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Wednesday March 6, 2019 vol. cxliii no. 23
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BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Madden ’03, Kelly ’02 win Jeopardy!
ON CAMPUS
MARIE-ROSE SHEINERMAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Eight formerly incarcerated citizens-turned-activists took the stage in a SPEAR-organized panel discussion about voting rights and criminal justice.
SPEAR panelists advocate for voting rights of the incarcerated By Marie-Rose Sheinerman Assistant News Editor
By Zack Shevin Assistant News Editor
Two former University Quiz Bowl teammates, David Madden ’03 and Larissa Kelly ’02, two of the winningest Jeopardy! players of all time, came away with a $1 million prize, defeating Team Colby and Team Ken in the final round of the Jeopardy! All-Star Games, which aired on ABC the past two nights. Madden and Kelly’s team earned a total of $70,000 in the game over the two nights. After building up a slight lead in Game One on Monday night, their team did not look back, dominating the second game and securing the $1 million grand prize. After two semi-final matches and one Wild Card Match, three teams entered the Finals. Madden and Kelly played on Team Brad, led by captain Brad Rutter, who had won $4.3 million on the show prior to this tournament, the most money of any game show contestant in history, and whose father, Gregory Rutter ’72, is a University alumnus. They competed against Team Ken, led by Ken Jennings, a 74-time Jeopardy! champion with the longest winning streak in show history, and Team Colby, led by 2012 Teacher Tournament winner and 2013 Tournament of Champions winner Colby Burnett. Team Ken finished in second place, splitting a $300,000 prize, and Team Colby finished in third place, splitting $100,000. Team Colby member and 2000 College Championship winner Pam Mueller GS ’15 completed a Ph.D. in social psychology at the University in 2015. After losing to Team Brad in Match One of the All-Star Games, Mueller earned $4,600 in a twogame Wild Card Match against Team Buzzy and Team Austin, helping her team advance into the Finals. Mueller noted that, having already met almost everyone in the All-Star games before, she loved spending time with her teammates and competitors. “The first time I was on Jeopardy! was in 2000, so this has been literally half my life, so it’s kind of crazy to be a part of this community,” she said. “If they have an Alex Trebek
In Opinion
retirement tournament, I am so there.” The Finals consisted of two games, airing on consecutive nights. One member of each team competed in each round. In Game One, Jennings, Rutter, and Mueller competed on their teams’ behalves in the Single Jeopardy! round. Mueller had a rough start, missing the first clue of the round, worth $600, about celebrity Catherine Keener, immediately dipping into the negatives. But she recovered by the end of the round, correctly answering four clues to bring Team Colby’s score up to $1,600. However, Game One quickly became a two-team competition. At the end of the round, Team Ken held a slight lead over Team Brad, with Jennings earning $8,000 and Rutter $7,200. “I’ve known Brad since my Tournament of Champions in 2001, and I met Ken at the Ultimate Tournament in 2005, so I know them decently well,” Mueller noted. “I wasn’t intimidated by their personalities or anything.” Mueller explained that, though she knew many of the correct responses, she had trouble buzzing into questions before Jennings and Rutter. “I did think, going in, if their timing is faster than mine, I should be able to adjust and figure out that sweet spot to get in ahead of it, but that was harder than it appeared,” she said. “If you watch, you can see me buzzing in and just not getting anywhere with that.” In Double Jeopardy!, Kelly dominated the round early on. After correctly answering the first clue of the round, Kelly stumbled upon a Daily Double in the Computer Science category. Going into the game, Kelly had planned on going all-in on a Daily Double if given the chance. However, she only chose to bet $4,000 of Team Brad’s $8,800. “If I had to choose a category to find a Daily Double in, it would definitely not have been that one. I hadn’t seen anything else in the category at that point, and so I didn’t know how hard the clues were going See JEOPARDY page 2
