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21 Questions with... Shirley Tilghman

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PREZ

Name: Shirley Tilghman
Occupation on Campus: President
Major: Molecular Biology
Hometown: Princeton

Who's your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
My daughter Becca '03

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Ice cream.

What's the best meal you've eaten in Princeton?
Any meal cooked by Sally Lewis Lamonica, the chef at Lowrie House

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
I work to ensure that in the future, including tomorrow, Princeton University is fulfilling to the greatest extent possible its potential to transform the lives of its students, and discover new knowledge.

Best place on campus?
Icahn Lab

Worst place on campus?
My daughter's former dorm room in Wilson College

What are your favorite ways to relax?
Ski

What's the last student performance you saw?
Orpheus Waking - Friday night

What's hanging above your desk and/or bed?
Icahn Lab water color by Rafael Vinoly, the architect of Icahn Lab

Where do you do your best thinking?
Walking

Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
Yes

If you could change something about Princeton, what would it be?
I would move the entire campus, lock, stock and barrel, to the site of the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. This would combine the most beautiful campus architecture (Princeton) with the most stunning natural setting (UBC).

What's your drink?
Diet Coke

What's your top vacation destination?
Colorado

How often do you cook?
Christmas and Thanksgiving

When's bedtime?
11:30 pm

New Butler or Old Butler?
New Butler!

Who is your mortal enemy?
Complacency

When's the last time you used cash?
Today

In 10 years, I will be…
doing something else

What makes someone a Princetonian?
Life long intellectual curiosity, and a commitment to use one's education to make the world a better place


CEA

(image source: princeton.edu)

Meet a pre-frosh: That annoying kid in precept next year!

As the tide of overeager pre-frosh recedes, we've come across this story of a Princeton-bound Michigan girl who aced the ACT, the SAT and the PSAT.

To make things worse, Willa Chen, the trifecta tool, is quoted as saying, "I wouldn't say I studied a lot."

Well, someone's going to make a lot of friends next year.

WAS

(image source: moneywatch.bnet.com)

Princeton vs. the Spanish Flu of 1918

As the swine flu that emerged in Mexico began to make headlines, the quaint hamlet that is Princeton had its own worries: Whooping cough! ...But now swine flu too, after students from Queens began exhibiting symptoms this week.

All this talk of quarantines and masks and avoiding small children naturally got us thinking about the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic that infected a third of the world's population .

Princeton was lucky in that no students died, though the halls of McCosh were packed. We'd say the administration handled it pretty well --shutting off the campus and isolating its students from the flu.

We found an article in a recent Princeton Alumni Weekly, "Why Princeton was spared," about ...why Princeton was spared. Also in the article is a look back at what Princeton was like during World War I. (Hint: West Point!)

The best quotes after the jump.

More...

"Each of the 200 men who arrived at the paymaster’s school Oct. 1 from the naval training camp at Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx, where an outbreak had been noted, was ordered to strip. Their outer clothing was placed in a disinfecting room overnight, to be sterilized by exposure to barium dioxide-formaldehyde. The men then had a solution of chlorazene and menthol sprayed into their noses and throats before being given hot baths. Anyone who showed the slightest symptom of infection was dispatched to isolation."

"In an order dated Oct. 28, Goodrich prohibited all naval men from going anywhere in town east of Bayard Lane or north of Nassau Street without special permission...(It appears, however, that the ban on going into town was often evaded. In one story, a green freshman from the SATC program assigned to patrol Nassau Street discovered two upperclassmen who had sneaked off to Renwick’s ice cream parlor. When he confronted them and demanded their names, they gave him the names of a proctor and the dean of students, which he promptly reported to the corporal of the guard.)"

AW

Coincidence? I think not

No, Mr. Newman, it is no coincidence: Drunk kids do stupid things. And on this fine Newman's Day, let us sober ones enjoy the hijinks. Stories after the jump.

More...
4:00 PM, Frist third floor men's bathroom

An obviously drunk upperclassman stumbles into the bathroom wearing a backpack from which clinking can be heard. He stands at the urinal and, after a minute, a loud breaking sound pierces the silence.

Looking down, one finds a shattered beer bottle and its contents on the floor.

After around ten seconds of more silence, the drunk student grumbles: "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck."

WAS

(image source: pro.corbis.com)

Alienating the sickly since 1746

In light of the recent whooping cough outbreak on campus and the fact that we have a bunch of lanyard-sporting seventeen year-olds stumbling around, University Health Services sent out an email to the University community today urging "anyone with a cough or other symptoms of illness avoid circulating in public."

Pertussis could be a threat to next year's yield, and no one wants that.

So, to anyone with a sniffle or a bit of a cough, don't you dare show your face around Frist. Or play tonsil hockey with any prefrosh for that matter.

WAS

(image source: peoplespharmacy.com)

IN "PRINT": Black Princetonians Discuss Campus Race Relations

Here are two Newsweek video clips that are companion pieces to this week's article on "post-racialism" at Princeton. The round table discussion features Princeton students talking about race relations on campus and what it means to be a black Princeton alumnus in the real world.



Another clip after the jump:
More...


BKN

I just railed a line of Adderall to write this post

A report by Margaret Talbot in this week's New Yorker described the recent rise of "neuroenhancing" drugs in modern American culture and, of course, in the Ivy League.

Interviewing an anonymous Harvard student called "Alex," Talbot reports that more and more students at competitive colleges are turning to such drugs. Some students against this off label use go so far as to say that working and taking tests on Adderall and Ritalin amounts to cheating.

Wow, whiners. Take a chill pill. Or some Focalin.

In all seriousness though, what does the increasing use of such drugs spell for competition on college campuses? And to all the dealers out there: get your prescription pads ready, this may be lucrative.

WAS

(image source: newyorker.com)

IN PRINT: Obama's new media director speaks at Princeton

Joe Rospars, who managed the new media aspect of then-Senator Obama's presidential campaign, spoke at Princeton last Thursday about the Democratic Party's head start in Internet campaigning.

He emphasized the role of participation and giving Obama supporters the tools and assistance they needed to become community organizers and take part in traditional campaign activities like phone banking and canvassing.

Rospars, who looks like he knows his way around Facebook and Twitter, said that the new media campaign's success came from giving people a way to participate.

”The technology we used was actually pretty simple — not a lot of significant, super complicated innovation happening,” Mr. Rospars said. “It was really about applying simple tools to lower the barrier to entry into the traditional campaign operation.”

For the full story, visit centraljersey.com.

AW

Borough Police arrest two of three campus creepers

Muhammad Kader, 38, was arrested in connection with a sexual assault incident that occurred last Friday night at Richardson Auditorium. According to Public Safety's Crime Log, Kader, who was working as a waiter on campus, assaulted a female member of Princeton's staff and "tried to kiss her and then touched her."

The assault was reported at 9:56 pm, during a dress rehearsal for Princeton Glee Club's performance on Saturday. The Crime Log also stated that "the victim was able to positively identify the suspect," who was taken into custody and sent to Borough Police Headquarters. Kader was released on $2,500 bail.

A suspect was also arrested in connection with early Sunday morning's incident that took place on Alexander Beach. In that incident, according to a Public Safety alert sent out Sunday morning, the suspect reached under a female student's clothes to touch her. The report said that he "approached the female student and attempted to speak with her, then grabbed her, preventing her from leaving after she attempted to walk away from him." Another female student intervened and tried to pull the victim away.

But what about the Campus Masturbator?!?


AW