The Daily Princetonian - April 30, 2019

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Tuesday April 30, 2019 vol. CXLIII no. 57

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STUDENT LIFE

Reed ’19, Zoulis ’19 selected as senior class valedictorian, salutatorian

By Ivy Truong

Head News Editor

COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

On Tuesday, June 4, Reed will deliver the valedictory address, and Zoulis will deliver the traditional salutatory oration in Latin.

U . A F FA I R S

Emily Carter, Dean of School of Engineering and Applied Science, to step down

By Linh Nguyen Associate News Editor

Emily Carter, who has been the Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) for the past three years, will be leaving the University at the end of the year to become the executive vice chancellor and provost of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Her

Kate Reed ’19 and Rafail Zoulis ’19 have been named the valedictorian and salutatorian, respectively, for the Class of 2019, according to a University statement.

On Tuesday, June 4, Reed will deliver the valedictory address, and Zoulis will deliver the traditional salutatory oration in Latin.

University faculty accepted the nominations for the Faculty Committee on Examinations and Standing during a faculty meeting on Monday, April 29.

Reed, from Arnold, Md., is a history concentrator who is pursuing certificates in Latin American Studies and Spanish. For her senior thesis, which is titled “Myths of Revolution: Development and State Violence in Mexico, 1968-1976,” she is examining state violence in Mexico during the 1970s, looking at the time period after a 1968 massacre of student protesters in the Plaza de las

Tres Culturas in Tlatelolco, Mexico City.

In November 2018, she received a Rhodes Scholarship and will be pursuing a M.Phil. in Development Studies at the University of Oxford.

Outside of academics, Reed is involved in El Centro — which offers free English as a Second Language (ESL) classes for adult immigrants in the towns of Princeton and Trenton — The Pace Center for Civic Engagement, and the Princeton University Language Project. She also took part in developing and teaching an ESLadapted history course at Princeton High School.

“From the latinamericanistas in the History Department and PLAS, to El Centro, to the label-less — but no less important — friendships that have been sources of great joy and love for me, I am so fortunate to be surrounded by such remarkable people every day,” Reed wrote in a statement to The Daily Princetonian.

Zoulis, who is from Marousi, See VAL page 2

ON CAMPUS

new appointment begins Sept.

1, 2019, and the search for a new SEAS dean is already underway.

According to the University’s Office of Engineering Communications, Carter will become UCLA’s “second-ranking officer and serve as the chief operating and academic officer,” a position meant to “[bring] broad vision and executive leadership to See CARTER page 2

F E AT U R E

Sibley ’19 reflects on eye health, U. accommodations

By Katie Tam Senior Writer

AJ Sibley ’19 just wanted to finish his final paper. Sibley had spent hours staring at small black text on his computer screen. On a word document, he changed “can’t” to “cannot” and back again. He added and removed commas.

Finally, he was finished. It was January, and there was

fresh snow on the ground.

After being holed up in his dorm, Sibley was eager to get outside. But when he stepped out into the sunlight, he found the reflection of the rays on the snow intolerable. His eyes blazed with pain; he donned sunglasses to be able to see.

Thinking that the sensation was only temporary, he pushed the incident out of his mind and tried to watch a movie.

See SIBLEY page 3

MARIE-ROSE SHEINERMAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

A group of protestors who self-identified as Christians yelled at female students for wearing leggings.

Radical protestors threaten pedestrians with “hellfire”

By Allan Shen Staff Writer

On the afternoon of Monday, April 29, a group of demonstrators who self-identified as Christian staged a protest on campus, telling passers-by they “must obey Jesus or face hellfire.”

The protest took place at the intersection of Washington

Road and McCosh Walk in front of Marx Hall and likely began at some time between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m., according to some observers.

The demonstrators took turns holding up a poster that targeted groups of persons, including “homos,” “Muslims,” “whoremongers,” “The Pope,“ and “drunks,“ among many others.

They also held up other signs which condemned feminists as “whores,” and they stated that God’s love is conditional and that sinners must repent their sins and obey Jesus.

One of the protesters was Aden Rusfeldt, the pastor of Key of David Christian Center, a selfdescribed “non-denominational See PROTEST page 4

ON CAMPUS

Former housing secretary speaks on federal housing policy, discrimination Staff Writer

SARAH HIRSCHFIELD / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

AJ Sibley ‘19 discusses his experience adjusting to unexpected eye damage.

In Opinion

Columnist Gabriel Lipkowitz advocates for an aesthetic of sustainability in light of the University’s Sustainability Action Plan and columnist Hunter Campell proposes new consequences to fire safety violations.

PAGE 6

On Monday, April 29, Pamela Hughes Patenaude, former Deputy Secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), highlighted the challenges and nuances of federal housing policy throughout her time at the department during a public talk with sociology professor Matthew Desmond.

Patenaude was first nominated

Today on Campus

by President Donald Trump and later confirmed by the Senate for Deputy Secretary of HUD on September 14, 2017, according to the housing department’s website.

