The Daily Princetonian: September 29, 2023

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Friday September 29, 2023 vol. CXLVII no. 18

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STUDENT LIFE

Falling oak tree smashes student windows in Edwards Hall, causing evacuations

By Tess Weinreich & Meghana Veldhuis Associate News Editor & News Contrubutor

Around 4:45 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 23, a large red oak tree was

uprooted by a gust of wind and fell across Elm Drive, shattering windows in two bathrooms and two dorm rooms in Edwards Hall.

The windy conditions — remnants of tropical storm Ophelia See TREE page 3

COURTESY OF COREY SEGAL

The fallen tree in front of Edwards Hall.

The PROSPECT

ACADEMICS

Popular courses work to accommodate high demand

By Isabel Yip & Thomas Catalano Head News Editor & Contributing News Writer

Following trends of overenrollment in introductory and popular courses, several courses are adjusting their locations as well as beginning to offer multiple sections for smaller classes.

Accommodations allow courses to preserve seminar-style learning in small classes, but in some cases, they cause professors to alter their traditional ways of teaching methods.

Enrollment trends followed those of last semester, where many introductory courses and popular classes in creative writing were met with high demand for a limited number of seats.

CHM201: General Chemistry I is an introductory course which was formerly taught in a lecture hall in Frick Chemistry Laboratory. The hall includes a lab behind the blackboard wall, where demonstrators can easily store and acquire materials for live demonstrations of course concepts.

Now, the course has been moved to McCosh 50, where live demonstrations can no longer be held.

Michael Hecht, a professor of CHM201, told The Daily Princetonian, “Now, I do no dem-

onstrations. I show videos on the screen.”

Hecht noted that this lecture hall location change is not conducive to his instruction: “This issue is that when I teach chemistry — particularly an intro chemistry course —, the quality of teaching is not just telling people but showing people.”

In response to the change in CHM201 lecture halls, University spokesperson Ahmad Rizvi wrote to the ‘Prince:’ “McCosh 50 was the best option at the time classrooms had to be assigned, and the assignment was made in consultation with the department.”

Meanwhile, courses in creative writing have held onto their small class sizes by offering multiple sections of the same courses. Data collected by The Daily Princetonian shows that the creative writing program consistently has the most seats filled across the department, filling 95.3 percent of its seats this semester.

Professor Yiyun Li, Director of the Program in Creative Writing, noted that the small class sizes are integral to the experience of creative writing courses.

“It’s an intimate subject,” she said. “There are not many lec-

tures. It’s more about students reading each other’s work, workshopping.”

In LCA101: Introduction to Art Making, students engage in twoweek units across five different fields with different professors; an experience that Professors Stacy Wolf and Tess James say is only possible as a hands-on experience with a smaller group of students.

“That’s what’s important about it: That the students are making art — not sitting passively and learning about art, but they’re actually doing it,” Wolf said. “It’s hard to go above 35 [students] in the class and have an excellent experience, which we insist on.”

Professor AnneMarie Perl, who teaches ART100: An Introduction to the History of Art: Meanings in the Visual Arts, similarly described how the nature of her course in Art History poses constraints on class size. Given the ongoing construction of the Princeton University Art Museum (PUAM), in order to examine objects firsthand, classes must go to special collections or the off-site location of PUAM. “Those rooms have caps, and we had to schedule those precepts far in advance,” said Perl.

See COURSES page 2

Please send any corrections requests to corrections@dailyprincetonian.com.

NEWS

Amid rising inflation, Nassau businesses reopen after prolonged construction closure

by Staff News Writer Abby Leibowitz PAGE 3

No Snooze: students flock to SZA-headlined campus forum

By Kerrie Liang, Matthew Suh, & Justus Wilhoit | Head Prospect Editor & Contributing Prospect Writers

Grammy Award-winning artist Solána Imani Rowe, better known as SZA, commanded the stage at Richardson Auditorium this past Tuesday as she discussed growing up in suburban New Jersey, being a Black woman in the music industry, and seeing her work as a form of activism.

The event — titled “SOS: Race, Art, and Activism” — was sponsored by the Effron Center for the Study of America and took place one day before SZA relaunched her sold-out North American tour, “SOS.” The event consisted of a keynote presentation by SZA and a roundtable discussion with scholars and activists from Yale, Columbia, the University of Washington, and Princeton.

As she came on to the stage, SZA was welcomed with a loud roar and a standing ovation. Students erupted with cheer as she kicked off her heels, took off her coat, and made herself comfortable before approaching the lectern.

SZA began her presentation by reflecting on her childhood in Maplewood, N.J., just an hour away from Princeton. Her parents are Pan-Afri-

INSIDE THE PAPER

OPINION

PROSPECT

CARTOON

canists, and her mother performed traditional African dance. She said she never felt ostracized because of her racial identity. “I didn’t know that all these things were going to be different until I left my town,” she said.

SZA began her rise to fame as a songwriter for multiple artists, including Beyoncé and Rihanna, before releasing her own music. In 2017, she released her debut album “Ctrl” just weeks after signing her first major recording contract. The album garnered SZA five Grammy nominations, and Time called it the best album of the year.

After much anticipation, SZA released her sophomore album “SOS” last December — the event’s namesake. Six years after “Ctrl,” SZA has a changed perspective of the music industry and how her identity as a Black woman fits into a space that is not welcoming to women like her.

SZA discussed how she felt boxed in to the expectations of iconic Black female artists.

“Everybody keeps telling me that I need to make music that sounds like See SZA page 16

SPORTS

Princeton must create an equitable experience for hijabis using communal bathrooms

by Senior Columnist Ndeye Thioubou

My silence as a disgraced bilingual

by Assistant Prospect Editor Russell Fan

PEV Restrictions

by Contributing Cartoonist Austria Merritt

No. 14 women’s soccer team continues win streak against Cornell, 4-2

by Sports Contributor Peter Wang

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The Daily Princetonian

Friday September 29, 2023

CWR department consistently has the most seats filled COURSES

Continued from page 1

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TigerSnatch is a student-created app alert system that allows students to receive email and text notifications when a spot opens in a full course.

Courses with the most subscriptions on this app included LCA101: Introduction to Art Making, REL100: Religion and the Public Conversation,

VIS213: Digital Photography, and a number of creative writing courses.

“I acknowledge [students’] frustration that there were so many people on the waiting list,” said Professor Jenny Wiley Legath, who teaches REL100. “I had 79 students who took the time to fill out the waiting list last spring. So that doesn’t even count the incoming freshmen.”

Another popular course,

according to TigerSnatch subscription data, is PSY254: Developmental Psychology.

Professor Casey Lew-Williams estimated that about 80 to 90 students were added to the course waitlist and that, on occasion, students will receive a permission enrollment number when new spots become available.

Computer Science (COS), School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), and Eco-

nomics (ECO) are consistently the most declared concentrations every spring. Though SPI298, a gateway course into the major, saw an increase in demand, enrollment in other SPIA and COS courses were down this semester, while economics saw an increase in seats filled. The enrollment levels of all three departments were similar to the 75 percent overall course enrollment rate across the University, includ-

ing writing seminars.

Isa Yip is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Thomas Catalano is a contributing News writer for the ‘Prince.’

Senior News Writer Charlie Roth contributed reporting for this article.

ON CAMPUS

University policies stir confusion among students as COVID-19 spreads on campus

By Hannah Gabelnick Contributing News Writer

Since the start of the semester, rumors have swirled among students that COVID-19 cases are on the rise.

However, an email from Derek Ziegler, the assistant director for emergency preparedness, noted that “case numbers have actually declined in each of the last three weeks from a peak in late August” — when the Class of 2027 first arrived on campus.

University policies have continued to cause confusion and frustration among students. As of June 7, 2023, the University lifted the COVID-19 vaccine mandate, closed the campus laboratory certified to

conduct campus-wide PCR testing, and stopped tracking COVID-19 cases on its public dashboard. Sick students are still encouraged to test for COVID-19, using free rapid tests provided by McCosh Health Center and residential colleges, and to report positive test results.

Ziegler mentioned that the University is tracking these case numbers internally on an unofficial basis to monitor trends. “The data are not completely accurate, since they mostly rely on self-reported rapid antigen tests,” he wrote to the Daily Princetonian, with emphasis on the decline in cases since August.

Roxana Martínez ’27 tested positive during first-year Ori-

entation. “I had to miss my [Outdoor Action (OA)] trip, which is one of the major bonding experiences of Orientation, and I was worried about how I was going to make new friends,” she wrote in a message to the ‘Prince.’

Per CDC guidelines, individuals who test positive are still required to isolate for at least five days and wear a KN95 mask when around others for days six through 10. Martínez was isolated in her room in Mathey College in over 90 degree heat. “I remember emailing asking for a room switch just for the week, but that was not an option,” she wrote.

She also struggled to obtain meals, which were located in Frist Campus Center and

could not be delivered to students’ dorms. “A big problem was that I was extremely lightheaded whenever I walked for long periods of time. I had to rely on my [RCA] and [Peer Academic Advisor] to get [my meals] for me,” she wrote. As her symptoms worsened, she contacted University Health Services (UHS), who she claimed told her to “take Tylenol and isolate.” After throwing up four times in under half an hour, she mentioned she was told “not to come in, just wait it out.”

Irini Daskalaki M.D., the director of global and community health at UHS, wrote in an email to the ‘Prince’ that UHS has continued to treat students with COVID-19 symptoms, though the majority of students with COVID-19 have not required an in-person medical evaluation.

“Interestingly, we have seen more severe illness in students from non-COVID-19 viral illnesses,” Daskalaki wrote.

Some students have expressed confusion surrounding the accuracy of rapid tests. Many of the rapid tests found in residential colleges were past their labeled expiration date. However, Daskalaki explained that all COVID-19 tests provided by the University have had their expiration date extended by the Federal Drug Administration.

While the Biden administration just announced that they are restarting the free at-home COVID test program, others have raised concerns that rapid tests are not as accurate as PCR tests at picking up the new variants. A new CNN report explains that while the performance of rapid tests has not been adversely affected by new variants, many people may be receiving false negative results, because they are testing too early. According to the CDC, individuals who have been exposed to COVID-19 should take a rapid test five days after exposure.

UHS is still supplying PCR tests to students who visit with symptoms consistent with COVID-19.

Some students have also expressed concerns that COVID-19 will spread among roommates and suitemates given the University’s isolation policy, which suggests that the well roommate(s) either stay in the room with the roommate who tested positive or find an alternate sleeping space. According to Ziegler, the University has a limited

number of isolation spaces for students who cannot isolate in place and is not planning to add more isolation housing at this time.

RCA Nathan Beck ’25 wrote in a message to the ‘Prince,’ “the policy of asking non-COVID roommates to either relocate or risk exposure seems problematic. It also could inadvertently impose a sense of guilt on the infected individual, as their presence might force their roommate to seek alternative accommodation.”

Beck is a contributing data writer and a copy editor for the ‘Prince.’

According to one student, while some professors have continued to provide Zoom options for students who test positive, the pressure for students to stay on top of their schoolwork, even when they have COVID-19, is immense.

The student was granted anonymity due to medical privacy concerns.

The student tested positive during the first week of classes and was worried about falling behind, so they went to classes in-person with a mask, despite the University requirement to isolate themselves during the first five days. They also expressed confusion about the dining options: “I ate alone in the [dining halls], sitting away from people. I was hesitant because I didn’t really know what the policies were like. Will there only be a specific time when I can get food? And do I need someone to help pick my food up?”

Additionally, some professors who have tested positive have offered Zoom classes as they isolate. After testing positive for COVID-19, Michael Hecht, a professor of Chemistry taught his classes via Zoom. He wrote in an email to the ‘Prince’ that it “was fairly straightforward. After all, the past few years gave us lots of experience using Zoom.”

While COVID-19 restrictions have loosened, the virus is here to stay. According to Ziegler, “the University has no plans to reinstate any previous protocols, but continues to encourage members of the campus community to stay up-to-date on COVID vaccines, test when sick, and follow the protocols for positive test results or known exposure.”

Hannah Gabelnick is a contributing News writer for the ‘Prince.’

The Daily Princetonian

Friday September 29, 2023

page 3

Cai: “They just told us Amid rising inflation, to find friends and sleep Nassau businesses reopen after in their dorm for the prolonged construction closure rest of the morning” LOCAL

By Abby Leibowitz Staff News Writer

TREE

Continued from page 1

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— continue to cause bad weather statewide in N.J. Oak trees, which weigh on average between one and two tons, are particularly susceptible to falls because of shallow roots relative to their height.

According to University spokesperson Ahmad Rizvi, aside from the broken windows, there was no structural damage to the building.

At the time of the uprooting, the University was not under any National Weather Service warnings.

“Out of an abundance of caution, Edwards Hall was evacuated to allow for a more thorough assessment and to remove the tree,” wrote Rizvi in a statement to The Daily Princetonian.

