Feature: June 4, 1997


Seniors Reflect

Four years ago, when the article "Seniors Reflect" appeared in the PAW of June 2, 1993, the seven students we've chosen for a similar feature in this issue were preparing to come to Princeton. Last month, as they were studying for exams and looking ahead to Commencement, we asked them to look back on their undergraduate careers. What has Princeton-its culture and traditions-meant to them, and how have their friends and professors, their activities and classes, shaped them? In the broadest sense, what have they learned here?
On this and the following six pages are excerpts from their conversations with
Senior Editor Paul Hagar '91.

Mike Fischer
- Hometown: Wayne, Pennsylvania
- Woodrow Wilson School major, thesis topic: First Amendment implications of campaign-finance reform (adviser: Jonathan Krasno)
- President of Undergraduate Student Government in 1996, member of U-Council (1995-96), Outdoor Action leader, vice-president of College Democrats, member of Colonial Club
- Plans for next year: work in Washington, D.C.
I started my involvement with campus politics in the spring of freshman year, when I served as treasurer of the Mathey College council. Then I joined the U-Council halfway through my sophomore year. After getting to know Dave Calone ['96], the president of USG before me, I felt it was an opportunity I couldn't turn down. There was so much potential that I thought it justified the cost in time-and stress.
Serving as USG president meant a whole variety of things to me. It was an enormous responsibility to be in charge of an organization that is so large and has such an important role, making sure student opinion is represented in all kinds of university decisions. It gave me the chance to be involved in many things: the Campus Center, discussions of the budget, and many student organizations; I got to know large numbers of students and administrators. You don't get such a diversity of experience in many other student organizations.
I think each of these things individually would have helped me, but all together they gave me something I otherwise never would have gotten. I got to know Princeton, its history, and the challenges that colleges are facing today. Students feel so pressured during their four years here that they don't get many chances to step back and think about Princeton: where it's going and where we as students think it should be going. Serving in student government gave me that opportunity.
Princeton can be a comfortable environment, but for some students it can also be intimidating. There are aspects of the climate here that aren't as welcoming as they could be. I was lucky since I found a group of friends early on, but I think it's difficult for many students to find their niche. Princeton has the feel of a small, sometimes insular community, and it may seem a little homogenous to some people. Even so, there's a unified feeling here that you don't get in many other places. I think people feel connected to Princeton. It can be too conservative and resistant to change, but to a certain extent that's because of the attachment people have for the university, which encourages an adherence to traditions.
. . . Until the spring of my senior year in high school, I was pretty convinced that I didn't even want to come to Princeton, partially because my father [John Fischer '65] and grandfather [Carl Fischer '24] were alumni. My parents were on campus for my grandfather's 50th reunion three or four months before I was born, so I was exposed to the place from day one, or at least to one side of it. Back then I didn't think Reunions were a whole lot of fun. My image of Princeton was one of wood chips, huge tents, and fences everywhere. It wasn't until I came here in April after I'd been accepted and stayed with some students that I began to love the place. That weekend changed my mind, and I've never regretted it. In the end, I think the fact that my father and grandfather came here made me think a lot more carefully, but I came to see that this was it for me. . . . One of my best Princeton memories is of the P-rade after my freshman year. I had watched it so many other times, not really understanding the nature of the event. But being there, experiencing it for the first time as a true member of the community, I felt I had a bond with this place. Especially seeing my grandfather's class march by-he died in 1990-it hit me that there was this Princeton family, and now I was part of it.

Malena Salberg
- Hometown: Brentwood, Tennessee
- Slavic languages major; thesis topic: Soviet media coverage of the Six Day War (adviser: Michael Wachtel)
- Editor of The Daily Princetonian (1996), sports editor and writer; member of Colonial Club
- Plans for next year: work as a sports copyeditor at a
newspaper
I think Princeton's location is a great thing. it's nice to be in an environment where you don't have to worry about people breaking into your room or about being pick-pocketed on the street. I'm also still awed by the beauty of this place. There's something about this kind of Colonial town, the little streets and brick buildings. I never had that in any place I've lived.
