What we choose to remember
(03/13/23 5:03am)
For a fleeting moment in the middle of 2020, the flu pandemic of 1918 was relevant once again.
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For a fleeting moment in the middle of 2020, the flu pandemic of 1918 was relevant once again.
There are two versions of Princeton, and consequently two versions of The Daily Princetonian.
“I think high aspiration environments are consistent with mental health,” University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 told The Daily Princetonian last week. “I don’t see any evidence that academic laxness or academic mediocrity would somehow be better from the standpoint of mental health.” This seems like a major gaffe by a university president. But the truth is, Eisgruber stands by every word in that sentence. It’s a philosophy he’s articulated many times.
The story of former Princeton professor Maitland Jones, recently terminated from New York University after students signed a petition calling his organic chemistry class too hard, is all too familiar. You can find similar complaints about professors throughout the course reviews of Princeton’s intro classes, in associate Opinion editor Lucia Wetherill’s deconstruction of weed-out pre-med classes, and in columnist Abigail Rabieh’s critique of MAT 202: Linear Algebra with Applications last spring. The complaints include midterms with absurdly low averages, seemingly nowhere near enough office hours to meet students’ needs, a lack of lecture recordings, among a host of other grievances.
Earlier this morning, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 announced an enormous increase in student financial aid. Increasing student aid is one of the better uses of the University’s recent financial gains, second only to expanding the student body (which Princeton is also doing). But increasing aid is not enough — Princeton needs to take steps to drastically reduce its sticker price, if not eliminate tuition altogether. Tuition is completely unnecessary to university finances and by keeping its sticker price high, Princeton contributes to tuition inflation across the country where aid is not so plentiful.
The years-long controversy surrounding Professor Joshua Katz made national headlines last week as both The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal reported that Katz was to be dismissed due to a University investigation finding he had misled investigators in a previous inquiry into allegations of sexual misconduct. Shockingly, however, these mainstream outlets give credence to Katz’s narrative of a conspiracy to fire him because of his 2020 criticism of a faculty letter, which argued for controversial anti-racist measures. According to this theory, University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 surrendered his free speech bona fides and terminated the professor in the face of pressure from, among other groups, woke student mobs.
When representatives of the shires and boroughs were first called to Parliament in England, they were not intended to be a check on the power of the King. They were prominent knights, there to give legitimacy to the acts of the King, not to challenge his authority. Over time, that system evolved and became the House of Commons, a genuinely representative body. Democracy grows like that: you get your foot in the door of power and then make your presence felt until you have a genuine voice.
This Thursday, prospective members of Princeton’s Great Class of 2026 received offers of admission from the University. We’d like to tell you more about the class, but we cannot because the University has declined to release any statistics about accepted students – both during the Regular Decision round or during the Early Action process. We asked our columnists for their Reactions to this unusual decision.
It’s concentration declaration season for AB sophomores and BSE freshmen and the same old questions are bubbling to the surface: Do I really have what it takes to become a math major? Should I pursue classics or comparative literature? Then there’s the most familiar question: Should I choose the more “practical” major that may land me a stable career or the niche major whose classes truly excite me? Should I follow my head or my heart?
As we celebrate the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s Nobel prize, it’s worth reflecting on the fact that most students will never study Einstein’s physics or their applications in a wide variety of engineering fields. Princeton, in Einstein’s time, was the place for science in the United States. In order to reclaim that mantle, we have to give all students a broader foundation in science and technology. That starts by breaking down the barriers of excessive prerequisites.
Princeton’s admissions system is under increasing scrutiny. As other colleges eliminate their legacy preferences, some think Princeton should do the same. The SAT, long the cornerstone of college admissions, is being abandoned to eliminate socioeconomic disparities in admissions.
Students are returning to a changed campus as the infectious omicron variant sends case levels to new heights. Princeton has responded to the changing circumstances by limiting social gatherings, changing dining to grab-and-go, and constraining student events. At the same time, the University has shortened the isolation period and ended its policy of contact tracing all confirmed positive cases, focusing in on only those groups at highest risk. Administrators have also stressed that they remain committed to offering in-person classes.
Television shows always seem to perpetuate a myth about Ivy League institutions as hotbeds of scheming, power-hungry students, when the reality is that most students spend their time here just trying to keep their heads above water. If a screenwriter wanted to include a Princeton Undergraduate Student Government (USG) election in a show, there would be campaigns, scandal, intrigue, maybe even murder. We’ve just finished a USG election. Most students probably couldn’t even tell you it happened.
One morning in September, I woke up with a fever and a sore throat. After almost two hours of being sent in circles on the phone, I was asked to come to McCosh for a COVID-19 test. I was told, “Bring everything you might need for 10 days of isolation. If you test positive, you can’t go back to your room.”
Last week, the ‘Prince’ news section released a detailed article tracing eight students who faced accusations of violating the Honor Code. Big questions were raised. Does the Honor Code disproportionately impact first generation and low-income students? Are the punishments too draconian? Is the process itself too intense? Were measures taken during the pandemic appropriate?
I felt something was off this term when I started picking my courses, and it took a while for me to understand what it was. Finally, it hit me. For the first time since I graduated preschool, I won’t be enrolled in a math class come spring. As I finish ORF 309: Probability and Stochastic Systems, the last math class I might take on the normal progression, it feels like I’m closing a book I’ve been reading my whole life, having to be content that it’s a story I’m never going to finish.
A group of anti-cancel culture public intellectuals, including former New York Times Opinion writer Bari Weiss and University classics professor Joshua Katz, recently announced their plans to start a new university — The University of Austin (UATX). The news seemed designed to generate Twitter outrage. But it’s worth spending some time analyzing the college they’re planning to create. While the idea isn’t as laughable as it might initially seem, the college’s single-minded focus on combating cancel culture is blinding it to the real trade-offs that come with devoting a college to nothing but discourse.
After more than two months of masking in classrooms, the University announced in a Nov. 11 email that the mask mandate will be reconsidered and likely relaxed. But such changes will only come 10 days after Thanksgiving break at the earliest, at which point classes will have finished.
Last Friday, the University announced that the endowment has ballooned to $37.7 billion, an almost 50 percent rate of return. This growth is a significant outlier from previous years which made us in the Opinion section wonder how might Princeton react. Will we see improvements on campus? Can Princeton afford to be more ethical in its investments? Should tuition be abolished?
“Why should Princeton exist?” That was the question The Atlantic journalist Emma Green asked President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 a few weeks ago. Green framed the question around social mobility: Princeton, after all, doesn’t do much for social mobility compared to the City University of New York (CUNY) system which directly serves the low-income community around them in tangible ways.