Reunions 2024

CALVIN

Letter from the Editor

Eden Teshome 148th Editor-In-Chief

Dear fellow Princetonians,

As a familiar nighttime warmth settles over campus, so does a new era. Few of us have seen Princeton as it exists today.

The University has always been a unique environment — some of the brightest minds crowded onto 600 acres of New Jersey greenery.

When Princetonians achieve, they reach for the stars. When asked to write, they pen one-hundred page theses. When their thoughts differ… well, they make it known.

A culture of dissent has played out in the ‘Prince’s pages for over a century.

The Black Justice League sat in Eisgruber’s office for 33 hours to advocate for racial justice in 2015.

In 1969, students occupied Nassau Hall to protest the University’s holdings in corporations enabling South African apartheid. On Cannon Green, the site of our most recent moment of visible dissent, Revolutionary War cannons once boomed, calling on Princetonians to form a new nation.

Many argue that the Princeton of today looks nothing like the Princeton of a decade or two ago.

Be it the “DEI revolution,” mental health crisis, social media era, or unprecedented levels of socioeconomic equity on campus. The “kids these days” are both trophy-holding wimps and given too hard of a time. Are we alright? Only time will tell.

Of course, Princeton has changed. The ‘Prince’ is here to tell you that it has, but we also remind you that it hasn’t. The tried and true phrase “history repeats itself” rings clear. We write the news, but, in truth, it isn’t all that new. The past year of stories elucidates the point.

Enjoy the best of what we have to offer from last year. In these pages you will find carefully curated stories filled with unadulterated joy, quizzical curiosity, solemn inquiry. And, you will find echoes of your time at Princeton, and perhaps a few iterations that extend far before your own.

In many ways, this era at Princeton is a return to the old Nassau. So, join me in saying: hurrah, hurrah, hurrah.

Princeton says kidnapped student was conducting research for ‘approved Ph.D. dissertation topic’

By Tess Weinreich

Asssociate News Editor Emeritus

A new statement released by the University states, for the first time, that the kidnapping of doctoral candidate Elizabeth Tsurkov GS in Iraq last March occurred during travel related to research for her politics dissertation. The University originally confirmed that Tsurkov was missing in July and has since maintained that University-related travel to Iraq would not be approved for students.

“Elizabeth was kidnapped while enrolled at the University and was in Iraq conducting research related to her approved Ph.D. dissertation topic,” wrote University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss in an emailed statement.

Elizabeth’s sister, Emma Tsurkov, has previously stated that Elizabeth’s dissertation committee, which was chaired by Dean of the School of Public and International Affairs Amaney Jamal, approved her prospectus. The ‘Prince’ has confirmed that a draft of her prospectus included plans to conduct field research in Iraq. While the statement issued by the University characterizes

the research as approved, it does not note anything specific to University travel approval.

Hotchkiss, while not confirming details of the prospectus, citing student privacy, has previously told the ‘Prince’ that the prospectus approval process is “separate and distinct from other steps that may be required to carry out the proposed research, including in absentia enrollment, travel registration, and Institutional Review Board approval (if the proposed research involves human subjects).”

“At this time, the University is focused on Elizabeth’s safety and well-being. We have offered support to Elizabeth’s family and are in communication with government officials and experts for guidance on how the University can best help to bring Elizabeth home safely,” Hotchkiss told the ‘Prince’ on Oct. 3.

The University’s acknowledgement that Elizabeth’s travel to Iraq was related to dissertation research comes amidst an ongoing lobbying campaign, led by Tsurkov’s sister, Emma, aiming to galvanize support for her release. This effort has included conversations with government officials and running pieces on

BEYOND THE BUBBLE | NOVEMBER 2023

the kidnapping for several publications. Emma Tsurkov specifically critiqued the University for “trying to distance itself from any responsibility” in her sister’s kidnapping in an op-ed published by NJ.com. She also claimed in the op-ed that her requests for the University to release a public statement affirming that Elizabeth was in Baghdad for dissertation research were denied.

Emma Tsurkov visited the University in September to meet with Provost Jennifer Rexford ’91 and Joyce Rechtschaffen, Assistant Vice President of the Office of Government Affairs. According to Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW), Emma has claimed that in this conversation, Rexford confirmed Elizabeth “was doing approved dissertation research in Baghdad when she was kidnapped.”

The University did not comment on the conversation with Rexford. Emma Tsurkov did not provide documentation of the meeting.

In an interview with the ‘Prince’ on the day she met with Rexford, Emma said that her visit’s purpose was to get the U.S. government to put pressure on the Iraqi government to free Elizabeth.

“It has been almost six months

since my sister was kidnapped. I don’t have proof of life, I don’t know what the kidnappers want, and everyone is passing the buck,” Emma told the ‘Prince.’

Hotchkiss previously told reporters that the University stopped engaging with individual government officials at the request of the family, which came before knowledge of Elizabeth’s kidnapping became public.

“Elizabeth’s family subsequently asked that the University not involve government officials in the interest of keeping the matter private,” he told the Associated Press.

In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ Emma Tsurkov denied making that request. She said that she “did ask to keep it private in the sense of not not talking to reporters,” but that she “never asked to not speak to any of the governments.”

“There was nothing that precluded Princeton from engaging with governments to help bring my sister back,” she told the ‘Prince.’

Tess Weinreich is an associate News editor emeritus at the ‘Prince.’ Head News Editor Annie Rupertus contributed reporting to this article.

Alumnus invokes Princeton’s informal motto, then sentenced to two months for Jan. 6 actions

By Eden Teshome Senior News Writer Emeritus

WASHINGTON D.C. — Just two blocks from the U.S. Capitol Building, and nearly three years later, Larry Giberson ’23 was sentenced to two months of incarceration, six months of home detention, and $2000 in fines by D.C. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols for his involvement in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Giberson was found at fault for helping to coordinate a “heaveho” pushing effort in the Lower West Terrace “tunnel” entrance of the Capitol Building, ushering fellow rioters into the entryway, and contributing to the physical assault of Capitol police officers.

In July, Giberson pleaded guilty to one count of civil disorder in a plea agreement negotiated with the Office of the U.S. Attorney. He was originally charged with six violations of U.S. Code. The remaining charges were waived at the sentencing hearing by the government.

In his sentencing memorandum, U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Rancourt recommended Giberson be sentenced to 11 months of incarceration, three years of supervised release, and $2000 in restitution for damages caused to the Capitol. According to Nichols, the sentence, while significantly shorter than the prosecutor’s recommendation, fits within the sentencing guidelines recommended by the U.S. government.

On May 30, Giberson graduated from the University with an A.B. degree in Politics and certificates in French and Values and Public Life. As of now, Giberson still holds his diploma.

After learning of Giberson’s sentence, the University declined to comment to The Daily

Princetonian.

Both the prosecution and defense made arguments for their case noting Giberson’s status as a Princeton student and graduate.

Rancourt noted in his sentencing memo that Giberson “is a young man, but he is evidently capable of appreciating the implication of the January 6 attack on the Capitol and of his participation in that attack,” due to his receipt of a Politics degree.

Giberson’s defense lawyer, Charles Burnham, instead argued that his graduation from Princeton is a mark of good character.

“He went on to become the first member of his family to attend college, graduating from Princeton in 2023 with an A average,” Burnham explained in his sentencing memorandum.

At his July plea agreement hearing, Giberson waived his right to trial-by-jury, instead opting for a trial-by-judge. D.C. District Court Judge Carl J. Nichols made the sentencing decision.

Fifteen members of Giberson’s family identified themselves in the audience, at Nichols’ request. Giberson’s mother — who drove to the Capitol the morning of Jan. 6 and attended Trump’s Ellipse rally with her son — sat in the front row, wiping tears from her eyes throughout the proceeding.

In a character letter to the court, her long-term partner explained why Giberson decided to participate in the Capitol riots.

“[T]he 2020 election period was very exciting for Larry because he understood the process and how things worked,” he wrote. “[It was] maybe similar to watching your favorite baseball team on a World Series run. You get caught up in the hype and excitement and you want to be at that winning game.”

Burnham offered the same

reasons for Giberson’s actions as those stated in the letter, and argued for no period of incarceration on the basis of Giberson’s youth and otherwise clean record.

While Nichols acknowledged Giberson’s good character and remorse, he concluded that his conduct of the day warranted harsher punishment than what was requested by Giberson’s defense.

“The events of January 6 were unquestionably very serious,” Nichols told the court.

Directing his attention to Giberson, Nichols also remarked, “you’re still a young man, and I’m

sure that everyone in the courtroom hopes nothing like this happens again.”

Before the sentence was issued, Giberson rose to address the court, and gave a tearful speech apologizing for his actions on Jan. 6.

“I stand before you because of my contemptible and inexcusable behavior,” he began. “[T]he road to hell is paved with good intentions.”

He also invoked Princeton’s informal motto: “[A]s someone in the service of the nation, and in the service of humanity, I am sorry.”

Giberson declined to comment to the ‘Prince’ after the court proceedings concluded. Giberson will be summoned for a voluntary surrender to serve his two months of incarceration in the near future. Following his release from the penitentiary, he will serve six months of home detention with no additional period of supervised release. Burnham requested that Giberson’s incarceration be served close to his home in New Jersey.

Eden Teshome is head Podcast editor emeritus and a senior News writer emeritus for the ‘Prince.’

LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Eisgruber doesn’t want to be the most interesting person in the room

By Sandeep Mangat Head News Editor Emeritus

Next to the philosophy building, the 1879 Arch stands as the gateway between the core academic center of campus and Prospect Avenue.

On a Friday night in early November, students gathered there to listen to campus a cappella groups. Partway through the performance, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 arrived at the back of the crowd. For about half an hour, he gazed on silently, keeping his place at the back. Then, he slipped away, and the arch sing continued as the most popular groups took the stage.

It’s not unusual for a student to report an Eisgruber sighting. His appearances also seem to be increasing in frequency. Just prior to that arch sing, Eisgruber had informally dined with students at Shabbat and joined them in discussion after at the Center for Jewish Life. A week earlier, he was seen holding court at Community Care Day, a new University initiative for student wellbeing that drew in thousands for free food on Cannon Green. Last week, he attended the Sunday matinee of the latest Triangle show. He has also given opening remarks at Whig-Clio, attended sporting events, and held another set of office hours.

Eisgruber might not be hard to find. Yet his profile on campus has been colored by the feeling that Eisgruber is “notably isolated,” as one longtime faculty member described him.

Last month, The Daily Princetonian sat down with Eisgruber to discuss his student engagement. In the interview, he pushed back on the idea that he is inaccessible. He cited his many interactions with students, his ability to change his mind in a room with activists, and even opened up about his time at the University, a topic he has thus far been reluctant to broach.

Yet two questions hang over Eisgruber’s efforts to improve his public image on campus. Can he overcome what can sometimes be a stilted manner of interacting with community members? Moreover, does he even want to?

In the interview, Eisgruber laid out a vision of himself as more of a facilitator for the University community than its center. He made pains to stress that there are far more interesting people for students to meet on campus and that interacting with University administration was far from a priority for him when he was a student.

Eisgruber is running into the central question for all University presidents. The modern University has the financial resources of a small country and significant global influence. Any other organization of this size would be run by a CEO or politician who seeks to be a public figure. Yet University presidents are often former professors — a very different career — and also face pressure to lower their public profile out of concern that they become a liability to the University’s ideological neutrality.

Eisgruber has, at times, embraced his role as a campus ambassador and politician — defending affirmative action or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients in Washington, for example. But, in the interview and more broadly, Eisgruber laid out his role to the internal community: as an administrator, not a politician.

***

In a profile published in the spring on the occasion of Eisgruber’s tenth anniversary in office, faculty and students remarked on his bureaucratic and impersonal approach to leadership.

“There are simply more folks between [Eisgruber] and you,” one faculty member said.

He is a president who has prioritized quantifiable metrics, having relied heavily on data in making some of the biggest decisions of his decade-long term.

It has been with this same technocratic manner that Eisgruber has approached

his interactions with students. When inquired about Eisgruber’s public profile, the University responded with numbers.

“Between Aug. 29 and Oct. 5, President Eisgruber attended 11 student-focused events to which he was formally invited. That does not include athletic events or other events he attended informally,” University Spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss wrote in a statement.

“Over one five-day span in late September and early October, he attended no fewer than six student-focused events: three Pre-read conversations in the residential colleges, the home football game versus Columbia, the first-year families reception, and a Whig-Clio debate,” Hotchkiss continued.

***

When I spoke to him in mid-October, Eisgruber, clad in his signature orange tie and navy suit, stressed that there are ample opportunities for students to speak with him.

He noted in our conversation that his events with students are “rarely oversubscribed.”

“I’m not sure that they’re ever oversubscribed,” he added.

“Could another student drop by one of these coffee hours. Can they drop by one of these other meetings? Can they walk up to me when I’m at an athletic event or, or somewhere else? Those opportunities are there,” he said.

“Did you attend any of my Pre-read conversations?” Eisgruber asked me at one point.

No, I was forced to admit. I did not.

And though many students do meet Eisgruber at discussions focused on academic topics, including lectures at student clubs or, as he added in our discussion, at the Shapiro Prize dinner for high-achieving underclass students, Eisgruber pushed back on the notion that he only interacts with students in academic contexts.

He spoke about the types of conversations that happen in those settings; specifically, the Pre-read discussion. “I always say to the students. Look, you know, I’m here to talk about the book, but this isn’t a precept and it isn’t a seminar. It’s partly a chance to get to know you, and so we do introductions about backgrounds.”

Eisgruber, of course, was a professor, and people who have taken his classes have reviewed them warmly. “People go into [an academic career] for different reasons, but I wanted to because I wanted to teach and I’ve loved teaching throughout my career. So the time that I spend with students is a source of both joy and learning for me, and something that gets me excited about what it is that I do,” he said.

***

Some students have reported an appetite for more personal narratives from Eisgruber, given he was a student at Princ-

eton.

“He’s an alumnus, just like many other past Princeton presidents, and I’m sure he has tons of experiences at Princeton that could endear him to students,” one student said in a spring interview with the ‘Prince,’ adding that “it’s sad to me that I don’t hear about those.”

Aside from an oft-repeated story about his time struggling in a physics course, however, Eisgruber has largely avoided sharing his own experiences.

In the interview, Eisgruber discussed his time with eating clubs and the intricacies of navigating campus social life as someone who did not drink. “I was a member of what was then the sign-in Princeton Elm Club as a junior, and then I was independent as a senior,” he told me.

“I think part of what I understand is that Prospect [Avenue] and some of the social networks there are attractive to some students. They’re not attractive to all students. And a lot of what happened on Prospect [Avenue] was not attractive to me as a student. A lot of the gatherings that take place kind of presuppose that alcohol consumption,” Eisgruber said.

Eisgruber added that his distance from the Prospect [Avenue] scene has sometimes served him well in relating to the community. He recounted a conversation he had in 2016 with Muslim undergraduates, who discussed “how difficult it could be to be part of the social scene at Princeton” as students who didn’t drink because of religious convictions.

Eisgruber does not discuss his time at the University in this manner often. But rather than being an oversight, Eisgruber’s largely gated public image is a result of his seeming conviction that sharing those personal experiences isn’t important for his capacity as University president.

“I’m not inclined to think that I’m the most interesting thing in the room when we’re having a conversation,” he said.

As a student, he remembered, he was not interested in meeting administrators.

“Meeting with Princeton administrators was probably not in the top 100 things that interested me,” he said. He noted that he met with then-University President Bill Bowen GS ’58 once.

“There are thousands of interesting people to meet here and not enough time to meet them all, and there may be some who want to meet me and ask me a question about myself. I’m also not sure that the most interesting questions about me would be about my Princeton experience, but that’s up to individual students,” he said.

Eisgruber’s willingness to share — and cultivate a public profile in general — has fluctuated over the years. He discovered his Jewish heritage when he was provost and discussed it in depth, including as a guest on the student show, the All-Nighter, where he did a mock bar mitzvah.

He also emphasized in the interview that there are aspects of his time here that he remains connected to, saying he is still close to his senior year roommates, who he met at Elm Club. “We continue to be in touch and got together in Boston last year,” he said.

***

An issue that has hung over Eisgruber’s tenure is his engagement with student activists. Some have claimed that he has not heeded their concerns, but at the same time, his term has been marked by significant progress on many key issues, notably including the question of divestment. So, can students change Eisgruber’s mind?

Eisgruber gave a number of examples of students doing so, but seemed most comfortable with private consultations with students on the issues.

He was initially reluctant to answer the question about activists who changed his mind.

“Regardless of the conversation that I have with a student, [it]’s confidential. So students can raise concerns with me, and I don’t feel at that point that I’m authorized to talk about that,” Eisgruber said.

When pressed, he pointed to the Armenian Society as a group that had recently brought to his attention the violence in the region, convincing him to move a pre-existing commitment to attend a vigil organized by students. He also discussed Briana Christophers ’17, who advocated for Latine students and co-founded Project Welcome Mat, an online resource for first generation Princeton students.

“One of the points that she made at the time was about the iconography and the visuals that we had around the campus and about enabling students to see themselves represented in the campus around them, and it’s now become something that we’re doing a lot [of,] with additions to the University portrait collection, for example,” Eisgruber said.

Eisgruber specifically focused on Christophers’ ability to run a persuasive meeting to convince administrators. “I thought part of what was really effective about the meeting was that it was both well organized, simple, and warm in the way that it was conducted,” he said.

Later in the interview, Eisgruber returned to the question unprompted, “The Black Justice League [BJL], you know, also produced very significant changes on this campus, and our interactions were very confrontational at times.”

Eisgruber was harkening back to one of the defining moments of his presidency, but he also highlighted the private conversations that he had with the members.

“I had dinner with a set of the students in the group. One member of the group went on to become a young alumni trustee. We also had some much tenser interactions, including across this table, when my office was occupied, and there

is no doubt they changed my mind on a whole number of things,” he remembered.

Eisgruber mentioned that he felt criticism from activists was somewhat unfair. “I think there’s sometimes, in our view, the idea that if somebody doesn’t get the outcome that they want out of conversation that they say, ‘Well, I didn’t feel like that was the right interaction that I wanted to have.’ But we’re gonna have disagreements.”

Though the group constituted some of Eisgruber’s fiercest critics, many of the BJL’s recommendations have incrementally been adopted by the University. But Eisgruber’s reluctance to engage with activist groups publicly may contribute to the sense that he thinks of student groups more as sources of information rather than stakeholders to be contended with and convinced.

***

At the end of our conversation, Eisgruber remarked on the challenge of attaining community input at an institution where the stakeholders cycle out every four years.

“The fact that you’re here today, and some building’s going to get finished after you graduate, doesn’t mean that your views about that should be the deciding views about what happens. We’ve got a responsibility to decide for the long term and for much of what we do for the very long term,” he said.

The future of Princeton seems to weigh heavily on Eisgruber’s mind. At the outset of his tenure, a reporter for the ‘Prince’ characterized Eisgruber as a man unconcerned with cultivating his public image: “What’s important, [Eisgruber] says, is not his past but the University’s future.”

Eisgruber clearly also thinks that student input has a part to play in building the future that he wants. He emphasized that there are institutions in place for students to discuss what Princeton should be, including meetings of the Council of the Princeton University Community. Is there value to student interaction beyond the input they give on questions of University policy? Is one of the responsibilities of a University president to inspire and convince rather than only consult?

If Eisgruber thought about these questions, he didn’t bring it up. He was focused on the next 20 years of Princeton’s growth and the best way for student input to facilitate it.

“We’re gonna listen to lots of input coming from lots of different directions gathered in lots of ways, and not just through conversations with me,” he said, “That’d be a very inefficient way to be able to get that information.”

Sandeep Mangat is a head News editor emeritus at the ‘Prince.’

KATELYN RYU / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

N.J. College Dems caught in controversy over endorsement of Kim for U.S. Senate

By Elizabeth Stewart Assistant News Editor

Nate Howard ’25, vice president of the College Democrats of New Jersey (CDNJ), was preparing to help make an endorsement in the N.J. Senate primary — one of the country’s most closely-watched elections as incumbent Sen. Bob Menendez (DN.J.) faces federal bribery charges — when he joined a call that shocked him.

The caller, Keely Magee, was in contact with the campaign for Tammy Murphy, a sports team owner whose husband, Phil Murphy, is the current governor of New Jersey and a member of the University’s Board of Trustees. Magee offered CDNJ incentives to support Murphy’s campaign before cautioning Howard about potential consequences should the group endorse race frontrunner Rep. Andy Kim (D-N.J.).

Magee, who works as a youth coordinator for the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, is also a college student. According to the phone call recording obtained by The New York Times, the Rutgers University junior told CDNJ members that “an early endorsement of Mr. Kim could harm their future job prospects, deprive their organization of as much as $2,000 in funding and hurt their odds of being selected as delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.” To persuade CDNJ to halt their endorsement of Kim, Howard said that Magee offered a phone call and a town hall for the college students to interact directly with Murphy.

In an interview with the Daily Princetonian, Howard said that “Before that call, there had been a series of other calls … [Magee] was trying to pressure us into not endorsing, [and] I wanted to hear that from her directly.” The final call Howard joined was recorded and shared

with both The New York Times and Kim’s campaign.

Kim’s campaign helped Howard and his associates in CDNJ spread the word about their experience.

“Members of his staff have helped put me in contact with different reporters … so they’ve been helping to facilitate some of that,” Howard said.

Howard connected the maneuvers by the Democratic State Committee surrounding CDNJ’s endorsement process to his broader concerns surrounding the state’s Democratic Party.

“If they’re threatening us, who else? If they’re threatening college students who are by no means power brokers, what are they doing to people who actually have power?”

The episode followed several recent polls which suggested that Murphy trails Kim by a wide margin, despite endorsements from many of the state’s most powerful Democrats and a record number of contributions.

In addition to serving as CDNJ’s vice president, Howard is president emeritus of Princeton College Democrats (PCD). PCD President Michelle Miao ’26 and PCD Vice President Nicholas Urbati ’25 also serve on CDNJ as Communications Director and Treasurer, respectively.

Miao is a staff Newsletter writer for the ‘Prince.‘

The College Democrats of America and its New Jersey chapter both released endorsements of Kim last Wednesday, Jan. 10. Since then, college democrats from across the nation have commented on the situation. Olivia Julianna, a prominent progressive and activist, reposted The New York Times’ article on X (formerly known as Twitter), commenting that “attempts to intimidate young organizers in [p]olitics for political gain cannot and will not be

tolerated.”

“We felt like [this endorsement] was quite important,” Urbati told the ‘Prince,’ noting that Kim and Murphy are the main candidates hoping to oust Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), who faces federal bribery charges tied to taking cash and gold bars from Egypt and Qatar.

For the three Princeton students involved, the situation highlights their perceived need for young political activists to chart their own vision for the party independent of machine politics.

“The situation also demonstrates the power of Gen Z voters, if our endorsement mattered so much that the state party tried to intimidate us into withholding it,” Miao wrote in a statement to the ‘Prince.’ “We definitely haven’t been intimidated into silence, and PCD is going to keep speaking up and defending our values.”

A spokesperson for Murphy told the New York Times that Magee had “no connection” to the Murphy campaign. Howard told the ”Times” that when Murphy called last week to apologize for the incident, she maintained distance from Magee, and apologized for the “actions of someone unaffiliated with [Murphy’s] campaign.” Howard remarked to the ‘Prince’ that the Murphy campaign is “throwing [Magee] under the bus.”

“Saying she’s unaffiliated is a technicality,” he said. “What matters is that she was serving as a liaison and a mouthpiece for the Murphy campaign, and was reiterating their offers to us in an effort to pressure us to not endorse. She chose to say those things, but she was doing it at the behest of other people.”

Miao wrote to the ‘Prince’ that while she “[acknowledges] that the caller was misled and instructed by higher-ups with connection to the Murphy campaign,” she is

“disappointed that she followed through and tried to intimidate members of CDNJ, especially since we’re all college students.”

In an interview with The New York Times, Magee said the Murphy campaign had not asked her to pressure the group. Instead, Magee said she was aware that members of Ms. Murphy’s campaign staff “wanted to do something to prevent the endorsement,” and was in communication with a Murphy campaign consultant.

While Howard noted that the situation highlights the importance of college students to the democratic coalition, he also acknowleged that young people — the demographic least likely to vote — hold considerably less power than other political actors. In particular, he told the ‘Prince’ that CDNJ is “not a very powerful group,” and only began revamping its efforts last fall.

Despite the shock surrounding the situation, Howard said that the call from Magee were a “very compelling reason” to follow through with the endorsement of Kim. Miao wrote that she was proud of how Howard and CDNJ handled the situation, and that college students should “hold onto broader morals and think for [themselves] on whether or not we’re doing the right thing.”

“[College students] have a unique opportunity to stand up for what is right and stand up for Andy Kim, a candidate who will lead with integrity and devotion to public service, because we are not connected to the machine,” Howard said. “We are not attached, so I can’t be fired from my job in the state party. I don’t work for the state party. I work for college students in my role in CDNJ.”

“I think a lot of Gen Z-ers are not happy with politics in general, [and] I think politics in New Jersey is dominated by special interests,” Urbati said. “It’s hard for every-

day people to run for office and get involved, and I think Andy Kim is a fresh voice. He’s not a career politician. He’s a career public servant.” Howard and Urbati told the ‘Prince’ that PCD plans to invite both democratic candidates to campus. In the past, PCD has not endorsed specific primary candidates “out of respect for the ideological diversity” of its members. However, after an update to the constitution last fall, PCD policy now stipulates that it has the power to endorse any candidate for campus, local, state, and national elections, including primaries, through a majority vote by PCD members, according to Miao.

Miao added that PCD is unsure of whether or not it will make a Senate primary endorsement but will likely discuss that upon returning to campus for the spring semester. She hopes that PCD will be active in this election and mentioned that interested students can participate through “on the ground efforts” such as canvassing, phone banking, and other get-out-the-vote initiatives.

“I don’t want to speak for everyone, but personally, I have a lot of friends who are very excited to help out the Kim campaign and get involved, especially after hearing what happened with the endorsement,” she said. “Beyond this, I’m hoping that PCD can help inform and educate people on campus about the importance of this election and on issues that affect all students.”

The New Jersey Democratic primary for Senate will be held on Tuesday, June 4. This election will almost certainly determine the next Senator from New Jersey, as the state has not elected a Republican senator since 1972.

Elisabeth Stewart is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

At Princeton’s Mpala Research Center, researchers grapple with a colonial legacy

By Miriam Waldvogel Associate News Editor

For Kennedy Omufwoko, the Mpala Research Center represents opportunity.

“I was raised in a very humble background in the biggest slum in Africa,” Omufwoko said in a documentary produced by the University. “I don’t think I would have pictured myself even just finishing high school.”

After completing his undergraduate degree at the University of Nairobi, Omufwoko got his opportunity to work at Mpala as a research assistant, studying butterflies. Soon afterward, he was admitted to Princeton as a Ph.D. student in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EEB).

“The moment I was admitted to Princeton, that was the best moment of my life,” Omufwoko said in the documentary. “It was through Mpala that I was able to narrow down what I actually want to do.”

Deep in central Kenya, the Mpala Research Center is a preservation site and “living laboratory” of ecological and biological research offering 75 square miles of unfettered access to African wildlife. Princeton is Mpala’s managing partner and has exerted significant influence over the institution for the last 30 years. Mpala is a frequent destination for University students and faculty and Princeton’s most important international venture.

Yet there’s a darker side to the center. By interviewing 20 Mpala researchers, visitors, administrators, and staff on multiple occasions over six months, in addition to conducting archival research from University, Kenyan, and historical sources, The Daily Princetonian sought to examine the dynamics of what researchers, professors, and historians, Kenyan and American alike, have called a colonial space.

One researcher, Fridah Mueni, works in local communities in Kenya with the Zoological Society of London. She visited Mpala in early 2022.

“There was this photo on the wall of the colonial setup with a white man on a horse whipping a Black person,” Mueni recalled in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “I remember I just sat there and cried. How can this be okay in this day and age?”

Researchers who spent time at Mpala describe unequal housing conditions, a culture of separation between Kenyan staff and largely international visitors, and financial inaccessibility for Kenyan students. Mpala administrators and supporters

point to the research center’s community engagement initiatives and the number of Kenyan administrators. They say that current administrators at both Mpala and the University have taken key steps to ease the divides of the center’s past.

Mark Griffiths, a researcher studying colonialism and development at Newcastle University, also visited Mpala with Mueni. Earlier this year, the two published an academic paper that called Mpala a “distinctly colonial space” and urged Princeton to decolonize the research center.

“[Mpala] feels very much like those films depicting a time 100 years ago,” Griffiths told the ‘Prince.’

***

The oldest structure at the research center is the ranch house, an imposing colonial-style building a short drive from campus. Built in the 1930s, the ranch house has borne witness to Mpala from its evolution from a cattle ranch to an internationally renowned wildlife research center. The ranch house offers welcome comfort for important visitors after the hour-long drive from Nanyuki, the closest town, advertising “eight luxurious bedrooms,” electricity, hot showers, and Wi-Fi. Previous visitors include Prince Edward, now the Duke of Edinburgh, who stayed at the ranch house in 2010.

Maintaining this level of accommodations, coupled with specialized scientific research facilities, requires a small army of staff, typically hired from the surrounding towns to fulfill a variety of roles: drivers, security guards, cooks, guides, and others, totaling roughly 250 people. But while staff work to support researchers and visitors at the center, the housing for those that live on the campus is quite different, according to both students and researchers who spent time at Mpala.

Set away just a couple hundred yards away from the campus, roughly 120 staff members live in a small village of oneroom huts. The residences have no running water or electricity. The staff village was built in the 1930s when Mpala was a colonial ranch owned by two European aristocrats.

Griffiths spoke about the symbolism of the colonial-era ranch at the historic heart of the research center. “That ranch house is part of the problem. It’s the centerpiece, but it’s not everything,” Griffiths said.

The question of the future of Mpala comes as universities across the country grapple with their past ties to racism and

colonialism. The conversation around Mpala is unique in that it represents a current Princeton venture located directly in a postcolonial society.

“[Mpala] could be a test case for how an institution like our university can engage with Africa,” said Chika Okeke-Agulu, a Nigerian artist, a professor at the University, and the director of the African studies program, in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ Okeke-Agulu serves on the Mpala Advisory Council, founded in 2021 to engage local communities and promote more equitable research.

But some feel that the center has not done enough to move past its history.

“It definitely feels like, I don’t know, what I imagine Kenya might have felt like in the 1960s,” said Sally Goodman ’14, who spent a year at Mpala as part of the Princeton in Africa program.

While technically separate entities, the University oversees Mpala’s operations, finances, and institutional priorities and has promoted Mpala widely in its public materials.

“As the managing partner of this collaboration, Princeton sees its role as a steward of Mpala’s resources and an enabler of Mpala’s management,” wrote Aly KassamRemtulla, the University’s Vice Provost for International Affairs and Operations, in a statement to the ‘Prince.’ Born in Kenya, he manages the University’s relationship with Mpala and is the chair of the research center’s board of directors.

Mpala administrators have pushed back strongly on allegations of colonial dynamics. The current administrative team is entirely Kenyan.

Dr. Winnie Kiiru has been the executive director of Mpala since February 2023 and is the first Black Kenyan to serve in the role. In a November interview with the ‘Prince,’ she recounted the stories her mother told her about British colonial rule. “[She would talk] about how hungry the children were, living in colonial communities,” Kiiru said. “The white man would come around, checking our houses for whether we swept them or cleaned them, and then he would take hardtacks from my mother, who had no way of making an income.”

“That’s what colonialism is. It’s not a picture on the wall,” Kiiru added.

A colonial past

In 1930, Adolph Schwarzenberg of the wealthy German-Czech Schwarzenberg

family married Princess Hilda of Luxembourg. Three years later, the two acquired a 999-year lease on 3,500 acres of Central Kenya’s Laikipia Plateau for farming. They called the land “Mpala” after the impalas that populated the area.

The Schwarzenbergs raised pigs and cattle and sold butter to British troops stationed in Kenya. They also had a small electrical power plant constructed to support an irrigation system for crops.

In his 1946 book “A Kenya farmer looks at his colony,” Adolph Schwarzenberg remarked on the growth of the farm to 7,500 acres, including the “many houses and buildings erected during the past few years.”

“Some of the houses are equipped with bathrooms featuring hot and cold water — rare conveniences in East Africa!” he wrote.

The legacy of the Schwarzenbergs at Mpala remains today in the remnants of a bridge, called Princess Hilda’s Bridge, spanning the Ewaso Ng’iro river on one of the main roads to the research center.

A Princeton alum eyed the land in 1952 — 11 years before Kenya would gain its independence — when Samuel Small ’40 obtained the Schwarzenbergs’ holdings. The property in turn passed to his brother, George Small ’43, after Samuel Small’s death in 1969.

George Small eventually expanded these holdings to more than 48,000 acres of land and formed the Mpala Wildlife Foundation (MWF) in 1989 to promote wildlife and ecological conservation. The same year, he approached the University and other partners about establishing a center for scientific research.

Today, according to Kassam-Remtulla, the land leases are held or controlled by the MWF, a nonprofit organization registered in the United States. While technically a separate entity, the University appoints the board members of the MWF, according to Kassam-Remtulla, and a majority of them have close Princeton ties.

Mpala in its current form opened in 1994 as a collaboration between the National Museums of Kenya, the Kenyan Wildlife Service, the Smithsonian Institution, the MWF, and the University. A Smithsonian spokesperson noted the organization does not have management responsibilities.

Kitili Mbathi is an Mpala trustee and the former head of the Kenya Wildlife Service.

“Kenya Wildlife Service manages the wildlife,” he said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ “They are involved in any veterinary services that need to be undertaken on the wild animals, any permitting, any research permits relating to animals, any capture and coloring of animals.”

The ‘Prince’ was unable to reach representatives of the National Museums of Kenya in time for publication.

In 2017, at the behest of the other partners, the University became Mpala’s first ever managing partner, overseeing its institutional priorities, operations, and finances. In 2020, it also took on similar responsibilities for the land.

Mpala’s colonial past has been under the microscope as the community examines its role today.

“Mpala, given its history and how it came down to the present management by Princeton, is deeply embedded in colonial history,” Okeke-Agulu said. “There’s no denying that fact.”