A fire alarm was set off in the building around 6:00 a.m., over an hour after the collision, to awaken residents remaining inside. Students gathered outside before taking temporary shelter in nearby Dillon Gym. Chloe Zhu ’27, an Edwards resident whose room faces away from the fallen tree, recalled waking at that time. Her RCA, however, had been sending updates since 4:48 a.m.

“We walked back to Dillon through the rain and stayed there to try and figure out where we would go,” Zhu wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “At the time, it wasn’t clear how long it would take.”

Zhu reported that there were blankets being distributed, but she noted that there were “not nearly enough for everyone.”

Angelai Cai ’27, another Edwards resident, also noted confusion and lack of preparedness at Dillon. “They just told us to find friends and sleep in their dorm for the rest of the morning,” wrote Cai. “My friends and I texted a bunch of people, but it

was 6:00 a.m. on a Saturday, so obviously that wouldn’t work because they were all asleep.”

“All the supplies Princeton gave us were three blankets,” she added.

Dillon Gym has been used before as a temporary shelter in the past to house people during weather-related emergencies.

“The University has long standing plans to utilize various large spaces as temporary reception centers or shelters in the event of a student displacement,” wrote Rizvi. “These plans include provision for supplies, and the University emergency response team is always evaluating plans to make sure that they are responsive to current needs.”

At around 6:45 a.m., students taking shelter in Dillon Gym were taken to Whitman Dining Hall, where they were able to swipe in for breakfast.

“Some people were upset that breakfast in Whitman, which was the only option open after the evacuation, required a swipe,” noted Sydney Eck ’24, a Peer Academic Advisor for a Zee group in Edwards Hall.

“That was okay for my zees [first-year advisees] on the unlimited plan, but upperclassmen would have needed one of their precious meal swipes to get food after being evacuated.”

Eck is a former head Features editor for the ‘Prince.’

Students were told they would not be allowed to re-enter the building until the tree was completely cleared. The tree was eventually removed by a tree crew from Facilities and supplemented by outside contractors. The building was cleared for re-entry at 9:15 a.m.; however, staff continued clean-up work throughout the day.

Meghana Veldhuis is a contributing News writer for the ‘Prince.’

Tess Weinreich is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’

FIND THE CONNECTION

By Shana Ana Chen Contributing Constructor

From catering to textbooks to providing off-campus dining options, businesses on Nassau Street are an essential part of the Princeton student experience. Ongoing construction on the Graduate Hotel, located at 20 Nassau Street, has indefinitely displaced five Princeton businesses, including Jammin’ Crepes, Milk & Cookies, Nassau Barbers, Small Bites

by Local Greek, and Sakrid Coffee Roasters. The last two have yet to reopen in their original locations.

After buying property in Princeton in 2019, the Graduate Hotel, a company that owns 35 properties across the United States and two in the U.K., announced plans for renovations in 2023.

Kathy Klockinbrink, owner of Jammin’ Crepes, said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian that 20 Nassau only had two bathrooms in the building and needed to completely upend plumbing and related systems.

Klockinbrink, along with Lauren Ariev Gellman, the founder and owner of Milk & Cookies, and Jackie Witty, the manager of Nassau Barbers, expressed frustration at their businesses being closed but also understood the necessity of construction at the Graduate Hotel. Klockinbrink also added how the Graduate Hotel offered accommodations.

“We negotiated some support [with the Graduate Hotel],” she said. “It’s a fraction of what it cost us to stay open. But we’re appreciative for the support we got.”

All three businesses emphasized their reliance on customers from the University. Klockinbrink explained that there is a noticeable difference in volume when students are on campus, as it brings secondary foot traffic from the University and students’ families that come

into town to visit. Likewise, Gellman told the ‘Prince’ that over half of her business comes from students and University events.

“Do you know what percentage would be from the University? It’s probably 50 to 60 percent,” Gellman said.

“We look at [Jammin’ Crepes] as University-related, yes, student-driven, but we definitely see an impact on the student part as well,” Klockinbrink added in terms of where much of their traction comes from.

The Graduate Hotel, Sakrid, and Local Greek did not respond to a request for comment from the ‘Prince.’

The closures have had varying effects on the businesses’ ability to retain employees.

Jammin’ Crepes employed 33 workers before displacement and kept 90 percent of their employees through the displacement at 80 percent pay.

They currently operate with 27 workers. Milk & Cookies employs 10 part-time workers and one full-time worker.

They were able to pay their part-time staff for three out of the six weeks that they were out of business, while paying their full-time worker the entire duration. Nassau Barbers was able to keep all staff at full pay while it was closed.

Exacerbating the impact of displacement are national inf lation trends. Klockinbrink explained that rising inf lation has inevitably meant increased prices due to the fact that Jammin’ Crepes sources locally. Gellman expressed that the price of chocolate has doubled in recent years — their cookies started at $1.75 and are now $3.25. Meanwhile, Nassau Barbers has increased its prices by 10 percent in 2022 for the first time ever since opening 16 years ago.

Initially meant to be a six to eight week project, the Hotel’s plans kept changing, keeping the affected businesses in limbo. According

to Klockinbrink, Jammin’ Crepes, which opened back up at its original location on Sept. 8, was closed for a three-month stretch. During that time, they operated out of a space owned on 301 N Harrison Street.

While the Graduate Hotel helped move equipment to this space and negotiated some support for lost business, Klockinbrink said that the majority of storefront business was lost. She also emphasized that, amidst the displacement, the Graduate Hotel looked like “they were completely rebuilding.”

After opening a shop on Chamber Street, Gellman explained that Milk & Cookies moved two stores down when the Graduate Hotel bought the property and were moved to their current location in January 2023. From the last week of July to Sept. 6, Milk & Cookies was closed entirely.

Nassau Barbers, which opened back up on Sept. 19, was closed for 10 weeks. Although Witty was initially under the impression that Nassau Barbers wouldn’t have to close, she is excited for the increased business that she hopes will come from the opening of the Graduate Hotel.

Local Greek and Sakrid have yet to reopen their Nassau Street locations.

Gellman emphasized how local support has helped her business.

“The people who live around here are terrific with local thing like, local places, as opposed to chains,” she said. “They’re very supportive, and the University is great.”

The Graduate Hotel plans on opening in 2024, according to its website. The website used to say that the Hotel was opening in late 2023.

Abby Leibowitz is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince’

Find the four groups of four words that all share a common connection. Categories will always be specific and not something like “VERBS” or “THREE LETTER WORDS.” Example Connections: MUSIC GENRES: ROCK, JAZZ, BLUES, METAL ___ PIE: APPLE, PECAN, CHERRY, PUMPKIN

JEAN SHIN/THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Construction on the Graduate Hotel.

See page 12 for more

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The Daily Princetonian

page 4

U. AFFAIRS

Friday September 29, 2023

Class of 2027 sees smaller class size, decelerating expansion to meet target

By Jasmyn Dobson & Christopher Bao Senior News Writer & News Contributor

President Christopher Eisgruber’s long-planned expansion of the student body will have a smaller effect on the Class of 2027 after enrollment numbers decreased by 8.93 percent from the Class of 2026. The drop is intended to offset larger than expected enrollment for the Class of 2026.

The Class of 2026 was set to be the first larger class, 125 students bigger than the Class of 2025, with each class matching its size until the student body increased by 500 students in the aftermath of Princeton adding two new residential colleges.

1500 students joined the class, over 150 more than the Class of 2025 and 75 higher than the University’s projection.

The increase in the class size was due to a admit yield rate of 69.2 percent, slightly higher than historical rates, but not as high as the 78.32 yield rate for the Class of

2025. The yield rate was consistent with yield rates at other Ivy League schools, according to a Harvard Crimson analysis.

In the aftermath of the larger class, the University worked to finish the new colleges in time for opening. In 2023, speaking on the unexpected enrollment, Eisgruber said that the new residential colleges had enough housing to accommodate the expanded class size. If enrollment had exceeded capacity, Eisgruber speculated at the time, the University might have had to apply for permits to put housing

trailers on Poe Field.

In order to not exceed capacity as future classes enter the University, the University aimed for a slightly smaller class for the Class of 2027. “[Given] the unexpected over-enrollment of the Class of 2026, our goal for the Class of 2027 was 1,375,” explained University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss in an email to the ‘Prince.’ “That figure is still larger than target class sizes prior to the beginning of the expansion of the undergraduate class. We expect that our steady-state goal of 1,425 will return for next year’s class.”

The lower target size was first signaled

by Eisgruber in his 2022 Annual Letter to the Community, where he said that the University would not admit classes of this size in the immediate future.

The adjustment comes despite the fact that Eisgruber wrote in 2021 in Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) that the New Colleges would expand the number of beds by 1,000, only 500 of which were planned to be used as part of campus expansion.

This would leave 500 extra beds, presumably to account for annual variation. The increased class sizes also stressed other University infrastructure, however, including popular intro classes.

The enrollment of 1,366 students in the Class of 2027 brings the average of the two class years to 1,433 students, on par with the University’s intended expansion outlined in the 2016 Princeton University Strategic Framework. This five-year plan calls for the undergraduate population to increase by 500 students in order to meet nationwide demands for “exceptional teaching and research.”

“Each year we turn down students who have the talent and character needed to reap the full benefit of a Princeton education, who would add to the diversity and luster of our student body, and whose Princeton education would enable them to contribute significantly to the world after their graduation,” the framework asserts.

The University updated the Strategic Framework in June 2019 and June 2023, noting successes in the expansion to the undergraduate class thus far with the construction of Yeh College and New College West.

Eisgruber has characterized expansion in the past as one of Princeton’s moral imperatives.

“I felt from the moment I took office that if we could expand while preserving the essential character of the Princeton experience, we had a moral obligation to do so,” he wrote in PAW in 2021.

The inconsistent sizes in classes highlight the risks in precise admissions adjustments when yield rates vary significantly, even without the disruption of the pandemic. While inconsistent class sizes may have impacts on campus housing, academics, and student groups, class sizes have seen significant inconsistencies since over 700 leaves of absences or deferrals during the height of the COVID pandemic.

Jasmyn Dobson is a senior News contributor for the ‘Prince.’

Christopher Bao is a News contributor for the ‘Prince’

BEYOND THE BUBBLE

Princeton settles out of court with former grad student held in Iran

By Olivia Sanchez & Bridget O’Neill Staff News Writer & assistant news editor

According to court documents, graduate student Xiyue Wang and his wife, Hua Qu GS ’21 settled their lawsuit against Princeton University on Aug. 1. The lawsuit was filed in the aftermath of Wang’s imprisonment in Iran while a graduate student at the University.

The lawsuit claimed “severe personal injuries and other ir-

reparable harm” suffered due to the University’s “reckless, willful, wanton, and grossly negligent acts.” The settlement came ahead of a scheduled hearing on Aug. 15. Possibly in anticipation of the settlement, the suit had been dismissed with prejudice on July 31, meaning the case cannot be retried.

Wang was detained from August 2016 to December 2019 in Iran, where he was charged with espionage by local authorities before being freed in a prisoner

COURTESY OF HUA QU FOR THE OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS

Xiyue Wang GS with his wife Hua Qu GS ‘21 and their son.

swap between the United States and Iran in December2019. At the time of his arrest, Wang was a doctoral candidate in Eurasian history completing research in Iran.

Wang’s settlement comes as another graduate student, Elizabeth Tsurkov GS, is currently being held after having been kidnapped in Iraq. Her sister has alleged she was there on University-approved research and urged the University to confirm that in a statement.

The University has reaffirmed it

does not approve travel to Iraq.

The lawsuit, initially filed in the New Jersey Superior Court in November 2021, cited several instances when University officials encouraged Wang’s travel. In a 2016 email, associate Director of Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies and associate professor in Near Eastern Studies Kevan Harris told Wang, “It’s a good time to go [to Iran] — looks like they are in a good mood over there. Take advantage of it!” and called the trip a “pioneering visit for Princeton.”

The lawsuit argued that per the Graduate School website, “Faculty advisers wield nearly absolute control over their advisees’ decision-making, which in turn makes it extremely difficult, if not impossible, for student-advisees to defy or even second-guess their faculty advisers’ advice and guidance.”

The complaint further alleged that the University advised Wang “not to seek sanctuary at the Swiss Embassy, the only entity in Iran that could have possibly kept Mr. Wang safe.”

Rather than publicly advocating for Wang’s release Wang and Qu alleged that “[a]ll, and any, publicity regarding Mr. Wang’s arrest and detention was viewed as a negative for Princeton and the Princeton Iran Center.”

In a comment to The Daily Princetonian regarding the settlement, Wang wrote, “Everything related to the case is available in the public domain. However, the settlement details are not publicly available, as the case was settled out of court with a mediator, the

Honorable John E. Keefe, Sr. Out of court settlements are not part of the public record.”

According to a March 22, 2023 letter to the presiding judge, the discovery process had been repeatedly stayed beginning July 7, 2022 “pending the outcome of mediation before the Hon. John E. Keefe, Sr. (Ret.),” which occurred on September 15, 2022. The parties “continued to engage in settlement discussions with the assistance of Judge Keefe,” which eventually led to the settlement in August.