I was tremendously happy with my choice of major, especially in terms of individual attention from professors. For me, that hasn't been an illusion, which it was for some people. My underclass advising was poor-both from my academic adviser and my RA [resident adviser]-so in those years I didn't have much guidance, but since I entered my department I've been happy. I love the fact that my adviser was around a lot, especially since my responsibilities at the Prince sometimes made my schedule difficult to work with.
I think the social life here is good. People who aren't at Princeton say our social scene is very exclusive, because it's based around the clubs, some of which are very exclusive. But I think the exclusiveness is a myth because in general terms the Princeton social life is fairly egalitarian. A large portion of the campus meets in a given area on a Saturday night, and within that area you're pretty much free to go wherever you want. It's better than at some other schools, where the social life is based on parties, and you can only go if you know somebody. Here you're able to go to 12 different parties.
On the other hand, the social life is fairly undiverse. There might be a band here and a deejay there, but for the most part it's the same. If you're seeking something besides that, your options are limited-you have to find other people who are interested and make your own fun.
. . . Being the editor of the Prince wasn't something I planned, but circumstances seemed to make it happen. One of the most important things for an editor-in-chief is to be around a lot. People are looking to you for guidance, even if you're not necessarily doing anything. I would spend a lot of nights there, just talking to people. That's what makes the Prince fun. I feel the paper might be getting away from that, since computers and all the improving technology are making it possible to put it out with fewer people. For instance, when I came we might have needed eight press people on at night. Now three is probably the best number.
In some ways that's really good, we're more efficient than ever. But it takes away from the social aspect. It is a daily newspaper, but it's not a job, it's not something where you come in and do your task and then leave. People who are still there don't seem to think it's a problem, but I see it changing, becoming less fun and more professional.
The Prince makes mistakes sometimes, that's natural for a college paper. First and foremost, working at the Prince is a learning experience. I think it's fine if people expect the paper to be error-free-it should certainly spell names right and stuff like that. When that doesn't happen, something went wrong somewhere along the way. And I'd like to think some criticism comes because people expect something from the paper. But I also think some people expect us to know everything about everything. Journalists have to know enough about something to convey it intelligently, but you can only expect them to have expertise as a spectator. For instance, if you are involved in an environmental organization and the Prince does an article about the environment, it's unlikely the article will fit your expectations.
. . . Princeton made me able to handle more pressure. You're under so much pressure here, academically and extracurricularly-everything people do here is very intense. A lot of what I do in my life is about tackling things I'm scared of and beating them.
At Princeton I've taken on things I never would have thought I could do and grown relatively comfortable with them. I was scared going into the Prince and writing my first article, interviewing people, but I eventually got used to it. Now I'll go out into the real world and everything will scare me just the same: finding a job, having to live on my own. But since I've tackled some of the little things here, I'll be able to go into the world and deal with some of the bigger things.

Marc Washington
- Hometown: Ashland, Kentucky
- Civil engineering major; senior project: modeled flow of traffic through Princeton (adviser: Alain Kornhauser)
- Tailback and captain of football team, GTE Academic All-American (1997), vice-president of Cap and Gown Club
- Plans for next year: will join management-consulting firm of McKinsey and Co. in Atlanta, Georgia
Usually when people ask who influenced me at Princeton they're asking in football terms, and they automatically expect me to say Keith Elias ['94]. He did have a great effect on me. But I think a person who had a greater influence on me was another guy on the team, Bill Jordan ['95]. He had a tremendous impact outside of football, talking about life, religion, anything you could talk about. He's an incredibly deep person. You can tell that just by talking to him-he's slow, methodical, and you can tell he always thinks of what he's going to say before he speaks. Another person who influenced me was Professor Alain Kornhauser, my thesis adviser. He's a very intelligent person, but he's personable as well. I think that's one of the best things about him. I believe there should be more teachers like him here. You don't just think of him as a professor, you think of him as someone you can talk to, someone you can be very honest with and talk to in a normal setting.
