstrate its commitment to its highest ideals of service, knowledge, and progress.

This piece is written by a group of postdocs and scholars. Harrison Ritz is an Associate Research Scholar at the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. Jessica Ng is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the High Meadows Environmental Institute. Judy Kim is a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University Center for Human Values. Robert Martin is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Chemistry. Rachel Bedder is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Psychology. Umut Kamber is an Associate Research Scholar in the Department of Physics. Paola Estrada is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Department of Molecular Biology. Clayton Goodgame is a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Hellenic Studies. Lucia Stein-Montalvo is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering.

‘Two women … and one guy’: The Bechdel

Test listens in to the Princeton community

By Katie Thiers Staff Features Writer

In film and other media, three things are required to pass the Bechdel Test: two of the characters must be women, these women must converse with each other, and the topic of conversation must be something other than a man. Bonus points are given if the two women have names.

The Bechdel Test is typically a way to measure the representation of female characters in the media, but on Princeton’s campus, it brings to mind something a little different. Here, it’s the name of a student-run podcast hosted by Sophia Shepherd ’26, Emily Driver ’26, and Simon Marotte ’26, who settled on the title after a three hour text conversation.

Marotte, the only male in the trio, suggested it.

“We are feminists, but it’s not a feminist podcast,” said Shepherd, speaking about the naming process. “It’s because there are two women speaking to one other … and one guy. Sometimes it’s a joke that we leave the one guy out. Hence, the Bechdel Test.”

Shepherd is a former member of The Daily Princetonian’s Business Team, and Marotte is a former Head Puzzles Editor for the ‘Prince.’

Every week, the Bechdel Test invites a new guest from around campus to come on the podcast and chat about anything from computer science classes to murder mystery wedding parties. Guests have ranged from eating club leadership to Dean of the College Jill Dolan, who knew Alison Bechdel — inventor of the Bechdel Test — personally.

“The podcast was a joke,” explained Shepherd, describing the early stages of the project. Shepherd and her friend, Luke Miller ’26, would continually joke about starting a campus podcast and even promised Marotte he could be

their first guest.

Eventually, it wasn’t a joke anymore.

During winter break of their first year, Shepherd set her mind to making the podcast a reality. She and Miller floated some ideas around, but he later bowed out. Shepherd pivoted, calling up Marotte.

“I was like: Simon’s hilarious, let me ask Simon,” said Shepherd. Marotte agreed and suggested turning the duo to a trio with the addition of Driver.

A FaceTime turned into a Zoom meeting, and the Bechdel Test was born.

‘The guests make it good’ In the beginning, the structure of the podcast was very up in the air. The group spent time playing with their style, humor, and format.

According to Driver, the show started with no guests and was instead structured around the trio’s own conversation.

Those episodes “will never see the light of day,” Marotte added.

“They just weren’t good,” said Shepherd. “The guests make it good.” They all agreed that it was hard to produce content with just the three of them, as it made them dependent solely on humor to keep the podcast interesting.

“A new guest every time makes it easier to talk about things … [there’s] something new to be said,” Driver added.

After those first solo recordings, they decided to bring some guests on the show. They now have an impressive list of guests drawn from many corners of campus.

“I think we learned during [our] first semester there are so many cracked and super impressive people here with incredible stories,” said Shepherd.

They also noticed that many of these impressive people on campus don’t regularly share their stories.

“You have to dig,” said Shepherd.

“This podcast creates a way that you can dig. It also gives you a way to meet new people.”

They source guests in different ways, but Driver and Marotte agree Shepherd is the “mastermind” behind it all, especially when it comes to LinkedIn investigating. She uses premium status on Linkedin to look at people’s profiles in incognito mode, which helps her find new guests and create fun questions for them.

“Often [when I’m] not paying attention to class, I’m on their LinkedIn, being like ‘what’s a question I can ask?’” said Shepherd.

She then compiles the list of questions and sends them to the upcoming guest, giving them full veto power on any question they don’t want to answer.

Besides “LinkedIn stalking,” the Bechdel Test hosts also source guests through the community.

“It’s always good to ask people we know, ‘If you were listening to the podcast, who would you most want to hear on this podcast?’” noted Driver.

Through this method, they have been inspired to reach out to some of their most esteemed guests, like Dean of the College Jill Dolan. Other times, guests are discovered by word of mouth.

“Sometimes, we just hear random things,” said Driver. “Our first episode of season two was someone who voiced Boots the Monkey [Koda Gursoy ’26] for two seasons, and we just heard that through a friend of a friend.”

“It’s very interesting to talk to people in various communities on campus,” said Shepherd. “Also, that’s how you increase listenership. From a selfish standpoint, we appreciate the conversations, but it’s also good at broadening the audience.”

‘The Socratic Dialogue’ The podcast draws inspiration from

various celebrity podcasts, but two in particular stand out to them. The style of the show is influenced by Smartless, a podcast in which the hosts — Jason Bateman, Will Arnett, and Sean Hayes — invite random celebrities to chat about their lives. The interview style is inspired by Zach Galifianakis’ Between Two Ferns, a talk show which features Galifianakis’ dry, sarcastic sense of humor.

However, Marotte noted that they had to rein in the sarcastic humor Galifianakis relies on in his talk show in order to make their guests more at ease.

“It didn’t really work well for our campus,” said Marotte, referencing the Between Two Ferns humor. “We wanted to make our guests more comfortable.”

This doesn’t stop the trio from having fun with their guests, however. Their pilot season was based on what they referred to as their “socratic dialogue,” a list of “absurd” questions they compiled.

These questions are evident in the early episodes of their podcast.

“Today we sit down with a narcissistic Princeton student,” joked Shepherd in the first few seconds of their first episode with Shannon Yeow ’26. “We talk about Elon Musk, declaring bankruptcy, bestiality, and translating morally questionable sentences into other languages.”

“We were having a lot more fun with it. [In Season 1, we were] being a little crazy, a little racy,” said Shepherd. They agreed their second season featured a tone shift after they got Caroline Kirby ’23 to come onto the show.

“That was a really big deal for us,” said Driver. On the podcast, the three described Kirby as a Princeton “local celebrity,” known for her extensive involvement in the campus community.

Kirby’s episode talks about experiences, such as her transition from a competitive runner to a beloved Cam-

pus Recreation spin instructor and the process of writing her thesis in a week. They frequently refer to her as the “queen of Princeton.”

The podcast has garnered fans around campus, with their listenership extending to faculty as well. Economics Professor Henry Zhao said he was a fan of the Bechdel Test before he was a guest on it. Zhao had Shepherd as a student in his precept for ECO 100 when she was a first-year and overheard her talking about the show before class one day.

He decided to give it a listen and has been a frequent fan ever since, listening to all the episodes when they come out on Sundays.

“It was so well produced. It felt so real,” said Zhao.

Then, after having Driver in his class in his first semester as an ECO 101 lecturer, Zhao was invited onto the podcast as a guest.

Zhao’s episode, which came out in October of last year, is called “How to Get a Girlfriend.” The podcast starts by discussing Zhao’s first semester as a lecturer and his transition from being a preceptor.

While he mediates on the role of a lecturer and how to encourage students to participate, the hosts also get to know him on a personal level. They test him on popular culture, learn the story of how he met his wife, and even reveal his dream job — creating and hosting murder mystery parties.

“There are a few moments where the conversation becomes the three of them riffing and just joking back and forth … in that moment, it was like I was listening to the podcast,” Zhao said. “It was really fun to watch them go from a very well constructed interview to then riffing between themselves.”

“It’s really cool that students like them have so many different passions and interests and abilities beyond coming to class and studying and taking tests,” Zhao continued. “I think Princeton students are really great at that and having something that’s super surprising [about them].”

‘It’s just talking to cool people’ On top of the whole podcast, the trio also founded a parent media company called TigerMedia. The company was started after the Bechdel Test to help get other student podcasts off the ground. Over time, in addition to podcast support, they hope to sponsor other live events around campus, whether it be comedy shows or music events.

“We’re kind of there to provide the resources,” said Driver, “because we already went through it.”

Also on the horizon for the Bechdel Test is season three of the podcast, which they plan to record in between their busy schedules.

