Daily Princetonian: September 16, 2019

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Monday September 16, 2019 vol. cxliii no. 68

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STUDENT LIFE

ZACK SHEVIN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

3OH!3 performs in front of gathered students at Quad.

USG hosts Lawnparties on Prospect Avenue

By Benjamin Ball Head News Editor

On a beautiful Sept. 15 with barely a cloud in the sky, Undergraduate Student Government hosted fall Lawnparties on Prospect Avenue.

Festivities started around 10 a.m., as students and visitors received their wristbands at 1897 Arch and proceeded to cool off in the Fountain of Freedom. Student groups and friends gathered for photos in front of the Woodrow

U . A F FA I R S

Wilson School building. By 1 p.m., students had almost completely filled the area around the fountain.

Vendors such as Rita’s Italian Ice, Chabad Barbeque, and Jumbo Inflatable lined Prospect Avenue with free

food, drinks, and activites for students. Meanwhile, Public Safety Officers and members of the Princeton Police Department lined the street to make sure all students remained safe throughout the day.

At 2:30 p.m., a crowd began to gather at Quadrangle Club for the triple-headliner performance of CupcakKe, 3OH!3, and Rich Homie Quan, who had been announced as co-headliners the previous Sunday.

Also performing were Acid Dad and Kalbells at Terrace Club, DJ CTE at Cottage Club, Emily Vaughn at Tower Club, Concept at Cannon Dial Elm Club, Avante at Ivy Club, Sage the Gemini at Colonial Club, and Cedric Gervais at Tiger Inn. It took months of preparation to organize and plan the details of the event. Coordinating this effort was USG Social Chair Heavyn Jennings ’20, who was generally satisfied by the outcome of meticulous planning.

“We had people enjoying all the food,” Jennings wrote to The Daily Princetonian in a message. “I was happy to see people were eating the fruit cups cause [sic] many people asked for healthier options in the survey last spring.”

Jennings expressed happiness that students utilized the inflatable, admitting

that she “was very worried about it not being used” prior to Lawnparties.

Although Jennings noted that the main act’s turnout appeared high throughout the afternoon, she could not confirm any statistics.

“I don’t know official numbers right now,” Jennings wrote.

Students spoke positively about this year’s main act, citing prompt set changes and fun artist choices.

“This was the second time out of my five Lawnparties that I actually went to go see the headliners,” Julie Kim ’21 said. “Usually I leave early because it takes a long time for the headliner to come out, but I felt like the process was more organized this year so there was very little wait time between performances.”

“Lawnparties don’t excite me as much as they did before,” Cai Markham ’21 said. “Cupcakke was a pisser though, I enjoyed that.”

Students also approved of the food options, which included tater tots, pizza, pretzels, and ice cream.

“I loved the tater tots!”

Chase Lovgren ’21 said. “I wish the truck stayed around longer.”

Next semester’s Lawnparties will take place the weekend after spring semester classes end.

U . A F FA I R S

U. Vertical Farming Project’s main farm closes, but Forbes offshoot remains Senior Writer

After two years of operation, the Princeton Vertical Farming Project (PVFP), which introduced students to sustainable farming practices and provided fertile ground for research, has come to an end.

The PVFP was launched in April of 2017 by Paul Gauthier, who served as an associate research scholar in plant physiology and environmental plant metabolism in the Department of Geosciences beginning in 2012, in a windowless room in Moffett Laboratory. With support from the Office of Sustainability, Gauthier and student collaborators built and maintained the hydroponic vertical farm, where peppers, strawber-

ries, herbs, and other plants were grown only with water and nutrient solutions—no soil.

At the end of June, Gauthier left for Delaware Valley University in Doylestown, PA, where he will start an appointment as Professor of Plant Science. Additionally, Gauthier now works for Bowery Farming, a vertical farm company in New York City, as Senior Agricultural Scientist in the Research and Development Department. Although an offshoot in Forbes College will remain, the main farm has been shuttered, with equipment in Moffett Laboratory dismantled and placed in storage.

As the global population continues to rise, vertical farming has grown in popularity, as the practice requires less water, See FARMING page 3

On July 1, Morgan Harper GS ’10 launched her campaign to represent Ohio’s Third Congressional District in the United States Congress, challenging a fellow Democrat, incumbent Congresswoman Joyce Beatty.

In her campaign for Ohio’s primary elections in March, Harper will rely on grassroots techniques to communicate her progressive platform to the people of the Third District.

