April 11, 2019

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Thursday April 11, 2019 vol. cxliii no. 44

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STUDENT LIFE

ISABEL TING / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The four referenda will be included on the ballot in the spring elections. Students can start voting on Monday, April 15 at noon.

USG announces four finalized referenda

By Marie-Rose Sheinerman assistant news editor

In an April 9 email to the student body, the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) announced finalized referenda that will be on the ballot in the upcoming spring elections. Voting will be open for two days on the Helios voting system, starting Monday, April 15 at noon.

This year, four referenda have been proposed, with topics including environmental sustainability, the health threats of over-exposure to computer screens, Honor Code violation penalties, and appointment processes for Honor Committee

membership and leadership.

Referendum Question No. 1 is sponsored by Claire Wayner ’22 on behalf of Princeton Student Climate Initiative. The referendum calls on the University to take “decisive action” in reducing carbon emissions in three key ways.

The referendum calls for the establishment of a task force with the goal of developing a strategy for tracking Scope III carbon emissions, the indirect emissions made by the University. It also petitions for a “clearer timeline” for meeting the University’s current goal of being carbon neutral by 2046.

Finally, it asks that students be included in decision-mak-

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Q&A with former AZ Senator Jeff Flake

OFFICE OF JEFF FLAKE / US CONGRESS

Former Senator Jeff Flake (R - AZ) visited campus on Monday.

By Oliver Effron assistant news editor

On Wednesday, April 10, The Daily Princetonian sat down with former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake for an interview. Flake — a member of the Republican party — is famous for his public and vocal criticism of President Donald Trump, culminating in a fiery 2017 speech on the Senate floor, in which he announced he would not seek re-election for a

In Opinion

second term. Now, as a contributor for CBS News, he continues to denounce the current administration and many of its policies.

Below is a lightly edited and condensed transcript of the conversation.

The Daily Princetonian: Senator Flake, I want to begin with a nonpolitical question: what was the most recent book you’ve read, and would you recommend it?

Contributing columnist Khadijah Anwar discusses the social implications of publicized nights out on the Street and Contributing columnist Claire Wayner explains the importance of voting in USG elections. PAGE 6

ing processes on strategies for achieving carbon neutrality.

“The referendum aims to send a message to the University administration that climate change is a significant issue of high priority to undergraduates,” Wayner wrote in an email to The Daily Princetonian.

She expressed her hope that the referendum would help administrators realize that “the majority of undergraduates want to play an active role moving into the future.”

Referendum Question No. 2 arises from a call to action to University administrators to educate students and protect them from the potentially See REFERENDA page 5

Jeff Flake: The last book I read was “Love Your [Enemies],” by Arthur Brooks. He’s the current president of the American Enterprise Institute, and he writes a lot about the reasons why people are having a tough time getting along, especially politically.

The issue is not just hate, but contempt — which is worse than hate; it means you just can’t consider your opponents’ arguments. It’s a great book, I’d recommend it.

DP: It’s funny that you mention Arthur Brooks. You, like Mr. Brooks, have been a very adamant anti-Trumper within the Republican party.

Some, however, would argue that you had more influence in your role as a senator in opposing the President, rather than as somebody watching from the outside. How would you respond to those critics?

JF: Well, I wouldn’t argue for a minute that I have more influence outside of the Senate than inside of the Senate.

I would have liked to have served for another term, but the dilemma I had was that, in order to do so, I would have had to adopt some of the President’s positions that I could not adopt, and condone behavior that I simply could not condone. In the end, I would have had to stand on a campaign stage while people shouted “lock her up,” or while the President ridiculed my colleagues or minorities — and I just couldn’t do it.

But I’m trying to use whatever platform I can to talk about how the Republican See FLAKE page 2

Today on Campus

COURTESY OF ABBY CLARK ‘21

Students of Rockefeller College received an email warning students to keep their window screens in place.

Students reflect on animal dorm invasions

By Yael Marans staff writer

A week and a half ago, Abby Clark ’21 and a friend entered her room to find a squirrel perched on the inside of their windowsill. With some help from a Residential College Advisor, Clark and her roommate lured the squirrel out of the room. “[The RCA] threw a piece of a granola bar out the window, and the squirrel followed, which was easy enough,” Clark wrote in an email to The Daily Princetonian. “However, I later discovered that the squirrel had been in my room scavenging through my food for a while before we came back, so I ended up finding

See ANIMALS page 3

ON CAMPUS

DAVID KELLY CROW / OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

Professor Mark Braverman received the Waterman Award for his work in algorithms and complexity theory.