The department remained partly under her leadership until December 17, 2018, when the media reported that she was set to resign from her position in January 2019.

Today, she serves on the board of directors for NeighborWorks America, an organization responsible for finding affordable housing

6:00 p.m.: All are welcome to “Eastern Wisdom for Envisioning Your Career and Life” with Pulin Sanghvi (Speaker, Author, & Inaugural Executive Director of Career Services) and Vineet Chander (Coordinator of Hindu Life). Tea and snacks served.

Dodge Hall 104

for communities across the country.

In the conversation with Desmond — who coordinated and hosted the event — Patenaude pointed out the bureaucratic nature of HUD. “Nothing happens quickly in the federal government,” Patenaude said. “Certainly nothing gets done on the day that you ask for it to be done.”

Patenaude stated that she was a See POLICY page 5

WEATHER

By Talha Iqbal

HIGH

72˚

LOW

49˚

Cloudy chance of rain:

20 percent

page 2

Carter will serve as chief operating and academic officer at UCLA CARTER

Continued from page 1

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campus-wide policy, planning, initiatives and operations.”

When Carter formally becomes executive vice chancellor and provost at UCLA, she hopes to implement some of the practices and principles that she has embraced at the University.

“At UCLA I will be the chief operating and academic officer with an enormous opportunity to positively impact the education of 45,000 students and to champion research initiatives of critical importance for humanity,” Carter wrote in an email to SEAS faculty members. “I already see many opportunities to bring lessons and ideals from Princeton to UCLA, which I think is a fitting way of broadening Princeton’s impact.”

Until a replacement is found, electrical engineering professor H. Vincent Poor GS ’77 will function as interim dean and lead the search committee for a new permanent dean. Prior to Carter’s appointment, Poor served as dean from 2006 to 2016.

During her tenure as dean, Carter promoted the pursuit of diversity among SEAS students and faculty members, implementing new resources and ap-

pointing Julie Yun as associate dean for diversity and inclusion in 2018. In addition, Carter worked with other University administrators to propose a location for the engineering school’s expansion as part of the University’s 10-year plan.

“Emily Carter has made extraordinary contributions to Princeton as a scientist, mentor, center director, and dean,” said President Christopher Eisgruber ’83. “Though we will miss having Emily as our colleague at Princeton, we look forward to applauding her accomplishments as she returns to UCLA.” Carter joined the University faculty in 2004, beginning as a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and applied and computational mathematics before becoming the founding director of the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment in 2010. Carter retained this role until being promoted in 2016 to the engineering school dean.

Prior to moving to the University, Carter worked as a chemistry and materials science and engineering professor at UCLA for 16 years.

The University Office of Communications deferred comment to Eisgruber’s statement in the original release.

The Daily Princetonian

Tuesday April 30, 2019

DAVID KELLY CROW / OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

Emily Carter has been dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science for the past three years.

Zoulis: Princeton, despite its faults, strives to be of service to both the academic and the wider civic world VAL

Continued from page 1

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Greece, is majoring in classics with certificates in Hellenic studies, humanistic studies, and medieval studies. Over the past two years, he has focused his independent work on state politics and identity construction during Late Antiquity.

“I am grateful to all the people, family and friends on the one hand, and institutions, on the other, that provided me and other middle class students with the opportunity to be in a place like Princeton which, despite its faults, strives to be of service to both the academic and the wider civic world,” Zoulis wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’

Zoulis’s senior thesis is titled “Cultural Syncretism and Royal Ideology in Ptolemaic Egypt.” In the University statement, Zoulis said that his thesis “is the byproduct of a longstanding commitment to understand the different manifestations of sociology of rule over and upon a multiethnic array of subjects.”

“Pre-modern and early modern

societies are surprisingly useful to think with due to their complexity and radically different modes of thought. The aim, however, is not to find a solution for our current social questions, like climate change or immigration, in the past but to better understand the origins and development of our shared human challenges in order to initiate the process towards ameliorating them,” Zoulis wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’

Post graduation, Zoulis will pursue a master’s degree in Greek and Roman history at Oxford through the Ertegun Scholarship and then pursue a Ph.D. in Classics and History at Yale University.

Apart from his academic work, Zoulis has served as a research assistant in the University’s effort to digitize Servius Auctus’ commentary on Virgil’s “Aeneid” as well as in the University numismatics collection. He is also a mentor for students enrolled in the Humanities Sequence, editor-in-chief of the journal of Princeton Studies in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, and a tour guide at the University Art Museum.

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Tuesday April 30, 2019

page 3

Sibley: I have so many incredible experiences that others don’t SIBLEY

Continued from page 1

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But the discomfort of looking at a screen was unbearable. The next day, Sibley called his parents. Something was wrong.

Jonathan Cortez ’16 had been working alongside Sibley when it happened four years ago.