Her platform includes propos-

In Opinion

Forbes ranks U. No. 5 among “America’s Top Colleges,” No. 2 among “Best Value Colleges” Assistant News Editor

Morgan Harper GS ’10 brings progressive platform to Central Ohio Assistant News Editor

Forbes ranked the University fifth on its America’s Top Colleges 2019 list, behind Harvard University, Stanford University, Yale University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

By Zack Shevin

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

By Zack Shevin

JON ORT / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

als for a federal minimum wage increase, Medicare for All, tuition-free public college, federally funded affordable housing, reparations, and a Green New Deal. This morning, Harper’s campaign was endorsed by the Justice Democrats, a group that helped elect New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in 2018.

According to Harper, the central issue of her campaign is financial stability. In focusing on this cause, Harper hopes to make stories like her own less See HARPER page 2

Columnist Claire Wayner calls on students to engage in climate activism, while senior columnist Siyang Liu argues that the ban on freshmen at eating clubs during Frosh Week only encouraged the kind of risky behavior it ostensibly prevented. PAGE 4

Forbes’ “America’s Top Colleges 2019” rankings, released on Thursday, place the University fifth, the same ranking it received in 2018. However, Forbes moved the University up six spots on its “Best Value Colleges” list, from eighth to second.

The four colleges that outrank the University on the “America’s Top Colleges” list are Harvard University, Stanford University, Yale University, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in that order. The 2019 list includes the same top five colleges as the 2018 list, but the order slightly changed, with Stanford overtaking Yale for the numbertwo spot. The University was listed as having the lowest net price among those top five colleges.

“An Ivy League institution that’s consistently ranked as one of the best schools in the country, Princeton University

balances elite academics with an affordable education,” notes the Forbes website.

The “Top College” rankings were based on five general categories, each weighted as a portion of the total ranking: alumni salary as 20 percent, student satisfaction as 20 percent, debt as 20 percent, American leaders as 15 percent, on-time graduation rate as 12.5 percent, and academic success as 12.5 percent.

The alumni salary portion was measured as “a combination of early and mid-career salaries as reported by the federal College Scorecard and PayScale data and research.” Student satisfaction was measured by federally accounted first-year retention rates as well as by Niche surveys.

The debt and on-time graduation rate pieces rewarded schools for low student debt loads and default rates and for high four-year and six-year graduation rates, respectively. The academic success piece rewarded “schools

Today on Campus 4:30 p.m.: LAPA Seminar with Greta LaFleur: “Sexual Violence and the State: A Racial History of Legal Castration” 300 Wallace Hall

whose alumni win prestigious scholarship and fellowships like the Rhodes and the Fulbright or have earned Ph.Ds,” and the American leaders piece rewarded schools whose alumni are included in Forbes’ database of successful people.

The Ivy League took up eight of the top 15 spots on the Top Colleges list, with the University of Pennsylvania, Brown University, Dartmouth College, Cornell University, and Columbia University listed sixth, seventh, No. 10, No. 11, and No. 14, respectively. UPenn, Brown, and Columbia each moved up one spot from their 2018 ranking, Cornell moved up two spots, and Dartmouth moved down one spot.

The University was the only New Jersey school ranked in the top 100. Forbes ranked Rutgers University, the College of New Jersey, Stevens Institute of Technology, and Seton Hall UniverSee RANKING page 3

WEATHER

By Katie Tam

HIGH

82˚

LOW

58˚

Partly Cloudy chance of rain:

20 percent

The Daily Princetonian

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Monday September 16, 2019

Harper: We need a new generation of leadership that’s willing to be bold and fight for impactful policies HARPER Continued from page 1

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After spending the first nine months of her life in a foster home in Central Ohio and the bulk of her childhood facing what her campaign website refers to as “constant financial stress,” Harper said she “got lucky.” Her mother, a publicschool teacher, helped her qualify for financial aid to attend Columbus Academy, a private college preparatory school in Gahanna, Ohio. Using her high-quality high school education and gaining financial assistance from the Ron Brown Scholar Program, Harper went on to Tufts University, where she double-majored in Community Health and Spanish. She then attended the University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy, where she earned a Masters in Public Affairs, and Stanford University, where she received a law degree.

“That experience just showed me that with the right resources and the right instruction, the world sort of opens up for you,” Harper said. “And I thought it was fundamentally wrong, at a pretty early age, that the ability to access those resources might be dependent on what school district you’re born into, who your parents happen to be, or their ability to pay for those type of experiences.”

If elected, Harper said she “will push for bold policies to improve people’s financial situations,” including universal child care and early learning, a jobs guarantee, tuition-free public college, universal income, a federal minimum living wage, and Medicare for All. She said, “we need to make sure we’re equipping people with the tools they need to be okay.”

When asked why she believes the Third District needs a change in leadership, Harper pointed to Columbus’ poverty statistics, noting that over 20 percent of the city’s residents, including over 30 percent of the city’s black population, live in poverty, including many children. In Columbus, the poverty rate among children and adolescents is over 30 percent.

