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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.

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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

IN PRINT: Ban Ki-Moon Looks to Woodrow Wilson for a "New Multilateralism"

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed the urgent need for a new multilateralism during his address on Friday morning to an audience of nearly 1,000 people in McCarter Theatre.

”We need a new vision, a new paradigm and a new multilateralism,” Mr. Ban said. He defined this multilateralism as one that delivers “a set of global goods,” recognizes intercollaboration and has necessary authority and resources.

Mr. Ban traced this idea of multilateralism to former President Woodrow Wilson’s mission to create a League of Nations after World War I.

”He called for the nations to come together to ‘make it safe for every peace-loving nation,’ “ Mr. Ban said, quoting President Wilson. “Justice can be maintained to promote social programs and better standards of life with larger freedoms,” Mr. Ban added.

Read entire article at the Princeton Packet here.

SJP

[photo credit: http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S23/99/93I68/index.xml?section=featured]

IN PRINT: Black in the Age of Obama

Michelle Obama '85 didn't like her time at Princeton. In her senior thesis, she wrote how she always felt she was "black first and a student second" because of "a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society … never becoming a full participant."

Almost 25 years later, do Obama's observations still reflect what it's like being an African American student at Princeton? Newsweek interviewed two multigenerational black families that attended Princeton, and their experiences show what "postracialism" actually means in today's world.

Click here for the full Newsweek story and for video of Princeton students discussing race relations on campus today.

BKN

Take Ivy: A Trip Down Nostalgia Lane

A Japanese photographer traveled to Ivy League schools in the late 1960s to document the American Trad/Ivy League Preppy style of the era. Copies of the book are very hard to come by (a copy was just sold on eBay for $1500), and photos from the book have been circulating the blogosphere like crazy in recent months.

Here are the photographs of Princeton in the book. Take a gander! And pine away for a bygone era. (Except for the whole anti-black/anti-women part...)


More...





BKN

(image sources: http://thetrad.blogspot.com/2008/12/take-ivy-chapter-i.html & http://thetrad.blogspot.com/2008/12/take-ivy-chapter-ii.html & http://acontinuouslean.com/2008/05/19/take-ivy/)

Dear Campus Masturbator: Please Stop.

The Princeton community has received two Campus Safety Alerts from Public Safety since yesterday morning about reports of lewdness and sexual contact. The first report is, well, hilarious. But the second incident, not so much.

The first incident:

In separate incidents at approximately 2 and 2:39 a.m. on Saturday, April 18, 2009, two Princeton University female students reported a male was masturbating and exposed his genital area to them while they were walking alone across campus. The first incident took place as the victim was walking on McCosh Walk toward the University Store and the suspect was on the steps between Buyers and Witherspoon halls. The victim said she also saw the suspect earlier in the evening near 1879 Hall and the School of Architecture, where he was masturbating as he walked behind her. The second victim reported that she saw the suspect near the first entry of 1879 Hall, where he exposed himself. The victim said the suspect ran toward Washington Road toward Nassau Street. The suspect did not come into direct contact with either victim.

The second incident:

A female Princeton University student reported that she was grabbed by a male suspect who reached under her clothes to touch her. The suspect had first 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. The suspect released the victim and walked towards West College after another student witnessed the incident and intervened by attempting to pull the female student away.

Scary!

It's unclear whether the two incidents are related, but both emails describe the suspect as a Hispanic male in his mid to late 20s. In the meantime, carry pepper spray! And I'm sure Public Safety will use this incident to argue why they need guns. "But how else can we stop public masturbation??! We must shoot them!!"

BKN

21 Questions with... Cat Tully '10

PROFESSIONAL VIOLINIST IS HISTORY MAJOR, TAKES PRIVATE LESSONS WITH ITZHAK PERLMAN(!)

Name: Caitlin (Cat) Tully
Age: 21
Major: History
Hometown: Vancouver/Austin/New York
Eating club/residential college/affiliation: Whitman/ Potentially 2D…
Activities on campus: Firestone. Good conversation. Spontaneous hijinks when opportunity arises.

Who's your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
Tony Grafton, for starting the HUM sequence.