Contributing columnist Claire Wayner argues that spending some time away from your phone screen can boost mental health, and contributing columnist Thomas Johnson encourages students to slow down and enjoy their time at Princeton. PAGE 6
that would remove prohibition on voting by persons convicted of indictable offenses who are on parole, probation, or serving sentences. Paul Kazelis, an Iraq War Combat Veteran who was incarcerated for five years as result of a heroin addiction he developed due to undiagnosed PTSD, spoke on why he believes voting is a “basic human right.” “I have experienced the extremes of what it means to be a citizen,” he said. “As a combat veteran, I was highly esteemed by society, and then as an incarcerated person, I essentially had my humanity stripped [from] me.” As he watched the 2016 election, he recalled feeling “sickened” by the presidential candidates’ discussion of foreign policies, policies for which he had been willing to lay down his life but was now prohibited from voting for or against. Antonne Henshaw served a 30See PANEL page 2
BEYOND THE BUBBLE
Q&A with Anthony Romero ’87, executive director of the ACLU By Marissa Michaels Contributor
Anthony Romero ’87 is Executive Director of the American Civil Liberties Union, where he has overseen efforts to mobilize grassroots campaigns and pursue litigation and advocacy to defend civil liberties. He spoke at the University event “We the People” on March 4. The Daily Princetonian spoke with Romero the next day. The following is an edited version of the conversation, which has been condensed for clarity. DP: Can you talk about the impact your father’s experiences fighting discrimination had on you? AR: I think with my dad it was just observing from afar. My dad never really talked about discrimination, per se, but he would talk about the challenges he confronted in his life and in his career and what he would do to overcome them. What I remember early on is that my dad worked at the Warwick Hotel almost right after he arrived from Puerto Rico and he first started out as a houseman, which is a name for a janitor at a hotel. He was in that job for a long while and wanted to be promoted to a banquet waiter position. And when he first asked to be considered for that promotion, they declined his request because they said that his English wasn’t good enough. And I remember that he was very angry at their response. So he filed a union grievance and
RICHARD CORMAN / WIKIMEDIA COMMONS
Anthony Romero ’87 is the first Latino and openly gay executive director of the ACLU.
a young lawyer at the union went to bat for him, and they ultimately gave him the job as a banquet waiter, and it fundamentally changed the trajectory of my family’s life. We were able to leave the public housing projects, we were able to afford a smaller, but nicer apartment in a suburb of New York City in Passaic County, we got our first car, I got my first stereo, my mother got her new living room set, and we weren’t struggling financially as we once did when he was a houseman. I remember that story very distinctly about how one person’s advocacy on my father’s behalf made such a difference. And I think that
Today on Campus
5:30 pm: Princeton University Orchestra: Recreating Thomas Gainsborough’s living room; an intimate evening of music by the portraitist’s circle of composer friends. Princeton University Art Museum
made a real impression on me, as a student, as a kid, and later on in college or law school. You realize that there are glass ceilings placed on all types of jobs that you don’t normally recognize from the outside. And I think that early story of a lawyer taking my father’s grievance to heart and then fighting for him is what made me want to do the work I’m doing, to advocate on behalf of those people [who] don’t have a voice or don’t have an advocate. DP: Since you are the first Latino and openly gay executive director of the ACLU, do you feel any added See ROMERO page 3
WEATHER
DAVID MADDEN AND LARISSA KELLY FOR THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
David Madden ’03 and Larissa Kelly ’02 won Jeopardy! All-Star Games, coming away with a $1 million prize.