. . . One of the things I'm most grateful to football about is that it opened my eyes to Princeton. At my high school, it wasn't really an option. Then I was contacted by the Princeton coaches; they said they were interested in me and asked if I was interested in them. I'm very fortunate that they found me. Once I came here to visit, I knew I couldn't pass Princeton up. I could still continue playing football, which was something that was very important to me, but on top of that, I could get this kind of education.
Before I came here, Princeton was so far-off and unknown. I thought to myself, "I'll just suck it up and go there, deal with it for four years, and get a job afterwards." I thought the entire place would be full of people who were very smart, but only interested in academics. I thought everyone would be rich. I was scared I wouldn't find people who were from my background. But when I came here, Princeton dispelled those Ivy League myths and I found a lot of people who shared my interests.
Football really has been a big deal for me since I've been here. Besides giving me an outlet, it's provided me with an incredible group of friends, which I had never had before. In high school, I had football friends and then I had friends from classes. They didn't mix at all. Whereas here, it's a completely meshed thing. Some of my best friends on the team are my friends in classes and socially. I've found so many more people that I have so much in common with. Being able to share all that with those guys has been amazing.
As for football, there are a couple of games that stand out. The Penn game my junior year, walking out onto the field. Thirty-six thousand people yelling "Princeton sucks!" and screaming at us. Our record was 7-0 and we were still picked to lose. And then to beat them was incredible. I broke my finger in that game, but I don't even remember that part of it. I just remember being on the field after the game, with people taking pictures of me and the rest of the team.
Also the Dartmouth game in 1995, in the snow up in Hanover, when we won the Ivy League championship on the last play of the game. I remember us standing on the sidelines, holding hands, just praying. There were so many emotions going on at once. But the first thing, and the second thing, and the third thing I thought right at that moment was, "What are we doing? I cannot believe we are going for a field goal right now!" I was ready to get the ball, score the winning touchdown, get us the championship. But we had just driven down the football field and my mind was racing. I didn't realize that if we got the tie we still got the title until I was on the sideline and someone said, "A field goal means the championship." But I definitely would not have made that call at the time-although that's kind of a biased opinion, since I very likely would have gotten the ball-I've never tied anything in my life, it wasn't anything that even entered my mind. But looking back, I'm very glad we did.

Joy Radice
- Hometown: Queens, New York
- Woodrow Wilson School major (1997 class representative); Women's Studies certificate; thesis topic: Why mothers on public assistance do not want child support (adviser: Sara McLanahan)
- Student Volunteers Council board member, member of Students for Progressive Education and Action (SPEAC), intern with Project '55 in Chicago (1995) and in New York City (1996), resident adviser in Wilson College, vice-president College Democrats, member of Colonial Club
- Plans for next year: will work for Appleseed Foundation, a nonprofit legal public-interest group, in Washington, D.C.
In my time at Princeton, I've been stuck between three worlds. One is my home in Queens, which is a working-class community that's extremely multicultural. I came here with no idea about what Princeton was like and encountered a completely different world. It has changed me immensely. Princeton challenged me to grow into the person I wanted to become. Then I saw another world when I met people who were lower-income and receiving public assistance in Trenton, New York City, and Chicago through my work with the Student Volunteers Council (SVC), my academic work, and my work with Lawyers for Children. Coming back to Princeton from New York after sitting in a welfare office and interviewing women for my thesis was emotional; it made me distraught at times. It opened my eyes to the buildings, the quality of life, and the standard of living at Princeton. The contrast really hit me once I was actually sitting in a public-assistance office in the Bronx, talking to women who wanted just as much for their children as my parents want for me, but who couldn't find the means to provide.