What's the best meal you've eaten in Princeton?
On campus, probably challah French toast with fresh whipped cream a friend and I made for a bunch of people last year.

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
Try to deserve to be here.

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Depends on the context and when you ask.

What's the last student performance you saw?
King Lear, Laura Fletcher’s production. And Angels in America.

Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
If I say no is that going to come back to haunt me? I know the actions…

More...

What do you hate most about Princeton?
Depends on the context and when you ask.

What's your drink?
Coffee. Whiskey on the rocks. Coffee.

How often do you cook?
Less than I’d like, i.e almost never.

What's your favorite medication?
Coffee. And late night runs.

What's hanging above your desk and/or bed?
Flower string lights.

Where do you do your best thinking?
Trustees Room, early in the morning, or when it’s raining. And while running.

When's bedtime?
Not regular.

New Butler or Old Butler?
Old Butler.

What do you think of Dean Malkiel?
I’ve never met Dean Malkiel, so I think I’ll pass.

Where is the worst place on campus?
Wherever you are when life sucks. Geography never seems to help too much then. Or Firestone, with a walk back to Whitman in December at closing.

Who is your mortal enemy?
For me to know and them to find out.

When's the last time you used cash?
Today.

In 25 years, I will be...
Hopefully alive, interesting, interested, without too many regrets, and having done some things I don’t foresee now.

Where do you go to study alone?
Why would I give that up?

What makes someone a Princetonian?
Last I heard, a sticker on a piece of paper. I think what qualities that represents probably changes over time….and I’m too young to know yet what our generation will turn into.

(image source: http://www.imgartists.com/?page=artist&id=214&c=2)

IN PRINT: People Still Listen to Records! And Their Stores Now Have Their Own Day!

While enjoying the fine Springtime weather of the past weekend, you may have noticed the throng of people gathered outside the Princeton Record Exchange (Prex, as the cool kids say) at around 10 in the morning. Turns out these intrepid earlyish risers (for college) were waiting to get their hands on some limited edition vinyl, in celebration of the second annual Record Store Day. Said one enthustiastic record store owner when we called him up on Saturday: "It's a national frickin' holiday!" Not yet, good sir, but dare to dream.

Full article here
image source: nytimes.com

SKG

IN PRINT: President of Israeli Supreme Court Speaks at Woody Woo

Dorit Beinisch, the equivalent of the Chief Justice on the Israeli Supreme Court, talked about balancing security and human rights in the age of terror. And while the topic was no doubt fascinating, we found ourselves more distracted by some of the differences between the American Supreme Court and the Israeli model. For example:

- The US court hears 60-80 cases in a given year. The Israeli Supreme Court hears 5000 (!)
- US justices serve for life, while Israel has a max age (we kind of like this idea, having spent time with people in the 70 and over demographic. Good for half-moon cookies, bad for precedent augmenting legal decisions)

Full article here

SKG

Yale? I hear that place sucks.

Yale recently launched an entire website to street safety in response to a string of traffic accidents and a year after a pedestrian Yale student was killed by a car.

Apparently New Haven drivers are so barbaric that walking Yalies, when not dodging knives wielded by crackheads, are keeping a wary eye out for their lives.

Sure, nothing ever happens in Princeton, but I'm glad to know my body won't be meeting a fast-moving vehicle between classes.

WAS

(image source: yaledailynews.com)

Go Away Prefrosh

You know it's that time of year when the University erects a ridiculous circus tent on Alexander Beach, ruining pretty springtime vistas and impeding your drunken walk home from the Street. That's right: hundreds of earnest and overeager 18 year-olds are about swarm all over campus and there's nothing you can do about it.

The only thing a student can do to minimize contact with prefrosh is to not host them. It looks like many have decided to do just that, hence a somewhat urgent email today to Matheyites from Matt Frawley, Mathey's DSL:

This Thursday over 700 pre-frosh will be arriving on campus, and though a good number of you have graciously signed up to be a host for one or more of those pre-frosh, we need MORE hosts. We are especially in need of male students to host.
...
So will this be an inconvenience? A bit.

Are you really too busy to host? Well, who isn’t!!

Nevertheless, students are giving back by hosting. Please take a moment to give serious consideration to this opportunity and help save a pre-frosh from going somewhere other than Princeton.