The discovery process refers to the pretrial process where parties exchange information in preparation for trial.

In a comment to the ‘Prince’ regarding the settlement, University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss stated, “the University provided extraordinary support to Mr. Wang and his family during and following his unjust imprisonment in Iran. In keeping with that support, we have chosen to help them move on with their lives by avoiding protracted litigation.”

At the time the lawsuit was filed, Hotchkiss had told the ‘Prince’ that “We are surprised and disappointed by this complaint and believe it is without merit.”

Wang currently serves as a Jean Kirkpatrick Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Olivia Sanchez is a staff news writer for the ‘Prince.’

Bridget O’Neill is an assistant news editor for the ‘Prince.’

The Daily Princetonian

Friday September 29, 2023

page 5

LOCAL

Princeton Police Department will pay for your Uber home from the bar

By Louisa Gheorghita Staff News Writer

On May 2, the Princeton Police Department (PPD) announced its new late-night rideshare program, in partnership with Uber, meant to eliminate intoxicated driving.

The program allows Princeton

residents, visitors, and University students to receive one free ride worth up to $15 weekly on Thursdays through Saturdays between the hours of 8 p.m. and 2 a.m. While the program includes 22 pickup locations in town, the University eating clubs are not included.

Officially launched on May 5, eligible riders can now scan a QR code

found on “Princeton PD Provides Your DD” posters displayed at the participating locations to receive their weekly voucher. The voucher can be saved for later use during eligible hours.

In an email comment to the ‘Prince,’ Sergeant Mike Strobel, commander of the PPD’s Traffic Safety Bureau, who was involved in the program’s initia-

LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

A poster with the Uber voucher at Agricola Eatery.

tion, specified that it is “available to anyone who comes to Princeton, visits a participating establishment, and has a drop-off destination within the town.”

Participating bars and restaurants include Agricola Eatery, Alchemist & Barrister, Conte’s Pizza, Ivy Inn, Mediterra Restaurant & Taverna, Metro North, Mistral, Roots Ocean Prime, Teresa Caffe, The Dinky Bar & Kitchen, The Perch at Peacock Inn, The Meeting House, Triumph Brewing Company, Winberie’s Restaurant & Bar, Witherspoon Grill, and Yankee Doodle Tap Room. The McCarter Theatre Center is also a participating location.

Strobel added that five private clubs also participate: the Institute Club of the Institute for Advanced Study, the Debasement Bar at the University’s Graduate College, Pretty Brook Tennis Club, Springdale Golf Club, and TPC Jasna Polana golf club.

“The general community response has been great,” Strobel remarked, adding that more than 131 rides have been scheduled since the program’s inception.

The Uber voucher does not include any of the University’s 11 eating clubs as eligible pick-up locations. The nearest pick up location to Prospect Avenue is a few minutes away by foot at Ivy Inn, which is adjacent to the EQuad and closest to Charter Club.

If students are picked up at an eligible pick-up location, however, they can be dropped off near their residential halls via public roads surrounding campus.

The initiative has garnered support from town residents.

Jeff Edelstein, a reporter and columnist for The Trentonian, expressed his support for the program in an article, writing, “I’d…feel a lot better knowing that, in a pinch, [my son], his friends, my neighbor, you, anyone, could call themselves an Uber after drinking too much without worry about cost or getting into trouble.”

According to Strobel, donations fund the program and Uber requires no contract and charges no fees for the partnership .

Strobel added that the Princeton Policeman’s Benevolent Association, a labor union for Princeton police officers,made a significant contribution “to help get the program up and running with the hopes that participating establishments, riders, or anyone who wants to help combat drunk driving would donate.”

Currently, there is no method of verifying intoxication for a rider, but Strobel said “only those that need a sober ride home are utilizing [the program].”

Strobel is hopeful that neighboring towns will also implement the program so that residents can visit these towns and get home safely. “This is a great opportunity to really help tackle driving under the influence,” he said.

Louisa Gheorghita is a staff News writer for the ‘Prince.’

Senior News Writer Eden Teshome contributed reporting.

ACADEMICS

No definitive timeline in place for establishing Indigenous Studies minor

By Elisabeth Stewart News Contributor

After years of advocacy, faculty and students involved with Native American and Indigenous student groups on campus say the timeline for an Indigenous Studies minor program remains uncertain. Although the University announced that it would establish an endowed professorship of Indigenous Studies in 2020, the position has yet to be filled.

Sarah Rivett, a professor of English and American Studies who helped establish the Native American and Indigenous Studies Initiative (NAISIP) at the University, confirmed in an email to The Daily Princetonian that “the establishment of an Indigenous Studies minor is in process” with support from NAISIP, but deferred commentary on the chair position to the University.

University communications did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

“My sense, globally, is that [the Indigenous Studies minor] is something that everybody wants, and that the University is committed to building a course of study,” Elizabeth Ellis, a professor of History and an enrolled citizen of the Peoria Tribe of Oklahoma, said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “I think the big question is the timeline.”

Ellis, who joined the University in 2022, has taught HIS 271: Native American History for the last two semesters. She said she believes her hire was part of a round of ongoing cluster hires, a method of recruiting faculty with similar research interests or departmental affilia-

tions. Ellis added that the emerging nature of the field makes hiring more difficult.

“For so many of us in this field, you’re either the only Native person, or you’re the only person teaching in Native Studies, and that tends to be really difficult to sustain, both in terms of the course loads, but also in terms of being able to support student populations and not getting burned out,” Ellis said.

Last week, Margaret Bruchac, the only tenured professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, retired. Bruchac had previously told The Daily Pennsylvanian that Indigenous Studies at Penn ran “primarily on [her] own enthusiasm and willingness to overwork.”

In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ Gustavo Blanco-Quiroga ’25, the copresident of Natives at Princeton (NAP) and a member of the Aymara Indigenous community of Bolivia, expressed a similar sentiment.

“One of my purposes when I came to Princeton was to at least be able to promote Indigenous communities,” he said. “But when you are alone in this work, it’s very difficult to [do] all the work by yourself.”

Brandi Bushman GS, the president of Native Graduate Students of Princeton (NGSP), a group that began last year, and a member of the Picayune Rancheria of the Chukchansi Indians of California, also expressed concern with the hiring process for scholars in Indigenous Studies.

She recalled an active job search in the spring of 2022 that brought in candidates to host “coffee talks” with NAP members. Bushman wrote letters in support of poten-

tial hires and said that “there was one candidate that [NAP] really wanted, but it didn’t pan out.”

“We were largely kind of left in the dark [when that happened],” Bushman said, as Native and Indigenous student groups did not have a formal role on the search committee.

“Natives at Princeton represents the largest Native collective on campus. In hiring someone who’s both in the field and ideally who’s Native, it would be great if they solicited our feedback, thoughts, and

desires,” she added.

The lack of Indigenous Studies at the University may also be an academic shortcoming, some students have said. While many professors in other fields might jump at a chance to come to Princeton, Bushman noted, “It’s a really tough sell when you have places like the UCs, University of Arizona, University of New Mexico, places that both have a larger Native population and infrastructure already in place for that professor to just start doing work and [not] feel alone.”

Among the University’s peer institutions, Stanford, Dartmouth, and the University of Texas at Austin all offer undergraduate majors in Native American Studies.

“I think that if we really want to make Princeton a world class university like the world claims [it] to be, I think that we have to also include Indigenous knowledge in the classroom,” said Blanco-Quiroga.

Elisabeth Stewart is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’

ANGEL KUO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Despite being only one year old, Natives at Princeton has made their affinity space in Green Hall inviting to students of all Indigenous backgrounds.

The Daily Princetonian

page 6 DATA

Friday September 29, 2023

On Wednesday at 11, the whole campus goes to class

By Jack Prewitt & Nathan Beck Contributing Data Writers

Add-drop period ended this past Tuesday, and while some students may still drop classes before week 10, enrollment numbers are now more stable.

The Daily Princetonian collected data from the Office of the Registrar to analyze all 2,161 undergraduate classes.

The ‘Prince’ looked for patterns in course intervals, start times, and times when the student body is in class simultaneously. The analysis shows classes clustered during the late morning and early afternoon, with over 4000 students in class simultaneously during the busiest time of the week.

A class refers to all sections registered with the Registrar, including lectures, classes, seminars, labs, precepts, and studios. The ‘Prince’ used the course times and enrollment data published by the Registrar, though some courses do not meet at their Registrarscheduled times.

The Office of the Registrar has scheduled 33 unique intervals for students to register into classes. The most common time-interval for Princeton classes is in the block between 1:30 p.m. and 4:20 p.m. Dominated by seminars and labs, 4,569 seats are filled throughout the week during

this interval. Other common class intervals include popular time periods for lectures and classes: 10 to 10:50 a.m., 11 a.m. to 12:20 p.m., and 12:30 p.m. to 1:20 p.m.

The earliest start time of 8 a.m. is shared by eight classes, whereas the latest start time for a class — 8:30 p.m. — is only for two lab sections for ORF 405: Regression and Applied Time Series.

While a roommate’s alarm for their 8:30 a.m. class may lead some think that there are many classes before 9 a.m., the most common class start times are 1:30 p.m. with 692 classes, 11 a.m. with 365 classes, and 10:00 a.m. with 237 classes. Other common start times include 12:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Only 1,183 students are enrolled in a class that starts before 9 a.m.

Across all the courses that start at 1:30 p.m., there are a total of 16,387 enrollments. This number exceeds the total student body because many students are enrolled in multiple courses that meet at this time slot during the week.

Some students who spoke to the ‘Prince’ prefer earlier classes to later ones.

“I chose my 8:30 a.m. class so I can have freer afternoons,” Asher Matthias ’27 said.

The busiest start time for classes across the entire week is Wednesday at 1:30 p.m., with 211 classes starting at

this time. The Registrar also schedules fewer classes on Friday afternoons and evenings compared to other days of the week.

“I like having my Friday afternoons free to enjoy time with friends or start early on work,” one student, David Wang ’27, told the ‘Prince.’

The University also accommodates religious requirements when it comes to course schedules. According to a Sept.

12, 2023 memo from Jill Dolan, Dean of the College, “Because the Friday prayer session overlaps with 12:30 and 1:30 classes, Muslim undergraduate students should have been rescheduled in classes, precepts, drill sections, and labs that meet at times other than Friday afternoon.”

Within each day, there are clear trends in class scheduling, with most students having breaks between classes throughout the day. The ‘Prince’ broke down every 10-minute interval from 8 a.m. to 10:20 p.m. across each day of the week to see how many students were in class. The heat map shows that the most common times for students to have class are between 11 a.m. and 12 p.m. and from 1:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.

This schedule enables most students to eat lunch between 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. while having time for homework, papers,

extracurriculars, sports, and dinner from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Four classes meet during this block, when many athletes have practice: a precept for COS 126: Computer Science — An Interdisciplinary Approach and three Dance Studios for Dance Performance Workshop: Repertory I, II, and III. The single time where the most Princeton students are in class is between 11 a.m. and 11:50 a.m. on Wednesdays, with 4,117 students enrolled in a class. From Monday through Thursday, over 3,900 students are enrolled in class between 11 a.m. and 11:50 a.m. each day, though this number drops to just over 1,500 on Fridays.

Most early-morning classes start on Monday or Wednesday, while classes that extend from 11 a.m. to 12:20 p.m. are relatively more common on Tuesday and Thursday. Night precepts and labs were more common on Tuesday and Wednesday than other days of the week.

There is also a distinct trend among the start times of various types of classes, with seminars and labs occurring far more often in the afternoon than other times of the day.

Among nearly all departments, lectures and classes typically occur earlier in the day, while labs occur at later times. The vast majority of seminars are held at 1:30 p.m.,

minimizing the opportunities for students to take other afternoon classes. Precepts are also offered both in the mornings and the afternoons, seemingly in an attempt to work around student’s busy schedules.

Just four evening lectures were scheduled by the Registrar: AAS 245: Introduction to 20th-Century African American Art, SML 312: Research Projects in Data Science [B], and both sections for VIS 265: Narrative Filmmaking I. Similarly, just 16 night seminars were scheduled, with 11 of these being freshman writing seminars.

Enrollment percentage did not vary significantly with class times, as most intervals hovered around 80 percent total enrollment. Out of start times with at least 500 students enrolled, 3 p.m. starts had the lowest enrollment percent at 71.55 percent with 8:30 a.m. starts just slightly ahead at 71.88 percent enrollment.

Add-drop for undergraduate courses ended on Tuesday, Sept. 19. Students may drop courses for a $45 fee until Friday, Nov. 10.

Jack Prewitt is a contributing Data writer for the ‘Prince.’

Nathan Beck is a contributing Data writer and a staff Copy editor for the ‘Prince.’

