Laura Hankin ’10, right, sings “I Could Have Danced All Night” in the Princeton production of My Fair Lady. Hankin is playing the lead role of Eliza Doolittle for her theater program senior thesis, and fellow senior Shawn Fennell plays Professor Henry Higgins. Suzanne Agins ’97, a lecturer in theater in the Lewis Center for the Arts, is directing the production, with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner and music by Frederick Loewe.

The show premiered Nov. 13, and three shows remain, Nov. 19-21 at McCarter Theatre Center’s Berlind Theatre.

(Photo by Frank Wojciechowski/Courtesy the Lewis Center for the Arts)

Jackson Greenberg ’12 plays at a recent Shape Machine show. (Courtesy Jackson Greenberg ’12)

By Katy Pinke ’10

A new jam band has been rapidly gaining popularity and acclaim in Princeton’s independent music scene. Shape Machine, born out of a summer collaboration between music majors Jackson Greenberg ’12 and Matt Wong ’10, debuted last month and will perform for students and alumni at University Cottage Club Nov. 14.

Greenberg’s primary instrument is the vibraphone, but he is also fluent on piano and drums. He began writing jazz music in high school, moved to sound design and scores for theater, and writes everything from film scores to pop songs. He has performed in international festivals with esteemed musicians and jazz ensembles, and he’s studied under well-known musicians and composers, including Orrin Evans and Alan Menken. (Audio samples of Greenberg’s work are available at myspace.com/jacksongreenberg.)

Wong began as a jazz guitarist, playing gigs throughout high school. He has backed a wide range of musical acts. Last fall, for example, he accompanied an opera-singing duo at the Mercer County Italian American Festival.

“The sound of Shape Machine is not only a byproduct of exposure to a lot of different sounds,” Wong said. “It is also a collaboration. When we came to campus in the fall, we contacted all of the musicians we knew who might be interested in our idea and held auditions.”

By Brittany Urick ’10

Retired Canadian Sen. Roméo Dallaire spoke about conflict prevention and peacekeeping in a Nov. 9 lecture at Dodds Auditorium. Dallaire highlighted serious threats but seemed to express optimism for the future when mentioning the U.N.’s efforts to reform conflict resolution strategies. He also praised the ever-growing worldwide NGO community, which he called “the conscience of humanity.”

Dallaire, a former lieutenant general who served as force commander of the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR) during the 1994 genocide, is intimately familiar with the daunting challenges that weak peacekeeping mandates can pose. He refused to abandon his post during the genocide despite the refusal of the U.N. and the international community to intervene to halt the violence.

David Lieb ’03, left, and Andy Huibers ’92 of Bump Technologies. Lieb will be on campus for a Nov. 12 panel discussion at the Friend Center. (Courtesy Bump Technologies)

Two of the Princetonians highlighted in PAW's Nov. 4 story about alumni and students who have developed iPhone applications will participate in a Nov. 12 discussion of "iPhone apps: The new high-tech gold rush?" in the Friend Center Auditorium at 5:30 p.m.

David Lieb ’03 of Bump Technologies, the startup that created the popular Bump app for sharing contact information, and Matthew Connor ’11, an undergraduate who has developed an app that helps diabetics manage their health, will join two other panelists -- Sharon Fordham, chairwoman of Skyworks, which develops games for the iPhone, and Ken Kay, CEO of ici, a publishing, social-networking, and blogging platform for mobile devices.

The event is sponsored by the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, Jumpstart New Jersey Angel Network, and Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.

Cyclists from UBikes cross the Brooklyn Bridge on their Oct. 25 ride. (Courtesy UBikes)

A dozen Princeton students, staff members, and friends of the University’s bicycle co-op made an ambitious ride through New York and New Jersey Oct. 25. The group, led by UBikes program manager Sean Gleason ’09 and Ph.D. candidate Jeffrey Domanski, helped to bring a new fleet of bikes to campus for use in a faculty and staff bike-share program.

The group met before dawn, taking the 5:12 a.m. train to Penn Station, and did not arrive back on campus until after dark, starting at the Worksman Cycles factory in Queens, pedaling over the Brooklyn Bridge to a ferry terminal in Manhattan, and continuing on into rural New Jersey before getting a lift from a University van for the last leg of the trip.

Climbing the hills of New Jersey’s eastern highlands on heavy-duty three-speed bikes proved more time-consuming than the group expected, Gleason explained.

“We knew we were trying something absolutely crazy, and crazy’s what we got,” he said. The ride was meant to demonstrate the benefits of sustainable, local choices, like the one UBikes made when it purchased 100 new bikes from Worksman.

The last week has been a busy one for Princeton in Go Cross Campus, the Ivy League’s virtual turf war and strategy game. Old Nassau pushed Brown off its footholds on Long Island, invaded the coasts of Massachusetts and Maine, and prevented Yale from storming the shores of New Jersey. But to win the annual competition, Princeton will need to add more troops, according to Dan Humphrey ’12, the group’s “quartermaster.”

So far, more than 700 Princeton students and alumni are participating in Go Cross Campus (GXC to the initiated), which includes teams from each of the eight Ivy League schools. The object of the game is to seize territory on a map of New England, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. (Alumni can sign up at ivy.gocrosscampus.com.)

This year’s tournament began Oct. 10 and should run into December (last year’s competition took 61 days). Princeton won the inaugural tournament in 2007 but fell to Penn in 2008.

(Click photo to enlarge)

About 160 alumni and current members of the Princeton Footnotes harmonized on stage at Richardson Auditorium Oct. 10 in celebration of the a cappella group’s 50th anniversary.

The reunion included three-quarters of the original Footnotes and representatives of Princeton classes ranging from 1961 to 2013. After a day of rehearsals, alumni took the stage in ensembles of about 20 members, grouped by class year, and performed for 15 minutes — the traditional length of a set in a multi-group arch sing.

At the end of the concert, all of the singers gathered for a set of Footnotes favorites (video of the finale is included below). Afterward, clusters of alumni performed impromptu concerts in archways around campus, said John Preston ’11, who helped plan the weekend’s events.

By Brittany Urick ’10

On Oct. 12, a cast featuring Princeton students staged a reading of “The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later,” a play that assesses the impact of Matthew Shepard’s murder on the Wyoming community that the crime made famous.

Eleven years ago, Shepard was beaten, tied to a fence, and left to die by two fellow University of Wyoming students who targeted him because he was gay. The performance provided a lens through which to examine a current issue: the debate in Congress over legislation that would broaden the definition of violent federal hate crimes to include those committed because of a victim’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

The play is a compilation of interviews conducted by members of the Tectonic Theater Project when they revisited Laramie a decade after Shepard’s murder. The work raises questions about memory and what it means to move on from tragedy.

By Katy Pinke ’10

Molecular biologist and author Sean Carroll delivered the annual Louis Clark Vanuxem Lecture at the Friend Center Oct. 7, introducing some of the subjects covered in his new book, Remarkable Creatures: Epic Adventures in the Search for the Origins of Species. Carroll, a University of Wisconsin professor of molecular biology and genetics and an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, explained that in his book, which chronicles the adventures of leading explorers of the natural sciences over the past 200 years, he wanted to celebrate those scientists who “walked where no others had walked, saw what no one else had seen, and thought what no one else had thought.”

Carroll’s talk centered around the life work of three famous figures — Alfred Wallace, Henry Walter Bates, and of course, Charles Darwin — and the overlap of their work to “uncover the origin of the species.” He stressed the uncompromising efforts of each, not only when confronting the trials of arduous traveling expeditions to the Galapagos or up the Amazon, but also during a time when discoveries they were making completely diverged from creationist scientific discourses of the day. “Their discoveries really formed the first golden age of evolutionary biology,” Carroll explained.

The bottle designed by Alyce Tzue ’10; message: ” … You are here for a reason. You just have to figure out what that reason is.” (Courtesy The Bottle Project)

By Katy Pinke ’10

On Sept. 16, the night before the first day of classes this fall, Princeton freshmen set out with maps in hand in search of bottles. “The Bottle Project,” a collaboration between the Student Design Agency (SDA) and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students (ODUS), gave alumni the chance to impart words of wisdom to the Class of 2013 through 13 messages in bottles scattered around north campus.

Thirteen volunteers from the SDA each designed a message in a bottle over the summer, inspired by pieces of advice offered by Princeton alumni. On the eve of the bottle search, the designers placed their creations in favorite spots; some bottles hung from trees, others in hard-to-reach places like the center of the Woodrow Wilson School fountain.

The idea arose out of an ODUS initiative to find an effective means by which alumni could inspire and guide incoming freshmen as they start out at Princeton. Hoping to carry out this reach-across idea in a meaningful way, Dean Thomas Dunne came to the SDA before the end of the last school year. At first, Dunne and the student designers discussed the use of posters, a medium employed often by the agency in its work providing numerous student and administrative bodies with design services. But instead, the concept evolved into a more imaginative and interactive experience.