Thanks,
Matt

Ah, yes, appealing to our sense of civic duties as Princetonians. Sorry. Won't work.

BKN

Deep thoughts from Melissa Harris-Lacewell

Politico's Arena, charting daily debates among policy-makers and scholars about recent moves in Washington, today tracks reactions to Obama's shift in Cuba policy.

While contributors like John Kerry and Princeton professor Julian Zelizer add some fresh perspective to the discussion, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton (and prominent Twitter-er), weighs in on the debate with some, uh, "insight":

I just returned from a week traveling and working in South Africa. After 7 days of Russian vodka and Cuban cigars it is clear to me that ideological battles should not restrict the free consumption of the best our cold war opponents export. Open Cuba!

Profound, embarrassing, it's all the same thing.

WAS

(image source: pbs.org)

National Media Only Covers Embarrassing Things About Princeton

The New York Times profiles Smashcraft Heroes, Princeton's videogaming club. Its members? "Mostly Asian, mostly male" engineers. Classic. (Our latest 21 Questions is on Mona Zhang '12, the president of the club.)

The reporter describes a recent match of Starcraft against Tsinghua University in Beijing. Of course, being Princetonians, one participant felt the need to relate the game to international relations and geopolitics:

Ke Wan, a graduate student from China who is studying operations research, detailed each world’s character traits: Zergs are prolific and fast, Terrans are sophisticated strategists, and individual Protoss units are extremely powerful. Wan drew a geopolitical analogy. “Zerg is like China,” he said. “It depends a lot on its large population. The U.S. is Protoss because it emphasizes the value of the individual. And Terran is Russia or the former Soviet Union, a huge high-tech war machine.” He plays as Terran.

Read the article, reflect upon on what Princeton has become, and shed an emo tear or two for Old Nassau.

BKN
(image source: nytimes.com)

Princeton's First Co-eds

The weather is finally turning around (well, except today), so we thought we'd share some pictures of Princeton's first co-eds (via Covenger + Kester) on what seems to be warm spring day.
More...



BKN

Twitter, or, the New Frontier of Narcissism

The Prince reported this week that "tweeting" has increased in popularity recently, and has attracted the attention of a few big names on Princeton's campus, namely Melissa Harris-Lacewell and Cornel West. Not mentioned was Peter Singer, who also updates his Twitter quite frequently.

It's to be expected that these update-streams from noted scholars at a prestigious institution should be self-referential, yes, and perhaps even a bit introverted. But these three take it to a new level.

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Indeed, Ms. Lacewell, Mr. West, and Mr. Singer seem to "tweet" only about... themselves. Of course, that's what Twitter's all about, right? The homepage asks all the same question: "What are you doing?"

But while celebrities like Shaq, Diddy, and Seth Rogen often give "shout outs" to their fans and regularly respond to others' posts, this Princeton trifecta manages to keep their tweeting furiously egocentric.

On March 29th, former NPR host Farai Chideya posted about a lecture Lacewell was to give at Harvard. Lacewell responded with, "Thanks for the support. Wish u were here. Wish I could still hear your voice daily. We need a show."

Alright, one instance of turning an offhand comment into a self-referential boast. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Lacewell's April Fools "joke" was to post, "After Harvard lecture last night I was offered 7 pm slot on MSNBC beginning next week!" After receiving a couple responses congratulating her, she admitted it was a prank but "thanks for thinking it 'should' be true!"

Don't worry; it's okay to cringe.

Cornel West isn't shy about self-aggrandizing either. Since West's first post on February 27th, nine out of the scholar's ten posts have been quotes... of his own.

Peter Singer, on the other hand, focuses mainly on his new book, The Life You Can Save which addresses the ethics of the poverty issue. But he also focuses on how often he goes on shows to talk about it. And who reviews it for the Wall Street Journal. Oh, and book signings and readings. Also, the fact that "Shapoor Mohamadi, from the UK, is going to present the book to his Member of Parliament. Nice idea." Oh, and that due to the "generosity of Erroll Treslan, a Canadian citizen, every Canadian MP is going to receive a copy of The Life You Can Save."