In a panel discussion on the relationship between voting rights and criminal justice reform on Tuesday, March 5, Cassandra Severe, the first speaker, walked the audience through her life journey. The trauma she experienced in her home as a child, she said, prevented her from pursuing the path that could have been hers, as she grew up in an upper middle class neighborhood in New Jersey. “That troubled child became a troubled adult,” she said of herself. From the age of 18 to her late twenties, Severe served several prison sentences, the last of which, in 2010, saw the birth of her son. Her son gave Severe a sense of purpose in life and a drive to turn her life around. She received a B.A. in social work from Rutgers-Newark University in 2017 and now serves in Newark Mayor Ras Baraka’s Street Team,
working to reduce violence. The reinstatement of her right to vote felt to her like “divine intervention.” Although she never felt that elected officials could understand or represent her struggles before her incarceration, she now cherishes her enfranchisement and the power it holds. “I always take my son to vote — he needs to see what voting looks like, that your voice does matter,” she said. Like Severe, seven other formerly incarcerated citizens-turned-activists took the stage to share their life paths and how their experiences shape the work they do now. The event was organized by Students for Prison Education and Reform (SPEAR) as part of the organization’s Voting Rights project, led by Leila Ullman ’21. Currently, the panelists’ work centers around S2100 (also known as A3456), a bill introduced in the New Jersey state legislature in March 2018
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Madden ’03 and Kelly ’02 each took a share of the $1 million prize JEOPARDY Continued from page 1
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to be or what kind of approach they were going to take, so I did not feel comfortable enough to wager everything on that,” she said with a laugh. “Especially when Colby was standing next to me saying, ‘Do it.’” Kelly went on to respond correctly on six of the first seven clues and 13 of the total 30 clues in the Double Jeopardy! round, earning $15,600. “I was really, really happy that things were going my way with the buzzer,” Kelly explained. “I know Matt in particular is very strong on Broadway clues, and so I was glad that, in the buzzer races to get some of those, I was able to win some of those races.” By the end of the round, however, Team Ken’s Matt Jackson, the fourthhighest earning player in show history, made a comeback, earning $17,000 in the round. Team Colby ended the round with $4,000 after Burnett earned $2,400,
Team Brad stayed in second place with $22,800, and Team Ken maintained the lead with $25,000 going into Final Jeopardy!. Madden competed in Final Jeopardy! alongside 2012 College Championship winner Monica Thieu from Team Ken and 2017 Tournament of Champions runner-up Alan Lin from Team Colby. The Final Jeopardy! category was “Ancient Writings,” the clue reading, “Its principles still used today, this treatise has chapters called ‘Weak Points & Strong’ & ‘Tactical Dispositions.’” All three Final Jeopardy! participants came up with the correct response, “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu. Lin wagered the entirety of his team’s prior earnings, doubling Team Colby’s score to $8,000. Thieu wagered $7,500, bringing Team Ken’s score up to $32,500. Madden wagered $13,200 of Team Brad’s prior earnings on category, the largest wager of the night, bringing Team Brad’s score up to $36,000 and securing a $3,500 lead over Team Ken going into the second match.
Madden’s $13,200 wager in the Finals and his $20,000 “African Geography” wager in Match One were the two highest correctly answered wagers by any contestant throughout the tournament. In Match One, confident in his geographical knowledge, Madden was planning to wager around $15,000, but Kelly talked him into going bigger. “She talked me up to a higher wager, and I’m very glad she did because it was definitely the right tactical move,” Madden explained. In the Finals, Madden was originally planning to wager somewhere between $10,000 and $11,000, but Kelly again convinced him to go bigger on the “Ancient Writings” clue. “History is my other love, and she talked me up on that one as well, so I give her a tremendous amount of credit for guiding me into a higher wager, which certainly worked out well for our team,” Madden said. After getting on the board with a $600 answer in the “Domain” category, Madden stumbled upon a Daily Double on the fifth pick of the round.
Wagering the maximum possible $1,000, he came up with the correct response in the “Muses” category, knowing that Thalia, the muse of bucolic poetry, carries a Shepherd’s staff, and took the lead. Madden went on to correctly answer 10 clues during the round, putting Team Brad in a great position moving into Double Jeopardy!. Team Brad finished the round with $7,400, a decent lead over Team Colby with $4,000 and Team Ken with $3,800. Immediately after, Rutter, Jennings, and Mueller faced off in Double Jeopardy!. Mueller came up with four correct responses during the round, earning $5,600 for Team Colby. Rutter, however, dominated Double Jeopardy!, answering both of the round’s Daily Doubles. On the first Daily Double, in the “To the Lighthouse” category, his correct response earned Team Brad $5,000, extending his lead. Two clues later, a Daily Double in the “Colonial” category earned Rutter $10,000, increasing Team Brad’s score to $28,000 and extending his lead over Mueller to $12,000. “It was just awesome to see the Daily Doubles fall to Brad. When the two clues came up, I knew both times he had those. I play in an online trivia league with Brad, and he’s a phenomenal history and geography player, and when I saw what those clues were I knew he knew them,” Madden said. “And then it was just a matter of those last 10 clues or so, coming down the home stretch.” Altogether, Rutter came up with 12 correct responses by the end of Double Jeopardy!. At this point in the game, Team Brad’s $21,300 twoday lead over Team Ken was insurmountable, and Rutter had clinched the victory for Team Brad. “As the last clue or so was being played, I just turned to Larissa and said, ‘we’ve got this in a runaway,’ and I couldn’t believe it,” Madden said. Rutter explained his desire to have the Finals locked up going into Final Jeopardy! at the start of the tournament. “I think Larissa and I thought to ourselves, ‘Yeah, that’d be great, but what are the odds of that?’ Madden explained. “Brad said it with such a supreme sense of self-confidence, and he made it happen.” The Final Jeopardy category was “Constitutional Amendment Math,” and the clue read, “Total of the numbers of the amendments banning state-sponsored official religion, ending slavery & repealing prohibition.” All three contestants — Kelly, Burnett, and Jackson — came up with the correct answer of “35,” but
