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When the men’s volleyball team begins its 2013 season on Tuesday, Princeton will have an unfamiliar asset on its side: experience. After three seasons with at least three freshmen in the starting lineup, this year’s Tigers will rely on several upperclassmen, along with Cody Kessel ’15 and Tony Ensbury ’15 — two star sophomores who earned valuable playing time with national teams this summer.

 

Ensbury started at libero for Princeton as a rookie and leveraged that experience into a spot on the U.S. Junior National Team in August, beating out candidates from more prominent West Coast schools during a month-long training camp. With Ensbury digging up attacks, the U.S. team won the North and Central American junior tournament, its second title in eight biannual competitions dating back to 1998.

 

“It was a lot different than college … it’s high-level and intense, because you’re representing the U.S.,” Ensbury said. “You’re facing people from other countries, rather than friends who played at different schools.”

 

Kessel also got his first taste of international competition this offseason in the Asian Pacific Cup in Japan. The sophomore got to play alongside some professionals on the second-place U.S. team, which included Princeton coach Sam Shweisky as an assistant. “It was good to learn from their experience, the way they approached the game differently than a lot of college players and the tone they bring to the practices,” Kessel said.

 

A high-flyer with volleyball bloodlines, Kessel was named the EIVA Newcomer of the Year in 2012, leading the league with 4.0 kills per set en route to first-team all-conference honors. This year, he’ll be flanked by outside hitter Pat Schwagler ’14, the EIVA’s top rookie in 2010, who returns from a year off to bolster what could be one of the league’s strongest offensive attacks.

 

Princeton’s one area of inexperience is at setter, where the graduation of Scott Liljestrom ’12 leaves a hole in the starting lineup. Davis Waddell ’14, who backed up Liljestrom last year while also playing outside, is expected to take his place; Jeff Stapleton ’14 will also get chances. Both setters will have plenty of targets in Kessel, Stapleton, and middle blocker Michael Dye ’13, the league’s hitting-percentage leader last year.

For the second straight year, a third-ranked Princeton squash team beat the nation’s top ranked squad in an Ivy League contest at Jadwin Gymnasium. The women’s match against No. 1 Harvard on Sunday was closer than the men’s victory over then-No. 1 Yale last February, but the result was ultimately the same — a statement that Princeton is a true national title contender. In front of their home fans, the Tigers won nearly every close match to eke out a 5-4 victory, their first against Harvard since Princeton’s 2009 national championship season.

 

Just as in last year’s meeting in Cambridge — which Harvard, the eventual champion, won 5-4 — the match swung on a comeback at the No. 4 position. Last year, Lexi Saunders ’14 had two match points in the third game before ultimately losing in five; this year, Rachel Leizman ’16 fought off one match ball at 10-9 in the fifth game (on a referee’s decision that was disputed by the Harvard fans) and came back to win 12-10.

 

Leizman’s victory only gave the hosts a 4-3 lead, however, and the score was quickly evened when Amanda Sobhy, one of the world’s top 20 players, dispatched Julie Cerullo ’13 at No. 1. That left the match in the hands of Alex Sawin ’14, who took a 2-1 lead and then won a marathon fourth set, 16-14, to seal Princeton’s upset.

 

“There are always some matches that can go either way, and today they went in our favor,” said Nicole Bunyan ’15. “It was so much fun to watch.”

 

The Tigers don’t really have the typical look of a title contender; they rely less on senior leadership and more on youthful energy. Cerullo, a three-time All-America, is a veteran presence at the top of Princeton’s lineup, but she was the only senior in the team’s starting nine on Sunday.

 

Instead, the Tigers are built on players like Libby Eyre ’14 — who, despite a history of injuries, dove for at least a dozen attempted shots and left the court with bloody knees and knuckles after a four-game loss at No. 2 — and Bunyan, who beat Harvard’s Haley Mendez at No. 3. A British Columbia native who rose all the way from No. 8 to No. 2 in the lineup as a rookie last season, Bunyan relies on fitness and athleticism to grind down opponents such as Mendez, who struggled after a long second game.

 

Cerullo called Bunyan the team’s most “carefree” player, adding, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her stress out before, and that’s not easy to do at Princeton.” That came in handy on Sunday, when Bunyan blew a 9-5 lead in the first game by losing six straight points; unfazed, the sophomore recovered to win the next three games and the match. “Sometimes I use the first game to just see what’s going to happen,” she said. “I felt like I had a better sense of how [Mendez] played after the first game.”

 

After receiving a master’s degree from Juilliard, violist Crista Kende ’07 found herself on the brink of a music career, but she was missing something crucial: a world-class instrument.