Professor Mark Braverman receives Waterman Award

By Albert Jiang staff writer

Last week, the National Science Foundation (NSF) named Mark Braverman, a computer science professor at the University, as one of two recipients of this year’s Alan T. Waterman Award for his work on algorithms and computational complexity theory.

In an email to the The Daily Princetonian, Jennifer Rexford,

4:00pm: Hamilton Colloquium Series: “Constraints on Quantum Gravity” Jadwin A-10

cracker crumbs around the room and opened packets of things, which is highly unfortunate.”

Incidents such as this one prompted a response from Housing and Real Estate Services. On Monday, April 8, Housing Regional Engagement Specialist Dennis Daly emailed students in Rockefeller College to alert the student body of frequent visits from “unwanted animal visitors.”

“Over the past couple of weeks we have noticed an increase in the reports of unwanted animal visitors in dorm rooms and common spaces,” Daly wrote in the email. “As the weather takes a turn for the warmer, we ask

the chair of the computer science department, explained that this honor is “a reflection of Mark Braverman’s deep and sustained contributions to scientific knowledge.”

Braverman received his Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 2008 and conducted postdoctoral research at Microsoft Research New England in Cambridge, Mass. After a joint appointment in mathematics and See BRAVERMAN page 2

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Thursday April 11, 2019

Flake: Fiscal reform will require bipartisan cooperation FLAKE

Continued from page 1

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Party needs to return to a more decent politics, and return to the principles that have animated the party for a generation or two. If we don’t, I fear that the party will lose relevance in the future — lose adherence in the future, certainly.

DP: You mentioned how the President ridiculed your colleagues. Is there a specific moment that you feel was the Trump presidency’s lowest point?

JF: Oh, where do you start?

During the campaign, when he went after [former Senator] John McCain and said he couldn’t respect him because he was captured, and a few times after that. Also, when he referred to African countries as “s-hole” countries — the kind of damage that does

to our international relationships, it means a lot.

Similarly, when the President stands next to [Russian president Vladimir] Putin and basically says, “I believe him and not our intelligence agencies.” Or when he stands next to [Philippines president Rodrigo] Duterte, and laughs when Duterte refers to the media as “spies.” Or, when he stood next to [North Korea president] Kim-Jong Un and calls him a “great leader.”

It’s tough to pick; there’s just been so many. Those things are tough to unravel.

Words matter, particularly when the President uses words that were so infamously uttered by dictators. Now, modern dictators use the President’s words in order to suppress their own opposition, or to jail journalists on “fake news” charges.

DP: I want to shift gears a little bit away from President

Trump towards policy more generally: what is one issue that you believe not enough Americans know about that every American should know about?

JF: I think the danger posed by a $23 trillion debt — and a trillion dollar deficit adding to that every year — seems to have been forgotten. The only potential presidential candidate even mentioning it is [former Starbucks CEO] Howard Schultz, and he’s independent. No Republicans are talking about it, certainly not the President. It seems to have dropped off the landscape.

Every other country seems to be affected when their debt hits a certain percentage of their GDP, but we’ve been able to blissfully blast through it. But it won’t last forever; at some point, other countries will stop buying our debt. And once we’ve gone over that cliff, programs we might have been

able to use to stimulate a sluggish economy — those tools are no longer available.

We know the contours of what it’s going to take to fix this. [The 2010 National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform] laid it out pretty well. The question is whether we have the courage to actually solve this — and it’s going to take both parties buying in, and that’s very difficult to see right now.

DP: I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask about the 2020 election at all. In the spirit of bipartisanship, could you see yourself supporting the Democratic candidate against President Trump?

JF: Yes. DP: To what extent? A President Harris, or a President Sanders, or a President Mayor Pete?

JF: Well, we don’t know who’s going to be the candidate. But I’ve supported Demo-

crats in the past — I wrote a campaign check to [Alabama Senator] Doug Jones over [Alabama senate candidate] Roy Moore, and I think that was the right thing to do.

