America is facing a retirement crisis, and Princetonians are not immune to it
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The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.
The Creative Writing (CWR) program has long been a favorite of the University’s students across class years, degree options, and concentrations. This semester, hundreds of students enrolled in CWR courses, hoping to snatch one of the few spots available. Who filled these coveted spots came down to rather insignificant elements: the reaction time of a mouse click, internet speed, or a cleared cache.
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 we end legacy now, we are prematurely eliminating the advantages that come from a more diverse intergenerational community.
During my tenure as the head Opinion editor at The Daily Princetonian, I received countless emails from alumni thoughtfully interacting with our content, supported writers as their arguments were warped in the national media, and was told my work was “boringly moderate.” The readership of the ‘Prince’ often has a lot to say. For a responsible journalist, this is thrilling — having your work read and contemplated is often a testament to a job well done. Yet the alternative can be just as true: the reporter is not always right, and audiences’ responses are crucial to identifying these failures. Truth-telling is a tricky business, and simply holding membership in the ‘Prince’ does not prove any inherent ability to conduct it. In recognition of this problem, the ‘Prince’ is changing to become more accountable and more accessible to the public it serves, in order to serve it better. This begins with establishing a public editor, a role in which I will be serving this upcoming year.
In a quest to achieve historical consciousness in my first history class at Princeton, I frequently grappled with the question of historical erasure: What becomes of an instance of joy, suffering, or loss that goes unrecorded? What becomes of a life without its memory? I sit today with a deepened appreciation for the importance and power of bearing witness — an act that has been critically misunderstood and deeply underemployed by many at Princeton post-Oct. 7. Members of the Princeton community must partake more actively in this necessary practice.
Ever since our much-hated grade deflation policy was lifted in 2014, Princetonians’ GPAs have been steadily trending upwards. According to the Office of the Dean of the College, the average GPA for the 2022–2023 academic year was 3.56 out of 4.00, an increase from the 2018–2019 average of 3.46. In 2005, when grade deflation policies were first implemented, the average GPA was around 3.30. A recent article in The New York Times noted the same phenomenon of grade inflation at Harvard and Yale, and quoted students, alumni, and professors lamenting that a good grade today is “worth less” than ever before.
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.
Low-income international students at Princeton have a very different experience than domestic students. Although many international students have voiced financial concerns, none were spotlighted by Undergraduate Student Government (USG) candidates in our most recent election. As we reflect on winning candidates’ platforms, we have to bring the international student experience into the conversation.
One of my earliest memories of Princeton is a talk about legacy admissions during orientation. My RCA asked my zee group about our thoughts on legacies, and several people expressed what seemed to be the prevailing opinion: legacy admissions are unfair and take away opportunities from more deserving students. They said those things perhaps not knowing that four of the people in the room with us were legacy students. In the short time I’ve been here, I’ve heard people say “I hate legacies” or generalize about how “legacies are so spoiled” — however, I’ve found that some of the most passionate and dedicated people around me are, in fact, legacy students. The fact of the matter is that the admissions process is always unfair, and there is an implication that unfair is equal to unjustified or unworthy. But there are many types of preferential admissions, from athletic to regional, and examining these cases shows us that “unfair” is not necessarily bad — preferential admissions, including legacy admissions, are necessary to create a diverse class and campus.
Former Harvard president Claudine Gay, who stepped down on Jan. 2 amid criticisms of her response to antisemitism on Harvard's campus and her subsequent plagiarism allegations, is all over U.S. media. Gay’s resignation remained the top story on the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal websites in the following days. This media firestorm demonstrates how in the midst of the conflict in Israel and Palestine, mainstream U.S. news organizations are blatantly more interested in amplifying Ivy League scandals than reporting on the realities of violence in Gaza, where the death toll recently surpassed 22,000 — mostly consisting of women and children. This disproportionate focus on Ivy League turmoil is a sensationalist distraction. We shouldn’t let it divert our attention from the much more substantive problem of the brutal war in Gaza, and the surge in antisemitism and Islamophobia the war has provoked in the United States.
In Claudine Gay’s resignation letter from her role as president of Harvard University, published in the New York Times on January 2, she expresses hope that the Harvard community remembers her short term as one characterized by “not allowing rancor and vituperation to undermine the vital process of education.” But in her op-ed, published a day later, she claims that her resignation was the result of the work of “demagogues” to “undermine the ideals animating Harvard since its founding: excellence, openness, independence, truth.” Though Gay paints her removal from office as a tactic to stop such a campaign from gaining further traction, her refusal to admit any guilt and the Harvard Corporation’s failure to note any particular reason for the resignation suggests that her presidency should be defined by a clear abandonment of the tenets to which she and Harvard claim to have committed.
To the Editor:
To the political right, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) is the beginning of the end. The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board warns of DEI officers who “enforce ideological conformity.” Abigail Anthony ’23 claimed that DEI initiatives “divide, exclude, and ostracize students of all political affiliation.” The freedom of speech, some people argue, will be obliterated by DEI-obsessed bureaucrats.
To the Editor:
A couple weeks ago, I got a survey about student group selectivity from a “working group” formed by the “Student Organization Advisory Committee and Undergraduate Student Government (USG).”
University administrators have set the goal of decarbonizing our campus by 2046. To do so, the University has rolled out a sweeping operation to install a complex geo-exchange heating and cooling system, build out thousands of solar panels, replace the old bus stock with brand-new electric buses, and purchase electricity from renewable sources. The University thinks of these campus solutions as test cases that, in the words of President Christopher Eisgruber, “serve as models for the world.” To build on these successes, the University should now turn its attention to the rest of its vehicle fleet.
The following is a guest contribution and reflects the author’s views alone. For information on how to submit a piece to the Opinion section, click here.
When I was in kindergarten, I could answer the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” much more easily than I can now as a college junior. At six years old, I would blurt out “Archaeologist!” before my teacher could finish the question, but as a 20-year-old, there are a few long pauses before I say something along the lines of “I’m still figuring that out.” Yet this indecision should not be seen as shameful — nor should any other career choice. Judging others for how they choose to pursue what they’ve learned at Princeton post-graduation is an intolerable endeavor and is antithetical to our values as a campus.
“What are you going to do with your degree?” This skeptical question is all too familiar to most humanities majors. As the perception of the humanities as useless disciplines proliferates, their numbers rapidly decline: The number of history majors has decreased by 45 percent since 2007, and English has plummeted by half since the mid-1990s. But data indicates majoring in the humanities doesn’t limit students’ future options. Moreover, we should reject the notion that choosing a major is primarily a profit-maximizing decision. Liberal arts education, and liberal arts degrees, are inherently valuable because success is more than affluence.
I know nothing about Cloister’s financial situation, but I have absolute confidence in the club’s future. One might argue that I’m an example of the maxim “ignorance is bliss.” I accept this accusation cheerfully. Before I begin, I should pause to clarify that I don’t write as a representative of Cloister, just as a member. My reason for writing is simple; I believe that the pervading belief in Cloister’s decline is completely overblown. In fact, I have more faith in Cloister’s future than I do in the future of any other community on campus. I am certainly biased, but what I love about Cloister — its dynamic personality and constant conversation — is what I believe will allow it to thrive. I’ve spent the good part of three years (a double entendre) as a member of Cloister, and not once have I questioned the club’s vitality.