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In Opinion A Princeton student speaks out on her experience with sexual assault, and Cameron Langford calls for a reduction of the “confidence gap” between men and women. PAGE 5
COURTESY OF PRINCETON ALUMNI WEEKLY
Paul Sigmund, politics professor emeritus, died at 85 of pneumonia.
Former politics professor Paul Sigmund dies
In Street Street gives you the Lawnparties breakdown and #TBT to past houseparties, as well as a look into the Princeton-Blairstown Center. PAGE S1
By Sarah Kim contributor
Today on Campus 3:30 p.m.: Economics professor Alan Krueger will give a Last Lecture to the Class of 2014. McCosh Hall 10
The Archives
May 1, 1986 In its first year of selective admissions, the politics department accepted all 97 sophomores who applied to join the department. Notifications came by mail.
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News & Notes Student accepted to all Ivies chooses Yale
high school senior Kwasi Enin has decided to attend Yale this coming fall after being accepted by all eight Ivy League schools: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania and Yale, CNN reported. He announced his decision to accept Yale’s offer at a news conference in the gymnasium of his school, William Floyd High School. Enin said that his visit to Yale’s campus in New Haven, Conn. in April for their newly admitted students’ “Bulldog Days” helped solidify his decision. He said that the friendliness of the student body is specifically what attracted him. Enin is 11th in his class at William Floyd High School, which is located on Long Island, New York. He also scored a 2250 out of 2400 on his SAT, which placed him at the 98th percentile nationwide for students taking the SAT. He has indicated an interest in majoring in biomedical engineering at Yale, adding that he is hoping to pursue a career in medicine. He added that he is also interested in the rigorous music program that Yale has to offer.
BEN KOGER :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Kingston Xu ‘16 studies one of Julia Meng’s paintings at her Visual Arts Senior Thesis Exhibition in Lucas Gallery at 185 Nassau Street. The show, open weekdays from 10 a.m. - 4:30 p.m., closes May 3. STUDENT LIFE
Alpha Delta Phi fraternity establishes chapter at U. By Lorenzo Quiogue staff writer
The Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, a nationally chartered organization, has established a local affiliate at the University and has 13 members, according to the ADPhi national fraternity website. Jake Scinto ’16, the president of the fraternity’s Princeton affiliate, explained he got the idea to form the organization from visiting his brother, who is a member of the fraternity’s chapter at the University of Connecticut. “I went down and visited him, and I met a lot of different people from all over the country and the whole national organization, and I had always wanted to be a part of it, but I couldn’t think of a way to contribute to it,” he explained. Scinto and his roommate, Henry Pease ’16, whose brother is a member of ADPhi at Dartmouth, then decided to get in touch with the national charter of the organization in late Oc-
tober to look into establishing a local chapter. Bill Bronson, the director of ADPhi, explained that the fraternity had been at the University in the 19th century, so the creation of the local affiliate was actually a “restart” for the organization. “[The national organization’s board] seemed really excited about the whole thing, and they were really a huge help to us. The whole thing went really smoothly after that,” Scinto said. “They wanted to see a cohesive group of guys who were determined to make an impact in their community in a positive way — not just the school community, but also the surrounding community.” The national charter monitored the on-campus organization, and after a few months, the local group was given the opportunity to speak to the Board of Governors. “We would give them feedback after meetings every week, and eventually, they invited us down to give a presentation on why we See FRATERNITY page 2
Paul Sigmund, professor emeritus in the politics department, died at the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro on Sunday from pneumonia, his family confirmed. He was 85. An expert in medieval political theory, comparative politics and Latin American — particularly Chilean — politics, Sigmund began his career at the University in 1963 and retired in 2005. During his tenure, he developed his work on Chilean politics into an expertise in liberation theology, particularly in Central America, in the 1980s. He also helped establish the Latin American studies program at the University and served as its director for seven years. Rubén Gallo, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese languages and cultures and the director of program in Latin American studies, described Sigmund as an “oldfashioned gentleman scholar” who
was an active, integral member of the program. “He was someone who would come to lectures and have very intelligent questions,” he explained. “He was able to go in and make a perfectly composed comment or question. He would try to raise the intellectual level of the discussion. It wasn’t the question of being for or against — it was trying to think of political ideas.” Gallo said he and Sigmund would often have dinner with the guest speakers of these lectures, calling him “a very smart dinner companion.” In discussing any political topic, he said, Sigmund was elegant and lucid, a “careful thinker and true intellectual.” John Londregan, professor in the politics department and in the Wilson School, praised Sigmund’s dedication to research in Chilean politics. “He’s been making research on South America since the early sixties and kept at it right until the See SIGMUND page 4
