PLANNING FOR BLACK ON CAMPUS: WOODROW WILSON 1879: PRINCETon’s future ONE ALUM’S VIEW HIS RECORD ON RACE PRINCETON ALUMNI WEEKLY LIVES LIVED AND LOST: 2015 William Zinsser ’44, writer, editor, teacher FEBRUARY 3, 2016 PAW.PRINCETON.EDU 00paw020_CovZinsserCLIPPED.indd 1 1/20/16 10:35 AM PRINCETON ATHLETICS Achieve. Serve. Lead. Princeton Athletics would like to thank you for your support on a record-breaking Tiger Athletics Give Day! Tiger Athletics Give Day - December 1, 2015 • $1.775 million dollars raised in 24 hours • 7,099 unique donors contributed $20+ • Over 8,000 total donations to Athletics • Single largest giving day in Princeton Athletics history Tiger Nation...thank you for Showing Your Stripes! Your generous gifts will support a wide range of needs and opportunities for each of the 38 varsity teams and continue to allow our student-athletes to ACHIEVE, SERVE AND LEAD. www.TigerAthleticsGiveDay.com Athletics Dept 2-2016.indd 2 1/14/2016 2:25:05 PM February 3, 2016 Volume 116, Number 7 An editorially independent magazine by alumni for alumni since 1900 PRESIDENT’S PAGE 2 INBOX 3 FROM THE EDITOR 5 ON THE CAMPUS 7 Alternative admission application Jews and early American culture Strategic-planning reports Q&A with Debbie Bazarsky Essay: Black on campus Coat drive Professor dies in accident Students combat Islamophobia SPORTS: Wrestling Alum’s unusual sport: Skeleton More LIFE OF THE MIND 21 Vaccines and immunity Bureaucracy of terrorism Biography of a mathematician PRINCETONIANS 41 ’99 Vintner Larry Tsai ’79 Til Ryan Scholl ’87 captains USS Page 46 Van Truman Architectural honor Desi Alumni Day preview and Men’s squash coach Bob Callahan ’77, left, ’97 CLASS NOTES 44 scrimmaging with Yasser El Halaby ’06, page 24 MEMORIALS 63 Lives Lived and Lost 24 Wilson, Revisited 36 Mewshaw In our annual tribute, PAW remembers Was the nation’s 28th president unusually alumni whose lives ended in 2015. There racist or just a man of his times? Scholars Sean CLASSIFIEDS 69 were many fascinating stories to be told. dissect his record. THAT WAS THEN 72 Here are 10 of them. By Deborah Yaffe courtesy News; PAW.PRINCETON.EDU Live Lives, Online Speech Debate Watch a video of Josh Libresco ’76’s Meredydd Evans *55 essay recalls William Morris/Alamy (pictured at left) Shockley’s 1973 visit Keith singing Welsh folk to campus. songs, read William Tigers of the Week K. Zinsser ’44’s essay Filmmakers Sean Legacy Questions Schaefer; about Princeton Mewshaw ’97 and Desi Read Gregg Lange before and after World Van Til ’99 (above), ’70’s open letter to Beverly War II, and more. Architect Douglas the Wilson Legacy top: Kelbaugh ’67 *72, Review Committee. From and more. On the cover: William Zinsser ’44 in 1967. Photograph by Walter Daran/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images THE PRESIDENT’S PAGE The Pace Center: Learning Through Service Service and civic engagement are essential to Princeton’s mission, and central to the University’s strategic planning process. As we celebrate the 15th anniversary of the Pace Center for Civic Engagement this year, I thought it fitting to share a few reflections from students and alumni who have participated in the center’s many wonderful programs.— C.L.E. “The first time I walked into a classroom in Trenton about how my education can lead to a life of service, of and“ saw the opportunity gap right before my eyes was meaning, and of consequence. But college is not just a fundamentally life-changing. It’s one thing to read about time to learn for a future life, but to begin that life, starting it, and it’s an entirely different thing to experience it. … now.” —Andrew Nelson ’16, Community House student Service helped change my posture toward learning and executive board member and Oscar S. Straus II Fellow knowledge—by transforming it from something to be in Criminal Justice with the Guggenheim Internships in acquired to something to be experienced and by teach- Criminal Justice program ing me that I had a lot to learn from the people and “There is a dangerous tendency in academics to become communities surrounding the University, not just from increasingly siloed as one progresses in one’s studies and the University itself.” —Kristen Kruger ’14, Student “ training—a problem for which I’ve found service to be a Volunteers Council (SVC) imPACT project leader potent remedy. Whether teaching in a prison or working on “Civic engagement is more than just an opportunity for a soup line, service opportunities have never failed to leave students“ to give back to Princeton and its surrounding me feeling that I have broadened my horizons, deepened communities—it’s an opportunity to learn, grow, my appreciation for my own good fortune, and enriched and absorb different perspectives, experiences, and the palette of colors emotions. … It’s more than just showing