Opinion

A traditional Thanksgiving

So in order to round out my patented three step approach to American assimilation, I set out to experience the quintessential American holiday. However, the slight obstacle of 9,558 miles separating New Jersey and Singapore prevented me from doing the requisite amount of feasting with family this Thanksgiving.

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.

Cartoon: At 3:00 a.m., you're never the crazy one

Dreaming in America

The United States is a country with a prosperous past, but also one straddled with an uncommonly uncertain future. Standing in the long customs line at Newark Liberty International Airport when I arrived in September, with Manhattan’s skyline dominating the glass window behind me, I had no idea what to expect from this country. Now, almost three months in, I am still struggling to piece together the parts of this jumbled American jigsaw.

Be here now

Though I recognize there are several compelling reasons why a person might bring a laptop to class — they think they take notes better or that it is helpful to Google new terms — I am against using laptops in class because of this idea of “Be here now.”

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.

Too much information

Excessive amounts of information can discourage student reflection on the subject at hand. Often students must focus so much on figuring out what’s going on in their reading that they don’t have the opportunity to think about what it means to them.

Cartoon: Going out

Writing on campus

Metzger dismissing the Nass is characteristic of the general Princeton attitude to the arts in general. In this particular case, the Nass takes the hit because it is the most prominent artistic voice on campus, but what’s really being questioned here is the role of the arts, specifically literary, in the Princeton community.

Thoughts from abroad: Rethinking our ideals

What is Europe’s argument for letting multiculturalism go? For the most part politicians seem to highlight continued segregation in communities, a lack of cultural integration, tensions between state and nongovernmental community groups — especially Muslim ones.

Cartoon: On being thankful

Relations with P-Safe

Students and Public Safety officials ought to be on the same page — the general welfare and comfort of the Princeton community is everyone’s objective. Unfortunately, this ethos has not been created and Public Safety’s mode of operation has sometimes turned hostile and even adversarial.

Letters to the Editor: November 21, 2011

Jim Valcourt "sets the record straight" on Tiger Magazine, and Bryan Bell defends the 99%.

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.

Cartoon: Unusual Friends

Cartoon: Going green

Grades and happiness

However, my complaint is not that we are less competitive when compared to our Harvard peers. My complaint is not even that grade deflation is unfair. Rather, my argument is that the competitive atmosphere created by grades — and grade deflation in particular — is antithetical to education. My proposal is not to merely eliminate grade deflation, but to eliminate grades altogether.

NassWatch

You’d be forgiven for not having noticed this, but The Daily Princetonian has a competitor on campus. It’s called the Nassau Weekly, or the “Nass” for short, and it could charitably be described as a “weekly student newspaper” containing a “blend of campus, local and national news; reviews of films and bands; original art, fiction and poetry and other college-related material.” (I stole that description from Wikipedia.) A more realistic description would focus on the large ketchup stains usually found on its cover due to its primary distribution in dining halls and eating clubs, its over-reliance on irony and its apparent lack of an editing process.

Editorial: Excellence in research

We do not deny that work done on primates plays an important role in achieving goals in scientific research. While it is appropriate that the University’s researchers employ primates in their work, we have an obligation to avoid inflicting any unnecessary harm upon them in the course of conducting research. Much of the research misconduct identified by the USDA — depriving monkeys of water, for example, or failing to provide adequate care for pregnant monkeys — seems clearly to violate this obligation. We must stop these violations.

What Tigers can learn from Nittany Lions

Clearly the football culture at Penn State has been problematic — at least at the administrative level. It must be rethought. But it can be and almost always is a force for good. And the fact that Princeton doesn’t have a single comparably unifying institution on its campus is unfortunate.