ACADEMICS
Professor publishes study on perception of wartime atrocities By Ray Mennin contributor
Assistant psychology professor Alin I. Coman has published a one-year study in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, assessing the effects of wartime atrocities on people of different social groups. The study indicates that their association with a certain social group may influence the ways in which they recall actions committed by that group. “Essentially, if people are motivated to retrieve information
in addition to what the speaker has to say in conversation, then that motivation will drastically impact the memories of the listeners,” Coman said. “If there are no additional motivations in play, we predict that the typical retrievement-induced forgetting mechanisms are going to be in play.” Co-authors for the study included Charles Stone of the John Jay College of Criminal Justice and Emanuele Castano and William Hirst of the New School for Social Research. The study was conducted to See RESEARCH page 2
LECTURE
Falleti discusses participatory democracy in Latin America By Jacqueline Gufford staff writer
Participatory democracy is a work in progress, Tulia Falleti, associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a lecture Wednesday on the introduction, spread and evolution of local participatory democracy in Latin America. Falleti is a fellow with the University’s quarterly political science journal, World Politics. She is also a senior fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute for Health Economics at the University of Pennsylvania, a recipient of the Latin American Studies Association’s
Donna Lee Van Cott Award and a former professor at the Universidad de Buenos Aires. To provide a larger context for her findings, Falleti discussed the “explosion” of neoliberal democracies and economic institutions in Latin America in the last 30 years and noted that recent research on participatory democracy in Latin America has produced conflicting results. Some studies, she noted, indicate that higher-class citizens have a greater impact on participatory democracy in Latin American countries, while others find that lowerclass, or need-based citizens, are more likely to participate
and have an influence. These conflicting results may be the result of various factors such as a stretched concept of participatory democracy or an urban bias in previously conducted studies, Falleti said. However, resolving this issue is important because it can shed light on which groups are mainly involved in local participatory democratic institutions and help researchers determine if these new institutions are having a positive effect on addressing the needs of local Latin American communities, Falleti noted. Initial case studies that she
has conducted in Bolivia and Ecuador indicate that mainly lower-middle-class citizens are involved in participatory democratic institutions in Latin America, Falleti said. The implementation of certain elements of participatory democracy, however, remains contentious. Falleti particularly noted the “ineffective” recognition of prior consultation, or the right of a community to be consulted before natural resource extraction in its environment is conducted, in Bolivia and Ecuador. The national government’s economic interest in capital brought in by natural resource extraction, combined
with its capacity to control or construct regulations on the conduct of prior regulation, removes power from the hands of local communities, Falleti argued. For example, Bolivian President Evo Morales has supported legislation that expedites the process of local consultation. “This takes away the only resource that communities have against corporations during these consultations, which is time,” Falletti said. Nevertheless, mobilization in national efforts to improve the implementation of prior consultation is making a See LECTURE page 4
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Thursday may 1, 2014
Other fraternities welcome new ADPhi affiliate FRATERNITY Continued from page 1
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would make a positive contribution to their organization,” Scinto explained. After their presentation on April 5, the group of interested students was recognized as an affiliate by the Board. Bronson said the Board was very impressed with the group’s presentation. Bronson explained that while the organization was already recognized as an affiliate, it will not get the chance to be recognized as a chapter until it receives approval by the Convention in August. He
added that there were multiple steps the organization had to take in order to become an officially recognized chapter, both internally and externally. “They have to recruit a certain amount of men, and they have to have bylaws and policy setup within the organization,” he explained. “They also have to know how to run a chapter meeting and social function.” Bronson said while it wasn’t ideal that the local affiliate could not be recognized by the University, the organization does have several chapters that are not recognized by their respective schools.