“We were roommates, teammates, best friends,” Cortez said. “He went a day without sleep. It wasn’t irregular; it was something we’ve all done at some point. But that time, it was too much.”

In February of this year, Sibley sent an email to residential college listservs with the subject line “Don’t Be Me. Graduate on Time!” Sibley warned readers about the dangers of too much screen time and offered suggestions for preserving your vision, including inverting the display colors on your computer and following the 20-20-20 rule: for every twenty minutes of staring at a screen, look twenty feet away for twenty seconds.

“Computers are seriously damaging your eyes,” the email read. “I fried mine out from my Princeton study habits, and had to take three years off, as I can basically no longer use computers.” The onset was acute, and unexpected, he wrote. “I was completely fine looking at screens for 19 years, until the literal day I wasn’t.”

Recently, he authored a referendum urging the University administration to establish an annual health awareness initiative to educate students about the dangers of screen use. The referendum, which also includes a provision for installing blue light protection software on campus computers, passed on April 19.

Since that day his junior year, Sibley has been suffering with what he describes as “severe photophobia,” or extreme sensitivity to light. After the incident, he went back home to start an internship with a dis-

trict attorney. He had already been planning a year off from school for financial reasons and used that time to visit as many doctors as he could. Sibley was subjected to a battery of tests for glaucoma, myopia, and other common problems.

The first four ophthalmologists saw nothing wrong with his vision. Doctor Number Five, however, gave him a diagnosis – meibomian gland dysfunction.

The meibomian glands, of which there are approximately fifty on the upper eyelid and twenty-five on the lower eyelid, supply meibum, an oily substance that coats the eyeball and prevents tears from evaporating. Dysfunction of the meibomian gland causes dry eye, which can lead to pain and photophobia. The condition typically affects postmenopausal women with hormonal imbalances, and the doctor was surprised to find it in a young man like Sibley. She recommended he try LipiFlow, a procedure that essentially places a suction cup on your eyelid. The suction cups apply heat and pressure to break apart the waxy coagulations clogging the glands. The effects were drastic.

“My eyes went from zero percent to seventy percent,” Sibley said. “I went from having to wear two sunglasses indoors to not needing sunglasses outdoors.”

By the following spring, Sibley felt he had recovered enough to return to the University. But going back to the routine of writing papers and researching articles on a computer screen worsened his still-fragile condition. His eyes went from a seventy to a “negative fifty percent,” Sibley said.

He realized that the issue went beyond his meibomian glands and was not going to be resolved easily. “I’ve got to leave and be willing not to come back until I can fix this,” he told himself at the end of the semester.

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In the next two years, Sibley went across the country seeing doctors. In all, he would see a total of fourteen ophthalmologists. Most of them found no abnormalities and concluded that his eyes were fine. Some believed that his photophobia could not have been induced by light from screens and suggested a variety of largely ineffective treatments. Sibley tried LipiFlow again, but the second round did “literally nothing,” he said.

Sibley was beginning to lose hope when he came across a few research papers by one of the top eye doctors in the country. Rather than using the traditional slit-lamps to examine patients, this doctor employed an in vivo confocal microscope, a special device that allowed him to see microscopic damage to the cornea – the clear front part of the eye that covers the pupil and iris.

This doctor diagnosed him with corneal neuralgia, a catchall term that covers a range of symptoms including photophobia and eye pain. According to the American Academy of Ophthalmology, corneal neuralgia is often mistaken for dry eye and is frequently dismissed by physicians who see nothing in the physical exam that could explain the severity of the symptoms. But with the special microscope, the doctor could see inflammation in Sibley’s cornea, as well as swelling in his optic nerve.

He prescribed some eyedrops and predicted there would be drastic improvements in Sibley’s vision.

There were little to none. Sibley was crushed. Half-jokingly, with a melodramatic air, he paraphrased the famous quote from the Count of Monte Cristo: “The heart breaks when, after elated by flattering hopes, it sees all of its illusions destroyed.” He continued, “it hit me that this is probably going to be a lifelong situation, and I really need to figure out a way to live with it.”

Around this time, Sibley began reaching out to disability associations, searching for ways to continue his studies without exacerbating his photophobia. Eventually, he realized that the best course forward was to do whatever was necessary to graduate, even if that meant hiring aides or accepting less than ‘A’ grades.

The University’s Office of Disability Services was very accommodating, Sibley said, enabling him to return to school in the fall. This marked two years since he was forced to leave.

Soon after, one of his classmates mentioned that his father was an ophthalmologist at the University of Utah. Sibley began communicating with his classmate’s father over the phone. For Sibley, this was a breakthrough – the new doctor truly seemed to care about him and listened intently to his story. From him, Sibley learned of an experimental treatment that involved using as eyedrops a substance isolated from his own blood – known in medical parlance as autologous blood serum. Sibley now performs the treatment ten times a day and keeps containers of his serum in the freezer.

Since he started the therapy three months ago, he has noticed marked improvements, the first he has experienced in years.