Princeton’s endowment declined by 23.7 percent to $12.6 billion in the year ending June 30, according to Andrew Golden, president of the Princeton University Investment Co. (Princo). The news came in a Sept. 29 letter to the University community from President Tilghman, who said that Princeton continues to face “significant challenges, but we have made excellent progress this past year.” She said the University has reached its savings goal of $88 million for the current academic year and is “well on our way” to identifying an additional $82 million in cuts from the 2010-11 budget. With 145 staff members accepting a retirement incentive program, layoffs still will be required, she said, but the number will be “significantly less” than at some of Princeton’s peers.

Tilghman said that while some have criticized the University’s investments as too risky, a “more traditional approach” would have led to an endowment about half its current size and would have prevented a number of “critical” initiatives. “In other words, our pre-eminence has depended upon the risk/reward profile that Princo has adopted,” she said. While the investment strategy is being reviewed, she said, “the University is weathering this economic storm with its commitment to excellence in teaching and research intact.” By W. Raymond Ollwerther ’71

By Brittany Urick ’10

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan presented his vision of a new global order in a Sept. 23 address at Richardson Auditorium. Erdogan carried an air of charisma as he outlined the political, economic, and cultural changes required to construct global solutions to some of the world’s most pressing issues, including wars, the financial crisis, alternative energy sources, climate change, and terrorism.

Erdogan placed special emphasis on the importance of upholding universal norms through the implementation of international law, staking a claim that certain documents, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, are wonderful in theory but ultimately meaningless unless their principles are enforced.

Brittany Urick ’10 interviewed three Rwandans at a reconciliation village. The two women are genocide survivors; the man is a former perpetrator who was permitted to move to this village to live among his former friends and neighbors after finishing a sentence handed down by the country’s Gacaca court. (Courtesy Brittany Urick ’10)

By Brittany Urick ’10

Woodrow Wilson School major and Weekly Blog contributor Brittany Urick ’10 visited Rwanda in August to conduct research for her senior thesis. In the following post, she describes some of what she discovered during her trip.

Bloodstained pillars, pews draped in piles of tattered clothing, and an altar bearing a machete are all that remain to represent the slaughter that occurred in the church at Nyamata in April 1994. Inside, the silence is deafening.

A few miles down the road from the church is a small cluster of cement houses that constitute one of Rwanda’s “reconciliation villages,” where funding and guidance provided by Prison Fellowship International have made it possible for genocide survivors and perpetrators to live and work alongside one another again.

While visiting a few of the village’s residents on the final day of my senior thesis research trip this August, I listened as my translator told me about their peaceful coexistence, their shared farm duties, how their children play together. But amidst the talk of reconciliation, forgiveness, and justice, I couldn’t help but notice that the silence that filled the pauses in conversation was marked by fear and mistrust. The words seemed forced, and the silence was more disturbing than that which I had found in the church.

In a Sept. 18 address at the Woodrow Wilson School, former New Jersey Gov. James Florio said that the United States will need to balance economic growth, energy production, and environmental sensitivity in order to achieve “sustainable prosperity.”

Florio, who authored the Superfund law as a young congressman and championed clean water legislation during his time as governor, delivered the keynote remarks at “Sustainability and the Obama Stimulus Agenda: Engaging and Connecting with Government,” a conference jointly sponsored by Princeton’s Policy Research Institute for the Region and The Earth Institute of Columbia University.

Caroline Clark ’12, behind tripod, worked as a surveyor at an archaeological excavation in Capena, Italy. (Courtesy Caroline Clark ’12)

By Katy Pinke ’10

Many undergraduates spend their summer months paving paths to their future, but few do so by venturing into the past. Caroline Clark ’12 was one of those few last summer, working as the sole surveyor of an archaeological excavation site in Capena, Italy.

Clark was the 2009 recipient of the Charles A. Steele Prize, given each year to one undergraduate majoring in classics for the purpose of summer exploration. “Unlike other fields of study, the thing about classics is you aren’t often given the chance to ‘see for yourself,’ ” she explains. “What excited me about the prospect of excavation was that as opposed to literature or word-of-mouth, I could interact with a real, tangible piece of history.”

About a dozen people gathered Friday in Murray-Dodge Hall to remember the events of Sept. 11, 2001, and the 13 Princeton alumni who died in the terrorist attacks that day.

Normally held in the memorial garden between Chancellor Green and Nassau Hall, the short ceremony was forced inside Murray-Dodge by stormy weather. The names of the alumni who died were recited, and a small bell was rung for each.

PAW remembers these undergraduate and graduate alumni:

Robert L. Cruikshank ’58 was a vice president at Carr Futures.

Charles A. McCrann ’68 was a senior vice president for Marsh and McLennan.

William E. Caswell *75, a Navy physicist, was aboard American Flight 77.

Martin P. “Buff” Wohlforth ’76 was a managing director for Sandler, O’Neill, & Partners.

Robert J. Deraney ’80, a consultant, was attending a breakfast meeting at Windows on the World.

Joshua A. Rosenthal *81 was a senior vice president for Fiduciary Trust.

Karen J. Klitzman ’84 worked for e-Speed, a division of Cantor Fitzgerald.

Jeffrey D. Wiener ’90 worked for Marsh USA.

John T. Schroeder ’92 recently had joined Fred Alger Management as a Nasdaq trader.

Christopher N. Ingrassia ’95 was a partner with Cantor Fitzgerald.

Robert G. McIlvaine ’97 who worked for Merrill Lynch, was attending a conference on the 106th floor of Tower One.

Christopher D. Mello ’98 worked for Alta Communications and was aboard American Airlines Flight 11.

Catherine F. MacRae ’00, was a research analyst for Fred Alger Management.

Remembrances of these alumni, written by family members and friends, were published in the Nov. 7, 2001, issue of PAW and are available here. By Marilyn H. Marks *86

Temperatures in Princeton dropped to the 70s last week, but the Woodrow Wilson School’s Fountain of Freedom remained a popular spot for young swimmers. (Photo by Marianne Nelson)

If they were a circus act, they could be the Flying Slovenskis. Brothers Steve Slovenski ’09 and Dave Slovenski ’12 have excelled as Princeton track athletes — Steve was one of the Tigers’ top decathletes, and Dave won the pole vault at the Ivy League Indoor Heptagonal Championships last February — but they appear even more impressive competing against each other in an event they created: the unicycle pole vault.

The younger Slovenski first brought his unicycle to track practice to use it in warm-ups. (It’s similar to pedaling an exercise bike, he says, but it works more muscles.) When Princeton coach Fred Samara saw the brothers riding while carrying poles, he asked incredulously if they were planning to vault off of their unicycles.

“That sounds crazy and dangerous,” Dave said.

“Let’s try it!” Steve replied.

The results of their creative combination can be seen in the YouTube video below, which shows the brothers clearing the bar at up to 10 feet while big-top theme music plays in the background.

Last month, Woodrow Wilson School professors Paul Starr and Uwe Reinhardt offered their views of the current health care debate through two different perspectives.

In an interview with WNYC’s On the Media, Starr, the Stuart Professor of Communications and Public Affairs, discussed the past, recapping tactics used to bury earlier U.S. health reform efforts. During the late 1940s, for instance, Starr said that an American Medical Association PR effort hinted that national health care was akin to Soviet-style socialism:

“They suggested that Lenin had supposedly said that health care was the first step toward instituting Communism. There was a mythical quote that no one has been ever able to discover to that effect. And they argued that it was, you know, like a gateway drug and the beginning of a slippery slope toward government control of everything. In that period, given the Cold War, that argument was a powerful one.”

Click here to read or listen to Starr’s interview.

In a CNN.com commentary, Reinhardt, the James Madison professor of political economy, considered the future and what it might look like if the current round of health reform fails. The total yearly health spending by a typical American family has more than doubled in the last decade, and that trend, he argued, is likely to continue:

“… America’s currently insured middle class will be increasingly desperate if health reform fails. Millions more such families will see their take-home pay shrink. Millions will lose their employment-based insurance, especially in medium and small-sized firms. And millions will find themselves inexorably priced out of health care as we know it.”

Click here to read Reinhardt’s commentary.

Sid Lapidus ’59 has donated to Princeton 157 rare books, pamphlets, and prints that are displayed in a new exhibition in the main gallery of Firestone Library. The exhibition, entitled “Liberty & the American Revolution: Selections from the Collection of Sid Lapidus ’59,” opened May 28 — just in time for the 50th reunion of Lapidus’ class.

The items span more than 150 years of American and British history, from the 17th century to the early 19th century, and are arranged thematically into four groups. “Revolutionary Origins” features documents relating to political theory and ideology, beginning with a 1651 edition of Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. “The American Crisis” displays a wide array of views on the 18th century controversy over taxation and the push for independence in the colonies.

Russian work premieres with a Princeton spin

Peter Schram ’09 leaps over, from left, Kelsey Berry ’10, Jennie Scholick ’09, and Elizabeth Schwall ’09 in a rehearsal for Music for Athletes. (Photo by Brian Wilson, Princeton University Office of Communications)

“Greetings, highest President Tilghman! And three cheers for Old Nassau!”