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He added the national organization would like to meet with the University, if given
“They also have to know how to run a chapter meeting and social function.” Bill Bronson director of alpha delta phi the chance. “We want to meet with
whoever we have to in the future, just to start a dialogue, at least,” he explained. Scinto added the fraternity has received positive feedback from other fraternities at the University. “It was really great to have all the other fraternities say, ‘Hey, we welcome you, you guys are doing a great job,’ because that was something we were really nervous about, but they really welcomed us and we were happy about that,” Scinto said. There are currently 10 fraternities and three sororities on campus, though they are not recognized by the University.
Study links cognititive and social psychology RESEARCH Continued from page 1
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see whether or not reworking talk of atrocities committed in Iraq and Afghanistan could alter people’s specific memories of these events, based on their social link with those involved. Coman explained that the study was motivated by the researchers’ awareness that discussion of wartime events frequently causes stories about events to be reworked over time. Participants were asked to recall details of war atrocities they had heard about through two means: reading about the atrocities and watching videos recounting the atrocities. While the readings included a justification for why the atrocities happened, the videos did not include a justification. The stories were either pulled from real-life media reports or constructed to look like real-life media reports. Just as the researchers hypothesized, the results of the experiment showed that subjects were more likely to forget the justifica-
tions of actions committed by Afghan soldiers than for those done by American soldiers. Therefore, despite not being reminded of the justifications in the videos, in-group membership made subjects less likely to forget why an action was committed. “When people listen to other individuals talk about atrocities committed by American soldiers in Iraq, what they do is they activate along with the speaker, this atrocity, in their memory,” Coman said. “Now we know that if they do so… what happens next is induced forgetting of justifications that are associated with this atrocity.” Coman said that the study is relevant at multiple levels, noting, for example, that it links cognitive psychology with social psychology. Castano noted that the study helps inform theories in social psychology on how humans cope with information that is threatening or unpleasant. “Obviously we are very thrilled to see it appearing in psych science because it really pushed research on this phenomenon,” Castano said.
The Daily Princetonian
Thursday may 1, 2014
News & Notes Obama, Biden, celebrities call for action against sexual assault President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden appeared on Tuesday alongside celebrities such as Steve Carell and Daniel Craig in a 60-second video focusing on sexual assault. The video is a rousing call for action against sexual assault, which the all-male cast de-
scribes as “happening to our sisters, and our daughters, our wives and our friends.” It is the second public service announcement of the “1 is 2 Many” campaign the White House has been launching since 2012. Vice President Biden introduced it during the official release of “The First Report of the White House Task Force to Protect Students From Sexual Assault” Tuesday afternoon.
The video begins by addressing the prevalence of sexual assault on college campus. The message states: “If she doesn’t consent — or if she can’t consent — it’s rape. It’s assault. It’s a crime. It’s wrong.” The second part of the video encourages bystanders to become involved. “It’s up to all of us to put an end to sexual assault, and that starts with you,” Obama said in the video.
NO-POLEAN
BEN KOGER :: PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Two students consider one of Julia Meng’s paintings at her visual thesis show. Many of her paintings combined classic Chinese and Western heroic imagry. Here, Bruce Li stands in for David’s Napoleon.
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Thursday may 1, 2014
Studies have produced Sigmund remembered as contradictory results intellectual, loving father LECTURE Continued from page 1
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positive, though incremental, impact, Falleti said. Moving forward, further examination of local participatory democracy and its interactions with the state is critical in developing new ideas of democracy and its function. “There are overlapping areas between different types of democracy and we need to think more about the implications of different institutions,” Falletti said. “We are in a post-liberal time, and there are features of it that we do not fully understand yet.” The lecture, “Participatory Democracy in Latin America,”
was held at 4:30 p.m. in Burr Hall 216. It was cosponsored by World Politics, the Project on Democracy and Development, the University’s Program in Latin American Studies and Comparative Politics.