But I disagree with the notion that a Republican could never support a Democrat. In the 1990s, when David Duke, the Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, was the Republican gubernatorial candidate, Republican members of the Senate and the House flew down to New Orleans to campaign against him.

I do hope that the Democratic party nominates somebody who has broader appeal than some of the candidates so far. But I do hope that there’s somebody I can support.

DP: I’ll just write “Jeff Flake supports Bernie Sanders” in the article.

JF: [Laughter]. Your words, not mine!

Dept. Chair Rexford: Braverman a wonderful departmental citizen BRAVERMAN Continued from page 1

computer science as an assistant professor at the University of Toronto, Braverman joined the University’s computer science faculty in 2011.

As a postdoc at Microsoft, Braverman worked on projects involving predictive analytics of medical data. In healthcare, Braverman said, there are restrictions that don’t exist in other markets, including who has access to patient records.

Braverman proposed improvements to the current algorithms used to match medical residents to U.S. hospitals, and used machine learning to study factors that lead to the re-hospitalization of patients.

Even though his research has clear applications in the healthcare industry, it is still mostly theoretical.

Braverman said that “rather than solving a concrete prob-

lem,” he has greater interest in “exploring what kind of solutions are even plausible.”

Braverman’s core research contributions are in the area of algorithms and computational complexity, an area of study which aims to understand the limits of what can be accomplished computationally. At the most basic level, his work focuses on the interplay between information theory quantities and computation. In some cases, he identifies mathematical explanations for why progress is so difficult.

“My favorite thing is to prove impossibility results,” he said.

Braverman hopes that these information-theoretic techniques will lead to the development of more precise tools for reasoning about the performance of real-life systems.

“In computing, we don’t have good theories that work beyond two orders of magnitude, which is something by definition practitioners care about,” Braverman

said.

Braverman said that on the hardware front, there is an increased focus on task-specific hardware and other forms of hardware optimization, leading to new theoretical challenges in capturing the performance of those systems.

Most recently, Braverman has been studying mechanism designs, which he defines as “algorithm design where data comes from self-interested participants.”

Braverman said that the number of implementable algorithms has been increasing. He added that there are still countless challenges in mechanism design theory, which is still a relatively underexplored area.

Braverman believes that mechanism design is more akin to a social science than a natural science.

“A lot of the time, it’s not about solving the problem,” he said.

“It’s about the meta properties of algorithms and the responses

they elicit from participants.”

He currently teaches COS 598B, a graduate seminar on Topics in Algorithmic Mechanism Design.

Outside of the classroom, Braverman is a mentor and role model to undergraduates and postdocs alike. Grace Guan ‘20, one of his students, conducts research involving the applications of mechanism design in healthcare with the goal of better understanding insurers’ incentives and strategic responses to the Affordable Care Act risk adjustment program.

Beyond helping with small things such as course selection, Guan says that Braverman sets aside time every week to discuss their research and her long term career.

“Professor Braverman has been able to come up with research problems that are manageable yet stimulating for an undergraduate like me,” she said. “He comments on my other research projects outside his main expertise, which I really appreciate.”

For Braverman, his relationship with his students are not one-sided.

“I’ve been learning a lot from my students and postdocs,” he remarked. “My interests are usually pretty broad, so a lot of the time, I rely on them to teach me things.”

Rexford described Braverman as a “wonderful departmental citizen” and added that “he is an unusually gifted teacher and also plays several important service roles in the department, always with great attention, insight, and care.”

“He immediately cuts through the considerable practical details to crystalize the essence of the hard underlying technical problem and an elegant and efficient solution,” Rexford said of her colleague.

“The department is excited and

proud for Mark, and delighted that we have an intellectually rich environment where faculty can do their best scholarship.”

Guan said that Braverman’s award “dually acknowledges the Princeton [computer science] department’s prowess and his own success as a young researcher,” adding that this will hopefully allow “more students to be attracted to the CS program or give greater visibility to the area Professor Braverman researches.”

The Alan T. Waterman Award is the United States’ highest honorary award presented to scientists under the age of 40 who completed their Ph.D.s less than 10 years ago. Awardees receive a grant of $1 million over a five-year period for scientific research and advanced study at an institution of the recipient’s choice.

