University inaction does not have to translate into student inaction. We will soon be faced with a rare opportunity to rebuke Verdú, and in doing so, send a strong message to the administration that we will not tolerate sexual harassment of any shape or form. Next semester, Verdú will be teaching an electrical engineering course called Information Theory (ELE 528). To my fellow students, I issue a simple call to arms: boycott the course.
For a while, the Democratic senator from New Jersey was in deep trouble. No, not Cory Booker. I’m talking about the other senator, Robert Menendez.
In May, the New York Times ran a glowing article about Princeton’s efforts to recruit low-income students. The article, titled “Princeton — Yes, Princeton — Takes on the Class Divide” included everything you’d expect: concessions to Princeton’s history of exclusion, favorable Pell Grant statistics, and uplifting quotes from President Eisgruber. “I get up in the morning thinking about how I can bring [the transformative Princeton] experience to more people,” he said. But it seems that even Eisgruber is guilty of that most stereotypical of Ivy League behaviors: thinking, but never doing.
We face the demoralising suggestion that our classes are less rigorous, our schedules less demanding, our aspirations less ambitious.
Like most freshmen, I signed up for the unlimited meal plan during my first fall semester. Princeton was an embarrassment of edible riches ranging from the sublime (late meal cookies) to the disturbing (any attempt at Asian food). As my waistline expanded, so did my love for Princeton’s dining halls. But by that spring semester, the novelty had worn off (subsisting only on chicken tenders and burrito bowls will do that to you) and nutritional reality had sunk in. In a last-minute effort to reclaim my body and soul, I decided to switch to the Block 190 plan, the smallest meal plan allowed to underclassmen, and I have been on it since.
Debate flared when Princeton received a visit from Ryan Anderson ’04, a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, on April 12.
“It is totally over. If Trump wins more than 240 electoral votes, I will eat a bug.” These words, tweeted out on Oct, 18, 2016, and later reiterated on CNN, came from none other than our very own Sam Wang, professor of neuroscience and a founder of the Princeton Election Consortium. At the time, it was music to my ears — I remember texting one of my friends the CNN video clip along with the caption, “okay I feel much better now.” Of course, when a month later Trump won 304 electoral votes (and my hairline receded about the same number of inches), it was time for Wang to eat crow and cricket on live TV. But then I began wondering: Why did I take such solace in his tweet in the first place?
Once it hits you, there’s no going back: you’ve discovered that someone near and dear to you voted for Trump.