 

Kende had been practicing and playing on a viola loaned to her by the Virtu Foundation, which lends high-quality instruments to talented students, since she was 14. She had to return the foundation’s 19th-century French viola when the term of the loan ended.

 

“This was hard, because you bond with this instrument. It becomes like your voice,” she said. “I had all this training, and no instrument.”

 

Like many musicians, Kende enjoys playing mature instruments that are valued for their history and workmanship. She soon realized, however, that such instruments — handcrafted by famous and often long-departed makers — were in short supply and well out of her price range. “A lot of people aren’t aware of how expensive traditional instruments are,” she said.

 

Kende has reoriented her search to include more affordable contemporary instruments but still faces the issue of high cost. She currently is using A Viola for Crista, her crowd-funding website, to raise funds for the purchase of a fine viola, promising “perks” such as recordings, lessons, and private concerts in exchange for contributions.

 

More than 800 students, faculty, and community members gathered in Richardson Auditorium Dec. 10 to hear Antonin Scalia, the longest-serving justice of the current Supreme Court of the United States, speak about the Constitution. They did not anticipate, however, that an exchange between Scalia and an undergraduate would attract more attention than Scalia’s lecture.

 

In a carefully prepared question, Duncan Hosie ’16 asked Scalia about his past comparison of gay sex to murder and bestiality in his legal opinions.

 

“I find this extraordinarily offense, partly because I’m gay. … Do you think it’s necessary to draw these comparisons, to use this specific language to make the point that the Constitution does not protect gay marriage?” Hosie asked.

 

This question, and Scalia’s answer, have made national headlines just days after the Supreme Court decided to review two cases relating to gay marriage in the first half of 2013.

 

“I don’t think it’s necessary, but I think it’s effective,” Scalia said. “It’s a form of argument that I thought you would have known, which is called ‘reduction to the absurd,’” eliciting appreciative laughs and applause from the audience, greater applause than Hosie’s own question drew.

 

“If we cannot have moral feelings against homosexuality, can we have it against murder? Can we have it against other things?” Scalia continued. “I don’t apologize for the things I raise. … I’m surprised you aren’t persuaded.”

 

As the speaker for the James Madison Program’s annual Herbert W. Vaughan Lecture on America’s Founding Principles, Scalia presented the themes of his recent book, Reading Law, chief of which is the importance of an originalist interpretation of the law.

 

The 2011-12 season could have passed as a fairy tale for the men’s squash team. Led by four seniors who had their hearts broken in the national title match as rookies, Princeton returned to the championship at Jadwin Gymnasium and dethroned Trinity, coming back from a 4-2 deficit to end the Bantams’ 13-year streak atop college squash. Teammates and fans leapt onto the court to celebrate the culmination of nearly two decades of close calls.

 

Nine months later, the lights came back on in the C-floor of Jadwin and a new year of squash competition began. With it came one question: How do you move on from a storybook season?

 

For the Tigers, it will start with a new-look lineup. Head coach (and newly enshrined Hall of Famer) Bob Callahan ’77 has replaced the quartet of graduates with underclassmen, including two-fifths of a freshman class that wasn’t around for last year’s celebration and wants one of its own. “Having these guys come in completely changes the feel of the team,” said Dylan Ward ’14, who has moved up several spots to No. 4 this season. “They have really high spirits, and they’re hungry to repeat what we did last year.”

 

Those rookies got their biggest test to date on Saturday, when top-ranked Princeton beat No. 5 Rochester, 7-2. Vivek Dinodia ’16 rolled to a quick win at the No. 9 position, but Michael LeBlanc ’16 followed him with a three-game loss marked by inconsistent play at No. 8. The Tigers will have plenty of time to learn from those matches and tinker with their lineup, as their next contest isn’t until Jan. 12 — but that kicks off a six-week sprint to the team championships, including seven Ivy League contests and a rematch with No. 2 Trinity.

 

 

For Rachel Koblic ’04, every day at American Sommelier presents a new challenge. The organization, founded in 1998, offers wine classes and sommelier training and hosts a biennial competition to crown the “Best Sommelier in America,” and as the director of operations, Koblic handles a variety of day-to-day tasks, from accounting and payroll to sponsorship and web design, as well as long-term business and curriculum development.

 

Though the job often calls for 12-hour work days and learning on the fly, Koblic wouldn’t have it any other way. She graduated from Princeton with her heart set on living in France and immediately took a job shelving books at the American Library in Paris. A year later she was a children's librarian there, coordinating theater and dance programs for kids. After that, Koblic returned to her native Canada to work at a consulting firm in Vancouver; but her goal was always to get to New York City. In 2006, she began working at a New York hedge fund as an on-campus recruiter.