According to the NSF’s website, recipients of the Waterman award have “demonstrated exceptional individual achievement in scientific or engineering research of sufficient quality, originality, innovation, and significant impact on the field so as to situate him or her as a leader among peers.”

The United States Congress established the Waterman Award in August 1975 in honor of the NSF’s first director and to mark the 25th anniversary of the organization’s founding.

Braverman has been awarded several honors previously before, including the 2016 European Mathematical Society Prize, the 2016 Presburger Award, the 2014 Stephen Smale Prize, the 2013 Packard Fellowship, and an NSF CAREER award in 2012.

Stanford University professor Jennifer Dionne, who studies materials science, was the other recipient this year. Braverman and Dionne will receive their awards at a ceremony in Washington, D.C. on May 14, 2019.

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Adkins ’22: these squirrels are absolutely nuts

COURTESY OF SAMANTHA LIU ‘22

Samantha Liu ’22 walked into her room to a squirrel eating her pistachios. The squirrel also left droppings and shredded her bedding.

ANIMALS Continued from page 1

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that you please remember to keep the screens in place after opening windows.”

Other members of the housing team emailed each residential college with similar messages.

For students such as Clairk, the emails reminded them of a phenomenon with which they were all too familiar. These students have suffered the shock of squirrels, bats, and other animals entering their dorm rooms.

“I found it really funny to see that animals getting into rooms is a ubiquitous enough problem to warrant an email reminder like that,” wrote Clark. “However, I do wish I’d gotten that reminder sooner because I genuinely did not think squirrels tried to enter people’s rooms like that — I assumed they were too afraid of people. Had I known, I certainly would have been more careful about keeping the screens down.”

Some students found even greater messes in their rooms.

One such pair of roommates was Samantha Liu ’22 and Caroline Adkins ’22.

“Right before my plane back to school from Christmas break took off, I received a text message from my roommate, Sam Liu, saying that our room had been invaded by squirrels,” Adkins wrote in an email to the ‘Prince.’ “Sam had walked into the room earlier that day to find a squirrel sitting in the middle of the room, eating some of her pistachios.”

Liu called the Department of Public Safety, and an officer helped her remove the squirrel. Adkins and Liu spent a full day cleaning and sanitizing with the continued concern that the incident would repeat itself.

“I was extremely upset at first,” Adkins wrote. “There were squirrel droppings everywhere (on my bed, in the radiator, on the floor, in my shower caddy), my bedding was completely shredded and was now sporting a lovely new urine stain, and, conveniently, it was the week before exams.”

Other students told Liu and Adkins that they might have forgotten to close their window screens prior to winter break. Adkins insists that the squirrel entrance was not a result of open window screens.

“At first, I assumed that maybe the window popped open (Wilson [College] dorms in general are not the nicest, and our stuff tends to fall apart),” she wrote. “But after seeing the damage those squirrels did, I honestly believe that they somehow managed to pry open the window, eat through the screen, and have a party in our room.”

To Adkins, the recent emails from the housing office may not address the full extent of the problem.

“I guess it is nice that they are trying to prevent more incidents from happening,” she wrote. “But these squirrels are absolutely nuts (no pun intended) and a screen is not going to stop them — especially the screens in Wilson buildings that easily slide to the side if you so much as blow on them.”

To some students unfamiliar with the recent slew of unwanted animal visitors, the email served as a source of humor.

“I for one have never had any animal visitors in my room, and my screen is in good condition, so I didn’t really think much of it,” said Isaac Hart ’22.

“I thought it gave a good laugh at the end of a hard day.”

The University wants students to be aware of how to prevent the entrance of animal visitors and how to respond in dangerous situations.

“As the weather warms, we have seen more reports of animals such as squirrels and bats entering buildings.

Keeping window screens in place is an important step to keep these animals outside where they belong,” Michael Hotchkiss, Deputy University Spokesperson, wrote in an email to the ‘Prince.’ “If students do see an unwanted animal visitor inside their building, they should contact Facilities Customer Service at 609-258-8000. If you come into contact with a bat or are bitten or scratched by an animal, contact Public Safety at 608258-1000.”