Friday September 29, 2023

The Daily Princetonian

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page 8

The Daily Princetonian

Friday September 29, 2023

NOREEN HOSNY / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Friday September 29, 2023

The Daily Princetonian

page 9

This Week in Photos Fall semester in action page 10

By Calvin Grover, Ryland Graham, Ammaar Alam & Jean Shin Contributing Photographers & Head Photo Editor

The Daily Princetonian

Friday September 29, 2023

Hum r

page 11

University expands PEV designated zone to encompass entire planet

By Michael Hwang Contributing Humor Writer

The following content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

One month after implementing restrictions on personal electric vehicles (PEVs), the University has announced an expansion to the PEV-restricted zone. A campus message issued on Sept. 20 reads, “After a rigorous review, the Environmental Safety and Risk Management Committee (ESRM) has concluded that ongoing construction may impact the safety of PEV usage off-campus. As such, we cannot safely condone student usage of PEVs without expanding the PEV-restricted zone.”

The updated map is shown below.

The ESRM cites the alarmingly high “construction sites per square mile per capita” statistic (the actual number was not provided) as a key factor driving the expanded restrictions slightly past the borders of campus.

The Daily PrintsAnything spoke to ESRM committee pres-

ident Paul Kim, who insisted on conducting an interview via landline phone due to “safety concerns about 5G.” “We’ve realized that construction is not limited to the Princeton area, and that makes the world very dangerous for PEV users,” Kim said. “Last week, my cousin’s son was driving his mini monster truck down the street when an excavator destroyed the road directly in front of him, causing him to swerve into a traffic cone. I don’t actually have a cousin, but the point is that my story sounds believable, and that means it can happen to anyone.”

Kim repeatedly assured the ‘Prints’ that the ESRM performs highly rigorous risk assessments when making decisions.

The new restrictions take effect next week, and violators will be forced to walk to class.

Michael Hwang ’25 is a contributing Humor writer who used to ride an electric scooter when he was in elementary school.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE OFFICE OF ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND SAFETY

PEV restricted zone on campus.

BREAKING: First-year lost during Outdoor Action finally rescued

By Sophia Varughese

Associate Humor Editor

This content is purely satirical and entirely fictional.

On Sept. 16, the administration released a statement announcing that a member of the first-year class was finally rescued from the wilderness of southern New York.

The identity of this individual, as confirmed by the administration, is Mark McCalister ’76. Currently 69 years old, McCalister claims he has been searching the forest of Harriman State Park for his first-year Outdoor Action (OA) group for the past 51 years.

According to members of ‘Bear With Me,’ the hiking club responsible for rescuing McCalister, he requested to be brought back to campus so he could clean up and finish his Orientation events. “He said he was looking forward to the Step Sing and having sex with every member of his ‘zee group.’ I’m not quite sure what that means,” said Frederick Boothe, the leader of the group.

“When we found him, he was completely naked, except for a bandana he had fashioned out of an excrement-stained ‘NIXON’S THE ONE’ t-shirt,” said Amy Castillo, a member of ‘Bear With Me.’ “He was curled up into a ball

within a nest made of his own hair, possibly of armpit origin.”

In an interview with the Daily PrintsAnything, McCalister refused to speak to any female reporters, stating that he didn’t believe any of them attended Princeton or knew how to read.

After we assured him that they are, in fact, members of the student body, McCalister replied, “Then show me your penis.”

During the interview, McCalister repeatedly yelled at reporters

to find his high school girlfriend “Rachel something” who has red hair and “the meatiest calves I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

After returning to society and learning to use technology, McCalister’s first tweet read, “I can’t believe RFK is running for president again. I guess he recovered from that assassination attempt?”

While the administration is boasting a successful end to a decades-long search, local police re-

cords suggest that no search was ever conducted nor was a missing person ever reported.

According to the University’s enrollment archives, it appears that McCalister was stricken from the first-year class list in early September of 1972, following the return of OA groups to campus.

Foul play is suspected.

Sophia Varughese ’26 is an associate Humor editor. Her therapist describes her as ‘clinically bangable’.

VEENA KRISHNARAJ / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Verdant greenery in the Northeastern United States.

The Daily Princetonian

page 12

Friday September 29, 2023

“Liberal Arts and Crafts”

By Dashram Pai Staff Constructor

ACROSS 1 7 11 14 15 16 17 19 20 21 22 24 26 27 30 34 36 37 38 40 42 43 47 48 51 52 53 55

Tales of woe Walk knee-deep Seasoning mix Preceding The Seine and the Rhône It's above a tilde *Painter's tool for clean edges Twelfth of twelve: Abbr.

Bay Area airport code Biblical utopia Glowing remnants Sultanate on Borneo Super ___ Hog captured by Hercules *Yellow paper square Out of the loop "Samesies," more formally Hit head-on Location information "It wasn't a problem" Target of pulldowns, for short African desert for which a country is named Like pecan pie *Product in many kids' collages Jumble "Personally ...," in text Thin out Largest rays

58 Volunteer's phrase 59 Org. that inspects what you ingest 62 Debt acknowledgement 63 Strike back ... or what you do with the starred answers and circled letters in this puzzle 66 Explosive Minecraft block 67 Princeton Professor and Nobelist Morrison 68 Prone (to) 69 Driving aid 70 Wallop 71 Takes hold

DOWN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

Some early PCs It stems from a stem "Given that ..."

All fine and dandy Like a desert vis-à-vis a rainforest Parody Moisture Small energy provider?

Hoodwink Doctor's note for gym class, e.g.

Interior designer's instruction ___-friendly Secretly informs, for short

18 23 24 25 27 28 29 31 32 33 35 39 41

Salami variety Embargo "Snog" sayer "___ be cool if ..."

Conical corn chip NBA Hall of Fame center and DJ Looooooooong period of time + or - particle Mini fruit pies TV trophies Cooks two ways Sunoco or Shell product One of two on a bactrian

44 45 46 49 50 54 55 56 57 59 60 61 64 65

Rx units: Abbr.

Outlawed Enclave or Encore First responder, for short Computer compositions Loosen Heat protection Steak sauce brand Put the tray table away, say Key accessories Sandwich purveyor "___ to that!"

"All ___ day's work" "No regerts" on an arm, e.g.

The Minis

By Lindsay McBride Contributing Constructor

“deja vu”

“Normal G irl”

Scan to check your answers and try more of our puzzles

1 5 6 7 8

1 2 3 4 5

ACROSS Courage, colloquially Food often served with plastic grass "Let me explain..."

Borders Ones with their heads on a swivel?

DOWN Official state cuisine of Louisiana Go through "____ crazy!"

Pride and sloth, for two Thailand, formerly

ACROSS

1 Message that might be spelled in the sand 4 Caribbean resort island 7 "I'm outta here!"

8 Huge hit 9 Medium strength?

1 2 3 5 6

DOWN One might say "Birthday Girl" Cookie since 1912 "Fine, I was wrong!"

Tournament free rides Grp. that sends you a card on your 50th birthday

online!

Opinion

Friday September 29, 2023

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{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

No more taking pride in college rankings Christofer Robles

Associate Opinion Editor

C

an I get one Locomotive for the number one university, for the 13th consecutive year, in the U.S. News and World Report’s annual Best National University Rankings?

This achievement, along with first-place rankings in the Wall Street Journal and Forbes’s own college rankings, is a source of much pride and Instagram story content for many Tigers.

Though this exhibition of Princeton pride is seemingly inoffensive, it begs the question: why is being number one sacrosanct to so many Princetonians? And perhaps more im-

portant — should it be?

To address the latter question, college rankings have long been criticized for being too easily manipulated and inequitable.

Even charitable analyses in support of these lists acknowledge their imprecision and the reality that first place does not mean perfection. What, then, does first place mean and why do people — particularly people at Princeton — care so much about being first?

Of the criteria considered for U.S. News’s 2024 rankings, those with the largest impact are based on: graduation and retention (42 percent), peer assessment (20 percent), and financial resources, debt, and earnings (18 percent). Even assuming the data used is fair and accurate,

ANGEL KUO / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

this methodology reflects an incredibly impersonal college experience. Nowhere is there mention of quality of food or living conditions, student satisfaction with coursework and extracurriculars, or any other metrics that would seemingly warrant first-place pride from students.

The reality is that there is no first place in student experience — not in a holistic way, at least. No university can be “the best” because the only people who know how great Princeton is, or is not, are the students at Princeton. Similarly, there is no way for anyone else to know how great, or not great, another university is unless they are a student at that university. The personal experiences that I, or any other Princetonian, have cannot be represented in any national college ranking.

Unfortunately, Princeton pride can be a privileged pride, a self-congratulatory pat on the back for attending a school with a lot of money and prestige and wanting more after graduation.

The very criteria measured by U.S. News’s rankings are indicative of this.

Higher retention and graduation rates do not make a university inherently better. The measures themselves are inflexible and ignore the dynamic path many students are on by erasing degree-holding individuals who do not enter and exit college on a traditional cycle.

Further, valuing these rates

glorifies universities that either accept a lot of students of wealthier backgrounds — who are far less likely to drop out — or have incomprehensibly large endowments that grant generous financial aid packages — subsequently eliminating many financial burdens that would cause students at other universities to drop out. Princeton does both.

Peer assessment is defined

by U.S. News as a “measure of how a school is regarded by top administrators at other institutions.” In other words, 20 percent of a school’s ranking is attributable to clout, largely determined by both pre-existing biases and the very rankings this peer assessment is supposed to inform. It is unsurprising, then, that already high ranked colleges perform well in this category, with prestige reinforcing itself in perpetuity.

Financial resources, or “average spending per student on instruction” is simply a measure of how wealthy a university is.

With an $83,140 cost of attendance for the 2023–24 school year, it is to be expected that Princeton would indeed rank high. Though it is true that a more resourced school can provide opportunities, funding, and programming that is necessary for a better education and experience, that is not a guarantee. A focus on the spending itself, but not the quality of spending or result of that

spending, is lazy and blindly rewards already wealthy colleges.

Further, a focus on post-grad earnings prioritizes wealth accumulation over receiving a successful and morally driven liberal arts education. It is true that social mobility is important for many students entering college, but the absence of any non-economic criteria of success implies the two cannot be simultaneously achieved, or that the latter is less important.

That is especially worrisome given the University’s mission, but may suggest that the campus-wide celebration of these rankings are a manifestation of the career crisis at Princeton writ large.

The bad news is that the firstplace ranking Princetonians are so proud of is plagued by the reality that these rankings serve to reward colleges for merely being a refuge for the rich and a jumping-off platform for the less privileged. The good news is that there is a lot to be proud of at Princeton that isn’t reducible to a U.S. News ranking, like Free Cake Wednesdays at Frist, selfies in East Pyne, and the shared experience of not knowing the words to the Locomotive.

Christofer Robles serves as the associate Community Opinion editor and Chair of the DEIB committee. He can be reached at cdrobles@ princeton.edu.

Letter to the Editor: Tired tropes add nothing new to campus free speech discourse

Matthew Wilson & Alba Bajri

Columnist & Guest Contributor

T

o the Editor:

On Sept. 17, The Daily Princetonian published an article by Aidan Gouley ’27 entitled “Princetonians must invest in the marketplace of ideas.” The author calls on students to “situat[e] free expression in a liberal context,” claiming that “the debate on free expression at Princeton has been co-opted by campus conservatives” while slandering principled and nonpartisan free speech advocacy as “toxic and polarizing.”

Gouley’s allegation that conservative students have “co-opted” the free speech debate is an oft-regurgitated and thoroughly debunked trope.

Articles leveling the same meritless argument have a lengthy history of appearing in the pages of this publication — and have been amply refuted. Gouley calls on students “to create an environment of learning for all in the natural exchange of individual ideas and experiences that both includes and simultaneously transcends the political.” But absentminded complaining about the co-option

of the free speech issue by conservative students — the so-called “ideologues” making “overbroad claims about the ideological slant of the University” — does not help “bridge the political divide,” nor does it promote the free exchange of ideas.

Gouley’s assertion that “Princeton hardly feels like an institution where free speech is directly under attack” betrays a painful lack of awareness of the real problems facing our University. Frequent breaches of institutional neutrality by ideology-driven administrators, weaponized ‘no-communication’ orders and ‘bias-reporting’ systems that encourage speech-policing (while inf laming ideological biases on campus), and university leaders keen to harangue skeptics of modern secular progressivism as the real enemies of free speech are just a sampling of the many issues further entrenching a campus culture of feeble discourse. These are also among the many reasons why the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression ranked Princeton in the bottom quarter of 248 surveyed universities this year (and fairly so, Gouley’s shrugging off of the survey notwithstanding).

As a newly-matriculated freshman, it is plausible that Gouley lacks familiarity with the culture of self-censorship and ideological conformity that Marcusian campus activists have been successful in cultivating among our student body. This campus climate — where students’ political leanings largely determine whether they feel comfortable

expressing themselves — is what is truly “toxic and polarizing.” Honest and thoughtful as we hope him to be, Gouley will soon realize that the toxicity he so fears comes not from a small, outnumbered minority of conservative students — but instead from the proselytizers of the dogmas and doctrines of progressive campus orthodoxy.

Matthew Wilson is a senior in the Department of Politics and a communications fellow with Princetonians for Free Speech.