Kelly wagered $0 and clinched the victory. “The math was obvious to everybody,” Kelly noted. Team Colby was awarded third place, with a two-night score of $24,601, and each member walked away with a third of a $100,000 prize. Mueller does not have any specific plans for using her winnings. “It doesn’t do you enough to quit my job or do anything like that,” she said. “I think my Jeopardy! winnings from past things have sort of enabled me to live a slightly nicer life than I would otherwise, so I think it’ll just continue to help me to that.” Each member of Team Ken, who came in second place with a twonight total of $48,700, walked away with their third of a $300,000 prize. Rutter, Madden, and Kelly, with a two-night score of $70,000, were each awarded a third of the $1 million grand prize. On her portion of the grand prize, Kelly said, laughing, that “mostly we are going to be very boring and invest it and put it in retirement savings.” Kelly noted, however, that she may use some of the winnings on various home-repair projects she has been putting off. Also, she noted that her sister and nephew live in England, and she may use some of the winnings to visit them more often. Madden plans to put most of his winnings into developing and expanding International Academic Competitions, an organization run by him and his wife that puts together over a dozen history, geography, science, and all-subject competitions worldwide. Additionally, he said, “My wife and I have lived full-time on the road for over three years now, and I think we’ll take a small portion of our winnings and get an apartment in Burlington, Vermont this summer. That’s where we’re looking to finally settle down, after another probably four or five months living full-time on the road.” Madden will be coming to the University on May 2 as part of the “Last Lectures” series, organized by the Senior Class Commencement Committee. This Jeopardy! event will include Madden and several other former Jeopardy! contestants, including graduate alumnus Gilbert Collins GS ’99, former University Assistant Director of Admission Tova Meyer, and Princeton High School teacher Kian Barry. “Just very happy to do it again for Old Nassau,” Madden said on his AllStar Games win. “One of the members of Team Ken [Jackson] had gone to Yale, so that makes the victory that much sweeter.”
Franklin: “This is taxation without representation” PANEL
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year prison sentence, during which he earned a B.A. from Rutgers University and is now the Vice President of Wo/Men Who Never Give Up, Inc. He said politicians make one thing clear: “If you don’t vote, you don’t count.” Ron Pierce, the evening’s moderator and a Democracy and Justice Fellow at the New Jersey Institute for Social Justice, echoed Henshaw’s sentiment. “When Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman came to the prison — she wasn’t looking for votes, she came looking to listen,” said Pierce, adding that unique transformative moments like that would become a constant if politicians needed to go to prisons to seek out inmates’ votes. Henshaw then told a personal story that, for him, most encapsulated the tie between prison and voting rights reform. He and Ibrahim Sulaimani, another ex-convict on the panel, were walking down the street when two children volunteering with a voter registration campaign told them to “vote because we can’t.” Without coordinating, both men immediately lied to the children, saying they had voted. In reality, both are, as of now, disenfranchised. “The shame of having to lie to the little kids — that shame made me go harder for this right than ever before,” Henshaw said. Boris Franklin, a former inmate who served 11 years in prison and is now an author and student at Rut-
gers University, spoke on the contradiction of depriving seven million tax-paying citizens of the right to vote. “This is taxation without representation,” he said. A recurring challenge faced by the activists seemed to be the public’s disbelief in former convicts’ redeemability. “A lot of people just don’t believe in second chances,” said Quiana Malone, a field organizer who was involved with the passage of Florida’s Amendment 4 — state legislation that gave over a million ex-felons in Florida the right to vote. Malone joined the panel via Skype. When asked what a world in which incarcerated citizens can vote would look like, Franklin almost laughed. “It would just look like regular people voting,” he said. “Some people more informed, some less informed. Apparently, we have the same issue out here, too, at least based on the last election.” Ullman hopes that the audience members walked away from the event with a commitment to act. “I think it’s easy to talk, to listen, and to think,” she said. “Princeton students really can move mountains and change policy, especially in this case, where there’s a real piece of legislation already on the table.” The dinner talk took place in McCormick 101 at 6 p.m. and was co-sponsored by SPEAR, the University’s Program in Law and Public Affairs (LAPA), the Carl A. Fields Center for Equality, the American Whig-Cliosophic Society, and the Pace Center for Civic Engagement.