These are the cries that opened the world premiere of Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev’s Music for Athletes in Richardson Auditorium July 17. The piece, which Princeton music professor Simon Morrison *97 uncovered in 2006 at the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art in Moscow, was performed as part of the sixth annual Golandsky Institute International Piano Festival.

Russian-born pianist Ilya Itin played the music, while a Princeton undergraduate and three alumni — Kelsey Berry ’10, Peter Schram ’09, Elizabeth Schwall ’09, and Jennie Scholick ’09 — danced to Scholick’s original choreography.

The “greetings” to Tilghman are representative of Scholick’s concept for the piece. Playing on the Kremlin’s original intention of glorifying Soviet athletic prowess through the performance, her modern adaptation glorifies Princeton instead.

Princeton Summer Theater season continues with The Glass Menagerie

For Shawn Fennell ’10, Douglas Lavanture ’09, and the handful of other students and recent graduates who run Princeton Summer Theater (PST), July has meant 14-hour days in the cozy confines of Murray Dodge Hall and a schedule filled with rehearsals, set construction, and a range of odd jobs, from manning the ticket counter to designing playbills.

Each day may be tiring, says Fennell, the company’s artistic director, but with four plays in a span of nine weeks, the performers “never get tired” of the material. In mid-June, on the day PST debuted the musical Urinetown, the Musical, cast members also had their first read-through of the Tennessee Williams play The Glass Menagerie, which will begin its two-weekend run July 9.

Thesis tackles gender bias in American theater

Do female playwrights have more difficulty getting their work produced, compared to their male counterparts? Economics student Emily Glassberg Sands ’09 took on this controversial and complex question in her senior thesis and revealed some surprising results.

Sands used an experimental survey to see if a script was better received when its author was a man. She sent identical scripts, written by prominent female playwrights, to artistic directors and theater managers, and labeled the works with different pen names -- Mary Walker vs. Michael Walker, for instance. Each recipient was asked to rate the script that he or she received.

Male playwrights received more favorable reviews, and Sands' data showed that women reviewers were responsible for the bias against women. Specifically, women reading plays by women assigned lower ratings on questions about whether the characters were likable and how likely it would be that the playwright would win a prize.

"It's not clear that it's pure, taste-based gender discrimination by the women," Sands explained in an interview with PAW. "It seems to be that the women have a heightened awareness of the barriers [female playwrights] face."

The relatively few women who are artistic directors and theater managers, Sands said, "are definitely the outsiders, and as outsiders, they are probably trying to make the safe bet. In general, the safe bet is usually a work by a man because historically, it's been more widely accepted in the theater community. ... Once I looked more into the literature, I realized that [the apparent bias is] not quite as much of an anomaly as it sounds."

Sands presented her findings to about 200 theater practitioners and industry experts in New York City June 22. Her work also received attention from media outlets, including The New York Times, National Public Radio, and Bloomberg.

Michelle Obama ’85 talks about Sonia Sotomayor ’76

First Lady Michelle Obama ’85 delivered the commencement address at the Washington Math and Science Tech Public Charter High School June 3. Her remarks to the graduates included memories of her time at Princeton and a few comments about fellow Princeton alumna Sonia Sotomayor ’76, President Barack Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court. An excerpt from the speech, released by the Office of the First Lady, is included below.

First Lady Michelle Obama ’85 at the Washington Math and Science Tech Public Charter High School

… [W]hen I look out at you all, I get tears in my eyes because I think about sitting in your seats just a few years ago in my cap and gown. Whitney Young was a magnet public school, so I was a public school graduate, as well. And I was excited like you were because I had gotten into Princeton University. I was excited! I was fired up. I didn’t get the kind of money you all got — but I was excited.

But I was also worried. I was worried about whether or not I was ready, whether or not I would fit in. And I have realized since then that I probably wasn’t alone in my fears, in my worries.

And then I read this story of Judge Sonia Sotomayor. I don’t know if you know about this phenomenal woman, but the President — she’s the President’s nominee for the Supreme Court — and she’s the first Hispanic woman to be considered for the position. The first.

And she went to Princeton. And in this story she said that when she arrived at Princeton as a freshman — and this was nine years before I would even think about going — she said when she stepped on that campus, she said — and this is a quote — she said she felt like “a visitor landing in an alien country.” And she said she never raised her hand her first year because — and this is a quote — she “was too embarrassed and too intimidated to ask questions.”

Quotes from the Class Day and Commencement speakers

“We can finally burn the bumper sticker that says: ‘He who dies with the most toys wins.’ The truth is closer to the old Italian proverb that says: ‘At the end of the game, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.’ What really matters in the end is how you’ve played that game of life — that you’ve lived it with honor, integrity, and character, old-fashioned qualities that never go out of style whether you’re a fan of Ella Fitzgerald or Lady Gaga.”

— Katie Couric, CBS Evening News anchor and Class Day speaker

“One of the great supporters of international students at Princeton, Shelby M.C. Davis [’58], likes to say that life is lived in thirds: learn, earn, and return. I agree with Mr. Davis, but I hope, I hope that the thirds of your life are not mutually exclusive. … [L]earning is a lifelong pursuit, an endeavor that will guide us as we earn, in all respects, and give back to our broader society and to Old Nassau.”

— Holger Staude ’09, valedictorian

Toy gun causes campus lockdown

An unidentified man was spotted with what appeared to be a handgun near Dod Hall Wednesday morning, June 3, causing a brief lockdown of the Princeton campus. The situation was resolved within an hour after an investigation found that the gun was actually a toy, according to the University’s Office of Communications.

Public Safety received its first report of a gun on campus at 10:36 a.m. At approximately 10:50 a.m., staff, faculty, and students began receiving messages from the University’s automated emergency alert system. “There is a gunman on Princeton’s campus,” the message said. “This is a real emergency. Public Safety will issue more instructions as information becomes available.” The location of the incident was revealed in a message on the homepage of the University Web site.

Four juveniles who are not Princeton students were taken into custody near campus, according to police. “The suspected handgun was a dark green plastic toy that could be confused with an actual weapon,” the Office of Communications reported. “The toy was retrieved near the Wawa on University Place.”

At 11:34 a.m., the University issued an all-clear message, telling people to “resume normal activities.” “Everything has been resolved,” University spokeswoman Emily Aronson told the Star-Ledger. “It was a toy gun.”

A similar incident caused a lockdown at Princeton March 6. Borough police said that an undergraduate ran through campus carrying an imitation assault rifle, sparking calls to Public Safety. The University sent out an alert at 12:42 the next morning, urging students to remain inside and to lock all windows and doors. According to The Daily Princetonian, the student received the alert and called Public Safety to say that he thought he might have caused the incident; he was taken into custody and later released. At 1:24 a.m., Public Safety notified students that there was no threat.

Couric addresses the Class of 2009

CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric delivered the Class Day address at Princeton June 1, becoming the first woman to headline the event since seniors began inviting outside speakers in 2001.

Couric’s lively and at times irreverent speech was peppered with Princeton slang and pop-culture references. Of her morning routine, she said, “I was pregaming in the slums when there was a noise complaint. P-Safe busted me and took my prox. Luckily, though — very relieved — I wasn’t McCoshed. I headed to the Street where I tried to complete a Prospect 10, but I was sidetracked playing robo at T.I. Very savage.” (After the speech, she confessed that two students, Jonathan Shifke ’10 and Caroline Shifke ’12, had provided a primer on campus life.)

Coming to speak at Princeton was a no-brainer, Couric said: “I can see New Jersey from my house.” But she was a bit miffed to find out that before inviting a woman to speak at Class Day, earlier classes had selected a fake newsman (Stephen Colbert in 2008) and a fake White House adviser (West Wing star Bradley Whitford in 2007).

Not all of Couric’s jokes were hits, but the veteran television journalist seemed unfazed. When a line about Eliot Spitzer ’81 drew more groans than laughs, she quipped, “They told me I could be racy here — work with me, people!”

Couric completed her address with some sober advice for the Class of 2009, which starts life after college in a less-than-hospitable job market. “Maybe the silver lining of these tough economic times is that it’s a wake-up call that can help us recalibrate our values,” she said. “What really matters in the end is how you played that game of life, that you’ve lived it with honor, integrity, and character — old-fashioned qualities that never go out of style.”

Couric called on the graduates to work hard in their chosen professions, serve their communities, thank their parents, and take chances. “Make some noise, be a rabble-rouser,” she said. “We’ve seen such extraordinary change in this country in the last 10 years. Now it’s your responsibility to build on that change.”

Forecasting the P-rade

Will it rain at Reunions? Will a thunderstorm wash out Commencement?

According to Weather.com, isolated thunderstorms on Friday will give way to warm, sunny weather for the rest of Reunions and for the Class of 2009’s big day June 2. But some seniors question that forecast.

“It’s always sunny for Lawnparties and rains during Reunions,” said Jackie Temkin ‘09, quoting a popular belief among students.

