March 27, 2018

Founded 1876 daily since 1892 online since 1998

Tuesday March 27, 2018 vol. CXLII no. 30

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } U . A F FA I R S

U . A F FA I R S

Honor System Academic calendar reform Review Comm. discussed at CPUC meeting reports findings

By Ivy Truong Assistant News Editor

The Honor System Review Committee unveiled its preliminary findings at the Council of the Princeton University Community meeting on March 26, to mixed reactions among members of the committee.

The published summary of the preliminary report was released in advance of the meeting on the HSRC website that outlined the committee’s recommendations and reasoning for rejecting two of the three referenda under review. According to Carolyn Liziewski ’18, HSRC Co-Chair and Honor Committee Chair Emerita, the full report will be released at the end of the spring semester and only to the Committee on Examinations and Standing.

The HSRC recommended against the adoption of two referenda that would reduce the standard penalty for Honor Code violations and allow a professor’s testimony to be grounds for dismissing a case against a student, respectively. Revised language was recommended on the third referendum, on standards for evidence.

All of the original four referenda were passed in the USG election in December with at least 87 percent of the vote.

Some members of the HSRC emphasized their concern that the published summary

of the preliminary report implied unanimous support for each recommendation, which was not the case.

“I am disappointed in the fact that the published summary of the HSRC report is not transparent about the disagreement expressed by a number of members on the committee when discussing passing the referenda, as is, to [the Committee on Examinations and Standing],” Soraya Morales Nuñez ’18, a member of the committee and a proponent of Honor Code reform, wrote in a statement to The Daily Princetonian.

Morales Nuñez noted that she and others had advocated for a section that would express dissenting opinions, which was not included in the published summary released on Monday afternoon.

Another member of the HSRC, Patrick Flanigan ’18, echoed Morales Nuñez’s sentiments.

“I would say that there are dissenting views that are not being fully expressed in the report,” Flanigan said.

Liziewski declined to comment on internal deliberations within the committee to the ‘Prince,’ but added that when drafting the report, the committee strove to be as inclusive as possible of dissenting opinions.

“We wanted to make sure that we presented every side See HONOR CODE page 3

IVY TRUONG :: DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The proposed calendar would include a seven-day exam period instead of the current 11-day one.

By Benjamin Ball Staff Writer

Representatives from the Ad Hoc Calendar Reform Committee, the Honor System Review Committee, and Undergraduate Student Government President Rachel Yee ’19 addressed the topics of calendar reform, honor council referenda, and USG’s plans for Yee’s term at a March 26 meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community.

The meeting, which took place in the Maeder Hall Auditorium in the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, began with an

ON CAMPUS

opening roll call and review of the last meeting’s minutes. President Eisgruber yielded to computer science professor Aarti Gupta and Deputy Dean of the College Elizabeth Colagiuri for a discussion of calendar reform.

The largest of the reforms proposed was that of moving winter exams to December instead of January.

“One of the things that we wanted was to move the fall part of exams to before winter break, and that’s the first big change we suggested,” said Gupta. “We move the fall final exams to December, and start and end the spring term one week ear-

lier.”

As Gupta and Colagiuri repeatedly mentioned, the University is unique among its peer institutions in having its fall exams after winter break.

To accommodate the earlier exams, the proposed calendar would feature a sevenday exam period instead of an 11-day one, and the fall semester would begin slightly earlier, with classes starting either on the Tuesday after Labor Day or the Wednesday before Labor Day. “I want to be up front that this does require starting the fall term earlier,” said See CPUC page 4

ON CAMPUS

Firefighters put out early morning Climate policy scholar fire at Frick Chemistry Laboratory Kopp lectures on dangers posed by rising sea levels

Associate News Editor

At 1:30 a.m. on Friday morning, Michael Nechayev GS was working on the third f loor of the near-empty Frick Chemistry Laboratory when he smelled something weird.

Nechayev traced the smell to a storage room a few doors down. Inside, a light fixture had fallen down and sparked a fire, engulfing a stack of cardboard boxes in f lames.

“It was a really surreal moment,” Nechayev said.

“As a lab researcher you’re trained to handle accidents and emergencies caused by people, but you don’t really expect to walk into an empty lab at 1 am and see half a room on fire.”

Nechayev immediately called the Department of Public Safety. Firefighters then arrived on campus from the town of Princeton, Princeton Junction, the Princeton Plasma Plasma Physics Laboratory, Plainsboro, and Rocky Hill, according to a University statement.