Some of the remnants of Mpala’s time as a British colony persist. The grounds are still used for annual training exercises for the British Army, a practice started by George Small. Payments from the British government for use of the land — by some reports an annual fee of one million pounds — have formed a significant part of the research center’s budget. The army has also been responsible for building and servicing Mpala’s roads.

In a November interview, Kiiru said the research center has come to rely more on the University and its other partners for fundraising. “We think that very shortly we’ll be able to sunset that relationship with [the] British Army, simply because we will not need the money,” she said.

“I for one, frankly, cannot understand why the British Army should still be carrying out its operations at Mpala. It’s one of the first things that has to go,” OkekeAgulu said. “You have workers at Mpala whose parents and grandparents were among those that were murdered by the British Army,” he added, referencing the Mau Mau rebellion of the 1950s.

Yet, more overtly to visitors to Mpala, the colonial legacy is visible in the interactions between researchers and staff, as well as the differences in their accommodations.

A sharp division between scientists and staff

“They call Mpala a resort for scientists,” said Benjamin Muhoya GS, a graduate student in EEB at the University, “because [the staff] do everything for you. They cook for you … laundry is done for you. You just have to wake up and worry about the science.”

Nelly Palmeris is Mpala’s chief operating officer. “We’re in a very remote place, so ensuring that everything is provided for a researcher or a student in that kind of setting means you have to have a lot of support in terms of staff,” she said in an August interview.

Researchers and visitors have a wide range of accommodations at Mpala.

Researchers have the option to stay in the bandas, or huts, dotting the campus, or houses with kitchens and bathrooms. There is also a library, a gym, and a lecture hall that seats 60.

Undergraduate students have similarly comfortable accommodations. One dormitory is allocated specifically for students from the University. A few miles from the main campus, other student groups stay in tents on Ewaso Ng’iro River, described by the EEB department as looking “out on to the river, much like an up market safari tent in a commercial safari lodge would do.”

According to Palmeris, 120 staff members also live at the Mpala campus fulltime. Much of the staff village was built in the 1930s as Mpala converted from a ranch to a research center and comprises a series of small one-room huts built in the style of rondavels, traditional circular dwellings. The huts do not have electricity or running water.

Mueni, the researcher who published on decolonizing Mpala, called the staff village “in a deplorable condition.”

“It’s housing that would have been comfortable 20, 25 years ago,” said Muhoya. “But compared with living standards right now, it isn’t fit for staff to be living in those kinds of conditions when they are the people who keep Mpala up and running.”

In a September interview with the ‘Prince,’ Kiiru attributed the current infrastructure of Mpala to the research center’s history as a cattle ranch.

“You just have to make do with what is here, but we recognize that now we’ve moved to another era where we are thinking more. We don’t have to make do with things that don’t serve our purpose,” she said, offering a scenario: “I need a driver. Where can he stay? The ranch has some abandoned housing, maybe we can use that.”

“Everything is very historical,” said Palmeris.

The remoteness of the research center admittedly poses a challenge for construction. The nearest town, Nanyuki, is more than an hour’s drive away, while Nairobi, the nearest major city, is more than four hours away.

“Conditions were habitable. It was not that bad, given the conditions of the remote environment,” said Moses Kioko Musyoka, who worked as a research assistant at Mpala.

Agustín Fuentes is an anthropology professor at the University who is currently helping to conduct a survey of the research center’s 48,000 acres. “The staff village is much better than some of the other villages around there, and much worse than others,” he said.

Three people with knowledge of Mpala said that housing was better in surrounding communities.

“In neighboring villages, some people actually do have comfortable housing with solar,” Muhoya added, although he said running water was more rare.

D. Vance Smith, a professor in the English department, grew up in southern Africa as a member of the (ama)Ndebele tribe and attended high school in Kenya. He said that the dynamic between staff and researchers at Mpala was also impacted by class, and not uncommon in Kenya.

“[This] is replicated in many other Kenyan-owned establishments in Kenya, from large ranches to middle-class households,” Smith said, referring to the experiences of staff at the research center. “The domestic help and the staff are cordoned off, they typically live in what most Kenyans refer to as the SQ, the servants’ quarters, which almost invariably are not as well-appointed as the houses.”

Kiiru, citing a facilities assessment report conducted in 2022, told the ‘Prince’ that the Mpala administration is seeking to build a new staff village using University funds. She estimated that construction would begin in January 2024. Mpala administrators declined to provide the ‘Prince’ with the report.

The research center has also received funding from the University to address deferred maintenance, according to KassamRemtulla, Palmeris, and Kiiru. ***

While there were some opportunities for interaction — visitors recalled soccer games with staff near the village, for example — the division between researchers and staff has extended to the dining area. Researchers, students, and visitors alike have access to three hot meals a day at the campus cafeteria, which also provides coffee and tea. This is also where members of the administration eat.

According to multiple sources who spent time at Mpala, staff members have traditionally been expected to eat in their own cafeteria and are generally not given access to the researchers’ cafeteria unless they are invited.

Muhoya noted that the policy is not as clear-cut. “There isn’t a clear line of when or which type of person you can invite to the canteen,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s for good intentions, but it creates that visible divide for somebody who hasn’t been in Kenya, or even somebody who is Kenyan.”

Multiple visiting researchers attributed this custom to the fact that visitors received funding for their research projects that covered the requisite fees to stay at Mpala,

including their meals. As employees of the research center, staff members were not funded in the same way.

Kennedy Leverett ’20, who majored in EEB, spent her junior spring at Mpala and said that Princeton students did not interact much with staff members. “That was a weird thing that I picked up on,” she said. “We would see them … but they did not eat with us.”

According to Mpala administrators, staff and researchers are now allowed to eat in both cafeterias.

“We’re trying to build this community between research and staff in a way that is seamless,” said Palmeris.

The inequalities at Mpala are notable given that the research center is considered one of the world’s finest for large-scale ecological and biological experiments.

“We are part of humanity, we are part of society”

Mpala is home to a remarkably rich array of wildlife, including 550 bird and 100 mammal species. Live cameras maintained by the research center capture glimpses of hippos basking in a pond, two giraffes drinking together, or even a lioness hunting and killing a zebra.

The research value of Mpala is enormous as it effectively serves as a scale model of the wildlife environments researchers seek to study, yielding significant results in livestock protection, large mammal extinction, and tracking climate change. For Princeton students, particularly those in EEB, Mpala is also a major site for thesis research.

“For budding scientists from all over, it is a really valuable experience to be living in this place that for most of us is unlike anywhere that we’ve spent time before,” said Goodman, the former Princeton in Africa fellow.

Beyond the research, Mpala representatives say that the center is active in the local community.

Geoffrey Mwachala is the chief scientist of the National Museums of Kenya and a Mpala trustee.

“Right when the Mpala research center was started, an underlying principle was that this is not going to be an isolated laboratory. We are part of humanity, we are part of society. So we have continuously maintained an engagement with the surrounding communities,” said Mwachala in the University documentary.

In response to the severe drought beginning in the Horn of Africa in 2020, Mpala began providing meals to 1,200 students at 16 schools in surrounding communities, administrators said. The research center also funded the drilling of a borehole for clean water in the nearby village of Lekiji, which also supplies the local primary school. The project was completed in October.

More broadly, there have been initiatives to increase the number of Kenyan scientists at the research center, such as the George Small Foundation scholarship, which began in 2014 to support local students in high school and technical education. According to Mpala administrators, the scholarship has supported 33 high school and 14 college students.

The hope is that some of these educational opportunities also lead to more diversity at Mpala itself. Among researchers, there are divided opinions about the diversity of researcher nationalities.

“[At Mpala], I can talk to somebody doing health, somebody doing social science, somebody doing ecology … it provides a great ground for people like me,” said a Kenyan researcher, who spoke on the condition of anonymity with the ‘Prince.’

Yet three Kenyan researchers told the ‘Prince’ that opportunities at Mpala are inaccessible for some Kenyan students due to prices for accommodation.

The cheapest price for an East African student, 30 United States dollars per day (4,450 Kenyan shillings), provides dormitory housing. Rates can reach as high as $55 per day (8,160 Ksh) for lodging in a house, provided that the student is from an affiliate institution of Mpala. These rates are subsidized compared to those for international students, which range from $45 to $70 a day.

“No Kenyan will be able to pay $30 without another external source of funding, and those are rare … not only in Ke-

nya but also in East Africa,” said Muhoya, the Princeton graduate student, estimating that college graduates earn $300–400 (45,000–59,300 Ksh) a month.

At the University, undergraduates in the EEB department are eligible for up to $2,500 in funding for thesis research for projects like travel to Mpala. More broadly, graduate students and researchers in the United States may apply for institutional or governmental grant funding to offset personal costs.

“It is completely out of reach … the majority of Kenyans cannot afford to finance themselves through Mpala,” said the Kenyan researcher.

In response to Mpala’s difficulty with recruiting Kenyan researchers and students, Kiiru pointed the ‘Prince’ to informal partnerships with four Kenyan universities: Karatina University, Egerton University, Jomo Kenyatta University, and Dedan Kimathi University. “[These partnerships] assist us in identifying suitable students to participate in the research projects,” she wrote in a September email.

The partnerships are in the process of being formally established by the research center.

Karatina University, Egerton University, and Jomo Kenyatta University did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A spokesperson for Dedan Kimathi University told the ‘Prince’ in October that their partnership was being officially finalized.

Is Mpala a colonial space?

While opinions on how to address Mpala’s history differed, the researchers, students, professors, and historians the ‘Prince’ spoke to broadly agreed that the research center had colonial dynamics, while Mpala affiliates disputed the characterization.

“Has the amount of stuff Princeton has extracted from there [Mpala] for their students and their faculty been equivalent to what Princeton has contributed and put back in? That’s the story of the global north-global south,” Fuentes said. “This sort of parachute science, extractive science, is problematic, even though there’s good cases at Mpala.” Mbathi, the former head of the Kenyan

Wildlife Service and Mpala trustee, disputed the description of Mpala as colonial as “very inaccurate,” pointing to the fact that Kenyans comprise the current management, as well as a large portion of the board.

“Although [Mpala] came into being during a colonial period, it is certainly post-colonial in its operations today,” he said.

“‘Colonial’ basically refers to a place that lacks freedom, that is not sovereign, that is run and managed by external forces that stifle the freedom of that space,” said Kiiru. “That’s not the space that I am in.”

Researchers called for a variety of different investments, including additional funding and training from the University.

Fuentes proposed extending the opportunity for a Princeton education to Kenyan researchers at Mpala.

“We should develop — if not direct Princeton credit — then credits affiliated and established by the Kenyan national education system,” he said. “So, [researchers] get the kind of quality training … that goes on their transcripts that they get the benefits for, because that will get them jobs that will give them more opportunities for research.”

A non-Kenyan researcher went as far as to call for Princeton to largely withdraw from the research center.

“I would want Princeton to feel more like a funding source rather than a decision-maker,” they said.

Others have pushed back against the suggestion that the University should take a step back.

“I don’t think it’s reasonable to say that, no, Americans shouldn’t be doing research at Mpala. I think the experience of learning about other places is really important,” said Goodman, the former Princeton in Africa fellow.

“If you remove Princeton and [the] Smithsonian Museum from Mpala, you’re likely looking at an imminent collapse of an important site of knowledge production,” said Mueni, citing the influx of students and researchers brought by both institutions.

Historical land injustice is also a particular problem in Laikipia County, where

Mpala is situated. According to The Elephant, a Kenyan news organization, 40.3 percent of the land in Laikipia is owned by only 48 individuals or entities.

However, acknowledging those historically dispossessed from Mpala’s land is complex, according to Smith, the English professor who grew up in Kenya. “Land statements in the Kikuyu highlands are very difficult because very often, you end up with competing claims,” he said, adding that a land acknowledgement would constitute a legal or political assertion to the land.

The next 30 years

Undoing disparities at Mpala won’t happen overnight. But several prominent University figures spoke favorably about the research center’s trajectory, especially given the administration of Kiiru.

“Kiiru has come in and really is making the decisions and deciding where money gets spent … that’s a radical change,” Fuentes said.

“In the past three years, the University has begun to make good efforts at addressing key problems and issues that have been endemic at Mpala,” said Okeke-Agulu.

“We’ve now done away with the ranch. We are now a research center … creating a space where people can move, mix, and enjoy a space that doesn’t discriminate [against] anybody,” said Kiiru.

Mpala is also beginning to grapple with its history at a time of Africa’s increasing visibility on the global stage. The first part of a New York Times series, released in October, predicted that the rapidly growing population of many African countries, including Kenya, will “radically reshape their relationship with the rest of the world” in the next 25 years.

“Here’s an opportunity for Princeton to be in front [of], as opposed to behind, every other major institution,” Fuentes said.

In the wake of major improvements and questions about Mpala’s future, the legacy of divisions at the research center persists.

“One thing we can’t run away from is history,” said Mueni.

Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor at the ‘Prince.’

COURTESY OF MARK GRIFFITHS, NEWCASTLE UNIVERSITY The library of the ranch house.

COURTESY OF THE MPALA RESEARCH CENTER. PHOTO BY DINO MARTINS. Elephants at Mpala.

A new version of the College Republicans struggles for an identity

By Julian Hartman-Sigall Associate News Editor

Earlier this month, in advance of a number of state-wide elections, Princeton political groups took part in canvassing and outreach efforts to get out the vote.

Notably absent from these groups — which included the College Democrats, the Princeton chapter of the Young Democratic Socialists of America — was the College Republicans, which, unlike its left-leaning counterpart, did not organize any programming.

The group has historically had difficulty sustaining consistent activity levels, being reliant on strong personalities that occasionally cycle through the University to revive it at recurring nadirs on a campus that has a strong conservative ecosystem.

The well-organized and comparatively highly active James Madison Program was founded with a half million dollar donation from a foundation that aimed to “establish conservative cells” at “the most influential schools.” The program is led by prominent conservative legal scholar Professor Robert P. George. The Princeton Tory is a conservative magazine with nine current undergraduates on its masthead that publishes far more than its progressive counterpart, The Prog. Other groups with primarily conservative memberships such as The Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC) have played significant roles in debates around free speech, a major issue on campus.

And yet the only explicitly Republican group, College Republicans, has long struggled to stay afloat. Does the difficulty of running the organization on campus speak to broader questions of campus apathy towards politics? Or does it instead speak to a modern conservative movement in which an organization focused on electoral politics has no place? ***

I sat down with Jaden Stewart ’26, the new president of the club, in the Tiger Tea Room in Firestone Library on two occasions to talk about his ambitions for the club and what he sees as potential obstacles. In our conversations, Stewart was discernibly cautious, not answering some of my questions while often reiterating an openness to dissenting opinions. He acknowledged there was a certain stigma associated with identifying as a conservative.

“It’s difficult to sell Republicanism as a brand,” Stewart said. “If you don’t really know a lot about public policy, it tends to be

‘Oh, Republicans, oh they’re racist, oh they’re sexist’. Whereas [to me] it’s more thinking about how we can use business to create opportunities to improve the lives of marginalized people.”

These concerns are not unique to Stewart.

According to Evan Draim ’16, who was the president of College Republicans for two years, a major obstacle to growing College Republicans on campus was the social stigma associated with identifying as a Republican.

“[There was a] feeling that if people join College Republicans that it’s going to be a demerit in their social life or their [ability] to fit in elsewhere on campus,” he said in an interview with the ‘Prince’.

He continued, “if identifying as a Republican is something that’s going to ostracize you from your social network, you’re not going to do it.”

Alex Maugeri ’07, another former president of College Republicans, discussed the social repercussions of affiliating with the group. “It definitely hurts my prospects with some girls, I’ve noticed that,” he said to the ‘Prince’ at the time. “Some girls are not too happy when they hear I’m the president of the College Republicans.”

A number of conservative activists on Princeton’s campus have drawn attention to the fact that this stigma around expressing conservative opinions has pushed students farther right in their political convictions and stilted free expression, notably in a column for the New York Times.

Some have pushed back against the argument that conservatives are unfairly marginalized.

“There is a stigma against being conservative, but I also think it depends, and I think some of that stigma is against the more heinous beliefs,” Nate Howard ’25, President of College Democrats, told the ‘Prince.’ “I’m in Tower; when we do bicker, like, no, I don’t want bigots in my eating club. And like, they may say, ‘oh, conservative views are marginalized,’ but like, which views, let’s unpack it, right?  I don’t want people in my eating club that will make trans people feel uncomfortable.”

Although Stewart told me that he has not felt any stigma around identifying as Republican on campus, he was in our conversations sometimes cagey and often indirect regarding his political views. He refused to articulate his position on any policy issues. He also would not tell me how many members there are of College Republicans.

Stewart would not engage on which candidates in the ongoing presidential primary he believes is most popular among group members, only sharing that he has had conversations with people who favor Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, and Vivek Ramaswamy.

After my first interview with Stewart, he sent a message in GroupMe to a group involved with College Republicans, telling them that a ‘Prince’ reporter was writing an article about the group and asking members to not agree to an interview with me. I reached out to over a dozen active conservative students on campus, asking to interview them for the article — none responded.

“I think there’s this perception that our [Ivy League] conservatives are special, distinct, and extremely intelligent and thoughtful. And I actually think that they’re part of the same ecosystem that other conservatives across the country are a part of, and they’re subject to the same trends that are going on across the country,” Howard said.

As Stewart tries to resurrect College Republicans, he faces all the social challenges and competition from other conservative organizations faced by his predecessors. But, unlike his predecessors, hanging over College Republicans is now the increasing radicalization of the national Republican Party and, especially, lies about the 2020 election.

Earlier this month, Larry Giberson ’23 was sentenced to two months of incarceration, six months of home detention, and $2000 in fines for his participation in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.

Stewart made sure to mention that he did not know Giberson nor had Giberson ever been involved with College Republicans.

I asked Stewart if he sees College Republicans as having to take a position on the legitimacy of that election. He responded “No, no. There are people who identify as Republicans who take very different stances on that and our job is to cater to both of them.”

Stewart’s statement speaks to the challenges that an explicitly political group faces with a more radical Republican party. Some Republican students disagree with the election conspiracies being spread by Republican politicians and may prefer to engage with conservative ideas more generally. But for those aligned with politicians, priorities have changed from electoral politics to the culture war.

To Howard, the ongoing radicalization and shifting priorities of the Republican Party has distilled down into conversations among campus conservative groups, marking a sharp distinction between College Republicans and its left-leaning counterpart.

“I think a lot of progressives are very focused on doing things. I think there’s a lot more interest in thinking about things on the right, not I think they’re more thoughtful necessarily,” Howard said. “I think [Republicans on campus] are much more focused on the national culture war stuff than winning elections, which I would also say is true of Republican politicians.”

This tendency was embodied by recent, vocal campus conservatives, notably including Stewart’s immediate predecessor, Adam Hoffman ’23.

In his time on campus, Hoffman dominated the conservative groups, bridging together both academic conservative groups and political ones. In addition to being the president of College Republicans, he was the Clio party chair and publisher of the Tory.

Hoffman has been able to extend his career in campus conservative activism into a role in the broader conservative movement. As a student, Hoffman published with The National Review on campus issues. In his senior year, Hoffman wrote about the conservative movement in The New York Times, and he was invited on Fox News to talk about it. As of this summer, he works for the Ron Desantis campaign.

The ability to gain a broader platform for views, along with a campus environment less friendly to conservative ideas may have led to a lack of urgency surrounding engagement with more tangible local political issues, including canvassing. In other words, the understanding of what entails meaningful political involvement is very different from that of groups like College Democrats.

A desire to appeal to these national outlets may also influence choice of topics.

Last year, POCC invited the writer Abigail Shrier to speak about her book “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.” Earlier this month, they hosted an event with Riley Gaines, a former swimmer at the University of Kentucky who, after tying for fifth place in an event with the transgender swimmer Lia Thomas, began advocating for banning transgender women from women’s sports.

Despite being the only conservative club that is explicitly political and nominally electoral, College Republicans has similarly focused its events thus far on discussing cultural issues.

One of the first events hosted by Stewart last spring was a screening of Candance Owens’s falsehood-ridden documentary entitled “The Greatest Lie Ever Sold: George Floyd and the Rise of BLM.” The club also sent a group of people to Rutgers to volunteer at an event featuring Owens.

Stewart refused to discuss events in my conversation with him. According to people familiar with the club, College Republicans is planning a series of events about climate change, which will feature speakers who deny that humans have contributed to it.

***

The College Republicans have also historically struggled with fostering political involvement on a campus that has, more broadly, harbored a sentiment of political apathy. The group has been reliant on a recurring stream of very involved students who have taken initiative to revive the club at its low points. The current version of the College Republicans is one with a substantially smaller focus on electoral politics.

The group was a very active presence in the early and mid 1990s, boasting 125 members in 1992, more than 60 of whom were actively volunteering for Republican campaigns.

But by 2002, College Republicans only had between 25 and 30 active members, reflecting a broader sentiment of political apathy on campus. David Brooks documented this in his profile, “The Organization Kid,” “There are a lot of things these future leaders no longer have time for.” Brooks also wrote about Princeton students at the turn of the millennium. “I was on campus at the height of the election season, and I saw not even one Bush or Gore poster. I asked around about this and was told that most students have no time to read newspapers, follow national politics, or get involved in crusades.”

The group kept growing in its membership and political activity, ballooning to 300 students in 2006, thanks to Maugeri, one of several presidents who successively breathed life into the organization. In the same year, the group undertook extensive campaigning efforts for candidates in New Jersey.

By 2008, College Republicans gained over 100 new members. “There is a positive energy and enthusiasm within the Campus Republicans that is so refreshing,” Chloe Davis ’12 wrote in an email to the ‘Prince’ at the time. “In a university where the majority of the student population supports Obama’s candidacy, it’s been really fun to be part of a group that is just as excited about the McCain campaign.”

For that election, College Republicans increased their canvassing efforts over fall break and led trips of dozens of students at a time to knock on doors in swing districts in New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

The insurgent Tea Party movement a few years later brought increased internal dissension to College Republicans, especially as the group’s membership and activity waned. The group was seen as aligned with the Tea Party, which led to calls for it to moderate.

By 2012, Draim arrived on campus to find a nonexistent College Republicans club.

“When I arrived at Princeton, the club was pretty much inactive and didn’t do much … it was such a small club that, arriving as a [first-year], I was basically handed the presidency of the College Republicans by the outgoing president when I arrived,” he said in an interview with the ‘Prince.’ Draim took it upon himself to reinvigorate the club, focusing on “initiatives to kind of bring in people who were not already Republicans to the club, and give them an ability to learn more about what Republicans are really like, not the stereotypes that sometimes get perpetrated.”

He said, “We worked very, very hard to dispel that stigma by just being a fun place to be,” he said. “Our unofficial slogan was ‘the best party on campus’ because we would bring people together to just have a good time.”

A contributing columnist for the ‘Prince’ once described herself at one of such pregames as “trying to dodge fireballs in clamorous political discourse over Fireball.”

College Republicans started downsizing again in 2016 with the election of Donald Trump. According to conservatives on campus at the time who spoke to the ‘Prince,’ the election created an environment in which students became less and less tolerant of Republicans, especially those who did not disavow Trump.

“Before Trump, people were kind of chill. You didn’t have this social witch hunt against right-wing people,” a former president of College Republicans who asked to remain anonymous said.

“After Trump’s election, things felt really hostile against right wing people … the social cost of being right wing on campus became exponentially higher, so that’s when [College Republicans] started dying.” Eventually, he said, “College Republicans essentially didn’t exist.”

“I was the mortician,” he explained, “preparing it for it’s funeral, and then it was saved by a guy who brought it back to life like Frankenstein: Adam Hoffman.’’ Hoffman did not respond to an interview request. But by all other accounts, College Republicans was more active when Hoffman became president than it is today.

***

While he would not share any programming already undertaken by the group, Stewart said he was open to canvassing trips in the future. But, when speaking about his goals, he said, “College Republicans is and really should be a place where people who dissent from the Democratic orthodoxy can really come together.”

Ryan Spaude ’16 served as the vice president of College Republicans for two years while an undergraduate. Now, he is a Democrat, and he let out a disappointed sigh when I told him that College Republicans is not, as a group, opposing Trump. “At the end of the day,” he said in an interview with the ‘Prince,’ “It’s the campus wing of a political party that doesn’t believe in democracy.”

Julian Hartman-Sigall is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Charter Club changed guest policy after conservative professor’s lunch. After headlines, the policy was reversed.

By Bridget O’Neill Head News Editor

The guest policy changed at Princeton’s sole selective sign-in eating club. Days later, it changed again.

On March 26, Charter Club’s President announced a new guest policy in a club-wide group chat. Under the new policy, club members were required to inform the Club Manager and a student officer of guests they invite during meal hours who were not friends or family “for review.”

By April 2, the policy was reversed after an intervention from the club’s Graduate Board. In the seven days in between, debate over the policy rose from the club’s private GroupMe to the headlines of national right-wing publications. Club leadership maintains that the reversal was not due to national media scrutiny.

The controversy, and the specific demographic to which the policy applied — visitors other than friends or family — traces back to a lunch in February. Charter member, and member of Princetonians for Free Speech, Matthew Wilson ’24 brought his thesis advisor, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence Robert P. George, to lunch at the club on Feb. 14. George was named an honorary member of the Charter Club in 2012 — a status that enables him to dine and bring guests to Charter.

In a column published in The Daily Princetonian on April 1 criticizing the ensuing policy change, Wilson described the lunch as “pleasant and uneventful” and says he followed the club’s procedure for bringing guests to meals.

Wilson is a columnist for the ‘Prince.’

More than a month later, Charter Club President Anna Johns ’25 announced the new policy.

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AFFAIRS | APRIL 2024

In her message, Johns called the club a “sanctuary” for student membership and their friends and family. She requested that members “limit the use of [the] clubhouse space to this core group” and announced the new review procedure.

Johns did not reply to request for comment by publication time.

Immediately after, speculation stirred about what triggered this policy change. In his column, Wilson said that he heard from friends that the policy was a reaction to his February lunch. In a comment to the ‘Prince’, Chairman of the Board of Governors of Princeton Charter Club, Rodrigo Menezes ’13 confirmed that the policy was in response to members’ discomfort at the presence of Professor George, which they expressed to club officers.

“Some members wanted the choice to be absent from the Club around certain guests. The proposed procedure intended to give members that freedom by requiring a short pre-registration,” Menezes wrote.

The announcement immediately caused confusion among members and alumni who were unclear on the reasoning behind the change. After Wilson circulated a petition to the club’s alumni board calling on them to revoke the policy, Johns sent another message in the group chat clarifying that “Charter is an inclusive private club that will never deny a member’s request to bring a guest to our sanctuary,” but maintained that prior review would still be required.

George is a well-known campus figure, partially due to his leadership of the James Madison Program. Vocally pro-life, George was referred to in a New York Magazine article from a decade ago as the “reigning brain of the Christian right.” In his scholarship, George has repeatedly

argued against same-sex marriage.

“It was a grave error for Charter’s leadership to bend to the demands of a few students who couldn’t stomach the possibility of being within shouting distance of someone whose views challenge their own,” Wilson argued in his April 1 column.

On April 2, conservative national news organizations caught wind of the story.

A Fox News headline read, “Conservative Princeton professor makes members of exclusive campus social club uncomfortable, student says.”

A National Review piece by Abigail Anthony ’23 was titled “Princeton’s Nurseries.” She argued that justifying the policy with the virtue of inclusivity is hypocritical given that “they want a carefully constructed community, presumably one insulated from people who hold different views.”

“I seriously doubt the new policy will be neutrally enforced with respect to political ideology; after all, it was precisely because of George’s conservative views that complaints were raised, since he wasn’t engaging in any disturbing conduct,” Anthony wrote.

Solveig Gold ’17, a former Postdoctoral Research Associate at the James Madison Program and former Princeton undergraduate wrote on X, “One of Princeton’s eating clubs (co-ed frats) has instituted a new visitors policy after a student brought @McCormickProf to lunch—because his very presence at the club made members feel unsafe!”

Professor George responded to the post, writing “So ... Students have to give notice to bring me as a guest for lunch at a club ... that I myself belong to? And, as a member, am entitled to use whenever I like, and bring guests

of my own? (By the way, Solveig, when are you available to be my guest for lunch at Charter Club?).”

He later posted “I’m a member of Charter Club. I was made an honorary member in 2012 pursuant to Art. III, Pt. 3 of the Club’s constitution. I’m entitled to use the Club when I like and bring guests.” George is also an honorary member of Ivy Club.

While a national debate ensued, internal debate about whether to keep the policy continued within the Club. In an unusual step, members asked the Graduate Board to “arbitrate the situation and make a decision for the Club,” according to Menezes.

On April 2, at 11:05 p.m. Menezes wrote in an email to members that the Board “is leery of any process that could reduce the culture of civil discourse and camaraderie at the Club” and decided to reverse the policy.

Menezes clarified in his comment to the ‘Prince’ that the board’s decision was based on “civil discourse within the community, not pressure from national coverage” and “The Board would have reached the exact same conclusion without national coverage.”

“Our members and alumni reached out, telling us that this procedure could discourage members from bringing potentially controversial guests, limiting the club’s capacity to act as a forum for civil discourse on campus,” he added.

Menezes also noted to the ‘Prince’ that he hopes Professor George or Wilson are not discouraged from coming to the club.

“They are still welcome at the Club, and we aspire to be among the most inclusive clubs on the street.”

Bridget O’Neill is a head News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Clio Hall occupation ends in 13 arrests, sit-in relocates to Cannon Green

By Bridget O’Neill, Olivia Sanchez & Miriam Waldvogel Head News Editor & Associate News Editors

Thirteen people were arrested after briefly occupying Clio Hall late Monday afternoon, marking a drastic escalation of pro-Palestine protests on campus since the beginning of a sit-in in McCosh Courtyard on Thursday morning. Clio is home to Princeton University Graduate School administration, and is directly south of Nassau Hall. While protesters were inside the building, approximately 200 people initially gathered outside both the front and back of Clio, chanting and banging on buckets. The back of Clio was blocked off by Public Safety (PSAFE) officers, but was opened periodically to allow administrators, guided by PSAFE, to exit the building.

According to an Instagram post from Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD), protesters occupied Dean of the Graduate School Rodney Priestley’s office to force the University to negotiate. The post read, “Princeton has refused to bargain over our demands through any channels of communication since October. We are taking our demands directly to administration to force Princeton to the table NOW!”

The Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) reported that Aditi Rao GS yelled, “I got arrested so we could get a meeting,” as she left Clio Hall.

This move comes after five days of a pro-Palestine sit-in in McCosh Courtyard, with divestments from companies with ties to Israel first on the list of demands. Protesters have otherwise avoided being in violation of University policy since two graduate students were arrested on the first day of protests.

There have been no public statements by the University on disassociation. At a concurrent meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Committee (CPUC), Resource Committee Chair John Groves, a chemistry professor, shared that the committee had received a number of emails and phone calls. The Resources Committee deals with the University’s investments.

The committee acknowledges receipt to any individuals and groups bringing issues to the committee before providing information on next steps in a timely manner, according to its website.

“At the current pace, we haven’t had a chance to meet,” Groves said.

Around 4:30 p.m., a large group of protesters left McCosh courtyard and headed towards Frist Campus Center before turning right and continuing to Elm Drive, where they marched to Clio Hall.

At least 15 protesters, including professor of African American Studies Ruha Benjamin, entered Clio at 5:23 p.m. Benjamin and classics professor Dan-el Padilla Peralta exited Clio at 5:30 p.m.

Benjamin and Padilla Peralta are two of six faculty members who requested a special faculty meeting in light of the sit-in.

Also around 5:30 p.m., PSAFE warned people inside Clio Hall that they would be arrested regardless of their University status if they did not leave the building, including two student journalists, POLITICO NJ editorial intern Katie Dailey ’24 and WPRB 103.3 station manager Adam Sanders ’25. Dailey and Sanders exited the building shortly thereafter.

Dailey is a Managing Editor emeritus for the ‘Prince.’

Several dozen protesters locked arms to block the front doors of Clio to potentially prevent PSAFE from exiting with arrestees. They eventually moved away from the doors, allowing PSAFE to exit with two people, who were moved to a TigerTransit bus parked on Elm Drive at the side of Clio Hall. The two protesters were identified by the PAW as Ariel Munczek Edelman GS, a masters of public affairs student, and Sam Nastase, a researcher in the Princeton Neuroscience Institute. The Daily Princetonian has independently verified their identities.

“Princeton, you want arrests. This doesn’t end without divest,” protesters in the back of Clio chanted.

A large group of protesters then gathered in front of and around the bus where Edelman and Nastase were held, blocking its path up Elm Drive, banging on its windows, and yelling, “Let them go.” Some wedged green safety cones in the back left wheel of the bus. Large groups of protesters remained stationed at the front and back of Clio, and others encircled a PSAFE car parked in front of the building.

By 6:26 p.m., 11 people remained inside Clio Hall, and four police vehicles from the Municipality of Princeton appeared on the scene, as well as at least two unmarked vehicles.

“We’re here to support Princeton University,” Princeton Police Chief Jon Bucchere said about the presence of town police in an interview with the ‘Prince.’

After 30 minutes of chaos outside the bus, associate history professor Max Weiss, came to the front with a megaphone and addressed the crowd.

“Here is the situation,” Weiss shouted. “If you don’t trust me, do not do what I say. If you trust me and Zia Mian and the Faculty for Justice in Palestine, consider the following.”

Weiss then asked for the road to be cleared in order for the students on the bus to be released with summonses, to which people began chanting “we keep us safe” and calling for disciplinary charges to be dropped. The crowd did not budge. Director of PSAFE Kinamo Lomon repeated the warning at 6:41 pm. Weiss urged protesters blocking the bus to disperse, but added, “Do what you want.”

At 6:47 p.m., Weiss and Zia Mian, the co-director of Princeton’s Program on Science and Global Security, stepped onto the bus. After a few minutes, they stepped off.

At 6:50 p.m., Edelman and Nastase were released from the bus to cheers and shouts from the crowd.

Less than 20 minutes later, PSAFE officers blocked the back doors to Clio. Around the same time, the doors to PSAFE Headquarters at 200 Elm Drive appeared to be locked.

On the steps of Clio, 75 protesters remained, yelling,

“Hold your ground” in response to requests from Weiss and others to clear the area. At the back entryway, a smaller group of protesters linked arms to prevent passage. One speaker said that they had heard from the protesters inside that they should not leave until all charges were dropped. When protest organizers said that students blocking the door were not at risk of arrest, a crowd of students ascended the front steps.