Singer is altruistic. And everyone should frickin' know it, damn it.

It's all a bit dizzying, perhaps even nauseating, but at least they're not sticking their head in the public sector.

And while on the subject of warped vanity, Mr. Singer has an adorable set of photographs of himself (cuddling with animals, no less), on his website. If it weren't so cute, the whole thing would be painful.

WAS

(image source: twitter.com)

21 Questions with... Mona Zhang '12

Update 4/12: Zhang and Smashcraft Heroes have also been profiled by the NYTimes.
TRAILBLAZING FEMALE PRESIDENT OF SMASHCRAFT HEROES GAMING CLUB PWNS N00BS (W00T W00T!)

Name: Mona Zhang
Age: 19
Major: undecided
Hometown: Gaithersburg, Maryland
Eating club/residential college/affiliation: Forbes College

Who's your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
Princeton from Avenue Q, but I don't suppose he's actually a Princetonian

What's the best meal you've eaten in Princeton?
Dumplings made from scratch and random ramen at three in the morning

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
I answer emails

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Gossip Girl and chasing squirrels

What's the last student performance you saw?
Various snippets of performances at the CSA banquet from Triple 8, the Juggling Club, and more

Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
Three cheers for Old Nassau, la la la la lassau

What do you hate most about Princeton?
The sewage and maybe the cobblestone when I'm wearing girl-shoes

What's your drink?
Coke
More...

How often do you cook?
Random holidays here and there

What's your favorite medication?
Caffeine

What's hanging above your desk and/or bed?
An outdated Harry Potter calendar that I haven't bothered to replace--that and a quill

Where do you do your best thinking?
On the floor

When's bedtime?
3am, but 7am when OSL finals are on

New Butler or Old Butler?
FORBES.

What do you think of Dean Malkiel?
Who?

Where is the worst place on campus?
I think parking lots are really ugly. The one behind New South isn't very pleasant.

Who is your mortal enemy?
Sida Huang '12

When's the last time you used cash?
Today at Witherspoon for a large cafe mocha with whipped cream :)

In 25 years, I will be…
unemployed or a pro-gamer

Where do you go to study alone?
I bring all my books to the hammock on the Forbes terrace, but then I just fall asleep.

What makes someone a Princetonian?
The requisite genius and laziness behind every Princetonian's intellectual facade

(image source: dailyprincetonian.com)

Minor Detail?

The Prince ran a story yesterday about a new novel written by Jean Hanff Korelitz, a former reader for the Princeton admissions office. The story is about a fictional Princeton admissions officer and some sort of secret she harbors.

The reporter interviewed Korelitz to ask about her connections to Princeton and to discuss her book, and he even interviewed a student who used to babysit for her kids once upon a time. But over the course of nearly 600 words, the article doesn't mention the very minor detail that Korelitz's husband is Paul Muldoon. Nope, not important or noteworthy at all.

BKN
(image source: dailyprincetonian.com)

Forbes Magazine discovers something called "prep schools"

Forbes.com posted a story yesterday about an earth shattering discovery: there are these crazy things called "prep schools"!

Perhaps we're being assholes, but isn't the existence of prep schools, like, pretty much common knowledge? We half expect Forbes to write about something called the "Ivy League" and "parochial schools" next week.

In addition to a slideshow of some prep schools, the piece offers wonderful insights such as, "The Ivy League is still the Ivy League." The rest of the article can basically be summed up as such: Prep schools are private! They can be famous! They have pretty campuses! Rich people go there! But so do poor people! They have famous alumni! They send their kids to the Ivy League! But so do public schools!

The most obnoxious part of the article is at the end:

But at the end of the day, writing Harvard or Princeton on your résumé really does mean something. So does what prep school you attended.

Okay, we can only hope writing "Princeton" on our résumé "really does mean something." Because with grade deflation and the Great Depression 2.0, we're just sure our prep school education will come in real handy.

BKN
(image source: forbes.com)

SPOTTED: George Costanza

[Insert Seinfeld Joke Here]

Yes, that's right -- everyone's favorite nineties neurotic paid a visit to Old Nassau today. Or at least Jason Alexander, the actor who played him, did.