up to an with which I paint my assignment or planning a service project. It’s about finding understanding of the meaning and fulfillment in every activity.” —Karmen world.” —Tim Treuer Rivera ’18, SVC student executive board member, SVC Red GS, Graduate School Cross project leader, member of GlobeMed and Princeton Community Associate Faith in Action and Prison Teaching Initiative volunteer “My Princeton experience“ will “What has been forever be tied to my “most meaningful experiences with the about Community Community House Action (CA) has been program. One of the the knowledge I’ve most transformative gained about my own experiences I’ve had was Mark Benjamin ’14, Annie Tao ’16, relationship to service. the senior high school Douglas Bastidas ’17, and Jackie I learned how moved graduation ceremony Rambarran ’16 install solar panels I could be when the for the scholars in our in a remote village in Peru as part of work I am doing program. They each the Pace Center’s 2014 International can be connected spoke about the impact Service Trip. to an impact in that this program had Adaure Nwaba ’16 celebrates the community. on not only their high at the 2015 Community House When the freshmen have their ‘aha’ moment and see school career, but also carnival. A Pace Center program, the connection, I feel doubly moved. On this trip, as we the personal impact it Community House works with packaged hundreds of carrots, we could see the difference had on their lives, and families to close the achievement being made in the fight against hunger and poverty. … it was one of the most gap in Princeton by offering support I have stayed involved with Pace and CA because of the powerful exchanges in the areas of academic success service and the deep bonding that results from working and social-emotional literacy for I’ve witnessed while together towards a meaningful goal. It starts with a week, ENGAGEMENT underrepresented area youth. at Princeton. I believe and at least for me, it lasts for years.” —Eliana ’16, Glatt CIVIC service is essential to CA participant and orientation leader, Community House FOR any Princetonian’s career as it is a constant reminder of life student executive board member, Community House outside the bubble and puts into perspective what we are STEAM Camp counselor working towards and studying for.” —Adaure Nwaba ’16, CENTER “I firmly believe that if you engage in service with Generation One and Community House After School PACE a love of people you come to realize that service is a Scholars project leader “ reciprocal, not a one way, relationship, and that the best THE OF “Doing service work and schoolwork at the same way to work with a community is to learn from the people time“ makes for natural moments of transfer, applying what within it with an open and curious mind, and try to I study to real world situations. Moreover, sustained and help them leverage the incredible strengths they already COURTESY meaningful service is intellectually stimulating, shaping have.” —Ari Satok ’14, recipient of the A. James Fisher, Jr. the questions that fascinate me and the ideas that I follow. Memorial Prize in 2014 for his contributions to service and PHOTOS Princeton has asked me time and time again to think civic engagement at Princeton PAW PROVIDES THESE PAGES TO PRESIDENT CHRISTOPHER L. EISGRUBER ’83 ftu-20160203C.indd 1 1/12/16 3:41 PM YOUR VIEWS WILson’s CAMPUS PRESENCE SEXUAL ASSAULTS AT PRINCETON FROM THE ARCHIVES Inbox FROM PAW’s PAGES: 2/17/50 THE WILSON NAMING ISSUE history, the more I was impressed — The incipient movement to banish shocked, really — by the strength of the the name Woodrow Wilson from case for removal. He used his position the Princeton campus is misguided as leader of the country to aggressively and should be confronted. George promote and implement racist policies Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and a throughout the federal government. host of others whose names we revere How can we possibly excuse or stomach had slaves. Instead, Princeton should this behavior? It seems utterly beside look seriously at the policy of racism and the point to discuss what good deeds he anti-Semitism that prevailed at the time may have done as well. In aggregate, his and caused the University trustees to legacy is an ugly stain on our nation and overlook this very evident characteristic our university. of its president. The shame falls on the Princeton has a great tradition of University, not just Wilson. educational excellence. But what good And while the University re-examines is tradition that serves to fossilize such its history of granting naming rights, it behavior? I feel much gratitude to the might take a hard look at whether it has student protesters who brought this standards for donors, and what they issue to prominence, and I hope the are.