Candidates discuss service, controversy during college years

Princetonian Senior Writer Melisa Gao sits down with Young Alumni Trustee candidates Eli Goldsmith, Rishi Jaitly, and Corey Sanders.

Eli Goldsmith

As president of the Class of 2004 since his freshman year, Eli Goldsmith had no trouble finding his niche at the University.

He hopes to continue his service to his class as its Young Alumni Trustee.

He pointed to the weekly meetings of the Honor Committee, which he chaired, as the most intellectually and ethically challenging aspect of his time at the University.

"Picture the most heated precept you've been in, with a subject about which you're extremely passionate," he said. "But then at the end of that, the decision that you make isn't just whether you feel affirmative action is right or wrong. It actually affects the fate of a student."

Last year, Goldsmith's roles on the Honor Committee and in class government led to what some viewed as a conflict of interest. Just before the vote on two proposed amendments to the Honor Code, he sent a controversial email to his class pointing out that the amendments had not been approved by many offices.

"The last line saying, 'You should ask me or not vote at all' — I think that was a mistake, but I do think it was my duty at that time to let the class know what they were voting on," Goldsmith said. "The USG handled that situation horribly."

Goldsmith also participated in Sustained Dialogue, where he said he learned that Princeton isn't perfect for everyone.

"Problems exist but we don't know why," he said, noting in particular the discomfort many African-Americans feel with the activities at the Street.

"There's drinking, there's dancing and there's making out on the dance floor," Goldsmith said. "Those don't seem like 'white' things to do; those seem like things college students do."

As class president, Goldsmith said, he wanted to go beyond the traditional role of promoting unity through study breaks, formals and class gear.

The five Class of 2004 officers, who have all been reelected for four terms, sponsored a lecture series and founded the Arts Alive program to send 12,000 New York children affected by Sept. 11 to cultural events in the city.

"We thought that more substantive programs would be helpful and perhaps even more effective . . . in providing unity for a class than, say, a sweatshirt," Goldsmith explained.

Last year, he rewrote Article VIII of the USG Constitution to expand the role of class government so that such programs are now expected of the officers.

Goldsmith likened his vision of the University to the Honor Code.

"The question of the Honor Code needs to be continually revisited, but I think the overall virtue of the Honor Code itself is something that we need to hold onto," he said.

"That relates to Princeton in that the fundamentals that make Princeton so great should not change . . . but as the University progresses and the future comes upon us, there are continual revisions and continual questions that need to be asked."

Rishi Jaitly

As a member of the Freshman Social Experience Committee, Rishi Jaitly recently reexamined one of his long-held beliefs about the role of Greek organizations on campus.

After running a focus group with the leaders of several fraternities and sororities, Jaitly said he learned to "throw all those stereotypes [out] and think about these students as human beings who came here and were uncomfortable."

He has found himself in the minority on the committee as someone who believes that information should be provided to freshmen about these organizations.

Jaitly, who is frustrated by students who "shortchange themselves by being trapped into their comfortable venues," emphasized that he has had a wide-range of experiences at the University.

His biggest contributions, he said, have been to "make each undergraduate feel more comfortable and welcome in this community of ours, break down existing social barriers and give each undergraduate the opportunity to more fully appreciate his or her peers in innovative and mainstream social settings."

Aside from serving four terms as class vice president and chairing the USG Projects Board, Jaitly spent his years at Princeton "dabbling."

He has, at various times, performed with Princeton South Asian Theatrics, written for The Daily Princetonian, danced with the Indian troupe Naacho and participated in Whig-Clio. As chair of the Projects Board, Jaitly oversaw funding for nearly 300 officially recognized student organizations. And as class VP, he organized the '04 United project, which encouraged resident advisers to work together to plan events.

Together, Jaitly said, these activities have given him a "broad-based understanding of the undergraduate experience here at Princeton . . . in an academic sense, a social sense and an extracurricular sense" — and it is upon that knowledge that he would draw as a Young Alumni Trustee.

But earlier this year, Jaitly was criticized by some for assuming too much understanding of student sentiment. Jaitly presented Secretary of State Colin Powell with the Crystal Tiger Award "on behalf of all undergraduates" — after only a four-person committee, chaired by Jaitly, was involved in the selection process.

Some students objected to the presentation of the award on their behalf, especially in light of controversy surrounding Powell and the war in Iraq, but Jaitly defended the Crystal Tiger Award committee's actions.

"We had a lot of questions in the past four years about its feasibility," he said. "It was important to convey to the potential recipient that it was coming on behalf of the undergraduate student body."

He added, "We had a handful of setbacks, and that might have really killed its prospects" had the entire student body been involved.

As a member of the Four-Year College Program Planning Committee, Jaitly said he has thought seriously about the larger issues facing Princeton. He was also appointed last year to the New Jersey Committee on Higher Education.

"I believe in Princeton very much, both in terms of its strengths and in terms of its flaws," he said.

Corey Sanders

When Corey Sanders learned at a reception at President Tilghman's house in 2002 that there had been four or five students who could have died of alcohol poisoning the previous year, he realized something needed to be done, he said.

"I hadn't even thought of it being a problem on campus until I heard those statistics, but that kind of drove it home for me that someone was going to die," he said.

Sanders became president of the Quadrangle Club and chair of the Inter-Club Council, and in those roles he worked to address what he saw as hidden pressures to drink.

"I decided there were a lot of ways it could be worked on without taking away what a lot of people considered a staple to their fun," he said.

As ICC chair, Sanders represented eating club officers with opinions that differed greatly from his own.

"I tried to downplay my own personal crusade because I was also the political figure of 11 different bodies," he said. "It doesn't bother me to have Quad go off tap permanently and it wouldn't bother me to have the Street, but that was not my role — that's my personal politics — and my role was serving everyone."

Sanders launched an initiative to install soda machines in taprooms, which he said decreased beer consumption at Quad by 20 percent. He also helped move some Alcohol Initiative-sponsored events to the Street. And last month, his proposal to hold one alcohol-free event at the Street each weekend, known as the Prospect Initiative, was approved.

These might seem like obvious answers, Sanders said, but they will change social perceptions of the Street.

"When you stop and think about some of the specific clubs and think, 'Wow, they're actually going to be dry and having a party one night,' you have trouble believing it," he explained. "Then you extrapolate that out to the freshmen, who will never have that opinion."

Aside from funding alcohol-free events, Sanders said, there are few ways for the University to combat drinking. But the goal is not simply to tear people away from alcohol for that one night.

"If one club has an alcohol-free event every two or three weeks, that club is viewed as being friendly toward people who don't want to drink every night that [the club has] alcohol," he explained.

Aside from the alcohol problem, Sanders, an LGBT adviser, criticized what he sees as a "general lack of understanding on campus" about diversity issues.

Sanders also served as a residential adviser and College Council member in Forbes College, which, he said, "helped broaden my experiences of what a typical Princeton student is — because there really isn't a typical Princeton student."

He emphasized that having experienced the University from many perspectives will serve him well as a trustee.

"Regardless of the issue or the problem or the situation, my experiences will give me a hand on being able to balance and judge how it will affect different people," he said.