Alexander, also the star of the orangutan caper "Dunston Checks In", was on campus with his teenage son and started off the day with an Orange Key tour. Turns out the actor did his research before coming: he asked his group's tour guide about Princeton's much-debated grade deflation policy (no word about his take on the matter). According to the guide, Alexander stuck to the front of the pack and stayed attentive throughout the tour despite the day's heavy downpour of rain.

Word has it that Alexander later stopped by Theatre Intime, where he obligingly posed for pictures with a few lucky students.

DCW

People who make us feel inadequate: Lauren Bush '06 ends world hunger, starts own fashion line

Lauren Bush '06, Dubya's niece and model, has done a lot since graduating with an anthropology major three years ago. Last summer, she launched the FEED 100 Campaign, which sells stylish burlap bags to put food in the mouths of hungry Rwandan children. For instance, if you purchase a $30 bag, you will provide 100 school meals! And you if buy a $60 bag, you will feed one child for an entire school year! Average cost to feed one Princeton upperclassman for an entire school year? $6,960.

But Lauren must do more good! You know, "In the Nation's Service" blah blah. She has just launched her own fashion line, called Lauren Pierce, which made its debut at Barney's last week. Her line uses eco-friendly materials, and each collection will support a charitable organization. It's like she's her uncle, George W., except the opposite. And did we mention she's hot? And dating Ralph Lauren's son?

Pictures of her Spring '09 collection after the jump: More...
(via vanityfair.com & images from nymag.com, feedprojects.org)

BKN

IN PRINT: Tom Kean is Mad at Congress; Terrorism Inspires Morbid, Stoic Humor

Tom Kean, former Governor of New Jersey and the co-chair of the 9/11 Commission, delivered the keynote speech at the somewhat terrifyingly named conference, "Emergency Preparedness in the Region: What Have We Done & What is Still Needed?" This reporter was hoping the answers were Everything and Nothing, respectively. Sadly, they were not. Highlights from his speech and the conference after the jump...
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Just in case you forgot about terrorism/ Al Qaeda:
"They've stated plainly and continue to state they want to kill Americans, and they want to kill as many of us as they can wherever they can. They want to produce mass casualties."

He's ANGRY at Congress:
“Congress was very anxious and willing to reform the executive branch. They were not so willing to reform themselves,” said Kean. “The 9/11 commission recommendations have made no headway, or very little headway, in congressional reform.”
Why is Congress a problem? Well, it turns out the Department of Homeland Security still has to report to 86 congressional committees, down from 88 since the 9/11 Commission Report was release. Michael Chertoff told Kean that he spent one third of his time preparing to testify in front of Congress.

Other highlights from the rest of the conference:
The audience laughing when the head of the New Jersey office of Homeland Security passed off a question to someone from the Port Authority, saying, "I’m a believer that if we have another event in this area its going to be on Port Authority property,” to which he responded, "hopefully not before I retire!" Hillarious! Clearly, this was a conference full of people who spend their time contemplating terrorist attacks on American soil; they'll get their laughs when they can.

Full Story here.

SKG

Update: And here!

AW

NY Times profiles Orszag '91

The New York Times recently profiled Pres. Obama's budget director, Peter Orszag '91, who has been tasked with the unenviable job of overseeing the federal budget. We learn that he is a "supernerd" with grand ambitions:

Everything about the way he has interpreted his new job speaks of ambition: the policy heavyweights he has hired for the Office of Management and Budget, his efforts to persuade cabinet secretaries to let him help shape their plans, a public profile as high as that of any budget director since David A. Stockman’s polarizing tenure under Ronald Reagan a quarter-century ago.

He is also a sex symbol?
More...

“He’s made nerdy sexy,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff.

And then, of course, he's also a Princetonian:

In classic political fashion, Mr. Orszag trained for Washington rivalry through family rivalry, not just with his father but also with his economist brothers. Peter, Michael and Jonathan Orszag have worked and written papers together and still compare electronic gadgets and their Princeton grade-point averages. [emphasis added]

Is this what Princeton alumni do when they become important? Oh dear God... Save us from ourselves! And who are the magical parents who birthed three Princeton economists? Michael was Class of '89, Peter was Class of '91, and Jonathan was Class of '96, and all three were econ majors.

