Photo by Michael Juel-Larsen
The Daily Princetonian's editorial board (from l. Mary Marshall '10, Joy Karugu '09, Will Pickering '11, Daniel Rauch '10, Ken Schwartz '09 (chair), Ben Herzberg '10, Jess Lanney '10, Christine Emba '10, Arthur Ewenczyk '09 Not pictured: Jonathan Fluger '08, Scott Moore '08, John Nelson '10, Anna Offit '08, Sarah Zaslow '08, Zvi Smith '09 Abroad this semester: Matthew Halgren '09)
Editorials
A hurried welcome
After a long summer away from Princeton, many students are eager to return to school. This year, they will have to wait an extra three days. According to a schedule posted on the Housing Office's website, move-in day for the vast majority of returning students will be Sunday, Sept. 7, ...
Avoiding self-inflicted injuries
Though there are many tasks facing the USG, none are as fundamental to its legitimacy as its ability to conduct fair, transparent elections. It is disheartening that the voting rules for spring USG elections were once again changed this year without any apparent effort to inform the student community. Even ...
Believe what you will
As seniors drink off the memory of their theses and juniors sweat bullets over their junior papers, important stories are sometimes overlooked by those with their snouts in Solo cups or books. The Office of Religious Life (ORL)'s decision to grant chaplaincies to Princeton's Muslim and Hindu communities may be ...
All the small things
As pre-frosh discover Princeton this week, they will be showered with statistics about how great a place it is. But here, instead, are a few highlights from a student perspective of what The Daily Princetonian Editorial Board likes best about attending Princeton.The University's commitment to teaching undergraduates means you'll interact ...
A pre-frosh taste of Prospect
The University's Princeton Preview program provides a unique opportunity for newly admitted students to gain a better understanding of all aspects of undergraduate life. It also provides an opportunity for the University to project a certain image of itself to prospective students. Both parties have an overriding, compelling interest in ...
Editorial: All doped up and plenty to do
As exam period approaches, many students use coffee, soda or energy drinks to stay up late night after night. But some students are taking more drastic measures. According to a senior thesis by Allison Arensman '04, around 8.9 percent of Princeton students seek to gain an academic edge by taking ...
Dissent: It's not up to the Honor Committee
The majority's effort to grapple with the ethical question posed by psychostimulants like Adderall is admirable and necessary in a community that values academic integrity. Any attempt to have the Honor Code address the use of such substances, however, is impractical.Not every act that is illegal is a violation of ...
Dear Class of 2012,
For you, this weekend will be one of sensory overload, during which you will see and hear much about the opportunities that await you at Princeton. You may have a healthy skepticism about whether the admitted-student experience is "the real deal." While there is much about the University that could ...
For the love of pasta salad
Students passing through the 100-level of Frist Campus Center will find it difficult to not notice the changes that have been made to the retail dining layout. The C-Store has moved to a new, expanded location, complete with milkshake blender, candy bins and slushy machine. A new ice cream, candy ...
Does Public Safety need guns?
The recent tragedies at Virginia Tech and Northern Illinois University have highlighted the need for colleges to have the means to effectively respond to all threats to campus safety. Recently, sworn Public Safety officers requested authorization from the administration to carry firearms for them to most effectively maintain campus safety. ...
Nowhere to sit a-sunning
Spring is upon us, and Princeton is enjoying ever-longer and ever-warmer days. Unfortunately, as students and faculty emerge from their cozy winter lairs, they are all too often quickly compelled to retreat. The problem: There is nowhere to sit. As history professor Anthony Grafton lamented in a column last October, ...
Do right by grad students
In a Feb. 21, 2008 column, Anne Twitty GS, the press secretary-elect for the Graduate Student Government (GSG), lamented that expansion of graduate housing is not included in the University's 10-Year-Plan even though an existing housing crunch will be exacerbated by a 10 percent increase in graduate student enrollment over ...
Survey says: something
Harvard's decision last year to align its academic calendar with other institutions' policies by moving fall-term final exams from January to December leaves Princeton alone in its adherence to its archaic current schedule. Many students feel that the nearly one-month break between the end of fall-term classes and final exams ...
All aboard
University officials seem to sincerely want students to get on board with such initiatives as the new alcohol policy and the recently amended decision to add Spelman Hall 8 to Whitman College and an entryway of Little Hall to Mathey. Unfortunately, the administration undermines these good intentions by tending to ...
Cheer on every team
On a typical day, the University's website contains announcements of upcoming lectures by important speakers and performances by a variety of culturally diverse arts groups as well as news stories about compelling research and student awards. The University is correct to use its website to emphasize its standards of excellence ...
Is it time for a chastity center?
