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This sort of universal student activism is something quite powerful to absorb. Through such a massive move of participation, change is possible, and progress is reachable. We must come together more as a student body for the causes that afflict, touch, and inspire us to show our strength, make our voices heard, and take a direct and undeniable stand. To be students in “the service of humanity,” we must act more boldly, more passionately, and more powerfully as advocates for the change that we wish to effect.

OPINION | 04/03/2018

Why is school spirit reserved for alumni?

Why is school spirit reserved for alumni?

Rachel Kennedy

Three quarters of the way through my first year at Princeton, I find myself wondering why this energy doesn’t trickle down into undergraduate life. I don’t want to envy middle-aged men and women trying to recapture the glory years I am living. Instead of waiting until after we graduate to bleed orange and black, Princeton students should try to foster a greater sense of school spirit now.

OPINION | 04/02/2018

"Ooh na na, what's my name?": The importance of getting it right

Siyang Liu

My name is something my parents gave me to pass on their hopes, their aspirations, a little piece of them that they bestowed upon me. The meaning of my name, “Siyang,” or “思扬,” is multifaceted. The first character can mean “thinking of” and the second is a shortened version of the Chinese city, “Yangzhou.” This is because Yangzhou is where my parents first met, and therefore those two characters always draw back to that time and place where the paths of their lives first crossed. My name is a tribute to the tenacity and beauty of their love. In addition, “yang” means to rise, to fly — a kind of lightness and happiness they hope for me. There is too much meaning carried in those two syllables of my very Chinese name for me to ever let it go. I am my name.

OPINION | 04/02/2018

Paintball in COS 126

Siyang Liu

This man that claimed to be affiliated with the University (but didn’t offer proof to show it) was still able to market to the entire COS 126 lecture. The result was that students were directly taken advantage of.

OPINION | 04/01/2018

Princeton Plays responds to the Sexpert

Guest Contributor

We advocate for all kink and BDSM that is risk-aware and consensual. To maintain agency and empowerment in BDSM dynamics—regardless of the degree to which they permeate day-to-day life—we suggest that participants prioritize open communication.

OPINION | 04/01/2018

"Hands up, don't shoot" appropriated?

Madeleine Marr

So, why were the protestors in Los Angeles, who were predominantly white students and parents, using this slogan? Especially when the concepts implicit in this slogan, of police brutality and antipathy for young black lives, are not a pressing concern for the people I saw co-opting this cry?

OPINION | 04/01/2018

What Students Should Know About Calendar Reform

Guest Contributor

The new calendar would move fall final exams to December and create a two-week, non-credit bearing “Wintersession” in January before the spring term.

OPINION | 04/01/2018

Fisticuffs and the future of the Left

Fisticuffs and the future of the Left

Ryan Chavez

The tit-for-tat nature of the Biden-Trump brawl would be indicative of the left-right culture war coming to blows if not for the fact that it’s more worthy of a Monty Python skit than of New York Times headlines. While these audacious quotes garner laughs for their ridiculousness, they also bring to the fore the ethical dilemmas and rifts within left-leaning politics.

OPINION | 03/28/2018

On honesty

Jared Shulkin

I can’t say that honesty is always the best policy because it worked for me in a particular scenario, but I can say that honesty is the best policy because the alternative — dishonesty — cannot possibly be.

OPINION | 03/28/2018

On the never-ending routine

Paige Cleary

Do you ever feel like you’re on an episode of the Truman Show? Following a rigid, agonizingly repetitive script that you aren’t sure you wrote? Like, Eisgruber is secretly some major Hollywood producer and there's an entire audience at home, sick sociopaths filled with joy while watching the pain of your struggling to hand in your paper on time?

OPINION | 03/27/2018

The importance of preserving Utah's national monuments

Morgan Lucey

In December of 2017, President Donald Trump, alongside U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, announced plans to reduce the land of two protected national monuments in Utah. I am calling for students to continue to pressure the government to maintain the natural spaces that are formative to our national identity.

OPINION | 03/27/2018

How a hate group spurred Princetonians to action

Daehee Lee

I have always hesitated to do anything political. But students just like me took action that day against the Open Air Outreach protest. They did not have to respond at all. After all, the protest occurred while classes were in session, when many of us would be studying Locke or cleaning chemical glassware.

OPINION | 03/26/2018

What do you mean by “academic freedom?”

Cy Watsky

My point here is not that everything that occurred on the Middlebury campus was justified, but that discussing Murray’s inability to lecture as an affront to academic freedom is irresponsible. The debate surrounding academic freedom is an important one, but not all ideas deserve to be protected in our academic spaces, and Murray’s certainly don’t.

OPINION | 03/26/2018

The need for upperclassmen academic advisors

Rohit Dilip

At the same time, many of the most rewarding and fulfilling classes one could take at Princeton exist outside of one’s major, and do require a substantial amount of work. Freshman year is an ideal time to explore these classes.

OPINION | 03/25/2018

Let it die so you can live: The beauty of a dead phone

Let it die so you can live: The beauty of a dead phone

Rachel Kennedy

I’m the friend whose phone is always dead and I can tell you it’s liberating.

OPINION | 03/15/2018

Mental health reform starts with students

Samuel Aftel

The University — specifically, the University’s student body — needs to undergo a cultural reformation. That is, we need to be more conscious of how we contextualize and frame mental illness, as this will affect how students with mental illness are socially ranked.

OPINION | 03/13/2018

What happened to commitment?

Jessica Nyquist

After the initial excitement and compulsive netID distribution at the club fair, club involvement is often not all that it’s advertised to be. Despite our over-involvement in high school, at Princeton our student organizations suffer from a lack of commitment.

OPINION | 03/13/2018

Turn out for what?

Ryan Born

PAJ (and by extension, its leadership) suffers from a practical limit of effectiveness, an affliction of aimlessness, and a passivity of purpose.

OPINION | 03/13/2018

Lewis Thomas Laboratory: Icon of architectural postmodernism

Gabe Lipkowitz

In a series of articles, I hope to draw attention to a few buildings on our campus that do not fall easily into one of the two architectural extremes. Possessing neither the timelessness of Collegiate Neogothic nor the novelty of contemporary architecture, they occupy a perhaps awkward, or in the eyes of many students even undesired, position on campus.

OPINION | 03/13/2018

Thoughts and prayers aren’t enough

Nicholas Wu

In December 2014, one of my high school classmates, Paige Stalker, was killed in a hail of gunfire on the east side of Detroit. Police reports suggest that this was a case of mistaken identity in a dispute between drug gangs. But the circumstances of the shooting are irrelevant to the outcome of the case. About 30 shots were fired in the course of the altercation. Three other teenagers riding in the car with Paige were injured. Paige was 16 years old.

OPINION | 03/12/2018

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