Do they compare their theses as well? If so, Peter is the loser with only 80 pages, while Michael wrote 187 pages and Jonathan wrote 104 pages. Even worse? Peter's thesis title: "Congressional Oversight of the Federal Reserve: Empirical and Theoretical Perspectives." It sounds so exciting it sends a shiver up my leg!

BKN

(source: nytimes.com & http://libweb5.princeton.edu/theses/index.htm)

Princeton in The New Yorker

Update 4/6: This cartoon, coincidentally, is particularly fitting because Class of 2010 President Aditya Panda '10 just sent an electronic missive saying that all rising seniors will be offered free membership to the Princeton Club in NYC for an entire year starting this summer. Score! (We'll just ignore the unfortunate fact that the Princeton Club is ugly and embarrassing compared to the Harvard and Yale Clubs.)
By Henry Martin '48
Published in The New Yorker (December 12, 1988)

BKN

(image source: http://tigernet.princeton.edu/~ptoniana/)

UPDATED: Uh... Impending PR Disaster?

Updated: At exactly 7 PM, the University issued a press release that confirms Princeton was the only Ivy League school, aside from Penn (their acceptance rate increased by 0.1%), that saw a higher acceptance rate this year. Janet Rapelye admitted 9.79% of applicants, compared to 9.25% last year. An incredible 1,331 students were wait listed, though only half of them are expected to remain on it. It will be interesting to see how Princeton's administration will spin today's news.

It is 7 PM EST, and Princeton is the only Ivy League school that has not yet released its admissions data for the Class of 2013. Although Princeton is notoriously opaque and slow about these sort of things, it could be telling that no one has heard anything.

BKN

The economy: screwing high school seniors since '08

The Times reported yesterday that in the face of shrinking endowments, universities are increasingly choosing wealthier applicants that can foot the full ticket of an education over students that would need financial aid if admitted.

Coupled with the fact that Ivies' (and other selective college's) acceptance rates are dropping, high school juniors across the nation have collectively just sighed a massive "fuck my life."

(image © Hasbro)

WAS

IN PRINT: Chabad Gets a New Torah, Hilarity Ensues

If the celebration that traipsed its way through Mathey-Rocky this past Sunday afternoon is any indication, new Torahs are a big deal. Chabad, the Jewish center run by the Hassidic Lubavitz movement, got its first Torah on Sunday, and members of Chabad made their jubilation known.

Highlights of the ceremony and subsequent parade:

• The strange techno-cultural disconnect of seeing old men in strict Hassidic dress busting out new digital cameras
• Someone lighting their cigarette from the ceremonial candles being passed out
• Pretty much everything involving Chabad leader Rabbi Eitan Webb, whose highlights of the day included riding on a freshman's shoulders for a good five minutes and stealing/playing senior Dan Berry's bongo drum somewhere around the University Place side of the U-Store
  

Full story here

SKG

Just Plain Weird (and Stupid)

T-minus 18 hours until admissions decisions for the class of 2013 are released. To prospective students: everyone at Princeton is mute!



BKN

Krugman: LOOK AT ME I'M SO MODEST!!!!11

Oh hai.

Princeton professor and Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman appears on this week's cover of Newsweek, complete with an adorable (or "whimsical," as one Press Clubber puts it) picture and a profile penned by visiting journalism professor Evan Thomas.

Though the profile is an interesting look at Krugman's role as a liberal critic of the Obama Administration, the part that stood out to us was this little passage:

"Krugman pointed out that unlike some earlier Nobel Prize winners, he has not asked for a better parking place on campus. (He was not kidding.)"

Oooo! What a diss! Krugman is so liberal and such a crazy commie that he's okay not getting a better parking space because that's, like, totally for the bourgeois. But whom could he be talking about? There's been a bunch of faculty who've won the physics Nobel Prize since the 1980s, but there's only been a few who've won the economics prize. Aside from Krugman, the most recent faculty member was Eric Maskin (2007) who is a visiting professor. And then there's Daniel Kahneman (2002) and John Nash (1994). For some reason, I just can't imagine John Nash demanding a better parking space, but who knows?