“We have wage growth that has been very slow compared to the price of housing and other expenses,” she added.

Housing is an issue vital to Harper’s campaign. She said Columbus’ recent speedy growth has driven rent prices upwards, making life difficult for working-class families. Harper has professional experience in housing policy, as she formally worked at the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a non-profit that invests in affordable housing through programs like the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC). She claimed these programs are very effective to an extent, but that some housing-related issues are difficult to address on a local level.

“Even the affordable housing that is being built takes a long time … Right now there’s a 54,000-unit gap for affordable housing in Central Ohio,” she said. Harper also pointed to a problem she noticed at LISC where “affordable” housing still costs up to $900 per month while many district residents only have between $400 and $500 available monthly to spend on housing.

“I don’t think that’s a gap we can entirely solve at the local level,” she said. “We have to consider ways that the federal government needs to invest in providing housing for people who might not be able to afford it.”

Her platform specifically calls for “national rent stabilization policies” and “increased affordable housing supply” to help resolve these issues.

Additionally, in part because of these housing issues, Harper said a 15-dollar minimum wage, the value denoted in the Raise the Wage Act and commonly cited among Democratic presidential hopefuls, may not be enough. In Central Ohio, she

claims, you need to be making at least 17 dollars per hour to afford a two-bedroom house.

“If you have a child, that’s probably the minimum amount of space that you would need to be able to live comfortably,” she said. “Of course, I am encouraging of the steps that are increasing the minimum wage. Particularly when we have a state minimum wage here of 8-something [$8.55] an hour, a federal minimum wage that’s getting to 15 is a step in the right direction, but it’s still not enough to cover the basic needs of people.”

Harper’s platform also calls for “systemic reparations,” which she feels are necessary to address “a history of systemic denial of wealth accumulation for black families.” She said that while a cash payout represents one of the most widely recognized ideas, she would also explore alternative solutions, such as baby bonds, seed capital, supporting residents of formerly redlined neighborhoods presently undergoing gentrification, and considering ways for these residents to benefit financially from the increasing value of their property.

“We are seeing that people are finding it increasingly difficult to get by,” she added. “We need to have representation and a new generation of leadership that’s willing to be bold and fight for these policies that we know will have an impact.”

Harper’s platform also proposes a “jobs guarantee,” where “if you’re looking for work, you’re able to access a living wage job.”

She believes this could be accomplished through government infrastructure projects addressing climate change, and supports a “Green New Deal,” a term coined by Ocasio-Cortez, seeing it as both a job-creating endeavor and a way to address a climate, which is “fundamentally changing and is having a detrimental impact on all of us.”

According to Harper, the impact of pollution is especially potent in Franklin County, a county that received an “F” in ozone pollution from the American Lung Association’s annual “State of the Air” report. The county’s largest city, Columbus, ranks as one of the top metropolitan areas in which children miss school due to asthma attacks.

Harper said that while many potential voters may be deterred by the highly partisan implications of the phrase “Green New Deal,” she has found that explaining the direct impact that climate change is having on people’s day-to-day lives and emphasizing the job-creation opportunities that would come with a large-scale federal effort to mitigate climate change makes people more open to the idea.

“There’s actually an opportunity in trying to fight to mitigate climate change to also create high-quality jobs that would be very well-paying, in the industries of the future that continue to keep people employed,” Harper said, “But as long as we live in this world of just the labels or what we’re calling things, I don’t think we get anywhere. I think really you have to break it down into the practicalities and then people are more receptive.”

Whether it be the Green New Deal, free college tuition, Medicare for All, or systematic reparations, many of Harper’s plans would require federal funding.

On how she’s going to pay for it all, a question Harper said she receives often, Harper said, “we could consider how we’re taxing people at different income levels,” in reference to President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax plan that lowered the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent and lowered the tax rate on the highest tax bracket by 2.6 percent.

“There are mechanisms for increasing revenue to support these [plans], but I also think, just fundamentally in some of these areas, we’re spending a lot of money already because we don’t address [these problems] in a more preemptive way,”

she said. “That would free up resources if we just provide for people’s needs up front.”

She also pointed to the Green New Deal as a specific example where action now could save money down the road, saying that the federal government already spends large sums of money on cleaning up after natural disasters, something that will only get worse if climate change goes unaddressed.

“We can do things preventively, preemptively that will save us money down the line,” she said.

“But we have to think big now and push for those things.”

Following in the footsteps of more than 170 federal candidates in 2018, Harper has pledged not to take any money from corporate political action committees (PACs). She has also pledged not to accept donations from registered lobbyists, saying that she doesn’t want to be beholden to anybody beyond the people of the Third District. Instead, she plans to rely on “small-dollar donors” and to run a heavily digital-based grassroots campaign.