The building’s sprinkler system was activated and contained the f lames to the storage room, where a firefighter was able to put

By Anna Vinitsky Staff Writer

COURTESY OF WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

There was no major structural or equipment damage as a result of the fire.

them out with a fire extinguisher.

The f laming boxes that Nechayev had seen contained vials, pipes, and other chemical laboratory supplies but no hazardous materials, according to Assistant Vice President for Communications Dan Day. The building was brief ly closed while firefighters were on scene.

Water from the sprin-

kler system dripped from the third to the second f loor, getting some papers and computers wet, but a University Facilities crew mopped up the water early in the morning.

There was no significant structural or equipment damage in the building from the fire or from smoke, Day said.

“It could have been much worse,” Nechayev said.

Robert Kopp is not one to shy away from the problem of sea level rise. On the contrary, Kopp — a climate policy scholar at the Rutgers University Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and the Institute of Earth, Ocean & Atmospheric Sciences — acknowledges that rising sea levels form a major problem for this generation to address.

“We’re living in a time of extraordinary environmental change,” Kopp said in a lecture at the University on Monday, March 26, showing the audience a graph that depicted a dramatic rise in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.

Kopp suggested that as a consequence of this change, both temperatures and sea levels are rising dramatically. The human ramifications are startling: The frequency of tidal floods is increasing, particularly along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States, and about 380 million people currently live within 21 feet of the high tide line.

Kopp explained that there are two major contributing factors to sea level rise: a

In Opinion

Today on Campus

Columnist Daehee Lee commends students for counterprotesting Open Air Outreach, while contributing columnist Cy Watsky critiques President Eisgruber’s concept of academic freedom. PAGE 6

4:30 p.m.: Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute lectures on “The Art of Happiness.”

Robertson Hall, Bowl 016

change in the volume of the oceans, driven by increasing temperatures, and a change in the amount of water, driven by melting ice.

However, Kopp contends that it isn’t enough to simply understand the physical forces. Satellite observations, tide gauges, and geological reconstructions are necessary to shape the way we address the problem.

Using the geological record, which is the only way to look significantly back in the history of tide levels, Kopp was able to conclude that the global rate of sea level rise of 1.4 ± 0.2 mm/year in the 20th century was almost certainly faster than in any century since at least 800 BCE. Kopp then discussed the hazard assessment in this area of research. He suggested that there have been two types of approaches to coming up with projections.

There is looking at the past relationship between temperature change and global sea level rise and there is the bottom-up approach of drawing upon the different processes driving sea level changes.

Kopp is more in favor of the latter process, which he employed in making his own See KOPP page 2

WEATHER

By Allie Spensley

HIGH

49˚

LOW

37˚

Cloudy. chance of rain:

0 percent

The Daily Princetonian

page 2

Kopp: We are living in a time of extraodinary environmental change KOPP

Continued from page 1

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

projections.

As a scientist, Kopp does not expect the historical relationship of the last two millennia, particularly the relationship between temperature and sea levels, to be a good predictor of future centuries.

“This is a rapidly evolving area and I would argue that the past relationship is not necessarily a guarantee of fu-

ture results,” he said.

Kopp also shared the economic consequences of rising sea levels. According to his research, permanent flooding of land could threaten $230–460 billion worth of current U.S. property over the next three decades.

To close off his talk, Kopp turned to discussing risk management and communication. He noted that mitigation policies could reduce the sea level rise, but that we will still have to adapt to some degree regardless. Kopp sug-

gests that flexible-adaptation pathways may be a key approach to planning for the future.

Kopp is a firm supporter of collaboration and suggests that for us to create informed policies on sea level rise, we have to be willing to interact with stakeholders. In combating this problem, collaboration is of utmost necessity.

The lecture, titled “Coastal Risks in an Age of Sea-Level Rise,” took place in Wallace Hall 300 on Monday, March 26, at noon.

Tuesday March 27, 2018

The Daily Princetonian

Tuesday March 27, 2018

Morales Nuñez: Published report is not transparent concerning disagreements HONOR CODE Continued from page 1

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

of the issue that we discussed so they [the Committee on Examinations and Standing] could understand the full pros and cons to understand what was motivating our recommendations themselves,” Liziewski said to the ‘Prince.’

Liziewski and fellow HSRC Co-Chair Clarence Rowley ’95, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor, presented the recommendations at the CPUC meeting.