“We are all really involved on campus and other things, so it can get hard sometimes. But thankfully, we view the podcast as a fun time to spend together,” said Marotte. “These are my best friends. I think it’s really fun to be able to interview [and] talk to new people with them,” he continued.

To Shepherd, the podcast is a guise to meet people she admires from afar. “Really, it’s just talking to cool people.”

Katie Thiers is a staff Features writer for the ‘Prince.’

COURTESY OF SOPHIA SHEPHERD.

Hosts Simon Marotte ’26, Emily Driver ’26, and Sophia Shepherd ’26 pose with podcast guest Shannon Yeow ’26.

Q&A with Professor Meredith Martin of The Center for Digital Humanities on a humanistic approach to technology

By Judy Gao Staff Features Writer

Meredith Martin is an associate professor of English and serves as the Faculty Director for The Center for Digital Humanities (CDH), which she founded in 2014. She is also the inaugural Faculty Director of the first Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities at Princeton and serves as an advisor for undergraduate students pursuing Certificates such as Applications in Computer Science, Statistics in Machine Learning, Journalism, or Technology and Society.

The CDH at Princeton is a research center that approaches various digital technologies from a humanistic perspective. Its role is to develop better practices in academia, technological development, and research. The CDH currently runs research projects, consultations, undergraduate and graduate-level courses, and events that educate the Princeton community about the digital humanities.

The Daily Princetonian sat down with Martin to discuss the importance of the digital humanities and the impact of the CDH at Princeton. This conversation has been edited for clarity and concision.

The Daily Princetonian: What does the term “digital humanities” encompass?

Meredith Martin: At Princeton, we have a really specific definition of digital humanities. I think any institution has to define digital humanities depending on the landscape of the research computing, the university library, and whether or not their university has a virtual reality, teaching, or learning lab. So, digital humanities necessarily becomes part of the strategic framework and looks like the institution. Traditionally, digital humanities departments grew out of university libraries as parts of library centers — like digital scholarly services — and ours did not. Ours grew out of a collaboration of faculty who worked in the humanities, social sciences, and computer science with staff from the library and the Office of Information Technology, all of whom wanted to use computational tools to accelerate research across many domains. We hoped to build collaborative environments where we could think through data-driven approaches to the human record — be that in sociology, social sciences, or humanities — in order to think through a more just future.

Our idea is not that humanists and social scientists are just using these tools that computer scientists are building for us, but that we’re actually learning enough about the tools, and enough about the methods and algorithms and all the approaches, to critique them. We want to bring a human lens and argue for humans during the process of technological development. Also, we’re co-creating. We’re working in collaboration with research software engineers and computer scientists. We’re teaching Princeton undergrads and Princeton graduate students how working collaboratively and interdisciplinarily — kind of “transdisciplinary” — across units and divisions is the way forward.

DP: Why do you think it’s important to learn about technology, and more specifically data science, through a humanistic perspective?

MM: Well, I think a humanistic approach to data science will help people understand the power structures that underpin all of the mechanisms that

already underpin their daily lives. It’s important to have an approach to data that is not taking it as a given, but as an understanding that all data comes from somewhere and is a proxy for power structures. Those are fundamental lessons that you have to understand if you’re going to work in these fields. And so, a humanistic approach is not that different from any other very responsible approach to technology. You want to be able to understand the source material, you want to have context for the data, and you want to be able to close-read it. Is the dataset complete? Incomplete? Is it nefarious? Does it have a political reason why it’s showing up in data and statistical services and where does it come from?

You want to do the source criticism of your dataset before you perform something on it. Just apply critical thinking: the things that humanities is known for. Mine are all C’s because it helps me remember them: close reading, context, critical thinking, and creatively and effectively communicating what your findings are. It’s not just something where, for instance, you’re using a datadriven technology to build a tool that’s useful for some people. We should actually have transparency about how those things are being used — how people’s data is being used, how it’s extracted, and how it's communicated. It’s generally not something that people think about when they’re in an applied math class, because math has truth. Data is not math. Data is kind of in the middle. And so, I think we’re in that ambivalent middle, where we can help people understand how to ask questions about their data and how to ask questions about the reasons behind the resulting technologies that they might build with the resulting algorithms. But I think we’re also really excited about the ways that technology can help people understand the human record in really interesting and new, revolutionary ways.

DP: Is there anything you would want to change about the way that AI and machine learning are currently being taught at Princeton or other universities in general?

MM: I think we need to do a lot more of it at Princeton. I think we need to teach it in an integrated way across departments in a program where we’re able to work in an interdisciplinary way. If we had a minor that allowed people to think through and critically apply machine learning to their majors, that would be fantastic. My recommendation would be to hire a lot more people because at the end of the day, this is a big research area, and we can’t really expect our current professors to do this and all the other things they already do really well. I think if we could hire many more people to help equip the undergrads and the graduate students, but also help equip our current faculty to be prepared for what is coming, that would be really helpful. And when I say for what’s coming, I mean a generation of students coming in five or six years time who will have had — for better or worse — generative AI integrated into some aspects of their secondary school or even earlier education. We have to be at least as media-literate as our students, and that’s going to take an investment. There’s nowhere like Princeton, so I don’t want to be like any other school,

but there are undergraduate programs or interdisciplinary centers that I think are really useful models that we might be able to emulate. But I think we’re going to have to do whatever we have to do in a very Princeton-specific way.

DP: What would you say is the role that the Center for Digital Humanities is playing in modern technology, especially now with all of these new AI models being developed?

MM: November 2022 was when we first saw ChatGPT. But even before that, there were lots of scholars who were working on large language models and thinking about stochastic parrots and the dangers of what used to be called big data. They also considered the possibilities and opportunities of applying machine learning technologies, which are often now branded as artificial intelligence, to larger than normal datasets. Humanities and social science professors and researchers have been using data-driven technologies and computational approaches for decades. The acceleration of transformer technology that sort of leapt over into what people are now calling artificial intelligence certainly made bigger and faster things possible. But it’s not necessarily a different angle than the one that we started out having, which is that humanists can understand cultural materials as data in a better, more nuanced way than computer scientists can. For people who are working in natural language processing, the fields of computational linguistics, and our thinking about what these large language models can do, we’ve always felt like empowering humanities scholars to be in that room. Say, for art history, if you’re working in computer vision and you want to look at a whole bunch of paintings and come up with some theory, it probably would be good for you to talk to the expert in those

paintings because they’re right there. So our whole job is not necessarily to teach people how to use the technology, but to try to build these bridges across a variety of disciplines. That way, our computer scientists are better and more prepared and our humanists feel empowered to be part of those conversations.

DP: What are some future political or ethical considerations society should have when developing new technology? MM: I think that there are a lot of things happening very quickly and that there are also a lot of people who are benefiting very quickly. And then there are a lot of people who have already been harmed by these technologies and who continue to be harmed by the technology. So the tension is to kind of strike a middle path. And I think humanists in general, like I said before, we’re very used to living in that ambivalent middle. We’re used to ambiguity. We’re used to things not fitting very well into a spreadsheet and we understand what kinds of interpretive choices we have to make. So I think, in general, we are absolutely against technology that causes harm. We tend, as a center, to want to work with collaborators who are thinking about the benefits of the technology for a broader audience, even more than just for their research. So the software that we write and the things that we try to build with faculty tend to be replicable for other faculty down the road. You know, I think sharing, transparency, and communicating what we’re doing and why we’re doing it is part of what we do.

That said, the companies that are benefiting right now from this recent AI boom are not doing the best job. In fact, they’re benefiting from the fact that the hype around this particular moment has been describing what’s been happening as a black box — that it’s really diffi-

cult to understand. Actually, it’s not very difficult to understand. And this sort of shiny-eyed excitement over it is a hype that takes away from the excitement of what’s actually happening. We’re not reaching out and creating literacy around what those processes look like and where and how they’re impacting the environment and workers. So I think a commitment to basic data literacy is as important as close reading, critical thinking, and writing, which are all the regular things that a humanities department would do.

DP:  What would you say to students who are interested in studying this mix between the humanities and technologies such as AI?