Rain during Lawnparties this year debunked the first part of that axiom. And even when sprinkles do come to Reunions, Princeton undergraduates and alumni seem to be able to get the most out of the weekend.

Since the P-rade started in the 1890s, it has only been canceled once for inclement weather — a nor’easter in 1953. A review of PAW stories from the last 30 years found that it has been sunny at all but seven P-rades. Even at those seven, in most cases the heaviest rains held off until the seniors finished their march.

PAW’s Virtual Arch Sing

In advance of Reunions, PAW asked Princeton a cappella groups to submit some of their favorite video and audio clips. Watch the two YouTube playlists below (or click the individual links) to hear a preview of the tunes that may be resonating from campus archways at the end of May.

Part 1:

1. Shere Khan - “1234”

2. Katzenjammers - “Do the Walls Come Down”

3. Nassoons - “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”

4. Tigertones - “Runaround Sue”

5. Tigerlilies - “Mean to Me”

Part 2:

1. Tigressions - “Pocketful of Sunshine”

2. Footnotes - “Loving Feeling”

3. Roaring 20 - “Kryptonite”

4. The Wildcats, Tigerlilies, and Tigressions - “Old Nassau”

Encore

Some groups submitted video and audio in other formats and were not able to be included on the YouTube playlists, but you can click these links to get the full Princeton a cappella experience:

1. Old NasSoul - “In the Still of the Night”

2. Kindred Spirit - “A Mighty Fortress” (Facebook video, registration required)

3. Koleinu - “Etz Chaim”

Jonathan Schwartz ’10 plays Matt in the off-Broadway revival of The Fantasticks. (Photo by Ellis Gaskell)

Schwartz ’10 makes his New York acting debut

Six days a week, Jonathan Schwartz ’10 takes a New Jersey Transit train into Manhattan to work. The job involves some singing and dancing and being ready for the unexpected, like trying to belt out his lines in front of 200 people with confetti stuck in his mouth.

That’s all in a day’s work for Schwartz, who recently made his New York acting debut as the male lead in the off-Broadway production of The Fantasticks (a role that includes one scene in which confetti is sprinkled over the actor’s head). Schwartz, a sociology major, has been doing eight performances a week since March 30 while carrying a full course load.

The Fantasticks was the longest-running musical in the world, opening in 1960 and playing more than 17,000 shows before closing in 2002. The show’s revival at the Snapple Theater Center in Times Square opened in June 2008. The story is a romantic comedy about a boy (Matt, Schwartz’s role) and a girl (Luisa) who fall in and out of love at the hands of their meddling fathers.

Schwartz, a Cranford, N.J., native, has been acting since he landed a part in the chorus for a community theater production of Oliver at age 4. “I learned my right from my left in that show because I had to wave,” he says. Since then, he has performed in some 30 musicals and plays, starring as Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story and Joseph in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. On campus he’s been involved in the Princeton University Players, Triangle Club, and the Nassoons.

When Schwartz was offered the part of Matt during midterms, he considered taking time off from school, but ultimately decided to push on. He loads up on classes during Tuesday, the theater’s “dark” day, and uses his commuting time to do homework. Two weeks ago he handed in his junior paper. “I’m not shooting for A’s,” he says, “but I’m doing the best I can.” By Katherine Federici Greenwood

Last-chance lessons

Classes have ended for the semester, but seniors are still headed to lecture. The Last Lecture Series, which runs from April 27 to May 8, gives the Class of 2009 an opportunity to hear some of Princeton’s best lecturers speak about their fields of expertise. Seniors crowd into McCosh 10 on Monday and Wednesday nights to soak up these last tidbits of knowledge before heading out into the real world in June.

Robert George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and a constitutional law expert, spoke to the group April 27 on the topic of “Natural Law, God, and Human Rights.” George outlined his view on the principles of justice and human rights from his viewpoint as a natural law theorist.

In his primer on natural law theory, George argued that humans recognize the “intrinsic value” of social relationships, and thereby set the basis for human-rights law. “Natural law theorists do not deny that God can reveal moral truths, but many moral truths can be grasped by ethical reflection even without revelation,” George said. According to this theory, people can reach consensus on human-rights law without the confirmation of an existence of a higher being.

John Fleming *63, the Louis W. Fairchild ’24 Professor of English and Comparative Literature emeritus, tackled the issue of “What Are the Humanities?” April 29. Identifying the humanities as the “artifacts of human intellection,” Fleming stressed the importance of understanding the cultural context when reading literature.

In speaking about Shakespeare and Chaucer, Fleming said that “we are in that string of humanity, but there’s no way that we’re going to become 14th-century people. … The challenge of the humanities is to try and see them against the profile of the stark differentiation that separates us.”

Lectures continue this week with Professor Ed Felten discussing digital media and Professor Eric Wieschaus speaking about cell embryos. By Sarah Harrison ’09

Arts briefs: Romeo & Juliet at Lincoln Center; Alumna’s documentary on PBS

From May 14-17, the Mark Morris Dance Group will perform “Romeo & Juliet, On Motifs of Shakespeare” at Lincoln Center’s Rose Theater in New York. The ballet is set to the original score composed by Sergei Prokofiev, recently rediscovered by Princeton professor and musicologist Simon Morrison *97. Morrison will speak about the production May 14 at a special pre-performance event for New York City alumni.

Deborah Fryer *93’s award-winning documentary film Shaken: Journey Into the Mind of a Parkinson’s Patient will air on several PBS affiliates in May.

Baseball stands three wins away from division title

The Princeton baseball team has four scheduled games against Cornell this week, but head coach Scott Bradley sees the matchup as a best-of-five series: With the Tigers and Big Red tied atop the Ivy League’s Gehrig Division, the first team to win three games will clinch the title and earn a spot in the Ivy League Championship Series.

“You want to put yourselves in position to play important games,” Bradley said earlier this week. “Right now, it’s here in front of us.”

While three wins against Cornell would guarantee a title for the Tigers, Columbia does have a chance to force a three-way tie for the division title if Princeton and Cornell split their games. The Lions would need to sweep their four-game set against Penn.

For more than a decade, Princeton has been an Ivy powerhouse, winning five league titles in Bradley’s previous 11 seasons, but the Tigers stumbled at the start of the year, losing six of eight games against teams in the Ivy Rolfe Division (Brown, Yale, Dartmouth, and Harvard). In the last two weekends, Princeton’s bats came alive against Columbia and Penn, and the Tigers pulled even with Cornell at 8-8 in Ivy play.

Dan DeGeorge ’09 (.368 batting average, 12 doubles) has been Princeton’s most consistent hitter, and Greg Van Horn ’11 and Jon Broscious ’10 have made key contributions in the last two weeks as well. On the mound, Brad Gemberling ’09 (5-1, 59 strikeouts) has anchored the league’s top pitching staff. Gemberling, DeGeorge, pitcher David Hale ’10, and catcher Jack Murphy ’10 have attracted attention from pro scouts, Bradley said, and may be selected in the Major League Baseball first-year player draft in June.

Game time: Princeton hosts a doubleheader against Cornell April 24, beginning at noon, and travels to Ithaca for two more games April 26.

Softball knocked out of Ivy race

Princeton softball has won more Ivy titles (17) than the rest of the league combined, but this year, the defending-champion Tigers will not repeat. Even with four games remaining against division-leader Cornell, Princeton (8-8) won’t be able to catch the Big Red (13-3).

That means Princeton fans only have a few more chances to see Tiger star Kathryn Welch ’09 in action. Welch, a four-year starter, ranks second on the program’s career lists for doubles and home runs and third in runs batted in. Her .353 career batting average also is among the program’s top five, and she has a chance to hit over .400 for the first time this season (through April 19, she was hitting .402 for the year).

Game time: Seniors Kathryn Welch, Erin Miller, and Brianna Moreno will play their final home games April 24 when Princeton hosts a doubleheader against Cornell, beginning at 12:30 p.m.

An insider’s view of Obama’s new-media campaign

One out of every six people who voted for President Barack Obama opted to help with the campaign, said Joe Rospars, the campaign’s new-media director, in an April 16 speech titled “Making Change Happen: Lessons from the Obama Campaign.” Rospars, a founding partner at Blue State Digital, explained how the campaign used technology to help “lower the barrier to entry” for supporters to participate in the campaign.

The Obama campaign’s new-media program used text messaging, blogs, YouTube videos, and e-mail to encourage supporters to organize themselves into smaller regional and common-interest groups. Rospars and his team posted more than 2,000 campaign videos on YouTube, broadcasting everything from informal chats with Obama’s campaign manager, David Plouffe, to instructions on how to participate in the Iowa caucus. Led by documentary filmmakers and journalists, Obama’s new-media team focused on “both the presentation and weaving together the story of our supporters,” Rospars said.

The plan proved successful — more than 45,000 grassroots volunteer groups helped bring voters to the polls for Obama. Connected to campaign headquarters through e-mails and text messages, these volunteers “knocked on millions of doors and made millions of phone calls,” Rospars said. Obama’s staff gave volunteers the necessary training and resources, he said, and allowed them to work as if they were staff members.