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Referenda includes call to reduce emissions REFERENDA Continued from page 1

............. life-altering eye health threats posed by modern computer screen use.

The referendum is sponsored

by AJ Sibley ’19, who severely damaged his eyes through computer use during his time at the University five years ago, according to a statement he wrote to the ‘Prince.’ He now experiences “searing pain in most normal lighting conditions” and is “unable to use [a] computer for any extended length of time.”

During his multiple years of absence from the University, Sibley has devoted his time to research his eye condition.

“What I’ve come to realize is that there is still a widespread lack of awareness, both in the general population as well as among top experts in eye medicine regarding the impact of extensive screen use on our eyes,” he said. “With this referendum, I hope to ensure that no other Princeton student will find themselves in my situation.”

Specifically, the referendum calls for the installation of blue light protection software on campus computer screens for those who desire it, as well as an “annual health awareness initiative” which would make students cognizant of protection methods.

“Even if just one fewer student has to go through this condition, I would consider it my proudest accomplishment,” Sibley added.

Referendum Question No. 3 was put forth by Elizabeth

Haile ’19 on behalf of the Joint Honor Committee and the USG Academics Subcommittee on Academic Integrity Reconciliation Report Implementation.

The referendum calls for the removal of the “standard penalty” from the Honor Constitution — which is currently a one-year suspension for most violations and disciplinary probation for violating exam time limits — and an increase in the “range of available penalties for Honor Code violations.”

Under the referendum, a “reprimand” would be established as a potential penalty for minor first-time offenses, particularly overtime violations.

The possibility for a one-semester suspension would also be added, along with an increased range of probation periods, in monthly increments.

Referendum Question No. 4 also pertains to the Honor Committee and is sponsored

by Christopher Umanzor ’19, a member of the Honor Committee.

The referendum asks for an amendment to the Honor Constitution to change the compositions of the subcommittees which select the Clerk and the appointed membership of the Honor Committee.

According to the explanation of the referendum submitted by Umanzor, its aim is “to democratize how the membership and leadership of the Honor Committee are selected,” creating a more transparent, inclusive, and representative process.

Haile and Umanzor did not respond to requests for comment from the ‘Prince’ at the time of publication.

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Opinion

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Why voting on referenda matters Claire Wayner

Contributing Columnist

Voter turnout across the United States has been criticized for years for being too low, and Princeton’s campus elections are no exception. This past winter for instance, despite USG’s aggressive Project 50 aiming to increase turnout to 50 percent, only 38 percent of undergraduates voted for positions like USG President and class senators.

Given the history of past election results, however, I can see how undergraduates may be disenchanted with voting, especially when it comes to USG referenda, or studentwritten statements that call on the Princeton administration to change the University’s operational policies. Last winter’s Honor Code referenda (four in total), which would have changed standard penalties and other disciplinary procedures, passed overwhelmingly with up to 94 percent of students approving the changes and an over 60 percent turnout rate. A few weeks later, in early January, the administration remanded three of these referenda, citing an oversight power that we didn’t know they had;

Article VI, Part A, Section 2 of the Honor Code explicitly outlines how students can amend its policies with no mention of administrative involvement.

I maintain, however, that voting on referenda is one of the best ways for us to push Princeton to make changes in their policies. While referenda may not immediately modify administrative actions, they do a fantastic job at sparking and accelerating conversation among their topics of interest.

Consider the wave of Honor Code reforms that have sprung out of the 2017 debacle. Earlier this year, the Academic Integrity Report Reconciliation Committee released a list of new standards, including changing penalties to a months-based system, a suggestion that was largely promoted through one of the three referenda that was remanded by the administration.

This spring, one of the four referenda on the ballot aims to implement these recommendations; because this referendum is sponsored by the Joint Honor Committee, it will probably gain more traction and will perhaps result in tangible changes in Honor Code policy. Without the Honor Code referenda from last year, none of these propos-

als might have come under consideration.