Despite this, Sibley still cannot look at a screen without pain, and continues to wear sunglasses in and out of doors.

He uses a typewriter and relies on dictation software to compose papers for class. Assistants, fellow students hired by the Office of Disability Services, read him his texts, emails, and Google searches. It has been difficult, Sibley said, to come to terms with the fact that his grades are no longer dependent on his work alone but also on that of a third party.

Although having an assistant has been a major adjustment, Sibley is thankful for

the support and opportunities he has been given. During his two-year leave of absence, he worked as a staffer for several political campaigns, including one summer with Hillary Clinton’s. The job fit well with his talents and his disability, Sibley said. While other members of the team took care of the spreadsheets and data-crunching, he was able to speak to voters and interact with people on the ground.

“I don’t know how I would have functioned without having that meaningful work to keep me occupied,” he said.

Sibley wants to prevent other students from going into the same downward spiral, because, he said, this could easily happen to anyone. In his email, Sibley identified blue light coming from screens as a likely trigger for his eye problems. According to a 2018 study from the University of Toledo, blue light initiates chemical reactions in the eyes’ photoreceptors, releasing poisonous compounds that kill cells and lead to vision loss. As such, he advocates wearing special glasses that filter out blue light, and turning on night shift, which tints screens to a warm orangered.

Sibley’s condition has made him crepuscular. “My favorite times of day are dawn and dusk,” he said. In the past few weeks, cherry blossoms have begun blooming outside his suite, and he has “stopped to smell the roses.” In the halfdarkness, he can comfortably remove his sunglasses.

“I take them off and look at the brightness and richness of the colors,” he said. “It really makes me appreciate just being alive. It puts this in perspective. Yes, I might have to deal with this for the rest of my life, but I have so many incredible experiences that others don’t.”

“I just count my blessings and keep going.”

The Daily Princetonian

page 4

Yoo ’22: It grieves me so much, as a Christian, to see these people pushing their own hateful agendas PROTEST Continued from page 1

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Christian Church” in Philadelphia. Rusfeldt was joined by two adolescents and an individual who refers to himself as “Brother Ross,” who was identified as James Ross by The Signal, the student newspaper at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ).

This group of protesters was continually surrounded by around 20 bystanders, mostly undergraduate students at the University, who stopped to observe the protest. Many of these bystanders chose to confront Ross and Rusfeldt with arguments, and one of the two protesting adolescents was seen recording the individuals who exchanged arguments with the demonstrators.

Sunny Yoo ’22, a Christian, was among those who confronted the protesters. He expressed his belief that the protesters were spreading a false message of Christianity.

“What the gospel teaches us is the good news that God has sent us Jesus because of his in-

finite love for his creation, but these people are just teaching so far from the truth,” said Yoo. “It grieves me so much, as a Christian, to see these people pushing their own hateful agendas.”

In an email to the ‘Prince,’ University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss wrote, “The students who spoke out respectfully in response to the demonstration exemplified how free speech is central to the University’s mission.”

“Princeton has an unwavering commitment to diversity, inclusion, and human dignity, and we stand in opposition to all forms of hatred,” Hotchkiss added.

Several public safety officers were present at the scene and monitored the demonstration.

When asked by The Daily Princetonian why they had come to campus, Rusfeldt said that they were at the University “because we heard a rumor that there are whores and homosexuals at Princeton, and we love them, and we want to warn them that they are going to hell without Jesus.”

Rusfeldt and Ross frequently shouted toward pedestrians

passing by the protest, asking questions such as whether they are Muslims, whether they have engaged in masturbation, and whether they are virgins. Several women were chastised for wearing leggings.

A similar group of Christian protesters appeared at the University in March 2018.

Before appearing at the University, the same four individuals protested at TCNJ on April 10. In addition to Princeton and TCNJ, Rusfeldt has brought his protest to numerous other colleges and universities in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, including the University of Pennsylvania, Bucks County Community College, Rutgers University, Temple University, and West Chester University. He was accompanied

by James Ross and the two other protesters at some, but not all, of the other occasions.

In a video captured by the ‘Prince,’ Rusfeldt said that they will return to the University in the coming fall semester.

According to Hotchkiss, the demonstration ended shortly before 6 p.m.

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Personality Survey:

1) During lecture you are... a) asking the professor questions. b) doodling all over your notes. c) correcting grammar mistakes. d) watching videos on youtube.com e) calculating the opportunity cost of sitting in lecture.

2) Your favorite hidden pasttime is... a) getting the scoop on your roommate’s relationships. b) stalking people’s Facebook pictures. c) finding dangling modifiers in your readings. d) managing your blog. e) lurking outside 48 University Place.

3) The first thing that you noticed was... a) the word “survey.” b) the logo set in the background. c) the extra “t” in “pasttime.” d) the o’s and i’s that look like binary code from far away. e) the fact that this is a super-cool ad for The Daily Princetonian.