In three batches, all of the protesters inside Clio were periodically released through the front to shouts from the crowd. “We made history,” chanted protestors in the front.

According to an official near the bus, the deadline for the arrested individuals on the bus to turn themselves into PSAFE Headquarters was 7:30 p.m. Edelman was seen outside of 200 Elm Drive at that time.

David Piegaro ’25, who was not participating in the main protest, was arrested outside of Whig Hall, located just east of Clio. He arrived at 200 Elm Drive at 8:03 p.m. It is unclear whether he was involved in counterprotests. He was called an “outside agitator” by Weiss. Witnesses claim Piegaro was pushed down the stairs of Whig. He was seen handcuffed while face-down on the ground at the front of the building.

At 9:09 p.m., PSAFE officers arrived outside 200 Elm Drive to escort the four arrested students who turned themselves in to their dorms. “Alright everyone, cameras on. Who wants to go first?” an officer said. Students had ten minutes to grab items from their dorm that they needed.

Hours after the crowd dispersed, with many protesters continuing the sit-in on Cannon Green, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 called the protest “com-

pletely unacceptable” in a statement emailed to the University community.

“All those arrested received summonses for trespassing and have been barred from campus. The students will also face University discipline, which may extend to suspension or expulsion,” he wrote.

Protesters responded, with a marshal for the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” saying, “We’re going to make sure that President Eisgruber understands that we are here to stay.”

The ‘Prince’ has verified the identities of six individuals who were arrested for occupying Clio Hall: postdoctoral researcher Sam Nastase, Ariel Munzcek Edelman GS, Aditi Rao GS, Christian Bischoff ’19 GS, Khari Franklin ’24, and Sara Ryave ’24.

Following the occupation of Clio, Columbia University pro-Palestine protesters have begun occupying Hamilton Hall, the same building where civil rights protesters demonstrated in the 1960s.

The ‘Prince’ will continue live updates of the “Gaza Solidarity Encampment.” See coverage from days one, two, three, four, and five.

Olivia Sanchez is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’ She is from New Jersey and often covers the graduate school and academic departments.

Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor and the investigations editor for the ‘Prince.’

Bridget O’Neill is a head News editor for the ‘Prince’ from Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

RODOLFO ARZAGA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Students and other community members observing the solar eclipse on Cannon Green.

‘This feels like a 1968 moment’: Mobilization in a culture of apathy

By Elisabeth Stewart Assistant News Editor

More than 40 Princeton students laid on the ground in front of Firestone Library on a cold afternoon in February, during a die-in to protest Israel’s planned military offense in Rafah. Originally, the protest was supposed to happen the day before, on Feb. 13. However, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), the student organization behind the protest — and one that has been at the forefront of recent pro-Palestinian action on campus —  rescheduled the demonstration, deterred by forecasts of snow.

On Feb. 12, a similar die-in occurred in front of Harvard’s Widener steps. Its attendees numbered nearly 200.

“At Harvard, the numbers of students who were participating in the die-in was much higher, even though the framing of the event was basically the same,” Emanuelle Sippy ’25, the president of the Alliance for Jewish Progressives (AJP), told The Daily Princetonian in an interview last week.

The lack of what Sippy called a “critical mass” of protestors isn’t unique to the cause, nor is it new for Princeton’s campus. For example, a Feb. 2023 demonstration planned by Divest Princeton — a coalition of climate activists calling on the University to disassociate from fossil fuels — only attracted a dozen students, including the organizers. Such lackluster turnouts at demonstrations are the norm, not the exception at the University, contributing to Princeton’s notoriety as a deeply apathetic campus — one where the vast majority of students are seemingly uninvolved in and unaware of campus politics while a select few activists take the spotlight.

David Brooks documented this apathy in his profile “The Organization Kid,” written after a visit to Princeton at the turn of the millennium: “There are a lot of things these future leaders no longer have time for. I was on campus at the height of the election season, and I saw not even one Bush or Gore poster,” he wrote at the time. “I asked around about this and was told that most students have no time to read newspapers, follow national politics, or get involved in crusades.”

In the past decade, various movements have defied this reputation — including Divest Princeton’s long-term

campaign urging the University to divest from fossil fuel companies, the 2015 Nassau Hall sit-in planned by the Black Justice League (BJL), and, now, activism around the conflict in Gaza and the launch of the Princeton Israeli Apartheid Divest (PIAD).

In an interview with the ‘Prince,’ history professor Joshua B. Guild identified the BJL’s 2015 sit-in as “the most active and engaged” he’s seen students, at least, he noted, “up until the present moment.”

The ongoing demonstration for Palestine continues at a scale unprecedented in Princeton’s recent history, uprooting a deep-seated indifference that many have come to think of as ingrained in the institution’s very identity. The questions remain: Why now and why this cause?

Princeton: The ‘Southern,’ burnedout pre-professionals

“I’ve certainly heard a lot of students complain of generalized apathy on campus,” history professor Max Weiss told the ‘Prince,’ although he notes that “students really do care about sensitive and important political issues.”

There’s a strong consensus among students that Princeton’s campus is apathetic, but asking the question of why retrieves a variety of answers.

According to Guild, “there’s a certain kind of preprofessional culture here” that keeps students focused on their post-graduation trajectories.

“Often, students who come to Princeton have very particular ideas of what they want to do after, whether that’s law school, Wall Street, consulting — a number of different professions that not only require good academic grades, but I think discourage that kind of political activism,” he said.

Sippy agreed that Princeton students are often focused on “the next thing.”

Hannah Reynolds Martinez ’22, a member of Divest Princeton, said that “if they weren’t directly impacted by the issues that were kind of at play, a lot of folks were more focused on getting a prestigious internship or joining a club.”

Last year’s senior survey conducted by the ‘Prince’ indicated that 9.5 percent of students intended to go into consulting and 9.3 percent into finance, as opposed to 7.1 percent of graduates who planned to work in the nonprofit or public service industry.

While activists at any school expe-

rience burnout from long-term commitment to their causes, and student groups experience fluctuating periods of activity, Princeton’s independent work expectations for juniors and seniors accelerates participant turnover.

“The students that tend to be drawn to Princeton may not be the most ‘activist’ students, in part because of the narrative that we have,” Sippy said.

She referenced Princeton’s reputation as a “Southern Ivy” — a term that refers to both Princeton’s historic ties to the South and the slow-moving nature of its transition to an integrated, co-educational University in the 20th century.

The University did not begin to admit Black students in earnest until the 1940s with the introduction of WWII Navy Program. However, black students did not number in the double digits until the mid-1960s. And while the University became co-educational in 1969, nearly 15 years before Columbia University, Princeton’s eating clubs only became fully co-ed after a ruling by the New Jersey Supreme Court.

In comparison to other campuses where he has worked and studied, Guild also noted a “deep culture of consensus at Princeton” and a “reluctance to disagree,” both in classrooms and the public forum.

“We value civility. And to a certain degree, I think that’s important,” he told the ‘Prince’ last week. “But I think it can also have a distorting effect in that I think it limits the degree to which people want to outwardly express themselves politically.”

In her email preempting the sit-in, Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun referenced demonstrations at other schools that have “hindered the ability of the institutions to fulfill their educational missions.”

“Against that backdrop, I write to ask for your help in ensuring that we can continue to balance our robust commitment to free expression with our obligation to provide a welcoming and safe environment for all students and for other members of our community,” the email wrote.

And unlike the majority of Ivy League schools, Princeton’s home base is in a suburban region removed from major cities, and “there’s no obvious place to congregate,” Weiss said. Walkouts occur outside of Nassau Hall, the North

and South lawns at Frist Campus Center, Firestone Plaza, or occasionally, in Palmer Square, but these zones do not attract the same foot traffic as Harvard Yard or UC Berkeley’s Sproul Plaza.

“The students are certainly hurried and busy and stressed, but the pace of campus life is actually quite subdued, calm, almost sleepy,” Weiss said.

“They said it was not possible here”

Since Oct. 7, University students on all sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict have led protests and counter-protests, and Princeton is no exception. At first, the reaction centered around vigils, even as rallies popped up at other institutions. Then, as the Israeli counteroffensive mounted, moods shifted. On Oct. 25, hundreds of Princetonians joined other nationwide campuses during a walkout in solidarity with Palestine.

In the fall, Pro-Palestinian organizers with PIAD officially called for divestment from Israel, and reiterated their demands after University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 dismissed the petition at a February CPUC meeting.

“There’s been a lot of divestment precedents here that we are inspiring ourselves from and learning from,” Sophie Bandarkar GS told the ‘Prince’ at the sitin on Friday.

On Thursday, Larry Hamm ’78 spoke to the crowd about his time pressuring the University to divest from apartheid in South Africa during a series of protests in 1978. And in 2022, following continued action by Divest Princeton, the University announced a divestment from all publicly traded fossil fuel companies.

While the frequency and intensity of Pro-Palestine protests throughout the fall marked an increase in engagement from what is typical at Princeton, all remained mostly uneventful, with limited engagement from national media. However, now campus activism has become more intense.

Following the ‘Gaza Solidarity Encampments’ at Columbia University that featured over one hundred arrests, Princeton activists, like those at schools around the country, made the decision to follow suit, marking an escalation from their previous protests.

When planning of this leaked activists were not deterred, even as Calhoun to sent an email to the undergraduate body indicating that any encampment

participants may face disciplinary action such as arrest, suspension, or expulsion.

“We’re in an age of social networking and social media, and so I think students have become very savvy around how to publicize their thoughts and publicize their actions and put pressure on institutions to act in particular ways,” Guild noted.

The sit-in drew hundreds of undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty members to McCosh Courtyard throughout the day. Crowds swelled to upwards of 250 people during its first day.

Princeton’s sit-in is an unprecedented moment of mobilization on campus, sparked by the national movement sweeping across other college campuses and supported by social media and faculty involvement.

“[What] we have built so far — I feel optimistic about it right now,” Bandarkar said. “I don’t think everyone on campus at any point is going to join us, but I think more and more. I feel confident that more people will at least be aware.”

“This feels like a 1968 moment,” Weiss told the ‘Prince’ before word of a planned sit-in began to circulate. “This feels like a level of student mobilization and organizing, and a veritable national student movement that has not been seen since the 60s.”

Protestors have leveraged their awareness of how the demonstration defies Princeton’s generally apathetic context to motivate participants. “They said it was not possible here, and it is possible,” Aditi Rao GS told protesters in a speech on Thursday.

While, Princeton may be defying it’s own expectations with the sit-in, the campus culture has yet to change. McCosh Courtyard is out of the sightline of the surrounding public roads and covered from the view of central campus by a large white tent. As students walk through to head to their classes, the library, or dorm rooms, they sometimes pause, look on, and listen — but, more often than not, they do not.

“In some ways, the narrative that Princeton is only inactive — it’s part of what we’re trying to counter,” Bandarkar said.

Elisabeth Stewart is an assistant News editor for the ‘Prince.’

Large crowds eclipse expectations for rare astronomical event

By Hallie Graham News Contributor

The stars aligned at Princeton on April 8 as the Princeton community, along with millions of people across North America, enjoyed the celestial sight as a solar eclipse unfolded overhead.

According to the New York Times, the partial eclipse first made landfall in North America near Mazatlán, Mexico around 12:51 p.m. EST, but the eclipse began in Princeton, N.J. at 2:09 p.m. It reached 90 percent totality at 3:24 p.m. and officially ended at 4:35 p.m.

This is the first solar eclipse to be visible from New Jersey since 2017. The solar eclipse of 2017 was a total eclipse, but it took place near the solar minimum, so eclipse observers saw little activity around the sun. The solar minimum is the period of least solar activity during the Sun’s 11-year solar cycle. During this period, sunspot and solar flare activity greatly decrease and do not occur for even days at a time. For this solar eclipse, watchers in the path of totality — a trail over which the moon fully obscures the sun — could easily see the Sun’s corona and plasma tendrils streaming outwards from the dark center of the moon.

Students and faculty gathered all

over campus and in town to view the eclipse. On Frist North Lawn, the Princeton Astronomy Club (PAC) held an event complete with 100 pairs of free eclipse viewing glasses, chocolate covered espresso beans, and PAC stickers.

Amrita Sahu ’26, Vice President of the PAC and co-organizer of the event on April 8, told The Daily Princetonian in an interview that the club “does a lot of different astronomy related events on campus to spread the love for astrophysics, physics, and astronomy in general. There are a lot of stargazing events that [they] do on Forbes lawn.”

Sahu said that this eclipse viewing party was “one of [PAC’s] biggest events. So many people came by. Everyone just wants to see the eclipse today.”

At an event hosted by the Department of Astrophysical Sciences, the Council on Science and Technology, and the Office of Science Outreach in Palmer Square, Charlotte Ward, a postdoctoral astronomy researcher in the Astrophysics Department, explained to students gathered that “here at Princeton, we’re at 90 percent coverage which means that we can’t see the corona, but we can still see the moon cross the sun and give it this coverage … but even with partial coverage it is still really exciting.”

Ward said, “It is a really great chance

to just get a sense of the physical distance between us and the sun and the moon in between. It’s a great chance to come up and ask astronomers what’s going on.”

While the opportunity to ask astronomers questions about the eclipse tempted some, most students went from event to event looking for eclipse glasses to better view the celestial event. Nasir Cook ’25 was exiting Cottage Club when he “heard they were giving out glasses at Palmer Square and decided to come down.”

Cook last saw the eclipse of 2017 at his middle and high school back in Nashville, Tenn., but he told the ‘Prince’ that the Palmer Square event signaled to him that “we can bring people together for almost any event. There are people from all over — not just Princeton students — but people from around the Princeton community, people that are visiting the shops here.”

Like Cook, Ella Bwonya ’26, a student interested in astronomy, also stopped by the Palmer Square event. “Just seeing how many people showed up today is kind of crazy. It says that we are a really close community,” she told the ‘Prince.’

Over in Whitman College’s main courtyard, a big crowd came together with picnic blankets, snacks, and eclipse viewing glasses. Though stu-

dents expressed to the ‘Prince’ that it did not get as dark as they thought it may, Joyce Yang ’27 said, “I give it an 8.5 out of 10. This was really cool.”

“I think if it wasn’t nearly as total then there would still be a big crowd here,” Danielle Schmitt, an academic staff member in the Department of Geosciences, told the ‘Prince.’

The year 2044 was thrown around frequently at each event around campus: The next eclipse in the contigu-

ous United States will occur in 20 years — though the path of totality will only be visible in North Dakota, Montana, and South Dakota. “Maybe I’ll travel in 2044,” Schmitt said.

Hallie Graham is a News contributor for the ‘Prince.’

Senior News writer Justus Wilhoit contributed reporting.

RODOLFO ARZAGA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Students and other community members observing the solar eclipse on Cannon Green.

Who runs Princeton? The University cabinet, examined

By Rishi Kannan & Ryan Konarska

Contributor

With over 1,000 faculty, nearly 9,000 students, and an annual operating budget of nearly three billion dollars, Princeton University is a colossal institution to manage and maintain. While much of the work of running the University is carried out by almost 7,000 staff, the top-level administration of Princeton is carried out by a group of 25 individuals colloquially known as the Cabinet.

While another well-known administrative body, the Board of Trustees, makes the decisions regarding the governance of the University, the officers of the University handle the day-to-day operations. Examining the Cabinet is essential for understanding who runs Princeton, not just who governs it. While the Board of Trustees is composed of prominent figures like former president George W. Bush’s Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten ’76 and businessman and politician Bob Hugin ’76, the Cabinet is staffed by those who have made their careers in academia and University management.

The Daily Princetonian broke down the various positions within the Cabinet, their compensation, and how power is structured within the Cabinet to better understand the most powerful individuals in the University, who deal with everything from managing tenure policies to crafting the University’s DEI report. The University did not provide any administrators to speak on the record with the ‘Prince’ for this piece.

Who are the cabinet members?

The University Cabinet, as defined by the officers on the University’s public website, is led by President Christopher Eisgruber ’83. The next highest-ranking officials are Provost Jennifer Rexford, and Executive Vice President Katie CallowWright. The provost is the chief academic and budgetary officer of the University who oversees academic officers, while the executive vice president oversees the physical campus and the provision of campus services and supervises the officers of the corporation.

The bulk of the Cabinet consists of vice presidents and deans. There are vice presidents for Campus Life, Communications and Government Affairs, Information Technology, Advancement, University Services, Finance, Human Resources, Counsel, Compliance, Facilities, and the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL). The Cabinet includes deans for the Faculty, Libraries, Admission and Financial Aid, and Research. The deans of the Schools of Architecture, Public and International Affairs, Engineering and Applied Sciences, and the Graduate School are also Cabinet members.

Another Cabinet official is Dean of the College Jill Dolan, who recently announced her intention to step down at the conclusion of the 2023–24 academic year.

The only Cabinet official with the title “President” besides Eisgruber is the President of the Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO), Andrew Golden. Golden has also announced his retirement, which is set to take effect on June 30, 2024. Golden is the longest serving member of the cabinet, having served since 1995 in the role.

Where did they study?

While all appointed trustees are Princeton graduates, just five of the 25 Cabinet members graduated from Princeton. All five of these Princeton graduates attended at least one graduate school other than Princeton, notably the University of Chicago, Oxford University, The College of New Jersey, the University of Michigan, Harvard University, and Brown University.

Only three members of the Cabinet went to more than one graduate school, while five members either did not complete a graduate degree at all or the ‘Prince’ was unable to find any information about their graduate degrees.

The composition of the Cabinet is not limited to graduates of Ivy League schools,

with a significant diversity in institutions. Two members of the Cabinet obtained an undergraduate degree from outside of the United States — Vice President and Chief Audit and Compliance Officer Nilufer Shroff, who received her degree from Mumbai University, and Dean of Libraries Anne Jarvis.

How is the cabinet structured?

The Cabinet is generally structured around the provost and executive vice president, though some positions report directly to the President.

There are two major categories of Cabinet members as listed by the University bylaws in Resolution I: “Officers of the Corporation” and “Academic Officers.” The former consists of the President, Provost, Treasurer, Secretary, and most of those who hold the title of “vice president.” The latter consists of those who hold the title of “dean” as well as the Vice President for PPPL.

Reporting to Provost Jennifer Rexford are the vice president for information technology, vice president for PPPL, dean of libraries, dean of the college, and the deans of Princeton’s various schools, including the School of Public and International Affairs and the Graduate School. The provost is also responsible for the broader areas of academic affairs, resource planning and institutional research, institutional equity and diversity, international affairs and operations, and space programming and planning.

The Office of the Provost was created in 1967. The provost is the general deputy of the president and also serves as acting president in the event of their absence or disability.

The vice presidents for campus life, human resources, university services, facilities, and audit and compliance all report to Executive Vice President Katie CallowWright. Many of these vice presidents are powerful in their own right; Vice President for Campus Life W. Rochelle Calhoun oversees the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, the Pace Center for Civic Engagement, the Office of Religious Life, University Health Services, Center for Career Development, Wintersession, Campus Recreation, and Princeton Athletics.

Six positions report directly to President Eisgruber: the dean of the faculty and the vice presidents for advancement, communications and government affairs, finance and treasurer, general counsel, and secretary.

The Dean of the College Jill Dolan is not the highest-ranking dean — that’s Dean of the Faculty Gene A. Jarrett. The dean of the faculty had many of the dean of the college’s responsibilities until that position was created in 1909.

According to University bylaws, the PRINCO President reports to the Board of Directors of PRINCO, which in turn reports to the President.

Both academic officers and officers of the corporation are elected by the Board of Trustees following nomination from the President.

How has the cabinet changed during Eisgruber’s tenure?

Eisgruber’s Cabinet has seen significant turnover since his time as president began in 2013. Just six Cabinet members have served during the entirety of Eisgruber’s tenure, while two positions have seen multiple transfers of power.

Indeed, the two highest positions in the cabinet below Eisgruber are some of the newest members of the body. Both Provost Jennifer Rexford and Executive Vice President Katie Callow-Wright began their tenures in 2023.

Turnover has been concentrated during two time periods: in 2014, when the dean of the Graduate School, vice president and general counsel, and dean of the faculty positions all changed hands, and in 2022, when the dean of the graduate school, vice president for human resources, and provost saw new officeholders fill those positions.

With the aforementioned announcements that Dean of the College Jill Dolan

and PRINCO President Andrew Golden would be stepping down, as well as Vice President for Information Technology and Chief Information Officer Jay Dominick’s upcoming retirement, 2024 looks to be another year with major turnover in the University Cabinet.

The newest member of the Cabinet is Dean of Research Peter Schiffer, who began his role in August 2023. Following Golden’s retirement in 2024 after running PRINCO since 1995, Nilufer Shroff, the Vice President and Chief Audit and Compliance Officer, will be the longest-serving cabinet member, having served in her position since 2007.

How much does the cabinet make?

During this past fiscal year, which ended June 1, 2022, even the Cabinet member with the lowest salary made over 6.5 times the average salary in New Jersey. The average salary of the Cabinet, not counting the PRINCO President, was around $650,000.

Golden makes, by far, the most of any Cabinet member, with a salary nearing $4 million — four times the salary of the president of the University. Golden’s compensation is structured differently than other cabinet members – while his base salary is around a million dollars, he receives bonuses and deferred compensation that far exceed the entire salaries of other cabinet members. In 2021, Golden was awarded almost $2.8 million in deferred compensation to be paid at a future date.

The president and provost receive similar compensations of around one million dollars.

Vice presidents and deans make between $470,000 and $850,000 dollars, with many of these members being paid around $500,000–$600,000.

Despite being a higher-ranking official, the executive vice president makes less than the vice president and general counsel.

University administrators make significantly more than faculty members. As of 2021, the 363 male professors make an average of $271,898 per year and the 140 female professors make $253,086 per year. Each rank below professor makes less, with the lowest rank of male and female lecturers making $102,440 and $92,432 annually, respectively.

Over the past five years, the members of the cabinet have generally received small

raises each year. Historically, the compensation for each role has ranged from around $400,000 to $800,000, with higher-ranking members receiving higher salaries.

Rishi Kannan is a contributing Data writer for the ‘Prince.’

Ryan Konarska is an associate Data editor emeritus for the ‘Prince.’

The salaries of some positions dropped following personnel changes. Upon the retirement of Vice President and Secretary Robert Durkee ’69, the compensation of this role fell from over $530,000 to below $400,000.

LOUISA GHEORGHITA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Nassau Hall, the home of Princeton’s administration.

‘Our community has become a commodity’: How Princeton’s historically Black community is fading

By Charlie Roth Head Data Editor Emeritus

Silas “Bud” Massey, Jr. doesn’t have much time to relax or chat on the phone. At 80 years old, after two brief retirements, Massey is back at work part-time as a driver at the Institute for Advanced Study. He says he can’t afford to retire.

Massey didn’t hesitate to say what forced him to go back to work: the Princeton-wide tax revaluation.

“I wasn’t getting that much from social security and my pension … I wasn’t making that kind of money,” Massey said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian.

Massey has lived in the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood, Princeton’s historically Black neighborhood, for his entire life. When Princeton conducted a tax revaluation in 2010, he wasn’t expecting much change — however, his property taxes nearly doubled.

The Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood has a long and important history for Princeton’s Black residents as an eight-block island segregated from the rest of the town. Black people settled in what is now the neighborhood in the 1700s and the area expanded throughout the 1800s and early 1900s. The community had its own YM/YWCA and library. Many of the buildings are still standing, including Mt. Pisgah AME Church built in 1860.

The neighborhood has been the affordable centerpiece for the Black community in Princeton for over a century, according to an interview with Princeton Councilmember Leighton Newlin. At the neighborhood’s height in the 1950s, it had four churches, a hospital, and their own newspaper (the Citizen). But in the past few decades, residents say that the once tight-knit community has faded, along with the neighborhood’s affordability.

“[Black people] don’t represent anywhere near the percentage of homeowners in this neighborhood now [than as we used to],” Newlin said. “The tax implications of that [2010] revaluation, I would say, seriously accelerated the gentrification of the neighborhood.”

After combing through hundreds of pages of tax records for the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood from 2007 to 2010, a ‘Prince’ investigation found that after the 2010 revaluation, property taxes in the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood increased by over $1,700 on average, nearly a 25 percent increase from the previous year. This came after taxes increased by $80 between 2007 and 2008 and $445 between 2008 and 2009.

“Black people can’t live in Princeton no more,” Massey told the ‘Prince.’ “Taxes too high. I don’t care what kind of job they get. Taxes too high for them.”

Because the tax records were not digitized, the ‘Prince’ manually entered tax values for the 393 properties in the neighborhood. Together, this totals nearly 2,000 manually entered individual data points.

For 12 of the cases, property taxes doubled from 2009 to 2010. One of those homeowners was Richard Jackson, who still remembers seeing what he owed in property taxes for 2010, more than a decade later.

“I was shocked,” Jackson told the ‘Prince’ in an interview. “But I’m trying to deal with it the best way that I can.”

The increases were concentrated on the streets with the most properties. On Birch Avenue and Leigh Avenue, where half of the residents in the neighborhood live, property taxes increased by nearly 50 percent on average. According to Neal Snyder, Princeton’s Tax Assessor, residents’ property taxes increased dramatically because the assessed value of their land increased significantly in the 2010 revaluation. Multiple factors contribute to a property’s value, but Snyder says that the most important is the market value of a property.

“We’re reviewing the accuracy of their property valuation,” Snyder told the ‘Prince’ in an interview. “Not the tax dollars that they’re paying for their property.”

Snyder said that the jump in property taxes was high because the properties were undervalued before the 2010 revaluation. After the revaluation, property values

in the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood more than doubled on average, from nearly $150,000 to nearly $375,000. Still, residents had no way of knowing their properties were being under-assessed, and the tax increases in 2010 came as a surprise to many residents.

“We didn’t know why [the evaluators] increased it so much, and they said it’s because they hadn’t done an evaluation in such a long period of time, and it was needed, and that’s why it increased by so much. That shouldn’t be our fault,” Jackson said.

Jackson’s home, which used to belong to his grandmother, increased in value from $62,900 before the evaluation to $232,000 after the evaluation. His property taxes more than doubled from $2,282 in 2009 to $5,435 in 2010. He says he hasn’t made any changes to the home since the previous revaluation in 1996 and noted his frustration and confusion with the evaluation process itself.

Massey also expressed his displeasure with the revaluation process.

“They didn’t assess anything. That was just a bunch of bull,” he said.

Snyder said that the market for homes in Witherspoon-Jackson had increased considerably before the revaluation.

“[Homeowners] didn’t have to do anything [to their homes],” Snyder said. “It’s just that the land value, the whole package compared to the last revaluation, went up considerably.”

One of the contributing factors to increas-

Society, told the ‘Prince’ that there has been pressure on residents from developers to sell their homes.

“I get calls from contractors calling me all the time [asking me] do you want to sell your house,” Satterfield said.

The neighborhood also attracts investors looking to purchase a home, rent it, and later sell it for a profit, according to Eileen Logue, who invested in a home on Birch Avenue. Logue, who lives in San Diego, told the ‘Prince’ that the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood fit her investment criteria perfectly.

Logue wanted to invest in a property in a “smaller town that had a university,” and noted that such locations would “have the culture that you wouldn’t get in most American small towns.” She said her family chose the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood because “it was the only smaller, more affordable part of Princeton … we just thought ‘oh, this could be up and coming.’”

Logue told the ‘Prince’ that she held the investment property for seven years. The value of the property increased by only $26,500 over that period, and she attributes the small profit to the housing bubble.

Satterfield, on the other hand, is living in a house originally built by her uncle and says she’s trying to keep her family’s homes in her family as much as possible.

“It’s really hard every time I pass these houses and see what’s happened to the houses

being the tax assessor’s decision, and the public can weigh in on tax districts and other decisions like contracts via public comments and meetings.

“If this happened again, where Witherspoon-Jackson was lumped in with the upperclass part of the community, people could immediately go to court to seek an injunction to stop this process. But nobody could do that before, because no one knew about it until it was over,” Afran said. “This will empower people in the community.”

Residents of the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood also attempted to curb market value increases by petitioning the town council to designate the neighborhood as an official historic district. The designation, which they received in 2016, restricted the types of modifications that could be made to the properties and imposed certain burdens on the upkeep and repair of the properties. Other historic districts include Prospect Avenue.

Residents whose families have lived in the neighborhood for generations are leaving because they can’t afford to pay the increased property taxes on the properties, according to Newlin.

In her 2017 book on the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood, “I Hear My People Singing,” former Princeton professor Kathryn Watterson wrote that residents are finding their homes less affordable and the option of moving more tempting.

ing market values is the increased interest in the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood because of its affordability, both from potential buyers and developers.

The same goes for home sales: if a nearby home is sold, its sale price affects the values of neighboring properties, according to Snyder. With each high-value sale, the value of other properties in the neighborhood increases, creating a seemingly endless loop of property value increases that eventually are reflected in revaluations and corresponding property tax assessments.

Snyder emphasized that this change in market value is what affects property taxes. Home sales affect the neighborhood “whether they tear them down, or they rehab them, or just move into them. It’s whatever the market bears in that neighborhood,” he said.

Sale prices for property in the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood have increased more dramatically than in the town of Princeton as a whole between 2000 and 2022. Over the 22 year period, the average sale price has steadily increased in the neighborhood to more than five times its value in 2000, according to a ‘Prince’ analysis. This increase is greater than the average over the full Princeton township, where sale prices tripled in that time, as did the average home cost in the United States.

Shirley Satterfield, the director of the Witherspoon-Jackson Historical and Cultural

for people who used to live in them,” Satterfield said. “Our community has become a commodity.”

Bruce Afran, a Princeton lawyer and professor at Rutgers, told the ‘Prince’ that he had a different explanation for why taxes increased so much after the revaluation. He represented Princeton residents who sued the township and borough of Princeton in 2011 after, the suit argues, the homes of lower-income families saw a tax increase while the most valuable properties saw a tax decrease. The plaintiff’s complaint argued that during the revaluation, the assessors “arbitrarily” grouped the wealthier homes with the low-income homes, forcing the assessment to average the values of the drastically different properties.

“There was absolutely no reason to put the two in the same district. They’re completely different communities,” Afran said.

A ‘Prince’ analysis found that property taxes increased in the Witherspoon-Jackson neighborhood, where properties were, on average, valued less than $150,000. Taxes decreased by four percent in West Princeton, where homes had been valued in the multimillions.

Though Afran and his clients originally wanted a new revaluation, the cost made it infeasible. Instead, they settled for new rules in future revolutions. According to the settlement, the town council now must approve the revaluation committee, instead of it just

move out.”

“When I move, I’ll be in that box. They’ll carry me out of here. I won’t be walking,” he added.

“You know what they call that,” Newlin, sitting next to Massey, laughed. “The upper room.”

“That’s right!” Massey responded. “This is where I’m gonna be buried at, right here.”

The effects on the Witherspoon-Jackson community Jackson said that the changes have affected the character of both the neighborhood and the relationships between neighbors.

“The community is not the same as it used to be,” Jackson said. “The people who used to live here cared about their community. Now it’s a little bit different, where you have a lot of renters and people who come and go.”

Massey spoke brightly of his childhood in Witherspoon-Jackson and how close everyone there used to be, but his tone darkened when talking about the community now.

“I don’t know nobody now,” Massey said. “I’ve been here all my life. I don’t know nobody in this town.”

“Well,” he laughed to Newlin sitting next to him. “I know Leighton.”

Newlin, who was part of the team that petitioned to make Witherspoon-Jackson a historic neighborhood, said that the designation has been a huge help in preserving the neighborhood, but the requirements that come with it could be difficult for people with lower incomes.

“In some ways, it has become more challenging, especially for the people that live in a neighborhood who are still of low and modest means and just trying to hang on after they were hit with that huge tax increase 13 years ago now,” Newlin said. “Many of us are just hanging on by the hairs of our chinny chin chin.”

Newlin described the neighborhood as the center of the Black community.

“In the early fifties when I grew up here in Princeton, the Princeton that I knew ended at Jackson Street … Everything that African Americans and Italian Americans needed in Princeton [was in the neighborhood],” Newlin said. “From butcher shops to the social clubs, to churches, to bodegas, to hair salons, to barber shops, to bakers, to candlestick makers, to the seamstress, and the domestic workers.” Jackson was born and raised in the neighborhood and reminisced about his childhood in Witherspoon-Jackson.

“Everything was fun. It was peaceful. Everybody knew each other, everyone took care of each other … It was a good place to grow up,” he said.

Satterfield also grew up in the neighborhood, and likened it to a “Black Wall Street.”

She wrote that the “New Great Migration” is affecting younger families in WitherspoonJackson who may move “back south” for a lower cost of living and economic opportunities. But it also affects older residents who have lived in the neighborhood for decades.

“Older Witherspoon residents on limited or fixed incomes keep watching their tax bills go up and become more difficult to pay. The offers, which come in regularly on their properties, can be tempting as they approach endof-life decisions,” Watterson wrote.

Those who do move may have a hard time coming back, Satterfield told the ‘Prince.’ She said that people who moved from their family homes have no way of returning if they want to.

“[They] can no longer come back and be in these homes because of the taxes,” Satterfield said. “This used to be a redlining district … now this is prime property.”

Still, some older residents decide to stay — whether out of pride or to preserve their family history, among other reasons. Jackson and Massey both told the ‘Prince’ they take advantage of New Jersey’s senior freeze on property taxes, which allows citizens over the age of 65 to “freeze” their taxes.

“This was my mother’s house way back in the day,” Massey said. “I didn’t want anything to happen to it regardless, so I was gonna do whatever I could do to keep it. She did all she could do for nothing if we just settle out and

“Every house was a candy store or a beauty parlor,” Satterfield said. “This was our community and we didn’t worry about not being able to go to Nassau Street and shop. But we didn’t need to. We had everything in our community. All of that is gone now.”

“I’m not saying it’s a bad change,” she continued. “It’s just different. It’s just that we know how people with money can get what we can no longer afford.”

Newlin hopes the historic designation will slow both the jumps in property taxes, as well as the construction and development that often cause them. As a town councilmember, he says he is working to help people struggling in both Witherspoon-Jackson and throughout Princeton.

“I’m hopeful that some types of programs like financial aid help through organizations like the Witherspoon-Jackson Development Corporation, working with the University, and other avenues can be explored and initiated to help people that really need help,” Newlin said.

“Princeton is a gated community, and there are a lot of people who are struggling all the same to pay the exorbitant amount of taxes that are growing here all the time and need some kind of help to age in place, especially old people. And that’s something we’re working on,” he added.