Though the use of new media brought Obama closer to his supporters, don’t be fooled into thinking that he is just an e-mail or text message away. “I hope that no one felt like it was actually Barack who was responding to your friend request on MySpace. If so, I hope that you would have been less likely to vote for him,” Rospars joked.

The new-media team’s job, Rospars said, was “to generate an emotional response and to turn it into concrete outcomes.” The result on Nov. 4, 2008, solidified new media’s position on the political stage. By Sarah Harrison ’09

Young ’02, Ohlendorf ’05, Venable ’05 lead alumni in pro baseball

Princeton's two major league pitchers are off to solid starts this season. Chris Young ’02 of the San Diego Padres won his first two starts, allowing two earned runs in 13 innings, and Ross Ohlendorf ’05 of the Pittsburgh Pirates pitched well in his first start, a 2-1 loss to St. Louis. (He returns to the mound against Houston April 15.)

Other former Tigers have their sights set on reaching the majors -- or returning, in the case of Will Venable ’05, an outfielder who played with the Padres during the last month of the 2008 season. Venable spent spring training with the major league club and started the regular season with the Triple-A Portland Beavers. Through April 14, he has hit safely in five consecutive games and has a .348 batting average.

Pitchers Tim Lahey ’04 (Triple-A Rochester) and Erik Stiller ’08 (Double-A Akron) also have a chance to reach the big leagues this year. Lahey has one save in two appearances and has not allowed a run. Stiller has three strikeouts and no walks in two brief relief stints.

One alumnus decided to leave pro baseball this spring: Infielder Steve Young ’04 (no relation to Chris), who starred with the independent Traverse City (Mich.) Beach Bums for the last three years, announced his retirement in March. Young joined the team in its inaugural season and won the Frontier League's Citizenship Award in 2008. Jason Wuerfel, the team's director of baseball operations, called Young "the heart and soul" of the Traverse City franchise.

Above, from left, Chris Young ’02, Ross Ohlendorf ’05, and Will Venable ’05 in September 2008. (Photo courtesy Liz Young ’02)

A frontiersman's vision

In the April 20 issue of The New Yorker, Dorothy Wickenden tells the story of Farrington Carpenter, Class of 1909, a lawyer and cattle rancher who decided to make his adopted hometown of Elkhead, Colo., into a first-class place to live.

Carpenter started with the school -- a sturdy stone building that he had helped to design. He realized that by attracting smart young teachers from the East, he could both educate the children of the town and provide wives for the many single men in the community. The plan had mixed results, as Wickenden, the granddaughter of one of Elkwood's first teachers, discovered in her research.

Read Wickenden's story online (registration required) and view a narrated slideshow of Carpenter, teachers Rosamond Underwood and Dorothy Woodruff, and the Elkwood school.

Above, Farrington Carpenter 1909, center, with two Princeton classmates during his days at Harvard Law School. (Photo courtesy Class of 1909 Third Reunion Book)

Taking the thesis plunge

Like polar-bear plungers, seniors in the Woodrow Wilson School celebrated handing in their theses at 4 p.m. April 7 with a dip in the Fountain of Freedom. The 40-degree weather did not deter the excited students from carrying on the annual tradition. Other departments, like history and English, which also had April 7 thesis deadlines, held less soggy celebrations with ice cream, cookies, and snacks in their department offices. By Julia Osellame ’09

Photos: Above, tradition trumped cold temperatures for the Woodrow Wilson School’s Class of 2009. At right, seniors Carol Shih, Katherine Fallon, and Devjoy Sengupta didn’t mind getting their feet wet. (Photos by Julia Osellame ’09)

Recent lacrosse alumni offer their take on Princeton’s ‘big city’ win

Hundreds of Princeton students and lacrosse alumni piled into Giants Stadium April 4 to watch the men’s lacrosse team take on the No. 2 Syracuse Orange in the Big City Classic. The Tigers delivered, maintaining an early lead and clinching a 12-8 victory over the defending NCAA champs. With hat tricks from senior Mark Kovler and sophomore Jack McBride, the Tigers (9-1, 2-0 Ivy League) showed the Orange that they came to score big.

In four of the team’s first nine games, the Tigers have taken more than 50 shots on goal. Before this season, the team had crossed the 50-shot mark only seven times in the last decade.

“This year’s offense has been incredibly fun to watch and has definitely helped the ’09 Tigers achieve the record they have,” said former Princeton midfielder Mike Gaudio ’08. Gaudio noted that the change began during a summer tour of Ireland and Spain, when head coach Bill Tierney encouraged the team to take more shots.

Former All-American goalie Alex Hewit ’08 said “the confidence and pride that the offense has been playing with is quite obvious. They are taking chances every time they have the ball, which is very intimidating for the opposing defense.” But this offensive success would not be possible without the “strong defensive unit” supporting the team, Hewit added. With the standout freshman goalie Tyler Fiorito backed by veteran defensemen Chris Peyser ’09 and Jeremy Hirsh ’10, the Tigers are strong on both ends of the field.

“They are a great group of guys, and it is about time that Princeton lacrosse returns to the prominence they enjoyed in the second half of the ’90s,” Gaudio said. Princeton topped Ivy rival Penn, 10-9 in overtime April 7, and has four Ivy games remaining, including home dates against Harvard (April 11), Dartmouth (April 25), and Brown (May 2). By Sarah Harrison ’09

Angels at 185 Nassau

Lovell Holder ’09, in the role of Prior Walter, and Heather May ’10, playing an angel, rehearse a scene from Angels in America April 1. The Lewis Center for the Arts production, staged at the Matthews Acting Studio at 185 Nassau St., began April 2 and will include performances of “Millennium Approaches (Part One)” at 8 p.m. April 9 and 2 p.m. April 11; and “Perestroika (Part Two)” at 8 p.m. April 10 and April 11. (Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

Researchers, lab unharmed by Italian quake

The powerful earthquake that struck central Italy April 6 did not damage a major underground laboratory that has led to important findings in astroparticle physics by a Princeton team. Physics professor Frank Calaprice, principal investigator of the Princeton team that plays a lead role in the Gran Sasso National laboratory near the city of L’Aquila, said the mile-underground lab had been built to withstand a severe earthquake. The epicenter of the quake was less than 12 miles from the lab, he said. Three Italian employees who worked on the Princeton research were not injured, he said.

Names in the news

Michelle Obama ’85 isn’t the only Princeton alumna looking stylish in O Magazine this month. Law student Keiyana Fordham ’04 was featured in a story about finding the right look for a job interview. [O Magazine]

Business management consultant Peter Bregman ’89 spoke about starting a business in difficult economic times on CNN. [American Morning]

William Clay Ford ’79, executive chairman of Ford Motor Co., told NPR that his company does not need a bailout. [All Things Considered]

U.S. women’s hockey goalie Megan Van Beusekom ’04 shut out Japan in an 8-0 United States victory April 4 at the World Hockey Championships in Sweden. [Boston Herald]

Oznot, who was not

In April 1964, when Joseph D. Oznot was accepted to join Princeton's Class of 1968, there was one barrier to his matriculation: He did not exist.

Oznot was the creation of four pranksters from the Class of 1966 and two accomplices at Columbia and Michigan State. They took the college board exams in Oznot's name, fabricated his high school transcript, and used a Michigan State fraternity house as the applicant's return address. Charles Lieppe, the Columbia student, even came to campus for Oznot's personal interview. E. Alden Dunham, then Princeton's director of admission, took the hoax in stride, calling it "ingenious and well planned." Steven Reich ’66 explained to the Hackensack Record that the students simply "wanted to add an air of levity to the normally sober atmosphere of college admission."

But the joke did not end with Oznot's acceptance letter. He would reappear in the 1968 Nassau Herald (his portrait was a photo of Dunham, above, the man who admitted him). Oznot, occasionally credited in PAW as a staff photographer during the late 1960s, has made cameos in Class Notes columns for four decades. In honor of April Fool's Day, Oznot's birthday, The Weekly Blog presents this brief biography of the most famous alumnus who never was, published in last year's Reunions Guide:

Name: Joseph David Oznot ’68

Nickname: "Znot"

Born: April 1, 1946, in East Lansing, Mich.

Major: Classics

Thesis title: "Virgil the Existentialist"

Graduate education: M.A., University of Southern North Dakota at Hoople

Jobs after Princeton: Private detective in Lost Nation, Iowa; energy trader in Houston, Texas; political analyst in Salt Lake City, Utah; college adviser in Lawrenceville, N.J.; proprietor of Oznot's Dish, a Middle Eastern restaurant in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Hobbies: Golf, parasailing, photography, piano

Last seen: Riding in the Class of 1968 VW bug during the 2007 P-rade

New Jersey politicians roast Byrne ’49

Former New Jersey Gov. Brendan Byrne ’49 turns 85 April 1, and in advance of his milestone birthday, some of the state's most prominent politicians gathered for a celebratory roast in Short Hills, N.J. Former Gov. Tom Kean ’57, current Gov. Jon Corzine, and Newark Mayor Cory Booker were on hand to poke fun and pay tribute at the dinner, held March 30.