I'd get angry and frustrated, and wonder, "Why am I here, as opposed to one of the children of the women I interviewed?" As I was writing my thesis, I felt a lot of pressure to do a good job because I really wanted to capture the voices of those women. In welfare offices, there are hundreds of people walking around, there are babies crying, and everything is very unclean. And then I would be sitting in a beautiful room in Forbes College, overlooking the golf course, writing about it all. I don't know what I'm going to do with my life because I'm grappling with the differences between the worlds of Princeton and Queens, and with the lives of those women, trying to find where I fit in. . . . I tried to start an experiential-learning class last year with two other students because we thought a lot of people who had worked with nonprofit organizations were struggling to connect that to their academics. The class would have combined attending a weekly seminar with working on a community-involvement project with a local organization. But the administration would only allow it as a graduate seminar, because Princeton wants undergraduates to get a liberal-arts education, so we're supposed to have a substantial amount of analytical, research-based theory in our courses. A lot of administrators I talked to felt undergraduate courses weren't the place to do outside work. They'd say, "You're going to leave Princeton in two years. Why do you want to get a taste of the real world while you're here?" In order for me to find where I want to be in the "real world" (which is an interesting designation) and make my academic work meaningful, I have to connect it to something real. Hearing those women's voices was something very real for me. Planning for the new community-service center has given the university community a forum to evaluate what "Princeton in the Nation's Service" really means.
A lot of people on this campus talk about service with a noblesse oblige attitude. They feel obligated to give something back. I get involved because I have a different type of motivation. I do it because it's part of my history and my family background, part of being a product of a city. . . . Different communities of people trying to live together in a place like Jackson Heights shaped me, and I'm motivated to get involved in communities because I get so much out of it. When I did my thesis, I felt like I was getting more out of it than the women whose lives I was invading. I struggled with how much I was taking advantage of their situations. . . . I look like your stereotypical Princeton student, and I think you'd assume I was one from my appearance. I look and seem like everyone else, and I thought I was like everyone else, until I started talking to my friends about the places they were from and the homes they lived in, and realized I was very different.

James Gillespie
- Hometown: Wilmington, North Carolina
- History major; thesis topic: Czechoslovakia in World War I (adviser: Anson Rabinbach)
- President of Whig-Clio, flutist in University Orchestra, publisher of Princeton Tory (1995), member of ballroom-dancing club, member of Tower Club
- Plans for next year: to work for the Independent Historians' Commission in Washington, D.C.
I think what you learn from your fellow students is infinitely more valuable than what you learn in class. Even if it's just chatting in a precept, you're learning how to deal with other people. I'm sure that to an extent, you would get that same "education" from any university, just because you'd be growing up for four years, but you wouldn't be growing up with quite the same level of people.
There's been some talk about problems with drinking on campus, but it's been my experience that even the people who go out and get plastered every Thursday will be able to turn out a really good economics essay when push comes to shove. And if they're actually awake by the time precept comes around, they can say something fairly intelligent. . . . You're going to find alcohol wherever you have 20-year-olds.
People also say that Princeton students are passive on social issues, that there's not enough activism on campus. I disagree with that completely, possibly because I've tended to move in political circles. I think people here are just too bright to be extremists on most issues. You spend so much time here learning the complexities of what's going on; people study the issues too much to reduce them down to simplified, activist issues. If you take a half-dozen economics classes, it no longer makes a whole lot of sense to go out and stand around on the streets shouting about how we ought to be Communists. You simply understand that class structure isn't that simple. Even most of the activists have a rational point of view. There are one or two people on campus who would stand up at the LGBA [Lesbian and Gay Bisexual Alliance] Pride event and heckle, but I believe those people are helpful in setting up a Hegelian dialectic. If you have one or two outlyers on each side of the argument, making the extreme cases, then it's much easier to define a moderate position.
. . . The amount of money that goes toward athletics here, compared with the money that goes towards student publications, theater, musical groups, all other extracurricular activities combined is absurd, and it's disreputable for a university of this status. The fact that the Princeton Tory, for example, could be funded for many years on what one sports team gets for a single season is ridiculous.
. . . When I came to Princeton after high school, I expected it to be difficult to actually meet any of the professors and make any friendships. But I was pleasantly surprised. Thomas Hewett in the math department, Wolfgang Danspeckgruber in the Woodrow Wilson School, Eileen Scully in the history department-they're all people I consider friends. They all like to teach and to mentor the students they meet. That's not a universal quality here, but it's more widely spread than at a lot of universities, and I think there's more of it here than students take advantage of. I've decided to go to graduate school partially as a result of getting to know them. They were good role models, and they showed me that teaching was interesting.