Charlie Roth is a head Data editor emeritus and a senior News writer for the ‘Prince.’

In Photos: The Clio Hall Sit-in

By

Administrators including Vice President for Campus Life Rochelle Calhoun and Assistant Vice President for Public Safety Kenneth E. Strother, Jr. react to the sit-in after leaving the CPUC meeting on April 29.

Calvin Grover

Sam Nastase, a postdoc, is arrested and led out of Clio Hall before being put on a Tiger Transit bus.

Calvin Grover

A protester faces off with PSAFE in front of the bus.

Ryland Graham Princeton Police Department officers supported PSAFE during the sit-in.

Ryland Graham

Calvin Grover, Ryland Graham, Louisa Gheorghita & Ammaar Alam

Associate Photo Editor, Assistant Photo Editor, Head Photo Editor & Staff Photographer

Aditi Rao GS gives a speech after exiting Clio Hall.

Ariel Munczek Edelman GS gives a speech after being released from the bus.

Ryland Graham

Members of Faculty for Justice in Palestine read a list of demands behind Clio Hall.

Ryland Graham

Protesters celebrate after sit-in participants were “de-arrested” according to organizers.

Calvin Grover

The crowd continues to swell as the sun begins to set.

Ryland Graham

set up a new encampment.

Clio Hall stands silent after the sitin moves to Cannon Green to

Louisa Gheorgita

Calvin Grover

This Week in Photos

Solar eclipse at Princeton

By Veena Krishnaraj, Ryland Graham, Rodolfo Arzaga & Mary Christian McCoy Staff Photographer, Assistant Photo Editor & Contributing Photographers

RYLAND GRAHAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

An eclipse viewing held in the Whitman courtyard.

RUDY ARZAGA / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Prominent University administrators also gathered to watch the eclipse in front of Nassau Hall.

VEENA KRISHNARAJ / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Students, residents, and visitors filled Palmer Square for the eclipse viewing.

VEENA KRISHNARAJ / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

The Astrophysical Sciences Department, the Council on Science and Technology, and the Office of Science Outreach provided solar eclipse glasses at Palmer Square.

RYLAND GRAHAM / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN Students watched the eclipse in front of New South.

Hum r

Princeton re-invests in fossil fuels, citing ‘it’s too cold out’

By Lauren Owens Staff Humor Writer

In the wake of dropping temperatures, the Board of Trustees has voted to re-invest in fossil fuels after the historic decision in Sept. 2022 to both dissociate from over 90 companies in the fossil fuel industry and have PRINCO (Princeton University Investment Company) remove all holdings from such businesses.

Autumn’s early arrival in New Jersey this year seems to be the root cause of this most recent decision. As temperatures have cooled, the board has decided that divestment from fossil fuels will not have any long-term benefit, as was previously thought.

Young Alumni Trustee Isa Hoaks ’21 discussed the board’s decision. “We made the historic decision to dissociate from fossil fuels in the summer. At the time, rising temperatures were apparent: It was really hot outside! And since the University has no plans to install air conditioning, neither energy sources, nor money at all to be frank, seemed particularly important,” Hoaks said.

“Things have changed,” Hoaks said solemnly, describing how the unexpected drop in temperatures has led the University to focus on its bottom line especially amid mounting evidence that global warming does not seem to be panning out.

Hoaks summarized the board’s most recent meeting, explaining how they

“primarily discussed the overwhelming evidence that fossil fuels are really not a problem because the global climate is not actually warming, as some people like to claim. I mean, have you been outside recently? It’s been getting colder and colder for weeks now.”

Another trustee echoed Hoaks’ sentiments, saying “At this point, we almost

need some more of the greenhouse effect to warm us up! The board decided that reinvesting to help raise temperatures was really the best way to put ourselves in the service of humanity.”

Hoaks, who concentrated in geoscience during her time at Princeton, added that “there were a few board members who said something about how the weather just gets

colder during some periods of the year, but even then, if it gets COLDER outside, that’s quite literally the opposite of global warming. Some people will never believe the truth even though it’s so blatantly obvious.”

Owens ‘25 is a geoscience major and can confirm that climate change is in fact fake.

Heated political protest postponed due to poor weather conditions

By Mya Koffie Associate Humor Editor

At 7:45 a.m. this morning, the Princeton Students Against Major Unacceptable Political Issues (PSAMUPI) released via social media that their protest scheduled for 4:30 p.m. today outside Robertson Hall was postponed due to poor weather conditions.

Their Instagram post read, “On account of low-speed winds and 40 percent chance of rain forecasted for this afternoon, we will no longer be congregating around the SPIA fountain. We hope for better protesting weather later in the month. Please stay tuned for new dates.”

This news upset some students who were passionate about the protest.

Avid environmentalist and environmental and evolutionary biology (EEB) concentrator Sarah Debrine ’26 expresses frustration about the postponement, saying it “reflects not only the failure to embrace the elements but also the poor prioritization of political issues that runs rife on Princeton’s campus.”

She continued, “The average Princeton student can take a chemistry test or finish a politics paper during an earthquake, but they can’t be bothered to stand outside with their card-

board signs in some rain to advocate for human rights?”

After the interview, Debrine asked the Daily PrintsAnything reporter if we thought she could put “protest” on her resume. We answered it would be worse if she didn’t.

Other students expressed their relief and gratefulness for the extra time in their days to catch up on their problem sets and reading assignments after the protest’s rescheduling.

PSAMUPI’s Vice President and selfconfessed procrastinator Walter Kaizett ’25 defended the organization’s decision to reschedule the event. “These issues will still need us in a week. We can do it later. And, instead, do the studying we should have started two weeks ago now.”

PSAMUPI President and Psychology major Lauren Szan ’25 chalks the protest’s deferral up to an exercise of collective self-care. “The truth is, no one likes soggy socks. And even activ-

ists have to set boundaries.”

“Besides,” Szan added, “we used washable markers on most of our posters. It would be a pastel disaster. We would send the wrong message.”

The ‘Prints’ also sat down with women’s rights advocate and varsity rower Tabitha Joan ’24 after her daily two-hour Women’s Lightweight Rowing practice on Lake Carnegie, who shared Debrine’s sentiments.

“They postponed the protest for rain?” Joan shivered, shifting her body weight from foot to foot. Water could be heard sloshing around in her sneakers. “We were out there today on a freaking lake. In rowboats.”

“If your social justice mobilization can be stopped by subpar weather,” she continued, wringing water out of her bright orange Dri-FIT t-shirt, “I think you’ve gotta seriously reexamine your relationship with pain and your ability to live through it based on what is on the line.”

‘Prints’ reporters confirm that Joan appeared to be both soaking wet and super jealous.

Mya Koffie is an Associate Humor Editor and rower on the Princeton Women’s Lightweight Crew Team. She is getting way too used to wet socks and waiting patiently for May to bring flowers, already. You can reach her at mya.koffie@ princeton.edu.

Lauren

CALVIN GROVER / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Divest Princeton organizers lead a group at a Sept. 17 Climate March.

“C rossroads ”

By Juliet Corless Associate Puzzles Editor Emeritus

1 Charging device

6 Mythical ship guarded by Hera

10 18 and 21 are milestone ones

14 Iridescent gems

15 Neighbor of Bolivia

16 Pat on the back

17 “Akeelah and the Bee” actress [Square]

19 2015 Twenty One Pilots hit

20 “The very ___!”

21 Soccer's Hamm

22 Yammerer's sentence type

23 Soon-to-be NFL player, maybe [Avenue]

27 Rom-___

28 “Get ___ here!”

29 Happen

32 Famous ___ cookies

34 A DFMO, maybe

37 Arrowhead or MetLife [Drive]

41 Chain email abbr.

42 Castle protector

43 Sire

44 Farm letters?

47 Lovers mo.

48 Power of the mind [Road]

53 Broadcasting

54 Letters in the sand, maybe 55 White lies

58 Sub directors?

59 Five-man band “___ Boys,” or a hint to 17-, 23-, 37-, and 48-Across

62 Just makes, with out

63 Clog or pump

64 Change, in math

65 ___ soup

66 “___, shoots, and leaves”

67 S.U.V. alternative

1 Norse trickster 2 Mimicked 3 On a streak?

4 Plain as day 5 Medium talent

6 H.S. English class, for short 7 Plot again 8 Future Ph.D.’s test 9 Taylor Swift's “___ Song” 10 Sudden 11 Test subject 12 Urgent care pro 13 Exhausted 18 Radio toggle 22 Alphabet trio

24 Question asked at the eye doctor, maybe 25 Sleeping spot

Boot 29 Not working today 30 Intimidate 31 Card game with a spymaster 32 Standoffish 33 Citation style: Abbr. 35 See 36-Down 36 With 35-Down, fig. on a credit card statement 38 “Thanks ___!” 39 Cain’s brother 40 Owing nothing

45 “Indeed”

46 It has a hammer and an anvil

47 Ado

48 Hookup need?

49 Mushroom in 65-Across

50 Fred’s neckwear on “Scooby-Doo”

51 Alternatives to Pepsis

52 Triangular traffic sign

56 Alpha follower

57 ___ Lee, longtime head of Marvel Comics

59 A.B. alternative

60 “I see now!”

61 QB’s stat

By Madison Anderson Contributing Cartoonist

“M as C ot M ayhe M ”

By Sarah Gemmell & Jaeda Woodruff Associate Puzzle Editors Emeriti

49 *Whitmanite in low spirits?

1 No lie 6 Carded

10 Bug that's usually lightheaded?

14 Big name in arcade games

15 Spare on the back of a Jeep

16 ___ Gobi (Indian dish)

17 One without roots

18 Sand, silt, clay, or loam

19 "Voilà!"

20 Figurative (and literal) backbone

21 *Westie from Greenland?

23 Clothes line

25 Response to "Open wide!"

26 *Forbesian with no teeth?

31 Lightning McQueen's best friend

35 Like a pair of loose laces

36 Goes bad

38 62, for Eisgruber

39 Thin cut

40 Words before an expiration date

42 What a Watt is

43 Talk acronym

44 Object under a magnifying glass, maybe

45 Some of the Dead Sea Scrolls

47 Place to spot a spotlight

51 Like some seniors

53 Make a cake

54 *Butlerite on a dating app?

59 Yells "Heads up!" at

63 Name dropping notation?

64 Surname for Violet, Dash, or Jack-Jack

65 Prove helpful

66 Ca$h Cab, for one

67 Award for off-Broadway and off-off-Broadway theater

68 Recurring role for Stallone

69 Tibia, by a more common name

70 Put on a peg

71 Like a minor star, maybe

1 Sports lovers and computer coolers 2 Perched on 3 Spaghetti strap tank

4 Send 5 Bombastic glare

6 "___, Mario!"

7 Stylish Christian 8 Prince from "The Little Mermaid"

9 Letter between gamma and epsilon

10 Essential ingredient in a Junbi drink

11 Count ___, villain in Lemony Snicket books

12 List heading 13 April 1st news story, maybe

22 Food brand with a paw print logo

24 Former "American Idol" judge Paula

26 Storm winds

27 Not yet rented

28 Peak on which Zeus was hidden as an infant, for short 29 Spinning

30 Apt name for a shoplifter

32 Country singer Tucker

33 Emo Gen Z-er

34 Fix a pair of loose laces

37 Stereotypical personality of a Princeton student

Cartoons

Campus Construction

By Madison Anderson Contributing Cartoonist

41 Hero

42 Disarray

44 Basic unit of life

46 Like many a middle school phase

48 Green ___ ("SpiderMan" villain)

50 Got a lift (but not a Lyft)

52 Warehouse

54 Puts money (on)

55 Home of the Sundance Film Festival

56 ___-pads (hygiene product)

57 Honey

58 Spooky sounding lake

60 Malek of "Mr. Robot"

61 Pen tips

62 Opening for a coin

Princeton Rewind:

By Andrew Bosworth & Elaine Huang Head Data Editor & Head Data Editor Emeritus

Welcome to The Daily Princetonian’s first ever alumni survey offering the most indepth look at a Princeton alumni class to date. Our team has spent weeks diligently analyzing responses and over 150 graphs, seeking to tell the story of the Great Class of 1999.

Our survey was conducted from February 5 to March 18, 2024. The Class of 1999 officers emailed a Google Form to all members of the Class of 1999 — a total of 1,172 people. We received a 34.2 response rate, 401 alumni respondents in total.

1999 Surveyed

SCAN FOR THE FULL SURVEY:

Princetonians must invest in the marketplace of ideas

Aidan Gouley Columnist

This year’s Pre-read, “How to Stand up to a Dictator: The Fight for Our Future,” by Maria Ressa ’86, argues that defending democracy requires no less than a transformation in how liberal societies engage in discourse — not simply specific policy prescriptions or direct action-based activism. Ressa’s call for open discourse should be resonant on a campus where free speech is considered core. Each of us must work to build such an environment. As Ressa says, effective activism can only be preserved in environments that catalyze rigorous discussion and critical thought.

Should free exchange erode, the University community does not merely risk losing the educational value of speech, but also threatens to concede a critical pillar of free society altogether. We have to reclaim the mantle of free speech from rightleaning groups and ensure that free speech isn’t harmed by either institutional overreach or communal neglect.

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) recently released its controversial college free speech rankings for 2024. Contrary to its top spot in the Wall Street Journal rankings, Princeton ranked 187 out of the 248 universities evaluated. Yet, Princeton hardly feels like an institution where free speech is directly under attack. Speakers are not shouted down in lecture halls — the last vaguely relevant incident occurred in 2012 at a Goldman Sachs recruiting event —, nor is the University a place where free expression is challenged institutionally in the classroom. Instead,

President Christopher Eisgruber doesn’t speak publicly much, but when he does, we’ve gotten jarring reminders about how little he understands students and our problems. Take the most pressing campus issue: Princeton’s well-documented mental health crisis, which calls for a transformational response from administration. But instead of taking responsibility for — or having curiosity about — the University’s role as both a potential driver of this crisis and a provider of solutions, he’s blamed it on ‘online activity’ making it hard to “think healthy” and now-infamously belittled students’ concerns with Princeton’s toxic work culture to calls for “academic mediocrity.”

The dismissal from Nassau Hall is not isolated to mental health: Eisgruber doesn’t understand the world and future of young people. He wrote in this paper last year to bemoan the increase in young peo-

it is encouraged by the faculty’s ratification of a version of the Chicago Principles in 2015.

Although institutional programming — including free speech-related programming during firstyear orientation in 2022 and 2023 — has demonstrated the University administration’s commitment to speech, it cannot be the only mechanism for invigorating discourse at Princeton. Without student engagement, the University’s commitments to free expression and its structured forums for speech are rendered meaningless. Not only are students failing to participate in bulwarking dissent and activist speech by putting the commitments into practice, but also pervasive complacency is allowing free speech to become an ideological issue. A mixture of perceived limits on expression and the reactionary hyper-politicization of speech on campus has created student disinterest in discourse.

Precisely because free speech is principally eroding from within, Princetonians cannot hope nor expect that institutional policymaking will solve real or perceived challenges to critical thought. Instead, students must take greater personal responsibility for ensuring continued freedom of expression, becoming less apathetic to the importance of campus discourse. Whether weighing in on local or global issues in formal or informal debates, Princetonians must bring difficult conversations that stimulate critical thinking into the fabric of collegiate life. Only active engagement can positively redefine the discussion — or lack thereof — of essential issues, rejecting the irrationality of ideology and the potential strictures of institutionality.

The question of free speech and

expression at Princeton must be a nonpartisan and nonpolitical issue. Princetonians ought to fully realize the intrinsically liberal nature of critical discourse — and appreciate the dynamism it produces. Free speech, being the ultimate exercise of individual and political liberty, should bridge students across political divides. By embracing the marketplace of ideas, Princetonians can constantly test their ideas and those of others, creating a vigorous environment that defends worthwhile propositions, policies, and institutions while remaining capable of catalyzing change as necessary. In recent years, the debate on free expression at Princeton has been co-opted by campus conservatives as a rallying cry against supposed “threats” posed to campus discourse by the “illiberal left.” Complaints in the past about academic speech and expression, channeled from the Princeton Open Campus Coalition (POCC), the Princeton Federalist Society, and the Princeton Tory, have been met by meetings with administrators, including President Christopher Eisgruber.

The more conservative groups entrench themselves and frame the contours of the debate on free speech at Princeton, the more discourse suffers. The POCC’s views, whether questioning anti-racism’s role at Princeton to making overbroad claims about the ideological slant of the University, are toxic and polarizing for many Princetonians. While the POCC has an unquestioned right to participate vocally in campus discourse, it cannot persist as the lodestar for the reinvigoration of campus speech. By meeting campus conservatives on even ground — the classically liberal concept of free exchange — broad coalitions of students can reorient conversations

and debates on free speech away from privileging political ends. If students start by situating free expression in a liberal context, individual engagement would restore and enliven the marketplace of ideas on campus, enabling a fuller appreciation for the dynamic, invigorating, and fundamentally democratic nature of campus discourse.

Free speech exists at Princeton not to indulge ideologues but rather, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, 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. Creating a genuine culture of free expression would produce a space where ideas might be rigorously probed, challenged, and reshaped by peers to synthesize new ones. Restoring a community dedicated to free exchange and expression would, therefore, engage Princetonians with the essential democratic institutions of dissent, debate, and

political speech.

Looking beyond the verdant greens and ivy-faced brick of Nassau Hall, the way Princetonians learn to engage in discourse is essential to both change-making and defending the very essence of our democracy. Critical discourse, whether reflecting deeply on complex issues or energetically partaking in the debates that define our campus community and the society in which it is situated, constitutes a commitment to the deliberative and synthesis-driven nature of democracy itself. To “hold the line,” as Ressa called all ’27s to do, against populist demagoguery and ideological extremism, it is here at Princeton that we must first arm ourselves with the tools of reason and critical thought to do so.

Aidan Gouley is a freshman planning to study in the School of Public & International Affairs, from Fairfield, Connecticut. He is a Contributing Columnist at the ‘Prince,’ and can be reached by email at aidan.gouley@princeton.edu.

ple “choosing” not to go to college and blamed this trend on “cognitive biases,” missing the fact that college is financially untenable for a vast swath of Americans. He doesn’t treat the climate crisis, which will define the lives of current students, with any urgency. His public statements are mostly about campus free speech, which is less of a real problem to students than it is a problem in off-campus conservatives’ imaginations.

The decision-makers who govern our Princeton lives — both Eisgruber and the Board of Trustees — are disconnected from the student body and don’t show a real interest in our most pressing problems, making it difficult to solve them.

The disconnect isn’t surprising. Eisgruber is a famously isolated president: he holes himself up in Nassau Hall, away from student criticism, and makes himself available to students only rarely and in highly structured formats. And the Board of Trustees is structurally out of touch. Once a year, a committee on student life affiliated with the Board listens to a presentation from USG, and that’s the end of student involvement in our ultimate governance. We have little visibility into their deliberations, can’t tell which ones are voting in our interests, and

are only represented by four Young Alumni Trustees (of 37 total) who take a vow of silence about policy decisions in order to run.

This gap between students and decision-makers hinders resolution of student concerns. The Board of Trustees’ lack of accountability and opaqueness means that it’s difficult for students to tell whether their problems are being taken seriously and difficult to engage and advocate if not. And Eisgruber’s disinterest in talking to students, even though he’s the top decision-maker on campus, means that our problems may not even enter the room where decisions are made.

One increasingly urgent problem is the mental health crisis. And it is not intractable. Princeton could vigorously strive for zero suicides — research shows that suicide is preventable — and revolutionize mental health care for students by providing high-quality, innovative, and low-cost care of adequate duration on campus. Princeton could promote behavioral health more broadly through harm reduction on campus to achieve zero overdose deaths. Princeton has extreme wealth, a profusion of dedicated employees, and a massive support infrastructure. We have the means to solve these problems, just not the leadership.

Eisgruber and the Trustees must begin acting meaningfully on behalf of the students. They have made some good steps in the past – four of them, over Eisgruber’s tenure as president: ending grade deflation in 2014, deciding to slightly expand the student body in 2016, partially divesting the endowment from fossil fuels, and somewhat expanding financial aid in 2022. Next, they need to take on the mental health crisis. So, here’s a challenge to Eisgru-

ber and the Board: listen to us and take visionary steps to address our problems. Step up – and if you’re not ready to, step aside.

Eleanor Clemans-Cope (she/her) is a sophomore from Rockville, Maryland intending to study economics. She spends her time making music with Princeton University Orchestra and good trouble with Divest Princeton. She can be reached on Twitter at @eleanorjcc or by email at eleanor.cc@princeton.edu.

Head Opinion Editor

EAST PYNE LIBRARY.

Angel Kuo / The Daily Princetonian

Teshome '25

president

BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Thomas E. Weber ’89

vice president

David Baumgarten ’06

secretary Chanakya A. Sethi ’07

treasurer Douglas Widmann ’90

assistant treasurer

Kavita Saini ’09

trustees Francesca Barber

Kathleen Crown

’25

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 ex officio Eden Teshome ’25 Aidan Phillips ’25

148TH MANAGING BOARD

Ryan Konarska ’25

Naisha Sylvestre ’25

director of outreach

Lia Opperman ’25

Accessibility

Christopher Bao ’27

OCTOBER 2023

The not-so-great class of 2027: Why none of us deserve to be here

What does the word “great” accomplish in the expression, “The Great Class of 2027?”

Tess Weinreich ’25

’25

’26

Education Charlie Roth ’25 Financial Stipend Elaine Huang ’25 strategic

Sections listed in alphabetical order. public editor Abigail Rabieh ’25

associate newsletter editors Victoria Davies ’27 Sunney Gao ’27

head opinion editor Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26

community opinion editor Christofer Robles ’25

associate opinion editors Thomas Buckley ’26 Wynne Conger ’27

head copy editors

Nathan Beck ’25

Bryan Zhang ’26

associate head copy editors

Lindsay Padaguan ’26

Elizabeth Polubinski ’25

head data editors Andrew Bosworth ’26

Suthi Navaratnam-Tomayko ’26

head features editors

Sejal Goud ’25

Molly Taylor ’25

associate features editor

Raphaela Gold ’26

head graphics editors

Luiza Chevres ’26

Noreen Hosny ’25

head humor editors

Spencer Bauman ’25

Sophia Varughese ’26

associate humor editors

Sam McComb ’25

Mya Koffie ’27

head news editors

Bridget O’Neill ’26

Annie Rupertus ’25

associate news editors

Julian Hartman-Sigall ’26

Olivia Sanchez ’26

Miriam Waldvogel ’26 (Investigations)

head newsletter editor

Kia Ghods ’27

head photo editors Louisa Gheorghita ’26

Jean Shin ’26

associate photo editor Calvin Grover ’27

head podcast editor Vitus Larrieu ’26

associate podcast editors

Senna Aldoubosh ’25

Theo Wells-Spackman ’25

head print design editors Avi Chesler ’25

Malia Gaviola ’26

head prospect editor Isabella Dail ’26

associate prospect editors

Russell Fan ’26

Regina Roberts ’26

head puzzles editors Sabrina Effron ’26

Joah Macosko ’25

associate puzzles editors

Wade Bednar ’26

Lindsay McBride ’27

head sports editors Cole Keller ’26

Diego Uribe ’26

associate sports editors Tate Hutchins ’27

Hayk Yengibaryan ’26

head web design and development editors

Yacoub Kahkajian ’26 Vasila Mirshamsova ’26

Gullett ’25

In my first two weeks at first-year orientation, I heard the phrase in impassioned speeches, incessant emails, and dinnertime conversations more often than I did my own name — an experience that I am certain is shared by other first-years. We are showered with this slogan so often that it almost gains a sort of religiosity. The word “great” instills people with a sense of certainty that their presence here is justified and deserved. But this pervasive Princetonian pride for being great is more insidious than it appears to be. It reveals that pursuing a more meritocratic admissions system, an aim that many progressives subscribe to, is based on a sense of intellectual superiority rather than a genuine desire for equality. The idea of a “great class” destroys our humility and obscures the fact that we are all here because of a force even greater than merit — luck. The solution is straightforward and radical: partially randomizing Princeton’s admissions process.

The term “meritocracy” was first coined by the British sociologist Michael Young in his book “The Rise of Meritocracy,” and was described as a society in which the “classes are reconstituted based on the simple formula: IQ plus Effort equals Merit.” In his 2020 book “The Tyranny of Merit,” author Michael Sandel, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard, explores the idea of “meritocratic hubris.” In the world of college admissions, there are winners — in our case, the Great Classes of 2027, 2026, and so on, and there are losers — those who are denied admission. Those winners here are granted a sense of “meritocratic hubris” — or in Sandel’s words, a form of “smug conviction that those who land on top deserve their fate.” This is what the word “great” implies. You can reap the good of all that Princeton has to offer because, you assume, merit means you are here for a great reason, deserving of a spot at a well-resourced and elite institution. You are good, because you are great. We obviously do not yet live within a perfectly meritocratic institution, but

this is what the proponents of such meritocratic admissions policies are arguing for:an equalized start for an unequal end. This becomes a form of progressive elitism founded not on race, class, gender, or sexuality, but on your “IQ plus Effort.”

Nowhere is the progressive blind spot towards meritocracy more clear than in the debate on affirmative action and the pushback that it has generated from many of Princeton’s progressives. One opinion implies that affirmative action, though imperfect, promotes “equality and meritocracy” by removing systemic barriers that underrepresented minorities often encounter. Another piece characterizes the policy as something that provides a “superior education to people with high academic potential who otherwise might not be either admitted or able to pay for Princeton.” Implicit in both arguments is the meritocratic assumption — affirmative action is a policy that allows those who deserve it to rise to the top of the pyramid of opportunity, effectively justifying the fate of those it leaves at the bottom.

Some may argue that the majority of Princeton students are aware of the privilege and luck that got them where they are. I don’t find it necessary to delve into the income ranges of students’ families, what proportion of first-year students went to private boarding schools in the Northeast, or how many academically qualified applicants get rejected from Princeton each year, because the role of luck and privilege in admissions is well-established. But while Princeton students may acknowledge their privilege, the culture of “meritocratic hubris” is more pervasive than that of blind ignorance. There is a belief that privilege is rooted in the imperfection of meritocracy rather than the concept of meritocracy itself. Meritocracy leads to unequal ends and no amount of eliminating its flaws will change that.

We can do better. Princeton claims to serve humanity, but as Head Opinion Editor Abigail Rabieh argued over the summer, we must dismiss the notion that we can do that through admissions because educational institutions are not societal equalizers. I argue for a more radical, Sandelian solution: randomize college admissions after certain academic thresholds and expand the campus and class size to accommodate for this process.

Randomizing admissions would do the most important thing: removing the “elite” nature from what is inherently an academic institution. When students know that luck was the pri-

mary force to their admission into a rigorous and well-resourced school, it keeps them humble. They are not good because they are great, but merely because they are lucky. When employers know that a Princeton education merely signals a quality education, not a façade of a select “best of the best” student body that the original admissions system promotes, it equalizes the institution to the wider body of academia. It destroys intellectual elitism from the inside out.

Incorporating minimum academic requirements would ensure that incoming students are prepared to succeed within Princeton’s rigorous academic environment, but such thresholds can vary — and eventually lessen — based on the University’s resources. Ideally, no such thresholds would exist — where Princeton’s diversity in academic offerings would accommodate students from all educational backgrounds — but this simply does not yet hold true. A partial randomization system, though imperfect in its aims for egalitarianism, will gradually combat the “good because great” mentality.

Additionally, a wider expansion of the student body and campus would widen Princeton’s accessibility in this post-randomized admissions process. Princeton’s nearly $36 billion endowment is greater than the GDP of over 100 countries around the world, making this more than financially feasible. We are already in the midst of an expansion, but we have the capacity to do more. The more students that can attend Princeton to begin with, the more we can expand the good that a Princeton education can provide. If your instinctive response to this system is that it isn’t fair to those who “deserve it,” remember that no form of admissions has ever been fair, and that in the end, the University’s primary purpose is not to mend all of society’s evils. But this version keeps us modest. It reminds us that nobody inherently deserves a good education, because everybody deserves one — not only those who have the “IQ plus Effort,” but also those who may have neither. Having neither should not sentence you to a life without educational fulfillment, community, or success. In the meantime, I urge my fellow ’27s to take the advice of acclaimed hip-hop artist Kendrick Lamar: Stay humble.

Siyeon Lee (she/her) is a first-year from Seoul, South Korea intending to major in Comparative Literature or the School of Public and International Affairs. She can be reached at siyeonlee@princeton.edu.

Siyeon Lee Assistant Opinion Editor

The new age of legacy admissions isn’t about preserving culture, but driving change

Ava Johnson Columnist

Since affirmative action was overturned in June 2023, conversations about how to promote campus diversity and fairness in admissions have turned towards criticism of legacy admissions. Affirmative action and legacy admissions are often positioned as opposing forces — they are perceived as respective representations of diversity and tradition. Recently, columnist Sarah Park argued for the acceptability of legacy admissions on account of their ability to foster “intergenerational community” and noted a general negativity about legacy and legacy students themselves. This negativity exists for good reason: legacy admissions perpetuate privilege and have, historically largely benefitted wealthy, white students. But as time goes on, diversity is increasing within the legacy pool, despite the fact that it is still less diverse than our campus as a whole. No longer are all legacies stereotypical, privileged, white kids. As Princeton continues to diversify, legacy will too. If

FEBRUARY

2024

we end legacy now, we are prematurely eliminating the advantages that come from a more diverse intergenerational community.

Legacy admissions can undoubtedly be exclusionary, but as we consider the drawbacks of legacy, we should also consider its potential benefits. Legacy brings in students with unique historical knowledge about Princeton and greater initial insight into how the school should change in the future. They have the ability to see and illuminate the path towards that change. This insight is particularly special when it comes from legacy families of diverse backgrounds, who can provide firsthand accounts of how Princeton has changed, and stayed the same, in regards to diversity and inclusion. Intentionally removing these students from our campus community would eliminate the potential for growth that an evolving institution of legacy provides.

Though socioeconomic diversity is sparse among the children of Princeton graduates, diversity of race, religion, gender, and sexuality are all found in the modern pool of legacy applicants. This diversity is not only rapidly increasing, but is fairly recent: Princeton was integrated by three black men from the class of 1949, of whom only one graduated. That man, Robert Joseph Rivers, had three children who graduated in the

classes of ’81, ’83, and ’86. While Princeton does not publish explicit data about legacy admissions, it’s likely that they were among, if not the first, black legacy students to graduate from Princeton. Black legacy at Princeton has only existed for about 40 years, and the small pool is presumably growing at approximately the same rate with which diversity of the student body grew after integration.

Especially since the children of those who benefitted from the beginning of affirmative action in 1963 started applying in the nineties.

The continuing diversification of legacies means new benefits of legacy admissions. These legacies go further than “play[ing] a role in fostering the intergenerational community Princeton values so strongly,” as Park suggests. They have special knowledge of campus history, tradition, and culture. These students can help us learn from our past to create a better future. This is realized in an incredible lineage of black female Princetonians who truly embody the potential impact of diversifying legacy: Linda Blackburn ’71, Akira Bell ’95, and Samantha Johnson ’23. Blackburn was a member of Princeton’s first co-ed class, Bell and Johnson were, respectively, the first-ever second and third generation female Princetonians, of any race. These trailblazers have paved the way for countless Princetonians after them, and

used their unique perspectives to make important contributions to our community. They have publicly discussed their shared hardships and the difficulties of being overlooked as Black female Princetonians, participated in initiatives to foster community among Princeton’s Black alumni, and advocated for continued inclusion on campus. These women used the unique experience of being a student from a marginalized identity on Princeton’s campus, to drive further change for future generations. Having that history memorialized through legacy admissions is an essential tool for understanding diversity and inclusion at Princeton. It is impossible to grow as a community without the perspective of those who experienced these challenges firsthand.

The reason why I was able to share the story of this incredible family, is that my parents were classmates of Bell, graduating in the class of 1995. Without my personal connection to this history, I probably would not have known their story. For my family, legacy has allowed us to have a more robust understanding of our shared experience as black Princetonians. Being both parents and alumni gives my mom and dad a unique perspective, which informs how they chose to give back to Princeton. Likewise, I draw from their past experiences in my attempts to change and improve

our campus community.

We have yet to fully explore and experience the impact that diversity within the legacy pool can have on our campus community. The premature abolishment of legacy admissions ignores the potential impact of increasing diversity. Instead of just ending legacy, we should focus on diversity and institutional memory for change-making. Undeniably, legacy’s primary purpose has been exclusion and elitism, but changing who is a legacy student also changes the nature of legacy. We should ensure that continuing to include legacy students doesn’t necessarily prevent a student body that reflects the diversity of this country. But we should also recognize that legacies can contribute something unique, not just to ‘preserve‘ Princeton’s traditions, as is often argued, but also to change them. This necessary change can be catalyzed by students who have a robust understanding of past and present campus issues. Time to evolve with each new class will allow the legacy system to realize its potential, driving Princeton forward, and encouraging our community to continue changing with our times, and for the better.

Ava Johnson is a first year columnist from Washington D.C. She can be reached at aj9432@princeton.edu or on instagram at _ava.c.johnson

Zero suicides is not just a dream. We can make it reality.

Eleanor Clemans-Cope Head Opinion Editor

Content Warning: The following article includes mention of suicide.

University Counseling services are available at 609-258-3141, and the Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 at 988 or +1 (800) 273-TALK (8255). A Crisis Text Line is also available in the United States; text HOME to 741741. Students can contact residential college staff and the Office of Religious Life for other support and resources.

Back in February 2023, our Princeton community found itself in profound grief after the passing of Maura Coursey GS. In October 2022, we mourned Misrach Ewunetie ’24. This February, we find ourselves grieving again for two more students, both firstyears, lost. There is a mental and behavioral health crisis on this campus.

As I wrote last February, if Princeton had the national average rate of suicides among 15- to 24-year-olds, there would be one death each year. One death would still be too many, but our community has experienced tragedy far beyond that: We have grieved seven preventable deaths in the past three years.

This is heartbreaking and unacceptable. But leadership is defeatist, disengaged, and complacent: At the Council of the Princeton University Community meeting on Monday, President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said that “there are tragedies that take place, even when people do all the things that they should be doing.”