Last week, Daily Princetonian Columnist Brandon McGinley '10 sparked fierce debate by advocating for the establishment of a University-supported center for "morally traditional" students. Such a center, say its advocates, would provide much-needed support for morally traditional students who may feel marginalized on campus. The need for a center for ...
Make "public goods" public
Like its peer institutions, Princeton sponsors an abundance of public lectures and academic talks. From undergraduates to Nobel laureates, the breadth and quality of work publicly presented on campus each day is astounding. But in this information age, far too few benefit from these extraordinary offerings. Princeton should follow the ...
Navigate the maze together
Last week, Labyrinth Books’ first semester as Princeton’s primary textbook provider began. While Labyrinth continues to experiment with how it sells course material, all interested parties are encouraged to engage in a dialogue with Labyrinth and its student advisory committee. Unlike the U-Store, whose bookselling operation was cooperative and ran ...
A Working partnership
Princeton students often underappreciate the work that the USG does for them. Over the last year, the USG has committed itself to being more responsive to student concerns and making tangible improvements to campus life. The USG has done a good job of identifying key gaps in service on campus, ...
Quiet competence
Rob Biederman '08 spent the majority of his tenure as USG president making small improvements to student life. Unlike his predecessor, Biederman did not expend his political capital arguing with the administration over difficult issues such as the grade deflation policy. Instead, he set out to accomplish more modest goals ...
Financial aid improvements
Last month, Harvard made headlines for revamping its financial aid policy in order to make the school more affordable to students from middle-class families. Harvard's new policy builds upon what Princeton pioneered in 2001 when it started meeting all "demonstrated need" with grants instead of loan packages and eliminated home ...
Tough choices
This year, Princeton and other universities are expected to receive a record number of applications, as the nation's population of college-bound high school seniors reaches a demographic peak. Despite a moderate increase in the size of entering classes, the result of this demographic bulge will be many tough choices for ...
A quota we can support
At OIT cluster printers across campus, the pages pile up like leaves in the fall: essay drafts, half-completed problem sets, course readings and surplus flyers. They lie there, abandoned, a reminder of Princeton's insatiable appetite for printing. And who could blame us? At a whopping cost of zilch, we are ...
Letters to the Editor: April 24, 2008
Safeguards did their job at BlackBoxI am a member of the BlackBox team and I was present at the incident that occurred on Friday, April 18. I was harassed by one of the males in question and witnessed the group of males aggressively confronting a Princeton student. Due to this, ...
Don't cut our roots
The University's plan to distribute diplomas in the residential colleges this year reflects the importance it attaches to the communities that students and staff form in these colleges. It seems odd, then, that some upperclassmen who choose to continue to live in residential colleges after sophomore year are required to ...
Teaching teaching
Princeton is renowned as a research university that is also committed to educating undergraduates. The University demonstrates this commitment by requiring all professors to teach and partially basing tenure decisions on teaching ability. Graduate students also play a vital and underappreciated teaching role by leading precepts - one of the ...
Paid (and informed) in full
As many sophomores prepare for their first Houseparties as members of eating clubs, this is an appropriate time to suggest an improvement to the spring bicker and sign-in processes. University financial aid eases the burden of eating club membership for junior and senior students, but sophomores are left to their ...
Has the USG lost it?
The events surrounding Kyle Smith '09's petition to place a referendum on the USG election ballot this spring demonstrate the need to broaden the criteria for excluding petitions from the ballot. The USG should also take steps to ensure that future amendments are immediately incorporated into the published USG constitution.The ...
Housing for the 21st Century
Yale's decision to explore providing students with gender-neutral housing options leaves Princeton as the only Ivy League school yet to consider such a policy. The gender segregation of housing at Princeton is a historic legacy incongruous with the rest of the University's policies. While the University is agnostic on most ...
Last thoughts on Spelman 8
As the final upperclass draw groups choose their rooms and a tumultuous draw season reaches its conclusion, we cannot help but reflect upon the significance of Spelman 8's fate. The University's decision to allocate Spelman 8 to Whitman has resulted in some independent students - at least six and as ...
More of a good thing
The University's recently announced "bridge year" program to provide need-based financial assistance to admitted students who defer for one year to undertake service projects abroad is a bold step that deserves much praise. By creating a "P-Corps," the University is giving admitted students an opportunity to expand their horizons and ...
Better late than never
Though Princeton's undergraduates have diverse talents, backgrounds and aspirations, they share the common bond of having entered the University as freshmen. Unlike its elite peers, Princeton does not allow transfer students. Though the goals of this policy are lofty, the University should reconsider whether the benefits that a transfer program ...
Why rush summer funding?
A common item on many students' to-do list this time of year is securing funding for summer projects - internships, thesis research and community service. It is commendable that the University provides summer funding for unpaid service internships and senior thesis research and speaks to the University's commitment to supporting ...