“We need to think more about the implications of different institutions.” Tulia Falleti
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SIGMUND Continued from page 1
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end, remaining in contact with the people there,” he said. Sigmund helped arrange Londregan’s field work in Latin America on military coups by finding a suitable institution and volunteering to search for contacts to make it possible for Londregan to travel to Chile. Stephen Sigmund, one of Sigmund’s three sons, said his father was someone who loved life and the joy of learning and that his work was his life. Stephen Sigmund also said his father loved going to the beach and traveling, but even his travels were connected to what he was most passionate about: teaching and learning. Paul Sigmund often traveled to Chile. “He was a teacher as a person too,” Stephen Sigmund said. “He was somebody who really wanted to talk to you about interesting things, talk to you about your life and share the learning experience. People walked away from a conversation with him knowing more and feeling better than they did walking into the conversation.” Gallo, Londregan and Stephen Sigmund all noted that Paul Sigmund most enjoyed the University’s supportive and intellectual community. Stephen Sigmund testified that his father kept in close contact with his students and often hosted dinners. “He had students and professors living with him on the third floor of our house for 20 years after our mother died because he wanted people to have dinner with and have intellectual conversations with,” Stephen Sigmund explained. “You never walked away from a conversation with him feeling like you were belittled or put down, but rather like you were listened to and heard.” Sigmund’s wife, Barbara Boggs Sigmund, was mayor of Princeton from the mid-1980s to her death in 1990. Stephen Sigmund recounted his childhood days during which he went to the University League
Nursery School as an example of his father’s love for the campus and the University. “Every morning my dad would put me on his shoulder and bike me over to the nursery school, go to the office, come back on the bike, pick me up and put me on the shoulder and take me back,” Stephen Sigmund said. “He loved being around the campus and would bring his kid to the University daycare on the bike.” Born in Westfield, N.J., and raised in Philadelphia, Sigmund graduated summa cum laude from Georgetown University with a bachelor’s degree in 1950. In 1959 he earned his doctorate degree from Harvard University, where he taught for four years before coming to the University. He also studied at the University of Durham in the United Kingdom on a Fulbright Scholarship, the University of Paris and the University of Cologne. He was a member of the boards of Georgetown and the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs as well as the Council on Foreign Relations. Furthermore, he was a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and the Institute for Advanced Study and received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Some of his published works include “Nicholas of Cusa and Medieval Political Thought” and “Natural Law in Political Thought.” In 2001, he was the first American to receive the Bernardo O’Higgins Order of Merit, awarded by the Chilean government. He is survived by three sons Paul IV, David and Stephen, two brothers, two sisters and four grandchildren. Sigmund’s wake is scheduled to take place on May 1 from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Stuart Country Day School. The funeral mass will be held May 2 at 1:30 p.m. in the University Chapel, followed by a reception at Prospect House. He will be buried at Princeton Cemetery.
Opinion
Guest Columnist
Rape culture exists here, too
Thursday may 1, 2014
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }
Closing the ‘confidence gap’
I
never intended to write an op-ed or share my story of sexual assault. My thoughts on this subject have generally already been expressed well by others. However, in this instance my ability to speak from personal experience can make a unique contribution to the discussion on campus. The idea to publicly discuss my rape from my freshman year has coalesced over the last semester. By now, I have realized that the relevance of sexual assault is not perceived immediately on campus. In my freshman year, I heard students bravely share their assault stories at Take Back the Night, an event honoring survivors. However, this important event has a limited impact and scope because of its self-selecting audience. I know from the rape jokes my friends repeatedly and casually tell that many students assume rape is something that doesn’t happen here or does not personally happen in our friend groups. This is not true. Rape affects a larger segment of our population than almost any other crime, but it has incredibly low report and conviction rates. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 19 percent of college-aged women have experienced an attempted or completed sexual assault since entering college (which is not to say that sexual assault does not occur for males). When it happened to me, I was in the Sexual Health/Assault Advising, Research & Education program. I was trained to communicate, recognize and/or intervene in the risk of an assault. Because I was in SHARE, I felt like I should have been able to prevent rape from happening to me. And most of all, after the fact I was confused, with muddled memories and impressions of the memories. I chose not to consider it “rape with a capital R” because I did not want to – was not ready to — associate myself with The R-Word. I gave the guy the benefit of the doubt and chose not to cast him as a perpetrator. After all I was a self-aware, trained young woman — sexual assault could hardly happen to me or on my watch, right? But it did. It can happen to anyone. It happened to me at a formal freshman year. To go to the formal, I pulled an all-nighter the evening before on a writing seminar paper. I was so tired that I lapsed in and out, in my head, from being in the room to carrying on conversations with people whom I thought, but were not, there. I remember being given two mixed drinks. I remember returning to the eating club from the formal and following everyone down a flight of stairs. That was the last thing I remembered until, stirred by a vague impression of pain, I knew I was whimpering and in an unanticipated room. It was dark and he was there – but my clothes were not. I could not leave. The lack of sleep was worse than the alcohol. Consent would not have been possible. Part of why I never considered it in terms of “rape” is that after a while, he eventually stopped. At some point, he eventually grasped that I was a virgin. He freaked out, adamant that he should not have sex with me — my first time should be saved for something special, he said. What does it say about the scenario and our culture that he only paused because he thought as he said, that “my first time should be saved for something special?” Is consent not necessary your second, third or 30th time? We should not consider as “special” a sexual experience during which someone does not disregard your agency or ability to consent. Consent and vocal solicitation of consent should be the norm every time. The idea that consent is implied, or not necessary, with someone who has been sexually active in the past is wrong. We should not start from a place of implicit assumption of consent or sexual choices, where stopping is only a reactionary response. It’s never OK to rape people, be it their first, second, third or 30th time. The part that tortures me is that I had been conditioned by society to believe that sex was a compliment. My freshman year I had no idea how “the hookup culture” worked. I was miserable and starved for friendships like others I had seen. I thought that what had happened could be how some friendships started. I was surprised anyone at the time would want to be close enough to me to have sex with me. Because of this, I warped my experience into a should-be positive thing. I have fought for the opportunity to publish this in The Daily Princetonian, and I am telling my story because I want to offer one image of sexual assault’s face on this campus. I started to remember all of this when a boyfriend asked me questions about “my first time.” He got more upset than me. He spat vehemently, ‘I hate him,’ But I do not hate my perpetrator. I do not think he was or is a bad person, and I am capable of forgiving him. Nor do I hate the eating clubs or varsity sports teams or the Greek system, institutions that are sites of sexual assault on college campuses across the nation. Eating clubs are not the problem. I hate the culture — the rape culture — that creates otherwise decent people who do completely indecent things. This culture exists here, at other Ivies, at other colleges and outside of college environments entirely. Beyond the eating clubs, rape culture already manifests itself elsewhere on campus. There is no stereotypical picture of where, or to whom, sexual assault occurs or does not occur. Within this culture, we view men’s aggressive behavior as an acceptable norm. When survivors and their allies try to challenge these aspects of culture we are brushed aside, entirely because they are so engrained. Given the high instance of sexual assault in America, in combination with some of the lowest reporting rates among all crimes, we should not question the legitimacy of those who may have been terrified to put to words what happened to them. Statistically, someone in your precept or hallway has had it happen to him or her. All of these survivors’ narratives need to be listened to and validated. Norms can change and I challenge us all — students on all college campuses — to change them. Editor’s note: The author of this column was granted anonymity due to the intensely personal nature of the events described.
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Cameron Langford columnist
I
n an April 14 article from The Atlantic, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman explored the well documented “confidence gap” between men and women. Women, they found, are consistently likely to underrate their abilities, to credit others with their own success and to take fewer risks. Though equally competent, women are consistently less confident in their abilities. And Princetonians are not immune: Female students feel less comfortable speaking out in precept, running for leadership positions or applying for fellowships, and they are more likely to feel like imposters who were mistakenly admitted (a phenomenon I wrote about last year). Both on- and off-campus, solutions have encouraged women to play with the boys by simply being more confident. Like Nike, their slogan is “just do it.” Sheryl Sandberg, for example, encourages women to “lean in” in the corporate setting, pushing aside their fear of failure and instead trusting in their abilities to take on leadership roles alongside their male colleagues. Similarly, in a column last fall, Marni Morse urged female students to speak up in class even when they weren’t sure about what they were saying. Never mind that confident women are more likely to be perceived as arrogant or even bitchy: The 1969 “BITCH Manifesto” declares, “Bitch is Beautiful,” and celebrates the Bitch for discarding female norms in favor of her less likeable male counterparts. The message of these credos is clear: Women should feel comfortable being confident, and men