This perspective is dangerously mis-

guided. While peer institutions have struggled to find sufficient solutions to the mental health crisis, we can look to clinical settings to find successful programs that are increasingly proving the inspiring reality that at a committed, effective organization, suicide is preventable. Individual support, from a loving friend or parent, is not enough to reach zero suicides — this is a challenge that must be taken on by organizations. Princeton can be that organization.

The “Zero Suicide Approach” is effective at dramatically reducing suicide rates, although its implementation has so far focused on clinical settings. In implementing these evidence-based practices, a mental health center in Maine decreased suicide deaths by 60 percent, a New Hampshire mental health center decreased suicide deaths by 44 percent, and the Betty Hardwick Center for mental health in Texas got to zero, among many other success stories. Although these are mental health institutions with many high-risk patients, this approach is applicable to Princeton: We have the need for it, and we have the resources to screen, identify, and support every student that needs help. We can bring the Zero Suicide approach to the world of residential communities. This approach is not just a possibility but a necessity for the University.

So how do we achieve this?

Right from the start, the leadership of Princeton University — administration, faculty, USG, CPS — must fully embrace the Zero Suicide core value: “the belief and commitment that suicide can be eliminated” on our campus. This leadership piece is by far the hardest part. That’s why, at the beginning of this school year, I called for President Eisgruber to step up or step aside. This is still his burden. We must demand better. What we need now is new lead-

ership.

And with that new leadership, we need to appoint a “Zero Czar.” The idea of appointing a czar to address a mental health crisis is not new, but a Zero Czar would be new for universities. This person, a top administrator with a singular focus on preventing student suicide, must have the trust and confidence of the student body and access to as much money as they need to achieve the goal — don’t worry, the University can afford it.

Eisgruber’s misguided remarks give the false impression that a comprehensive strategy is already in place, but this is far from the reality. The Zero Czar has plenty to work on. The Zero Suicide approach has a few core strategies, with many components that Princeton hasn’t tried and none at the scale and depth that is necessary.

First is comprehensive suicide prevention that reaches every student. This would require an enormous and game-changing investment in evidence-based clinical care. We would start with a simple two question universal annual screening with followup questions for those with a positive screen. The continuum of care must reach a huge expansion of free, highquality, immediate, evidence-based, unlimited clinical care at McCosh with supports as small or as intensive as students need — a departure from now, where some Princeton students are not able to access basic mental health care. Treatment must be provided with the “no wrong door” attitude — anything that a student does to indicate that they want or need care should be enough to get them immediate access to free, high-quality care.

The continuum of care for suicide prevention also encompasses state-ofthe-art suicide postvention to support those at heightened risk after an event. As part of an effort to continuously

improve, the University should also conduct a confidential internal review of every death on campus to examine the context and delivery of care in order to identify specific areas for improvement, similar to the CDC’s Maternal Mortality Review Committees (MMRCs).

From these reviews, the University needs to update its lethal means safety — “making a suicide attempt method less available or more difficult to access immediately” — after every event. Although the University has already put a number of precautions in place, they can do better. The window of time between contemplating suicide and taking action can be alarmingly narrow — often less than ten minutes — and contrary to the common belief that individuals determined to end their lives will simply find another means if their preferred method is unavailable, evidence strongly suggests otherwise.

Another important strategy is an extreme culture shift towards viewing suicide prevention as a collective responsibility of our campus. To support this, leadership must put in place new evidence-based community structures to promote a radical increase in connectedness and belonging. The practical implications mean not just further supporting student social ac-

tivities, but also recognizing the crucial role every campus employee plays in fostering student connections with every community member— every interaction has the potential to enhance students’ sense of belonging. When a student feels disconnected, encouraging interactions with instructors and graduate students can fill crucial gaps. This means all campus relationships are critical components of a comprehensive strategy to nurture a supportive and interconnected campus community.

The Princeton community must abandon the insidious idea that suicides are inevitable. These deaths are preventable, and the University leadership has a duty to act. This is not just an aspiration, but an achievable goal. By adopting an informed strategy, Princeton will be a model of a safer, more supportive academic community. We can and should demand this from our University.

Eleanor Clemans-Cope (she/her) is a sophomore from Rockville, Md. intending to study economics. She spends her time making music with Princeton University Orchestra and the Triangle Club and good trouble with Sunrise Princeton. She can be reached on Twitter at @eleanorjcc or by email at eleanor.cc@princeton.edu.

Princeton is getting it wrong on the SAT

Leighton McCamy-Miller Contributing Columnist

Nobody likes the SAT. It’s long, it’s tedious, and it’s stressful. Millions of high schoolers were surely relieved when, in the 2020–2021 admission cycle, the majority of four-year colleges decided not to require SAT or ACT scores — Princeton among them. At the time, Princeton and others announced “test-optional” policies as a temporary policy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Years after the pandemic, however, Princeton has kept the policy in place.

When the Class of 2027 applied to college, 80 percent of schools were still testoptional, both as a holdover of COVID-19 and as a response to years of mounting skepticism and concerns about standardized testing. But the tide is turning. MIT and Georgetown were once the lone exceptions among the “Ivy-plus” schools, reinstating testing requirements after the worst stages of the pandemic had passed. This month, Dartmouth and Yale announced that they will require standardized testing of some kind going forward as well. Just this Tuesday, Brown University reinstated the requirement. These schools found that test-optional policies both made it harder for them to identify

Abigail Rabieh Public Editor

Dthe best applicants and harmed, rather than enhanced, diversity efforts. It’s time Princeton follows the lead of its peer institutions and reinstates a standardized testing requirement.

Two main criticisms have crystallized from the standardized testing debate in recent years. The first is that a three-hour standardized test isn’t an accurate measure of ability. This is an attractive argument for those of us who believe in a more holistic definition of intelligence beyond test-taking ability. The problem is that it’s not quite true: test results are not only good predictors of academic success in college, but “the single greatest predictor of a student’s future Yale grade,” and “highly predictive of academic performance at Dartmouth.” Dartmouth and Brown researchers found that high SAT and ACT scores were much more predictive of high college GPAs than high high school GPAs. The predictive power of scores holds across income and racial categories.

Why are standardized tests the best predictor of student success? It is not because the SAT and ACT are flawless — rather, it stems from high school grade inflation. From 1998 to 2016, the average high school GPA has increased by 0.11 points, while the average SAT score has decreased by 24 points. Forty-seven percent of high schoolers now graduate with grades in the A range. Admission departments at the most elite colleges are receiving tens of thousands of applicants with perfect or nearperfect high school GPAs, and they have little way to distinguish who will struggle

and who will thrive in a tough academic environment. Simply put, A grades don’t mean what they used to, and they are no longer sufficient proof of academic ability.

Other critics argue that the SAT and ACT favor higher-income and non-minority students, fueling fears that standardized testing is the enemy of diversity efforts. It’s true that there is a strong statistical relationship between family income level and race with SAT and ACT performance. White and Asian students from privileged backgrounds consistently outperform Black and Brown students from disadvantaged backgrounds on these exams. The disparity in scores across race and income groups is irrefutable — however, the real implications for equity look quite different.

It’s first worth noting that standardized testing is not actually to blame. Common sense would suggest that wealthier students perform better because they have access to outside preparation. To test this theory, consider the National Assessment of Educational Process (or NAEP). The NAEP is a mandated test taken by most of the nation’s students that involves no preparation. The results reveal that the racial and economic disparities in performance on the NAEP are remarkably similar to those in the SAT and ACT.

This suggests that outside preparation is not a main factor in the disparities present on the SAT and ACT — while SAT preparation may have a marginal impact, the real cause for disadvantaged students performing worse on standardized tests

is plainly that they are disadvantaged systematically: they often attend schools with less resources, grow up in less educated households, and don’t have the same academic opportunities as their more privileged peers. While standardized tests can be cost prohibitive, both the SAT and ACT programs offer fee waivers to students from low-income backgrounds. In other words, the test isn’t itself artificially biased; its results reflect real inequities in American society.

The more important and counter-intuitive fact is that test-optional policies can actually put less-privileged applicants at a disadvantage. With test optional policies in place, MIT, Yale, and Dartmouth found that some disadvantaged students with lower-range scores were not submitting scores, when in reality a disadvantaged student with a comparatively lower score was more likely to be accepted than their privileged counterpart with the exact same score. According to Dartmouth’s dean of admissions, “there are hundreds of less-advantaged applicants … who should be submitting scores to identify themselves to admissions, but do not. Some were rejected because the admissions office could not be confident about their academic qualifications.”

Without standardized testing, greater consideration is paid to components of the application where wealth helps even more. Wealthier students can often take up time-consuming extracurriculars or expensive hobbies, work summer internships, or attend schools that offer lots of

AP courses and more personalized recommendation letters. Similarly, given inconsistent standards and widespread grade inflation, admissions officers may show a preference for schools they are familiar with since they can make sense of the transcript. These schools are often private or public-magnet schools that send multiple applicants to Ivies every year. For these reasons, without the added metric of test scores, the value placed on other components of an application actually disadvantages students from under-privileged backgrounds.

As schools have reinstated SAT scores, we haven’t seen worse diversity outcomes: in the two cycles since reinstating testing requirements, MIT has still seen increases in the racial and socioeconomic diversity of its student body, and Yale and Dartmouth’s announcements expressed confidence that they will be able to do the same even after the prohibition of raceconscious admissions. Additionally, these schools feel better equipped to make the right decisions about who will be best prepared to handle the academics and make the most of their experience once enrolled. As President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 has argued, academic excellence can and must walk hand in hand with diversity. It’s Princeton’s time to reinstate test requirements, taking a step towards both goals.

Leighton McCamy-Miller is a first-year from Mill Valley, Calif. He is a prospective politics major. He can be reached at lm1879@princeton. edu.

Hitch yourself to service, not just a man

has had the freedom to explore herself and slip into adulthood before she takes on the daunting role of being a mother.

“There is no brand of feminism which achieved female rest,” she writes. “By opting out of partnership” Christie declares, she achieved a “compartmentalized, liberating selfishness.”

espite the fact that my high breasts and I do not have a man with an MBA to take care of us, we have yet to be crushed by the unbearable weight of the human experience. This may sound like preposterous brag coming from a 20-year-old Ivy-League student: how could I have lived long enough to be convinced of life’s tragedies, hardships, and the benefit of having a partner who went to business school? According to 27-yearold Grazia Sophia Christie, however, I’m already behind on feeling these burdens.

At my age, Christie declared in her recent viral essay “The Case for Marrying an Older Man” that she already understood the problems she was to face. She also realized that the best way to avoid them — for her and for those around her — would be to wed a man who was her senior. While this personal essay can be read as just another silly example of a writer unintentionally revealing their delirious worldview, her message to female Ivy League readers reflects an unconscionable acceptance of status-quo sexism and a serious lack of accountability for our duty to use our educational privilege productively and selflessly.

In The Cut, Christie details her realization, as a junior at Harvard, that being a young and beautiful woman was the highest place in society to which she would ever rise. Thus, she set out on a quest to marry an older man, a quest she happily fulfilled. And now, she proudly displays her success as an example of what (straight) young women should aspire for: a partnership in which she

This selfishness cannot be legitimized by claiming that it is the only way for women to live happily in an intractably unequal world. Telling Ivy League women similar to her to simply accept that achieving true success on our own is impossible enables us to justify maximizing our own luxury at the expense of other women who don’t have access to such luxuries. But those of us who have been given the immense power of accessing the endless resources of schools like Princeton and Harvard must strive to do better. When we, as women, consider how to achieve contentment, we must consider strategies that improve equal access to fulfilling lives for all, not just those able to attract a rich man.

With her article, Christie is joining a long lineage of privileged and educated women who, noticing that life is not fair and life as a woman also is even more unfair, encourage others like them to work the system for the best possible personal outcome. Princeton women got their own version of this stunted feminism in 2013, when Susan Patton ’77 told us to find a husband while we were around our intellectual equals, as post graduation, we’d only be around men who were intimidated of our intelligence or around whom we would be bored.

In these essays, we are told that, unlike our male counterparts, our degrees and the aspirations which may accompany them are not enough to fulfill us. Indeed, Christie argues that climbing the corporate ladder as a woman can only lead to misery as the attempt to fit everything in — success, marriage, motherhood — inevitably fails. Thus, we

must be pragmatic about how we live and maximize our potential for individual happiness.

But what about the happiness of womankind? Christie and Patton would tell us to stop worrying about these larger issues, as it will only detract from our ability to experience lasting joy and puts us in a battle against nature, one that we can never win. Their vision of joy, however, is so selfish that it loses all merit.  While an individual woman may find happiness by following these directions, suggesting that this way of life should be a universal ideal only serves to preserve expectations and standards that promote female unhappiness.

Although she acknowledges that “women really do have a tragically short window of power,” Christie tells us to take advantage of our youth and “plausible deniability when it [comes] to purity” while it lasts, not to fight for a world in which women are appreciated, desired, and valued beyond their youth. She bemoans the fact that “when we decided to be equal to men, we got on men’s time.”

But she does not tell smart and educated young men and women to use the vast resources available to them to rethink this system and figure out ways in which women can have “pregnancy, children, [and] menopause,” without fitting them “impossibly in the margins.” Instead, she tells us to leave the men where they are and remove ourselves from the professional game, allowing them to care for us while we only focus on our personal happiness.

Christie argues that young men require young women to teach them how to be people — “to call their mothers, match colors,” and more — and as such, smart women should find older men who have already completed training. Thus, her ideal rests on using unjust systems in which women — crucially, other women — are faced with unfair burdens so you can increase your personal gain. But we

should expect more from our Ivy League sisters and cannot stand by when those like Christie justify closing off this elite circle by telling ourselves that, as women, it’s the only way in which we can be content. For that is what Christie wants: not for us to take the spoils of our expensive education and share them with the world, through labor and lived experiences, but to guard them jealously, using our existence in elite circles to satisfy our desires.

After all, what is pursuing higher education all about? Achieving your personal ideal of a life? Or living one that is meaningful and contributes to the larger world? If those two do not align for some, it’s certainly not wrong to want the former: it is a perfectly reasonable goal to provide comfort and luxury for oneself, achieving a lifestyle that is enviable and as untroubled as possible. But these institutions exist not as a marriage market for smart women to take advantage of, but to give students the chance to pursue the heights of human intellectual excellence and learn how to live in a way which can benefit others.

Far be it from me to suggest that home-

making and childrearing are not crucial contributions to society, nor to proclaim that in obtaining an Ivy League degree, a woman gives up the right to choose such a life. But the suggestion that we, as privileged Ivy League women, should choose these paths because they will lead to greater happiness than the alternative — i.e. using our education to aspire to gender-nonconforming achievements — demonstrates a willingness to quit the feminist project which we, collectively, have a duty to dispense.

If you want to “consider a thing called ease,” as Christie does, fine. But don’t pretend that you have unlocked a secret door through which all women can find ease. Christie’s privilege is what allows her to remove herself from “discussions of fair and unfair, equal or unequal,” in ways that are both material and ideological, and her piece tells the lie that all women have the capability to do the same.

Abigail Rabieh is a junior in the history department from Cambridge, Mass. She is the public editor at the ‘Prince’ and can be reached via email at arabieh@princeton.edu or on X at @AbigailRabieh.

Princetonians want political change. Why don’t more of us take action?

Frances Brogan Assistant Opinion Editor

Like many of my peers, I was a dedicated student organizer in high school, but I’ve been utterly inactive at Princeton. Instead of attending Sunrise Princeton or SPEAR (Students for Princeton Education, Abolition, and Reform) events, I’ve justified my disengagement by telling myself that I don’t have enough time to make a substantive commitment to those groups.

This is something I want to change because Princeton’s oft-discussed lack of a robust campus activist scene is sustained by attitudes like mine. But I don’t believe that Princeton students are apathetic. Our student body is certainly opinionated. A recent open letter calling for the administration to more vociferously condemn antisemitism on campus received over 1,800 signatures. Another, advocating for institutional solidarity with Gaza garnered 900 signatures. In both cases, students represented the majority of signatories. Even in 2020, over 2,000 students (89 percent) voted yes on the referendum on divestment from fossil fuels. So why don’t we convert our principles into action?

Princetonians are reluctant to get involved in campus activism due to two understandable but misguided assumptions about activism: First, that being an “activist” is a distinct identity that makes one different from the rest of us, and second, that one must be completely ideologically aligned with a group before expressing solidarity. Both lead to low levels of campus activism, and the latter belief reinforces that low turnout by driving social stigma surrounding activism. But we shouldn’t let our fear of the activist label or small qualms with the content of an activist group’s platform prevent us from engaging with — or even passively supporting — social and environmental justice advocacy

on campus.

Let’s start with the first misconception. Part of our disinclination towards campus activism stems from public vilifications of activists as self-righteous caricatures of humorless political correctness. Sometimes, these critiques are valid. Callout culture and relentless focus on identity politics can be corrosive in left-wing circles. But the vast majority of activists I’ve met both at home and at Princeton are self-aware, passionate, enthusiastic, and welcoming. And their work is important.

As reactionaries foment cultural animus towards young activists, it’s easy to forget that for decades, political and cultural change for justice has been spearheaded by student organizers, from the sit-ins of the Civil Rights movement to protests against the Vietnam War. Campus activists aren’t just smug social justice warriors — they are harbingers of real political change.

Yet, distaste for the activist label can inhibit activism’s potential to create that change. One study of “pro-environmental” Australians found that while its subjects supported sustainability and the idea of “doing one’s bit,” they rejected the prospect of participating in “activism.”

This dynamic might be applied at Princeton — we want certain changes, we just don’t want to be identified as the people demanding them.

This creates a vicious cycle: There are few activists, so people believe they will be otherized for participating in activism, and therefore, the number of activists stays stagnant. Organizing isn’t integrated into our campus culture, and activism can’t be normalized when it isn’t normal. If activism is already sparse, the significance of a small action like attending a walkout will feel magnified.

But the more we engage in activism, the less momentous our own participation will feel. If we consciously endeavor to bring friends to meetings, help make

Encampments

signs for marches, and turn out to walkouts and rallies, our collective voice will be heard, and our individual roles will fade into the background. This can be comforting for those worried about the social and professional implications of campus advocacy. It’s also how successful movements work, relying on the power of many, not just one.

Understanding that this is how activism works — collectively — can empower people to go to protests and meetings because it undermines the stereotype that being an “activist” is an undesirable individual identity and the misconception that only people with that “identity” label can contribute. By considering activism to be a communal effort, we realize that we can contribute in ways that don’t have to be overwhelming or ambitious. Showing up for each other is enough.

Now let’s tackle the second misconception about activism, that one needs to support everything a group says, believes, or does in order to attend events they organize or sign petitions they write. Not only is ideological purity an unrealistic standard, it’s an impediment to concrete activist achievements. Effective and sustainable changemaking requires a dedication to coalition politics that the quest for perfect agreement undermines. Carleton University professor Alexis Shotwell writes that we should “reject purity” as a destroyer of solidarity and aim instead for a “politics of imperfection.” While she uses this term to criticize overzealous left-wing activists, it applies to hesitancy about campus activism as well. Instead of writing off campus activist groups and events for being imperfect, or for imperfectly corresponding to our own views, we should welcome the disparities between our opinions and their platforms as signs of ideological diversity and catalysts for critical reflection.

You can find elements of the Green

New Deal, the sweeping policy proposal that the Sunrise Movement promotes, to be unrealistic and still support Sunrise Princeton’s demands that the University divest and disassociate from the fossil fuel industry by attending actions that the group organizes. You can disapprove of the inflammatory rhetoric of some Students for Justice in Palestine organizers and still attend their vigils for those killed in Gaza out of belief in the Princeton Palestine Liberation Coalition’s mission of advocating for “Palestinian freedom, justice, and right to return.” In short, you can go to protests without joining every chant or agreeing with every speaker. You can stand in solidarity with an activist group without becoming its president. The history of activism is the history of different groups with different priorities coming together around common goals.

In the late ’60s in Chicago, Black Panther Party organizer Fred Hampton helped create a multiracial “Rainbow Coalition” that advocated for radical change, encompassing the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords — a Hispanic civil rights organization — and the Young Patriots, a white

working-class group with Appalachian origins. In spite of some divisions over messaging and tactics, the Rainbow Coalition launched important initiatives like free breakfast programs and daycare centers. We can channel the spirit of visionary groups like this by recognizing that the need for solidarity transcends any desires for ideological purity or unanimity. Nothing gets done unless people work together, and working together means that sometimes not everyone agrees on everything. It’s time for the Princeton community to translate our intellectual engagement with politics and policy into action. This doesn’t require us to upend our everyday routines — it might just mean joining Sunrise Princeton’s Earth Day walkout on April 22 or Princeton Young Democratic Socialists of America (YDSA)’s walkout for workers on April 25. We can all make manageable, conscious contributions to incorporate activism into our campus culture, and we can start this week.

Frances Brogan is an assistant Opinion editor from Lancaster, Pa. She can be reached at frances.brogan@princeton.edu.

are not ‘inherently unsafe.’ Princeton should not arrest or expel students for them.

Early Thursday morning, the Department of Public Safety arrested two graduate students for taking initial steps to establish encampments in McCosh Courtyard. Princeton authorized arrests within six minutes of the first tents being set up. This comes after five days of alarming crackdowns on student protests at universities nationwide, including the arrest of over 100 protesters at Columbia, over 120 protesters at NYU, and over 47 protesters at Yale. Before today, the University had not made extreme attempts to suppress student speech — and Princeton had stood out for holding a deep commitment to free speech.

But now, Princeton is following other schools’ lead by responding aggressively to pro-Palestine protests. Princeton has a very small window of opportunity to reverse course and mitigate the damage that it has done. The University must reject the repressive tactics that it began practicing this morning and instead follow its tradition of productive dialogue with protesters. We urge Princeton to cease student arrests and to refrain from expelling students simply for engaging in prolonged protest. We also urge the University not to repeat the mistakes of Columbia, NYU, USC, and others in inviting police onto campus to arrest peaceful protesters.

The University’s departure from its free speech ideals began at 10:08 a.m. on Wednesday when W. Rochelle Calhoun, Vice President for Campus Life, sent an email to the student body. Calhoun wrote that “some types of protest actions (including occupying or blocking access to buildings, establishing outdoor encampments and sleeping in any campus outdoor space) are inherently unsafe.” Thus, individuals involved in these actions “who [refuse] to stop after a warning will be arrested and immediately barred from campus.”

Calhoun’s email, which cited the “disruptions” occurring nationally, was a response to Gaza Solidarity encampments at other colleges and likely also a response to leaked documents about the now ongoing pro-Palestine encampment at Princeton. But Calhoun’s characterization of these sorts of protests — occupations, sit-ins, and encampments — as “inherently unsafe” is incorrect, and endangers our community. Targeting these encampments with immediate arrest and disciplinary action is a break from Princeton’s traditionally respectful and accommodating treatment towards sit-ins and other forms of prolonged protest, and it fails to be “viewpoint-neutral,” as Calhoun claims. Princeton, notably, has not disciplined students for occupations in the past: In 2015, the Black Justice League (BJL) sat in the office of President Christopher L. Eis-

gruber ’83 for 33 hours. And in 2019, Princeton Students for Title IX Reform (PIXR) organized a sit-in outside Nassau Hall that lasted nine days. Both protests occurred under the watchful eyes of President Eisgruber and Calhoun, yet protesters were not warned of, or punished with, arrest. In fact, administrators engaged with the protesters, leading to direct policy changes. Destiny Crockett ’15 recently clarified in a statement to The Daily Princetonian Editorial Board that students participating in the BJL sit-in were not threatened with “arrest, just suspension and expulsion,” and ultimately “did not face disciplinary action.” Just because Princeton can legally enforce punishment does not mean that it should, especially in a biased manner.

The current threat of disciplinary action for engaging in “unlawful” actions that result in arrest has not been applied to students who have been subject to legal proceedings in the past. For example, Larry Giberson ’23 — a student who was indicted by a grand jury for participating in the Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol by the end of his senior year — graduated from Princeton on time with no disciplinary action taken against him. He has since been convicted for his involvement. The discipline Calhoun laid out in her email, and the arrests undertaken this morning, are therefore incongruent with past precedent.

Despite the fact that they have occured

peacefully, and brought about change within the University before, Calhoun seeks to justify harsh disciplinary action against protests like these by characterizing them as “inherently unsafe.” It is true that the encampment here has the potential to stir up discourse, discord, or even counter-protests. But these are reflections of the University’s ideals of open debate, not matters of safety. Claiming controversy justifies suppressing speech under the guise of security and order is out of line with Princeton’s principles of free speech. Indeed, disallowing activism on the basis of its potential for inciting instability because the topic is contentious amounts to censorship. Princeton stopped these protests almost before they started: The Department of Public Safety even prevented students from setting up their tents.

The University must reevaluate its priorities and align its actions now with its previous stance of prioritizing free speech and education. That means engaging in productive dialogue with protesters, as was done with BJL and PIXR demonstrators, and ensuring the continued education of all of its students, including student protesters. We urge Princeton to alter its course now. Do not arrest more students for using activism to engage in contentious conversations. Do not expel any students for participating in peaceful protest. Change the repressive interpre-

tation of University policies outlined in Calhoun’s email on Wednesday morning. This is the only way that Princeton can hope to begin to refurbish its reputation — as a champion of student rights, student safety, and a defender of open discourse.

148th Editorial Board Chair

Henry Hsiao ’26

Members Eleanor Clemans-Cope ’26

Davis Hobley ’27

Henry Hsiao ’26

Sarah Park ’27

Abigail Rabieh ’25

Christofer Robles ’25

Naisha Sylvestre ’25

Lucia Wetherill ’25

Leo Yu ’27

The 148th Editorial Board is the institutional voice of The Daily Princetonian and consists of nine members: an appointed Chair, two managing editors, the public editor, and a group of five Opinion section editors and columnists. It convenes on an ad hoc basis to discuss issues and current events of interest to the Princeton University community, as well as collectively write signed editorials addressing them, which reflect the consensus of a majority of the Board’s membership. To ensure independence, the Board works separately from the newsroom of the ‘Prince,’ and its members do not cover the topics of their editorials in that capacity for the paper.

AARON SERIANNI / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Divest Princeton Protesters gathered in front of JRR.

‘The first student movement to call for divestiture’: protests against apartheid South Africa

By Paige Cromley Head Features Editor Emeritus

Students camped in the bushes around New South, waiting for the janitor to open the doors. As the janitor opened then, the students approached him, told him they were taking over the building and that he should take the day off. By 7 a.m., the 11-hour occupation of New South had begun.

It was March 11, 1969, not yet a year since Martin Luther King, Jr. had been assassinated and just five since the passing of the landmark Civil Rights Act. Thousands of miles away, apartheid laws reigned in South Africa, imposing an institutionalized structure of racial segregation through which a minority white population wielded the bulk of economic and political power.

By hosting a peaceful sit-in within the walls of New South, student activists demanded for the University to take a stance against apartheid by pulling all holdings from corporations involved with South Africa. It would be an unprecedented line in the sand — the University had never divested before on moral grounds.

More than 11 hours after they entered, the 51 students, all of whom were Black and members of the Association of Black Collegians (ABC), emerged from the building into the cold March air. W. Roderick Hamilton ’69 was the last to leave.

The New South sit-in, Hamilton said, “became a touchstone for subsequent generations.” It was the first of three waves of student protests calling on the University to divest completely from apartheid South Africa. Over 16 years, the movement waxed and waned as students graduated and political climates shifted, flying under a variety of organizations’ flags over the years and often spiking in tandem with similar protests at colleges across the nation.

The University never divested from all corporations with business in apartheid South Africa, but it did adopt a policy of selective divestment in 1978, under which shares might be withdrawn if companies did not meet certain business standards or employment practices within the apartheid regime. Ten years later, the University pulled five million dollars in investments from two companies that didn’t reach this bar. After the adoption of a new South African constitution and repeal of apartheid laws, the Board of Trustees rescinded the selective divestment policy.

In 2022, the University announced plans to divest from segments of the fossil fuel industry following years of student protests. The Daily Princetonian looked back on the 16-year-long predecessor of this campus movement: the push for divestment from apartheid South Africa that began in 1969.

‘Damn near a fad’: first building takeover, 1969

“We must have had some kind of action every other week,” Hamilton said about the spring of 1969. He became the leader of the ABC, for which he said divestment from South Africa was a “unifying focus.”

“An increase in Black enrollment challenged a lot of the traditions at Princeton,” he said. “It was a time of

great activism.” It followed on the heels of the Civil Rights and anti-war movements, years in which college campuses across the nation were rife with protests and demonstrations.

“It was a tumultuous time in America,” said Joseph Dehner ’70, a white student involved in the divestment movement. “Riots in the cities, Nixon in the White House.”

Given the continued racism at home and abroad, he added, “We thought that divestment from firms with any significant presence in South Africa was a darn good idea.”

Early in the semester, the ABC joined forces with other campus organizations, including the Committee for Black Awareness, the Pan-African Students Organization, and a group of students representing “Concerned Whites” to form the United Front of South Africa. They submitted a letter to President Robert F. Goheen on Feb. 17, 1969 listing demands.

The University quickly made concessions. In an unprecedented move on March 5, Goheen declared “Princeton’s intention to avoid investing University funds in companies doing a primary amount of their business in South Africa.” However, he refrained from total divestment, arguing that it would not have much of an impact to divest from companies who derive only a small percentage of income from South Africa.

The United Front was unsatisfied. They met that night to decide what to do next.

“Many of those in attendance thought we should do something like take over a building,” Hamilton said. “It was a very au courant thing to do back then, damn near a fad.”

The tactic was not especially popular on Princeton’s snowy campus, according to a poll of undergraduates, the majority of whom said that such building occupation would not be a legitimate means of protest.

Whispers of an imminent action reverberated through campus. On March 10, about 30 ABC members filed into the University Chapel during worship service; three gave impassioned speeches on divestment to the congregation.

The takeover occurred the next day. Non-Black students were requested by organizers to show support from outside the building. Crowds gathered, but nearly everyone was gone by the time Hamilton left, taking with him the chains they had used to lock the doors. No damage was done to the building; the ‘Prince’ quoted Assistant Director of Security James Kopliner as saying that “they did a better job of cleaning up the place than the janitors.”

ABC published a letter in the ‘Prince’ a week later stating that the occupation of New South was “deemed necessary to make clear the seriousness of this issue and our firm commitment to end the University’s complicity.” Participants did not face any disciplinary action.

The United Front’s demonstrations in 1969 led to the creation of the Resources Committee, composed of faculty and students who review questions related to the endowment and resources of the University and make recommendations to the Board of Trustees.

Advocacy related to divestment

would not pick up again in such force until nearly a decade later. But, as Hamilton noted, “the seed was planted.”

‘In the lap of luxury’: the second wave, 1978

Daily picketing began on Feb. 1, 1978, a date chosen to commemorate the beginning of the 1960 Greensboro sit-in movement. Every day from noon to 1 p.m., about a dozen students gathered behind Nassau Hall for a demonstration.

According to Marsha Bonner ’78, one of the leaders of the movement, the resurgence of advocacy on campus related to divestment from apartheid South Africa was sparked by police brutality against child demonstrators during the Soweto Uprising two years prior.

“That was the big impetus for those of us on campus to try to align some of our political work with what was happening in South Africa,” Bonner said. “These young people had been killed, and here we were in the lap of luxury at Princeton. What could we do to help support their movement?”

With fellow activists, Bonner formed the People’s Front for the Liberation of South Africa to advocate for the University’s total divestment from any corporations doing business in South Africa, investments totaling $190 million. They were inspired by similar student protests across the nation.

The People’s Front held movie showings, attended demonstrations in New York, and hosted speakers from the African National Congress. They also organized the daily pickets, which most students ignored on their way to class.

Participation hovered around a dozen until the day of a big snowstorm in early March. Despite the weather, a crowd of about 100 turned out in support. According to a ‘Prince’ article, “noise from the march, generated by beating on steel garbage cans, tambourines and wood blocks, was heard as far away as the post office.”

“I think a whole lot of people thought, ‘Oh, the snow storm is going to end the daily picket’ — and they came to our rescue,” Lawrence Hamm ’78 said.

From then on, demonstrations grew in size. The New York Times reported on a divestment protest held on the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, “the largest demonstration on the Princeton University campus since the Vietnam era.”

After weeks of protests, the students decided to go bigger. “The plan, in essence,” Hamm said, “was that we were going to take Nassau Hall.”

They mapped it out in detail, organizing students into groups of three and communicating with the head of each cell directly out of fear of information being leaked to the ‘Prince.’

On the morning of April 14, 210 students streamed into Nassau Hall through the front and side doors.

According to Bonner, leaders made it very clear to other students that there might be disciplinary consequences.

“Everybody knew ahead of time that those were possibilities,” she said. “And they all signed on and said yes, we want to do this in solidarity with the people of South Africa.”

Supporters outside cooked pots of spaghetti, which they passed through windows. According to one ‘Prince’ article, the demonstrators inside “for the most part sat quietly, playing cards, reading books, or speaking quietly among themselves during the sit-in,” though another article noted some dancing throughout the night.

After 27 hours, the sit-in ended at 11:20 a.m. the next day. Students left through the front door with fists raised to join a rally of hundreds outside. 205 of them later received disciplinary warnings.

Looking back, Hamm sees the movement as a victory. “We were able to build this movement, raise consciousness all over the campus about South Africa, win majority support of the campus, take over Nassau Hall, and nobody got thrown out of school,” he said.

The “majority support” was slim. A ‘Prince’ poll taken the next year found that just 51 percent of students supported divestment, but the demonstrations did result in some University concessions.

Though the trustees declined to meet all of the People’s Front’s demands, they did adopt a policy of selective divestment, holding open the possibility of future divestment from individual corporations that fell below certain standards regarding their operations in South Africa.

‘You’re going to have to drag me away’: Nassau Hall blockade, 1985

Participation in Front demonstrations decreased in the years following the first Nassau Hall sit-in, but momentum would again pick up in the mid-80s.

“These things have a life cycle, with students graduating,” Joel Westheimer ’86 said. “The last mass action was in 1981. That was ancient history nobody remembered.”

But a national movement was sweeping across college campuses, with students organizing apartheid divestment protests for April 4, the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination. Princeton students like Westheimer wanted it to rock the quiet New Jersey suburb. Joel Sipress ’86 remembers thinking, “We really got to do something to be part of this nationwide movement at Princeton.”

But on April 4, as hundreds gathered at Columbia University and blockaded Hamilton Hall, turnout by Nassau Hall was low.

“At Princeton, almost no one showed up,” Sipress said. “It was a total bust.”