 

It was during her stint at the hedge fund that Koblic took her first wine class with American Sommelier. She said she was attracted to wine as a liberal art in which disciplines like history, art, geology, and climatology converge. She compared the study of wine to an “archaeological dig” uncovering more and more knowledge and complexity. “I love doing some of everything,” she said. “With every different vintage, there’s something new to know.”

 

When women’s basketball coach Courtney Banghart came out of the locker room after Princeton’s game against Rutgers on Thursday night, she couldn’t hide a huge grin on her face. And Banghart had reason to smile — not only had her team just defeated Rutgers 71-55, Princeton’s first win in the New Jersey rivalry since 1978, but after a few shaky games at the beginning of the season, the Tigers seemed to be finding their groove.

 

“If we had played these guys 10 days ago, we would have lost by 20,” Banghart said after the game. “We had a lot of improvements to make.”

 

Even during its 12-game head-to-head losing streak, Princeton had given Rutgers plenty of scares over the years, including a fantastically entertaining 54-53 game in 2010 that was decided in the final seconds. This year, the Tigers didn’t put themselves in a position to let another one slip away. Against a team that was still receiving votes in the Top 25 polls, the hosts handled Rutgers’ pressure and rolled to a 26-9 lead out of the gate; Princeton’s advantage reached as many as 25 points in the second half. (“The score doesn’t really tell the story — we crushed them,” Banghart said.)

 

At the beginning of the season, it looked like Niveen Rasheed ’13 would have an even larger role in Princeton’s offense after the graduation of the second- and third-leading scorers from the 2011-12 team, Lauren Edwards ’12 and Devona Allgood ’12. And the reigning Ivy League Player of the Year certainly hasn’t had a bad season, averaging 14.4 points and 8.7 rebounds per game while ranking second in the league in assists. But Rasheed is also shooting just 39 percent from the floor — well below her previous average — and has more turnovers than assists for the first time in her career.

 

The bigger story has been Princeton’s secondary scorers — which is a much deeper group than in past seasons. Rasheed is always a central part of the Tigers’ offense, but the other pieces seem almost interchangeable. At UCLA last Sunday, forward Kristen Helmstetter ’14 played a total of three minutes; in her next game, she started in place of injured guard Nicole Hung ’14 and scored 14 key points against Rutgers. Center Meg Bowen ’13 had a forgettable night on Thursday, finishing with one point and one rebound; against the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, on Sunday, she notched her first career double-double. “This team has shown that on every night, someone else steps up,” Banghart said.

 

Eleven years after writing a widely circulated feature in The Atlantic magazine called “The Organization Kid,” New York Times opinion columnist David Brooks still sees a societal shift from a culture of self-effacement to one of self-advancement. He discussed how this shift has seeped into national politics in a talked titled “Politics and the Organization Kid” at McCosh Hall Nov. 26.

 

The ethos Brooks described in his 2001 column — a focus among elite college students on ambition and aspiration to the detriment of character development — has “only deepened with time,” he said. But Brooks noted that the meritocracy has only become more pure, and that the competition to get into colleges and find jobs is stricter than ever before. This has catalyzed a loss of public virtue as well as “a rise in self-esteem, self-confidence, and a tremendous rise in the desire for fame,” he said.

 

What this means for American politics is less self-restraint and compromise, Brooks explained. He noted that Americans are now more likely to be caught up in “information cocoons.”

 

“We’ve become more polarized. We’ve certainly tolerated more dishonesty from people who are supposed to be on our side,” he said. Adding to this bleak state of affairs is a demographic shift, most notably where white voters comprise an increasingly thin slice of the electorate and thus cause the Republican party to lost 1.5 percent of its voters every four years. Meanwhile, as the Republicans struggle with the “wrong” side of these demographic transitions, the Democratic Party is forced to govern a country that has lost some of its public virtue in a highly divided Congress.

 

While Brooks said he is a “political pessimist,” he is still an economic and national optimist. “While I rag on a culture for being too narcissistic, it is simultaneously true that people under 35 are leading this tremendous social revival,” he said.

 

The victories of the civil rights movement were extraordinary, but this work is far from done according to civil rights activist, politician, and writer Julian Bond.

 

Bond, who helped to found the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the 1960s, served in the Georgia House of Representatives and Senate, and chaired the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), traced the history of the fight for racial equality at a Woodrow Wilson School lecture Nov. 20.

 

“It saw wrong and acted against it. It saw evil and brought it down,” said Bond of the civil rights movement. “But the task ahead is enormous, equal to if not greater than the job already done.”

 

Bond spoke of the evolution and organization of the SNCC, which encouraged the development of independent political parties, added foreign policy and economic concerns to the Black agenda, used grassroots organizational tactics to mobilize the rural South, and addressed the psychological barriers to Black political and social engagement.