Corzine quipped that "New Jersey without Brendan Byrne is almost like imagining New Jersey without indictments," according to the Newark Star-Ledger, and Booker reasoned that he must be Byrne's illegitimate child "because in my city so many people call me bastard." Byrne, in self-deprecation, scanned the audience of 400 and joked that there were "more people here than voted for me."

The gathering was good for more than just laughs. The Star-Ledger reported that the event raised $400,000 for the Garden State Cancer Center.

New Book: More about Bill

John Gartner ’79's book, In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography (St. Martin's Press) was named one of the best books of 2008 by Booklist, the publication of the American Library Association. In this study of the former president, Gartner, a psychologist on the faculty of Johns Hopkins Medical School who treats people with hypomanic temperaments, analyzes Clinton's childhood, his relationships with women, and his political talents. Publishers Weekly wrote, "His analysis of Clinton's political talents, right down to his mesmerizing facial expressions while on receiving lines, yields intriguing insights."

For the latest books and media by alumni and faculty, visit PAW Online.

Items for this post were prepared by Katherine Federici Greenwood and Brett Tomlinson.

President Tilghman speaks with Charlie Rose

Panelists debate ‘justice after Bush’

In the wake of President Barack Obama’s historic election, scholars continue to look back and re-evaluate the conduct of the president who came before, George W. Bush. On March 10, four experts met at a Princeton panel discussion of “Justice After Bush: Should Former Administration Officials be Prosecuted?” sponsored by the Woodrow Wilson School Program in Law and Public Affairs. The panelists discussed the feasibility and rationale for prosecuting the Bush administration for war crimes.

István Déak, a premier scholar on World War II war crimes and emeritus professor at Columbia University, began the talk with a brief history of postwar prosecutions and purges in Europe, where hundreds of thousands were either executed or forced from official positions after the Allied victory.

“The Nuremberg trials are not the example for us,” Déak said. Instead, he instructed the audience and panel to consider a policy more in line with a purge, which would dishonorably discharge people at fault. In Austria alone, he said, 300,000 civil servants from teachers to postmen were dismissed for their association with the Nazi party. “The aim of the purges was much more than punishment, [it was] the idea of changing society,” he said.

With a much more opinionated view, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, which has been coordinating litigation on behalf of the Guantanamo Bay detainees, ardently supported harsh prosecution of the Bush administration. “You have to have criminal accountability to deter torture in the future,” he said.

Charles Fried ’56 opposed Ratner, finding his moral stance dubious. Fried, a professor at Harvard Law School whose former posts include U.S. solicitor general and associate justice of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, said that extending prosecution to members of the National Security Agency’s team, for wiretapping domestic phones and cyberspace, is equivalent to a “fetishization of law.”

“There is something odd about this certainty because it’s beginning to look a lot like the prosecution of losers by winners,” he said. “It’s beginning to look like vindictiveness.”

Scott Horton, a contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, agreed and suggested that an overtly non-partisan commission would be a better solution than prosecution to get at the truth behind war crimes allegations against the former administration.

Said Horton, “Truth is the mainstay of our democracy.” By Julia Osellame ’09

New book: Helping kids face shots

Almost any parent knows how frightened small children can become when faced with the prospect of getting a shot. As a child, Daphne Nizza Shaw ’93 had that fear of needles. She remembers running away from a nurse on one occasion. Her mother eased the dread by promising to buy her a toy after her doctor’s visit. Today, as a pediatrician in Texas, Shaw helps her own little patients deal with their fear of vaccinations. One tip she offers parents is to bring distractions — a stuffed animal, bubbles, or book — to her office.

After hearing so many children ask her, “Do I need a shot?” Shaw decided to offer her own distraction: a picture book about a little girl who tries to get out of shots by promising to clean up her doctor’s office. Shaw wrote the story, illustrated it, and published No Shots for Me. In the end, the character gets distracted by her imagination and braves the shots, realizing that vaccinations aren’t so bad.

Shaw counsels parents to talk to their children about shots well before they need to get them and to be honest that shots do hurt. “I don’t advise the sneak-up approach,” she says, referring to some parents’ strategy of withholding the information until the moment before the child faces a nurse holding a needle. Telling kids a month in advance, however, can provoke anxiety. Parents, she adds, should explain that vaccinations deter serious illness that can hurt much more than one shot. Shaw has noticed that patients who “think about other things or sing or blow bubbles or listen to their favorite book being read … can be distracted enough to be done with the shot before they knew it happened.”

Shaw has donated proceeds from the sale of her book to benefit organizations, including Texas Children’s Hospital and an organization that benefits Houston’s homeless, and she plans to donate a portion of future proceeds to the Lisa Bryant ’93 Scholarship Fund. By Katherine Federici Greenwood

UPDATE: The book can be purchased at www.noshotsforme.com. Princeton alumni can put “PU” on their name line when purchasing a book to direct a portion of the proceeds to the Lisa Bryant ’93 Scholarship Fund.

Fictional Princetonians: Answers

Congratulations to James Steward, who earned a copy of The Best of PAW by correctly answering all six of the March 4 Weekly Blog quiz questions. For those who were stumped, the correct responses are listed below.

1. Mel Ferrer ’39 played Robert Cohn in the film adaptation of The Sun Also Rises.

2. Doogie Howser was the precocious TV doctor who, according to the script, earned his Princeton diploma at age 10.

3. Cameron Diaz played fictional alumnus Mary Jensen in the 1998 comedy hit Something About Mary.

4. Batman attended Princeton — and dropped out — in the 2005 Christian Bale film Batman Begins.

5. Jude Law played wealthy (and fictional) alumnus Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley.

6. With a big job promotion on the horizon, Jack Donaghy of TV’s 30 Rock quipped, “I wish I had a Princeton reunion right now.”

Singer ’97 discusses the military’s robotics revolution

On the battlefield, robots can save lives by hunting for explosives or supporting troops from the air. And, as one unit in Iraq wrote in a letter of gratitude addressed to the manufacturer of a robot destroyed on a bomb-finding mission, “when a robot dies, you don’t have to write a letter to his mother.”

But security analyst P.W. Singer ’97 also sees practical and ethical pitfalls in the military’s use of robotic technology. In a Feb. 17 lecture at the Woodrow Wilson School, the author of Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and 21st Century Conflict said that superior technology does not guarantee success (witness the low-tech improvised explosives planted by insurgents in Iraq). Additionally, the chance to outsource fighting to machines may lower the barriers to starting a war.

By increasing the distance between a soldier and his mission, robots are changing the way soldiers view warfare. “This is how one drone pilot described taking out troops from afar: ‘It’s like a video game,’” Singer said. “Now, as anyone who’s played the game Grand Theft Auto knows, there are things that we do in the video world — in the virtual world — that we might not do in the real world.”

The U.S. military’s use of robots in Iraq is widespread, Singer said — some 7,000 drones in the air and another 12,000 on the ground — and 43 other nations also are developing robots for combat. Non-state actors like Hezbollah have gained access to the technology as well.

“Terminator”-style humanoid infantrymen may not be as far-fetched as one would imagine. Scientists who have worked with robotics estimate they could be deployed by 2020. That would be a remarkable achievement, Singer admits, but it is an advance driven largely by “our inability to get beyond our need to destroy each other.” “So the question is this,” Singer said. “Is it us, or is it our machines that are wired for war?”

The Footnotes at 50

The Footnotes, an all-male Princeton a cappella ensemble, celebrated 50 years of making music with a Feb. 21 anniversary concert at Richardson Auditorium that featured special guests from Tufts University — an all-female group known as the Jackson Jills — and an alumni sing-along steeped in tradition.

Current Footnote Kevin Moch ’10 said the undergraduate groups performed the bulk of the show, and the “Footnotes Over Fifty,” a collection of alumni organized by music director John Preston ’11 and George Bassett ’67, added a few songs in the second half of the concert. “They were a huge hit,” Moch told PAW.

At the end of the evening, the Footnotes followed tradition and finished the performance with their signature song, “All I Ask For is You,” a Footnotes original. More than 40 alumni in attendance to joined the undergraduates on stage, and to the delight of students and alumni alike, Michael Greenstein ’65 took the solo.

Greenstein, a footnote among Footnotes, composed and arranged “All I Ask For is You.”

Pyne Prize winners, by the numbers

When sociology majors Alex Barnard ’09 and Andy Chen ’09 were named co-recipients of the Pyne Honor Prize Feb. 21, it was the first time in recent memory that both winners of the University’s top general prize for undergraduates came from the same department.

Fifteen different departments have produced Pyne Prize winners in the last 15 years (28 seniors were honored in that span). The Woodrow Wilson School leads all concentrations with five recipients, followed by English (four) and molecular biology (three). Anthropology, history, and mechanical and aerospace engineering each had two recipients.