Both co-chairs spoke to the committee’s efforts to be inclusive of student opinion and all facets of the issues.

“We’re trying to take to heart the intentions and motivation behind the vote and then tailor the reforms to the Honor System that really get to the core of the problems that the students have,” Liziewski said during the meeting.

Both President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 and Rowley emphasized during the CPUC meeting that internal reports — even the summary — are often not published to the student body and vary from case

to case. They are usually created for internal deliberation.

Eisgruber stressed that the committee should be able to reach its conclusions without influence from public opinion.

“Just as the [HSRC] benefitted from the chance to consider all these arguments before reaching final judgement that would be made public, so too would the Committee on Examinations and Standing,” he said.

Morales Nuñez disagreed with the decision to keep the forthcoming full report from the student body.

“Especially when talking about committees working on issues that can have an impact on the student experience as immense as the Honor Code can, [committee transparency] should be as much of a bedrock value as this university consistently reminds its students that academic integrity is,” Morales Nuñez said.

Liziewski said that the intention behind releasing this summary of the preliminary report was to update the student body and show that their concerns are being addressed.

The committee plans to complete its work this spring.

T HE DA ILY

Whatever your talent, the ‘Prince’ has a place for you.

page 3

The Daily Princetonian

page 4

Tuesday March 27, 2018

Two-week ‘Wintersession’ proposed for new academic calendar CPUC

Continued from page 1

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

Gupta. “There is no way to fit in the 12 weeks for teaching, the reading period, the exam period, and finish before winter break unless we start earlier.”

In addition, instead of Intersession, the calendar proposed a two-week “Wintersession,” a flexible space in January that students could use for everything from junior paper and senior thesis

work to short internships.

Students at the CPUC meeting expressed some concerns that the slots for Sunday exams would increase from the current one to three, but Colagiuri emphasized that the policy of exemptions for religious reasons would extend to those new slots in the calendar.

Colagiuri emphasized the distinction between the elements of the calendar that were and were not under consideration. Specifically,

the start of classes and the length of reading period, exams, and intersession were all under review, while there was no consideration to change, for example, the length of spring or Thanksgiving breaks or the 12-week academic year.

“We took [the possibility of break extensions] very seriously,” said Colagiuri. “The math is the math, though, and the bottom line was that we didn’t see any available days to do so unless we were to start even earlier in the

fall.”

A survey of students and faculty to see what they thought of the proposed calendar showed that 75 percent of faculty, 73 percent of undergraduates, and 84 percent of graduate students supported the reformed calendar over the current academic calendar.

Eisgruber expressed his support and reaffirmed Colagiuri’s statement that if the faculty approve the new calendar, the Office of Financial Aid would assess its implications with a particular emphasis on making sure students of all incomes can stay on campus, travel, or have an internship during Wintersession without financial strain.

“There will be a very strong commitment on our part to make sure that students from all backgrounds can participate in Wintersession,” Eisgruber said.

Moving on to the second order of business, Eisgruber invited mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Clarence Rowley ’95 and Carolyn Liziewski ’18 from the Honor System Review Committee to discuss the Honor Code referenda and other possible changes being considered by the committee.

“The entire committee [is] doing a lot of good and really important work,” said Dean of the College Jill Dolan. “We understand the concerns that students have about these issues, and I think the committee is doing an excellent job at really taking them under consideration.”

The primary topic of discussion was the Committee’s decisions to recommend against the first and third Honor Code referenda, which would decrease the standard penalty for a violation of the Honor Code and give professors total jurisdiction over whether or not an infraction occurred, respectively.

“We discussed this at length, and at the end, we’re not ready to make recommendations about penalties,” said Rowley. “This is a major issue, and a complex issue, with pros and cons on either side, and we’ve not reached consensus of any recommendations on this.”

The first referendum, Rowley and Liziewski stated, would create a disparity between punishments from the Honor Committee, which focuses on in-class vi-

olations, and from the Committee on Discipline, which focuses on a broader range of out-of-class infractions.

“These need to be consistent with the Committee on Discipline,” said Rowley. “We thought it violated basic fairness to have completely different penalties for in-class examinations and take-home examinations.”

Rowley and Liziewski also found that the third referendum would give what they believed to be far too much power over a case to the professor or instructor. They said they are seeking other ways to ensure that the instructors’ input has appropriate weight while keeping the process of judging violations a student-driven proceeding.