If you answered mostly “a,” you are a reporter in the making!

If you answered mostly “b,” you are a design connoisseur, with unlimited photography talents!

If you answered mostly “c,” you are anal enough to be a copy editor!

If you answered mostly “d,” you are a multimedia and web designing whiz!

And if you answered mostly “e,” you are obsessed with the ‘Prince’ and should come join the Editorial Board and Business staff!

Contact join@dailyprincetonian.com!

Tuesday April 30, 2019

The Daily Princetonian

page 5

Patenaude: I want to be remembered as being an advocate for Puerto Rico

TALHA IQBAL / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development discusses housing policy, discrimination, and political experiences under Trump.

POLICY

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popular supporter of federal aid to Puerto Rico during her years of service under Trump and in previous administrations. However, because of the bureaucratic nature of HUD as well as a difference in priorities for the Trump administration, she did not believe that it received the proper amount of support.

“I want to be remembered as being an advocate for Puerto Rico, as the person who fought for it,” she said in regards to her efforts to increase government involvement in Puerto Rico’s housing crisis.

When she left office, Puerto Rico governor Ricardo Rosselló tweeted, “The entire nation loses one its finest, most transparent and passionate public servants.”

The discussion centered heavily around the Fair Housing Act (FHA), a law passed in 1968 with the intention of preventing discrimination on the national, state, and local levels for people looking to purchase, rent, or mortgage a home or engage in other housing-related activities.

A major concern highlighted by the former secretary in regards to the FHA was the lack of legal and political knowledge possessed by policymakers in Capitol Hill and in Washington, D.C., at large.

Desmond first asked about policy enforcement and methods to investigate instances of housing discrimination, such as the recent HUD lawsuit against Facebook.

According to The Washington Post’s coverage of this particular lawsuit, “HUD claimed that Facebook mines users’ extensive personal data and uses characteristics protected by law ... to determine who can view housing ads, even when it’s not the advertiser’s intent.”

The investigation is in reference to discrimination against one or more of the ‘seven protected classes’ under the FHA: race, color, national origin, religion, familial status, sex, and disability.

Patenaude expressed concerns over a lack of leadership in Washington and the Facebook investigation, explaining that “the people who should be enforcing and implementing the law don’t even know the law.”

The former secretary was later asked why the Trump administration launched only one investigation into Facebook when other instances of housing discrimination also exist.

According to Desmond, the Bush and Obama administrations issued a greater number of citations against housing discrimination; each had administered at least ten major investigations during their terms.

“The damage is already done when you have to go after somebody for violating the law, although enforcement will hopefully prevent future violations of it,” Patenaude replied. “I think we’ve done a miserable job with fair housing at the federal level. It would be better that we never get to the point of investigation.”

In further discussing the FHA, Patenaude stated that redlining policies from the 1930s still affect Americans today, more than fifty years after the FHA was first passed.

Patenaude highlighted that concerns over housing discrimination are fairly recent in the grand overview of civil liberties. In reference to one’s obligations, she explained that “being a HUD official was something that was left undefined” until recently.

Towards the end of the interview, the conversation turned towards the political inclinations of the former secretary herself. While she identifies herself as a conservative and supporter for Trump, Patenaude’s policies are more liberal in comparison to other members of the Trump administration and HUD who served during her term, which may have contributed to her resignation.

“When you serve in a senate confirmed position, you’re serving at the pleasure of the President of the United States. He is the only person that could fire me,” she told the ‘Prince.’ Patenaude jokingly continued, “I did not get fired, although I did believe I would’ve gotten fired eventually.”

In her years of experience, the former secretary learned that the road to federal policymaking is very dependent upon the balance of political power in Washington.

“It’s a fine line because you want to continue policy disagreements and continue to go in directions that the people above you are not necessarily in line with,” Patenaude stated. “You either accept it and stick around, or it’s time move on.

And I decided to move on.”

The talk was delivered at 4:30 p.m. at the Friend Center and was sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

Opinion

Tuesday April 30, 2019

page 6

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The University needs an aesthetic of sustainability Gabe Lipkowitz Columnist

I

n its recently published Sustainability Action Plan, the University set ambitious goals for reducing its environmental footprint. Aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2046, as well as curtail its water usage and waste production, the plan represents the second of Princeton’s formal commitments to sustainability. This is especially timely in the context of the recently passed student referendum, which called for clearer guidelines and timelines for how the University will achieve carbon neutrality.

Not only will these initiatives reduce Princeton’s own environmental footprint, in itself an unambiguously good thing, but they also set Princeton up as a model for how other universities – or perhaps more broadly, communities in general – may reduce their own environmental footprints. At the same time, I do find one glaring omittance from both these plans. There was not a mention, so far as I could tell, of an aspect of sustainability that many increasingly realize is absolutely crucial: aesthetics.