BKN

(image source: newsweek.com)

Bill Bradley '65 Is So Princeton

If you can't get enough of the good old days of the Princeton Men's Basketball team, here are some pictures (thanks to Ivy Style) of the team's most famous member, Bill Bradley '65, before he became a Rhodes Scholar, US Senator, all around badass, etc.

More pictures after the jump.
More...


(image source: ivy-style.com, dailyprincetonian.com)

BKN

What's March Madness?

Once upon a time, as recently as this decade, the Princeton Men's Basketball team ruled the Ivy League. But then we started to suck hardcore, perhaps most notably when, in 2005, Princeton scored just 21 points in the entire game against something called Monmouth University. If that wasn't embarrassing enough, it turned out that scoring the legal drinking age was an NCAA record, but a record in a totally bad news bears sort of way--as in, no other team has ever sucked so much.

Reminiscing about all this makes us pine for the 1980s and 1990s, when the basketball team was totally baller. Exhibit A: In 1996 they defeated UCLA, the defending national champions, in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Watch these couple video clips and you'll understand why the stands in Jadwin Gym were built for so many:





BKN

21 Questions with... Anthony D'Amato '10

STUDENT SINGER-SONGWRITER SPITS OUT SOME SNARK

Name: Anthony D'Amato
Age: 21
Major: English
Hometown: Blairstown, NJ
Eating club/residential college/affiliation: Terrace Club, Rockefeller College

Who's your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
Jonathan Ames (writer)

What's the best meal you've eaten in Princeton?
Old World Pizza

In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
I look for ways to put things off until tomorrow.

What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
I steal from my roommates. Constantly.
More...
What's the last student performance you saw?
Triangle Show

Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
I did not know it was a song until you told me this summer. [Ed.: A Press Clubber unfortunately roomed with Anthony over the summer]

What do you hate most about Princeton?
I keep a running list on the wall in my room.

What's your drink?
Blood--it's the purest form of recycling.

How often do you cook?
Rarely.

What's your favorite medication?
I don't know…my allergy pills? This is a retarded question.

What's hanging above your desk and/or bed?
A picture of Joe Strummer and a picture of Bob Dylan.

Where do you do your best thinking?
Late night.

When's bedtime?
Later at night.

New Butler or Old Butler?
Don't care.

What do you think of Dean Malkiel?
I know nothing about this person.

Where is the worst place on campus?
The bathroom down the hall after the swim team vomits all over it twice a week.

Who is your mortal enemy?
Anyone who vomits where I want to walk barefoot.

When's the last time you used cash?
Today.

In 25 years, I will be…
46 years old.

Where do you go to study alone?
My room.

What makes someone a Princetonian?
Attending Princeton University.

Anthony will be performing this Friday at the Sidewalk Café in the East Village (Ave A & E. 6th St.) from 10-11 PM. You can download his EP free from his Myspace page.

(image source: myspace.com/anthonydamatomusic)

IN PRINT: Gen. Petraeus to address senior class at baccalaureate

Gen. David Petraeus, commander of the U.S. Central Command, will deliver the baccalaureate address to Princeton University seniors, at 2 p.m. May 31 in the University Chapel.

The general’s selection follows that of CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, who was announced earlier this year as the 2009 speaker for Class Day, a June 1 commencement event.

”I felt very honored to be invited to speak at the baccalaureate, and I look forward to the occasion very much,” Gen. Petraeus said.

Gen. Petraeus oversaw all coalition forces in Iraq. After serving as U.S. commander in Iraq for 19 months, he became leader of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees American troops in the Middle East, East Africa and Central Asia.

”I’m grateful for the opportunity to offer reflections of a Princeton grad who has been privileged to serve with many wonderful Americans in recent years,” he said.

Read entire article at the Princeton Packet here.

SJP

Newspaper and democracy matters

A study by economics professor Sam Schulhofer-Wohl and Miguel Garrido looked at the impact of closing a newspaper on elections and voting. The case they observed was the Cincinnati Post, which closed after New Years Eve in 2007. Their results found that there was decreased political involvement in the northern Kentucky counties after the Post closed.