“It amounts to a professor veto,” said Rowley. “The course instructor has the power to totally exonerate a student, by saying the actions are not in violation of class policy, and that has some drawbacks.”

The second referendum originally required two pieces of evidence in order for a case to move forward.

The Honor System review committee revised the wording of the referendum to require more evidence in cases where the only evidence provided is one student’s testimony, believing that the prior version of the referendum, according to Liziewski, “ties the Honor Committee’s hands.”

The Committee on Examinations and Standings will decide if that single referenda will be put to a faculty vote. The reworded referenda will be presented for a student vote again, but not in the spring 2018 semester.

“We don’t recommend this particular version of the due process protection,” said Liziewski. “However, we did work together to provide some new language because we certainly aren’t opposed to putting in the Honor Constitution this protection for students.”

Some students in the meeting raised concerns about whether the decisions on the referenda were truly in the hands of the student body at this point, since faculty are making decisions on referenda that a majority of students voted to approve.

Eisgruber defended the process, distinguishing between referenda that simply See CPUC page 8

The Daily Princetonian

Tuesday March 27, 2018

page 5

things i’ll (probably) never say tashi treadway ’19 ..................................................

You could be this guy.

Write for the ‘Prince.’

Email join@dailyprincetonian.com

The best place to Write Edit Opine Design Produce Illustrate Photograph Create

on campus. join@dailyprincetonian.com

The Daily Princetonian is published daily except Saturday and Sunday from September through May and three times a week during January and May by The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc., 48 University Place, Princeton, N.J. 08540. Mailing address: P.O. Box 469, Princeton, N.J. 08542. Subscription rates: Mailed in the United States $175.00 per year, $90.00 per semester. Office hours: Sunday through Friday, 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. Telephones: Business: 609-375-8553; News and Editorial: 609-258-3632. For tips, email news@dailyprincetonian.com. Reproduction of any material in this newspaper without expressed permission of The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc., is strictly prohibited. Copyright 2014, The Daily Princetonian Publishing Company, Inc. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Daily Princetonian, P.O. Box 469, Princeton, N.J. 08542.

Tuesday March 27, 2018

Opinion

page 6

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

How a hate group spurred Princetonians to action Daehee Lee

Contributing Columnist

O

n March 13, a group of fundamentalist Christians from Open Air Outreach protested against homosexuality, feminism, and Islam, among other subjects. They called several students “whores” and “snowf lakes” while threatening us dissolute Princetonians with hellfire. While this ruckus transpired, I was running from McDonnell Hall to McCosh Hall for precept, and happened to chance upon the group. Without a second thought, I strode through the congregation with my headphones on and my gaze forward. I was late, after all, and could not be bothered to care.

After seeing how many Princetonians have responded in the wake of Open Air Outreach’s protest, however, I was ashamed that I did not care. My fellow classmates did not fight with the protesters or lower themselves to that level.

Instead, they took this opportunity to raise funds for charities. They took degrading and insulting com-

ments and converted this abuse into something beautiful. Their actions inspired me and many of my peers because these actions were not about specific politics or religion or hate speech; they were about turning something ugly into a good that was in accord with the spirit of Princeton.

Growing up as an immigrant from South Korea, I was told by my parents to “shut up and don’t interfere.” Even if there was a car crash, a robbery, or a political protest, I was to ignore everything and just do my job as a student. Our family was afraid of getting in trouble, being sent back to South Korea because one of us chose to say the wrong thing or get involved in situations where accusations could lead to our deportation. As a result, I was politically apathetic all my life, only voicing my thoughts with the protection of The Daily Princetonian. Even when I became a permanent resident and relatively safe from deportation, I still hesitated to do anything political.

But students just like me took action on Tuesday. They did not have to

respond at all to these protesters. After all, the protest occurred while classes were in session, when many of us would be studying Locke or cleaning chemical glassware. Even if we were free, there was no obligation for us to involve ourselves. We were not being attacked physically and their words passed over some of us like water. However, my classmates did not let their workload diminish their spirits. By holding a counterprotest, by using the ruckus caused by the hateful speech to raise funds for charity, they chose to fight back against the hate with kindness. At that moment, my classmates were far more than mere college students on a Tuesday afternoon during midterms week. They were guardians of not just our campus but also of the Princeton ideal of responding to tragedy and malice with service of the greater good.