Alba Bajri is a junior in the Department of Politics and the president of Princeton’s Federalist Society student chapter. They can be reached at mxwilson@princeton.edu and ab1567@princeton. edu, respectively.

LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Blair Arch.

Opinion

page 14

Friday September 29, 2023

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com }

College clubs need gatekeeping. That doesn’t mean they have to be cruel.

Vincent Jiang Columnist

A

ll is quiet on the email Listserv front. Most clubs have concluded their auditions, recruitment emails are slowing down to a trickle, and freshmen are settling into their extracurriculars. But tryouts season is never easy, especially at Princeton and peer institutions. A junior at Yale recently took to The Atlantic to bring to light the rise of “competitive club culture,” a phenomenon where almost every extracurricular activity — from a capella to club sports to debate — has a selective application process. In doing so, she joined a f lurry of columnists from other schools chiming in about their own overcompetitive campus cultures, with writers from the University of Michigan, Georgetown, the University of Pennsylvania, Cornell, and Princeton, complaining about the fact that students can never escape from competitive institutions.

This represents a remarkable and organic outpouring of dissatisfaction, much of which has been oriented toward the student leaders responsible for perpetuating this system and the perceived culture of exclusivity and egotism.

I am now that guy, sitting on the other side of the interview table, as I have been for two years. As co-captain of the Princeton Model United Nations Team (PMUNT) and President of the International Relations Council (IRC), I have judged four seasons of tryouts for PMUNT, totaling somewhere in the vicinity of 200 prospective team members.

It brings me no joy to report that a majority of those tryouts ended in rejection. In an ideal world, not a single one should have been denied admission.

However, these gatekeeping systems exist for a reason, which is all the more reason why we have a responsibility as club leaders to adopt the best practices to keep the decisionmaking process as pain-free and fair as possible.

Peeking behind the curtain of club tryouts, the truth is that any organization involving traveling, performances, or other expensive activities is, at its heart, a business. Revenue comes in the form of ticket sales to a dance show or a system of digital advertisements, while expenses might include costumes and set design or booking hotels and train tickets. From this emerges a ruthless law of campus economics: Revenue must be greater than or equal to spending in order for the club to continue operating. For IRC, we rely on revenue from the registration fees of two annual Model UN conferences that we run, Princeton Model United Nations Confer-

VEENA KRISHNARAJ / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Clio Hall.

ence (PMUNC) and Princeton Diplomatic Invitational (PDI).

These are spent on our expenses: fees for traveling to and attending domestic and international conferences. There’s a hard ceiling on the revenue side — after all, there are only so many high schools within a driveable radius of Princeton’s campus. Moreover, inf lation is ratcheting up our cost per team member. This means that the only way to balance the budget is to put a cap on the size of the team.

That’s the reason, nothing more. Psychoanalysis of tryout decision-makers as students who “[are] fueled by insecurity, feel the need to over-justify their worthiness … and … impose endless hierarchies on one another” are simply wrong. It brought me tremendous grief, not an ego boost, to send out dozens of emails with sad subject lines, each destined for the inbox of a student who could have brought incredible and unique vibrancy to the team.

Sigmund Freud can’t explain why college clubs are competitive, but Adam Smith can.

Yet the truth can still hurt: The genuine resentment felt by rejected applicants of all tryout-based clubs indicates an authentic need for change. Every semester, club recruitment season is a grueling arms race for everyone. The burden falls especially heavily on freshmen, whose friendships and social groups are often forged in the crucible of their first-semester clubs. The pressure can be even more intense at Princeton, where the looming threat of sophomore year’s bicker sea-

son for eating clubs raises the stakes, as campus organizations are one of the best ways of meeting upperclassmen and gaining social capital, which can be translated into a successful bicker later on.

Although the necessity of a selection process can’t go away, my fellow student leaders and I can and should adopt practices in order to minimize pain and maximize fairness throughout the application season. First, all clubs should democratize their criteria so it can be mastered by any applicant — not every high school has a debate team or a theater program.

To increase equity, freshmen should not be expected to join a club already f luent in the vernacular of the field. Instead of expecting them to act like experts, they should be judged based on underlying foundational skills that could have been gained in different ways.

For PMUNT, we have shifted to a system that does not judge prospective members on knowledge about MUN parliamentary procedure. Instead, we assess the building blocks of what makes a good team member: compelling and logical argumentation, creativity in problem-solving, and perseverance in pursuit of a goal.

I would encourage my peers in selective clubs of a different variety, such as a capella or theater groups, to break down their tryouts’ formats in similar ways — looking for stage presence, voice control, and musicality instead of rewarding perfect pitch or past experience delivering soliloquies.

Second, clubs must make

their processes transparent.

Prospective members should be kept informed during every step of the process, not only about the judgment criteria but also about the expected number of new members that the club is planning to admit, so they can accurately gauge the competitiveness. They should be told about less visible gatekeeping mechanisms further on like additional applications after admittance to the club (such as those imposed by the Yale Undergraduate Legal Aid Association). PMUNT, for instance, has been upfront this year about the fact that domestic conferences are open to any member, whereas our international conference rosters are determined on the basis of practice attendance and conference staffing.

Lastly, opportunities for improvement should be accessible to all rejected members.

Club leadership should ensure that all applicants get feedback on their performance, and rejected members should also be given further opportunities to practice and improve based on that feedback. In a bid to compete with one another for engagement during recruitment season, many clubs host open houses and demonstrations, but those doors quickly shut again for the rest of the semester. Is it too high a burden to expect them to be open more frequently? The Princeton Debate Panel (PDP) hosts successful public speaking and debate workshops that are open to any Princeton student, allowing rejected applicants to continue to participate in their

love of debate and potentially get some practice ahead of future tryout rounds. PMUNT is following their lead this year with our IRC Diplomacy Workshop series. Similarly, I would challenge club sports teams to host more “open practices” or “open gyms” (as Women’s Club Volleyball did at the beginning of the year) throughout the semester where prospective members can hone their skills alongside existing members, or for investment and consulting clubs to offer Interviewing 101 classes.

As decision-makers, club leadership teams have a duty to make sure that our treasuries don’t run dry and that our businesses can keep operating.

But we also have a duty to the prospective students hovering outside the door and peering inside. We need gatekeeping systems for economic reasons, which means they don’t have to be cruel. By implementing the best practices such as democratization of criteria, transparency of process, and accessibility of improvement, both of our responsibilities as leaders can be met.

Vincent Jiang is a junior concentrating in the School of Public and International Affairs. He serves as the President of the International Relations Council and was formerly the co-captain of the tryout-based Princeton Model United Nations Team. A columnist at the Prince, he can be reached via email at vincentjiang@princeton.edu, on Instagram at @vincent.vjiang, or on Twitter at @ vincent_vjiang.

Opinion

Friday September 29, 2023

page 15

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } vol. cxlvii editor-in-chief Rohit Narayanan '24

business manager Shirley Ren ’24

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

president Thomas E. Weber ’89

assistant treasurer Kavita Saini ’09

Kathleen Crown Suzanne Dance ’96 Gabriel Debenedetti ’12 Stephen Fuzesi ’00 Zachary A. Goldfarb ’05 Michael Grabell ’03 Danielle Ivory ’05 Rick Klein ’98 James T. MacGregor ’66 Julianne Escobedo Shepherd Abigail Williams ’14 Tyler Woulfe ’07

trustees Francesca Barber Craig Bloom ’88

trustees ex officio Rohit Narayanan ’24 Shirley Ren ’24

vice president David Baumgarten ’06 secretary Chanakya A. Sethi ’07 treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90

147TH MANAGING BOARD upper management

Kalena Blake ’24 Wilson Conn ’25 Katherine Dailey ’24

Julia Nguyen ’24 Angel Kuo ’24 Hope Perry ’24

Strategic initiative directors

Education Kareena Bhakta ’24 Amy Ciceu ’24 Financial Stipend Program Genrietta Churbanova ’24

Mobile Reach Rowen Gesue ’24 DEIB Chair Christofer Robles ’25

head audience editor Rowen Gesue ’24

head opinion editor Abigail Rabieh ’25

associate audience editor Paige Walworth ’26

community opinion editor Lucia Wetherill ’25

head archives editor Raphaela Gold ’26 Kaylee Kasper ’26

associate opinion editors Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26 Ashley Olenkiewicz ’25

head copy editors Jason Luo ’25 Nathalie Verlinde ’24

head photo editor Jean Shin ’26

Sections listed in alphabetical order.

head podcast editor Eden Teshome ’25

associate head copy editors Tiffany Cao ’24 Naisha Sylvestre ’25

associate podcast editor Senna Aldoubosh ’25 Vitus Larrieu ’26

head data editor Elaine Huang ’25 Charlie Roth ’25

head print design editors Avi Chesler ’25 Malia Gaviola ’26

associate data editor Ryan Konarska ’25

head prospect editors Kerrie Liang ’25 Claire Shin ’25

head features editors Paige Cromley ’24 Tori Tinsley ’24 associate features editor Sejal Goud ’25

associate prospect editors Isabella Dail ’26 Joshua Yang ’25

head graphics editors Noreen Hosny ’25 Katelyn Ryu ’24

head puzzles editors Joah Macosko ’25 Simon Marotte ’26

head humor editor Spencer Bauman ’25

associate puzzles editors Juliet Corless ’24 Sarah Gemmell ’24 Jaeda Woodruff ’25

associate humor editors Sam McComb ’25 Sophia Varughese ’26

head sports editors Nishka Bahl ’26 Cole Keller ’26

head news editors Sandeep Mangat ’24 Isabel Yip ’25

associate sports editors Diego Uribe ’26 Hayk Yengibaryan ’26

associate news editors Lia Opperman ’25 Annie Rupertus ’25 Tess Weinreich ’25

head web design and development editors Ananya Grover ’24 Brett Zeligson ’24

head newsletter editors Olivia Chen ’26 Sidney Singer ’25

associate web design and development editor Vasila Mirshamsova ’26

147TH BUSINESS BOARD assistant business manager, director of sales Aidan Phillips ’25 business directors Benjamin Cai ’24 Jessica Funk ’26 Gabriel Gullett ’25 Andrew He ’26 Tejas Iyer ’26 Daeun Kim ’26 Jordan Manela ’26

Robert Mohan ’26 Kok Wei Pua ’25 project managers Julia Cabri ’24 Jason Ding ’25 Bibiane Kan ’26 Kaustuv Mukherjee ’26 Shravan Suriyanarayanan ’26 My Ky Tran ’26 Brian Zhou ’26

147TH TECHNOLOGY BOARD

chief technology officer Joanna Tang ’24

Adam Kelch ’24 Austin Li ’26 Isabel Liu ’26 Tai Sanh Nguyen ’26 John Ramirez ’26 Hang Pham ’26 Aidan Phillips ’25 Caitlin Wang ’26 Jessie Wang ’25 Shannon Yeow ’26 Brett Zeligson ’24

lead software engineer Roma Bhattacharjee ’25 software engineers Pranav Avva ‘24 Carter Costic ’26 Dylan Epstein-Gross ’26 Jessica-Ann Ereyi ’24 Ishaan Javali ’26

THIS PRINT ISSUE WAS DESIGNED BY Vanessa Auth ’26 Cindy Chen ’26 Avi Chesler ’25

Malia Gaviola ’26 Vivi Lu ’26

AND COPIED BY Jason Luo ’25

Princeton must create an equitable experience for hijabis using communal bathrooms Ndeye Thioubou

Senior Columnist

R

ight after summer break, Princeton students returned to a variety of drastically different living situations. In the middle of a heat wave in the first couple weeks of the semester, some students could cool off in air-conditioned rooms while others desperately relied on (mostly self-provided) fans in their nonair-conditioned rooms. Yet the inequity between living spaces is not limited to climate control: the type of bathroom available to students also varies greatly. While some students have access to a private bathroom that they may share with their roommates or with one other single dorm room, others are relegated to communal bathrooms. Communal bathrooms can be uncomfortable for all students, yet they pose a particularly challenging situation for hijabi students on campus.

Hijabi is a term referring to a Muslim woman who wears a headscarf. Many hijabis also wear modest, loose fitting clothing that cover their entire bodies.

Therefore, daily tasks of using the bathroom or showering become much more time-consuming for hijabi students, given that they must enter and exit their bathrooms fully covered, since the hallways are consistently accessible to male students.

I spoke to multiple sophomore and junior hijabis across different residential colleges to better understand the unique experiences of hijabis in communal bathrooms. These conversations also revealed general struggles that all students using communal bathrooms face, emphasizing the need to improve the communal bathroom experience through supplying students with custodian schedules, increasing privacy and safety of stalls, and giving students the option to apply for accommodations.

Hijabis who use single-gender communal bathrooms are still often faced with making bathroom arrangements around the presence of men: male custodian workers who enter female bathrooms pose an added layer of anxiety. Fatima Diallo ’25, a junior in Whitman College who currently resides in Dod Hall, shared that the bathroom door is often left open, and that despite closing it, male custodial workers will sometimes still enter. “I usually close the door when I am in the sink area … but sometimes [a custodial worker] open[s] the door and [says], ‘Oh, is anyone in here,’ so that could be a possibly uncomfortable situation,” she said. This means that Diallo often must wear her hijab even while in the bathroom to avoid an inappropriate situation.