But over the next few weeks, rallies at Princeton grew in size. The newlyformed Coalition for Divestment organized vigils and teach-ins. On April 19, 400 students encircled Nassau Hall in a human chain; some camped out overnight. They were calling again for total divestment from companies conducting business in South Africa, as well as divestment of the $50 million invested in banks that floated loans to the South African government.

On April 23, about 2,500 people gathered on Cannon Green to hear Reverend Jesse Jackson denounce apartheid and call for divestment.

Still, Twanna LaTrice Hill ’86 notes most students weren’t involved. “That’s what happens at the Ivies,” she said. “Priorities are education or parties.”

She remembers feeling a bit nervous that protesting would impact her own future prospects. Looking back, she wishes she had pushed more for divestment.

“My future is important, my education is important, and I didn’t want to jeopardize any of those things,” she said. “But my values are also important.”

The Coalition for Divestment was fairly diverse given campus demographics, according to Hill.

The group’s most noted action of the semester occurred on May 23, when 88 students blockaded Nassau Hall. The Princeton police arrived to arrest them. Andrew Meyers ’86, a white student protestor, remembers a polite interaction with law enforcement.

“The police said, ‘Look, I’m afraid we’re going to have to take you away,’ and I said, ‘I’m really sorry, but you’re going to have to drag me away.’”

They dragged him and his fellow activists through the gate at Nassau Hall to the local courthouse. The University dropped all charges.

Ultimately, the University never fully met student demands to divest its endowment from apartheid South Africa. Though William Bowen GS ’58, the president at the time, publicly condemned the South African government, he never supported total divestment as a wise tactic.

“Those of us who have participated in this debate within the board and on the campus are, I believe, unanimous in our condemnation of apartheid,” he said at a forum on University policy. However, in the Princeton Alumni Weekly, he argued that it would not improve the situation in South Africa and that those in charge of the hefty endowment should not allow personal convictions to sway decisions regarding investments.

Two years later, the trustees did vote to divest five million dollars from two firms doing business in South Africa that they had determined were not doing enough in the interest of people of color there. In 1994, they ended the selective divestment policy after the South African government adopted a new constitution and repealed apartheid laws.

Following student protests in the 60s, 70s, and 80s, various other movements have sprung up on campus over the decades calling for the divestment from certain sectors or industries. The University has adopted divestment policies twice since — from companies complicit in genocide in Darfur, Sudan in 2006 and from 90 companies involved in certain segments of the fossil fuel industry in 2022.

The roots of current divestment movements can easily be traced back to the advocacy of Hamilton, Bonner, Hill, and all the other students who took over buildings, hung up posters, and circulated petitions starting in the late 60s.

“I have a feeling that ours was the first student movement to call for divestiture from anything,” Hamilton said, “though we all think history starts with ourselves.”

Paige Cromley is a head Features editor emeritus for the ‘Prince.’

Former Contributing Features Writer Ben Angarone ’21 contributed reporting.

Princeton provides Ukrainian and Russian scholars two years of protection

By Lauren Blackburn Staff Features Writer

Yana Prymachenko helped her 67-year-old mother flee her home in Chernihiv as Russian forces advanced through Ukraine in March 2022. They packed into a car with complete strangers, bringing only important documents, a laptop, and their cat. “I left all my life behind,” Prymachenko said. She arrived at Princeton six months later after receiving help from the organization Scholars at Risk. Prymachenko is now a visiting research scholar in the Department of History, having left the Institute of History of Ukraine.

Around the same time, Evgeny Roshchin prepared to leave Russia after refusing to endorse a pro-war statement at his previous institution, the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA) in St. Petersburg. Roshchin is currently a visiting research scholar at Princeton in the University Center for Human Values.

The University has granted temporary positions to 10 Ukrainian and six Russian scholars since the beginning of 2022. Individual academic departments and programs made the decision to sponsor scholars at risk and have provided most of the necessary financial support.

“Each scholar was given the opportunity to be here for up to two academic years,” University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss wrote in a statement to The Daily Princetonian. “After that, they may seek other placements in the U.S., Europe, or elsewhere.”

Princeton’s history of supporting scholars at risk — defined by Hotchkiss as “an academic, artist, writer, or public intellectual who is escaping persecution” — dates back to the 1930s when Oswald Veblen, a mathematician who had just moved to the Institute for Advanced Study, convinced the University to shelter Jewish scholars persecuted by Nazi Germany. In recent years, the University has also welcomed scholars displaced by Hurricane Maria and has hosted Afghani scholars after the withdrawal of U.S. troops, providing them with professional development support in addition to a short-term position.

‘In their classification, I should be destroyed.’

Many of the recently-arrived scholars lived in active conflict zones. Prymachenko and her mother only escaped Chernihiv after it had already been besieged for several days.

“From the very beginning, my mom didn’t want to leave her home,” Prymachenko said. Her mother had lived there almost all her life, and it took their street being hit to convince her to flee.

“The Russian army shelled this residential area, and it was 28 people just killed at this point,” she said. “It was like 200 meters from our house.”

Many of the people killed were waiting in a long line at the pharmacy because of shortages caused by the war, Prymachenko said, adding that the blast felt like an earthquake and that it destroyed most of the windows in their building.

“It was really awful,” she said, “and after that, my mother told me, ‘Okay,

we need to move out.’”

They spent five days driving to the Polish border. The trip normally takes seven hours, but the constant shelling resulted in traffic jams and forced them to take detour after detour. After crossing the border on foot, friends helped them find a temporary apartment in Warsaw.

Prymachenko said she was especially scared during their escape because she believes Russia has likely included her on a list of Ukrainians to be killed immediately upon being found, given her history of activism against Russian propaganda since Russia’s seizure of Crimea — a peninsula that the United States and European Union still consider to be part of Ukraine — in 2014. In a letter sent to the United Nations in February 2022, the United States stated they held credible information showing that Russian intelligence organizations were compiling lists of targets in Ukraine. Since then, news organizations have reported that Russian troops have hunted Ukrainians by name. Government officials, activists, and journalists are common targets.

The 2014 attack made Prymachenko decide to become actively involved with “counterpropaganda” efforts against Russia — work that made her afraid she was on the Russian list of targets. Her goal was to demonstrate that Putin’s justification for invading Ukraine is unsupported by reality, using her specialization in history. “We [Ukrainian historians] couldn’t just stay aside,” Prymachenko said. “We needed to do something.”

She continued her civic activism until she had to leave Ukraine last year. “In their classification, I should be destroyed,” she explained, adding that others who feared they were on the list tried to hide their identity. Prymachenko said she doesn’t know where she will go after her time at Princeton ends next summer, but she hopes to stay in the United States or Canada. She would still be in danger if she returned to Ukraine. “Because if Chernihiv were occupied, I couldn’t survive,” she explained. “They would look for people, those who are activists.”

‘Every day, my Facebook has an elegy.’

Iuliia Skubytska, a visiting research scholar in the Program in Judaic Studies supported by the Humanities Council, was working for the War Childhood Museum in Kyiv when Russia expanded its invasion in 2022. Her job was to supervise the collection of interviews with Ukrainian children and adolescents who had been affected by the war since 2014.

She arrived at Princeton in September 2022, but found it difficult to work. “One of the side effects of the invasion was that our cognitive abilities were not exactly the best,” Skubytska said. “By the time I arrived here, I was barely figuring out everything around me. Just arranging my daily life was quite an effort.” She credited her colleagues with helping her to adjust.

Skubytska said that she did not want to talk about certain experiences of her escape from the Russian advance, explaining that the war still impacts her even now that she is physically far away from the vio-

lence. “The end of the war is nowhere near in sight,” she added. “And that’s a huge psychological burden to bear.”

Most of Skubytska’s friends and family members have stayed in Ukraine, and many have joined the military. “A ton of Ukrainians feel this survivor’s guilt,” she said. “This is something that weighs heavily upon us — that somebody is dying right now, is being killed right now, for me to be safe, for my parents to be safe.”

The United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) has reported that over 9,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed since February 2022, and in August, U.S. officials said that total military casualty numbers are approaching 500,000. “We live in a situation where I read news about people dying every day,” Skubytska said. “Every day, my Facebook has an elegy.”

She noted that it is important to hear about these deaths, even if it makes it more difficult to focus. “We read the news because that’s respectful to the dead,” Skubytska explained. “Very often there will be stories about our fallen soldiers, and it is respectful to them to read their name and to read their story.”

Like Skubytska, Oksana Nesterenko, now a visiting research scholar in the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), found it difficult to work even after coming to Princeton. “My first year [here] I was not like a normal person,” she said. “I was traumatized, definitely.” She credits her colleagues and supervisors in SPIA with supporting her as she adjusted to her new life, though she may have to readjust to another situation after the spring semester ends.

Therapy helps Skubytska work through some of the trauma, but there is always more. “There isn’t a way to deal with it,” she said. “At some point you basically develop certain adaptation mechanisms. It is important to recognize them because you might become less empathic. You might react less, you might read the news less.” She said she doesn’t think these are good ways to respond to the war. She added that she worries people are already forgetting Ukraine as time passes and other conflicts emerge.

Skubytska will again teach JDS324: Trauma and Oral History — Giving Voice to the Unspeakable next spring. She said her goal is to help people learn how to listen to traumatic experiences and then communicate with those who have not been exposed to similar circumstances. “Because it’s very hard to communicate to those who never have gone through anything like that,” Skubytska explained.

‘We have to speak out.’

Roshchin, the visiting research scholar at the University Center for Human Values, was born in Russia and spent most of his life there. In February 2022, he was the head of the faculty of International Relations and Politics, the political science school of RANEPA.

Roshchin said he opposed the war from the beginning, calling it “a huge crime” because of his strong belief in human dignity and human rights. “I didn’t want to be part of it in any way,” he said. “And like many other Russian scholars and citizens, I spoke out.”

On March 4, 2022, Russia enacted a law criminalizing protests against the war. The punishment includes up to 15 years of jail, and many Russians have faced imprisonment and abusive treatment since. Alexandra Skochilenko, a 33-year-old St. Petersburg musician and artist, recently received a seven-year sentence for placing stickers with anti-war messages over price tags in a grocery store weeks after the law was passed. The Washington Post reported that she faced sexual aggression and cruelty in jail as she waited for her trial.

Roshchin said he refused to endorse the idea of making a collective pro-war statement on behalf of RANEPA at a council meeting of school administrators later that same March, instead suggesting to release a call for peace. Roshchin had already signed anti-war petitions by this point, and one administrator warned him to retract his signature to avoid facing criminal charges.

“I indicated that I wouldn’t change my publicly voiced opinion, [that] this is what I hold dear and this is what I believe in,” Roshchin explained. “Instead, I resigned to protest.”

The war had reduced the number of flights out of Russia, and Roshchin began looking for tickets as soon as he resigned. He told his superiors that he was going to withdraw from public life and rest even as he secretly made plans to leave the country. He flew to Istanbul, Turkey, two weeks later with only one checked bag. His wife and two daughters, ages 9 and 4, took another flight. They left behind their home, their car, most of their belongings — almost everything except their dog, Greta.

Roshchin and his family arrived at Princeton in August 2022. His research focuses on how free speech may be limited in academic environments by institutions or government interference, or by the fear of it.

“I focus on self-censorship, on the voice of dissent, and what it actually means to leave one’s community,” Roshchin said. “We have to speak out.”

He said his protest against Russia’s invasion happened naturally. “It’s not that I trained myself and thought of doing something heroic,” Roshchin explained. “It’s just that the circumstances and [my] inner values and ideals came together. And that explains [my] choices made.”

Roshchin hopes to start a new position at another English-speaking university when his time at Princeton ends next year to make the move as easy as possible for his daughters.

“Kids switching their linguistic school environment to something else — that might be very stressful,” he said. “Because they just adapted to this environment.”

‘I can continue to be useful to my country.’

“Oksana, look, Russia closed the sky. So you need to wake up, we need to pack our stuff, because the war is going to start in a couple of hours.”

This is how Oksana Nesterenko remembers her 70-year-old father waking her up at 1 a.m. the night Russian forces attacked Kharkiv, Ukraine in February 2022. She fled with others and now specializes in anti-corruption in SPIA. Like Prymachenko, Nesterenko

said she fears that her name is on the Russian list of targets due to the nature of her work. She is the former co-founder of the first interdisciplinary Master Program in anti-corruption in Ukraine and the Eurasian Academic Anti-Corruption Network. She added that the war has been constantly on her mind since Russia invaded Crimea in 2014.

Many Ukrainians have now lived in uncertainty about their safety and future for almost an entire decade. Even now, she said she doesn’t know where she will be next year after her time at Princeton ends. Nesterenko said she avoided buying her own car and apartment in Kyiv where she had been working since 2015, because she worried that both would be destroyed if the war expanded. The war did reach her in 2022, and she had to leave nearly everything behind.

She packed documents and photos, but there was no time to bring her clothes, books, or even food and water. At 5 a.m. she woke up her 6-year-old son, and the trio began a five-day journey to western Ukraine. Bombs fell on the city as they drove away.

“I’m going to remember this all my life,” Nesterenko said. “I was paralyzed, I almost couldn’t move. Because maybe in one moment I’m not going to be alive.”

She joked that while some people say they have a phobia of swimming or flying, she’s “scared of only one thing: missile attacks.”

Russian missiles continue to hit Ukrainian cities, and Nesterenko said that she will not take her son back home until the war is over. Her father, who also moved with her to Princeton, wants to return, but she is not willing to take the risk. Nesterenko said that she could not handle the constant fear of another missile attack.

“It’s not normal when people literally understand that tomorrow they can die [at] any moment,” she said. “I was crying, crying, crying, because you cannot go to the shelter for every alarm. We don’t have a safe place ... It’s so scary.”

Nesterenko is part of a joint project between the University’s Innovations for Successful Societies program and Kyiv’s Anti-Corruption Research and Educational Center that is titled “Rebuilding Ukraine Corruption Free.” The goal of the project is to put anticorruption tools into place, including by training officials, to prevent corruption as Ukraine rebuilds after the war.

“I can continue my research, I can continue my job, and I can continue to be useful for my country,” Nesterenko said. “Because Princeton provides me with these facilities, I can sit down, I can analyze information, I can do papers, I can be an advisor for the Ukrainian government. Why? Because I can relax and focus on my job.”

Each of these scholars expressed gratitude to Princeton for providing them with two years of safety to continue their research and writing. The fighting in Ukraine remains intense, and many still don’t have a safe home to return to. Next year, they may be forced to thank someone else.

Lauren Blackburn is a staff Features writer for the ‘Prince.’

‘We

Can Fix Princeton’: Inside TIGER, the University’s new geoexchange facility

By Raphaela Gold Associate Features Editor

When I toured the West Energy Plant last year, Energy Plant Manager Ted Borer promised that he’d show me the new energy plant when it was complete. Borer stayed true to his word, and just over a year later, I found myself striding past Prospect St. and down Broadmead St. on a chilly February afternoon to see the building for the first time.

After greeting me at the door, which was surrounded by wood paneling and emblazoned with the name “T.I.G.E.R.” in bold white lettering, Borer and his colleague Saurabhi Mishra led me down a hallway to a bright conference room. Borer noted that this room was a space specifically meant for conversations like ours.

For the first time in history, Princeton is producing a portion of its energy more efficiently than before and sometimes without the combustion of natural gas. This feat is made possible with the help of pipes 70 stories deep, two thermal energy storage tanks that can hold around 4.5 Olympicsized swimming pools each, and TIGER, the affectionately dubbed and recently constructed Thermally Integrated Geo-Exchange Resource building.

“I can’t tell you how many times already people have come for talks and presentations,” he said.

According to Borer, some U.S. government agencies have already expressed interest in visiting the plant, and this past January, Princeton’s campus caught the attention of the New York Times.

Entering the building, we took our seats at either end of a long table as Borer allowed me to question him for over an hour about what had changed since our interview last year. As it turned out, there were many developments to catch up on.

Over the past year, the team has continued to install geo-exchange bores across campus, under East Garage, Hobson College, Meadows Softball Field, Poe Field, Roberts Stadium, and Whitman Lawn. The bores are about six inches in diameter and 850 feet deep.

“That’s equivalent to a 70 story building,” said Borer, comparing the length to 30 Rockefeller Center in New York. “It’s just a really deep hole.”

Each hole houses HDPE vertical piping which doubles back on itself at the bottom to create two parallel pipes. These act as the arteries of the geo-exchange circulatory system. So far, about 1000 bores have been installed. By 2033, Borer expects that they will total 2000.

Through these bores flows water which circulates through larger pipes in the TIGER facility. We would take a closer look at these pipes later in the tour, but first, Borer took me into the control room and introduced me to Dave Sousa, the plant operator.

Sousa was watching the tem-

perature cursors on a screen to maintain the proper levels of cold and hot water. He explained the information he was seeing on the screen in real time. “He’s thinking about reliability … making sure students get what they need,” explained Borer.

The system operates as a thermal piggy bank. In the summer, the system draws heat from buildings into water, which is sent underground through piping to gradually warm subterranean rock. When the weather gets cold, the system pumps the heated water up through pipes to warm the buildings once more.

Although the system heats and cools the ground on an annual cycle, Princeton has a continuous need for both heating and cooling year-round, regardless of outside temperature. Even on the coldest day of February, the University extracts heat released from lasers, electron microscopes, CT scan machines, and computer facilities. Likewise, stored heat must be delivered for activities like handwashing, showering, and dishwashing despite the warmth of August weather.

In other words, plant operators like Sousa must balance satisfying the campus’ immediate needs and heating the daily thermal storage tank. Anything left over is stored in the seasonal system.

The control panel provides Sousa with the information on the automated process; though, he also occasionally needs to step in and change something.

After chatting with Sousa, we were finally ready to see the pipes in the equipment room. The conference room had been quiet, but as we neared the heart of the facility, the steady whirring of machinery crescendoed, and I noticed a faint rubbery scent. If I hadn’t known better, I would have assumed I was gazing upon an indoor waterpark full of twisting, vibrantly colored slides.

Borer explained the plant’s simple color coding system as I soaked it all in. The green pipes contain chilled water going out to campus and back. The blue pipes are going down to the geoexchange field and back. Finally, the orange pipes carry hot water out to campus and back.

Each pipe is marked with a sticker bearing a “secret code,” with abbreviations and numbers that the plant staff can understand.

At one point, Borer asked me to feel the metal attached to a pipe. The pipe is insulated, but a bit of heat escapes. Because there is always some hot water going through the system, it was warm to the touch — probably 105 or 110 degrees, Borer estimated.

Borer explained that the water going through the pipes also travels through daily thermal storage tanks, which are located outside, adjacent to TIGER. Each tank holds 2.2 million gallons of water. This water serves as energy storage media, meaning that the water is heated and cooled, but not gained or lost. “It’s a closed system. That is important,” Borer noted.

Borer pointed out an air-dirt separator pointing into a drain in the floor, which filters debris particles out of the water and pumps any solids through the drain out of the plant. It looked like a wide vacuum, but one which ejects particles outwards rather than sucking them in.

If any of this equipment breaks or needs repair, the plant staff can open the glass walls, manufactured with built in fritting to protect against bird collisions, so that a new piece of equipment can easily be installed, while the old one is removed.

Borer noted that it was difficult to source many of these materials, as the geo-exchange technology is so new. The facilities team looked “all over the world and certainly all over the country for the right things and the right skill sets to install them. It’s not like [they] just went to Home Depot,” said Borer.

Additionally, acquiring the materials was expensive. Though he couldn’t tell me exactly how much, Borer confirmed that the combined systems cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and it is as of now unclear how much of that will be incentivized by the Biden administration’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The University is still working with outside counsel and tax advisors on what they can and can’t claim under the IRA. According to Borer, the cost could swing 30–40 percent based on the answers to those questions.

The geo-exchange installation continues despite these challenges, and, even after it is fully in use, the University will continue to maintain its cogeneration plant. The two plants will ultimately operate in tandem.

In the past, the cogeneration plant has played a crucial role during severe weather events, allowing the University to continue operating even when the regional power grid failed. “Because we had on-site cogeneration, we were able to be a place of refuge to the community,” Borer explained. He added that because

of climate change, the University needs to be prepared for more storms in the future.

This might involve buying generators that run on diesel, one of the most polluting forms of fuel. Therefore, though Borer knows that the University needs on-site, controllable power generation, he hopes to run it as infrequently as possible. “If I run the diesel generator or something like that 100 hours a year, it will save us money, and then I can have it during the next horrendous weather event,” he explained.

One significant difference between the cogeneration plant and TIGER is a shift in architectural ethos. While the cogeneration is housed in an unassuming “concrete block and metal siding,” the University wanted TIGER to stand out aesthetically to mark the importance of what it housed.

Borer remembers working in a Philadelphia power plant that was built in the 1920s. He recalls soaring windows that let in the light, mahogany railings, and a restaurant up over the turbine hall floor where you could see power for a whole city being generated.

“It was exciting back then,” Borer explained. “So now we have this new and novel and exciting and dynamic thing, and we wanted people to look at it and say: look how impressive this thing is and to learn what best practices in energy look like.”

Although the system is still far from complete, many buildings are already running on the district hot water system, including New College West, Yeh College, Bloomberg Hall in Butler, Princeton Neuroscience Institute, Thomas Laboratory, Carl Icahn Laboratory, Jadwin Gym, and Caldwell House.  A part of Dillon Gym is also connected, and soon, the Art Museum will be as well.

Though the first month’s report has not yet been published, Borer reported that the plant’s performance “looks amazing.”

When Borer predicted what the plant’s coefficient of performance would be last year, he ex-

pected it would be around four. Right now, according to Borer, it’s measuring between 4.5–5.

“That means we’re delivering to this campus 4.5 times the energy we’re putting into the plant,” Borer explained. He expects the plant will do even better this summer, adding, “I cannot dream of seven, but it might be as high as six. Come back and ask me!”

Though Borer enjoys the aesthetic of the plant and spending time in the new TIGER, his favorite part of his job is looking at spreadsheets. “I’m such a nerd,” he joked, then explained “This is not theoretical, this is not a research project. We can do this on a community scale. We can do this for 15,000 people. What I want to do now is show that this is also financially attractive.” Borer’s spreadsheets help him work towards the goal.

Borer is intent on sharing this technology and its possibilities outside of Princeton. “We can fix Princeton,” he said. “But what I want to do, and what many of us want to do, is make a bigger impact.” He hopes that in the future, Princeton can help peer institutions learn how to “walk this path.”

As the tour came to a close, we took a moment to step back and look around the equipment room one last time. The machinery was still gently whirring, and a green light glowed at the top of a fourlight system, indicating that all was well, and the plant was safe.

When Borer reflects on the progress the team has made, he said that he feels very proud. He emphasized that the project was a team effort, involving hundreds of people, and to see it finally performing well is “super exciting.”

He added, “The bigger context is we’re trying to get Princeton to carbon neutrality, and we’re trying to get others to carbon neutrality. This is showing: ‘Yeah, you can do that.’”

Raphaela Gold is the associate Features editor and a head Archives editor.

RAPHAELA GOLD / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN The maze of pipes at the TIGER facility.

A Palestinian prime minister, at home in Princeton

By Miriam Waldvogel

Contributing Features Writer

Salam Fayyad is fascinated by how Princeton works.

In the scope of the global political stage, Fayyad’s current title — a visiting senior scholar in the School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) — is one of the less significant roles he has held. His office, a second-floor suite in Bendheim Hall with plenty of beige wall still showing, gives few hints that he was once the second-most powerful man in the Palestinian Authority.

Fayyad served as prime minister from 2007 to 2013, pursuing a reformist agenda that included improving security, strengthening the economy, and reducing corruption — a “technocratic revolutionary,” New Yorker writer David Remnick ’81 called him. His philosophy of “Fayyadism,” as it became known, centered around building the institutions of Palestinian government to achieve statehood. International observers noticed, and in 2011, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund declared that the Palestinians were ready.

But while he was widely respected by Western governments and many Israelis, Fayyad struggled with building a popular image at home, and he resigned in 2013 over policy friction with President Mahmoud Abbas.

In the aftermath, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman called Fayyad’s government “the best Palestinian peace partner Israel and the U.S. ever had.”

“Add another nail in the coffin of the two-state solution,” Friedman wrote at the time.

On Monday, the Palestinian Authority saw a major shakeup with the resignation of Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh and the rest of the cabinet. Recent diplomatic efforts spearheaded by the United States have envisioned a revitalized authority that could govern post-war Gaza.

For all his prominent accomplishments on the international stage, Fayyad has remained a relatively unassuming figure on campus since coming to Princeton in 2017.

“You’d think that he’d have a bigger ego, but he really doesn’t,” Dan Kurtzer, the former United States ambassador to Israel, SPIA professor, and longtime friend of Fayyad, told The Daily Princetonian. “He’s shy in many respects.”

Having spent the better part of a decade in this small campus in New Jersey, Fayyad has immersed himself in the routine of Princeton life.

“I liked about Princeton its self-run-

ning character, the sense of things all systematized and happening when they’re supposed to happen,” he told the ‘Prince.’

In an hour-long interview, Fayyad remained focused on classically Princeton issues: student-centered campus conversation, civility, and institutional neutrality.

His adoption of the archetypal Princeton persona goes further. Like many of his colleagues, Fayyad himself was reluctant to directly engage on the issues of pro-Palestinian activism and protest that have embroiled American college campuses since Hamas’ attacks on Oct. 7.

“It’s not that I don’t have views. I don’t want to really get into this controversy,” he said. “I really would like to stay within the confines of the most strategic, longerterm conversation on this issue.”

What Fayyad means by long-term conversation is, quite literally, a conversation: the kind of lively but civil debate and discourse among students that universities are argued to be all about.

Creating that environment is another matter. For Fayyad, it starts with ensuring that administrators and professors remain neutral in order to avoid unfairly influencing student opinions. Because of this, he doesn’t teach classes specifically on Israel or Palestine at Princeton. Instead, he’s taught graduate courses on Afghanistan and the Arab Spring. His undergraduate class, SPI 322: Public Policy Issues in Today’s Middle East, focuses on public policy, capacity building, and economic development issues in the Middle East, with some focus on Arab states.

“This is how much I care about independent thought,” Fayyad told the ‘Prince.’ “No Israel-Palestine for me.”

“He was very upfront about the fact that it was not a class on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, on Palestinian affairs,” Jake Brzowsky ’21 said, who took Fayyad’s class in the spring of 2019. Brzowsky was Fayyad’s only undergraduate thesis advisee and served as student board president of the Center for Jewish Life during his time at Princeton.

“He was extremely accessible,” Brzowsky recalled. “He was always available to discuss whatever was on your mind or his mind or regardless of whether it was directly connected to the course content or the thesis topic.”

But for all his sincere focus on campus, Fayyad coming to Princeton was not originally in the cards. In 2017, he was tapped to serve as the United Nations special envoy to Libya. In an abrupt decision, Trump administration officials blocked the appointment — a move meant to bolster support with Israel.

Upon hearing this news, Kurtzer said, “It took about 15 seconds for me to pick up the phone and to call him and to ask whether or not he would want to come to Princeton, if the University was prepared to bring him on.”

Kurtzer had known Fayyad since 2002, when he was the United States ambassador to Israel and Fayyad was finance minister of the Palestinian Authority. The second intifada was near its peak, and the authority was strapped for cash due to the economic downturn and Israel’s withholding of tax revenues it normally collected for the Palestinian governing body.

Kurtzer recalled inviting Fayyad and a senior Israeli official over to his residence for lunch, a move that inaugurated “a couple months” of negotiations between the two sides. It was eventually agreed that the Palestinians would receive the tax revenue, but that an international auditor, paid for by the United States, would supervise its disbursement.

“It was so important that the agreement was based on trust,” Kurtzer said. “But when the two sides reached an agreement, they let [the U.S.] know that they no longer needed the international auditor because trust had been built up to a point where Israel was ready to start releasing the funds and was sure that Fayyad would disperse them properly.”

Fayyad’s voice on Palestine has remained sought-after internationally, especially after Oct. 7. He has written in Foreign Affairs about “day after” political plans for peace in Gaza, appeared on Christiane Amanpour’s CNN show on the future of Palestinian leadership, and spoke on the Ezra Klein Show about his state-building agenda.

Fayyad’s writings “haven’t just been academic pieces,” said Udi Ofer, an IsraeliAmerican professor in SPIA who occasionally chats with Fayyad over coffee. “They have framed the way the State Department is thinking about these issues, the way thinkers and other academics are thinking about these issues.”

In January, Fayyad was even floated by several news outlets, including the New York Times, as a potential replacement for Abbas. However, the Wall Street Journal reported last week that he had not been approached about a potential Palestinian leadership role. Fayyad also recently told the Middle East-focused news site AlMonitor that he is not involved in official “day after” discussions.

In the meantime, Fayyad has “thrown himself into Princeton life,” Kurtzer said. Fayyad lives in town and takes long walks around campus most mornings, “even if it’s sub-freezing,” he said.

In many ways, Fayyad seems truly compelled by Princeton and its student life — how they group together, how they learn, and what they talk about.

“I’m fascinated by how institutions function and how wedded to the status quo people become sometimes. That, in many ways, inhibits progress,” Fayyad said.

He generally observed that “students are happy here,” he said. “It was something that stands out. I haven’t changed my mind on it.”

“There’s something about the way the program is designed and the manner in which students are treated,” he added. “Students are made to feel the place is for them and about them.”

But Fayyad also expressed frustration with a perceived insularity among students centered around identity, especially in relation to controversial issues.

“People have a natural tendency to congregate around identity. There’s nothing wrong about that,” he said. “But if you do only that, that limits the scope for your intellectual, social, cultural development.”

“It could also sow the seeds of division, polarization,” Fayyad added, arguing that controversy sometimes develops from “people kind of taking positions that are more related to their identity than anything else.”

In order to foster discourse, Fayyad argued that University professors and administrators should maintain a fairly strict level of neutrality. He gave his own decision not to teach about Israel and Palestine as an example.

“I don’t think it’s really appropriate for me to teach my own experience,” Fayyad said. “Give the nature of leadership structures to [students], they begin to see things a little bit the way I tell the story, and that’s not very healthy.”

In the same vein, Fayyad expressed concern about University administrators issuing statements on broad issues outside campus.

“Why should there be the expectation that the University president issue a statement on a world issue, a crisis?” he asked, adding, “When it’s not something you do for a living every day, you begin to wonder, why are we doing this?”

Among University administration, the most prominent voice on the conflict has been President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, who issued a short statement on Oct. 10, condemning Hamas’ attacks on Israel. In January, he addressed the conflict and its ramifications on campus in his State of the University letter, later drawing condemnation from some pro-Palestinian student activists for not commenting on Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.

At a recent meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Committee, Eisgruber said Oct. 7 was of “special historical significance and cruelty and I think that that warranted a statement of a rare kind.”

Fayyad said instead that University officials should be making efforts to reach out and converse with students in smaller settings.

“I’m talking about having lunch,” he said. “It’s amazing how much you will discover you can accomplish if you do things this way, as opposed to directive this, directive that, directive the other thing.”

While he doesn’t teach classes directly focused on the conflict, Fayyad himself has been a frequent guest speaker at University events on Israel, Palestine, and the Middle East over the years, including a panel with Kurtzer in the days after Oct. 7.

“That’s one way in which you can make students feel the place is about them,” Fayyad said about panels and speaker events.

Fayyad also stressed the importance of civil conversations. “[There’s] nothing wrong with being passionate about things. For heaven’s sake, I am,” Fayyad said. “But

there needs to be civility.”

And compared to many of its peer institutions, the broad sweep of Princeton’s discourse seems to have been far milder, especially in the first weeks after Oct. 7. During that period, which included fall break, conversation on campus largely focused on vigils and mourning the dead and displaced. Events were hosted by the Center for Jewish Life (CJL), Princeton Chabad, the Alliance of Jewish Progressives (AJP), and Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)

“On the whole, if you ask me, most certainly by comparison to what I saw and read about happening elsewhere, this is as orderly as it could have been,” Fayyad said, referring to Princeton’s climate.

At other campuses, the political climate was far more contentious during that period. Columbia closed its campus to the public on Oct. 12 in response to competing pro-Israel and pro-Palestine protests.

At Harvard, students who were allegedly affiliated with a controversial statement that called Israel “entirely responsible” for the violence had their names and faces displayed on a billboard truck that drove through campus; some later had social media profiles and hometown information published online.

Since then, Princeton has seen a number of protests in support of Palestine, which are typically greeted by smaller counter-protests in support of Israel. The most recent one drew hundreds of attendees. As of late, protests have shrunk down to within a hundred. Princeton’s protests have largely gone on without major disruptions — unlike at Columbia University, for example, where students attending a proPalestine protest in January were allegedly sprayed with a hazardous chemical.

At the recent meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Committee, proPalestinian student organizers protested Eisgruber’s comments on a petition to divest the University’s endowment from certain companies associated with Israel. But they did so silently, holding up signs with a green thumbs up or red thumbs down in response to his answers to student questions.

In contrast, last weekend at Stanford, pro-Palestinian student protestors disrupted a Family Weekend welcome session, interrupting the president and provost with chants like “Palestinian blood is on your hands.” Elsewhere, students have staged hunger strikes and organized sit-ins to demand their institutions act in support of Palestine.

However, “orderly does not mean not passionate, does not mean not vibrant, does not mean being introverted. It means exactly the opposite, but done in an orderly way,” Fayyad noted.

Of course, all this discourse isn’t just for the sake of discourse. “With this dialogue, I think you can really achieve enormous progress and cut the distance between you and the students,” Fayyad said.

The students — that was what Fayyad kept coming back to. Not himself, not administrators, not the wider conflict, but the students.

“He’s so humble,” Ofer said. He recalled hosting a documentary screening on campus about Fayyad’s work on Palestinian statehood as prime minister and inviting Fayyad to a question-and-answer session afterward. “[Fayyad] was like, ‘Sure, if you want to, but you know, why would people want to watch a documentary about me?’” Fayyad is not prime minister anymore. He’s on campus, and that’s exactly where he wants to be.

“Fewer speeches, more conversations. Fewer speeches, more conversations,” he repeated.

“How about that for a slogan?”

Miriam Waldvogel is an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’

the PROSPECT. ARTS & CULTURE

Trenton Arts at Princeton ‘taps’ into local creative community

By Isabella Dail |

While Saturday mornings may be a quiet time around most of Princeton’s campus, the Lewis Center of the Arts is bustling with activity — and performers’ instruments. Every Saturday, buses congregate in front of the arts complex, dropping off Trenton middle and high school students for a morning of performances.

