Category Archives: Features

Campus conservatives navigate post-Trump republicanism

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By Valeria Escobar
Dallas, TX

With camo cargo shorts and a blue crew-neck shirt commemorating the Battle of Gettysburg, Matthew Penza, a rising junior at Princeton, stood in front of the classroom in a power stance. He first seriously contemplated conservative ideology when he studied great thinkers of the Enlightenment such John Locke, Voltaire, and Montesquieu. But Penza would later dismiss their arguments from his political philosophy. “I am a monarchist,” he told the Princeton Summer Journal. “I am an uppercase ‘R’ Republican. I do not believe in the idea of a republic.”

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Administrators, students respond to Trump immigration policy

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By Danielle Emerson
Shiprock, NM

On a Friday afternoon, Albert Rivera took the train home from work. His eyes were on his phone the entire time. The message would have been lost in his email if he had not glanced at it that morning. A member of Princeton University faced legal complications at the airport. Rivera was busy texting an attorney. This was right after President Trump announced the travel ban.

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Private prison divestment student activists call for more transparency

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By Claudia Kania
Burbank, IL

The nationwide debate over private prisons came to the Princeton campus this year, with students speaking out against corporations contracted by the federal government to house inmates.

For-profit prisons came to center stage in February, after the Justice Department under President Trump’s administration opted out of the previous administration’s plan to gradually discontinue the practice.

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Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert discusses “chilling effect” of Trump’s presidency on town

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By Annie Dong
New York City, NY

Last year, as President Trump campaigned on an anti-immigration platform, Princeton Mayor Liz Lempert was knocking on doors in one of Princeton’s immigrant communities as she campaigned for her second term. She approached a Muslim couple to ask for their support. The woman, wearing a headscarf, lingered in the doorway.

“They were terrified,” Lempert said in an interview.

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Officials, student activists on university’s new gender-inclusive housing policy

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By Tanya Solorzano
Bell Gardens, CA

Princeton student Arlene Gamio had to worry about more than just passing classes and getting homesick: As someone with a non-binary gender identity, Gamio had to grapple with living in a dormitory restricted to a gender with which they did not identify.

That arrangement made the already-difficult task of coming to terms with gender identity even more difficult, they (Gamio’s preferred pronoun) said.

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Student activists push for private prison divestment

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By Cynthia Guerrero
Chicago, IL

On a spring day in 2016, cries echoed throughout Princeton University’s Alexander Hall as students and faculty members chanted, “What do we want? Divestment. When do we want it? Now.”

Students for Prison Education and Reform (SPEAR) had organized the protest to demand that Princeton divest from private prison companies, a practice which they claim makes the university complicit in one of the greatest civil and human rights violations of our time.

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Basketball coach Skye Ettin reflects on his coaching career

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By Diana Gonzalez-Castillo
Littlerock, CA

It’s not easy for an Ivy League school to make the NCAA tournament. So when Skye Ettin, an assistant head coach of Princeton’s men’s basketball team, led his players onto the NCAA tournament stage this past March, it was a big deal.

This was his first season as a coach and, at only 25, Ettin is still learning “how to run a program,” he said. But he also considers his age to be a positive.

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University adopts gender-neutral housing policy

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By Delsee Choudhury and Takyra Moore
Atlantic City, NJ and Cary, MS

Princeton University was one of the last Ivy League schools to implement a gender-inclusive housing policy for its students, but starting this fall, students will be allowed to choose roommates regardless of gender.

Gender-inclusive housing allows different genders to share a dorm room. It has become increasingly popular as campuses aim to be more welcoming to transgender students. “It was eye-opening to see how far behind we were,” said Vice President for Campus Life Rochelle Calhoun.

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