I’ve also gained a different perspective after working with the Princeton Student Climate Initiative’s Carbon Neutral Campus team to sponsor Referendum Question No. 1 on this spring’s ballot, which asks the University to take steps towards further reducing our campus carbon footprint. After several months spent researching and drafting our referendum, we decided on three concrete demands: expanding our carbon emissions tracking, outlining benchmark dates to get to carbon neutrality by 2046 (our current goal), and engaging more students in deciding on Princeton’s climate policies. While the administration can choose whether or not to follow these specific demands, passing the referendum still clearly communicates a strong message to the University that undergraduates are passionate about rapid climate action, regardless of how the referendum is actually implemented.

As we saw through Honor Code reform, referenda cannot be expected to be implemented word-for-word, but if student groups craft referenda carefully to communicate a broader theme, like enhanced climate

action, they may see more success in getting positive responses from the administration. In order for all of this to happen, though, students need to actually vote. Referenda need a third of the campus to vote on them before they can even be considered as passing or failing. If this campus can’t consistently engage a third of the campus in USG elections, referenda will continue to lose their impact.

To all of my fellow undergraduates: I share a feeling of disappointment in how the Honor Code referenda were dismissed last year, but we can’t give up on the USG referenda system. If more of the campus refrains from voting, the University administration will continue to view us as disengaged and uninvolved. While a vote won’t necessarily change how the University operates overnight, at least it’ll collectively show administrators what we care about and how we want to see Princeton be shaped for the better. I encourage you all to vote in USG elections this April 15–17 on Helios for each of the four referenda on the ballot.

Claire Wayner is a first-year from Baltimore, MD. She can be reached at cwayner@princeton. edu.

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Street holidays – do they unite or divide?

Khadijah Anwar

Contributing Columnist

H

aving just bid adieu to spring break, I assume most of us have realized what a marathon our daily lives are as Princeton students. A weeklong breather with friends — whether that’s up in Vermont’s ski slopes, down in the Miami sun, or simply in your room back home — allows you to take some time out for yourself and bond with loved ones. Holidays, in many ways, serve the same purpose. Holidays are an opportunity for people to come together to share in a common joy, from the fourth of July, uniting millions of Americans through bonds of citizenship, to Christmas, bringing together our merry spirits.

In other words, holidays are a reminder of hearth and home.

However, is the nature of these holidays quite the same when they are transformed so that their essence rests on party culture? When Halloween becomes Princetoween, Thanksgiving becomes Dranksgiving, and Christmas becomes Litmas, their respective cultures of reigniting a childish streak

to dress up, spending a day to thank family, and spreading holiday spirit all converge into one homogenous theme: the hunt for the pass to the most “it” eating club and the highest-proof liquor.

With the dreary clouds from Bicker season just starting to clear up, I’m sure we’ve learned (if any of us didn’t already know) that eating clubs breed exclusivity. “Street holidays” become a paradox, then.

Holidays are based on unity, of which inclusivity is a prerequisite. Our oh-so-dear Street has its doors wide open for students to gather with fellow Princetonians on all joyous occasions — if a student has a pass, that is.

With eating clubs’ limited capacity, their infrastructure simply doesn’t allow them to accommodate everyone who wants to be there, leading to the need for passes. So, should we really be celebrating these rare nights for unity somewhere that has to start assigning priorities through passes?

While sign-ins welcome those without passes, designating pass-only festivities which only a select few have access to adds to a problematic social hierarchy. Why give some the

ability to more fully experience Princeton holidays than others? This exclusion only worsens if a person is the only one of their friends without a pass, splitting them from the very people with whom they should reunite on holidays.

Not only do “Street holidays” exacerbate issues of social exclusivity, they further propel the belief that a “great” college experience revolves around partying. With these nights at the Street drawing more students into one place than probably any other event, we can’t blame the remaining non-attendees for feeling like they’re missing out on the full college experience. This ideology is particularly problematic at Princeton for two reasons.

Firstly, social life is so strongly concentrated on elite clubs as around 80 percent of upperclassmen are in an eating club, a much greater presence than the national average of 12.8 percent of students that typically pledge into a fraternity or sorority. As a result, feelings of exclusion are further amplified.

Secondly, an emphasis on binge-drinking is ever-more problematic when students are experiencing increased

levels of anxiety. With the intense workload our student body shares, the average Princeton student is generally pretty stressed out, making a partying-driven ideology all the more unhealthy. For many, these two factors strip holidays of much of their inherent joy.