shouldn’t shame them for doing so. But as much as I applaud Sandberg and the other “bitches” who have paved the way for strong, intelligent women to speak up and lean in, these solutions do little to actually address the confidence deficit underlying the problem of female leadership and participation. If we want to tackle the confidence gap, we have to start at the root: by fostering confidence in women. We can’t simply assume that confidence is a trait that women can conjure out of thin air or that all women have some hidden tide of confidence burbling under their timid, ladylike exteriors. The confidence gap is not, I believe, a problem of expression; women are not less confident just because they feel uncomfortable flying in the face of feminine social norms by being smart, sassy and loud. Rather, the confidence gap starts internally, at the individual level. Many women have a deeply ingrained belief that they’re just not as capable as they actually are. The article from The Atlantic points to an experiment involving math tests where women performed on par with their male peers but, before they knew the results, rated their scores lower. This lack of confidence may be as much biological as social: Kay and Shipman note that the anterior cingulate cortex (which they refer to as “the worrywart center” of the brain) is larger in female brains, offering one potential explanation for the observation that women are more likely to focus on flaws in their work. These brain differences need not be viewed as deterministic, but they do help explain why women are less willing to participate in precept, run for leadership positions or apply for fellowships. On the societal level, too, it explains the paucity of women in the upper echelons of business. Women simply figure that they just
aren’t good enough and often don’t even bother trying to succeed. For this reason, a solution to the confidence gap requires more than a call to “lean in.” It requires encouraging women that they are competent enough to do so in the first place. So how do we foster confidence in female students? The solution is likely to be much larger and multi-tiered than I can sketch in 800 words. But I know that in my own experience, a professor or preceptor’s assurance that my voice matters can make all the difference. I am compelled to speak up in precept, for example, when a preceptor references a point I’ve made in a reading response or paper. I feel capable in my ability to compete for internships, fellowships or jobs when professors make a point of letting me know they are happy to write me a recommendation. Where internal confidence is lacking, external confidence can foster it. Of course, precepts and seminars are discussion-based events by definition. And the business world needs people who are willing to be bossy and loud and, well, bitchy. I don’t mean to suggest that women need not speak up or lean in. But I do want to argue that rather than putting the onus on women to simply be confident, authority figures have a role to play in offering assurances of competence that might help foster confidence at the individual level. If we want women to truly gain confidence — rather than to only occasionally project it — that will take a more measured and deeper approach than to “just do it.” We will have to tell women that their voice matters enough to make speaking up worth doing at all. Cameron Langford is a politics major from Davidson, N.C. She can be reached at cplangfo@princeton.edu.
rainy season marisa chow ’17
vol. cxxxviii
Marcelo Rochabrun ’15 editor-in-chief
Nicholas Hu ’15
business manager
BOARD OF TRUSTEES president Richard W. Thaler, Jr. ’73 vice presidents John G. Horan ’74 Thomas E. Weber ’89 secretary Kathleen Kiely ’77 treasurer Michael E. Seger ’71 Craig Bloom ’88 Gregory L. Diskant ’70 Richard P. Dzina, Jr. ’85 William R. Elfers ’71 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 John G. Horan ’74 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Betsy J. Minkin ’77 Alexia Quadrani Jerry Raymond ’73 Annalyn Swan ’73 Douglas Widmann ’90
138TH BUSINESS BOARD business manager Nicholas Hu ’15 head of advertising Zoe Zhang ’16 director of national advertising Kevin Tang ’16 director of recruitment advertising Justine Mauro ’17 director of local advertising Mark Zhang ’17 director of online advertising Matteo Kruijssen ’16 head of operations Daniel Kim ’17
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NIGHT STAFF 4.30.14 news Sharon Deng ’17 staff copy editors Elizabeth Bradley ’17 Caroline Congdon ’17 Lily Lesser ’17 Marlyse Vieira ’17 contributing copy editors Jacob Donnelly ’17 Jennifer Shyue ’17 design Anne Lovett ’17 Zi Xiang Pan ‘16
The importance of languages Kelly Hatfield
contributing columnist
A
t dinner parties, family gatherings, and impromptu meetings with old teachers, there are always the standard questions. How do I like college? What am I involved with on campus? What am I studying? Then come the rote responses so ingrained in my mind that I don’t even have to ponder how I really am doing or how I spend my time. College is wonderful; I love it. I do this and that and whatever. I am a prospective Spanish and Portuguese languages major with planned certificates in creative Writing and Latin American studies. The adults in my life nod along for a bit, willing to approve of my extracurricular activities and general outlook on college life. And then they do a double take as they process my third response. “Spanish? Creative writing? Latin American studies?” Here, it is my turn to nod and to prepare myself for the inevitable follow-up question. “What are you going to do with that?”