“Money has a disproportionate level of influence in our politics right now,” Harper explained.

Harper has also pledged not to accept money from “individuals who are employed by a payday lender or firearm manufacturer,” two industries she said “have had disproportionately negative impacts on our daily lives ... through predatory lending and gun availability.”

The “payday lender” piece stems from Harper’s past work at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). There, she said, she dealt with complaints from people who thought they were taking out small, shortterm loans but wound up still paying them back years later because they “just didn’t realize what they were getting into” from the outset. Though she said the CFPB’s fraud protection hotline is able to help some people, she noted that the payday lending industry’s lobbyists, lawyers, and influence in D.C. have kept regulations of the industry lax.

“You really see first-hand how many resources are used to stop the regulation of that industry, one that takes advantage of working people and sends them into financial ruin and debt traps,” she said. “It’s really important to me that we have policy-makers in place that are going to be free to fight back against people who take advantage of working families.”

Harper received an endorsement from the Justice Democrats, a progressive political action committee that supports, among other candidates and congresspeople, representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, and Ocasio-Cortez, a group commonly referred to as “the Squad,” earlier today. The Justice Democrats have endorsed eight 2020 candidates thus far including Harper, who they wrote on Twitter “is part of a new wave of pro-

gressive Democrats pledging to reject corporate PAC donations and fight unapologetically for working people.”

“Morgan is building a grassroots campaign to fight for solutions as big as the problems we face,“ the Justice Democrats’ tweet concludes.

So far, Harper said fundraising has been going well; a representative from her campaign noted that they are “seeing a strong response through Morgan’s educational and professional networks.” Still, it may be hard to compete financially with Beatty, who has raised $372,700 from PACs this election cycle alone and has over $1.3M “on hand,” according to data from the Center for Responsive Politics.

Beatty’s top contributor this election cycle is AnheuserBusch, and her “top industries” are insurance, securities and investment, and commercial banks. Beatty has raised over $1 million in each of the past two election cycles.

“I look forward to running in 2020 and serving the people of Ohio’s Third Congressional District,” Beatty said in a statement forwarded to The Daily Princetonian. “Throughout my entire life, both personally and professionally, I have fought for better jobs, better wages, and a brighter future for the people — and I promise to continue to do so each and every day here in Central Ohio and in Congress.”

In spite of their differences, Harper and Beatty share positions on several key issues, and Beatty has supported various pieces of progressive legislation.

On July 18 2019, Beatty signed onto the Raise the Wage Act, a proposal to raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2025, and she recently became a member of the “Medicare for All” Caucus.

“Her impact on the city of Columbus is notable, and she represents what many African American families believe in,“ wrote Camille Reeves ’23 in an email to the Daily Princetonian.

Reeves is from Columbus and lives just outside of the Third District due to what she referred to as a “ridiculous amount of gerrymandering” (a Federal Court ruled Ohio’s congressional map unconstitutional in May).

However, she attended the same high school as Harper and has met Beatty on several occasions.

If Reeves were a Third District voter, she wrote, she would likely lean towards Harper, who she believes has faced unique challenges and has a good perspective on certain societal problems.

“It’s a very difficult choice because while I know Congresswoman Beatty has the interests of African American families like mine in mind, Morgan Harper understands what it’s like to be young in this nation,“ she added. “I’m looking forward to having younger faces in our government.”

Harper’s progressive agenda, as well as her age, led some to compare her to members of the “Squad” well before she was en-

dorsed by the Justice Democrats.

While Harper said she is supportive of anyone who is fighting for policies that will impact the lives of working people and thinks the Squad is a representation of that, she dismissed the idea that she was somehow “put up to” running by the political action committee.

“It seems like people are somewhat in disbelief about this, but I just kind of came up with this idea on my own and nobody put me up to it. I wasn’t recruited to do it,” she explained.

Some Justice Democrats, especially Ocasio-Cortez, reportedly thrived off of national media attention during the 2018 midterm elections, something Harper will likely receive more of after her endorsement. However, right now, Harper said she is less interested in claiming the national spotlight and more interested in getting her message across to the people of Ohio’s 3rd District, who she thinks are ready to embrace her platform.

“It’s a diverse place full of people who are open-minded and I think looking for something new and fresh, and we have the ideas that will appeal to them,” she said.

Recently, after a racist tweet from Trump telling the Squad’s members to “go back” to their supposed countries of origin (all four of the Squad’s members are U.S. citizens, and three of four were born in the United States), some Republicans in office have defended the President’s comments by further vilifying the Squad, labeling the Congresswomen as socialists, communists, and, in one case, “the four horsewomen of the apocalypse.”

