From the Editor: A Virtual Farewell

Princeton students have a large role in producing PAW: writing articles and briefs, assisting with research, helping our advertising director, and posting Class Notes and memorials. They keep us up to date on what undergraduates are thinking. 

Normally we’d send our seniors off into the real world with cake, gratitude, and good wishes. This year we can only express our congratulations in these pages. 

Thank you to Jessica Schreiber, Peter Schmidt, and Alden Hunt, all ’20, whose PAW assignments included contributing items for our email newsletters, covering alumni authors, and writing short pieces about Princeton history. They didn’t stop there. Jessica wrote an installment of “PAW Goes to the Movies.” Alden did a feature story about curators at the Princeton University Art Museum. And Peter contributed an essay about a class trip to Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. A fourth student, Benjamin Musoke-Lubega ’20, regularly assisted on digital projects. 

They all left campus early, but with dreams and goals intact. Benjamin and Alden were headed to jobs as software engineers. Jessica was looking forward to her Project 55 fellowship — slightly delayed — with a nonprofit in New York City. Peter wants to work in the field of environmental justice and renewable energy — and to publish his senior thesis as a novel. 

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Iris Samuels ’19

Photo: Sarah Lapidus

Another virtual locomotive goes to a former PAW student contributor, Iris Samuels ’19, who wrote an essay in our January issue about working as a reporter in Kodiak, Alaska. This month Iris began an 18-month position as a statehouse reporter for the Associated Press in Helena, Montana, as a corps member of the nonprofit Report for America. Of 1,800 applicants for the corps, 225 were chosen. 

I write this on Reunions weekend, when my attention has veered between two screens: my computer, offering up a stream of festivities and panels celebrating Princeton and its alumni, and my television, showing the agony sparked by the death of yet another black man at the hands of police. Meanwhile, the pandemic rages on: Our P-rade takes place on Zoom; protesters in Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Washington wear surgical masks. One moment brings joy, silliness, and pride; the next, grief and despair. 

Normally, we’d simply tell our graduates: Congratulations! You make us proud! This year, we also tell them: We need you. Repair our world. 

This is our final print issue of the academic year, but we’ll continue to bring you news of Princeton and its alumni through the summer at paw.princeton.edu. Wishing you health and resilience during the summer months and beyond.