Wednesday March 6, 2019
Romero ’87: The ACLU’s work is deeply non-partisan ROMERO Continued from page 1
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pressure? AR: It’s a real privilege to be the head of an organization that I consider a national treasure, and I think my appointment had less to say about me as a Latino, gay man and more to do with the ACLU and its understanding of the importance of reaching out and involving people from all walks of life. I think the pressure I feel is not because I’m gay or the first Latino [executive director]. I think the pressure I feel is because I’m the leader of an important organization that’s really needed and valuable and [that] people rely upon. What we do makes a real difference, and how we do it has a real impact on the trajectory of liberty and freedom in this country. I think I feel more of that pressure than anything coming from my personal life.
tive rights, it’s transgender rights, it’s voting rights, it’s challenges to freedom of speech and freedom of the press. In many respects, this is a multi-front war for the core freedoms and democratic norms and institutions that we’ve often taken for granted. And that’s why I think the work has never been more important. This is the type of moment that the ACLU was born for.
DP: Are there any common misconceptions about the ACLU that you would like to correct? AR: I think a lot of people often think the ACLU is an organization for lawyers, and that is totally not the case. We’re an organization for people who care about freedom and liberty. As many as four of my predecessors were not lawyers, and the bulk of the staff on payroll are not litigators. Making sure that people understand that there’s a role for everyone to play in the defense and advance of liberty and freedom is an important one. I also think that sometimes ... there’s a misconception that the ACLU is perceived as an organization that is on the left side of the political spectrum. While it is true that a lot of our positions in the context of immigration, or abortion rights, or LGBT rights, or voting rights, are positions that are more often identified with liberals, progressives, or Democrats, we are deeply nonpartisan in how we work. Our job is to fight with and work against leaders of both political parties. You work with Democrats when you can and fight them when you must, and you work with Republicans when you can and fight them when you have to. I think especially in this political environment where we’ve been accurately seen as a line of defense against the worst excesses of the Trump administration, that the reason why we are barreling the Trump administration is not because it’s a Republican administration. It is because of their civil liberties and civil rights policies.
DP: What do you think that the ACLU’s growing membership signifies, and what do you think is the future of the ACLU? AR: In the first two years of Donald Trump, the membership grew from 400,000 to 1.875 million. It is younger; the average age has come down more than 20 years. So it’s resonating with the next generation of Americans, and that’s incredibly gratifying. It’s not your grandmother’s ACLU anymore. It’s our ACLU. It’s our generation’s. It’s the organization of the moment. It’s more diverse. Eighteen percent of our members now identify as people of color, and that’s incredibly exciting, because it’s an organization that’s increasingly reflective of the populations we work with and serve. It’s in every state. There’s been big growth in blue states like New York and California, but we’ve seen explosive growth in red states, in deep red states [such as] Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Tennessee. That means that we have many more troops to deploy locally. We have a two-prong strategy in the era of President Trump. We use the courts. We litigate. The second pincer is using our membership base to apply pressure to government officials at all levels of government. We have this growing membership. They’re younger, they’re more diverse, they’re energized. They keep asking us, “What can I do? We gave you $20, what else can we do?” We would find ways to deploy our membership as ground troops with us. The members helped collect the signatures, the members did the door-knocking and text messaging. They did the phone-banking. They turned out voter interest and voter engagement on those issues. I think we’ve used this “People Power,” which is an online platform for offline activism, to take the membership and deploy them as ground troops so they can amplify our power and really make a difference. I think those two pincers of “sue them and take them to court” and deploy the power of the people is really what’s going to sustain the core rights and liberties that we’re trying to protect.