MM: I think that they should absolutely look at the course list that the Center for Digital Humanities curates every term. We don’t have a minor, but we try to be really selective in the courses that we think would be interesting to the students that we see in our Introduction to Digital Humanities course. We have a graduate certificate now and it’s CDH Computational and Data Humanities. Even if you can’t take all the courses that you want and even if it takes us a couple more years to build that curriculum, we have an amazing group of speakers that come to campus. There are also many courses through the library and through PICSciE for research computing. And if there’s really a specific thing that you want to do in a class, book a consultation at the CDH and say, “I want to do this cool project.” We work with a lot of undergrads on their independent work projects, especially if they already have a little bit of an interest in quantitative approaches.

Judy Gao is a staff Features writer for the 'Prince.'

PHOTO COURTESY OF MEREDITH MARTIN.

Meredith Martin, Associate Professor of English, is the Director of the Center for Digital Humanities at Princeton.

the PROSPECT. ARTS & CULTURE

Princeton’s ceramics studio spins clay into creativity and community

By Isabella Dail | Head Prospect Editor

There’s only one place on Princeton’s campus where you can create a realistic, full scale representation of Stitch from the Disney movie ‘Lilo & Stitch.’ Or, perhaps you’re more interested in spinning up a mug decorated with sculpted mushrooms, an artistic model of a face, or a homemade gift for a friend. Whatever your creative desires may be, the New College West Ceramics Studio — located across from the Addy Hall Coffee Club — can serve as an outlet.

The new studio opened in the spring of 2023, following the completion of the new college buildings, ending a brief hiatus for students looking to throw and craft on campus. There was formerly a ceramics studio in First College, which was demolished in 2022. While the studio cannot be accessed freely due to safety considerations, students of all experience levels can participate in making pottery by attending workshops that are held each week in the afternoons and evenings. The studio holds an average of 13 events a week, which include free workshops and study breaks. The space is also open for class usage. For instance, a material science course visited the workshop and performed clay experiments. Two main types of workshops are offered for students hoping to learn pottery techniques: wheel throwing and hand building. Wheel throwing, perhaps a more widely known technique, involves spinning a lump of clay on a wheel to form a piece, while hand building involves creating pieces that do not involve a wheel. Students can also participate in a glaze only class, which involves decorating an already finished piece.

The studio manager, Debbie Reichard, helped design the new layout in NCW. Now, she spends her time managing the space, organizing the materials, and training the student associates. For Reichard, the ceramics studio is a place of community. “I really like working with the student employees because we get to know each other pretty well,” said Reichard. “It’s interesting to see how they develop in ceramics, but also all the other interesting things that are going on in their lives.”

The student studio associates also shared their experiences running workshops. Accord ing to studio associates, workshop participants shouldn’t hope to proudly display their first creation — in fact, they may leave their first workshop empty handed. “We embrace ‘non-at tachment’ in the studio because, throughout the process, there’s so many places that things can go wrong,” said studio associate Paige Walworth ’26. For beginners still mastering the technique, pieces can easily collapse or become distorted in the spinning process. However, according to Studio Associates like Walworth, students make quick progress and begin developing viable piec es if they keep returning. “I really like seeing when people come in several times, and they’re just really committed to getting it down. You can see the moment where something clicks within them. And then they really start making a lot of progress from there,” Walworth said.

Walworth is the head Audience editor for the ‘Prince.’

Studio associate Bridgette Schafer ’24 also advised the allowance of both creativity and patience in the studio, a theme that

seems to ring through all of Princeton’s student workshops. “I constantly just walk around the studio and look at the shelves of projects people are working on to find inspiration,” Schafer said, explaining both the artistic and communal energy that the studio creates. While Schafer feels the artistry around her in the studio, she, too, recognized the difficulties that new ceramicists face in the studio. “I think a lot of people come with permission, they might be able to stay.” If you’re interested in the Ceramics Studio, you can visit My Princeton U to register for a free workshop held in the NCW Studio. Workshops are only available to undergraduate students.

Isabella Dail is a member of the Class of 2026 and head editor for The Prospect at the ‘Prince.’

Why are VIS classes so difficult to get into?

Course enrollment is always a stressful process at Princeton. Early in the morning, students pry open their eyes to enroll in courses through Tigerhub. Those interested in Visual Arts (VIS) classes may face particular difficulties enrolling, as the classes fill rapidly. Why are VIS classes so difficult to get into? Ahead of Fall 2024 course enrollment, Professor Jeff Whetstone, the head director of Princeton’s Visual Art Department, might have some answers. The VIS department offers two types of class-

es: genre and topical. Genre classes are sculpture, photography, and drawing, while the topical classes delve into the political body of art. Both types of classes cover a range of content relating to the visual arts. Whetstone stated that the demand for both the hand-on classes and the introductory classes is “incredibly high.”

For the Spring 2024 class registration season, there were 510 waitlist spots represented by 338 individuals, as some students were on multiple waitlists. According to Whetstone, all of the practice of art majors and the VIS minors were able to enroll off the waitlists to fulfill their

coursework requirements. By the end of the add/ drop period, 138 spots opened up in various VIS classes, allowing 83 individuals to enroll off the waitlists. Yet, other students were not as fortunate, especially with popular classes, such as introduction to photography classes. At the end of the add/drop period, there were still 372 requests representing 277 individuals.

Gabriel Centeno ’27, who is considering a VIS minor, remarked on the effect of the competitiveness in the enrollment process despite his success in getting into a VIS class. “I was definitely aware of the projected difficulty,” Centeno said. He also mentioned how he felt a bit uncertain of pursuing the VIS minor, given the evident difficulty in consistently getting into the classes necessary for it.

In his eight years at Princeton, Whetstone remarked that the department’s popularity has been “steadily rising,” with extreme surges in popularity the past few years. To reconcile this demand, the VIS department utilizes a waitlist system that is based on a first come, first serve basis. However, art majors and visual arts minors receive priority to enroll off the waitlist.

The fight for VIS classes is not related to the unique materials or studios involved. Instead, the size creates issues for interested students. According to Whetstone, it is “essential for most of these VIS classes to have smaller enrollment sizes.” The one-on-one time between students and professors is integral for a hands-on artistic learning experience.

Whetstone stated that there are certain classes that have the “potential to expand,” particularly digitally-oriented classes. For instance, there is a plan to run a large digital photography

class in the future. In the meantime, due to the VIS department’s popularity, Whetstone encourages students to investigate which classes are cross-listed with the VIS department to alternatively fulfill requirements.

Whetstone also acknowledged the anxiety that may occur when students cannot enroll in classes necessary for their major or minor.

“We have been very dedicated, as a faculty and a staff, to make sure that the practice of art majors and VIS minor certificates get their classes. So far, it has not been a problem since the second day of classes, because we get people into those classes,” said Whetstone.

Looking toward the future, the VIS department has recently hired more faculty and developed a long-term two to three year plan for growth. “We are making every effort possible to hire more instructors,” Whetstone said.

Currently, the department has completed and is working to submit a “strategic plan for growth,” for expanding the department “intelligently and strategically.” “There will be future growth, and there’s present growth now,” said Whetstone, noting that it takes time to grow a department successfully. “We want to select the best faculty in the most strategic areas for the Princeton students who want to make art.”

Ultimately, all of these efforts for the strategic plan are dedicated to the students. Whether it is adding faculty or expanding class sizes, Whetstone made it clear that the VIS department is for the students, and hopefully, going forward, course enrollment may be just a little bit easier.

Connor Romberg is an assistant editor for The Prospect from Winneconne, Wis.

By Connor Romberg | Assistant Prospect Editor

Stories Untold: A Baba Yaga Fit for the 21st Century

By Sam Dorsey | Contributing

Theatre Intime’s new show “Yaga,” first written and produced by artistic director Richard Rose of the Tarragon Theater in 2019 and now directed by Kat McLauglin ’25, is a humorous and riveting retelling of the classic Slavic folklore of Baba Yaga. The production asks the audience to reconsider the stories and humanity behind the characters we take for granted.

The story of Baba Yaga finds its origins in early Slavic folklore, depicted as an ugly old woman cloaked in black who lives alone in the woods. Her magical hut stands on chicken feet and any children who cross her have their bones grinded and flesh consumed using her giant mortar and pestle. Living on the edge of society, Baba Yaga is the archetypal villain who lurks in the shadows, waiting for her next victim.