The weekly program, Saturday Morning Arts (SMArts), is a part of a larger organization called Trenton Arts at Princeton (TAP), a collaboration between the Department of Music, Lewis Center for the Arts, and Pace Center for Civic Engagement. SMArts, one of TAP’s most notable programs, brings together Princetonians and Trenton students through a shared love of the arts. On rehearsal days, the middle and high school students arrive in the morning, where they are provided with a quick breakfast to fuel hours of rehearsals. From then until the early afternoon, the students divide into one of four categories: dance, orchestra, choir, or theater. Princeton students involved in TAP assist in teaching the students and guiding their rehearsals.

Each week, a Princeton performance group also provides a demonstration. Previous performers have included the a cappella group the Nassoons, the chamber music group Opus, and the dance group eXpressions.

“I especially enjoy seeing the Trenton students interact because really special relationships are being built with the private teachers. Sometimes, I’ll have students there for four more years, and it becomes really special,” Princeton alum Lou Chen ’19, the current coordinator of TAP and director of the group’s orchestra, told the ‘Prince.’

As a sophomore, Chen founded the Trenton Youth Orchestra with Joseph Pucciatti, who directed the Trenton Central High School orchestra and bridged a connection between the high school and Princeton. The program began as a fledgling organization stationed in a small house in Trenton for at-risk youth.  As it grew into Trenton Arts at Princeton, funding from the Department of Music, Lewis Center for the Arts, Pace Center for Civic Engagement, and Office of the Provost provided the opportunity to bus the highschoolers to campus and increase the staff. Chen acts in an adminis -

trative role in organizing TAP’s programs, both fostering connections across campus and Trenton and training Princeton students. For Chen, these relationships are an essential part of his work.

“Seeing people interact, who otherwise maybe wouldn’t be interacting, because of the barriers that exist to getting people to Trenton or to Princeton, is very rewarding,” he said.

Princeton students have several opportunities to become involved in TAP. For students seeking a slightly less demanding commitment, there are options to meaningfully assist with SMArts that require less time. Students can volunteer to teach a group of students or, for a more personalized experience, students can lead individual workshops, where they work weekly with one student and build a personal rapport between musicians.

Students interested in taking a larger role within the organization can apply for a Trenton Arts fellowship, a paid student position within the organization. Fellows lead one of the four arts groups and participate in weekly meetings with their cohort. However, TAP is also flexible in engaging Princeton students who do

not see a current role that suits their interests.

“If there is a need that you think you can fill, join our team. That’s how we’ve gotten some of our best students engaged. It’s because they were nontraditional fits for the program but found someplace where they could give help. And we’re always open to innovation,” Chen noted.

TAP is an opt-in program for both the college and high school participants, so all students involved have a passion for the arts and a commitment to the program. For Trenton Central High School students, TAP exists as a way to expand the skills that students already learn in school. Trenton Central High School students join Small Learning Communities that provide a focus to their studies. One of these communities is the Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) community. For students in the VPA, TAP acts both as a supplement and an expansion of their primary education.

Andy Seabert, a teacher leader of the Visual and Performing Arts program, has seen the increased opportunities that his students have found through TAP.

“There’s room for multiple arts. TAP allows students who

are maybe focused on one art a chance to experiment with another art outside of their high school schedule. When they’ve got core classes, and sports and other things going on, they don’t always have the room for that second experience. I think it helps them become more well-rounded as artists and creators,” Seabert said.

While support from student leaders is a way for Trenton students to hone their performance skills, TAP is also a creative outlet for Princetonians themselves. Fellow Charlotte Defriez ’26 became involved when she wanted to continue practicing the violin while engaging with a new community. Since then, SMArts has become a highlight of her work, interacting with both Princeton and Trenton high school students. “I just love the community. I want to be doing this on my weekends. It’s just amazing,” said Defriez. TAP’s upcoming 5th anniversary showcase will be held in Richardson Auditorium on Apr. 6. Tickets can be found on the Princeton Ticketing website.

Isabella Dail is a member of the Class of 2026 and head editor for The Prospect at the ‘Prince.’

The Spring Street Mural: Inspiring the Princeton community through public art

By Regina Roberts | Associate Prospect Editor

Located on the back of the store Village Silver, the once blank wall on Spring Street has become a canvas. The Spring Street Mural, coordinated by the Arts Council of Princeton (ACP), has displayed original art to the town of Princeton since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown in the summer of 2020. As a part of the ACP’s public art initiative, the blank space was first painted to both promote the community and beautify the area — its first mural was titled “Stronger Together.”

The idea for a mural on Spring Street originated with Maria Evans, the Artistic Director for the ACP, and Melissa Kuscin, the Program/Marketing Manager. During the start of the pandemic, Kuscin and Evans were walking around town and noticed that the streets were unusually quiet. They knew that they wanted to utilize art to uplift the community but were not certain of a location until they found a blank wall in the middle of town.

“I saw that wall that is on the side of Village Silver on Spring Street, and I texted a picture to Maria,” Kuscin said. “It was a text between the two of us that was just like, ‘we need to do something.’ That’s where it all started.”

The Spring Street Mural’s rotation of artwork — with a new mural about every three months — sets it apart from other public art sponsored by the ACP. Since the idea was pitched as a rotating mural, artists do not paint their murals directly onto the building, but instead paint on a canvas that was built specifically for the project to facilitate painting new murals over old ones. ACP Executive Director Adam

Welch believes that the mural rotation helps residents stay engaged with the artwork.

“When you first see something, you have an experience with it that is outside of the everyday, and it might slowly age and become less impactful,” he said. Therefore, the artwork on the murals is designed to be topical, either featuring messages or pictures that relate to a theme. During election season in 2020, the ACP did “a vote mural, which was a lot of people’s favorites, because it was just right in your face, like a sign of the times,” said Kuscin.

Through the artist rotation, the ACP can also support more local artists. In the beginning stages of the project, the first few murals were made by the ACP mural team. Now, the ACP has created an open call on their website for artists to

submit mural proposals. They primarily look for submissions from local or tri-state area artists. The ACP aims to provide spaces where local artists can showcase their work, especially since the Princeton area does not have as many galleries as major cities like New York or Philadelphia. “We want to make sure that the artists that are here get as much access as possible to those sorts of opportunities,” Welch said. Since its first piece in July 2020, there have been ten different murals featured. Currently, “Blooming” by Amilli Onair, a Franco-American artist, is on display. The mural depicts two women with flowers facing each other. Onair’s artwork often features women and flowers, and the idea of two women facing each other is reflective of the Princeton community. “It feels really meant

to be that [Princeton] would be the place where the two women were facing each other because I really do feel like within the community, you don’t ever do things by yourself,” she said. The flowers on the mural are all from places Onair has lived, but she also points out that the variety of florals signify the diversity within the Princeton community. “I like to make things that go beyond the like, ‘Where are you from?’

‘What do you do?’ It’s like, I’m from all these different places, I can take up all of this space, I can work with all of the people around me that are from different places,” she said.

Onair applied for the mural through the ACP’s open call for artists. While she has painted in both New York and California, community murals are her favorite kind of work. “You can kind of tell that it’s something

that the community really appreciates,” she said. After being accepted in mid February, Onair worked on a few iterations of the design then came to Princeton to paint the mural for two days before it was completed.

The Spring Street Mural is just one of the public art projects that the ACP oversees. Since its inception, finding places for public art has become even more important to the ACP in order to increase accessibility. “Public art just demolishes every barrier to entry. It is for the people, by the people,” said Kuscin. Even though the Arts Council building features a curated collection of art, the ACP believes that it is necessary to create art that intersects with community members’ daily lives. They emphasize that art does not need to be understood to be enjoyed.

Welch says that more ACP public art is underway with plans for a mural at the new Avalon Bay apartment complex and a totem pole supported by the National Endowment of the Arts that will be at an indoor location.

Four years since its first iteration, the Spring Street Mural continues to be a Princeton staple, with each new artist helping to uplift the community. Onair sees the impact of her work first hand. While finishing “Blooming” she was approached by a resident who she recalled saying, “I just want to let you know that I just had a really hard day, and I really needed to see this.”

Regina Roberts is an associate editor for The Prospect and contributing staffer for the Podcast section of the ‘Prince.’ She can be reached at rr8156[at]princeton. edu, or on Instagram @regina_ r17.

How USG Movies secures early premieres

By Connor Romberg | Assistant Prospect Editor

As the Jan. 7 Golden Globes kicked off the 2024 awards season, the movie “Saltburn” seemed to be on everyone’s mind. Entertainment Weekly called the film a “perverse, psychosexual thriller of the highest order,” featuring startling scenes of bathtubs, graves, and a celebratory dance number (if you know, you know). From its prominence on TikTok to its trending soundtrack featuring MGMT’s “Time to Pretend” and Sophie EllisBextor’s “Murder On The Dancefloor,” “Saltburn”’s popularity has persisted long after its Nov. 17 limited release in theaters.

USG Movies, the Undergraduate Student Government committee that selects and screens free movies for the student body, showed “Saltburn” eight days before its limited theater release. USG Movies Committee

Chair Tyler Wilson ’26 wrote to the Daily Princetonian that the “USG Movies Committee was contacted by the PR agency that represented Saltburn in the greater Philadelphia area.” The agency thought that “Saltburn,” a movie about young adults attending Oxford, would be fitting for college students and therefore reached out to Princeton for a screening.

“Saltburn” isn’t the only movie to which USG Movies has gained early access. Wilson said that the committee also had an early screening of the latest Studio Ghibli film, “The Boy and The Heron,” an anime title that just took the Best Motion Picture — Animated award at the Golden Globes. The same PR representative that pitched “Saltburn” had contacted the committee about “The Boy and the Heron.”

The committee also exclusively screened A24’s “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” which follows a Black

woman’s life in Mississippi across several decades. The film uniquely cast four different actresses to portray the protagonist at four different ages in her life. Wilson told the ‘Prince’ that this screening didn’t come through the aforementioned PR representative, but rather the committee’s existing connections with A24 — a studio known for its original, genuine, and sometimes outlandish films.

For last semester’s advanced screenings, students could register to attend through MyPrincetonU. Tickets were available on a first come, first serve basis, but those who missed the chance to register could join a waitlist. When students showed up to the screening, they would present their registration tickets, and those on the waitlist were encouraged to show up in the case of no-shows. Normally, students can simply show up to a USG Movies

screening and find a seat without any pre-registration.

The advanced screenings also featured heightened security. During the screening of “Saltburn” at the Princeton Garden Theatre, Kiran Masood ’26 observed there were security guards that “wandered around during the movie to make sure [they] weren’t on [their] phones,” and recalled that audience members were told security was there because it was an advanced screening.

With winter break wrapping up in the coming weeks, the USG Movies Committee hopes to continue offering advanced screenings in the spring. Wilson told the ‘Prince’ that the committee is “already in contact with A24 about doing more screenings in the second semester,” and “hopeful” that they can continue to maintain the relationship that allowed them to screen “Salt-

burn” and “The Boy and The Heron” in advance. However, nothing is confirmed as of right now.

“I am passionate about the theater-going experience and the conversation it inspires,” Wilson said. “By hosting advanced screenings, USG is able to encourage students to engage with new, exciting films alongside their peers in their intended environment — the cinema.”

To stay updated on when the next advanced screening hits a campus screen, students can follow USG Movies on Instagram at @ princetonusgmovie. Whether it is a shocking slow-burn like “Saltburn” or a moving drama like “All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt,” stay tuned to see what is showcased next on the silver screen.

Connor Romberg is an assistant editor for The Prospect from Winneconne, Wisconsin.

COURTESY OF THE ARTS COUNCIL OF PRINCETON “Stronger Together” was the first mural on Spring Street in July 2020. Its message was intended to uplift the Princeton community during the lockdowns.

Princeton students found first Fashion Institute of Princeton

By Annie Wang & Matthew Suh |

Princeton students sport a range of fashion styles on campus. Whether students are dressing up for eating club formals or just walking to lecture, fashion serves as a form of expression on campus. However, in the past, there hasn’t been a premier fashion organization with a voice on campus. Nadine Allache ’26 and Bahia Kazemipour ’26 are hoping to change this by forming the Fashion Institute of Princeton (FIOP). Established last spring, FIOP hopes to shift the way we consume fashion by becoming an outlet for exploration, design, and entrepreneurship.

Kazemipour is a prospective anthropology major and is receiving a entrepreneurship minor. To her, fashion means “how you express yourself, what you value, how you want to convey beauty, and how you want to transform norms.” She also says that college has allowed her to experiment with new styles. Her desire for uniqueness and creativity drove her and Allache to create FIOP. FIOP’s mission is to establish a platform for people to

be heard — they host events and provide students with the tools to embark on career paths not just in fashion, but also entrepreneurship in general.

FIOP has already begun to offer Princeton students opportunities in the fashion industry. This past summer, FIOP featured the brands Ella Rue and Mlance. While Ella Rue features colorful and playful styles that reflect spring and summer attire, Mlance’s pieces tend to have neutral tones and simple patterns. Both brands work to prompt slow fashion alongside FIOP. The stylistic distinction between Ella Rue and Mlance Design reflects FIOP’s creative inclusivity, as the organization hopes to appeal to various people while showcasing what the fashion industry has to offer.

FIOP also offers interactive experiences in the fashion industry, including networking opportunities and speaker events with notable figures. Kazemipour and Allache hosted the first Design For All Conference in NYC on Nov. 11, 2023. The conference featured students from Princeton, Parsons School of Design, and New York University. Guest speakers in business and fash -

ion, including Google product manager Taylor Laub and photographer Gregory Scaffidi, provided insight about their professions to students.

When asked about future plans for FIOP, Kazemipour said, “I know that a business is only defined by how people interact with it. Although Nadine and I have specific goals for the club, I am happy with the trajectory of FIOP if the student-members are getting something out of it.” Both founders of FIOP said they look forward to continuing the annual Design For All Conference in NYC and hope to host guest speaker events at Princeton.

Annie Wang is an assistant editor for The Prospect from West Virginia.

Matthew Suh is a contributing writer for The Prospect from Santa Barbara, Calif. He is a junior majoring in SPIA.

A slice of Princeton: The history of Conte’s Pizzeria

By Alistair Wright | Contributing Prospect Writer

Once students pass the illustrious FitzRandolph Gate and enter the suburbia of Princeton, N.J., they are greeted by a town full of food and shopping. For the past 86 years, the town has been partly defined by one historic establishment: Conte’s Pizza and Bar.

In 1936, Sebastiano Conte built a bar on Witherspoon Street. The business slowly expanded as he introduced sandwiches and food into the menu. By the late 1940s, Conte’s bar wasn’t able to

make ends meet, which inspired Sebastiano to try his next venture: selling pizza. With no pizza spots in town, locals were forced to travel long distances for a pie — a problem he wanted to fix.

Every Thursday, Sebastiano paid a baker from New York City to come down to Princeton and teach him how to make pizza. Although Mrs. Conte initially opposed as the family was struggling financially, Sebastiano insisted that it

would help the restaurant. In 1950, Conte’s officially sold its first pizza pie. Since then, Princeton residents have enjoyed pizza made using the exact same recipe that first inspired Sebastiano Conte. I had the privilege of speaking to Cynthia Lucullo Astrom, one of Sebastiano’s granddaughters and the third-generation owner of Conte’s Pizzeria. She has worked for the restaurant since her 13th birthday. Conte’s Pizzeria is almost entirely staffed by family and close friends of the extended Conte family.

When asked about how the pizza has shifted over time, Astrom said, “It’s all the same recipe…

my joke ends up being that the only thing that’s changed are the prices.” Speaking from my personal experience, that recipe still works wonders. I went to Conte’s for the second time in midSeptember and was once again impressed by the quality of their pizza. The crust is thin and crispy; the cheese is rich and flavorful; and the sauce brings it all together into a perfect bite. My personal advice is to get sausage on top, as their homemade mix is some of the best I’ve ever had.

Not only is the pizza recipe the same, but Conte’s has kept most of their original charm intact. The restaurant is situated in the same house where the business first opened and still has its original bar, iconic dark green sign, and white tables.

What’s even more impressive than Conte’s incredible pie is how ingrained the restaurant is in Princeton’s culture — not Princeton University, but rather, the town beyond. Many locals can be found there at least once a week, often in the same exact chairs with the same exact order. According to Astrom, roughly “80%-85% [of diners] every single night are regular customers.” It looks like Conte’s great reputation reaches beyond Princeton — families from all over New Jersey stop by to enjoy a slice. In fact, some regulars come from over 45 minutes away every week, according to Astrom. However, customers don’t just enjoy the food. Rather, they’ve also served to help make Conte’s the institution it is today. For years, they’ve supported and embraced the business. Everyone in town

knows and values the restaurant, a sentiment that its current staff are very thankful for. “We are forever grateful towards our customers,” Astrom said. “It’s been a very nice ride.”

Though Princeton has evolved over the years, Conte’s Pizzeria has remained a constant. Elena Bruno, Astrom’s sister and another longtime employee, has so much well-deserved pride in the restaurant’s legacy and success. When asked about what makes Conte’s special, she said, “I mean, people describe it as an institution because the food is consistent. There’s nothing that changes here. We’ve ordered from the same supplier for years, and people will wait. There are times that [the line is] out the door like crazy.”

Many Princeton students — possibly including you — have never been to Conte’s, but should try it immediately. A straight 15 minute walk from Nassau Hall, it is bustling with energy every night of the week. Although they don’t accept Paw Points, an average portion is around six dollars per person if you go as a group — an incredible deal for several slices of world-class pizza.

“I’m just happy my grandfather’s legacy continues,” Elena Bruno said. Sebastiano Conte would for sure be proud of his restaurant, as what started as a small handmade bar has come to define a town for almost a century. At this point, the two have become intertwined. The town of Princeton is not the same without Conte’s.

Alistair Wright is a contributing writer for The Prospect in the Class of 2027.

ANNIE WANG / THE DAILY PRINCETONIAN

Xaivian Lee has a P-set to do

most of his childhood.

By Julian Hartman-Sigall

Sports Contributor

Up twenty against rival Harvard and already flirting with a triple-double in front of NBA scouts, he was just having fun.

He caught a pass 26 feet from the hoop with five seconds left in the play clock. Two dribbles later, he picked the ball up in a swinging motion to avoid the strong-side help defender. With the shot clock at two, he lept, turning his back from the basket and throwing the ball up with his right arm fully extended. He was lying on the ground before his layup went in.

Few students were in attendance at Jadwin Gymnasium during the winter break game, but the stands were packed.

Two possessions later, he caught the ball on the right wing, gave a hard right jab that sent his defender three feet backwards, and threw up a shot, backpedaling before it went in.

A minute later, he dribbled the ball up the court, high stepping after he crossed halfcourt to disorient his defender. Without glancing at a teammate and with the entire shot clock to work with, he rocked into a stepback three that hit nothing but net.

The next trip down the floor, he waited as his teammates ran to the other side, ensuring he was isolated against his defender. Two crossovers later, he hopped backwards into a deep three that, again, touched nothing but net.

His teammates on the bench stood up with their jaws dropped and hands over their heads.

This is not normal Ivy League basketball.

Mercifully, Coach Mitch Henderson ’98 subbed him out before he could get off another shot.

***

Xaivian Lee ’26 grew up north of the border in Toronto, Canada. When he was five, he played basketball for the first time at a camp sponsored by famed Canadian player Steve Nash, where they used a small ball and miniature nets.

“I did not like basketball,” he said with a laugh. So, he played baseball, and it was his main sport through

As a 5’7” freshman on the  junior varsity basketball team, he hit his growth spurt late in the game. He began to focus on basketball, eventually transferring from the Crescent School in Toronto to the Perkiomen School in the distant suburbs of Pennsburg, Pa. ahead of his senior year. Despite playing for a competitive club team, Lee received little attention from recruiters, partially due to a high school career interrupted by Canada’s stringent COVID-19 measures.

“No one really knew about me just because being from Canada and COVID, so I just hadn’t played,” Lee said.

Princeton was his only Division I offer.

“In terms of the recruiting circuit, you have an Asian kid who’s 170 pounds. So, he gets judged differently in that little bubble,” Cordell Lewellyn, a Canadian former basketball player, told Sportsnet.com. “Sometimes when you get caught up in just who’s who and if you’re not sixfoot-seven, 210, 215 [pounds], if you’re not banging on people, dunking on people, sometimes you fly under the radar. And he flew under the radar.”

During his first year at Princeton, Lee’s profile remained low. Last year’s team was led by now NBA player Tosan Evbuomwan ’23 and Ryan Langborg ’23, who exploded during the team’s March Madness run and then transferred to Northwestern for his fifth year of eligibility.

On his very first play, the ‘Prince’ reported at the time that Lee “showed no signs of first-year jitters,” describing how he “caught the ball on the left wing, stared down his defender, and calmly knocked down a spot-up three-pointer with a hand in his face” in the Tigers’ narrow victory against the Northeastern Huskies at the 2022 London Basketball Classic Championship.

Despite his comfort on the court, Lee received little opportunity for playing time. Backing up Langborg, then a senior point guard, he averaged playing just over 13 minutes and fewer than five points per game on inefficient shooting. Fine for a freshman, but nowhere near the 30 minutes that fellow freshman Caden

Pierce ’26 spent on the court.

During the team’s March Madness run, which saw rotations tighten, Lee played nine minutes across the three games. He was only able to muster a single point.

When the team beat Yale in the finals of Ivy Madness to clinch a spot in March Madness, it was Lee’s birthday.

“I didn’t tell anyone it was my birthday because it was the biggest game of the year. So I need[ed] to lock in,” he said.

***

When I opened the door to Xaivian’s room in the attic of a dorm built over a century ago, I found him with his characteristically messy hair and a few friends sitting on his couch watching a YouTube video.

“You know that guy who made the documentary about Jared McCain,” he asked, referencing Duke’s star point guard known for his viral TikToks. I nodded along. “He’s coming here to make one about me.”

“Can we do this while walking?”

“Sure,” I said.

We walked down three flights of stairs to exit the building. I found a young man holding an expensive DSLR with a chunky lens waiting for us. Xaivian introduced us, and I learned that he was the founder of a media company, focused on AsianAmerican basketball players, who was visiting campus to make a video about Xaivian.

“What Xaivian is doing is historic,” the founder I heard him later say collecting his own interview tape.

After all, in the last few months he has become a TikTok sensation — with videos about him reaching hundreds of thousands of views. He is averaging 18 points a game. Among players used in at least 28 percent of possessions, his offensive rating of 120.6, ranks third in the country. And Princeton’s men’s basketball team, who lurched into the national spotlight with their Cinderella run to the Sweet Sixteen, refused to revert to obscurity. Instead, the team has remained relevant with a 9–0 start which earned them votes for the top 25 ranking — an unheard-of feat for a men’s team in the Ivy League. He has been the subject of Instagram posts by Bleacher Report and BallIsLife. He

was interviewed live on ESPN.

A Korean-Canadian studying at the number one school in the country becoming an NBA prospect is quite an underdog story.

“There’s not that many other people who look like me and play like me at this type of level,” Lee said. At any game this season, groups of small children, many of them Asian, can be seen trying to catch a pregame wave from him.

He’s earned the nickname Korean Fried Chicken because, according to one viral TikTok, “he’s an absolute bucket.” (He thinks it’s hilarious.) And he’s garnered comparisons to fellow Asian Ivy league hooper, Jeremy Lin, who achieved superherolike status during his stint with the Knicks.

I wondered aloud how much his life had changed since we met as freshmen on Community Action.

“My life was the exact same as it was a year ago,” he told me. “Everyone here is so focused on what they’re doing. Everyone thinks they are the best at something, so ... I don’t ever get noticed or anything.”

***

Lee spent the summer playing for the Canadian National U-19 team in Europe, eventually playing in the FIBA world cup. By the end of the summer, Lee was the team’s primary playmaker and highest scorer. But this was not what Lee had anticipated.

“My number one goal was just try and get on the team and get the gear and a jersey just because playing for your country is crazy,” Lee said. Another goal of his was to “travel to Europe.”

“I knew I should be on the team. But I didn’t think I was actually gonna make it just because it’s easier if you’ve already played with [Canadian Basketball].”

Beyond representing the true north on the national stage, Lee spent much of the summer at the gym, putting in the work to sharpen his game ahead of the upcoming season. Many of Lee’s peers had a sense that his time was about to come.

“All summer I’ve been in the weight room, so just trying to put on a bit more mass I think will help me,” Lee told the ‘Prince’ in an interview in September.

When I asked his backcourt partner, senior guard Matt Allocco recalled, “He was young and skinny but super quick, super shifty, and he was really tough to guard. I remember at first, I was like once this kid gets in the weight room for a little bit then he’s gonna be a problem.” ***

This year, despite losing three of their starters, including their two best players, the team had momentum to build from and a reserved place in the national psyche following their famed three-game March Madness run. It is in this environment that the team has taken off — during their 9–0 start, the team’s NET rating was eighth in the country — with Lee proving to be the unquestionable star of the Tigers’ squad, both on and off the court.

Lee was lucky to play 20 minutes in a game last season — now, he’s exceeded that time in every in-conference game. His points per game have skyrocketed from just 4.8 to 18. In just Ivy League play, Lee sits atop the conference, edging Brown Univer-

sity guard Kino Lilly Jr. by less than a point to average 19.6 points per game. Lee’s performance does not come as a surprise to his teammates.

“The people who knew him knew that he was going to make a big jump, you know, the people in the program knew it was only a matter of time and that happened pretty quick,” Allocco said. “Now, he’s obviously one of the best players in the country.”

And fans cannot get enough of him. Last year, one could waltz into Jadwin Gym and have their choice of seat. But this year, students are arriving early to stake their claims. The Feb. 10 game against Penn was the first sell out since 2002.

Much of the attention comes from people he has inspired.

“Anytime you can affect the next generation it’s really special and means something and you should not take that for granted and appreciate and receive that as a blessing,” Lee’s mother, Eun-Kyung Lee, said in an interview with ‘Prince.’ “It’s been incredible to see that.”

Other attention is from fans who have taken interest in his unique archetype. Lee, intentionally or not, certainly plays into the role that has earned him extra attention — a basketball star from a school more known for producing Nobel prize winners and Supreme Court justices than athletes.

During their March Madness run — far before he gained so much attention — Lee and a few fellow firstyears made a viral TikTok showing them doing calculus homework at the Sweet Sixteen hotel.

In a recent postgame interview that later went viral, he said, “A lot of guys were kind of tired. I personally felt terrible today. I had a bunch of homework. So when we get into the locker room, I play a little Fortnite and all the guys are buzzin’.”

(Yes, there was a console in the locker room.)

When I asked Lee if he was playing into the stereotype, he knew exactly what I meant.

He laughed. “It sounds like I was, [but] in the moment I really wasn’t trying to. I was really just answering the question like I actually had an econ P-set that night before that just fucking blew my shit. I was tired that day.”

Despite his star power, Xaivian Lee is still just a college student.

“The world doesn’t stop because we’re playing basketball, everyone has schoolwork. Obviously, on a regular day where you have a game, I’m gonna have to do some work,” he said. “I find when I do work before a game I’m not as stressed because I’m not thinking about the game.”

What he has enjoyed most about his newfound quasi-fame is the mixtapes — essentially, basketball’s genre of fan-edits.

“When I was younger, I used to always watch Sharife Cooper mixes, Tre Mann mixes, all those things. No one would ever film us play. The one [thing] that made me realize that I’m starting to make it in terms of that was when there’d be so many people come to film my games, to post videos and stuff,” he told me.

“I’m not fazed by it anymore at all. But if younger me saw that, he’d be like, damn.”

Julian Hartman-Sigall is a Sports contributor and an associate News editor for the ‘Prince.’

FENCING | APRIL 2024

‘It’s ’bout

time’: Princeton fencing shines in the NCAA and beyond

By Ava Seigel Assistant Sports Editor

With an NCAA Champion, an NCAA Semifinalist, six All-Americans, and two Olympic qualifiers, Princeton fencing has proven why it is a top-ten fencing program in the country this year.

With the conclusion of their collegiate season at the NCAA Championships in Columbus, Ohio, at the end of March, the Princeton men’s and women’s fencing programs closed the books on one of their best performances in recent history.

NCAA Regional Dominance

Success for the Tigers built throughout the season, beginning with a commanding performance at NCAA regionals earlier in the year.

Collegiate fencing is distinct in that the athletes — who are split by weapons (épée, foil, saber) and gender — compete individually as well as towards overall team performance scores. Each ‘bout’ fenced accrues points that contribute to that individual fencer’s percentage victory, which is also pooled towards the combined team standings.

Princeton took home three of the six possible NCAA Mid-Atlantic/South Regional titles, with Junior épée Jessica Lin and Senior saber Ryan Jenkins topping the podium along with Senior épée Tristan Szapary.

“We had a pretty strong performance as a team [at regionals] heading into NCAAs, so it was a huge boost for our

confidence as a whole knowing we were feeling ready to go and put up a fight,” Jenkins noted to the ‘Prince.’

Beyond team confidence, regionals are a key factor in NCAA Championship qualifications, as regional scores count for 60 percent of a fencer’s resume with the selection committee, with their regular season performance accounts for the other 40 percent.

NCAA Championship Triumphs

With the weight of their regional success, Princeton Fencing had 11 of 12 maximum possible fencers selected for bids by the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Fencing Committee for Championship competition. This means the Tigers had a large cheering force on the strip and 11 fencers contributing towards the team’s overall points.

“The support is huge... in the finals each team has all of their qualifiers supporting and you can hear them on the strip, Szapary remarked.

Szapary said that strong support from the Tiger sideline translated to results, running the table to win Princeton’s only NCAA individual championship of the season.

Last year, in his first Championship appearance, Szapary finished in 10th place at the tournament. Now, he closes out his Tiger career as only the ninth Princeton men’s fencer to win an NCAA individual championship. Szapary is the first to achieve this feat since Jonathan Yergler ‘13 in 2012.

The winning run began in the roundrobin portion of the competition, where each qualifier fences short 5-touch bouts against 23 competitors hoping to clinch a spot in the final four, fencing off in longer 15-touch bouts for the title.

“This is my second NCAAs, the first one was last year and that’s what I learned that it’s a mental battle since it’s so different from other competitions,” Szapary told the ‘Prince.’

After narrowly securing his spot in the top four, Szapary went on to defeat topseeded Henry Lawson of Harvard 15–9 in the semifinal, who had won 17 of 23 bouts prior to the weekend’s contests.

“I was actually down after the first period by 3 touches,” Szapary noted. “But I wasn’t thinking about it, I was just focused on the fencing so I was able to come back and beat him pretty handedly” he continued.

In the finals, Szapary secured his title in a close 15–14 bout victory over Notre Dame’s Jonathan Hamilton-Meikle. Szapary trailed only at the very start of the championship bout. After that, he built up his lead throughout the match, eventually reaching a 7–0 margin. Following a double touch at 14–13, Szapary secured his 15 points — and with it, the national championship berth.

“This was the best way to go as a senior,” Szapary remarked. “It reflected three plus years of hard work and trying to build a team culture that could win.”

Ryan Jenkins, Szapary’s fellow regional champ, also had the best run of her Tiger

career at the NCAA championships making it into the semifinals.

Heading into the final four competition against St. John’s Julia Cieslar, Jenkins had won 18 of her 23 pool bouts. Unfortunately, Cieslar advanced to the finals over Jenkins 15–9, but this still marked the best finish of her three NCAA Championship appearances.

“I could not have imagined a better outcome,” Jenkins expressed. “I was hoping for a top four finish, but didn’t know if it was in the cards because everyone there is so strong.”

The performances of Szapary and Jenkins, along with the nine other Tiger qualifiers, culminated in Princeton’s fourth-place team finish with 131 total wins. Despite being one spot off the trophy stage, the Tigers walked away from the weekend with six All-American honors and exciting momentum heading into next season.

Olympic qualifiers

Beyond NCAA dominance, first-year saber Tatiana Nazlymov and sophomore épée Hadley Husisian both have qualified for the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris in both the individual and women’s team events, proving the squad’s weight beyond the NCAA to represent the United States on the global stage.

“They are the most hardworking people and incredible athletes, it’s so well deserved,” Jenkins remarked on Nazlymov and Husisian’s qualifications. Following months of qualification

competitions and acquiring points, both Nazlymov and Husisian managed to gain enough points to secure their places.

“We try to build a culture of excellence, a culture of almost near professionalism, and that gets validated when we have multiple of our competitors qualify for the Olympics and not just do well on the collegiate circuit,” Szapary explained.

Husisian is currently on a gap-year from Princeton, fully dedicating her time to preparing for Paris this summer.

Olympic competition is structured differently from NCAAs, where individually the first fencer to reach 15 points or have the highest number of points after three three-minute rounds wins the match. For the team section, the first team to score 45 points or lead the score when the allotted time ends wins the match.

Though success on the international stage is nothing new for Nazlymov and Husisian, the former No. 11 world junior women’s saber and No. 1 world junior women’s épée fencers respectively, their biggest challenges yet will undoubtedly come in Paris this summer.

“I think it really is a testament to not only the resiliency of the team but also the individual strengths of our team members,” Junior épée Ryan Lee said on the pair’s upcoming Olympic debuts.

“It’s great to show everyone [that] Princeton Fencing remains one of the best in the nation.”

Ava Seigel is an assistant Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

Princeton Electric Speedboating shatters world record for fastest electric-powered boat

By Peter Wang Sports Contributor

It was a historic moment when Princeton Electric Speedboating (PES) team’s boat, “Big Bird,” reached a blistering speed of 114.2 miles per hour, shattering the world record for the fastest electricpowered boat.

Princeton’s attempt on Oct. 26 surpassed the previous mark of 88.61 mph set by Jaguar Vector Racing — a professional racing group — in 2018. The record-breaking run occurred on Lake Townsend near Greensboro, North Carolina at an American Power Boat Association (APBA) sanctioned course. For an APBA-sanctioned record, a boat must complete one kilometer in one direction, then, after a short break, complete the same kilometer in the opposite direction. The official speed recorded is the average speed of the two runs.

Piloted by professional hydroplane driver John Peeters, Big Bird clocked a speed of 111.08 mph on the first pass and 117.50 mph on the second run, averaging 114.20 mph, well over the previous world record. The run also topped an unofficial single-point speed record set by Vision Marine in August with a top speed of 116 mph.