Why, and how, do aesthetics matter for sustainability? Such is a complex and multifaceted question, of course, to which I could not hope to fully do justice here. For a more in depth discussion of the topic, I direct the reader to the book “The Hand and the Soul: Aesthetics and Ethics in Architecture and Art,” which focuses on the intersection between aesthetics and ecology/environmentalism. For this brief article, particularly relevant is the chapter entitled “Re-earthing Cities: Aesthetics, Ethics, and Ecology in City Building” by Timothy Beatley, professor in the Department of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia School of Architecture, with whom I have had the distinct pleasure to meet and converse with.

In his essay, Beatley argues that systems of energy production, traditionally hidden in urban planning, should instead be highlighted. “Such uses,” Beatley writes, referring to power plants as an example, “need not be camouflaged or isolated, but celebrated.” In particular, he cites as a key model the famous Vienna Power Station, designed by the Austrian artist and architect Friedensreich Hundertwasser, in which visitors can actively view the processes such as waste sorting and recycling which the plant performs.

Keeping Beatley’s ideas and models in mind, it would seem that our University, which has won numerous awards for its sustainability successes (rightfully so) and advertises its environmental initiatives themselves so well through the Office of Sustainability (also rightfully so), should similarly be at the forefront of expressing such an aesthetic of sustainability.

It is somewhat surprising, therefore, that this does not appear to be the case. In particular, I wish to draw attention to the fact that one of the most important reasons why Princeton is such a model for sustainability, its cogeneration power plant, is as well hidden, unadvertised, and invisible as it is.

The cogeneration plant, for those readers who don’t already know, generates roughly 15 megawatts of electricity each day to supply the University’s needs. Consisting of steam boilers, water chillers, an electric generator, and a thermal energy storage system, the cogeneration plant derives its sustainability prowess, to a large extent, from the fact that it recovers wasted exhaust heat from the turbine to heat water and make steam.

By necessity, the plant, which is quite sizable indeed, is located separate from the rest of campus, likely the main reason why it is so unknown to many students. But even when students, or perhaps more importantly visitors to our University, venture down to the plant, there is little about the design of the plant itself which attracts attention.

I walked down to the plant

this past weekend for myself to investigate this, making a few sketches of the location to analyze its layout. Comparing it to other plants I have seen, and images online, I could find little that differentiated our remarkably efficient cogeneration plant aesthetically from its less efficient counterparts.

Namely, the same all-engineering, all-industrial motifs characterize the structure.

Opaque, steel plating and grating completely hide those functions inside, with not even a window or shred of glass to give the passerby a glimpse.

The landscape leading up to the structure, which landscape architects inform us is an extremely important aspect of how we interpret and react to buildings, is nothing except parking lots.

One could argue that this is an “industrial aesthetic” in itself, and of course this may be true. Indeed, such pure efficiency served as, in large part, the inspiration for the 20thcentury modernist movement in architecture, pioneered by Le Corbusier, who famously adored automobiles and yachts for this reason. What I say here, however, is that this “industrial aesthetic” does not equate with a “sustainability aesthetic,” one that expresses not only the power and energy-generating capacities of the plant, but its environmental ethics.

Given the growing commitment to sustainability displayed by the University, both by students and by the administration, I think it is about time to change this.

In his chapter, Beatley proposes several ways to adapt energy systems to not only create energy but also express how they do so in environmentally ethical ways. “Urbanscapes that teach,” as he calls them, can make it “exciting to see how energy is produced and to know where our energy is coming from.” As he also notes, “there is a sheer beauty to seeing the technology used to produce energy.”

In the case of the cogeneration plant, accomplishing such an aesthetic could involve very minor and achievable alterations. One particular design intervention I could imagine would simply entail replacing

select slabs of the previously opaque steel walls with transparent glass, interspersed at different areas to reveal those different inner workings of the plant described above. Informational texts about the plant’s capacities could be positioned next to such windows, explaining its inner workings to visitors and students alike in a way that reflects the University’s own pedagogical mission.

Importantly, though, my own suggestion for a design intervention here is by no means satisfactory by itself, nor should it be the end of the story.

Coming from a scientific background, I am well aware that others would be more qualified than I to come up with such design proposals. To that end, I write this piece not so much to propose an idea myself, as to make a call for ideas from the broader University community. In particular, I welcome design proposals from students and faculty in those many University classes that are already devoted to sustainability, such as in the departments of architecture, civil engineering, and urban studies, among others.

Ideas from the broader public generally, of course, are welcome, too.

One thing I should stipulate, however, is that any proposed alterations should not affect the actual workings of the plant. It would be ironic indeed for a design to interfere with what it is trying to celebrate, as it would be a truly nonsensical implementation of aesthetics.

By visually celebrating, rather than hiding, its cogeneration plant, Princeton could express to the world its commitment to sustainability, highlighting and more effectively communicating its already impressive sustainability numbers. At a time when the science and data of climate change seem insufficient to themselves sway society towards a more renewable energy future, aesthetic gestures such as this may provide a crucial catalyst.