To set the stage, Henry Calles (Tate Keuler ’26), the narcissistic male-manipulator and heir to a famed yogurt conglomerate, has disappeared in his small college town. Overambitious private investigator Charlie Rapp, double casted by Kueler ’26, investigates Henry’s disappearance with the help of a reluctant Detective Carson (Kristen Tan ’26). Professor of osteology Katherine Yazov (Lana Gaige ’24), bitter exgirlfriend Pamela Riley, double casted by Tan ’26, and wronged mother Geena Sandeson, double casted by Gaige ’24, become the key leads in this mysterious case. When Calles’s violent and salacious history comes to light, our detectives have to piece together just who is responsible for his disappearance and why they would want him

dead. Connecting an intricate web of lies and motives, the existence of a real Baba Yaga threatens to upend this small community.

Though “Yaga” delves into the ugly and inhuman, it finds its foothold in the comedy that guides the play through its motions. There is no shortage of raunchy and contemporary humor on display between the engrossing characters, ranging from the acts of getting with “older women,” having intercourse on desks, and sitting through the mind-numbing ramblings of a 20-something true crime podcaster. If the twists and turns aren’t enough to keep one wanting more, the characters’ witty banter should be.

That said, Yaga would be nowhere near as captivating without the three main actors, each of whom take on many different roles. Charlie Rapp’s underwear-clad screams to be released from the clutches of Baba Yaga jolted every audience member awake, while Baba Yaga’s menacing yet contemplative opening monologue perfectly set the tone for all that was to come. The disparate characters that Tan was able to fully embody was truly a sight to behold, switching from a 40-year-old loopy neighbor in one scene to a conflicted cop in another. If you want to feel as though you have a first-person perspective into the world McLaughlin has created, this acting will bring you there.

Baba Yaga acknowledges the disgust and constraints imposed upon her and women who dismiss the norms in their world. Questions of community justice and the role of communality among women are central to the mystery of

“Yaga.” The violence that Calles inflicts on others is countered by justice inflicted on him by the women he interacts with under a corrupt criminal justice system. How are we to reconceive of Baba Yaga and the ire she draws from society in light of the crimes of those like Henry? Where one justice system might fail, does justice enter into the hands of another? “Yaga” presents the audience with the opportunity to sit with these questions and see how they play out on the stage.

Small but mighty, “Yaga” invites us into a mysterious world of crime and mythology, constructing something

completely new in the wake of the old classics. Its themes challenge what we know about the characters we’ve never thought to question, a humanizing undertaking necessary for this new age. If not for its gripping mystery, staying for its dynamic cast and pure comedy is definitely an evening well spent.

“Yaga” is currently showing at Theatre Intime on Apr. 5 and 6 at 8 p.m. and Apr. 7 at 2 p.m.

Sam Dorsey is a contributing writer for The Prospect from Orange County, Calif. He can be reached at sd2901@princeton. edu.

‘The Commons presents ? ? ? ’: a tribute to the art of community spaces

By Audrey Zeng | Contributing Prospect Writer

“Do you have an iPhone? The idea behind the question marks was when you haven’t updated your phone, and the emojis won’t show up,” Petr Karpov ’24 said as I sat on the human-sized scanner’s glass pane, waiting to be scanned. I watched as a normal-sized scanner roved underneath the glass. The smaller scanner systematically makes its way across the whole pane, and a computer program then puts these small scans together to piece together one large image of whatever is sitting on the glass—in this case, me. Karpov continues to explain the title of the senior thesis he developed in partnership with Luke Shannon ’24. “The question mark emojis are what Luke wanted to call the scanning part

of it. The Commons is this thing,” he said gesturing at the wooden, bleacherlike seating around us. At first glance, the exhibit as a whole resembled a mini concert venue, with its curved, wooden benches arching around a life-sized black scanner positioned to resemble a small stage. A gap in the middle of the wood seating is just large enough to frame projections of recent scans, one of which is now of me. Karpov explains that the similarity to a concert venue was his and Shannon’s intention, as they plan to put on small concerts and parties in the space. “So put together, we have The Commons presents ⍰⍰⍰. It can also present other stuff, like The Commons presents Old Nassoul.”

Every spring, seniors in Princeton’s visual arts program create and present their own exhibitions, a creative

analog to a thesis, to show the work they’ve done in the department. This year was the first in which seniors could put on collaborative exhibitions. Karpov and Shannon chose to put on an exhibition together called The Commons presents ⍰⍰⍰. The exhibition is located in the Lucas Gallery at 185 Nassau St., home to the visual arts program, and is open from March 25 to April 5. Karpov and Shannon are in the gallery from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m. every day, manning and guiding viewers through their creation.

Though they have different majors with differing artistic focuses, Karpov and Shannon wanted to create a truly collaborative exhibition rather than one that resembled two distinct, sideby-side exhibitions. Indeed, the exhibition feels like one, cohesive space. Karpov, an architecture major, created the wooden “Commons,” while Shannon, a computer science major, put the scanner together. Even though the exhibit presented as one complete work, Karpov’s and Shannon’s individual contributions are evident upon closer inspection.

What gives the exhibition both its charm and its ingenuity is that Karpov and Shannon not only celebrate their own individual artistic visions, but they actively encourage visitors to make their own mark on the space. With the press of a button, visitors to the exhibition can easily create their own scans. The most recent scans are projected onto the wall behind The Commons, such that visitors’ creations become seamlessly integrated into the installation. The Commons was purposefully made of unfinished, unpainted wood to act as a blank canvas, according to Karpov. They envision The Commons to be a kind of physical manifestation of memory, capturing and displaying the marks visitors unintentionally make as they sit, dance,

and otherwise interact with the wood. Even the wiring of the scanner is strategically exposed, such that visitors can easily trace the scanning system’s electrical internal components. In pamphlets placed at the entrance, visitors have even more access into how the exhibition was put together and executed. The pamphlet, drawn simply in black lines on a white background, lays out the modular components that make up The Commons and also has a flowchart to guide viewers through the scanner’s technical workings.

“We really wanted to let people know exactly what processes are making it happen,” Karpov explained.

Karpov and Shannon still have plans for their exhibition to change and grow throughout the duration of its installation. They plan to print the scans made by visitors, hanging them up on the walls to further highlight the work of exhibition attendees, cementing them and their participation as a part of the exhibition. Shannon wants to make the scanner motionsensor activated, so that any curious people investigating the scanner automatically start and make a scan.

In the exhibition’s open invitations to visitors, Karpov and Shannon have crafted their senior thesis into a tribute to all those who visit their installation. It is a fun and worthwhile visit, regardless of one’s attitude towards what they consider traditional or conventional art. Their art is not just something to look at, but something to interact with and be a part of. Due to the exhibit’s continual evolution, both in its artist-driven design and its community-driven markings, it’s one to return to again and again.

Audrey Zeng is a first-year and contributing writer for the Prospect. She can be reached at audrey.zeng@princeton.edu.

The Prospect

Weekly Event Roundup

By Natalia Diaz, Prospect Contributor

1

Flight of a Legless Bird

by Ethan Luk ’24

April 5, 11, and 12 at 8 p.m and April 6 and 13 at 7:30 p.m.

Berlind Theatre, McCarter Theatre Center

This play written by Ethan Luk ’24 traces the lives of two queer artists in NYC as one grapples with an HIV/AIDS diagnosis and the other confronts new-found international fame. The show fuses Cantonese, Mandarin, and English. Tickets are required and available through the McCarter Box Office.

2

3

Mariachi Los Tigres de Princeton: El Encuentro

April 5 at 8 p.m.

Richardson Auditorium

Princeton’s first Mariachi group is hosting its inaugural concert. Tickets are available on University Ticketing.

Princeton South Asian Theatrics Presents: Willy’s Wonky Workshop

April 5 and 6 at 8 p.m.

Class of 1970 Theatre, Whitman College Princeton South Asian Theatrics presents Willy’s Wonky Workshop. Purchase your GOLDEN ticket via University Ticketing.

4

Black Arts Company Presents: Block Party

April 5 and 6 at 6 and 9 p.m.

Frist Theatre

Black Arts Company is presenting their dance performance, BLOCK PARTY. Tickets are required and available at University Ticketing. Passport of the Arts eligible.

5

Yaga from Theater Intime

April 5 and 6 at 8 p.m., April 7 at 2 p.m.

Hamilton Murray Theater

Theater Intime presents Yaga, a unique take on a classic Slavic folk tale. Tickets are available on University Ticketing.