The PES team is composed of over 40 undergraduate and graduate students, many of whom skipped class to prepare for and witness the event. Going into the day, the team felt confident in the boat’s record-breaking abilities.

“The previous day [of testing] had gone really well for us,” said Andrew Robbins ’25, CEO of PES, in an interview with the Daily Princetonian. “We were looking to break the Jaguar record right out the gate. In the first run, we wanted to go down, put out

a pretty quick pass, and have everything go well.”

Robbins, a junior studying Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, serves as both president and CEO of the team, and is responsible for managing day-to-day operations for this project.

“We weren’t necessarily anticipating breaking [Vision Marine’s] unofficial record right off the bat,” stated Robbins. “It happened that the boat ran a little bit faster than expected, so we took both records in one go, which was awesome.”

“Faster than expected” turned out to be faster than any electric speedboat in history, and the team of students and supporters watching from the shore cheered in delight as they witnessed the culmination of their hard work. The team sought to break 120 mph on their following attempt,  which then ended prematurely after the boat’s propeller shaft broke at the onset of the attempt. Nonetheless, PES finished the day as official world record holders and is eagerly looking forward to reaching even higher velocities in the future.

The team first started working on Big Bird in February, 2022. The engineering process consumed the next 20 months, as PES partnered with Black Sheep Racing, Flux Marine, and multiple other organizations to gather the necessary components for the boat. Robbins described the engineering process as a combination of known and unknown quantities.

“We [took] a couple [of] known quantities and put the best of each individual sector together. So in this case, we started with an existing Pro-Outboard hydroplane,” explained Robbins.

The hydroplane in question was a 14foot, bright yellow gas boat with a blue stripe down the middle — hence the name

Big Bird — built in 1993 by Ed Carlson, one of the most well-respected and renowned hydroplane builders in history. The storied hull was a “known quantity” for the team, as it had already set numerous gas records in the past.

The team’s engineers then worked with Flux Marine — a sustainable boating company based in Rhode Island — to develop an electric power train specifically tailored for the boat.

The biggest engineering challenge was the question of keeping the boat’s weight low. “One of the big drawbacks of electric vehicles, particularly electric boats, is that the battery pack required to make them run for long duration is very heavy. And so in this case, our battery pack was about 330 pounds, and the boat weight was only about 975 pounds with the driver,” said Robbins. “Keeping [the weight] low and making sure that we’re able to get high discharge was probably our toughest feat, but [we had] a good team behind it.”

The team worked tirelessly throughout the year to put the boat together. Robbins credited J.W. Myers, owner of Black Sheep Racing, for being a great help throughout the entire process.

“We got in touch with J.W. through a friend of his, Mike Schmidt, who initially reached out to potentially use his boat, and he had put us in contact with J.W. thinking that, you know, he might have a boat for us,” stated Robbins.

Myers also played a large role in securing John Peeters, a personal friend with whom he had worked for over a decade, as the boat’s driver.

“[Myers and Peeters] are a phenomenal team,” affirmed Robbins. “For us it was an honor and a pleasure to work with them, and they were just happy to be part of the

project . . . They were a huge component [of the project]. Without them, it wouldn’t have been possible.”

Peeters is the second-highest decorated boat racer in the world, with 61 records to his name. In another interview, Peeters stated, “I’m so lucky to be a part of this and to share in these accomplishments. This was a group effort, and that was so neat to me. They had a picture of a kid pumping his fist in pure joy, and you don’t get that every time. To capture it live was really special to see.”

With the record already under their belt, the Electric Speedboating team looks to the future to reach even higher speeds. The next goal? Not just breaking 120 miles per hour, or even 130. To Robbins, it’s 149.

“The next step is to go much faster,” Robbins told the ‘Prince.’ “We’ve got a custom hull that’s being built by Black Sheep Racing. J.W. [Myers] is heading that construction, and then we’ve got a custom battery pack being built by Daneco Ltd. out of the UK, and that should increase our power by about 75%. The mark is to be in the high 140s. 149 is the goal.”

The number 149 is significant, as the APBA requires more stringent safety requirements at speeds exceeding 150 mph. While this may sound outlandish, Robbins believes the team has the resources and capability to pull it off.

As they work on engineering a newer and faster powerboat, the team is also preparing for other upcoming competitions. Their next confirmed event, the Promoting Electric Propulsion Race, is a five-mile race between different colleges that will occur from April 15-16, 2024.

“We’re really excited for that race,” said Robbins. “[Last year] we finished about three times faster than anybody else on

the course, and we hope to extend that lead significantly this year. Hopefully, we’ll be raising the bar on the electric water speed record sometime following that.”

PES’ commitment to electricity and sustainability is also of note, especially in such a gas-dominated boating industry. The club has been electric since its inception in order to participate in numerous college competitions, including the aforementioned Promoting Electric Propulsion Race. Being electric also has other benefits for the club, according to Robbins.

“We have found great success in the electric industry and it looks to be growing rapidly, so we are happy to be in the heart of it,” he wrote to the ‘Prince.’ “Being all-electric has helped us get more donors. One of the goals of the team is to promote sustainability within the marine industry and work to improve our waterways while going fast and having fun. This goal is generally well regarded with potential team donors and partners.”

Though committing to fully electric boats has come with its fair share of challenges, the team has proved that they belong among the elite.

“When we started [this project], a lot of people said, ‘there’s no way you’re gonna beat that record, look at your competition’” Robbins said. “To be on the same level as Vision Marine is an honor and something that, if you think you can make it happen, you go for it. When we started this project, we told ourselves, well, we might try and fail . . . but it’s definitely worth going for.” With a team of students like Princeton Electric Speedboating, anything is possible, even a world record.

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

RECRUITMENT | DECEMBER 2023

Demystifying athletic recruitment at Princeton

By Hayk Yengibaryan& Diego Uribe

Associate Sports Editor & Head Sports Editor

Comprising 18 percent of Princeton’s undergraduate student body, athletes play a significant role in Princeton’s campus culture, making athletic recruitment a significant part of Princeton’s offers of admission. Recruitment, however, is much less understood than traditional pathways to admissions.

In the wake of the overturning of affirmative action earlier this year, schools have been considering major changes to their admissions process. As these schools tackle these shifts, some have taken aim at Ivy League athletics as one such institution in need of reform.

Through conversations with athletes and a recruiting coach, The Daily Princetonian analyzed athletic recruitment and the competition for roster spots, highlighting the role of the school and team in attracting athletes, as well as the impact of changes to rules in recent years.

How athletes choose Princeton Student-athletes considering Princeton might have a variety of options while Princeton also has a number of student-athletes to assess, so the school and the athlete have to make their case to the other party simultaneously.

Men’s and women’s basketball Ivy League Rookies of the Year Caden Pierce and Madison St. Rose shared their recruitment stories with the ‘Prince.’ Pierce started every game for the Tigers while he was a firstyear in the 2022 season, the year the team headed to the NCAA March Madness Sweet Sixteen round for the first time since 1967. Similarly, St. Rose made 21 starts and helped the Tigers reach the second round of the NCAA tournament.

The recruitment timeline typically begins with first contact sometime after June 15 of the summer before the recruit’s junior year in high school, with a heightened focus during the spring and summer Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) season, according to men’s basketball associate head coach and recruiting coordinator Brett MacConnell.

Pierce, now a sophomore forward, was eligible to talk to coaches on June 15, 2021. According to Pierce, he wanted to put himself on the radar of the coaching staff early, so he sent material on his high school performance to Princeton coaches.

MacConnell closely followed Pierce and his club team as they won the Under Armour Association (UAA) national championship the summer before Pierce’s senior year. In the offseason, MacConnell’s responsibilities extend beyond the basketball court. He travels across the country to watch high school tournaments, practices, and AAU events, aiming to meet potential recruits and their families.

“That’s about as important as anything we do is getting the right guys in the program,” MacConnell told the ‘Prince.’

Pierce had a number of options as he entered his senior year of high school. Other schools recruit-

ing him included Loyola University Maryland, the University of St. Thomas, as well as other Ivy League schools. Pierce leaned towards Princeton and committed in October of his senior year.

“Obviously, you can’t beat the academics, and the basketball program was the best of any school I was looking at, so I was like, this is a pretty clear choice,” Pierce told the ‘Prince.’

St. Rose, now a sophomore guard, was also compelled by both Princeton’s academic traditions and its storied basketball program.

“It was the academics and athletics that Princeton provided … they have that winning mindset, and I love winning, so who wouldn’t want to join a winning team,” she told the ‘Prince.’

During her sophomore year of high school, St. Rose’s trainer introduced her to Princeton. As a four-star recruit and ranked 46 in her class, St. Rose received interest from a number of schools, including the University of Michigan, her second choice.

St. Rose committed in October of her junior year, earlier than the other Tiger basketball recruits. St. Rose’s high school team, like the Princeton women’s basketball team, has an all-female coaching staff.

“I was really comfortable with that,” St. Rose said about the Tigers, led by Head Coach Carla Berube.

For St. Rose, she also felt as though Berube’s “get stops” motto and defensive focus reflected the brand of basketball that she played in high school.

“It felt like I had the same coach from high school to college,” St. Rose said.

Though she committed to Princeton early on, St. Rose still had to earn her place in the Class of 2026 through admissions. Once committed, the coaching staff advised St. Rose on her academics. “They really made sure that I was taking the right classes and enabling myself to get into the school,” St. Rose said.

Other recruits also commented on the athletic program’s support in getting admitted. Junior attack for men’s lacrosse Braedon Saris committed to Princeton during his first unofficial visit to campus in October of his junior year. After committing, Saris recalled that he and the rest of his recruiting class would meet regularly with the coaching staff over Zoom.

According to Saris, the coaches made sure that Saris and his future classmates were on the right track with their high school credits to be accepted into Princeton and that they were on top of their Princeton applications.

For recruited athletes at Ivy League schools, students are required to achieve a minimum score on the Academic Index (AI) — a measure combining GPA and standardized test scores — to be considered for academic admission. In addition to the AI score, coaches have the opportunity to provide the admissions office with supplemental materials, including written documentation of students’ athletic achievements and character.

Unlike some other schools, Princeton coaches rank their recruited athletes and write state-

ments about their personal qualities, according to an interview then-Dean of Admissions Janet Rapelye did with Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW) in 2012. Rankings differ by individual and by sport. As demonstrated by coaches’ investment in their recruits’ academics, academics are an important part of the recruiting process. For senior rower Kalena Blake, she sent regular updates to her coach.

Blake is a managing editor for the ‘Prince’.

“I communicated with coaches every time I had an update to provide,” Blake added. “For example, when I received my quarter grades, and SAT scores … I communicated that all via email and phone calls.”

The school pitches the athlete For Princeton and other schools, the case they make to potential student-athletes is also an important part of the recruitment process.

For Blake, it was the confidence she gained throughout the recruitment process that pushed her to invest in rowing as she finished high school.

“It was March of my junior spring, and my dad and I went up to Cornell. The coach gave us a tour of the boathouse and sat down with us for about an hour,” Blake wrote to the ‘Prince.’

“My erg score [a standard measure of rowing potential] was not that fast at the time, and I remember being surprised that the coach was so interested in selling the school to me and [I was] thinking ‘Yeah, okay, maybe I can do this.’ It was that spring that my erg score got significantly faster and I picked up medals at big regattas, and I really attribute that in part to these coaches seeing potential in me,” Blake recalled.

According to Blake, her visit to Princeton in September of her senior year of high school sold her on the University.

“There were about 5 other rowers on my visit, two of whom row with me now and are two of my closest friends. I immediately connected with the other athletes on the team and fell in love with the school,” she wrote.

According to MacConnell, official visits play a pivotal role in getting to know potential recruits on a deeper level. MacConnell stresses that these visits go beyond showcasing athletic facilities and fancy buildings. Rather, they provide a genuine insight into the life of a Princeton student-athlete.

“Some programs, they want to send you to New York City; for us, we want it to feel like what a weekend when you’re in college is going to be like; we want you to know exactly what you’re getting yourself into,” MacConnell told the ‘Prince’.

“What you see is what you get: go to practice, play with the guys, hang out with them, go eat with them, go to a class. We’re not trying to trick anybody, we’re not trying to do things we wouldn’t do otherwise … we want kids that want all the things that Princeton’s about, and I think that’s the best way to do it,” he added.

Both the academic and athletic aspects of the Princeton curriculum were persuasive to Blake.

“I felt like everyone on the team

was high-achieving both in the classroom and at the boathouse,” she wrote. “I felt like Princeton had the most cohesive boathouse. I think looking back, all those initial judgments I made turned out to be correct.

Similarly to Blake, Pierce was pitched by Princeton coaches on the academic excellence of the university. However, the coaching staff also made sure to highlight the success of the program to Pierce.

“They do have a lot to pitch in terms of the basketball program as well,” Pierce said.

Until his official visit, Pierce said he was not aware of Princeton basketball’s storied history and the cultural renaissance enacted by the late coach Pete Carril, but he quickly learned the unique culture of Princeton basketball.

During a film review with the coaching staff, the coaches showed Pierce clips of his high school highlights alongside clips of similar Princeton players, demonstrating how they envisioned Pierce’s role on the team. According to Pierce, none of the other schools recruiting him did this.

“When they did that, I kind of realized, like, okay they have a goal for me, they have a plan for me, and they really take pride in player development.” he told the ‘Prince.’ “That’s one thing I learned with coach [Mitch] Henderson immediately … and it’s something I wanted to be a part of.”

MacConnell emphasizes the significance of evaluating not just basketball skills but the intangibles as well. As a result, pitching Princeton’s unique environment becomes a central part of the recruiting process.

“We talk a lot about what’s important to us, what makes our culture our culture, the unselfishness, the playing together, the being a hard worker, the grittiness, all of those things that are really important to us,” MacConnell told the ‘Prince.’

“So what that does is it ends up filtering out the wrong guys; if the things that we’re talking about that we think make our culture so special aren’t resonating with you, it’s a good way of filtering out the guys that aren’t a fit,” he added.

Changes to the process in recent years

According to an NCAA rule adopted in 2019, Division I college coaches are now prohibited from contacting potential recruits before the end of their sophomore year of high school. According to first-year forward Ani Kozak on the women’s ice hockey team, before the change, Princeton and other schools were recruiting athletes even younger.

The class that graduated high school in 2023 “was the first class [in which] the majority of athletes were affected by the change in recruitment rules,” Kozak wrote to the ‘Prince.’

“Most of my teammates and a couple of my classmates were recruited by/committed to Princeton while still in middle school,” she added. The ‘Prince’ did not independently verify the recruiting timeline on the women’s ice hockey team.

For Kozak, who grew up play-

ing competitive ice hockey, rules changes and the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on recruiting, as contacting college coaches grew even more difficult.

“Recruitment became much more selective as a result of the fifth-year option and [as] some of the prime opportunities for exposure (tournaments, camps, etc.) were canceled,” Kozak wrote.

The “fifth-year option” grants an extra year of eligibility to athletes who had their collegiate seasons canceled because of the pandemic, providing them the opportunity to play out a full four-year college career.

With this option available, college teams — including Princeton — had fewer roster spots to offer new recruits. As a result, athletes in the high school classes of 2021, 2022, and 2023 were competing for fewer D1 roster spots than they would have had just a couple of years prior.

Kozak credited part of her success with making it onto the team on her connection with women’s ice hockey head coach Cara Morey, who had coached Kozak’s club hockey team since she was 13 years old.

“I already had a pre-established relationship with [Morey],” Kozak wrote. “Once the recruitment process began, I attended events where Cara’s assistant coaches were recruiting, and based on my performance, Princeton’s recruitment became more serious.”

Recruiting officials have felt the impact of the pandemic as well. During the pandemic, MacConnell said he had to rely on Zooms and phone calls to get to know his recruits, since campus was closed to visitors. “Meeting in person and getting to know people in person is totally different,” said MacConnell about the return to in-person visits and their importance. “And we think [they are] way more thorough and just a better way to get a feel for everything,” he added.

While many aspects of Princeton’s athletic admissions match the process at other schools, one aspect that distinguishes Princeton athletics from other schools is how Princeton rarely accepts transfers from other schools. As a result, their athletes can build lifelong bonds with their class, growing and developing with them.

“Guys know that when they come here, they’re gonna stay, they’re gonna be developed, there’s not a transfer that’s gonna come take a spot on the depth chart that they didn’t see coming. What you see is what you get with our roster,” MacConnell said.

“You want to come in with a recruiting class, and those are your best friends for the next four years, and they’re your teammates who you share a special bond with. You’re not getting that at most of these schools anymore because guys are coming in and out so much, and I think it’s a really special thing about us,” he added.

Hayk Yengibaryan is an associate editor for the Sports section at the ‘Prince.’

Diego Uribe is a head editor for the Sports section at the ‘Prince.

Sophomore star Pietra Tordin shines on the international stage

By Lily Pamplina Sports Contributor

In her first appearance for the U-20 United States women’s national soccer team, Pietra Tordin subbed in for the second half of the game. Weaving through the box past three defenders, she struck a shot into the far left corner of the net, securing the team’s only goal in a 1–0 win over Colombia. This was not her first taste of success on the international stage, nor was it the first national team jersey she has donned.

Tordin’s parents are native to Brazil — the soccer capital of the world — making her eligible to compete for the Brazilian national side as well as that of the United States, though she will soon have to pick one.

The sophomore midfielder for Princeton women’s soccer has spent recent months attending international training camps for both the Brazilian and American U-20 national teams, and her presence has been nothing short of commanding.

Tordin began her time with the Brazilian national team in late 2023.

“We have a really good dynamic [on the Brazilian team], and I’m friends with all of them,” Tordin said. “I feel like they play a calm game, and they’re very creative offensively, which I like.”

In a December 2023 friendly match, Tordin scored the tying goal for Brazil against France. Soon after, in January 2024, she was called up to the United States’ camp.

“The U.S. started to show some interest in me, and that was really cool,” she said. “I knew the U.S. played an intense game, … [and] I felt like I could learn a lot.”

Despite her time with the Brazil-

ian national team, Tordin always aspired to play for the American squad.

“My family is Brazilian,” she explained, “so I never really know what I identify as, but I guess growing up in America, it was always kind of my dream to play for the U.S., so I think I’ll stick with them for now.”

Tordin hopes to suit up for the USWNT at the U-20 World Cup that is set to take place in Colombia this August. Rosters will be finalized for the team in May.

After a sophomore campaign that saw Tordin earn All-American honors and numerous Ivy League awards, the aforementioned training camp invites began rolling in — though her soccer journey began long before she set foot on Princeton’s campus.

She has dabbled in other pastimes, but for Tordin, it has always been soccer.

“I played basketball and flag football growing up,” she said. “And it was fun, but soccer always stuck. There was always soccer,” though the game looked a little different back then.

“I grew up in Miami, Fla., and growing up there, there weren’t any female club teams I could play for. So, I ended up playing with boys until I was 13,” she said smiling. “After I turned 14, I couldn’t keep up with the boys anymore, so I went to play for a girl’s team about 40 minutes away.”

Tordin played for this club until she was 16. After that, she made a big decision.

“I decided to quit for a year,” Tordin revealed. “I quit my sophomore year of high school and took the year fully off.”

Tordin recalls feeling burnt out from the sport, believing that tak-

ing a break was the right move to recharge and rekindle her love for the sport.

“I never wanted soccer to get past the point of competitiveness and into rudeness,” she explained, emphasizing the important role of respect in fostering positive team dynamics.

Tordin’s family was extremely supportive of her decision. “They always told me to do what makes me happy,” she said. “They’ve always had my back.”

After her break, Tordin returned to the game with a positive mindset. She joined her high school team during her junior year of high school, finding the environment more welcoming and collaborative.

“The players led the team; it taught me a lot about soccer being a community,” she said.

It was around this time that she decided to pursue playing soccer in college.

“I was like, if college is anything like playing in high school, I’ll probably love it,” she said. “Soccer is so much better when I’m playing with my friends.”

As Tordin flirted with the idea of playing at the collegiate level, she began getting recruited by Princeton.

“I really liked the campus and the overall vibe. I also just really bonded with the coaches, so I decided to commit, and here I am,” she said laughing.

This fall, Tordin will enter her junior year at Princeton. She has racked up a number of impressive accolades during her time at Princeton. In her first two seasons as a Tiger, Tordin joined one of only five players in history to score 20 goals in both their rookie and sophomore seasons. In her debut season, Tordin earned the Ivy League Rookie of

the Year award. Tordin also earned All-American honors in the 2023 season, alongside senior defender and captain Madison Curry.

Reflecting on her favorite experiences of the past season, Tordin said her favorite on-field moment was her goal against Georgetown in September. This header off of a cross from teammate Drew Coomans proved to be a game winner, ending the match 3–2 in favor of the Tigers.

Additionally, in another September game, Tordin put up all of the team’s goals in a 4–0 win over Army West Point. This performance earned her Ivy League Player of the Week, an accolade she would win three times during the 2023 season.

When asked about her transitioning role to an upperclass student on the team, Tordin admitted that she has always been on the quieter side.

“I’ve never really seen myself as a leader if I’m being completely honest,” she said. “I can see myself slowly becoming more vocal, because I’m so close with all of my teammates, but I don’t think that I’m the one leading, just lending a helping hand if my teammates need it.”

Vocal or not, Tordin does not let it affect her gameplay. She is a versatile field player, able to play in both the midfield and the offensive third.

“Coming into Princeton, I kind of knew my place as a [first-year], I wasn’t about to come in here and steal a position,” she said jokingly. She explained that she was used to being a forward, but was willing to learn new roles.

“This year, I played out wide, so that was interesting because I had never played out wide before. I was definitely adjusting to what the

coaches needed from me and how they wanted me to play that position,” Tordin explained. She finished the season with 12 in-conference goals, the secondhighest total in the Ivy League.

Princeton ended their 2023 season in a nail-biting loss to Texas Tech University in the second round of the NCAA tournament. Regular time proved to be scoreless, but the Tigers fell to the Red Raiders in penalty kicks, 4–3.

At a school as academically rigorous as Princeton though, performance on the field is only one of a number of responsibilities student-athletes have a lot on their plate. Luckily, Tordin says she has been able to manage her workload well.

“Coming into Princeton, I adjusted pretty quickly,” she recalled. “I try to time manage and usually that works well.” Tordin plans to major in Economics.

She admitted, however, that with her national team call-ups, the past two semesters have been more difficult to tackle.

“Last semester, I missed like four weeks, which is a lot,” Tordin said. “I had to catch up a lot by myself, there was no way around it. Usually, I was staying up pretty late.”

Yet, Tordin says that this workload did not affect her gameplay.

“I try not to focus on school when I’m away. I try to give my full attention to soccer, for sure,” she explained.

When she is on campus, Tordin says a typical day can vary in intensity, but she and the team usually start very early in the morning — though Tordin doesn’t consider herself a morning person.

“Today, I woke up at 6 a.m. for a lift with the team. Lift starts at 6:40 a.m. and we are usually out around 8-ish,” she said. “The team is definitely more excited than me in the morning. I show up halfasleep, but once we start the lift, I’m back to normal,” she joked.

On a typical day, Tordin says she usually has two or three classes and practices in the afternoon for about two and a half hours. After class, the team will usually grab dinner together. She finishes the night by doing work.

Tordin says that she feels lucky to be surrounded by such a great group of teammates.

“I’m close with all of them, we make jokes with each other and make fun of each other, but when it comes down to playing soccer, they always give me good feedback and stuff, so there’s a lot of respect.” She says that there is a strong dynamic on and off the field — much like the one that brought her back to the sport after a year off in high school.

So, what does the future hold for the young superstar? She plans to graduate from Princeton and pursue a professional soccer career.

“Honestly, I don’t see myself doing anything other than soccer for a long time,” she said smiling, well on her way to realizing her aspirations.

Lily Pampolina is a Sports contributor and contributing Audience creator for the ‘Prince.’

The NBA’s only Ivy Leaguer: Tosan Evbuomwan ’23

By Diego Uribe Head Sports Editor

More than five years ago, 100 Division I schools received an email from Tosan Evbuomwan ’23’s club basketball coach, containing his academic record, basketball statistics, measurements, and a highlight tape.

Princeton was the only program to respond.

Associate Head Coach and Recruiting Coordinator for Princeton men’s basketball Brett MacConnell flew out to see Evbuomwan play three hours north of London at Charnwood College, a secondary school in Leicestershire, England.

“The gym has, like, every line, handball, netball, volleyball — it’s a gym with one row of bleachers that fit 15 people in it,” MacConnell said.

“His team got killed,” he said of that fateful game in Leicestershire. “I think they were down like 55 to 14 at halftime … and he didn’t play great.”

After the game, Evbuomwan didn’t expect to hear more from the Tigers, but MacConnell then asked him to fly out to Princeton for an official visit. He agreed.

Three seasons with the Tigers, 1,000 career points, 300 career assists, an Ivy League Player of the Year award, and a trip to the Sweet Sixteen later, and he’s the only Ivy Leaguer currently signed to an NBA roster.

On Feb. 2, he checked into the game late in the first quarter for the Memphis Grizzlies against the Golden State Warriors for his first NBA minutes.

Soon after, he recorded his first points in the league — a corner three to beat the halftime buzzer and cut the Grizzlies’ deficit to just 10.

There were 17,794 fans in attendance.

He didn’t even crack a smile.

Playing in the most competitive basketball league in the world would be a dream come true for most young boys, but for a teenage Evbuomwan, he could not care less about sports popular across the pond.

Evbuomwan didn’t start taking basketball seriously until he was 16. Instead, he was preoccupied with Newcastle’s more well-known sports — rugby, soccer, cricket, and more.

But the Brit now finds himself all-in on hoops, and it’s paying dividends.

After going undrafted in the 2023 NBA draft, Evbuomwan was quickly picked up by the Detroit Pistons, for whom he featured during the 2023 NBA Summer League.

After his Summer League performance, Evbuomwan signed with the Motor City Cruise — the Pistons’ GLeague affiliate — where he shined in 13 regular season games. Evbuomwan averaged 15.6 points per game, 8.9 rebounds, and three assists, while starting in every contest with the Cruise.

As a result of his strong start, Evbuomwan was signed to a 10-day contract with the Memphis Grizzlies. Across four games for the Grizzlies in that stretch, Evbuomwan averaged 18.5 minutes per game. He totaled 11 points, six assists, 14 rebounds, and connected on two three-pointers across all four games.

Though Evbuomwan tends to look unbothered and unimpressed while on the court, he too gets starstruck.

“I’d love to say it’s been all business, but there have definitely been

some moments,” he said in an interview with The Daily Princetonian. “Just being on the floor with KD (Kevin Durant) I used to watch him a lot … being able to match up with him and, you know, share some words on the court. That was definitely a really cool moment for me.”

The highlight of Evbuomwan’s brief stint with the Grizzlies was his performance against the Boston Celtics — who currently boast the NBA’s best record.

In the loss to the Celtics, Evbuomwan finished with a game-high 12 rebounds, silencing any doubt as to whether or not the 6-foot-8-inch forward could hold his own in an NBA paint.

Though Evbuomwan had hoped to stick with the Grizzlies, after his 10-day was up, he received a call from the Detroit Pistons who offered him his second 10-day contract, which he quickly signed.

It only took two games for the team to choose to make Evbuomwan an official part of their 18-man roster by offering him a two-way deal that will keep him in Detroit through the end of the 2024–2025 season.

“I’m glad, obviously, to be sticking around and to have found something of a home here in Detroit this early in my career,” he said.

It’s a two-year deal, a guaranteed home, and some guaranteed money. This is what Evbuomwan has been working toward since arriving at Princeton University in the fall of 2019 — though he ended up a world away from his humble days on the pitch in North East England.

Though his sights are set on putting together a long NBA career — the average of which is only four and a half years — Evbuomwan will not soon forget his time spent at Princeton, nor will those he met along the way.

“All my skills developed when I was at Princeton,” he said. “Attention to detail, being able to work diligently and build, things like that which Coach [Mitch] Henderson really pounds home every day in practice … Definitely, [these are] all things which I’ve carried through my early professional career.”

But perhaps more important to Evbuomwan are the connections he made off the court.

He said he’s watched all but two of the Tigers’ games this season. While away from the Pistons during the allstar break, he came back to campus to watch his buddies take down Yale — a favorite activity of Evbuomwan while he was at Princeton.

“He came to a practice, and we all got to spend time with him for a couple days,” MacConnell said about Evbuomwan’s visit before pausing for a few seconds, smiling to himself.

“And just, we love the freakin’ guy, we just love him. I mean, he is so awesome to be around,” he continued with a laugh.

When Evbuomwan played in his second-ever NBA game against the New York Knicks in Madison Square Garden, coaches made sure to end the Tigers’ practice early to get the whole team to the game.

“Princeton basketball really is a big family,” Evbuomwan said. “It means a lot to every single one of us and it will for the rest of our lives, definitely.”

He remains in touch with his teammates from last season, as well

as those who graduated before him. Though he spends his time in Detroit and on the road with the Pistons, his impact is still felt inside the Orange Bubble.

“I think he helped kind of create the player and leader that I am,” senior guard and captain Matt Allocco ’24 said when asked about the role Evbuomwan played in his development. “Playing with him has given me all types of confidence; he was always putting his faith in me to make big shots.”

Evbuomwan and Allocco featured together for the Tigers during their Cinderella run to the Sweet Sixteen last season. The two spent three years together playing for the Tigers and think extremely highly of one another.

When I asked Evbuomwan about the rising stars on the Tigers’ squad, he made sure to remind me of the team’s vocal leader, on the court and inside the locker room — Allocco — calling him the “heart and soul of the team” for his leadership and dedication.

Throughout his time at Princeton and beyond, Evbuomwan has stayed out of the spotlight as he helped build a Tigers’ team that achieved the impossible and made history. This character reflected in our conversation — Evbuomwan wanted to ensure that his ex-point guard got the recognition he deserves for a season that has seen him earn two Ivy League Player of the Week awards.

Allocco, for one, can’t say enough about his old running mate’s success.

“It’s been surreal to have such a close friend like that play in the league. It’s obviously his dream come true, but it’s cool for me too,” Allocco said about Evbuomwan’s professional success.

While Princeton certainly remains present in Evbuomwan’s life and heart, he is no longer the 6-foot8-inch point-forward who towers over Ivy League defenders — he’s in the NBA, playing against some of the most physically gifted athletes in the world.

“It’s not like the way I played and all the stuff I did at Princeton is just out the window, but it looks a little different now,” he said.

He shared that he had to learn how to be a perimeter-oriented player. You likely won’t see him backing down defenders and running the offense like he did at Princeton — at least not yet — but his versatility and confidence in himself have allowed him to adjust to the new role.

“At the end of the day, it’s just basketball,” he said. “How do you impact winning, you know, it’s looked different for me at every stage, but as long as that’s at the forefront of things, I think my versatility allows me to do that.”

MacConnell said that he has watched “every minute” that Evbuomwan has played this season; he praised Evbuomwan’s development through the years.

“He always had a knack for handling the ball well for his size, he was a good passer for his size,” McConnell said. “But [it is] night and day from when he first got here with us to where he was a couple years later.”

What stood out most to MacConnell while watching Evbuomwan play for the Grizzlies and Pistons was how much the two teams have trusted him to defend. In addition to guarding Kevin Durant, he’s also been tasked with containing AllStars Jayson Tatum and Klay Thompson in his limited minutes.

His improved shooting stroke is also apparent. “He’s shooting it way better,” MacConnell said. “That’ll be key to his success long-term.”

But he is not the lead man he was at Princeton, where his possession usage rate of 28.5 percent was the by the far the highest on his team and his 32.3 percent assist rate was the second highest of any player over 6 feet 6 inches. In the NBA, he’s a role player, and many of his strengths have yet to be displayed on the biggest stage.

MacConnell hopes that soon, Evbuomwan will be able to play more akin to how he did at Princeton — with the addition of a knockdown jumper.

“He’s a really exceptional passer, and when an NBA team starts to appreciate that, and his teammates start to understand that and take advantage of that, he’s gonna get guys easy shots and easy baskets,” MacConnell said. “There’s very few players in any league, including the NBA, that can pass and are as unselfish as he is. That’s gonna be fun to watch in the future.”

The transition to the NBA hasn’t been quite as easy as one might have guessed while watching him play. When I asked him how he was able to be so comfortable on the biggest stage in basketball, he quickly corrected me.

“I try to be poised and calm during a game. I don’t know if I’d use the word comfortable,” he said. “People tend to say sometimes that I make it look easy, and I don’t know, maybe

that’s how it looks, but it’s not always the case.”

And yet, though the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been and the lights are certainly brighter, he’s prepared.

“Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable, that’s what it’s been the whole time I’ve been playing basketball, to be honest,” he said. “When I was in the [United Kingdom], I started playing late and was out of my depth a lot growing up. I had to get used to that, you know, just having the mindset of constantly getting better: nothing’s changed in that sense.”

At every stage of his basketball career, he’s had to adapt his game and his limits have been pushed.

“At Princeton, I was stretched; in the G-League, I was stretched. Obviously, right now, it’s the same thing … But yeah, you know, it’s what you want. I want to keep growing. I want to keep getting better as a player, to keep developing.”

His coaches and teammates at Princeton, however, will remember him for his ability to keep it cool, no matter how daunting the task at hand or how comfortable he really felt.

“Definitely his calming demeanor,” Allocco said with a laugh when I asked him what he missed most about having Evbuomwan as a teammate. “He never got too high or too low, he always had the same expression.”

“A guy like me, that’s foreign to me. I’m so emotional, I’m gritting my teeth and yelling,” Allocco added further. “But every time I would go to him, he would just be like ‘yo we’re good, calm, just relax,’ that was always good for me just to help me take a step back, relax a little bit, and calm me down.”

Though the Tigers certainly miss who some called “the Ivy League Giannis,” they haven’t skipped a beat in his absence and are contending for an Ivy League title like they were a year ago.

As Coach Henderson’s squad prepares for a postseason run that they hope will carry late into March, Evbuomwan will be watching every step of the way, just as his former teammates came to watch him.

Allocco said, “I think I speak for everyone who knows him when I say that we can’t wait to see where he goes from here, we’re very excited.”

Diego Uribe is a head Sports editor for the ‘Prince.’

THE NBA’S ONLY IVY LEAGUER_ TOSAN EVBUOMWAN ’23 - THE PRINCETONIAN

Tosan Evbuomwan ’23 posed with his former Princeton teammates and coaches as well as other members of the Princeton basketball family after his second ever NBA game in Madison Square Garden.