Gabriel Lipkowitz is a senior concentrator in molecular biology. He can be reached at gel@ princeton.edu.

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Tuesday April 30, 2019

Opinion

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Fixing fire safety penalties Hunter Campbell

Contributing Columnist

O

ne of the earliest warnings students get during their first-year orientation is the prospect of receiving a fine for committing a fire safety violation. The risk of increased financial burden is meant to dissuade students from violating the fire safety policies at the University. Fines, however, not only disproportionately impact lower income students but also are not the best method for preventing continued violations of the fire safety code. Instead, we should use a community service based system to better discourage these violations as well as make the punishment more equal across the board.

For the majority of fire safety violations, the first offense will result in a student – or multiple students if the room has more than one occupant — receiving a warning. For subsequent offenses, the student will pay a flat-rate fee. For some special violations such as possessing highly flammable objects or tampering with smoke alarms, students receive a fine on the first offense. Tampering with life devices may also result in disciplinary

action on the first offense, while for other safety violations the Housing Office may recommend a student to the Dean of Undergraduates after repeated violations.

Fines range from $50 all the way to $200. Because these fines are at a flat rate, they will naturally affect lowerincome students more than wealthy students because the fine will be a larger proportion of their families’ incomes. Even more problematic is that a family may have to pay the fine even when the fine was the fault of the student. 46% of Americans say that they would be unable to pay for a $400 surprise bill; a fire safety fine could put them in serious financial jeopardy, considering it could put so many Americans halfway to having an economic crisis. A $400 surprise bill is already too easy to incur, so the University should not make this worse for families who are not actually responsible for their student’s actions. Ultimately, for many of us a fine is just going to show up on our bills, and our parents will have to pay for our mistakes. In other situations, a person’s family may be unable or unwilling to pay the fine, so the student will need to get a campus job in order to pay the fine. It is unideal for the punishment for violating the fire safety policies to affect students disproportionately, because it also means that some will

feel more dissuaded from continuing their violations than others.

If it is true that all the violations listed in the fine schedule are so serious that room occupants need punishment to stop them from committing the offense again, then there is no reason to have a system which discourages some people more than others. Either some students are being dissuaded too much, or others are not dissuaded enough. Therefore, we need to have a system which is more equal in its approach to stopping violations, one which is more effective in actually stopping repeat offenses. A far better method than fines is to have violators do a certain number of community service hours helping facilities workers around campus.

Of course, this would be after receiving a warning or two.

Unlike fines, spending time doing community service will be a more equal punishment, as time is a resource in which University students are in desperate need. This is not a perfect solution, as some students will naturally have more responsibilities and time commitments than others, but it is better than the alternative of flatrate fines. Time is something incredibly important to all students, regardless of their economic backgrounds. The difference between an hour for a low-income versus highincome person is going to be

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much smaller than the difference between $50 for either of them. The loss of time is a far more compelling punishment for people who have the means to repeatedly commit the same fire safety violation over and over again because they know that they can afford to pay what is for them a small amount of money two or three times a year when fire safety inspectors come to their rooms.

The Housing Office could allow violators to select a weekend on which to do their service in order to accommodate pre-existing commitments. Another advantage to the community service based

system is that it will encourage all students, not just those whose families have lower incomes, to take fire safety violations seriously. If it is such a big deal for someone to have a calendar on their door, somehow obscuring a means of egress, then we should actually treat these violations like they matter and not use them as a means to collect money from people living in University housing.

Hunter Campbell is a junior politics major from Sunderland, Vermont. He can be reached at hunterc@princeton.edu.

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Tuesday April 30, 2019

Sports

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Men’s volleyball wins first ever NCAA tournament match MEN’S VOLLEYBALL

By Alissa Selover

Associate Sports Editor

No. 13 Princeton men’s volleyball (18–12, 13–1 EIVA) faced Barton College (25–5, 14–2 conference) on Thursday, April 25 in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The Tigers took home a 3–1 win (25–23, 25–21, 18– 25, 25–20) to mark their first NCAA tournament win in program history.

“I would like to commend our seniors, Kendall Ratter, Bill Andrew, and Corry Short, for leading the charge. They poured their hearts into this match and led the team to our first NCAA victory in program history,” head coach Sam Shweisky said post-game.

The first set was close with the Tigers taking the 25–23 win. During the set, neither team led by more than two points, with junior George Huhmann and Andrew adding two kills to get the Tigers to game point. A Barton service error gave the Tigers the 1–0 advantage.

The Tigers started out strong in the second set, but the Barton Bulldogs kept fighting back and continued to tie the game. Princeton held set-point in their hands after a Bulldog timeout when a double block by Andrew and sophomore Joe Kelly gave the Tigers the

win.

The Bulldogs took the third set after taking an initial 10–3 lead over the Tigers. Six errors by Princeton, compared to Barton’s one, helped push the Bulldogs to their 25–18 defeat of the Tigers.