I also came here assuming that everyone would be roughly equivalent in most of their abilities. That wasn't a well-considered opinion, and it didn't make any sense. But at my high school, most of the people who were bright in math were also good in English and were also running the theater program and were in the band. I assumed there would be a roughly equivalent distribution of talent here. What I found, what I'm glad to have found, is that Princeton has a very diverse community in a much more real sense than simply being racially diverse or having one person from each of the Pacific islands-that type of diversity isn't terribly impressive.
Princeton is diverse in terms of having different abilities, different strengths and weaknesses, spread with great disparity. You're very likely to meet people who are completely unlike you in everything they do. . . . It can be intimidating, but I think the crucial thing is to find a niche in which you have a comparative advantage. It's important for your self-esteem-you have to feel like there's a place you fit in and in which you excel. I think most people here find that kind of place eventually.

Tomika Stevens
- Hometown: Lynchburg, Virginia
- Psychology major; thesis topic: a psychosocial and legal perspective on battered women (adviser: Ronald Comer)
- Served as managing, development, and publicity directors for Theatre Intime; directed, produced, and stage-managed several plays; Sexual Education Counseling Health adviser; Project '97 captain; member of Tower Club
- Spirit of Princeton award-winner, 1997
- Plans for next year: pursue a J.D./Ph.D. in clinical
psychology
I'm very aware of being a black person on this campus. When I came here as a freshman, there were about 10 black students in our class at Rockefeller College. I directed a play, Long Time Since Yesterday, my junior year, and I needed an all-black, female cast. So I decided to send out voicemail to all the black female students on campus. There were only about 25 in the Class of 1996, which floored me. The number went up to 30 or 40 for my class, and I think it increased for 1998 and 1999. But it's definitely a limited population. Sometimes I'd be sitting in my eating club and I'd realize I was the only black student there, and it would make me wonder how all the other people there perceived me. We talk so much about multiculturalism on campus and about being aware of different ethnicities and recognizing that we all have common links. But I think it's very difficult to ask a person to look beyond someone's race or sex. People shouldn't have to look at me and say, "I recognize that you're black and you're female and you're young, but those don't matter, because the things that we have in common are more important." I don't necessarily agree with that. The differences that we have are just as important.
. . . There are about four different places where I met my core group of friends. The first was through my RA [resident adviser] group, and they showed me a different perspective on life. Those are the people you meet first, who you live with, and who you congregate with on a daily basis. I come from a small town where there's a good population of black people, but when I came here, there were a lot of people within my group who had never met someone who was black. And I'd never had too many Asian-American friends, but in my RA group I met one of my best friends, who's Cambodian.
The Student Center, where I worked for four years, not only gave me the ability to support myself monetarily through college, but it also gave me the opportunity to meet some great people. I got close to the students I worked with because we all shared a common experience, and the professional managers there gave me a very interesting perspective on the working world.
I also met a lot of interesting people at Theatre Intime. I hadn't done a lot of drama in high school, but when I went to Intime's booth at the activity fair in the fall of my freshman year, a student named Lucy Hornby ['95] convinced me that I had to try it. I started as a member of the stage crew for the production of Shadowbox. After that I did a couple of shows a year and ended up on the board of the theater, and I've stayed involved for all four years, even with the ups and downs of Princeton's theater community.
And Tower Club has been more than just a place to eat-the members hang out and study together. The people I've met there have been so influential to me, particularly one of my dearest friends, Greg Paulson '98, who talked to me a lot about how important he thinks it is not to take things for granted. It's not difficult to take things for granted here, especially if something looks like it comes easy. Princeton students are so insulated-we have this fence that's around us, and we have access to so many resources. It's easy to think things in the outside world don't affect us. But real-world things do affect us, that's become evident this year with the death of a good friend of mine, Richard Modica ['99], who was killed in a traffic accident during Spring Break.