Harper acknowledged that, because of her platform’s similarities to those of Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib, Omar, and Pressley, she could face similar labels down the line. She plans to address such comments in the same way she plans to address the proposals on her platform: by breaking down the buzzwords and focusing on articulating her policies to her would-be constituents.

“People can call me whatever they want,” she said. “I’m fighting for the policies I know are important for all of us to live healthy lives in a clean environment with jobs that make us able to get by. You can ascribe any label to that that you choose, I don’t really mind.”

Ohio has an open primary system, meaning that any citizen can choose between participating in the Republican and Democratic primaries, both of which will take place on March 10, 2020.

With just over seven months until she faces off against Beatty in the primary, Harper said she is open to discussing the issues and her platform with “absolutely everyone who wants to talk about them.”

“We’re going to be building the structure to launch a really strong field and ground game to get out there in the communities, talk to people directly, and share what we’re going to fight for and what we think is needed in Washington,” Harper said.

COURTESY OF MORGAN HARPER

Harper and State Department employee Sandya Das GS ’10 attend a lecture in Robertson Hall during their time at the Woodrow Wilson School.

The Daily Princetonian

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Xu: I want to get more of the Forbes community involved FARMING Continued from page 1

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space, and energy than traditional farms. Vertical farms can yield several harvests of fresh produce a year, which could help to feed growing urban centers.

According to Gauthier, although many start-ups have tried vertical farming, few have succeeded. Many have been forced to close after a few years due to lack of revenue and funding. In addition, he said, little research has been conducted on best practices, such as how water, nutrients, and the environment influence plant growth.

One of the primary motivations of the PVFP was to identify the problems and challenges associated with the technique and learn how to solve them — much like in traditional agriculture.

“People tend to forget that there is a ‘farming’ in ‘vertical farming,’” Gauthier said. “You are a farmer first.”

To that end, the farm experimented with different techniques, seeking to determine how to feed a family of four by quantifying nutrient usage, testing new technologies, and planting a variety of crops.

Another goal of the project was to create an on-campus “food hub,” where students could gain experience with farming and learn about food sustainability.

Gauthier said that he wanted students to understand the commitment and responsibility that vertical farming entails.

“We want to train the next generation of vertical farmers,” he said.

Several students have taken on the burdens of both research and responsibility by conducting senior thesis projects with the PVFP. In the PVFP’s first year, projects ranged from a Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB) thesis comparing environmental impacts of vertical and conventional farming to a Wilson School thesis on the economic costs of running a vertical farm.

In her EEB thesis, Kor Akiti ’19 compared the palatability and nutritional quality of crops grown in the Vertical Farm to organic, soil-grown crops from a local grocer.

Akiti performed several “taste

tests” in the Forbes dining hall and Frist Campus Center, asking passersby to taste and rank the produce – kale, peppers, and strawberries – on appearance, taste, and texture. She then asked tasters: which would you buy at the supermarket?

Using a technique called mass spectrometry, she was able to conclude that nutrient profiles of vertical farm and soil-grown crops were similar, but the hydroponic crops lacked visual appeal.

“One of the main takeaways was that the appearance of the hydroponic crops was significantly less satisfying than the appearance of the soil-grown crops across the board,” she said. “If vertical farming is going to be competitive, whether it’s in the context of Princeton, on campus, or in the larger urban market, farmers are going to have to find a way to make their produce more appealing, because appearance is such a critical point of purchase.”

Overall, her findings suggested the complexity of consumer choice and preference, hinting at challenges to come in not only growing crops in vertical farms but also in marketing them.

The impact of the PVFP has been considerable, not only in advancing research but also in contributing to outreach and education.

In September 2018, Gauthier partnered with Hopewell Elementary School in Hopewell, N.J., to develop a farm-to-cafeteria program. The initiative provides students with the opportunity to grow their own fresh produce, almost all of which is then used in school lunches.

Gauthier also co-founded his own indoor farming company, Ker Farms (pronounced “care”), in Hamilton, N.J., which grows and sells a variety of fruits and vegetables. According to Gauthier, the company is also training local educators in the hope of bringing vertical farming to more schools in the area.

“There is no question about it,” Gauthier said. “Vertical farming will be part of our lives.” Thus, Gauthier continued, it is essential that young people know how to grow, interact, and experiment with plants from a young age, so they can be prepared for the future.

Forbes: U. balances elite academics with affordable education RANKING Continued from page 1

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sity No. 123, No. 149, No. 152, and No. 249, respectively. Eight other New Jersey schools were included on the list, which contained 650 total colleges.

Forbes’ “America’s Best Value Colleges 2019” list, released in April, ranked the University as the second-best value college, behind only Brigham Young University.

