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)

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.

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"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

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...


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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/)

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

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.
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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

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

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!



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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)

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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)

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.
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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

IN PRINT: Update - Fake rifle prompts campus alert at PU

A Princeton University student touched off a campus-wide security alert over the weekend by running across the campus carrying an “imitation” AK-4 assault rifle, police said.

Princeton Borough police confiscated the weapon and charged Steven Shonts, 18, of Eden Prairie, MN, with “possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose” and “possession of an imitation firearm on university grounds.” He was released on his own recognizance.

Another student, Erica Greil, said in an e-mail that she had contacted the university’s public safety department at 11:30 p.m. Friday after seeing a male running with a gun near University Place.

Read the full article at the Princeton Packet.

AW and SJP