Marliini Heikkonen ’25, an exchange student for the semester from Singapore, has also been dealing with the challenge posed by the potential for male custo-

dial workers to enter bathrooms at any time, noting that “no schedule is posted, [so] we don’t know when they come.” Male custodians’ presence in communal bathrooms is potentially uncomfortable for all female students, but even more so for hijabis since they do not allow men they are not related to to see their hair and body.

To avoid these situations, the University must make a clear policy that any custodial workers knock first before entering the bathroom. Yet, even this is not always effective to protect hijabi students: while a student is in the shower, for example, they may not hear a knock. Thus, the University should supply students with the approximate times that a custodian will clean their bathroom, so that they can schedule bathroom visits around those hours.

Even worse for hijabi students, however, are the problems posed by mixed-gender communal bathrooms. Momna Ahmed ’26, a sophomore in New College West, describes being “disgusted” on several occasions by her experience in mixed-gender communal bathrooms. Ahmed highlighted one specific situation in particular: “Some people do not close the doors … there have been instances where I have walked in on guys literally peeing standing up with the door open.” No student should have to experience this awkward and inappropriate interaction in a communal bathroom, but it can be extremely uncomfortable for female students in particular.

Yushra Guffer ’26, a sophomore in Mathey College, pointed out that if the University is going to have mixed-gender communal bathrooms, they should actually be accessible for both genders. In her hall, for example, “the communal mixed-gender bathrooms have no trash cans in them … those are only in the girl’s bathrooms.” Guffer questions, “Why are you not accommodating people with periods?” This bathroom effectively becomes inaccessible to menstruating female students, because it makes discreetly disposing of menstrual products a huge hassle. Guffer also pointed out how her mixed-gender communal bathroom stalls have gaps, which makes using them feel less safe and private. Unless the safety and privacy of all students can be ensured when creating mixedgender bathrooms, they should not exist.

Overall, no student should have to share a bathroom with the opposite gender if they do not feel comfortable doing so. The hijabis I have spoken to understand that logistically every student who requests a private bathroom cannot receive one, but would like to be provided a gendered communal bathroom or hall at the bare minimum. Ahmed said that she “would be so glad if [hijabis] could apply for private bathrooms.” Yet, she notes that “a more realistic option would

be to have gendered bathrooms.”

This sentiment is echoed by Heikkonen, saying that “having the option to be surrounded by people of your gender would be really nice and less stressful.”

For hijabis who would prefer a private bathroom, the University should provide an accommodation application process.

Currently, the only housing accommodations Princeton offers are for individuals needing them for medical or safety reasons. The inclusive housing offered by the University is not inclusive for those needing gender-specific accommodations for religious reasons. In providing a form for hijabis to request accommodations, the University could give them the opportunity to rank between a gendered communal bathroom or a private bathroom and request not to be placed on a floor with mixed-gender communal bathrooms.

Overall, the experience of hijabi students in Princeton’s communal bathrooms points to the broader issue of unequal housing conditions on campus. As Heikkonen points out, “We all pay the same housing amount, but our experiences are so vastly different.” From bathrooms to air conditioning to pests to square footage, the current Princeton dorm experience is highly inequitable.

Historically, Princeton has not done much to address these issues. As we have seen with the lack of air conditioning, the University only chose to purchase fans after students had already been struggling in the heat wave.

And even then not every student who needed a fan was able to get one.

As the University builds new dormitories, ensuring the comfort and privacy of all students should be a key priority. Whenever possible, Princeton should be constructing private bathrooms for doubles, triples, and quads, and Jack-and-Jill bathrooms for singles as they greatly reduce the amount of stress or discomfort a student will experience as a result of their bathroom situation. As for the existing dorms, Princeton must allocate resources towards renovating them to better accommodate the diverse student body that we currently have — which includes many demographics that these dorms were not originally built for. Dormitory experiences play such a big role in the overall well-being of all college students, and Princeton needs to further invest in better dorm experiences for all students on campus, not only those who were lucky enough in room draw to get the best rooms. The University must take concrete steps to reduce dormitory inequity by addressing the challenges of communal bathrooms.

Senior Columnist Ndeye Thioubou is a junior from The Bronx, N.Y. She can be reached at nthioubou@princeton.edu.

the PROSPECT. The Daily Princetonian

page 16

Friday September 29, 2023

ARTS & CULTURE

SZA: “There’s this pattern of feeling like you have to engage with white acceptance”

JUSTUS WILHOIT / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Behind a set of chairs, a screen displays portraits of participants in an academic discussion.

SZA

Continued from page 1

.............

Jennifer Hudson, or I need to make urban music, or I need to look this way,” she said. In reality, she aspired to other artists, such as Blink-182. It was during this time that she thought about one of her favorite artists from her youth, Lauryn Hill (who coincidentally attended the same high school as her). Hill’s ability to break the boundaries of Black female artists pushed SZA to branch out and do the same.

However, even after successfully venturing into other genres, SZA still recognizes that there is a long way to go and that stigma against Black female artists still exists. SZA said that one of the most controversial aspects of the music industry is how the racialization of genre is reinforced during award season.

“I was nominated for [eight VMA] awards and only won an R&B award, selling more records than my counterparts. That’s a conversation we’re not going to have to have,“ she stated.

Moreover, SZA was not featured in the VMA category for Artist of the Year, despite the commercial success of “SOS.” The snub resulted in

her pulling out of the performance lineup for the show and her manager calling the move to exclude SZA from the category as “disrespectful.”

In her presentation to students, SZA recalled responses that she had lots of other accolades or should be grateful, but said she should have the same opportunities that are given to her white counterparts. In particular, she hopes to be able to present her music in other music categories such as in pop, as well as be given the opportunities to promote her music on the radio.

“There’s this pattern of feeling like you have to engage with white acceptance, which includes working with people [who] don’t respect you or artists who don’t respect you,” she said. SZA argued that in such an environment, the act of standing up for oneself is a form of activism: “It becomes an act of activism just by saying ‘no.’ I felt valuable on my own. Everybody needs that reminder if you are a creative of color.”

As she approached the end of her presentation, SZA finished with a bang — in lieu of a full concert set-list, she offered an acoustic version of “Kill Bill,” live from the lectern.

Following her talk, SZA engaged in a roundtable discussion with professors Aisha Beliso-De Jesús of Princeton University, Elizabeth Hinton of

Yale University, Megan Ming Francis from the University of Washington, and Scholar-in-Residence Derecka Purnell from Columbia University.

The conversation was centered around Black activism. Specifically, the panel discussed what it means to be an activist, their personal experiences as Black women working in activism, and the future ahead. When it was SZA’s turn to speak, she discussed how she hopes to be the muscle of the movement. “Pushing boundaries of what we can talk about, working with a company to open their purse and give to charities — all I want to do is shine [on] what’s important, to try even if it’s really idealistic and ridiculous,” she said.

However, SZA also noted that there is still a long way to go. She recalled her experience of performing in Ghana as an example. “I thought, I’m gonna go to the place where everyone looks like me, it’ll be so restorative,” she explained. However, when she saw how global warming was impacting the environment and livelihood of the locals, she felt disheartened by the lack of care surrounding the issue: “I’m still supposed to perform at this festival and feel really privileged to be broadcasted on major channels — it just feels like the work is not done.”

When thinking about problems like systemic

racism or climate change, the singer argued that it can feel overwhelming. So how does SZA take down these seismic issues? Simple — she doesn’t.

Indeed, she joked that she cannot “break down colonial infrastructure with an album.” However, she tries to do her part through small acts of resistance.

“I can show what it’s like being a Black woman in a space that isn’t welcoming. It’s like they want to hear what you have to say until it’s annoying or aggressive or abrasive or frightening,” SZA said.

“That is my act of activism — screaming anyway.”

Kerrie Liang is a head editor for The Prospect at the ‘Prince’ from Brisbane, Australia. She can be reached at kl2646@princeton.edu, or on Instagram at @kerrie. liang.

Matthew Suh is a contributing writer for The Prospect from Santa Barbara, California. He is a junior majoring in SPIA and can be reached at matthew.suh@ princeton.edu.

Justus Wilhoit is an assistant News editor, Prospect contributor, and assistant Audience editor for the ‘Prince.’

The Daily Princetonian

Friday September 29, 2023

page 17

My silence as a disgraced bilingual

By Russell Fan | Assistant Prospect Editor

With a dazed sense of what to focus on, a blank stare is all I mustered as I faced the iPhone’s minutelypixelated screen, which occasionally lagged. On the WeChat video call, my face was visible in a small rectangle occupying the upper-right-hand corner of the screen while the rest of it showed the faces of my maternal grandparents.

It was late-January, so my family and I had called my maternal grandparents, who resided in Hangzhou, China, to celebrate the new lunar year. Though I had known what to say in Mandarin to wish them a happy Lunar New Year and good health, “xīnnián kuàilè; shēntǐ jiànkāng,” I felt that I was not actually speaking those words out of aptitude, but rather out of recitation.

Pronouncing the individual characters and tones felt familiar due to faint recollections of previous Lunar New Years throughout my childhood when I had heard and successfully said those salutations. Yet

they felt so distant when I actually tried to relay those words to my grandparents during the call.

Instead of flowing out as a smooth stream with proper enunciation and intonation, those two phrases had been turbulently uttered out of my mouth in a monotone, trembling voice. Had I not repeated my message for my grandparents, whose hearing had declined in their eighties, it would have been barely comprehensible due to the horrifically-butchered pronunciation and awkward pauses.

In this regard, I deemed myself a disgraced bilingual, who had once thrived in both English and Mandarin, but has since experienced a waning of their linguistic repertoire in the latter.

I had lost the ability to speak Mandarin after I moved back to New Jersey from Shanghai at the age of eight. Having developed severe speech problems in English when I entered second-grade, I was thrusted between several speech therapists, most of whom reached a consensus that my impressionable mind was confused by the bilingual nature of my house-

RUSSELL FAN / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Quaint beach houses in Cape May, New Jersey.

PEV Restrictions

By Austria Merritt

Contributing Cartoonist

hold. Thus, they recommended to my parents that they only speak one language, namely English, to me from then on.

Many of my Asian-American peers, whose mother tongue happened to be English, had attested to how they grew up in the United States speaking a second language on a daily basis in their household, hence they were able to upkeep their bilinguality throughout their adolescence. Unfortunately, it seemed that I was an anomaly in that phenomenon, for I no longer utilized Chinese in my life for the rest of my formal schooling years. Subsequently, my Chinese rapidly deteriorated.

So, here I am today: a disgraced bilingual who can only speak short phrases of Mandarin after reciting them countlessly. No longer was I an active participant who contributed seamlessly and naturally to a conversation. Instead, I was a robot who could only follow a rigid outline of how I should respond to basic topics, and would shut down in silence if anything deviated from that structured plan.

That video call was one of the moments in which I had become silent after timidly, and shakily uttering simple phrases in Chinese. I had nothing else to follow up the conversation with after “xīnnián kuàilè; shēntǐ jiànkāng.”

Embarrassment rushed beneath the surface of my stoic expression, fueled by the realization that I could not even sustain a verbal exchange for thirty seconds with the loved ones who were an integral part of my childhood growing up in Shanghai. Choosing to be silent, I found, was a way for me to internally lament my abysmal language skills, as well as harbor my humiliation.

My silence throughout the rest of the video call was a manifestation of awkwardness and discomfort in my incompetence with Mandarin. It was a demonstration of the pitiful fact that I was now incapable in a language that I once was so proficient in. Flashbacks to when I was able to both write intricate stories/essays and converse non-stop with my grandparents in Chinese underlined the reality as to how much I have declined linguistically as a disgraced bilingual.

Compounding this sentiment was the fact that my grandparents’ dementia had dramatically wors-

ened in the five years since I had last visited them.

No longer were they able to engage in light-hearted conversations as they struggled to maintain their mental sovereignty.

The prospect that opportunities to connect with my grandparents are withering away, as their memory fades, amplifies my regret for being unable to speak the language of my ancestors. This guilt deepened my shameful silence as a disgraced bilingual.

I have made several attempts to re-familiarize myself with Chinese, yet they never proved to be fruitful. Part of these failures was attributed, candidly, to me succumbing to the notion that Romance languages were easier to acquire bilinguality in. A greater aspect, however, was rooted in my insecurity for being one of the few individuals who could not speak Chinese compared to the rest of my ChineseAmerican companions.

The shame that accompanied this knowledge that I was the black sheep among many of my ChineseAmerican classmates, both back home and at Princeton, in regards to fluency or discourse in Mandarin was suffocating. Humiliation weighed down my selfesteem, and remorse drowned out my motivation to apply myself in that language.

Thus, I hung in silence even in conversations with friends that involved interspersed Chinese phrases.

