Spring Break
Princeton by the Numbers
The Importance of Data-Driven Approaches to Campus Issues
James Coan '09
Issue date: 9/30/09 Section: Opinion
Bottom line: Princeton is a sexually restrained campus with a grading policy that likely increases the frequency with which grades such as B and B- are given.
Really, you ask? Isn't this is the same university that has a supposedly dominant hookup culture full of casual sex? Doesn't the grading policy target A-range grades?
I come to my conclusions from taking a quantitative approach to campus issues, a practice which is too scarcely used in addressing concerns about campus life. In these two cases, I used University Health Services (UHS) data about sexual practices at Princeton and administration data about the impact of the grading policy.
Data can offer excellent initial guidance of what life on campus is like without relying on gut feelings or assumptions. This approach helps identify actual problematic issues on campus and allows columnists and the USG to debate campus matters with a fuller understanding of what life on campus is actually like.
To be sure, data must be used well, and it is wise to follow the aphorism that there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics." Statistics must be combined with appropriate analysis of what they mean and what faults the data may have. But when they are used properly, quantitative information should strongly benefit governance and dialogue on campus.
The Campus's Barely There Hookup Culture
In the Daily Princetonian column "An Anscombe's Valentine's Day," David Pederson '12 defined the hookup culture as "the culture of free sex" that is the "dominant sexual ethos on campus." "Free sex" is synonymous with "casual sex," or sex outside of committed relationships. Unlike many opinions that Anscombe Society members have published, this argument that casual sex is the dominant sexual ethos on campus is infrequently or never challenged. Notably, the very hostile response column to Peterson's column by Sam Fox Krauss and Ian Brasg never questioned the assumption of the dominant culture on campus.
Really, you ask? Isn't this is the same university that has a supposedly dominant hookup culture full of casual sex? Doesn't the grading policy target A-range grades?
I come to my conclusions from taking a quantitative approach to campus issues, a practice which is too scarcely used in addressing concerns about campus life. In these two cases, I used University Health Services (UHS) data about sexual practices at Princeton and administration data about the impact of the grading policy.
Data can offer excellent initial guidance of what life on campus is like without relying on gut feelings or assumptions. This approach helps identify actual problematic issues on campus and allows columnists and the USG to debate campus matters with a fuller understanding of what life on campus is actually like.
To be sure, data must be used well, and it is wise to follow the aphorism that there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics." Statistics must be combined with appropriate analysis of what they mean and what faults the data may have. But when they are used properly, quantitative information should strongly benefit governance and dialogue on campus.
The Campus's Barely There Hookup Culture
In the Daily Princetonian column "An Anscombe's Valentine's Day," David Pederson '12 defined the hookup culture as "the culture of free sex" that is the "dominant sexual ethos on campus." "Free sex" is synonymous with "casual sex," or sex outside of committed relationships. Unlike many opinions that Anscombe Society members have published, this argument that casual sex is the dominant sexual ethos on campus is infrequently or never challenged. Notably, the very hostile response column to Peterson's column by Sam Fox Krauss and Ian Brasg never questioned the assumption of the dominant culture on campus.
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posted 12/15/09 @ 8:43 AM EST
To be sure, data must be used well, and it is wise to follow the aphorism that there are "lies, damn lies, and statistics."
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