. . . I learned the most from the people I've come in contact with here. I've met people who inspire me simply by being who they are. A lot of people may talk about the academics and the facilities and the resources, and they're great. But I think Princeton's strongest resources are its students. I know most of the things I've done wouldn't have been possible without them.

Davis McCallum
- Hometown: Atlanta, Georgia
- English major, thesis topic: Shakespearean drama in the cinema (adviser: Thomas Roche *58)
- Active in campus theater, participated in Princeton's field-study program as member of Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, active in Student Volunteers Council and independent service projects, member of Ivy Club
- Pyne Prize cowinner, 1997
- Plans for next year: study in England at Christ Church College, Oxford University, as a Rhodes Scholar
When I arrived at Princeton as a freshman, I was shocked to find out that there wasn't a theater on campus. Theatre Intime is a converted church, the Forbes and Wilson college theaters are converted laundry rooms, and the acting studio at 185 Nassau is a converted gym. And McCarter Theatre, even though the Triangle Club gets to use it twice a year for shows, is now one of the nation's leading professional regional theaters. It isn't available for students to use on a day-to-day basis. Undergraduates who want to pursue professional-quality work in the theater while getting a liberal-arts education are stuck without a physical theater as a home. Despite that initial disappointment, I got really interested in the idea of natural performance spaces around the campus. I also came to realize what an amazing teaching resource the Program in Theater and Dance is. I would rather have people like Michael Cadden, Ellie Renfield, Tim Vasen, and Beth Schachter than a glistening, beautiful, proscenium theater. We may just have been named one of the nation's top-ten "jock schools" [by Sports Illustrated], but I would not be surprised if in the future, the creative and performing arts step into the foreground for a lot of people. Even if at first Princeton doesn't offer all the things you want, maybe you have to look a little harder or create opportunities where none had existed before. My experience in the theater community suggests that at Princeton there is a receptiveness to self-initiated work.
. . . In founding the Princeton Shakespeare Company I wanted to provide a structure that would empower actors to do their work, to provide a place where they felt they were safe in the hands of a capable director with a script that was playable. Shakespeare wrote for actors and acting; the guy was a real man of the theater. His stuff is written with tools that appeal to an actor's mind. When the Princeton Shakespeare Company did A Midsummer Night's Dream, we were outside, on the steps of Lockhart Hall. This was the ultimate shoestring production. We'd scraped together anything we could to put on the play. One of the principal actors quit, so we had to shuffle around the parts. Until a week before, we didn't even have permission to use the steps. I was telling my cast, "Everything's cool, we're moving ahead." Inside I was thinking, "I could be leading these people nowhere."
There's a moment in the show when Puck is bringing back the magic love-in-idleness flower, and Oberon is up on the steps, in the middle of this soliloquy. The actor playing Oberon, Leo Kittay ['96], is talking to the audience-he has this big black mask on, dark eyes, long black hair, with a cape and some gloves-and in comes Puck. Oberon senses he's there, turns his head, and says, "Welcome wanderer, has thou the flower there?" And Puck says, "Ay, here it is." Then, the woman playing Puck, Jennie Snyder ['98], takes the flower from her pocket. It was one of those whirligig things, with the stick and the propeller at the top, which you spin and it flies. Shielding it from the audience with her body, she spins it so it floats up to Leo, and he snatches it. Then he starts into his famous speech, "I know a bank where the wild thyme grows . . . "
But it was a risky move, because if Jennie's toss was a little off, or if the wind blew, or if Leo missed the catch, it would explode the moment and look completely amateurish. So we had them out there all day practicing this throw, because it was the ultimate moment of the play. On opening night, which was beautiful and clear, Jennie came in and spun the flower, and it was a complete surprise to the audience. As soon as they saw it shooting up there, they just gasped, a really audible gasp. And I thought that was a great moment for our company, because with a flower-thing that cost $1.50 at Toys R Us, we'd created a moment of Elizabethan magic for these people. The delicate birth of the company was as fraught with risk as the flight of that flower. In the middle of things, I would sometimes think, "This is never going to make it." But then, as if on some magical breath, it would just happen. And since then I've thought of that flower as a metaphor for the company.


paw@princeton.edu