Feelings of demoralizing incompetence, outweighing an underlying sense of envy, saturated my mind as I failed to understand and reciprocate the unrecognizable expressions. Attempting to engage with the dialogue, even just the thought of it, was filled with dreadful uneasiness and embarrassment for me.

It seemed that all of this served as a testament to my status as a disgraced bilingual, who woefully sits in silence during conversations involving the language that I have regressed in. This sentiment of contrition was all that was on my mind during that WeChat video call with my grandparents for Lunar New Year. Not another word was muttered from my mouth until our farewells.

Russell Fan is an assistant editor for The Prospect at the ‘Prince.’

Priorities

By Madison Anderson

Contributing Cartoonist

The Prospect 11 The Daily Princetonian

page 18

Friday September 29, 2023

Weekly Event Roundup

By Lauren Fromkin, Senior Contributor

1 2 3 4 5 6

Timbuktu Grooves Festival: Fatoumata Diawara Concert

September 30, 2023 at 8 p.m.

Matthews Theater at McCarter Theatre Center

Malian singer-songwriter Fatoumata Diawara’s music is a blend of Wassoulou folk music, Afropop, and desert blues sung over electric guitar and performed mostly in Bambara, the national language of Mali. Her music touches on themes including African identity, migration, motherhood, and the struggles African women face. Diawara debuted as an actress in the ’90s in films such as the Oscar-nominated “Timbuktu.” In 2019, she became the first Malian artist to perform at the Grammys, where her 2018 record “Fenfo (Something to Say)” was nominated for Best World Music Album. Tickets can be purchased on McCarter Theatre Center’s website and are available for free to students through Passport to the Arts.

Timbuktu Grooves Festival: “Once the Dust Settles Flowers Bloom”

by Olivier Tarpaga September 29, 2023 at 8 p.m.

Matthews Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center

The three-day Timbuktu Grooves Festival begins with Director of Princeton’s African Music Ensembles Olivier Tarpaga’s humanist piece “Once the Dust Settles Flowers Bloom.” Tarpaga’s piece centers around the story of refugees from Burkina Faso who were displaced after fleeing jihadists. The piece includes dancers and musicians from Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Benin, Morocco, and France and will begin with a brief moderated conversation with Tarpaga.

The show also includes a reading in French and is presented in partnership with the African World Initiative, Seuls en Scène, and the Princeton French Theater Festival. Tickets can be purchased on McCarter Theatre Center’s website and are available for free to students through Passport to the Arts.

Hip-Hop Techniques and Foundations with Jillian Amadi Roberts September 30, 2023 from 3–4:30 p.m.

Ellie’s Studio, Lewis Arts complex

In this class, Jillian Amadi Roberts, a Brooklyn-based antiracist Afrodiasporic dance educator, choreographer, and coach, will instruct participants in the foundational technique, fundamental steps, and groove of hip-hop dance.

Roberts’ choreography has been included in award-winning sets, music videos, and an off-Broadway musical. This event is free and open to Princeton students, faculty, and staff of all experience levels. No advance registration is required.

8 10

Timbuktu Grooves Festival: Djandjoba

October 1, 2023 at 4 p.m.

Richardson Auditorium

The Timbuktu Grooves Festival concludes with Djandjoba, also known as “The Big Gathering,” featuring sounds from across the African continent and its diaspora. This concert features the kora, an ancient 21-string African harp, a duet by Wassa Kouyate from Mali and Flatie Dembele from Burkina Faso, and contemporary African music by Sō Percussion, the Dafra Kura band from Burkina Faso, and the Princeton University Afrobeat Ensemble. Tickets can be purchased through University Ticketing and are available for free to students through Passport to the Arts.

“The Winter’s Tale” Flower Craft Workshop

September 30, 2023 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Drapkin Studio, Lewis Arts complex

This workshop teaches participants how to make paper and fabric flowers, and the final products will become part of the set of the Lewis Center’s production of “The Winter’s Tale” in November. All materials will be provided, and participants can choose to craft a range of flower types and sizes. This event is free and open to the public, including families with children over the age of six. All participants are eligible for free tickets to “The Winter’s Tale.” Advance sign-up is recommended but not required.

Reading by Ling Ma and Sandra Cisneros

October 3, 2023 at 7:30 p.m.

Drapkin Studio, Lewis Arts complex

Ling Ma, author of the critically acclaimed debut novel “Severance” and the National Indie Bestseller “Bliss Montage: Stories,” and MacArthur Foundation Fellow and National Medal of Arts–winner Sandra Cisneros, author of “The House on Mango Street,” will read from their works. This event kicks off the 2023–24 Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series hosted by the Program in Creative Writing. This reading is open to the public, and free tickets are required and available through University Ticketing.

Faculty Panel: Perspectives on Doug Aitken’s “migration (empire)” October 4, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.

Forum, Lewis Arts complex

This panel will feature a discussion of the video installation “migration (empire)” by Doug Aitken, screening daily on the north lawn of the Lewis Arts complex. Panelists come from across disciplines, including Professor Shane Campbell-Staton in ecology and evolutionary biology, professor Jeffrey Whetstone from the Department of Visual Arts, and music professor Barbara White. The discussion will be moderated by Karl Kusserow, John Wilmerding Curator of American Art and associated faculty at the High Meadows Environmental Institute.

This panel is free and open to the public, and a reception will follow the event.

La Vie En Cello–Arch Play September 30, 2023 at 3 p.m.

Blair Arch

This concert celebrates La Vie En Cello’s new members through a “NewVie Arch.” Members of this cello ensemble will perform a variety of music with the acoustics of Blair Arch to inaugurate new members and kick off the season.

This concert is free and open to the public.

9

7

Joyce Carol Oates and A.M. Homes, “48 Clues Into the Disappearance of My Sister and ZeroSum: Stories”

October 5, 2023 at 6 p.m.

Labyrinth Books

Joyce Carol Oates, Professor of the Humanities, Emerita at Princeton University and critically acclaimed author, will read from her recent works, “48 Clues Into the Disappearance of My Sister” and “Zero-Sum: Stories.”

She will also engage in discussion with fellow writer and Lewis Center for the Arts colleague, A.M. Homes.

This event is free and open to the public.

Gillett G. Griffin Lecture: Antonio Martorell, “Deep Colonial Waters: Wars, Bankruptcy, Natural Catastrophes, Pandemics and Healing Through Art” October 5, 2023 at 4:30 p.m.

East Pyne 010

Multimedia artist and 2021 National Medal of Arts recipient Antonio Martorell will discuss a variety of his artworks responding to colonialism. Martorell has spent 60 years exploring how media fosters communication and conversation. This event is sponsored by the Princeton University Library, the Program for Latin American Studies, and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. Registration is free online for Princeton students, faculty, and staff, with a reception following the talk in East Pyne’s Lower Hyphen.

11

Afternoon Concert Series

October 5, 2023 at 12:30 p.m.

Princeton University Chapel

This concert is part of a weekly concert series featuring various local, national, and international organists. Each show lasts a half-hour and showcases the chapel’s Skinner/ Mander Chapel organ, with each visiting organist eliciting a different character from the instrument. This concert is free and open to the public.

Friday September 29, 2023

Sports

page 19

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } WOMEN’S SOCCER

No. 14 women’s soccer team continues win streak against Cornell, 4-2

By Peter Wang Sports Contributor

After a successful week with back-toback wins against Georgetown (6–1–3 overall, 2–0–0 Big East Conference) and Quinnipiac (4–3–0, 2–0–0 Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference) that saw the women’s soccer team (6–1–1, 1–0–0 Ivy League) jump to No. 14 on United Soccer Coaches’ Rankings, Princeton looked to carry forward their momentum into their highly anticipated Ivy Opener against the Cornell Big Red (2–1–4, 0–1– 0). The Tigers won 4–2, backed by an early lead that proved too much for the Big Red to handle.

At the start of the game, it seemed as though the game would be a defensive stalemate as the two teams battled for control. Cornell’s forwards applied constant pressure to Princeton’s defensive line, firing multiple shots at goal and keeping the ball on Princeton’s half of the field. Despite the attacks, the Tigers never relented, counter-pressing Cornell players to try and win back possession.

The momentum soon shifted towards Princeton after 30 minutes. Using a nifty crossover move to get by her defender, junior midfielder Lily Bryant sprinted down the field and passed the ball into the penalty box where senior midfielder Jen Estes was matched up against Cornell defender Cecily Pokigo. Though the pass was just too high for Estes, sophomore forward Drew

Coomans saved the play by bumping the ball back with her torso towards Estes, who then fired in her second goal of the season through the legs of Cornell’s goalie, Natalie Medugno.

With two minutes left in the half, the Tigers would find the back of the net once again with a powerful free kick from senior midfielder Aria Nagai after a foul right outside the penalty area.

With Cornell defenders forming a wall to her right, Nagai placed the ball perfectly into the back left corner of the net, never giving Medugno an attempt to save it.

“It was a great feeling to finally get a goal, under the lights, at home,” Nagai wrote to The Daily Princetonian. “It was good to have a 2–0 lead at the half, but we knew the next goal of the game would be crucial, so the main focus was coming out strong [the second] half and getting that next goal.”

Staying true to Nagai’s words in the second half, Princeton came out of the half and continued to dominate the Big Red defense.

“We wanted to play with intensity and maintain our identity of being a possession-based team,” stated Nagai.

With Princeton controlling the game pace, they found more opportunities to score. At 33 minutes left in the half, a corner ball from Nagai found its way to the feet of senior midfielder Marissa Hart, who put away the easy finish to create a 3–0 lead for the Tigers.

“My role was to mark the goalie and

make it difficult for her to secure the ball off the corner kick,” said Hart to the ‘Prince.’ “Aria put in a dangerous ball and Heather [MacNab] did a great job of redirecting the ball back across the goal from the back post to make it an easy finish for me.”

Just five minutes later, junior forward Heather MacNab earned her second assist of the game with a crossing pass that found its way to senior forward Lexi Hiltunen, who used her body to put away the score.

Princeton’s victory last night was especially redeeming after a tough, 2–1 loss against Cornell last season.

“We’ve been looking forward to playing Cornell the past year to redeem ourselves,” Hart told the ‘Prince.’ “We have a lot of respect for their program and how hard they fought until the end last night, but starting our Ivy season with a win against them felt great.”

Cornell found its offensive footing with 11 minutes left with a score by midfielder Kendall Patten, followed by another goal by fellow midfielder Abigail Bishara.

“As a team, we did not manage the game well enough at the end, so that will be a focus for us moving forward,” Hart noted.

Despite the late goals conceded, Princeton junior goalkeeper Tyler McCamey came up with five saves on 12 shots faced, her most of the season.

The win against Cornell is encouraging for the No. 14 Tigers as they prepare

for the rest of the season.

“We’re looking forward to continuing to showcase our talents to the rest of the league,” said Nagai. “We’ve been waiting a long time for the Ivy season to start, so we want to make sure we stay true to our identity, play the way we want to play, and continue to win games to hopefully lead us to an Ivy League title.”

The Tigers aim to ride their three-

game win streak into Tuesday’s matchup against Lafayette (6–3–0, 2–1–0 Patriot League) and a tilt against conference rival Brown (5–1–2, 1–0–0) next Saturday.

Peter Wang is a contributor to the Sports section of the ‘Prince.’

PHOTO COURTESY OF @GOPRINCETONTIGERS.COM.

Midfielder Marissa Hart scored the deciding goal in No 14. Princeton’s 4-2 victory over Cornell.

WOMEN’S VOLLEYBALL

Women’s volleyball opens Ivy League play with back-to-back wins over Penn

By Allison Ha & Josefina Gurevisch Sports Contributors

On Friday, Sept. 22, women’s volleyball (5–5 overall, 2–0 Ivy League) traveled to open their Ivy League schedule with a win against Penn (2–10, 0–2).

The next day, Princeton hosted Penn and once again emerged victorious.

Continuing their winning streak of Ivy League openers, the Tigers have now won every Ivy opening game since 2015.

Princeton set the tone early in their first match against Penn, scoring six straight points to start the game. Unfortunately for the Tigers, Penn fired right back and went on a six-point scoring streak of their own. The first set went back-and-forth until the Quakers broke it open with a four-point streak to win the first set of the match 25–22.

The Tigers quickly picked themselves up after a tough first set. Despite falling behind 3–0 early, Princeton responded with force. A kill by sophomore middle blocker Lucia Scalamandre sparked what would become a 9–0 run for the Tigers. After this, it was smooth sailing for Princeton for the rest of the set. The set ended on an attack error by Penn, leaving the Tigers with a 25–14 second set victory.

Coming off their momentum from the second set, Princeton was in the driver’s seat the entire third set. Even with a six-point Quaker run late in the set, Princeton never fell below Penn, resulting in a 25–21 Princeton win.

Princeton then closed the game with a competitive fourth set by both teams.

The Tigers and Quakers were back-andforth throughout the set, but Princeton broke the game open with a 5–0 streak just moments after the game was tied at 17. With this run, Princeton continued their win streak against Penn and won the game with the final set ending 25–18.