The “Best Value Colleges 2019” ranking was based 20 percent on the 2018 “Top College” rankings, 20 percent on student debt data, 20 percent on alumni earnings data, 20 percent on net price (tuition, fees, and room and board minus grants, scholarships, and

education tax benefits), 10 percent on graduation rate, and 10 percent on Pell Grant student presence.

Every Ivy League school was included on the “Best Value Colleges” list. Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth ranked in the top 20 at seventh, No. 15, and No. 18, respectively. Brown, Cornell, and Columbia ranked in the top 50 at No. 33, No. 43, and No. 48, respectively; and the University of Pennsylvania was ranked No. 83 on the list of 299 schools.

Seven other New Jersey schools were also included in the list of 300 “Best Value Colleges.”

Rutgers was the only New Jersey school besides the University to crack the top 100, being listed as No. 54 among best value colleges.

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Similar concerns motivated the establishment of an offshoot of the PVFP in the lobby of Forbes College in the fall of 2018. This mini-vertical farm was intended as a different kind of experiment – to see how farming could integrate into the daily life of a busy Princeton student, as Gauthier put it.

The conclusion, he said, was that taking care of plants was harder than it seemed.

Kaylin Xu ’22 played a leading role in maintenance of the Forbes College farm, changing the water, checking nutrient levels, and making adjustments to optimize conditions for growth.

It was a labor-intensive job, Xu admitted, and although other students cycled in and out to help, she was one of the only people to consistently care for the plants. Xu hopes that the maintenance of the Forbes “farm” will become more communal.

“I want to get more of the Forbes community involved in having a hand in creating this green space, because I feel like that is really unique,” Xu said.

“Unfortunately, students are

busy,” Xu continued, making it difficult to find dedicated members to join the team.

Gauthier also emphasized how important it was for future farmers to be dependable.

“Plants are like babies,” Gauthier said. Just as a parent cannot ignore the cries of a hungry child, so a plant cannot go without water.

This past year, products from the Forbes offshoot and the main farm were featured in several “Meet What You Eat” dinners in the dining halls, where students could sample fresh produce incorporated into pastas, flatbreads, and more. In the fall, the Forbes farm will continue to grow crops for use in the Forbes kitchen and the Pink House food-share.

“I hope [the vertical farm in] Forbes will continue the spirit of sustainability,” Xu said, as the torch is passed from the original farm.

In his new position at Delaware Valley, Gauthier hopes to continue the work he started at Princeton, reproducing the vertical farm model on a larger scale

and developing local projects and collaborations.

Although the Hopewell ES program and the Forbes offshoot will continue, the PVFP in its official capacity has ended – much like the start-ups and companies Gauthier was interested in when he began.

“I would have loved to continue,” Gauthier said of the project.

“It’s important to start thinking and finding solutions for the future.” The University was a unique place for such an undertaking, he said, as it allowed for cross-pollination from a variety of fields of study.

“All different departments – computer science, MAE [Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering], EEB, business, architecture – students from all these departments were working on the vertical farm,” Gauthier said.

“We can tackle the problem from very different disciplines.”

Gauthier did not rule out the possibility of reviving the PVFP. “If there is demand, maybe the project will come back,” he said.

COURTESY OF KOR AKITI

Kor Akiti ’19 poses beside plants at the vertical farm in Moffet Laboratory.

Opinion

Monday September 16, 2019

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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

Claire Wayner

It’s time for climate activism to burst the Orange Bubble

Columnist

Welcome back to campus.

This summer brought a lot of front-page headlines from the climate files—from Hurricane Dorian wiping out the Bahamas and ravaging the East Coast to swaths of the Amazon rainforest and Arctic tundra burning at record rates. Europe and Japan suffered through immense heat waves that left thousands dead; wildfires swept through Australia. These ever-graver catastrophes have blown away many of our predictions for what “normal” weather looks like.

For our generation, this is, and will be, the new normal.

Yet, many of us are not letting these alarming changes fade into the background, disappearing quietly as news often does. This Friday, millions of people our age and much younger will set out on a week-long session of climate protests and rallies, a Global Climate Strike for the ages, sparked by the activism of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg and her Fridays for Future movement. Here in Princeton, there will be a climate strike

outside the Princeton Public Library on Friday at 12:30 p.m.

High schoolers and local residents, as well as college students, will speak out about the devastation we’ve seen around the world this summer and call for stronger climate action on a global scale.

Ensconced in the safety of the Orange Bubble, where the only climate events we complain about are unexpected rain showers and nights spent in dorms without air conditioning, it may be difficult to see the importance of participating in events like these or to comprehend the much greater hardships that the climate crisis will impose on global populations. Even here among our peers, however, are countless stories of students’ hometowns and home nations being impacted by climate change.