 

Bond noted that these efforts continue in varying forms, and he cited the long lines of voters in Florida two weeks ago as evidence of their legacy: “ordinary men and women proving they could accomplish extraordinary tasks in the pursuit of freedom.”

By now, fans of the men’s basketball team should know not to worry about slow starts. Last year, Princeton won only one of its first six games — losing to undistinguished foes such as Elon and Morehead State — before going on to post 20 wins. And two years ago, the preseason Ivy favorites started the season 2-3 with a couple of puzzling losses before turning it around to reach the NCAA tournament.

 

So it’s hardly surprising that this year’s Tigers, in what has practically become a rite of passage, have struggled out of the gate. In fact, the start of this season is almost a perfect match for 2010-11: After being picked to win the Ivy League, Princeton won a close opener against a strong team (then Rutgers, now Buffalo) but dropped three of its next four, including a back-breaking comeback (then 20 points vs. James Madison, now 18 points vs. Northeastern) and a blowout loss at a top-10 school (then Duke, now Syracuse).

 

And these Tigers clearly have the potential to pull it together by the time conference play rolls around, just like their predecessors did. With the league’s best player, forward Ian Hummer ’13, leading a tall and experienced roster, few would be surprised if Princeton fulfilled its preseason expectations and became the last Ivy team standing in March.

 

“[We need to] not get discouraged,” head coach Mitch Henderson ’98 said after losing at Syracuse on Wednesday. “I think we can be pretty good … but we have to bounce back from where we are.”

 

Princeton has shown flashes of that potential several times already this season. The Tigers sped out to a 7-0 lead at Buffalo, a 21-10 lead against Northeastern, and a 12-3 lead against Rutgers in their first three games. But each time, Princeton followed with frustrating stretches to let its opponent back in the game (often with Hummer on the bench — the Tigers have been outscored by 25 points in 39 Hummer-less minutes).

 

At the Carrier Dome on Wednesday, the Tigers instead had their exasperating moments early on. Princeton played the No. 6 Orange even over the middle 20 minutes of the game, but only after starting in a 20-8 hole. “We came out a little flat ... I thought we played well at times, but we need to put together a full 40 minutes, and we haven’t done that yet,” Hummer said Wednesday night.

 

Desolate streets, broken sewer lines, and driveways piled high with debris. This was the scene that Princeton students encountered upon arriving on New Jersey’s Long Beach Island last weekend.  

 

The island, which was recently reopened to evacuated homeowners, was one of the areas ravaged by Hurricane Sandy. Princeton students, organized by the Pace Center for Civic Engagement, were among the first volunteers in the area.

 

More than 60 students arrived on Saturday and Sunday, going from door to door and offering help. Students did everything from ripping out Sheetrock and clearing debris to making a list of supplies requested by residents.

 

“Our group of volunteers were very enthusiastic and eager to get dirty, work hard, and reach people who really needed help,” said Jennifer Bornkamp, a physics faculty assistant who led a team of Princeton students. “When part of our group heard from several LBI residents [who had fared better] that there was a trailer park just south of Beach Haven that was hit particularly hard, the volunteers doggedly try to get to that area, even though they were turned away twice by the National Guard and police who informed them that access to the area was still limited to residents only.”

 

Friday evening: Classes are over, and the prospect of the Saturday ahead vanquishes any desire to start the weekend’s workload. Friday is a night for relaxation. That’s where the idea of “Shabbat 360” came from, according to the student boards of Chabad and the Center for Jewish Life (CJL).

 

“Jews take this relaxing bit seriously — we even have a name for it: Shabbat,” they wrote in an email to the student body. “We like this idea of Shabbat, and we’re thinking you might too. Which is why we’re inviting you to a very special Shabbat dinner.” 

 

The event, which took place Nov. 16 at the New Frick Laboratory, also was a chance for students from across campus to come together and learn about the weekly Jewish holiday, said Ricky Silberman ’13, the president of the student board of CJL.

 

“Every kind of person was there, Jewish students, non-Jewish students,” Silberman said. “It was great to share this part of Jewish tradition with all of campus.” 

 

Organizers hoped “to expose people to what Shabbat is and what it means to members of the Jewish community,” said Ben Neumann ’14 president of Princeton’s chapter of Chabad.

 

At 6:15 p.m., students arrived in the New Frick atrium, circulating and then gradually settling into their seats at one of the 45 tables, the scene reflecting on the building’s tall glass ceiling.

 

“Shabbat Shalom!” yelled Rabbi Webb, of Princeton’s Chabad, from a balcony overlooking the scene. “Good Shabbas, and welcome!”