“I want to be an author,” I reply. I have wanted to ever since third grade, when I learned of metaphors and similes and translated my love of books and language into a direction. Here, the conversation generally grinds to a halt, and I inquire after their more practical vocations. But, this time, I don’t want the discussion to end here. I am a prospective Spanish and Portuguese languages and cultures major with planned certificates in creative writing and Latin American studies. I want to be an author. And there’s nothing wrong with this, just as there is nothing wrong with declaring oneself to be an aspiring electrical engineer or a biology major bound for medical school. This is my defense of the language major, of the “impracticality” of devoting one’s time to an intrinsic part of what it means to be human and a major component of most cultures. As an aspiring author, I consider it my duty to strive to understand the manner in which others think and process this world in which we live. One can explore the human psyche through psychology, anthropology, sociology, biology and a variety of other subjects. I don’t deny this. I simply contend that languages offer a window through which one can
view the mores of societies around the world through subtle syntactical and vocabulary-based differences. One such difference has been well documented in various neuroscience and psychology papers: namely, the perception of time often changes according to one’s native language. Time itself is such an abstract, yet universal, entity, so it stands to reason that interpretations of the concept may vary. In the words of a paper entitled “How Languages Construct Time,” written by Stanford researcher Lera Boroditsky, “How people conceptualize time appears to depend on how the languages they speak tend to talk about time, the linguistic context (what language is being spoken), and also on the particular metaphors used to talk about time in the moment.” To be able to harness the flexibility of thought to try to understand various representations of something so crucial to human existence is a powerful thing. This example, one could argue, is very narrow in its scope. Yes, by learning Spanish, French and other languages, I can perceive time in a slightly different way — beyond this, however, the lens through which I view the world and understand others’ actions is bending and
widening. Maybe alone, the perception of time, knowledge of idiomatic phrases or the ability to understand foreign jokes don’t seem to have the ability to influence the work one does in his or her life. I contend, however, that in conjunction with each other and with many subtle shifts in perspective, they can. When you step outside yourself; when you begin to understand the nuances of another person’s point of view; when you immerse yourself in a new environment, you’re becoming the ideal mediator in a world in which misunderstanding reigns. Languages, of course, are not the only way to achieve this, but in my opinion they are one of the best, as they represent methods of thought and the stringing together of ideas. This is why I’m a language major, and this is why I take issue with the assertion that this is a “useless” path to choose. A more comprehensive understanding of the world can be applied to any occupational realm, and, in my case, it will hopefully allow me to write legitimately about the diverse people who inhabit our world. Kelly Hatfield is a freshman from Medford, Mass. She can be reached at kellych@princeton.edu.
Sports
Thursday may 1, 2014
page 6
{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }
WOMEN’S WATER POLO 2014: A season for the ages
RECORDS
NEW RECORD OLD RECORD
Program records established during the 2014 season
WINS 31 OLD RECORD: 29
NEW RECORD:
LOSSES
2 OLD RECORD: 6
NEW RECORD:
OLD RECORD: 387
GOALS
by Sophomore Ashleigh Johnson
NEW RECORD: 20
OLD RECORD: 19
INDIVIDUAL
SAVES
NEW RECORD: 391
GAME OLD RECORD: 366
NEW RECORD: 367
SEASON
AWARDS
Awarded to team before All-Americas announced
3 4 rd 3 2 NATIONAL RANKING rd
CWPA Southern Division First Team selections
straight
CWPA tournament First Team selections
straight
CWPA Southern Division MVP
senior Katie Rigler
CWPA Southern Division tournament championship
RANK
7 8 9 10 11
0*
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3
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5
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10
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14
WEEK
*preseason
EDDIE OWENS AND HANNAH MILLER :: ASSOCIATE SPORTS EDITOR AND SENIOR DESIGNER
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