One friend of mine from Brazil has witnessed how political instability contributed to the uncontrollable burning of the Amazon. Students from Puerto Rico and other Caribbean islands have seen firsthand the devastation of Hurricanes Maria and Dorian.

The faces of climate change are not just halfway across the

world, tucked into obscure places — they are on campus among us, visible yet invisible. We pass by them every day.

Despite our close proximity to affected students, climate change can still be confusing when many of us have still not felt its tangible impacts.

I often ask myself: How can I possibly make a difference from my position of privilege?

While dozens of climate research opportunities exist on campus, with conferences and courses filling the schedule, these academic offerings do not seem to fill my equallypressing emotional need for climate justice. No matter how much I learn about the climate crisis and its potential solutions, I still feel a yearning to discuss and publicize the devastating human impacts this environmental catastrophe will unleash upon us.

It is in this space of confusion and social angst, wondering whether we as a species can ever come to grips with the permanent damage that fossil fuels will inflict on our planet, where I have found climate activism, such as the upcoming Global Climate Strike on Friday, to be most

compelling and useful. Out of my grief for our burning planet and my frustration over the lack of action being taken by the U.S. government (and other governments around the world), I find it comforting to commiserate and protest with fellow activists, both my peers and people of older generations who share my sense of urgency for climate action.

Not everyone on this planet who wishes to will be able to go on strike this Friday. But for those of us in the security and political liberty of the Orange Bubble with an interest in climate justice and the future of life on Earth, there is no excuse for not demonstrating when we can. We can lift up the voices of those who cannot speak out because of political or social oppression. The strike takes only an hour out of our busy schedules, an hour that we can spend calling for climate solutions and spreading the word on social media.

The more of us who attend, the more of our climate stories that are told, publicized, and shared with the world.

Claire Wayner is a sophomore from Baltimore, Md. She can be reached at cwayner@princeton.edu.

vol. cxliii

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Monday September 16, 2019

Opinion

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It’s just ‘Week’ Siyang Liu

Senior Columnist

It’s the beginning of another year: doe-eyed frosh and self-assured seniors alike flood campus, bringing it to life. New friends are made, old friends are greeted, and everyone indulges in the buzzing excitement of being back again. In years past, at this point, many people would be heading to the eating clubs for a weekend of festivities and partying known as “Frosh Week.” Though technically the Interclub Council (ICC) policy has always stipulated that first-years are not allowed into the clubs during orientation period, this has never been actually enforced until this year.

Starting with the Class of 2023, the ICC and Office of Campus Life came together to officially ban frosh from attending Frosh Week activities, in the hope that it would lead to safer choices and fewer students sent to McCosh Health Center or Princeton Medical Center (PMC). Although the intentions are commendable, and in theory it seems like banning frosh would solve the problem by helping them make responsible decisions, in reality this is not the case.

This is because banning frosh from Frosh Week does not actually teach incoming stu-

dents how to make the correct choices for themselves.

Rather, the policy is patronizing and ineffective, as many students have heard of frosh sneaking their way into clubs anyway. As this past Frosh Week has shown, many firstyear students continue to enter the clubs — only this time, it’s no longer openly and honestly, but deceitfully, as most of them make it in by borrowing older students’ proxes or relying on connections.

Inadvertently, this ban has encouraged people to sidestep the rules and find alternative ways to get into the clubs.

Furthermore, by disallowing frosh into clubs, yet not being able to keep all of them out, the ban ultimately fosters an unhealthy air of mystery and builds a toxic notion of exclusivity, which is a severely detrimental long-term issue.

Typically, the frosh that find ways to sneak in are those who know upperclassmen, who are on a team, or who know the “right people.” This leaves those without “connections” feeling isolated and somehow less capable than those who go to clubs. First impressions are important, and these early feelings of exclusivity and status can easily carry on throughout their Princeton careers, adding to the already elitist atmosphere which exists on campus.

Even not entering clubs does not guarantee that first-years will not drink. Many will still drink privately, which can be even more dangerous than

partying at an eating club because there are few to no people around to watch them.

The ban is not a true solution to helping first-years make responsible decisions around alcohol. It only lasts for Frosh Week, and the University cannot keep frosh out of the clubs forever — it is much more important that first-year students are able to make good decisions for themselves, without constant oversight.

Of course, the University currently implements an online course called AlcoholEdu which is meant to educate frosh. This course is a good start, but it is not Princeton-specific

enough to be sufficient. Firstyears will still be curious for real answers of “what it’s like.”

Oftentimes, small-group orientation experience leaders (OA, CA, etc) will choose to have constructive and candid discussions with their frosh.