Wag the pet project
In the recent past, the USG has in general sought to better campus life through pragmatic, small-scale initiatives as opposed to pursuing broader, more sweeping change. Though students have benefited from the improvements that this approach has generated, there are times when thinking inside the box is both limited and ...
Learning from the fall
For Princetonians, the takeaway from the still-unfolding scandal of Eliot Spitzer '81 should be a re-examination of the metrics by which society, and Princeton in particular, measures success.Before being humbled by the recent allegations, Spitzer sat perched atop the pinnacle of achievement, as he had done all his life. At ...
Voting for a smile
In the past few days, posters have appeared around campus with pictures of this year's candidates for Young Alumni Trustee (YAT). Seniors will be asked, as they have been since 2004, to elect a YAT based on little more than those pictures. Candidates are banned from campaigning, and voters are ...
Ask not what Woody Woo can do for your resume
Last week, sophomores submitted their applications to the Wilson School, Princeton’s only selective major, and now wait anxiously until March when some will learn of their acceptance. Every year, the school turns away scores of students. Though having a major at Princeton from which students can get “hosed” adds to ...
Fiddling while our lead burns
Last week, Stanford University joined the growing number of universities that are increasing financial aid for students from lower- and middle-income families. Despite aid policy overhauls by peer institutions such as Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Penn and Cornell, Princeton has declined to make any substantial changes to its financial aid ...
Some ideas for the Alcohol Coalition Committee
In the next two weeks, the Alcohol Coalition Committee (ACC) will stage two more workshops to gather student input as it begins to draft a strategic plan for the University’s alcohol policy. A successful plan must focus on the realities of student life. No matter what the policy, students will ...
More Whitman, fewer choices
The University’s new plan to integrate Spelman Halls 7 and 8 into Whitman College next year represents good intentions badly executed. Contrary to the proposal’s stated goal — increasing the flexibility and convenience of dining options — the restrictive rules on living arrangements make it harder for students to take ...
Webmail for tomorrow
The start of the semester ushered in a 1GB e-mail quota. This five-fold increase from 200MB starts to address the frustration of students who are incessantly required to delete e-mails from their overflowing inboxes. Nonetheless, the quota remains far below Gmail’s 6 GB limit or Yahoo’s unlimited storage, and students ...
Turn lemons into lemonade
Juicycampus.com, the campus gossip and news website, puts under a magnifying glass the worst aspects of social life at Princeton. Ostensibly an "entertainment site," JuicyCampus provides a forum in which students may anonymously start threads and post responses on such topics as "eating clubs," "sports/athletes" and "students." While Princeton students ...
Who we are, what we do
Yesterday’s unsigned editorials endorsing Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) for their respective parties’ nominations for President marked the first editorial decisions written under the 132nd managing board. Our readers may wonder how the Editorial Board arrives at its positions. We would like to take the opportunity ...
A year in review
As the 131st Managing Board of The Daily Princetonian exits the stage, we would like to highlight the major issues it has covered over the past year. Beginning early last semester, we have called on the University to clarify and enhance its internationalization efforts, and to ensure that investing in ...
Democratic Party Endorsement: Obama
On the Democratic side, we believe that Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) would be a unifying leader, as he has demonstrated through his success among independent and Republican voters in the early primaries and through his record of public service in Illinois. Obama reminds us of the greatness of our country ...
Republican Party Endorsement: McCain
Throughout his 20 years in the Senate, John McCain (R-Ariz.) has proven to be a dynamic force within the Republican Party and a leader on a variety of issues ranging from ensuring that the United States adheres to international prohibitions against the use of torture to fighting for reforms in ...
Pay as you wish
Recent university efforts to allow students to pay for services with their proxes, a step in the right direction, are far too limited. Students are still not able to charge purchases at the U-2 store with their proxes, and other stores are limited to Paw Points. The University should attempt ...
Lost in the Labyrinth
With the arrival of the spring semester Princeton students will, for the first time, look to Labyrinth Books to supply their textbooks. By bringing Labyrinth to Princeton, the administration realized its goal of placing a prestigious, academic bookseller on Nassau Street. While the merits of this goal are understandable, the ...
Why the status quo?
When, in the fall of 2009, Harvard students take their final exams before winter recess, Princeton students will be the only undergraduates enrolled at one of the country's top institutions of higher education who will return home with the end of the semester still looming more than a month in ...
A promising step
In light of the revisions to the University's policy regarding residential college advisers and alcohol, the administration's recent announcement of a broad coalition on high-risk alcohol use might appear as a belated response to student concerns. This cynicism is not entirely merited. The University has taken unusual pains to emphasize ...
Strengthen a weak Registrar
Students face a difficult decision when at least two of the classes they want to take are scheduled during conflicting times. Part of the challenge of attending an institution that grants students huge flexibility in designing their own curricula is the necessity of prioritizing particular courses over others. The schedule ...