The issue isn’t even restricted simply to those who feel excluded. Replacing traditional holiday activities with drinking games robs us of the ability to create the memories that make holidays so special in the first place. We end up with memories that most of us wake up without the next day.

The snippets we do remember aren’t very different from any other night at the Street, and so blend into our jumbled collage of confusing memories from the Street. This shoves bonding, and the showing of love and care, far to the side.

At this point, you may think: simple problem, simple solution. Why can’t we just do something alongside “Street holidays?” Well, for the same reason that we can’t do a lot of things alongside our classes: Princeton students just don’t have the time. We have a short supply of time to celebrate holidays with our college friends,

and by using partying as the primary means of celebration, we miss out on many opportunities for more fulfilling bonding activities.

In a way, though, “Street holidays” deserve some credit for managing to draw so many students’ noses out of their textbooks, but it is also possible to be silly and sober. For many, some of their best memories at Princeton may actually be from wild holiday nights at the Street — but we should encourage more opportunities for sober laughs and stories as well.

This isn’t a plea to abolish the Street and the partying that comes with it. This is a call to create more room for other forms of celebration, outside of exclusive days like the upcoming Sunday Fundays. Be it welcoming the warm weather back with picnics on Poe field or enjoying the added hours of sunshine with walks along the Towpath, let’s cut down on some of the booze and stock up on some more wholesome bonding.

Khadijah Anwar is a first-year undergraduate from Dubai, UAE. She can be reached at kanwar@ princeton.edu.

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Once a Tiger: Clare Gallagher ‘14

COURTESY OF TRAIL RUNNER MAGAZINE

Clare Gallagher after her win at the 2017 Courmayeur Champex Chamonix Ultramarathon.

By Jo de La Bruyere Assistant Sports Editor

Her junior year, Clare Gallagher ’14 returned early to campus for cross country preseason. It would be the third of four disappointing seasons for her, but she didn’t know it yet. She was focused instead on an alarming trend.

Everyone – “I mean everyone” – was talking about their Wall Street interviews.

“And I’m not talking shit,” she laughed, “but our world is dying. I knew I didn’t want to use my Princeton education to serve a giant financial institution with questionable morals.”

So she didn’t.

Gallagher earned a fellowship with Princeton in Asia and spent two years in Bangsak, Thailand. There, she put her degree in ecology and evolutionary biology to work and founded Earthraging with English, a program that taught young Bangsak students about water-safe skills and their marine backyard environment.

Those two years made Gallagher realize that she was passionate about service, about teaching, about nature advocacy. They made her realize something else as well: that she still loved running.

For each of her four years at Princeton, Gallagher had competed on the women’s cross country and track and field teams. As a senior in high school, she’d placed 16th at Footlocker Nationals. Her injury-riddled college years had panned out less well.

She’d run once at NCAA Cross Country Nationals and locked down top-ten finishes at invitationals across the country. Those results weren’t enough for her.

“I’m extremely grateful for the four years I had running at Princeton,” she said, “but I never accomplished any-

thing really significant.” By the time she graduated, she’d grown disenchanted with her sport.

For former women’s cross country coach Peter Farrell, Gallagher’s talent was never a question. “I knew she had potential,” he said. “But we never gave her the vehicle, the distances, to flourish. I guess she just never found her niche here.”

Gallagher found that niche in Bangsak, a tiny southern fishing village where she was the lone English-speaker. In dire need of a way to pass the time, she decided to start exploring her surroundings.

Walks turned into runs.

Hour-long runs turned into two-hour-long runs. Two hours turned into six.

And in a way that she hadn’t for the past four years, Gallagher loved every step.

She caught word of Thailand’s inaugural ultramarathon in 2014, an 80-kilometer trail race at the borders of Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand.

“I had nothing to do that weekend,” she said. “So I signed up.”

A whim turned into a win.

Gallagher trounced the women’s division and placed sixth overall. She was hooked, again.

“I think everyone should try an ultra,” she said. “It’s incredible. I mean everything can go totally wrong — you hallucinate, you get injured, you shit your pants — but you also get this natural high that’s impossible to get anywhere else.”

Two years and thousands of miles later, Gallagher returned to the United States.