I was amazed at this ability. For so long, I had avoided politics like a pit of vipers because there were so many ways that I could get bitten for the things I wrote or said. I did not want to be personally attacked for my

beliefs. However, the events that happened on Tuesday showed me the work that Princetonians can do. Many times, especially by those who look down on us, we are seen as snowf lakes who cannot do anything on our own and complain about everything. When we do something about causes we believe in, we are mocked for being too naive or too elitist to successfully effect change. However, in this case, Princetonians took action without guidance from professors or administrators. They did so not for a particular political stance, but to counter those who hate everything that is not them. They showed people like me — who are either too apathetic or too scared to speak out — that it is alright to speak out. They showed me that despite our different political perspectives and backgrounds, Princetonians strive to make this world a better place, even if that means returning vicious hatred with kindness for a greater goal.

Cy Watsky

Contributing Columnist

I

n his recent letter regarding the state of the University, President Eisgruber pointed to this year’s pre-read on free speech as an extension of the important conversations on campus surrounding academic freedom. He used Charles Murray’s failed attempts to speak at Middlebury College as an example of the breakdown of intellectual spaces for the free exchange of ideas. Eisgruber calls the incident “outrageous and unacceptable,” pointing to how Murray was “prevented from speaking and assaulted.”

There is a problem with this example, though, and I believe a recent event on campus provides insight into Eisgruber’s flawed perspective into what academic freedom really is.

It is important to first understand exactly what ideas are being protected under the catch-all phrase of academic freedom. Murray is a discredited pseudoscientist noted as a white nationalist by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and believes that there is a genetic basis for the socioeconomic achievement gap in the United States. Furthermore, he claims that black people are, on average, less intelligent than white people based on inaccurate and widely discredit-

needs to separate this out of his larger discussion on academic freedom, because he mentions this in conjunction with the fact that Murray was prevented from speaking. My point here is not that the occurrences on the Middlebury campus were justified but that discussing Murray’s inability to lecture being an affront to academic freedom is irresponsible. The debate surrounding academic freedom is an important one, but not all ideas deserve to be protected in our academic spaces, and Murray’s certainly do not Recently, there was a protest on the crosswalk on Washington Road by an extremist Christian group, Open Air Outreach, led by Jesse Morrell, holding posters that read things like “Feminists are Whores” and “All Masturbators are Homos,” yelling at passersby that he was “not here to tickle [their] feelings.”

His protest was met with anger and disbelief, sparking little debate about the merits of his arguments but rather universal disapproval. Morrell is an Open-air preacher with a sizable YouTube audience and has even written a book.

Although his views are controversial and horrifically sexist and homophobic, should he be given a space a few yards over in McCosh Hall 50 to describe his views? Most would say not. However, he has a right to his ideas and is, in his own opinion, a “truth seeker,” so, why shouldn’t he? It’s because his work holds no academic

editor-in-chief

Marcia Brown ’19 business manager

Ryan Gizzie ’19

BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Thomas E. Weber ’89 vice president Craig Bloom ’88 secretary Betsy L. Minkin ’77 treasurer Douglas J. Widmann ’90 Kathleen Crown William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John Horan ’74 Joshua Katz Kathleen Kiely ’77 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Alexia Quadrani Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 Lisa Belkin ‘82 Francesca Barber trustees emeriti Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Jerry Raymond ’73 Michael E. Seger ’71 Annalyn Swan ’73

Daehee Lee is a sophomore from Palisades Park, N.J. He can be reached at daeheel@ princeton.edu.

What do you mean by ‘academic freedom’? ed IQ tests. Murray attributes black people’s mental inferiority to both environmental and genetic factors. Even though he defends that his work is misrepresented and not racist, by using inaccurate statistics to claim that black people are dumber than white people, and pursuing a genetic basis for this, he is most certainly racist.

It’s clear that Murray was never in pursuit of a “truthseeking mission,” as Eisgruber states to be the purpose of academia — he was in pursuit of a truth that does not exist, that somehow white men are smarter and rightfully higher-achieving than any other demographic group.

Charles Murray is not an academic or an intellectual, and he does not seek to add truth to the collective knowledge of academia. So, why is Eisgruber using Murray’s inability to speak at Middlebury as a prime example for what is going wrong in colleges?

One of the concerns surrounding the Middlebury incident is that Murray and Middlebury Professor Allison Stanger were physically assaulted during the protest.