The fourth and final set allowed the Tigers to take a 10–7 lead, holding that three point advantage until they jumped to a five point lead at 19–14. Throughout the rest of the set, the Bulldogs never came within four points of the Tigers.

Overall, Huhmann lead the team with 19 kills, 3 aces, and 4 blocks while Ratter came in with 11 kills, 2 blocks, and 5 digs. Junior Greg Luck had 10 kills, and junior Parker Dixon contributed 8. Kelly lead the Tigers with 44 assists and 6 digs while Short also added 6 digs to the stats.

The Tigers are moving on to the NCAA Quarterfinals as they face No. 3 Pepperdine (22–6, 9–3 conference) on Tuesday, April 30 at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time.

The winner of the game will face No. 2 Long Beach State on May 2.

Princeton faced the Pepperdine Waves as their first game of the season where they lost 1–3 (10–25, 13–25, 25–19, 20–25). Despite a slow start in the first two sets, the Tigers proved that

BEVERLY SCHAEFER / GOPRINCETONTIGERS

Men’s volleyball huddles during their game against Barton College.

they can hang with the “big dogs” in the final two.

During this match, Dixon had 10 kills and 4 digs while Luck added 9 kills and 5 digs. Kelly had 20 assists while Short had 4 digs to round out the Tigers.

Pepperdine paid close attention to Huhmann during this match, holding him to only four kills and one block. With Huhmann

sitting at 3.48 kills per set and a total of 947 kills for the 2019 season, we can expect to see the Waves continuing to pay attention to him. Despite the potential for Huhmann to be held down, this could open up opportunities for Dixon, Luck, Ratter, and Andrew to make big moves at the net offensively.

Huhmann and Dixon were

also both named American Volleyball Coaches Association (AVCA) Honorable Mention All-Americans on Monday, becoming two out of only 5 total Princeton Volleyball players who have been named All-Americans. These players include Marin Gjaja ’91, Derek Devens ’98, and Cody Kessel ’15.

WOMEN’S LACROSSE

Women’s lacrosse defeats Cornell 18–15 in final regular season game

By Nancy Tran Contributor

Women’s lacrosse (12–3, 6–1 Ivy League) defeated Cornell University (8–7, 4–3 Ivy) 18–15 on Saturday afternoon, finishing the regular season with a stunning victory. After beating Yale last Saturday by a whopping fifteen point lead, Cornell was the last team they had to beat to win the Ivy League Title.

This year, the Tigers will share the title with Dartmouth but will earn the number one seed after defeating the Dartmouth Big Green earlier this month.

This marks the Tiger’s 15th title in program history and their sixth straight title.

“You play Princeton Lacrosse and that’s always your first goal, to win the Ivy Title,” Head coach Chris Sailer said, “We’re really happy that we were able to accomplish that.

It’s really meaningful and something to be really proud of for the players.”

Starting off the game with a strong foot, senior attacker Elizabeth George found herself winning the first draw control and making a goal within the first three minutes of the

game. Senior attacker Julia Haney put in the second goal and set the tigers up for a consistent first half.

They ended with a 12–5 score in their favor. Those seven points safely carried the Tigers to victory as the Big Red managed to outscore them in the second half. All of the last five goals were put in by Cornell, but it wasn’t enough to overcome Princeton’s outstanding first half. By the end of the game, Princeton won 18–15.

Leading the Tigers was junior attacker Tess D’Orsi with four goals and two assists. Following her was George and sophomore attacker Kyla Sears with four goals apiece. Senior attackers Allie Rogers and Haney also managed to put in two goals each. Finally, sophomore goalie Sam Fish sealed the deal with ten saves.

As the season comes to the final games, Sailer recounts how proud she is of her seven seniors that will be graduating in just a short couple of weeks.

“They’ve been an amazing senior class. It’s probably been ten years since we’ve had such a large senior class where every single kid is a full-time player

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Sophomore defender Marge Donovan was named Ivy League Defensive Player of the Week after her performance against Cornell.

for us on the field,” Sailer said. “I think they’ve done a great job. They’ve each been in a lot of different roles. Some of them have changed positions and some have gone through injuries. I mean they’ve really battled through a lot, and I think they’ve led this team all year long. No question, they’re going to be hard to replace, so we

want them to go out with the best possible season that they can have.”

After an exciting season, the first-seed Tigers move on to face fourthseed Cornell in the first round of the Ivy Tournament this Friday at 5 p.m.

Second-seed Dartmouth will play third-seed Penn this Sunday at 1:30 p.m., and the winners of those

two games will play each other for a final match.

“We’re looking forward to the tournament this weekend,” Sailer said. “It’s great to be the top seed, and we’re look forward to getting better and playing stronger this weekend.”

Updates on livestreaming the game will be posted on GoPrincetonTigers.com as they become available.

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Men’s volleyball player George Huhmann is ranked 16th nationally in points-per-set.