6

Hip-Hop Techniques and Foundations:

Hip-Hop with Buddha Stretch

April 6 from 1:30-3:30 p.m.

Ellie’s Studio, Lewis Arts complex

Hosted by dance program alum Liam Lynch ’21, this co-curricular series explores the foundational and physical techniques in street and club dance, focusing on physical techniques that will introduce dancers to a variety of styles. Guest artist Buddha Stretch will discuss his experience in the hip-hop community over the past 30 years near the end of the workshop. The class is free and open to Princeton students, faculty, and staff.

“A Basement in Cleveland, Ohio”: Exhibition by Princeton Juniors

April 8 to April 19, Gallery open weekdays from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Opening reception: April 8 at 4:30 p.m.

Lucas Gallery, 185 Nassau St.

Juniors pursuing a minor in the Program in Visual Arts and Practice of Art majors in the Department of Art & Archaeology have created an exhibition featuring their recent work. The exhibition is free and open to the public. 8

The Radical Practice of Black Curation: A Symposium

April 11 from 12 to 6 p.m. Wallace Theater, Lewis Arts complex

April 12 from 12 to 10 p.m. Park Avenue Armory, NYC

The symposium engages the past, present, and future of Black curation, considering how curators have responded to the idea of “racial reckoning” through a series of panels and presentations. The symposium events are free and open to the public, but separate tickets are required to attend each day.

9

7

Saturday Morning Arts Fifth Anniversary with ShowcaseTrenton and Princeton University

April 6 from 4- 5:30 p.m.

Richardson Auditorium

In celebration of their 5th anniversary, Saturday Morning Arts will be hosting a series of performances featuring Trenton and Princeton University students, including Trenton Youth Dancers, Orchestra, Singers, and Theater, concluding with a collaboration of all four groups. The event is free and ticketed. Reserve your ticket on University Ticketing.

Theater Performance & Audition

Co-curricular Class with Sam Gravitte ’17

April 8 from 4:45 to 6:15 p.m.

Godfrey Kerr Studio, Lewis Arts complex

Sam Gravitte ’17, a professional alumni of Princeton’s program in Theater & Music Theater who performed on “Wicked” on Broadway, will offer drop-in coaching sessions. Participating students are en- couraged to prepare songs, auditions, monologues, dances, and more to work on. Classes are free and open to all Princeton students.

11

Más Flow Presents: Leyendas

April 11 and 12 at 8 p.m., April 13 at 6:30 p.m. and 9 p.m.

Frist Theatre

Student dance group Más Flow is presenting Leyendas. Tickets can be purchased via University Ticketing.

WOMEN’S SOCCER

Sophomore star Pietra Tordin shines on the international stage

By Lily Pampolina Sports Contributor

In her first appearance for the U-20 United States women’s national soccer team, Pietra Tordin subbed in for the second half of the game. Weaving through the box past three defenders, she struck a shot into the far left corner of the net, securing the team’s only goal in a 1–0 win over Colombia. This was not her first taste of success on the international stage, nor was it the first national team jersey she has donned.

Tordin’s parents are native to Brazil — the soccer capital of the world — making her eligible to compete for the Brazilian national side as well as that of the United States, though she will soon have to pick one.

The sophomore midfielder for Princeton women’s soccer has spent recent months attending international training camps for both the Brazilian and American U-20 national teams, and her presence has been nothing short of commanding.

Tordin began her time with the Brazilian national team in late 2023.

“We have a really good dynamic [on the Brazilian team], and I’m friends with all of them,” Tordin said. “I feel like they play a calm game, and they’re very creative offensively, which I like.”

In a December 2023 friendly match, Tordin scored the tying goal for Brazil against France. Soon after, in January 2024, she was called up to the United States’ camp.

“The U.S. started to show some interest in me, and that was really cool,” she said. “I knew the U.S. played an intense game, … [and] I felt like I could learn a lot.”

Despite her time with the Brazilian national team, Tordin always aspired to play for the American squad.

“My family is Brazilian,” she explained, “so I never really know what I identify as, but I guess growing up in America, it was always kind of my dream to play for the U.S., so I think I’ll stick with them for now.”

Tordin hopes to suit up for the USWNT at the U-20 World Cup that is set to take place in Colombia this August. Rosters will be finalized for the team in May.

After a sophomore campaign that saw Tordin earn All-American honors and numerous Ivy League awards, the aforementioned training camp invites began rolling in — though her soccer journey began long before she set foot on Princeton’s campus.

She has dabbled in other pastimes, but for Tordin, it has always been soccer.

“I played basketball and flag football growing up,” she said. “And it was fun, but soccer always stuck. There was always soccer,” though the game looked a little different back then.

“I grew up in Miami, Fla., and growing up there, there weren’t any female club teams I could play for. So, I ended up playing with boys until I was 13,” she said smiling.

“After I turned 14, I couldn’t keep up with the boys anymore, so I went to play for a girl’s team about 40 minutes away.”

Tordin played for this club until she was 16. After that, she made a big decision.

“I decided to quit for a year,” Tordin revealed. “I quit my sophomore year of high school and took the year fully off.”

Tordin recalls feeling burnt out from the sport, believing that taking a break was the right move to recharge and rekindle her love for the sport.

“I never wanted soccer to get past the point of competitiveness and into rudeness,” she explained, emphasizing the important role of respect in fostering positive team dynamics.

Tordin’s family was extremely supportive of her decision. “They always told me to do what makes me happy,” she said. “They’ve always had my back.”

After her break, Tordin returned to the game with a positive mindset. She joined her high school team during her junior year of high school, finding the environment more welcoming and collaborative.

“The players led the team; it taught me a lot about soccer being a community,” she said.

It was around this time that she decided to pursue playing soccer in college.

“I was like, if college is anything like playing in high school, I’ll probably love it,” she said. “Soccer is so much better when I’m playing with my friends.”

As Tordin flirted with the idea of playing at the collegiate level, she began getting recruited by Princeton.

“I really liked the campus and the overall vibe. I also just really

bonded with the coaches, so I decided to commit, and here I am,” she said laughing.

This fall, Tordin will enter her junior year at Princeton. She has racked up a number of impressive accolades during her time at Princeton. In her first two seasons as a Tiger, Tordin joined one of only five players in history to score 20 goals in both their rookie and sophomore seasons. In her debut season, Tordin earned the Ivy League Rookie of the Year award. Tordin also earned All-American honors in the 2023 season, alongside senior defender and captain Madison Curry.

Reflecting on her favorite experiences of the past season, Tordin said her favorite on-field moment was her goal against Georgetown in September. This header off of a cross from teammate Drew Coomans proved to be a game winner, ending the match 3–2 in favor of the Tigers.

Additionally, in another September game, Tordin put up all of the team’s goals in a 4–0 win over Army West Point. This performance earned her Ivy League Player of the Week, an accolade she would win three times during the 2023 season.

When asked about her transitioning role to an upperclass student on the team, Tordin admitted that she has always been on the quieter side.

“I’ve never really seen myself as a leader if I’m being completely honest,” she said. “I can see myself slowly becoming more vocal, because I’m so close with all of my teammates, but I don’t think that I’m the one leading, just lending a helping hand if my teammates need it.”

Vocal or not, Tordin does not let it affect her gameplay. She is a versatile field player, able to play in

both the midfield and the offensive third.

“Coming into Princeton, I kind of knew my place as a [first-year], I wasn’t about to come in here and steal a position,” she said jokingly. She explained that she was used to being a forward, but was willing to learn new roles.

“This year, I played out wide, so that was interesting because I had never played out wide before. I was definitely adjusting to what the coaches needed from me and how they wanted me to play that position,” Tordin explained.

She finished the season with 12 in-conference goals, the secondhighest total in the Ivy League.

Princeton ended their 2023 season in a nail-biting loss to Texas Tech University in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Regular time proved to be scoreless, but the Tigers fell to the Red Raiders in penalty kicks, 4–3.

At a school as academically rigorous as Princeton though, performance on the field is only one of a number of responsibilities studentathletes have a lot on their plate. Luckily, Tordin says she has been able to manage her workload well.

“Coming into Princeton, I adjusted pretty quickly,” she recalled.

“I try to time manage and usually that works well.” Tordin plans to major in Economics.