Violence certainly has no place in campus debates, but this is not my focus here. The physical assaults against Murray and Stanger were committed by a mob of both outside groups and student protesters that splintered off from the main demonstration. If Eisgruber’s critique of the incident is based on the violence, he

vol. cxlii

or intellectual value, and his sexist and politically motivated agenda is clear. Murray can be compared to Morrell and his unacademic protests.

His views, though presented in prose and based on what seems like proper methodology, are not academic. He has a racist agenda, and intellectual institutions should not protect the ideas he espouses.

The question of what ideas should be protected and what views are controversial but academically sound, is critical.

To keep our academic spaces available for the open and free debate of ideas is important for the pursuit of knowledge.

There is a reason Morrell’s protest took place on a crosswalk rather than in any of our lecture halls where he would have an uninterrupted audience of students. Moreover, it’s the same reason why we need to reject the ideas and pseudo-intellectual racism of people like Charles Murray. To keep our intellectual spaces open for debate, we need to keep out the white supremacist agenda of non-academics like Murray. To do so is not to be afraid and closed off from ideas and controversy, but to stay focused on the debates that matter. We cannot use our academic spaces for the meritless ideas of people like Murray and Morrell. It would only hurt our institution to do so.

142ND MANAGING BOARD managing editors Isabel Hsu ’19 Claire Lee ’19 head news editors Claire Thornton ’19 Jeff Zymeri ’20 associate news editors Allie Spensley ’20 Audrey Spensley ’20 Ariel Chen ’20 associate news and film editor Sarah Warman Hirschfield ’20 head opinion editor Emily Erdos ’19 associate opinion editors Samuel Parsons ’19 Jon Ort ’21 head sports editors David Xin ’19 Chris Murphy ’20 associate sports editors Miranda Hasty ’19 Jack Graham ’20 head street editor Jianing Zhao ’20 associate street editors Danielle Hoffman ’20 Lyric Perot ’20 digital operations manager Sarah Bowen ’20 associate chief copy editors Marina Latif ’19 Arthur Mateos ’19

Cy Watsky is a first-year from Princeton, N.J. He can be reached at chwatsky@princeton.edu.

head design editor Rachel Brill ’19 cartoons editor Tashi Treadway ’19 head photo editor Risa Gelles-Watnick ’21

NIGHT STAFF copy Anoushka Mariwala ’21 Olivia Meyers ’21 Sean Buxton ’19 Annie Song ’21 assistant chief copy editor Catherine Benedict ’20

Like sports? Write for the sports section!

Email: join@dailyprincetonian.com

Tuesday March 27, 2018

The Daily Princetonian

page 7

welcome back — ­­ solutions isabel hsu ’19

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

News.

Opinions.

Sports.

Every day.

join@dailyprincetonian.com

The Daily Princetonian

page 8

Tuesday March 27, 2018

Yee: I’m optimistic about what we can get done this year CPUC

Continued from page 4

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

have to do with “procedures” — like the fourth referendum, which was approved — and the other three, which have to do with “principles.”

“These changes are important because they run the risk of insulating students or giving students a free opportunity to compromise what are fundamental parts of the academic process,” said Eisgruber. “If you lessen across the board the likeli-

hood or the punishments that exist for cheating, at that point you undermine what are principles that are critical for what this university does.”

According to Liziewski, the committee will continue to meet on a weekly basis to discuss any further changes to the Honor Constitution, and will publish a full report later in the spring.

“I’m grateful to the committee for taking this issue seriously,” said Eisgruber.

“They obviously matter a lot and I appreciate the oppor-

tunity to have this discussion.”

The meeting concluded with a presentation from Yee, who focused on clearly communicating USG’s accomplishments, its current projects, and its plans for the future.

“By equipping our USG leaders with the skills they need to execute their goals, and by setting goals that are both measurable and achievable, I’m optimistic about what we can get done this year,” Yee said.

Yee focused on the USG’s

past and current efforts in communication, pointing to the strides that had already been made with its newly redesigned website and past members archive, as well as plans for a newsletter to keep students engaged.

“This is one small piece of a much larger communications strategy,” Yee said.

In addition, Yee emphasized the projects USG hopes to undertake in the rest of the year, including celebrating women’s leadership — she mentioned that nine out of the 11 eating club presi-

dents are women this year — as well as working to provide menstrual products in many of the bathrooms and engaging with calendar reform.

Yee also mentioned being in conversation with Dean Dolan to attempt to implement Kognito Online Training, an online program similar to those used in freshman orientation to teach students how to help others with mental health struggles. She is in discussions to make the program mandatory for sophomores.