In the wake of her initial victory, she’d run a series of other “ultras” — the North Face Endurance Challenge in Utah, the Cimarron Endurance Run, the Golden Gate Dirty 30. Gallagher had

crushed each of them.

So she decided to switch it up.

She registered for the 2016 Leadville 100 Miler, one of trail running’s most prestigious races. At 100 miles, it was more than twice as long as anything she’d run before.

And every inch of it was above 9000 feet.

Gallagher won.

To be fair, she didn’t just win. She dominated. She recorded the second-fastest women’s time in history. The second-place competitor finished a full two hours behind her. Indeed she had potential.

Her victory electrified the running world. It catapulted her from relative obscurity to (admittedly niche) rock-star status.

Trail Runner Magazine called her a “phenom.” To Runner’s World Magazine, she was “a name to be reckoned with.” To Abby Levene ’13, Gallagher’s ex-teammate and now-running professional teammate, the triumph was “insane.”

“It was probably one of the most impressive performances in the history of the sport,” said Levene. “It was mindblowing. She’s absolutely ferocious.”

Farrell echoed Levene. His initial response to Gallagher’s win, he said, was “shock.”

But after further reflection, he wasn’t surprised.

“She has a steel-trap mind,” he said. “She just locks onto something and doesn’t let go.

She brings ultra-focus to everything she does.”

Gallagher didn’t stop after Leadville. She set a course record with a first-place finish in the 2017 Courmayeur Champex Chamonix Ultramarathon. She was one of UltraRunning Magazine’s 2017 ultrarunners of the year. Forest fires cancelled a planned 50-miler in Sausalito, California. To keep herself busy that

weekend, Gallagher instead set the world’s fastest known time of the Zion Traverse.

Those historic victories earned Gallagher sponsorships with Petzl, La Sportiva, Revant Optics, and Honey Stinger. Suddenly, she had a platform. People knew her name. People cared about what she had to say.

She knew exactly what she wanted them to hear.

At Princeton, Levene said, Gallagher “constantly bugged the cross country team to recycle.” An environmental ethics course with philosophy professor Peter Singer had “changed her life.” Her senior research — based on two summers of scuba research — dealt with the impact of climate change on coral reefs. She remembers hosting an Earth Day event at Frist Campus Center. The turnout was “lame,” she said.

“But the advocacy just felt right.”

Her extensive academic background had taught Gallagher about climate change.

But her career as a trail runner has exposed her to its effects on a visceral level.

“Mountains are becoming increasingly dangerous. Glaciers are melting in the Alps and the Dolomites. Rock fall is increasing. Forest fires are becoming a constant. It’s pathetic, and I see all of it.”

“And in the wake of all that, traditional sports weren’t enough anymore,” she said.

“My going around and winning races all around the world was great, but it wasn’t enough anymore. It wasn’t doing anything to save our home planet.”

There exists one company whose goals align precisely with Gallagher’s. Last December, Patagonia changed its official mission statement: the company is “in business to save our home planet.”

Gallagher works as one

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of Patagonia’s global sports activists. She partners with nonprofits like Protect Our Winters to lobby for carbon emission reduction and a renewable energy economy.

“One of the hardest parts about being a professional athlete is feeling like you’re not contributing to the world,” said Levene. “Clare perfectly balances being an intellectual and an athlete. She contributes in the most tangible way. What she learned at Princeton, athletically and academically, has totally informed what she does now.”

Gallagher is the first to acknowledge that her career — which Levene called a “dream job” — is unconventional for a Princeton graduate.

She wishes it wasn’t.

“At Princeton, you play baseball and then you work at Goldman. If that’s what inspires you, great. But that’s not how it has to be. There exists an entire universe of career options outside of New York City.”

Evidently, most people are not cut out for Gallagher’s athletic prowess. But she stresses that activism is accessible to all.

“If you have social media, if you have the tiniest of followings,” she said, “you should talk about something important. Talk about what you care about. That’s what Princeton is supposed to teach you: to think for yourself, to express yourself, to write well.

Use it.”

Gallagher is a formidable athlete and a formidable activist, with a formidable set of abs, no less. But to Farrell, even Gallagher – who admits to eating Betty Crocker frosting straight from the jar – has an Achilles heel.

“She does so much,” said Farrell. “And she fuels it all with junk.”

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