She admitted, however, that with her national team call-ups, the past two semesters have been more difficult to tackle.

“Last semester, I missed like four weeks, which is a lot,” Tordin said.

“I had to catch up a lot by myself, there was no way around it. Usually, I was staying up pretty late.”

Yet, Tordin says that this workload did not affect her gameplay.

“I try not to focus on school when

I’m away. I try to give my full attention to soccer, for sure,” she explained.

When she is on campus, Tordin says a typical day can vary in intensity, but she and the team usually start very early in the morning — though Tordin doesn’t consider herself a morning person.

“Today, I woke up at 6 a.m. for a lift with the team. Lift starts at 6:40 a.m. and we are usually out around 8-ish,” she said. “The team is definitely more excited than me in the morning. I show up half-asleep, but once we start the lift, I’m back to normal,” she joked.

On a typical day, Tordin says she usually has two or three classes and practices in the afternoon for about two and a half hours. After class, the team will usually grab dinner together. She finishes the night by doing work.

Tordin says that she feels lucky to be surrounded by such a great group of teammates.

“I’m close with all of them, we make jokes with each other and make fun of each other, but when it comes down to playing soccer, they always give me good feedback and stuff, so there’s a lot of respect.” She says that there is a strong dynamic on and off the field — much like the one that brought her back to the sport after a year off in high school.

So, what does the future hold for the young superstar? She plans to graduate from Princeton and pursue a professional soccer career.

“Honestly, I don’t see myself doing anything other than soccer for a long time,” she said smiling, well on her way to realizing her aspirations.

Lily Pampolina is a Sports contributor and contributing Audience creator for the

‘Prince.’

PHOTO COURTESY OF @PRINCETONWSOC/X.

After a standout sophomore campaign with the women’s soccer team, Pietra Tordin has turned focus to the international stage.

MEN’S VOLLEYBALL

No. 19 George Mason drops No. 15 men’s volleyball in five-set thriller

By Bryant Figueroa Sports Contributor

In a top-20 men’s volleyball matchup between two of the strongest teams in the Eastern Intercollegiate Volleyball Association (EIVA), the No. 15 Tigers (10–10 overall, 3–4 EIVA) fell just short in a tough match against the No. 19 George Mason Patriots (15–7, 4–2) on Saturday.

After defeating the Patriots a few weeks ago at Dillon Gymnasium, the Tigers’ quest to sweep the season series did not get off to a good start. The Patriots struck first, and at the first timeout, the Tigers were down 10–15 after losing four consecutive points just prior. Various errors led to the Patriots maintaining their five-point lead throughout the first set. The Tigers’ final point came from a kill from first-year hitter Jameson Vaccaro before the set ended 20–25 in favor of the Patriots.

In the next set, the Tigers showed their defensive determination early on, with two consecutive diving saves by junior setter Henry Wedbush and a dig by junior libero Matt Suh. The Tigers also impressed offensively, with a great kill by junior hitter Nyherowo Omene, a clean kill through the middle by first-year middle blocker Tristan Whitfeld, and another impressive kill by Wedbush. Several team blocks, and one solo block by Whitfeld, led to a 15–11 lead at the first timeout. The final point of the set came from a strong kill by senior hitter Ben Harrington as the Tigers claimed the second set 25–19.

Tied 1–1 in sets, the Tigers did well to preserve their momentum in the third set. Harrington started out with two kills, but the Patriots went on a 4–0 run to bring the set to 4–8 early on. Later, the Tigers finally tied the set 17–17 with a powerful serve from sophomore middle blocker Ryan Vena, followed by another Harrington kill for their first lead, 18–17,  since the very first point. The Tigers capitalized on this momentum with two more Omene kills and a service ace by Harrington, who leads the nation in service aces this season. The final four Princeton points all came from a run of Vaccaro kills, three of them assisted by Wedbush. A heroic dig by Suh at match point assisted the team to end the third set 25–23 and give the Tigers the match lead.

“I was really proud of how the guys battled and responded after dropping the first set to a very talented top-20 George Mason team,” head coach Sam Shweisky said to The Daily Princetonian. “Winning sets two and three, the guys were playing very clean, low error volleyball while maintaining strong aggression from the service line.”

Unfortunately, errors would come back to haunt the Tigers in the next two sets. The Tigers would commit seven service errors in the third set alone. Combined with the Patriots also holding strong defensively by dominating in blocks and preventing the Tigers’ strong offense from making their usual kills, the rest of the match tilted away from the Tigers.

“George Mason just played a complete game of volleyball,” Omene said. “They have a couple key players that showed out, and it was a battle all the way to the end.”

Indeed, the Tigers also conceded two points to the Patriots’ Omar Hoyos whose service aces clocked in at 71 and 73 miles per hour respectively. Despite some solid blocks, including a solo block by Whitfield, yet another service error ended the fourth set 17–25 and forced a fifth set.

“Anytime you get into a fifth set, it’s going to be the small details and execution that will make the difference,” Coach Shweisky said.

The fifth set was in fact dictated by the little things as Princeton lost three points in the set due to service errors. But, despite small mistakes, the Tigers fought well until the very end. In only the second play of the set, Omene leapt to the ground to dig the ball, Wedbush dove right after to save the ball off the net, and Harrington finally hit the ball over to keep the game in play and earn a point. Despite a service error, Vena also served an ace and the two teams continued to trade off for the majority of the set.

At match point down for the Tigers, though, Suh made what was almost a matchsaving soaring dig, but it was not enough as the Tigers fell by just three points in the fifth set, 12–15.

“I thought it was just our service pressure and defense down the stretch that was the difference,” Wedbush said. “They sided-out very well, and we couldn’t contain their offense.”

Highlighting Wedbush’s words was Princeton getting dominated in the block game, 7–13, despite actually leading in kills, 56–55.

Although the loss provides a setback in the Tigers’ hopes for climbing up in the EIVA, their ability to fight to the very end shows a resilience that can only help them come back from it.

Coach Shweisky was also sure to praise Wedbush as the leader on the court. “I was really proud of how Henry led the team, not only tactically from an offensive perspective, but [also] emotionally, he did an excellent job of leading us throughout the match.”

After a month on the road, the Tigers finally return to Dillon Gymnasium this Friday, April 5, to host the NJIT Highlanders (9–13 overall, 1–6 EIVA), whom they defeated one week ago in Newark. With only three regular season conference games left, the Tigers look to perfect their game, especially defensively, and find momentum to carry into the EIVA tournament.

“In [the EIVA] tournament, anything goes,” Omene said. “It’s really about surviving and moving on to get the bid for the NCAA tournament.”

Bryant Figueroa is a Sports contributor for the ‘Prince.’

PHOTO COURTESY OF @PRINCETONVOLLEY/X. First-year pin-hitter Jameson Vaccaro had 10 kills in the defeat.

MEN’S

LACROSSE

No. 14 men’s lacrosse defense dominates Big Green en route to a 15–5 win

By Hayk Yengibaryan & Tyler Duran Associate Sports Editor & Sports Contributor

After last week’s big win against Harvard, the No. 14 ranked Princeton Tigers (6–3 overall, 2–1 Ivy League) came into Saturday’s contest against the Dartmouth Big Green (3–6, 0–2) eager to get a winning streak underway. Led by an impressive defensive showing and four goals from junior standout attacker Coulter Mackesy, the Tigers cruised to a victory against Big Green, coming out on top 15–5.

“It was a really great job by Coach Hirsch [Princeton defensive coordinator] and his group today,” head coach Matt Madalon told the Daily Princetonian. “We want to be a defensive team and win games from that end of the field. They had a great day as a unit. From the face-off unit to the defensive midfielders to the close defense to the goalie, they all had a good day today.”

After sophomore face-off Andrew McMeekin gave the Tigers the ball to start the contest, neither side found the back of the net for the opening four minutes. Mackesy opened the scoring with a right-handed shot. The junior standout has shown Tiger fans he can do it all, although many are used to seeing him score with his left.

Shortly after, first-year attacker Nate Kabiri scored a wrap-around goal to make it 2–0 Princeton. Fellow first-year attacker Colin Burns extended Princeton’s lead with a jump shot, putting the Tigers ahead 3-0 at the end of the first quarter. Playing alongside Mackesy in attack, the two rookies have been wreaking havoc for opposing defenses all season long, combining for 40 goals in the nine Tiger games thus far.