DP: On the ACLU website, it says that “the ACLU released a legal analysis warning that Trump’s policies would amount to a one-man constitutional crisis.” How has this panned out? AR: We started doing research on candidate Trump even before he [clinched] the Republican nomination for the presidency. You hope for the best and you plan for the worst. You need to be ready for whatever moment. So in summer of 2016, we were analyzing how we would fight a Muslim ban and what would be the challenges we would raise to the rescission of DACA or the deportation of 11 to 13 million undocumented immigrants. We began to do the hard work of what would the work look like if you wanted to impede his ability to follow through on his campaign promises. So then when the election happened, and everyone was surprised, including us, that he was president, we had the real beginnings of a work plan and we could switch and go right to action. So, we were able to hit the ground running. In many respects, this one-man constitutional crisis has meant that every single one of our top issues is on a front burner, on a high boil. It’s not just one issue at play. It’s immigrant’s rights, it’s reproduc-
DP: Is there any accomplishment that you are most proud of in your time at the ACLU? AR: I’m proud of the work that my colleagues have done, and, in many respects, it’s hard for me to take credit for the work of the organization, because it has been the accomplishments of many people who are involved, including unsung heroes who might not get the recognition or the credit that I often get for the organization’s work. I think I’m most pleased and most proud that this organization continues to grow and expand and be resonant with newer generations of Americans on different sets of issues. It is the ability of an organization to constantly remake itself and to explore new strategies and to rise to challenging moments, whatever they may be, however unexpected they may be, however challenging they may be. I think that the organization’s best days are always ahead of it. And I think if I do my job right, there will be no golden age of the ACLU that we can point to. The golden age of the organization will always be in front of us. My biggest accomplishment is that the golden age of the ACLU is ahead of me and not during my tenure.
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The omnipresent electronic screen Claire Wayner
Contributing Columnist
A
couple of weeks ago, I received a
startling email in the Forbes listserv from a student claiming that he had ruined his eyes by overusing electronic screens. Maybe you remember seeing the email, too, with its foreboding title: “Don’t Be Me. Graduate on Time!” Later that day, I brought the email up with some friends, and we reflected on its urgency, half shrugging it off but half wondering whether such a thing could really happen to us — would we wake up one morning, suddenly unable to look at a phone or computer, like the email’s author said happened to him? Reading that email reminded me of the even deeper damage that electronic screens can cause, however. It took me back to a moment this past summer on the DC metro. The car was packed with people, bodies wall to wall … and yet the air was completely silent. No conversations, friendly smiles, or spontaneous laughter. Almost everyone seemed to be entirely blind to the world because of the earbuds occupying their heads and the phones occupying their eyes. When the car jolted along its route and I bumped into someone, I said, “excuse me,” hesitant to break the silence (as if it were taboo), but that per-
son didn’t even acknowledge my presence — they simply didn’t hear me because of their headphones. Since arriving at Princeton, I have witnessed similar isolation through technology when walking around campus. The sky is a gorgeously crystal-clear blue by day, a spread of starry wonder by night, and yet many people I pass have their heads looking down at their phones with earbuds in. I, too, am certainly not immune to the guilty allure of the electronic screen, filled with its access to something “bigger” or “better.” Yet I think that, for at least part of the time, walking across campus without a device or earbuds can be healthier for us. Opinion columnist Gabe Lipkowitz ’19 recently wrote a piece on the divide between digital devices and physical space on Princeton’s campus, asserting a similar claim to my own that overuse of electronics can be detrimental to students. While he has claimed that the digital world can inhibit the interpersonal interactions, which can happen during cross-campus walks (e.g., bumping into our friends or professors), I find that the damage from digitality goes even further by directly separating us from the natural world. When I walk with headphones on, for instance,
not only am I less likely to stop and chat with friends, but I am also shutting out the scintillating sounds of the outdoors, even if those are just leaf blowers in the fall or lawnmowers in the spring. Taking the time to maintain our relationships with nature can be incredibly beneficial for our mental health; studies have shown that exposure to the outdoors boosts positive emotions and alleviates symptoms of anxiety and depression. On Princeton’s campus, mental health has gotten an enormous amount of attention lately, from Rachel Yee’s prioritization of the issue during her time as Undergraduate Student Government president and last month’s Mental Health Week hosted by the Princeton Mental Health Initiative to an increasing number of posts on Tiger Confessions discussing mental health. Yet with all the work I get from my classes, I find it difficult to set aside time during my day to intentionally focus on my mental health. By multitasking (a necessity at Princeton) and using my walks around campus to engage with nature and practice mindfulness, I’ve found it easier to remind myself to breathe and stay calm. There is something incredibly satisfying about pausing in Prospect Gardens, even for a few seconds, and absorbing