The Tigers were propelled by senior opposite hitter Kathleen Bishop’s then career-high 14 kills. The very next day, Bishop set a new career-high with 17 kills against Penn.

“Our mentality going into the game was to play together as a team with high energy and focus,” Bishop told The Daily Princetonian. “Every Ivy game is important, so it feels great to start the conference season with a win.”

The future of the Tigers is also looking bright with a first-year and a sophomore playing key roles in this week’s matchup. Scalamandre had 11 kills and seven blocks, and first-year setter Sydney Draper added on a game-high 42 assists and 13 digs of her own.

“We hope to [continue to] use this momentum going into the home game [this Saturday] and away games next weekend,” said Bishop, referring to their second game against Penn the next day.

On Saturday afternoon, women’s volleyball did just that, securing a strong start to the Ivy League Conference with a second consecutive win against Penn. The Tigers increased their win streak against the Quakers to 15–0 with a nail-biting win in the fifth set, and an overall match win of 3–2

(25–9, 25–20, 22–25, 22–25, 15–11). This win places Princeton at the top of Ivy Conference standings to kick off the season.

The Tigers gained momentum quickly in the first set, reaching a 7–1 lead. Princeton’s starters rapidly displayed that they were prepared to win that day, with consistent kills and aces throughout the opening set. Princeton held a massive lead against Penn for the remainder of the set, swiftly sweeping them 25–9 to start off the match.

Princeton came out on top 4–3 in the first few points of the second set.

However, after Penn gained a 6–4 lead, the Tigers were left to play catch-up for the majority of the set.

Junior blocker and opposite hitter Mariah Haislip landed a kill to improve the score to 5–6, but Penn ruthlessly responded with two consecutive kills of their own. This back-and-forth persisted for the middle portion of the set.

The momentum began to change with a tremendous kill from first-year outside hitter Erin McNair following an incredible dig by senior outside hitter Maya Satchell at 15–18.

The Quakers called their first timeout of the set at 20–20, a sign that the Tigers were finally back in the game.

Following this break, the Tigers fed off their momentum to close the set at 25– 20 with consecutive kills from McNair, and an absolutely monstrous block.

It became clear early on in the third set that Penn had felt the weight of their second set loss and were prepared to fight back. While the Quakers man-

aged to seize the third and fourth set, the Tigers did not make it an easy feat.

In the third set, Princeton and Penn fought back and forth, tying multiple points. The set began to turn when two consecutive kills by Penn were followed by a Tiger service error and a hitting error. Princeton called a timeout down at 24–22, but it was too late to save the set, and the Quakers claimed a 25–22 win.

The fourth set followed in similar fashion, and the Tigers did not look their strongest. After starting down 2–0, Princeton managed to take it back, 8–4, with consecutive kills from Bishop. Penn called an effective timeout at 9–5 and recovered the lead 13–11. Once again, the Tigers trailed until they rallied to a score of 21–18. Unfortunately, at 21–19, with an upsetting call from the referee, Princeton started to fall apart, and Penn snatched another set from the Tigers 25–22.

“The biggest thing I would say is that this team is resilient and is going to have to be resilient,” women’s volleyball assistant coach Tim Favreau said in an interview with the ‘Prince’ after the game.

The Tigers had a shaky start to the fifth set, having just lost two consecutive sets and their lead in the game.

The tide turned for the Tigers as they began to personify the resilience of which that Favreau spoke. First-year libero Sydney Bold boosted the score with an ace, and soon, Princeton was winning 7–3.

Penn looked increasingly shaky as

the Tigers battled on with confidence.

Preceding the switching of sides, Princeton looked as strong as ever as they closed an epic rally with a fantastic kill. At 14–11, Haislip essentially sealed the deal with a colossal kill. The Quakers crumbled, and the Tigers persevered as victors of this battle, 15–11.

Some of the top performers in Princeton’s past few games have been first-years. McNair, Bold, and Draper have been shining brightly under pressure. Draper clinched her second consecutive double-double — sixth total — with 61 assists and 10 digs. Bold achieved 21 digs, and McNair reached 10 kills.

Favreau recognizes the youth of his players, but does not believe it is a weakness.

“We’re young and have got a lot of players out on the floor that don’t have a ton of years of collegiate starting experience,” said Favreau. “So this is going to be a full team effort throughout the season. They’re really going to have to lean on each other and support each other throughout this journey.

I thought we did a great job with that tonight, as you saw in that fifth set.”

Women’s volleyball will return to the court Friday, Sept. 29 to play Brown in Providence, R.I. at 7 p.m. for another Ivy matchup.

Allison Ha is a contributing writer for the Sports section at the ‘Prince.’

Josefina Gurevich is a contributor to the Sports section of the ‘Prince.’

page 20

Sports

Friday September 29, 2023

{ www.dailyprincetonian.com } FOOTBALL

Princeton breaks non-conference winning streak in 16–13 overtime loss to Bryant

By Alex Beverton-Smith Sports Contributor

On Saturday afternoon, Princeton football (1–1 overall, 0–0 Ivy League) lost its home season opener, 16–13, to Bryant University (2–2 overall, 0–0 Big South) at Powers Field in Princeton. This broke Princeton’s non-conference winning streak of 17 games, which stretched back to 2016.

The game was characterized by wet and windy conditions in which neither team was able to display their best, but the Tigers knew that it was more than just the weather that caused this upset.

“We can’t really use that as an excuse for anything, we just got outplayed,” senior linebacker Liam Johnson told The Daily Princetonian about the weather.

“It’s really important to recognize what you did wrong and come back better from it.”

The game, having been moved up from 3 p.m. to 12 p.m. to avoid weather issues, was filled with plenty of rain and wind, limiting the team’s playbook and what they were able to do. Junior running back John Volker shared a similar sentiment to Johnson.

“The weather is always tough,” Volker explained to the ‘Prince.’

“It’s the same for both teams though, so we just had emphasis on ball security and sticking to what we do.”

In fact, it was a result of this emphasis on ball security that the Tigers played a running-based offense. Volker himself managed an astounding 149 rushing yards from just 18 carries, and, in the process, became the first Princeton player to rush over 100 yards since Collin Eaddy ’22 against Brown in 2021.

As a result of the changing weather, both teams struggled offensively in the first quarter.

Midway through the first quarter, there was no score on the board and each team had already driven down the field twice to eventually end their drives with a punt.

Bryant managed two drives up the field to get to a 3rd down and 4 on their 48 yard-line before sophomore linebacker Sekou Roland sacked Bryant quarterback Zevi Eckhaus for his first career sack and tackle.

By the end of the quarter each team had three drives and each ended them with punts before sophomore defensive back Nasir Hill tackled Bryant Eckhaus at the 23 yard line to see the first quarter out.

Princeton started the next quarter receiving the punt and downing it at their 35-yard-line before an interception by Bryant defensive back Avery Dixon saw him running to the 10-yardline before being pushed out of bounds. An illegal block from Bryant saw the play brought back to the 48-yard-line, saving Princeton from a threatening position.

The end of Bryant’s nine-play drive saw senior linebacker Will

PHOTO COURTESY OF @GOPRINCETONTIGERS.COM.

Junior running back John Volker rushed for a career-high 149 yards in the loss against Bryant.

Perez recover a fumble by Echkaus on the 36-yard-line. Princeton couldn’t capitalize, however, and a nine-play, 37-yard drive from the Tigers and a six-play, 5-yard drive from Bryant saw the ball back with Princeton.

Princeton’s first play from the 46 yard-line was incomplete as Volker came close to a catch but ultimately couldn’t keep hold of the ball. After a 5-yard rush into Bryant’s 49-yard line, Princeton lined up for 3rd and 5. The Tigers released junior running back Volker and after the offensive line cleared a path, he weaved his way through the defense in the middle of the pitch before dashing down left to complete a 54-yard rushing touchdown making the score 6–0 to Princeton. The Orange and Black, however, were unable to convert the extra point.

“He’s really finishing the runs well,” said Princeton head coach Bob Surace ‘90 to the ‘Prince’ about Volker. “[Volker’s] doing a job with that, I thought last year he had a great camp, got banged up in the opener, tried to come back and just never was healthy.”

Volker looks to be key for this Princeton side, with this being his second long rushing touchdown of the season after a 51-yard touchdown against the San Diego Toreros last week. On rainy days like Saturday, it was vital to have someone like Volker able to make these runs and plays, which ultimately scored Princeton many of their points.

“The entire offseason I was really making an emphasis that I wanted to stay healthy,” Volker explained. “Rehab did my body really well. And, you know, I’m feeling great”.

Indeed, much of his support comes from his brother Charlie Volker ’19, also a running back, who was on the Princeton football team from 2015–2019.

“He’s such an amazing resource to have,” Volker continued. “It’s never like, ‘I want to be better than him.’ I’m using advice from him and he’s helped me out.” By halftime, Volker had 82 rushing yards and was averaging an astounding 11.7 yards per rush.

The second half saw a much more open game. It started with a 10-play drive by the Tigers for 62 yards with senior quarterback Blake Stenstrom unable to find junior wide receiver Matthew Mahoney or junior wide receiver AJ Barber in the following plays, resulting in a turnover on downs.

A strong defensive sequence helped Princeton hold off another Bryant attempt out of their own half, and Bryant returned the favor as they forced a three and out from Princeton.

Then, a 34-yard drive from Bryant into field goal range led to their first points of the game from a 40-yard field goal.

The Tigers responded strongly, going on a long 10-play drive up the field stretching across into the fourth quarter. This brought the Tigers to Bryant’s 4-yard line, as Stenstrom received the ball and handed it off to sophomore running back Dareion Murphy who completed the play, squeezing through Bryant’s defense for his first career rushing touchdown. The extra point was good and Princeton found themselves up 13–3 with 12 minutes left in the fourth quarter.

A crucial player leading all the way up to this score, however, was senior linebacker Ozzie Nicholas who by the end of regular time had 15 tackles to his name, representing the strength of the defense well.

“I do think we’re doing a good job with how we’re using, you know, all the linebackers,” Surace said. “Will [Perez], Marco [Scarano] and those guys did a really

good job.”

“He’s the best player on the field,” Johnson told the ‘Prince’ about Nicholas.

Johnson, too, had an impressive game as he completed 8 tackles and 1 sack throughout the regulation time, contributing to a strong defense that forced Bryant to earn 9 of their 16 points from open-play field goals.

Bryant, fighting back into the game, drove down the field for 65 yards in 11 plays, ending up with Bryant quarterback Eckhaus throwing it to tight end Konor Lathrop, who split the Tigers’ defense and went in for the touchdown. Bryant then converted the extra point bringing the score to 13–10 for Princeton.

An attempted punt at the end of a six-play drive saw Princeton fumble the ball, as the wet conditions only worsened. This resulted in a Bryant recovery, and an ensuing drive that culminated in a 38-yard field goal, tying the score at 13.

With a minute and a half left of regulation time, both teams struggled to progress down the field, and the game headed into overtime.

Bryant received the ball first in overtime, and made slow progress up the field before a mistimed sack allowed Eckhaus to rush to the 20-yard line, giving Bryant just enough yardage to attempt a 37-yard field goal. This gave Bryant a three point lead and the ball back to Princeton.

Princeton’s turn saw them rush to get a 3rd and 1 on the 16-yard line. The Tigers then attempted a QB sneak as they tried to surge forward for the last yard. Unfortunately, they couldn’t quite make it, and, with the Tigers on 4th and 1, they tried yet another QB sneak for that last yard. Princeton, however, found themselves blocked again as Stenstrom just

could not get far enough, despite the Tigers’ collective effort.

“It’s a hard play to practice”, Surace noted. “We did [consider another play]. I think we only needed a couple inches, and I don’t know if we got the snap completely either.”

Although the team in the fourth quarter was up 13–3, the Tigers ultimately lost out in overtime to a strong Bryant team that capitalized on their opportunities when they arose.

“I think it was a variety of factors,” Johnson said when asked about what may have caused the loss. “You can’t really focus on one thing, it’s a collective thing.” “[In] the Ivy League, obviously, every game is a championship game,” Johnson added. “So you’d rather lose and learn those lessons in a non-league game where it doesn’t matter as much. But, I mean losing always stings.”

On September 16th, Bryant fell to Brown — who ranked last in the Ivy League preseason polls — 29–25.

Princeton has their first Ivy League match-up this Friday, September 29 at Powers Field against Columbia (1–1 overall, 0–0 Ivy League), in which the Tigers hope to kick-off the conference season with a win. Columbia has the same 1–1 record as Princeton, in what is shaping up to be a great game.

“I’m feeling good,” Volker said to the ‘Prince’ about this Friday’s game. “I think this is a good wake-up call. I think we’re gonna respond really well.”

“The level of detail has got to be higher,” Surace added. “We’re gonna have to come out and you know, hopefully come out with a lot of energy and play well.”

Alex Beverton-Smith is a contributor to the Sports section of the ‘Prince.’