“Colin, Nate, and I have been building our chemistry since the fall and continue to as the season goes on,” Mackesy noted. “More importantly, we’ve built great chemistry off the field, spending time with each other and becoming great friends.”

After Dartmouth got on the board to start the second quarter, the Tigers quickly responded as McMeekin turned his face-off win into a goal for the Tigers, bringing the crowd to its feet. After not scoring his entire rookie year and the first five games of this season’s campaign, McMeekin has scored one goal a game for the last four games.

Dartmouth responded with a goal shortly after to cut the deficit to just two goals. However, this was the last goal the Big Green scored for a staggering 37 minutes of game time and over an hour of real-time. The next two goals came courtesy of first-year midfielder

Tucker Wade who finished remarkably, and Kabiri who capitalized off a man-up opportunity after a Big Green slashing penalty. After successfully holding off Dartmouth’s lone man-up opportunity of the game, a holding penalty allowed senior midfielder Tommy Barnds to get his fourth goal of the season and put Princeton up 7–2 at the half.

On Alumni Day at Sherrard Field, halftime brought an opportunity to honor Bill Tierney, Princeton’s former esteemed lacrosse head coach, who is transitioning to coaching at the professional level with the Waterdogs of the

Premier Lacrosse League. Tierney’s remarkable legacy and contributions to the sport were celebrated, highlighting his significant impact on national and regional lacrosse. He won six national championships with the Tigers. The head coaching position for the Tigers will now be known as “The William G. Tierney P’01 P’02 Head Coach of Men’s Lacrosse at Princeton.”

The third quarter saw Princeton maintain their momentum, with Mackesy securing a hat-trick and Burns adding his second goal of the game. The defense stayed strong, preventing Dartmouth from scoring throughout the quarter.

One of the most impressive statistics of the season has been Burns and Kabiri’s ability to keep the ball away from opposition. Kabiri has just seven turnovers on the season while Burns has nine.

As the game progressed into the fourth quarter, Princeton dominated, with junior midfielder Sean Cameron, senior attacker Lukas Stanat, and sophomore midfielder Quinn Krammer all scoring. Despite Dartmouth’s efforts to narrow the deficit, Princeton’s relentless offense and solid defense proved too much to overcome. The impressive trio of Tiger rookies — Wade, Kabiri, and Burns — finished with two goals a piece. Moreover, Kabiri now has 24 goals on the season — tied for the fourth most ever by a first-year at Princeton.

“They’re (the attack) doing a really nice job,” Madalon added. “Today was nice because they all scored in different ways. It was a good effort from those guys and they’re continuing to get better every day. Hopefully, they have their best lacrosse ahead of them.”

In the end, Princeton emerged victorious with a 15–5 win over Dartmouth, reaffirm-

ing their status as a force to be reckoned with in collegiate lacrosse. The Tiger defense forced nine Big Green turnovers, winning 13 face-offs and 31 ground balls en route to the comfortable home win. Senior goalie Michael Gianforcaro had 14 saves to lead the defense. His near 88 percent save percentage on Saturday afternoon was his career best in a single game.

After a tough loss to the No. 13 ranked Cornell Big Red (5–3, 2–1) two weeks ago, the Tigers have bounced back with two straight wins and are now in a three-way tie for second place in the league.

Madalon’s squad will be back in action tomorrow night at home against Lehigh University (4–5, 2–2 Patriot League) in a non-conference game. The Mountain Hawks are 0–3 this season against ranked opponents but have put up a fight in all three of those matches. The Tigers cannot overlook the Mountain Hawks or the comfortable Tuesday night contest can quickly turn into an uncomfortable match at Sherrerd Field. Following the game, Princeton will have a long and much-needed break before returning to Ivy League play on April 13th against Brown (1–8, 0–2).

“April is playoff lacrosse and we know how important each game is,” Mackesy told the ‘Prince.’ “We still haven’t shown our best lacrosse yet and can’t wait to peak at the right time down the stretch. That all starts with a tough Lehigh opponent on Tuesday.”

Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate Sports editor for the

Tyler Duran is a Sports contributor for the ‘Prince.’

‘Prince.’

PHOTO COURTESY OF @TIGERLACROSSE/X.

Junior standout attacker Coulter Mackesy led the Tigers with four goals on Saturday afternoon.

‘It’s ’bout time’: Princeton fencing shines in the NCAA and beyond

By Ava Seigel Assistant Sports Editor

With an NCAA Champion, an NCAA Semifinalist, six All-Americans, and two Olympic qualifiers, Princeton fencing has proven why it is a top-ten fencing program in the country this year.

With the conclusion of their collegiate season at the NCAA Championships in Columbus, Ohio, at the end of March, the Princeton men’s and women’s fencing programs closed the books on one of their best performances in recent history.

NCAA Regional Dominance

Success for the Tigers built throughout the season, beginning with a commanding performance at NCAA regionals earlier in the year.

Collegiate fencing is distinct in that the athletes — who are split by weapons (épée, foil, saber) and gender — compete individually as well as towards overall team performance scores. Each ‘bout’ fenced accrues points that contribute to that individual fencer’s percentage victory, which is also pooled towards the combined team standings.

Princeton took home three of the six possible NCAA Mid-Atlantic/South Regional titles, with Junior épée Jessica Lin and Senior saber Ryan Jenkins topping the podium along with Senior épée Tristan Szapary.

“We had a pretty strong performance as a team [at regionals] heading into NCAAs, so it was a huge boost for our confidence as a whole knowing we were feeling ready to go and put up a fight,” Jenkins noted to the ‘Prince.’

Beyond team confidence, regionals are a key factor in NCAA Championship qualifications, as regional scores count for 60 percent of a fencer’s resume with the selection committee, with their regular season performance accounts for the other 40 percent.

NCAA Championship Triumphs

With the weight of their regional success, Princeton Fencing had 11 of 12 maximum possible fencers selected for bids by the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Fencing Committee for Championship competition. This means the Tigers had a large cheering force on the strip and 11 fencers contributing towards the team’s overall points.

“The support is huge... in the finals each team has all of their qualifiers supporting and you can hear them on the strip, Szapary remarked.

Szapary said that strong support from the Tiger sideline translated to results, running the table to win Princeton’s only NCAA individual championship of the season.

Last year, in his first Championship appearance, Szapary finished in 10th place at the tournament. Now, he closes out his Tiger career as only the ninth Princeton men’s fencer to win an NCAA individual championship. Szapary is the first to achieve this feat since Jonathan Yergler ’13 in 2012.

The winning run began in the round-robin portion of the competition, where each qualifier fences short 5-touch bouts against 23 competitors hoping to clinch a spot in the final four, fencing off in longer 15-touch bouts for the title.

“This is my second NCAAs, the first one was last year and that’s what I learned that it's a mental battle since it’s so different from other competitions,” Szapary told the ‘Prince.’

After narrowly securing his spot in the top four, Szapary went on to defeat top-seeded Henry Lawson of Harvard 15–9 in the semifinal, who had won 17 of 23 bouts prior to the weekend’s contests.

“I was actually down after the first period by 3 touches,” Szapary noted. “But I wasn’t thinking about it, I was just focused on the fencing so I was able to come back and beat him pretty handedly” he continued.

In the finals, Szapary secured his title in a

close 15–14 bout victory over Notre Dame’s Jonathan Hamilton-Meikle.

Szapary trailed only at the very start of the championship bout. After that, he built up his lead throughout the match, eventually reaching a 7–0 margin. Following a double touch at 14–13, Szapary secured his 15 points — and with it, the national championship berth.

“This was the best way to go as a senior,” Szapary remarked. “It reflected three plus years of hard work and trying to build a team culture that could win.”

Ryan Jenkins, Szapary’s fellow regional champ, also had the best run of her Tiger career at the NCAA championships making it into the semifinals.

Heading into the final four competition against St. John's Julia Cieslar,  Jenkins had won 18 of her 23 pool bouts. Unfortunately, Cieslar advanced to the finals over Jenkins 15–9, but this still marked the best finish of her three NCAA Championship appearances.

“I could not have imagined a better outcome,” Jenkins expressed. “I was hoping for a top four finish, but didn’t know if it was in the cards because everyone there is so strong.”