the piney scents of the trees while being fully present. Yes, for many of us, nature on campus may seem insignificant, amounting to nothing more than squirrels and deer. Yet while the vistas on my way from Forbes to the Friend Center aren’t like those found in Yosemite or the Grand Canyon, there is still splendor in each part of the world, even in New Jersey and especially at a college campus consistently labeled as one of the most beautiful in the nation. I’m not asserting that my peers don’t recognize this beauty, either. I do believe, though, that we all can take a bit more time each day to try walking somewhere without a phone screen out or headphones on in order to build up our relationship with the outdoors. If we all succumb to the temptation of technology every waking hour, will we continue to have friendly conversations, or will the world around us be filled with the silence of the DC metro as we continue about our day with music piped in through artificial mini-speakers in our ears? Sometimes the music that the world creates for us holds much more value and meaning than a recording, and all we must do is listen. Claire Wayner is a first-year from Baltimore, MD. She can be reached at cwayner@princeton.edu.
Putting Princeton in perspective
Thomas Johnson
Contributing Columnist
I
joined the Army directly out of high
school. I spent four years as a medic, including a deployment to Afghanistan. Afterwards, I attended two different community colleges and graduated with an associate degree. I can confidently say, though, that my time at Princeton has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life so far. Just like boot camp, this semester has been slowly tearing me down until I feel like I have nothing left to give. In fact, I think I’ve seen more people cry at Princeton than I did in the Army. Most people around me are worrying about their GPA, rushing to meet their deadlines, or trying to figure out what comes next after graduation. While I’d be lying if I said those issues didn’t cross my mind, some of my main worries have had nothing to do with Princeton. Last year, on Sept. 12, my wife and I welcomed our first daughter, Adeline, into this world. We decided her
middle name would be Ivy, since “Born on the First Day of Classes” seemed a little too on the nose. From her learning to roll to the first time she looked at me and smiled, each day has allowed me to experience something new with my daughter. It’s also taught me to cherish every moment as it comes. While I’m not suggesting everyone should go out and get themselves a baby, regardless of how fun I think campus would become, becoming a father has made me believe that we all need to live in the present more. Before having a daughter, I always wanted time to fly by. I wanted my time in the Army to be over, and — when I started community college — I wanted to have my degree in hand after my first day of classes. Once Adeline was born, I started looking at life differently. I no longer want what’s next as fast as possible. I’m perfectly content with what’s in front of me. It’s also made me realize how much I’ve rushed through to get to this point. I regret not enjoying my experiences in the military
more. I wish I had spent more time with the people around me at my previous colleges instead of being so focused on getting to the next best thing. Planning for the future is great — disregarding the present isn’t. My experience with Adeline has shown me how to stop and appreciate the everyday things that I didn’t before. One of my favorite quotes from The Office is “I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you’ve actually left them.” It took having a daughter to fully understand that quote. I now know that every minute I get with her is a memory I’ll look back on. Likewise, I try to appreciate the everyday moments I have at Princeton. There is always another obstacle to overcome, another ladder to climb, and another hurdle to jump. Through spending time with my daughter, I’ve learned the importance of taking a break from the Princeton gauntlet every now and then. I won’t remember what grade I got on my COS 226 midterm five years from
now. Instead I’ll remember the late-night conversations I’ve had with other students. I’ll remember getting out of bed at a ridiculous hour to see a friend’s band play. And I’ll remember the times I stopped studying and paid attention to everything else Princeton had to offer. Just like my moments with Adeline, I’ll try to savor every minute of Princeton that I can, so I don’t regret the missed opportunities later. I’ll have lived almost three decades of life when I graduate from Princeton. Addie will be four, running all over campus with me trying to keep up. I won’t dwell on my grades or lament over my missed internships. Instead, I’ll think of her first words and the place she took her first steps. Here’s a little fatherly advice, which my five months of fatherhood have totally qualified me to give: take time to turn as many moments into memories as you can, while you can. Your future self will appreciate it. Thomas Johnson is a first-year computer science major from Satellite Beach, Florida. He can be reached at thomascj@princeton.edu.