The Pyne Prize, established in 1921 and named for Moses Taylor Pyne, Class of 1877, recognizes excellent scholarship, strength of character, and effective leadership by Princeton seniors.

Former museum director recalls looting in Baghdad

When American tanks rolled into Baghdad in April 2003, their arrival signaled the end of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The city also entered a period of upheaval that put precious artifacts from Iraq’s National Museum at risk. More than 15,000 rare and ancient objects from Mesopotamian history were looted in less than a week, said Donny George Youkhanna, the former director general of the museum, in a lecture at McCormick Hall Feb. 18. Despite the dogged efforts of Youkhanna and others, fewer than 4,000 of the artifacts have been recovered.

The looters were Iraqis, Youkhanna said, and they fit into three categories. One group raided the administration area and took what they knew they could sell, such as computers and fax machines. Another group went into the galleries of the museums and stole large, prominent artifacts. And a third group, which Youkhanna believes had inside knowledge of the museum, went to store rooms and stole precious items from the museum’s collection — “light things, small things, but very precious and valuable things.”

In the months and years that followed, some items were returned by Iraqis, and others were discovered by customs agents or in antiquities auctions outside the country. With help from international experts, the museum retrofitted its facilities to discourage future looting. “We had to heighten the fences to three meters, and [add] turning pikes on top,” Youkhanna said, showing a slide of the new fence. “To tell you the truth, I do not like it. It looks like a prison. But this is what we had to do.”

Youkhanna and his family received death threats and eventually fled Iraq. He was appointed as a visiting professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

‘Time’ links Ben Folds to Princeton’s Nassoons

When acclaimed singer-songwriter Ben Folds asks you to perform “Girl from Ipanema,” off the cusp, in front of a full house at Princeton’s McCarter Theater, you do it. So learned the Nassoons, Princeton’s oldest all-male a cappella group, while opening for Folds at his Feb. 11 concert.

The Nassoons first linked up with Folds in early December after Princeton’s Jonathan Schwartz ’10’s a cappella arrangement of Folds’ song “Time” won the group the chance to record on Folds’ upcoming a cappella album. Folds packed a skeleton crew and his own equipment into the Mathey College common room, where he recorded with the Nassoons for several hours.

“He was extraordinarily down to earth, and we had a blast with him,” said senior Nassoons member Brian Gurewitz. Before Folds left, the Nassoons joined him for a casual sing-a-long at the piano, where he took requests for their favorites of his songs.

The group gathered for extra rehearsals in the weeks leading up to Folds’ concert in Princeton, ensuring that their voices would be in good shape when they opened the show with Schwartz’s arrangement of “Time.” After the Nassoons finished their performance, the headliner asked them to sing one more song. He’d enjoyed their version of “Girl from Ipanema” during the recording session in December.

“We weren’t as prepared for that, but there certainly was a lot to be said for the spontaneity of the moment,” Gurewitz said.

The Nassoons chatted with Folds onstage and off, apparently not too fazed by his stardom. “Meeting Ben wasn’t unlike meeting a new friendly roommate,” Gurewitz said, “but it only took a short time to realize that despite his laid-back demeanor, he exudes talent. Ben seems genuinely interested in both the culture and style of collegiate a cappella music. I have a feeling he would have loved being in the Nassoons in college!” By Sarah Harrison ’09

Bonus: Watch the Nassoons perform Ben Folds’ “Time” in a fall 2008 music video.

Carril gets top billing on Jadwin floor

On Feb. 21, Princeton will honor former men’s basketball coach Pete Carril (at right, on PAW’s April 3, 1996, cover) by renaming the game court at Jadwin Gym “Carril Court.” Carril coached the Tigers for 29 seasons, winning 13 Ivy League titles and becoming one of the most beloved figures in Princeton sports history. His career concluded in 1995-96, the year that Princeton topped Penn in a one-game Ivy playoff and shocked UCLA in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

By the time that ’96 Princeton squad beat the defending-champion Bruins, Carril had “become known as the gruff Professor Almost,” in the words of Alexander Wolff ’79. His teams had suffered postseason near-misses against Georgetown, Arkansas, and Villanova. But, as Wolff noted in a 1996 PAW story, that view overlooked Princeton’s 1975 NIT Championship as well as regular-season defeats of highly ranked opponents: North Carolina (in 1971), Florida State (in ’72), Alabama (in ’75), and Notre Dame (in ’77). Carril’s Tigers also knocked Oklahoma State out of the NCAA Tournament’s first round in 1983.

Carril was inducted in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 1997, and his legacy continues through the work of protégés coaching in college and the pros, including 10 alumni (see below).

Not far from the tree

Ten Princeton alumni who played for Pete Carril currently coach professional or Division-I college teams. They are (top row, left to right) David Blatt ’81, head coach, Dynamo Moscow and the Russian national team; Mike Brennan ’94, assistant coach, American University; Brian Earl ’99, assistant coach, Princeton; Mitch Henderson ’98, assistant coach, Northwestern University; Armond Hill ’85, assistant coach, Boston Celtics; (bottom row, left to right) Sydney Johnson ’97, head coach, Princeton; Chris Mooney ’94, head coach, University of Richmond; Craig Robinson ’83, head coach, Oregon State University; Joe Scott ’87, head coach, Denver University; and John Thompson III ’88, head coach, Georgetown University.

Carril’s basketball connections also include Northwestern head coach Bill Carmody, a longtime assistant who succeeded Carril at Princeton; Sacramento Kings general manager Geoff Petrie ’70; Mercer County (N.J.) Community College head coach Howard Levy ’85; and Gary Walters ’67, the Princeton director of athletics, who played for Carril at Reading (Pa.) High School and later assisted him on the sidelines.

Film issues a call for action against human trafficking

In the call and response chants that rose up among slaves in the United States, the call signified a need and the response meant that “I hear you and I’m going to rescue you.” Musician and activist Justin Dillon uses this musical concept in his debut documentary film, Call+Response, to address the international problem of human trafficking and promote the modern abolitionist movement.

Dillon’s documentary was screened in McCosh 50 Feb. 10, followed by a panel discussion with Professor Cornel West *80, author and journalist Benjamin Skinner, and activist Bridgit Antoinette Evans.

Dillon’s film focuses on the sexual enslavement of young girls in Cambodia, Thailand, India, and the United States, and he includes several familiar faces who have spoken out against this modern form of slavery (among them musicians Moby, Talib Kweli, and Natasha Bedingfield; actresses Ashley Judd and Julia Ormond; journalist Nicholas Kristof; and former ambassador John Miller). With more than 17,000 people trafficked into the United States every year, the problem hits home, advocate Kathy Maskell of the organization Love146 says in the film.

In the discussion that followed the screening, participants spoke about creating sustainable action for the cause. “You have to play to your core competencies,” Skinner explained, highlighting examples of how plastic surgeons, musicians, and movie directors all have given differently to the cause.

In a call to Princeton students to mobilize behind today’s abolitionist movement, Evans explained that “it’s going to require students to start talking amongst themselves. … Students are a core energy in any major social movement, but they have to be organized.”

And, searching for the response, West pointed to the crowded lecture hall, two-and-a-half hours deep into the presentation. Said West: “For Princeton students to stay this long when they’re all so busy is already a sign that they’re hungry and thirsty.” By Sarah Harrison ’09

[Ed. note: Story updated Feb. 13]

Michelle Obama ’85 joins Nassau Inn wall of fame

Valerie Smith, left, the chairwoman of Princeton’s Center for African American Studies, and sociology department chairman Robert Wuthnow unveil a portrait of Michelle Obama ’85 in the Nassau Inn’s Yankee Doodle Tap Room Feb. 4. The Tap Room wall, an unofficial hall of fame for Princeton alumni, has honored distinguished graduates for more than a half-century.

Obama, whose photo hangs between images of former Secretary of State James A. Baker ’52 and astronaut Charles “Pete” Conrad ’53, majored in sociology at Princeton before attending Harvard Law and working as a corporate lawyer and hospital administrator. No word yet on when the first lady plans to autograph the portrait (another Tap Room tradition). Her class will celebrate its 25th reunion in 2010.

(Photo by Frank Wojciechowski)

Cover-worthy: Answers to the Feb. 4 Weekly Blog quiz

This 1987 alumna was a P-rade sensation in 1986, rising above the Class of 1946 contingent in a Statue of Liberty costume. (It wasn’t the first or last time that her photo was featured on the cover of a magazine.) Answer: Brooke Shields

PAW’s Oct. 21, 1958, cover shows President Robert Goheen ’40 *48 waiting to begin an interview with this famous CBS News reporter. The cover line reads, simply, “Hello, Ed.” Answer: Edward R. Murrow

This 1996 cover subject - a Yale Law graduate - was on hand to help Princeton celebrate its 250th anniversary. He returned in 2006 to speak at Class Day. Answer: President Bill Clinton

A heartfelt translation, nine years in the making

In 1998 when Herbert Jordan ’60 visited his daughter at St. John’s College in Santa Fe, he picked up her copy of a translation of the Iliad. He read the first page and “it electrified me,” he says. So he got his own copy and read every translation of the Iliad and the Odyssey he could find. A year later, tragedy struck when his only son died in a car crash at 16. At the urging of a friend, he began to teach himself to read Homer in the original Greek, as a way, he says, “to channel grief.” He spent a couple years learning the language, spending four to six hours a day on the task.