This is far preferable to a ban — it is more personal and will allow frosh to learn how to navigate the eating clubs in a responsible way from students who have done it before. In addition to these conversations, the University can continue to put more effort into “outcompeting” the eating clubs: by providing truly fun events as an alternative to Frosh Week, such as this year’s Welcome

Carnival and Food Truck Social, so that first-years don’t feel left out.

The ban on first-year participation during Frosh Week produced the negative side effects of encouraging dishonest behavior and supporting an air of elitism. Instead, the University should take a different approach by focusing on alcohol discussions within small-group orientation experiences, while at the same time spending more energy on enjoyable alternatives to the street.

Siyang Liu is a junior from Princeton, N.J. She can be reached at siyangl@princeton.edu.

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Sports

Monday September 16, 2019

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Weekend Review

Players of the Week

Women’s Volleyball vs. George Mason, Arkansas, Maryland: W 3–0, W 3–0, L 3–2 Princeton women’s volleyball traveled to College Park, Maryland this weekend for its second non-conference tournament of the season. Unlike the tournament at Rutgers to open the season, in which Princeton dropped all three games, the Tigers started the Maryland Invitational off with back-to-back straight set wins over George Mason and Arkansas. On the first day of the tournament, sophomore outside hitter Elena Montgomery and senior outside hitter Devon Peterkin had 11 and 10 kills, respectively, to lead Princeton in straight sets to its first win of the season over George Mason. On day two, Princeton earned another 3–0 win over Arkansas before falling in five sets to host Maryland. The team will be back in action at Dillon Gym Wednesday night for its home opener against No. 10 Oregon.

Men’s Soccer @ Loyola: L 2–0 Princeton men’s soccer fell to 1–2 on the season after losing 2–0 against Patriot League foe Loyola. The game remained scoreless for the first 62 minutes, until a Princeton defensive lapse allowed Loyola’s Barry Sharifi to find the back of the net. Loyola followed that up with another goal in the 77th minute as Nico Brown scored following a free kick. Princeton generated a handful of offensive opportunities with 11 shots and four shots on goal but were unable to get on the board against Loyola’s goalkeeper. Despite allowing two goals, senior goalkeeper Jacob Schachner made a series of impressive saves in the second half, including two within seconds of each other. Princeton will stay on the road this week against Monmouth on Wednesday and Fairleigh Dickinson on Saturday.

Hannah Davey, Field Hockey (2022) Davey powered Princeton past No. 20 Albany on Friday with a hat trick, scoring three of Princeton’s four goals.

Women’s Soccer @ Maryland: L 3–0 Princeton women’s soccer continued its non-conference schedule this weekend with a match at Maryland. The Terrapins took control of the game early with goals in the fifth minute and 17th minute, both scored by Alyssa Poarch. Princeton was unable to climb back from the early deficit, and Maryland added an insurance goal in the 81st minute to secure a 3–0 win. The Tigers struggled to generate offense, putting just one shot on net throughout the game. Princeton will have a chance to bounce back this Thursday with Villanova coming to visit Roberts Stadium.

Field Hockey vs. No. 20 Albany, No. 17 Penn State: W 4–3, W 2–1 No. 5 Princeton field hockey extended its winning streak to three this weekend with home wins over ranked opponents Albany and Penn State. Against Albany on Friday sophomore midfielder Hannah Davey recorded a hat trick, and Princeton held off a late rally to secure a one-goal win.

The team returned to action Sunday at noon against Penn State. The Nittany Lions opened the scoring in the second quarter, and took a 1–0 lead into the half. In the second half, Princeton’s defense remained firm while junior striker Clara Roth scored two goals, with the go-ahead goal coming on a putback with just 3:23 left in the game. Princeton will face another pair of ranked opponents next weekend as No. 21 Rutgers visits Friday before a much-anticipated face-off against No. 3 Connecticut next Sunday.

Elena Montgomery, Women’s Volleyball (2022)

Men’s Water Polo @ Princeton Invitational: L 11–10, W 16–8, L 11–8, L 13–12 No. 12 Princeton men’s water polo kept busy this weekend, hosting a tournament at DeNunzio Pool and playing four games of its own. The team’s most thrilling game was its tournament opener on Friday, although it ultimately fell 11–10 in overtime to No. 9 UC San Diego.

Sophomore attack Keller Maloney scored on a penalty shot with one second remaining in regulation to tie the game, and Princeton’s would-be game-tying shot with seconds left in overtime missed by inches. The Tigers proceeded to beat Johns Hopkins 16–8 on Saturday before dropping its final two games to No. 14 Bucknell and No. 15 George Washington.

Montgomery led Princeton in kills over the weekend, recording 47 kills to lead her team to two wins in three games.

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Kelley Maloney scored a game-tying goal with one second remaining against UC San Diego

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