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MEN’S HOCKEY
Jeremy Forget was named ECAC Goalie of the Week, going 2–0 and posting a save percentage of .954.
Men’s hockey defeats Yale and Brown, enters playoffs on three-game win streak By Sam Lee Sports Staff Writer
Princeton men’s hockey (10–16–3 overall, 8–12–2 ECAC) might just be peaking at the right time. The team ended the regular season on a high note with a pair of road wins this weekend, defeating Yale (13– 13–3, 11–10–1) 3–2 on Friday and Brown (11–13–5, 8–9–5) 5–1 on Saturday. The Tigers will enter the ECAC tournament with a three-game win streak and four-game unbeaten streak. The Tigers’ success was fueled by a four-goal weekend from senior forward Max Véronneau, who pushed his season goal tally to 13, second only to senior forward Ryan Kuffner. Véronneau and Kuffner have been key components of the Tigers’ success throughout the season, providing valuable senior leadership.
“Leadership is critical for any team, and that comes from senior class and hopefully from the underclassmen as well,” said head coach Ron Fogarty. “Our seniors are going to draw on their experience from three years and more importantly from last year of getting through the playoffs and winning an ECAC championship. They’ve always done a great job for us, and I’m really proud of the seniors this season.” Coach Fogarty had strong praise for Kuffner in particular, whose historic accomplishments have been well documented. Kuffner, who was recently named the ECAC Hockey Player of the Month for February, is Princeton’s all-time leader in goals and is third in total points. “He’s been a great student athlete and a great ambassador for Princeton hockey
and athletics,” said Fogarty. “He’s never taken a practice off, and it’s exactly that type of person we want for Princeton hockey.” The Tigers also benefited from strong performances this weekend by first-year goalie Jeremie Forget, who followed up a 30-save performance against Yale with a career-high 32 saves against Brown. With 62 total saves and a league-best .954 save percentage this weekend, Forget was named ECAC Hockey Goalie of the Week. The weekend’s wins were just the third and fourth times Forget has played this season. Princeton has also used sophomore Ryan Ferland and senior Austin Shaw in net this year. With Saturday’s win, the Tigers extended their winning streak to three, a strong finish for a team that at one point in the season lost seven in a row. Fogarty
attributes some of this recent success to defensive improvements. “We’ve been playing stronger defensively throughout the entire rink, where we had been a little porous before,” he said. “There’s been a lot of attention to that and to grinding it out and playing with more grit.” Having earned the nineseed, Princeton will travel back to Providence to begin its ECAC tournament with a best-of-three series against Brown. The Tigers split the season series against Brown 1–1, including Saturday’s victory. Princeton will hope this year’s conference tournament follows a script similar to last year’s. Princeton finished seventh in conference last season before launching a surprise run to an ECAC championship. That run began with a sweep of Brown.
When asked how the team is preparing for the highpressure atmosphere of playoff hockey this time around, Fogarty said he didn’t plan to make any major changes. “The only thing different is that you’re preparing for the same team twice or maybe three times. Your preparation is consistent and similar from September. If you start doing things differently now, you’re not going to be good, so we just continue to do what we believe gives us the best opportunity to win against Brown.” As a championship-winning coach, though, Fogarty understands what it takes to succeed in the postseason. “The road to a championship is littered with adversity,” he said. “You have to handle the ups and downs and remain focused on the task at hand.”
JACK GRAHAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN
Max Véronneau scored four goals this weekend to lead Princeton over Yale and Brown.
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Senior forward Ryan Kuffner, recently named ECAC Hockey Player of the Month (February), averaged 1.62 points over eight games in the month.