The performances of Szapary and Jenkins, along with the nine other Tiger qualifiers, culminated in Princeton’s fourth-place team finish with 131 total wins. Despite being one spot off the trophy stage, the Tigers walked away from the weekend with six All-American honors and exciting momentum heading into next season.

Olympic qualifiers

Beyond NCAA dominance, first-year saber Tatiana Nazlymov and sophomore épée Hadley Husisian both have qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris in both the individual and women’s team events, proving the squad’s weight beyond the NCAA to represent the United States on the global stage.

“They are the most hardworking people and incredible athletes, it’s so well deserved,” Jenkins remarked on Nazlymov and Husisian’s qualifications.

Following months of qualification competitions and acquiring points, both Nazlymov and Husisian managed to gain enough points to secure their places.

“We try to build a culture of excellence, a culture of almost near professionalism, and that gets validated when we have multiple of our competitors qualify for the Olympics and not just do well on the collegiate circuit,” Szapary explained.

Husisian is currently on a gap-year from Princeton, fully dedicating her time to preparing for Paris this summer.

Olympic competition is structured differently from NCAAs, where individually the first fencer to reach 15 points or have the highest number of points after three three-minute rounds wins the match. For the team section, the first team to score 45 points or lead the score when the allotted time ends wins the match.

Though success on the international stage is nothing new for Nazlymov and Husisian, the former No. 11 world junior women’s saber and No. 1 world junior women’s épée fencers respectively, their biggest challenges yet will undoubtedly come in Paris this summer.

“I think it really is a testament to not only the resiliency of the team but also the individual strengths of our team members,” Junior épée Ryan Lee said on the pair’s upcoming Olympic debuts.

“It’s great to show everyone [that] Princeton Fencing remains one of the best in the nation.”

Ava Seigel is an assistant Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

Senior Tristan Szapary raises

FOOTBALL

Princeton football captain and star linebacker Liam Johnson commits to UC Berkeley

By Alex Beverton-Smith Assistant Sports Editor

On March 22, All-Ivy senior linebacker Liam Johnson announced his decision to commit to the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) following his decision to enter the transfer portal on Feb. 1. Johnson, the 2022 Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year, will use his fifth year of eligibility to join the Golden Bears squad.

Though he couldn’t be more excited to head out west, Johnson will not soon forget his time as a Princeton Tiger anytime soon.

“Princeton made me into a man and a collectively better person,” Johnson told The Daily Princetonian. “Whether it was on the football field or in the classroom, I was constantly surrounded by people that were better than me.”

Throughout the recruiting process, Princeton stresses the combination of athletics and superb academics — a pairing Johnson found attractive at Princeton and similarly encountered at UC Berkeley.

“I think that’s why I chose the school originally,” he added. “I felt like it was the best place for me to grow and compete with the best people in the world. I chose Cal for the exact same reasons, just in a different environment.”

The Golden Bears have picked up a stellar inside linebacker in Johnson. As a twotime first-team All-Ivy selection and the 2022 Ivy League Defensive Player of the Year, Johnson is sure to add quality and depth to Berkeley’s defense after being a regular starter in Princeton’s defense for the past two seasons.

This past season, Johnson was fourth in the Ivy League in tackles across all positions — notching 83 — and averaged 8.3 per game. He also managed three sacks across the season, putting him 14th in the Ivy League, all of which were solo efforts. He has formed a major part of an impressive Princeton defense across the past two seasons, which this season allowed the fewest total yards (3021) and the fewest number of points (175) in the Ivy League.

He will be complimenting the Golden Bears’ defensive inside linebacking unit which recently lost two of its starting players — Jackson Sirmon, is declaring for the NFL draft, and Kaleb Elarms-Orr, who is committing to TCU. Elarms-Orr was third in the PAC-12 conference in tackles per game, with 8.4 whilst Sirmon was just behind in fourth with 8.3.

However, Johnson is not a guaranteed starter. He will have to prove himself against sophomore rising talent Cade Uluave and incoming transfer Teddye Buchanan. With his resume and skills, though, he should have the ability to claim a starting spot from the beginning of the season. Either way, the Golden Bears have a strong set of inside linebackers as two these experienced players and a standout sophomore will complement each other well.

Johnson will now compete in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC), which Cal joined following the PAC-12 exodus at the end of last season. Following last season’s 6–7 overall record, a 4–5 conference record, and an end-ofseason Independence Bowl

loss against Texas Tech, the Golden Bears will be looking to make vast improvements for next season and Johnson will be of assistance.

While at Princeton, Johnson formed a dynamic duo with fellow senior — and Duke commit — Ozzie Nicholas, who led the Ivy League in tackles with 104 last season. The Tigers have quite the hole to fill to replace this star linebacker duo.

Several other players are looking to fill these spots. The Tigers have stellar depth in

the position, and with spring training already underway, many linebackers will be under the scrutiny of head coach Bob Surace ’90 to fill this role. Some of the potential names to fill these spots are junior Carson Irons, sophomore Sekou Roland — who has already been impressive for the Tigers — and sophomore Will Beesley.

In his final, fifth year of eligibility, the Tigers will be rooting for Johnson as he takes the lessons he learned inside the Orange Bubble to start this new stage of his career.

Alex Beverton-Smith is an assistant Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

Reflecting on his time here and looking to the future, Johnson told the ‘Prince,’ “Princeton gave me the understanding that I need to constantly be growing and improving my skill set, which is what I hope to do at Cal.”

“The principle subject of literature”: French Poet Monsieur Henri de Régnier Discusses Women in Literature

By Harry Mugisha Contributing Archivist

After giving a series of eight lectures at Harvard University, Monsieur Henri de Régnier came to Princeton to give a guest lecture at University Hall, on the evening of April 5, 1900. De Régnier was a poet of the French Symbolist movement, and his lecture on the role of women in contemporary literature was “heard with pleasure by a fairly large audience” according to The Daily Princetonian.

The anonymous author of the original ‘Prince’ piece said that de Régnier had a “[vague ideal], best summed up as beauty, of which he catches tantalizing glimpses through partial manifestations furnished him by material fact.” In 1897, the poet was granted the French Legion of Honour for his contributions to French literature, specifically his representa-

tions of reality through metaphorical images and his use of language. De Régnier’s own works, and those of the greater Symbolist movement, are said to have influenced the writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, T. S. Eliot, and Conrad Aiken.

Funded by Moses Taylor Pyne, after which the Pyne Honor Prize and Pyne Hall in Princeton are named, de Régnier’s lecture focused on the importance of women as literary muses. He also praised their influence in writing salons and contributions to writing.

De Régnier stated in the lecture that “if women did not exist, they would have to be created for literature. It sometimes seems as if they were the principal subject of literature.”

De Régnier’s early recognition of women’s often-overlooked contributions to French literature during this period was received positively by Princetonians. He referenced the po-

ems of women from the 15th to the 19th century, in particular George Sand, and the level of genius she was able to achieve, even without coming from an illustrious background. De Régnier acknowledged these authors and grouped many of his contemporaries “among the most exquisite and delightful of living authors in France to-day.”

Princeton’s poetry programs have transformed since the time of de Régnier. Now, the majority of Princeton’s creative writing department is composed of female professors. The involvement of women in poetry has also carried over into student poetry groups at Princeton. Michelle Thurber ’26, a member of the Ellipses Slam Poetry group, explained that the group consists “mostly [of] women and nonbinary folks,” explaining that “the people who audition for Ellipses tend to be more of that demographic.”

Thurber also noted the importance of involving women in poetry. “I think that historically, there have been a lot of stories that weren’t told [because] women felt that they shouldn’t express themselves.” She herself has written poems about being a woman and auditioned for the group with a poem about “unrealistic beauty standards on women.”

Thurber has observed that Ellipses and other poetry groups on campus, such as The ForWord Collective and Songline Slam Poetry, have “audience[s] that tend to have a lot of women.”

“Poetry is just a great space for people to say what they want to say and maybe defy what they

is expected

think

of them,” she concluded.

Harry Mugisha is a contributing Archivist for the ‘Prince.’

PHOTO COURTESY OF @PRINCETONFTBL/X.

Last season, Johnson was fourth in the Ivy League with 83 total tackles on the season.