RSS
Facebook
Twitter
E-Prince
Photo by Staff
The Daily Princetonian Editorial Board. From left: Cara Eckholm, Chelsea Ayres, Daniel Cullen, Bonnie Robinson, Matthew Butler, Jonathan Sarnoff, Evan Larson, Matt Arons, and Xiang Ding. Not pictured: Brittany Sanders.
Editorials
Editorial: Join us!
Today, instead of taking a stance on an issue, we would like to explain the editorial process and invite interested freshmen, sophomores and juniors to apply to join the Board.
Editorial: The Princeton pedestrian
Today we shall write about a problem that truly plagues our fair campus: Princetonians do not walk quickly enough.
Editorial: Yaro's Legacy
When he first ran for office in 2010, our chief concerns about his candidacy centered on his ability to delegate as a leader and provide a long-term vision to unify many of his goals. However, Yaroshefsky amply met that challenge with his outstanding accomplishments as president. Most notable are the changes he made in technology and the impact he had on student life at Princeton.
Editorial: In support of keypads
The Editorial Board commends the University for this change because, if implemented correctly, this system holds immense promise in terms of preventing lockouts and making overall dormitory security more cost-effective. These keypads could drastically reduce the number of lockouts, both eliminating an enormous hassle from the lives of students and freeing Public Safety officers and financial resources for other allocations — like community policing. This system will also reduce the cost and labor associated with physically changing locks every time students permanently lose their keys; Building Services would only need to change the code through a simple electronic maneuver should a security issue arise.
Editorial: Revise final exam policies
Sports teams are not the only valuable extracurricular on this campus, nor are they more important than the other extracurriculars that the University sponsors. Therefore, they should not be the only ones with this opportunity — members of organizations like the University Band, the Debate Team and Mock Trial — groups that sometimes have events scheduled during finals week — should also have this option.
Editorial: A linguistics department
As of 2010, six of the eight Ivy League universities offer undergraduate single concentrations in linguistics. Princeton, however, is not among them, even though we do offer a certificate program in linguistics, and undergraduates commonly create independent concentrations in the subject. The Editorial Board feels that this gap in our academic offerings must be filled in order to provide the most enriching intellectual environment for our students and to continue to attract the highest caliber of prospective students.
Editorial: Cannon's bicker process
We oppose Cannon’s decision to bicker students at a different time from the other eating clubs. The Bicker process works best when all clubs hold the process at the same time. Under this model, students are forced to choose one club to bicker. When all the clubs start bickering students at the same time, no club is able to gain an unfair advantage over the others.
Editorial: Occupy Princeton
We applaud a shift away from the apathy that currently reigns on campus, and — regardless of our views on Occupy Princeton’s political goals — we are hopeful that its presence may help contribute to that shift.
Editorial: Peer tutoring for finals
The University prohibits tutoring during finals week because “tutors need to study, too.” We believe that this limitation is misguided and that tutoring services should be offered even during finals week.
Editorial: Free access for all
When faculty members write articles, they are usually published in scholarly journals to which most people have limited access. In fact, subscriptions to some journals may cost thousands of dollars a year. If the faculty member does not reserve the right to republish the article elsewhere then only those with access to the journal can read it. This, of course, seems contradictory to the University’s goal of generating and disseminating knowledge. If our faculty’s insights are available only to the small group of people who can afford journal subscription, the value of those insights is surely limited. Knowledge in a vacuum is not valuable. Only when there is widespread access can an insight be said to have any significance to the community. For these reasons, we are glad that the University is taking steps to expand access to articles that were previously only available in journals.
Editorial: Good grief!
For a number of years, the Editorial Board has consistently taken the position that the University should change the academic calendar and eliminate classes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. This year is no exception.
Editorial: How to build college spirit
When taken together, all these practices are geared toward the same goal — making residential colleges an appealing source of fun and camaraderie for undergraduates.
Editorial: Bridge Year for all
In 2009, Princeton University introduced the Bridge Year Program, allowing incoming freshmen to spend a year abroad volunteering prior to starting their academic careers. This experience adds depth to their scholarship and surely markedly increases the maturity and international awareness of Princeton students. Unfortunately, the current Bridge Year Program is limited to incoming freshmen.
Editorial: Ettman for President, Mulcahy for VP
Three candidates are running for president: Catherine Ettman ’13, Bruce Easop ’13 and Shikha Uberoi ’13. Two candidates are running for vice president: Merik Mulcahy ’13 and Stephen Stolzenberg ’13. Though all of the candidates have much to offer the student body, the Editorial Board endorses Ettman for president and Mulcahy for vice president.
Editorial: Greater transparency
Princeton University consistently earns the highest endowment per student of any college in the nation, but PRINCO and the University’s Trustees should also assure us that it is being invested securely and ethically.
Editorial: Knowing the numbers
In order to adequately assess the success of our efforts to increase the socioeconomic diversity of the student body and in order to effectively discuss future modifications to our efforts, it is necessary that we possess accurate and clear measurements about the current state of affairs.
Editorial: Jachera for mayor
We endorse Jill Jachera for Princeton Borough mayor.
Editorial: The tradition of the Ball
We believe that pessimism about the Orange and Black Ball, at least at this stage, is unwarranted, and we support the class governments’ decision to hold the ball
Editorial: Push for shadow grading
The University ought to implement a shadow-grading system in its assessment of academic performance during the fall of freshman year. Under this system, professors would privately inform students of the grade they received in the class, but that grade would not be publicly available on transcripts and would not affect students’ grade point averages.
Editorial: Amend the lock-out policy
This Board opposed these measures when proposed in the spring and still finds this policy unreasonable. Rather than leading to greater responsibility, this policy only incentivizes students to leave their doors unlocked or propped open, creating serious safety hazards.