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Monday March 4, 2019 vol. cxliii no. 21
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U A F FA I R S
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Joseph Rolón named incoming Director of Student Life at Butler Residential College By Marissa Michaels Staff Writer
COURTESY OF GRINNELL COLLEGE
Rolón replaces former Director of Student Life, Deshawn Cook.
Incoming Director of Student Life for Butler Residential College Joseph Rolón knows that being a college student in this day and age can be “incredibly difficult.” With his new position, Rolón hopes to bring “an awareness and acknowledgement” of that fact. In an email sent to Butler residents on Feb. 20, Head of Butler College J. Nicole Shelton informed students that Rolón will be joining the Butler staff as Director of Student Life after spring break. The Butler College office hopes that Rolón will bring in “a tremendous amount of experience with both counseling and residence life,” according to Dean of Butler College David Stirk. “We’re really confident that we have somebody coming in that will be a great benefit to
the community,” Stirk continued. Rolón currently works at Grinnell College, where he is the Director of Residence Life. There, he “works with the Residence Life Coordinators to ensure students are safe and in environments suitable for growth and development,” according to the Grinnell College website. Rolón has also worked as a residential life coordinator at the University of Southern Mississippi and at Fairleigh Dickinson University, and as a mental health clinician in hospitals. According to Stirk, Rolón brought gender-neutral housing to Grinnell and worked to bring more low-income, first generation students to the college in order to improve diversity. Stirk noted that the University is trying to increase support in these areas. In an online announcement, Office of the Dean of
Undergraduate Students also wrote that Rolón worked to “improve student and staff training, develop student co-curricular learning goals and metrics, and has advised on facility improvement and building projects.” Rolón detailed his aspirations for his new position to The Daily Princetonian, which include contributing to student growth and development. “Working in higher education, staff members are not always seen on the same level as faculty. But my role (and hopefully, all those who work at institutions of higher learning) is to be an educator. Working as a Director of Student Life, it is my role to educate, mentor, guide, and advise students on their journey from entering the college until graduation,” he wrote in an email to the ‘Prince’. He is looking forward to beSee DSL page 3
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Q&A with Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker Senior Writer
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi ’00, an award-winning filmmaker, recently won an Oscar for Best Documentary Feature on Sunday, Feb. 24. She, with her husband, Jimmy Chin, received the award for Free Solo, which followed the journey of Alex Honnold as he climbed El Capitan — a 900-meter rock face in Yosemite National Park — without any ropes. At the University, Chai Vasarhelyi majored in Comparative Literature and served as a cultural editor for The Nassau Weekly. On Thursday, Feb. 28, she spoke with The Daily Princetonian in a phone interview. Below is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation. The Daily Princetonian:
Can you talk a little bit about your experience as a Comparative Literature major at Princeton and how you made the leap into documentary filmmaking? What made you interested in documentary filmmaking in particular? Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi: I was interested in narrative of displacement and genocide because both sides of my family had fled their home countries of Hungary and China for either religion or political persecution or ideological persecution. The idea that both my parents had fled their particular countries because of this idea of not adhering to a norm, and then here they have biracial kids, is very interesting to me. I felt like representation of it, like how do [you] historicize it, how do you write about it, is how
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Madden ’03 and Kelly ’02 to compete in last round of Jeopardy! All-Star Games By Claire Silberman, Linh Nguyen, and Zack Shevin
Associate News Editors and Assistant News Editor
David Madden ’03 and Larissa Kelly ’02 are two of the winningest Jeopardy! players of all time. The next two nights, they can be seen competing together for a $1 million prize in the final round of the Jeopardy! All-Star Games, where the winningest and most popular players in Jeopardy! history join forces. Madden is a 19-time Jeopardy! champion, with the third
In Opinion
longest winning streak in the show’s history. Kelley is in the top 10 in regular season wins in show history and was the first woman to win more than five games. In the Jeopardy! All-Star Games, the alumni make up two-thirds of Team Brad. The team is led by captain Brad Rutter, who has won over $4.3 million playing Jeopardy!, the most of any game show contestant in history. Rutter’s father, Gregory Rutter ’72, is also a University See JEOPARDY page 4
Contributing columnist Sebastian Quiroz proposes a solution to the exclusivity of audition-based on-campus activities, and guest contributor Gian Parel voices a social call to action regarding recent events in the Philippines. PAGE 6
you remember it in the future ... Richard Holbrooke [a diplomat who helped negotiate the end to the Bosnian War] came to speak at Princeton the same night as the bombings of Kosovo began … But he would not take any of our questions about Kosovo. I looked at another student Hugo Berkeley [’99] who was actually the cultural editor of the ‘Prince,’ and we decided to go to Kosovo to find out for ourselves what was happening. How could genocide be happening in the middle of Europe in 1999? That led to my first film “A Normal Life,” which chronicled the lives of six people, some of whom were journalists for the only Albanian independent newspaper in Kosovo, and they got their access because they worked See VASARHELYI page 2
CHRIS FIGENSHAU / NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC
Jimmy Chin and Chai Vasarhelyi walk on location during the filming of Free Solo.
STUDENT LIFE
USG discusses community art project, Menstrual Products Project Task Force
By Jacob Gerrish Staff Writer
The Undergraduate Student Government discussed Byron Kim’s 2019 Princeton Community Project, the Menstrual Products Project Team proposal, and updates regarding Projects Board and the Campus and Community Affairs Committee during its weekly meeting on Sunday, Mar. 3. Princeton Art Museum Curator of Modern and
Contemporary Art Mitra Abbaspour presented on Byron Kim’s 2019 Princeton Community Project. Korean-American artist Byron Kim’s ongoing portraiture work entitled “Synecdoche” incorporates paintings of skin tones of the arms of hundreds of subjects. From Apr. 22–25, Kim will paint twenty-five subjects to capture the essence of the Princeton community. As such, Abbaspour asked that the Senate de-
Today on Campus 4:30 p.m.: We the People: A Conversation with the ACLU’s Anthony Romero 101 Friend Center
cide on one of two options: that Kim draw his subjects solely from the Undergraduate Student Government and Graduate Student Government or that Kim also include those working as staff for the University. Abbaspour said that such an artistic undertaking will continue the legacy of efforts such as the Princeton Slavery Project and the replacement of the photo mural at Wilson College. See USG page 3
WEATHER
By Emily Spalding
HIGH
38˚
LOW
16˚
Partly Cloudy chance of snow:
10 percent