"Although our findings are statistically imprecise, they demonstrate that newspapers--even underdogs such as the Post, which had a circulation of just 27,000, when it closed--can have a substantial and measurable impact on public life," Schulhofer-Wohl and Garrido said in the abstract.

The study found that politics becomes less competitive in terms of the incumbent advantage, decreased voter turnout and the number of candidates running for office after a newspaper shuts down. They believe a similar phenomena will result for larger newspapers that have or will soon go under in Denver, Seattle and San Francisco.

For democracy's sake, keep buying those papers and getting that ink on your fingers. It could be the most significant vote you cast.

SJP

IN PRINT: Albert Einstein's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

John Nash gets a lot of the "Eccentric Princeton Genius" attention nowadays, but he was by no means the first world-famous superbrain to grace our campus. Albert Einstein, the Walter Matthau to Nash's Russell Crowe, ably held down that position until his death in 1955.

More than fifty years on, it's hard to find authentic traces of Einstein on campus -- an unrenovated Frist classroom here, a small off-campus house there, some old letters stored in Firestone. But Einstein's legacy lives on in the form of Gillett Griffin, his last living friend.

Read Griffin's story - including the strange tale of his first encounter with Einstein (it involves a yellow plastic duck!) - in today's Star-Ledger.

DCW

Obama’s policies should create security rather than money, researcher says

A new study devised by Talya Miron-Shatz, a Ph.D associate researcher in the Wilson School, found that financial security affects happiness more than actual money for the modern American woman.

"Even if you are making a hundred grand a year, if you are constantly worried that you are going to get fired, that you are going to lose your health insurance or that you are simply not sure you are going to 'make it,' you are not going to be happy," Miron-Shatz said in a press release.

This just in. People who worry are less happy than people who don’t. The study seems to be in line with other self-evident conclusions researchers at Princeton are uncovering, at the heels of the groundbreaking discovery that men objectify naked women.

Miron-Shatz hopes to influence President Obama’s financial decisions, ushering him to focus on “strategies that create social and financial ‘safety nets’ over measures that would directly increase income.”

SJP

Muldoon goes green with Obama

Professor Paul Muldoon, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, will rediscover his Northern Ireland roots as he spends St. Patrick’s Day with President Obama and 400 other Irish guests for celebrations at the White House. Lets hope the green-dyed fountains and Irish whiskey provide Muldoon with all the poetic inspiration he needs for some more "Moy Sand and Gravel."

SJP

Shirley Tilghman uses Big Words

Princeton University president Shirley Tilghman appeared on the Charlie Rose show last night.

Shirley discussed the Bush administration's political repression of science, bragged about Alex Barnard and his "mohawk up to here" and used the word "periodicity" when discussing how often the University rejects the idea of a Princeton Medical School (every 20 years or so). Charlie was much impressed.

See the video after the jump.
More...
On climate control and stem cell research: "In both of those cases, one could make the argument that the science was being manipulated to support a policy that the science actually did not necessarily lead to."

On creationism and intelligent design: "It was really a warping of science that led to the President, President Bush saying well, there's a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether Darwin's view of evolution is correct. That is just simply not the case ... It's been 150 years and his fundamental ideas that were based on very little evidence but incredible insight have held up extraordinarily well."

On our career choices: "Their experience at Princeton spending four years thinking deeply about what it means to be human...inform who they are when they are lawyers and doctors and...dare I say, bankers."

On the recession and Princeton's endowment: "We have made a commitment that we will not lose a single student for financial reasons, and so far we've been able to live up to that."

On a law school or medical school: "It's [a decision] that we revisit roughly with a periodicity of twenty years, so it's not like we never think about it."

On periodicity: "Periodicity --it's like a sine wave."

On green-haired students and Alex Barnard: "...the very very best student in the university...who had a mohawk hair-do up to here. You know? I just said, 'He's my guy!'"




(image source: njmonthly.com)

AW

Wanted: New King (or Queen!) of the Tools

After Anne-Marie Slaughter, Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, bolted Princeton for the State Department back in February, we've been waiting to see who the school will pick to replace her as caretaker of the tool shed. Think you have what it takes? Check out Princeton's Help Wanted listing in the Economist's classified section here.

SKG