As he began to learn the language and read the Iliad, says Jordan, “I felt that I could relate to the spirit of the original better than any of the translators I read.” And he sensed “I was there, by the ships on the beach below Troy,” says Jordan, who has had a wide-ranging career as an attorney, CEO of a window and door manufacturing business, and founder of a maple syrup production business and a charitable legal service. He tried his hand at translating the epic poem of gods and warriors, line by line, into English blank verse. The hardest part, he says, was “learning to deal with Greek irregular verbs.” Along the way he had some help from Henry Taylor, a Pulitzer-prize winning poet, who went over his drafts, coaching him on diction and tone. When he started the translation, Jordan had no intention of publishing it. But University of Oklahoma Press was impressed and last October published it. A reviewer from Bryn Mawr Classical Review called Jordan’s translation “remarkably lively and poetic” and a “very easy, vivid read.”

Even though it took nine years in all to complete the Iliad, Jordan is already at work on his next project: translating the Odyssey. By Katherine Federici Greenwood

(Photo courtesy Herbert Jordan)

Men’s and women’s basketball: Previewing the Ivies

The Princeton men’s and women’s basketball teams each entered the two-and-a-half-week exam break on winning streaks — streaks they hope to continue when the Ivy League tips off the heart of its schedule Jan. 30.

The men were picked to finish last in a preseason poll of Ivy media, and with a 5-8 record in non-league games, the Tigers still have much to prove. But a solid win over Lehigh Jan. 7 gave Princeton a confidence boost. Only two Ivy teams have winning records outside the league: Cornell (10-6 in non-Ivy games), the defending champion and Ivy favorite, and Harvard (8-6 non-Ivy), which notched an impressive upset win at Boston College Jan. 7. Yale topped Brown in its first two Ivy contests and could join Cornell and Harvard as a league title contender.

When Princeton faces Dartmouth Jan. 30, the starting lineup likely will include three four players who have never started an Ivy game: freshman Doug Davis, sophomores Kareem Maddox and Dan Mavraides, and junior Pawel Buczak. Coach Sydney Johnson ’97 said that stressing defense could help the Tigers overcome inexperience. “We need to get stops in the winning moments, and then the offense will come,” he said in early January. “If you look at us at this point, compared to last year, clearly we’re defending better.”

On the women’s side, perennial Ivy powers Dartmouth and Harvard look strong again, but the big two expect challenges from Cornell, which shared the league title with the Big Green and Crimson last year, and Columbia, led by sophomore Judie Lomax, a talented transfer from Oregon State who has averaged 13.8 points and 13.6 rebounds per game this year. Beginning Jan. 30, the Princeton women (6-9 overall) will play all four of those top teams in a nine-day span — a major challenge for coach Courtney Banghart’s young squad, which won its Ivy opener against Penn Jan. 10.

Whitney Downs ’09, Addie Micir ’11, and Lauren Edwards ’12 have led the way for the young Tigers so far this season. In the Ivy’s midseason media conference call, Banghart said she was thrilled with her team’s energy and hunger, but a little concerned about how her team would react to the Ivy League’s intense Friday-Saturday schedule. Said Banghart: “I don’t think you can understand the back-to-back and the battle of tournament play every weekend until you’ve actually lived through it.”

Names in the news

Karen Smyers ’83, one of five inductees included in the first class of the USA Triathlon Hall of Fame, talked about overcoming challenges in her career. [Endurance Planet]

Lisa Jackson *86, President Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Environmental Protection Agency, was a “master juggler” as an official in New Jersey. [The New York Times]

International Rescue Committee president George Rupp ’64 helped celebrate the 75th anniversary of the group’s founding. [Miami Herald]

Don Oberdorfer ’52 discussed America’s diplomacy with North Korea and the status of the country’s leader, Kim Jong-Il. [The New York Times]

The American Plan, a 1990 play written by Richard Greenberg ’80, returned to Broadway in a well-received revival. [The New York Times]

Dancing for the inauguration

For one Princeton student, the inauguration of President Barack Obama was quite the occasion to dance. Kate Adamson ’11 performed at the Presidential Inaugural Luncheon and Fashion Show, hosted by the California State Society, Jan. 18 in Washington, D.C.

Adamson, a member of Princeton’s Disiac Dance Company, linked arms with professional Broadway dancers and Radio City Music Hall Rockettes in a “Yankee Doodle” dance number, as well as in a can-can dance inspired by Obama’s slogan, “Yes We Can!” Patti Colombo, the choreographer of Broadway’s Peter Pan musical, arranged the routines.

Adamson left exam studying behind on Thursday evening to head down to D.C. for all-day rehearsals Friday and Saturday.

“It was such a great experience,” she said. “I was especially grateful to be part of this historical moment, and to be involved in this surge of patriotism and energy.” Adamson did it in style, wearing costumes designed by graduates of New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom all were in attendance.

“The event was an intersection of two things that I am passionate about right now: dance and Obama,” Adamson said. Nothing like a good high-kick to welcome in the 44th president. By Sarah Harrison ’09

Princeton’s gym “for all seasons” turns 40

When Jadwin Gymnasium opened its doors in 1969, PAW billed the new facility as “a cage for all seasons”: a facility that could be used for basketball, track, wrestling, fencing, squash, tennis, lacrosse, baseball, and rainy-day soccer or football practices. And with a volume of 10 million cubic feet (250,000 square feet of floor space), it was possible to contest a half-dozen sports at once.

Jadwin remains one of Princeton’s most impressive buildings, 40 years after its opening. The men’s basketball team will mark the 40th anniversary of the gym with a game against Concordia Jan. 25, 40 years to the day after the Tigers christened the Jadwin court with a win over Penn (pictured at right on PAW’s Feb. 11, 1969, cover).

The gym’s namesake is L. Stockwell “Stock” Jadwin ’28, left, a Princeton track captain who died in a car accident shortly after his graduation. After Stockwell’s death, his parents, Stanley and Ethel Jadwin, continued to donate to the University’s Annual Giving campaign in their son’s name, and when Mrs. Jadwin died in 1965, she left $28 million to Princeton — at the time, one of the largest sums ever given to the University. The money supported the construction of Jadwin Gym and Jadwin Hall, as well as several academic initiatives.

(At top, the H-Y-P indoor track meet of 1969. Photos: PAW archive)

Princeton’s Office of Athletic Communications is counting down the top 40 moments in Jadwin’s history. Click here to read:

No. 40-31 | No. 30-21 | No. 20-11 | No. 10-1

Mielke ’07 competes in curling championships

Alumnus Matt Mielke ’07, profiled in PAW’s Jan. 28 issue, competed in the East Qualifier for the U.S. Curling Championships Jan. 7-11 in Brookline, Mass. It was an “up and down” week, Mielke said in an e-mail to PAW. The competition started well as Mielke and teammates Matt Hames, Bill Stopera, and Dean Gemmel won four consecutive matches in round-robin play. But in the final two round-robin matches, Mielke’s team faced Todd Birr’s team — one of the world’s top squads — and lost both meetings.

At 4-2, Mielke’s team moved on to the playoff round, where it drew Pete Fenson’s team, the 2006 Olympic bronze medalists. Fenson’s squad won, 6-3, knocking Mielke out of contention for one of the East’s three automatic berths in the national championships. The championships also will serve as the 2010 Olympic Trials.

Mielke’s team earned a second chance to reach nationals: By winning its consolation match in the playoffs, the team secured a spot in the “challenge round,” to be contested in Bismarck, N.D., Jan. 28-Feb. 1. Ten teams from the regional meets will play for four berths to the national championships. Fans can follow the results at usacurl.org.

Tilghman, Tigers among N.J.’s most influential

President Tilghman was profiled by New Jersey Monthly in a special January issue devoted to the state’s 101 most powerful residents. The magazine hailed Tilghman for investing in the sciences, reshaping student life, and inviting changes to campus culture. “The notion that the culture will be frozen in place at a university, which should always be pressing forward into the future, is, I think, just wrong,” Tilghman said.

Other powerful Princetonians spotlighted by the magazine include Michael Aron *70, a longtime senior political correspondent for the New Jersey Network; Lawrence Goldman *76, president and CEO of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center in Newark; David Grant ’72, president and CEO of the Morristown-based Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation; Lisa Jackson *86, Gov. Jon Corzine’s former chief of staff and the Obama administration’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency; and former Gov. Tom Kean ’57, who served as chairman of the 9/11 Commission.

Names in the news

Carlin Romano ’76 covered the American Philosophical Association’s conference in Philadelphia, speaking with alumni Cornel West *80 and Joshua Weinstein ’87. [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman ’77 may be paving her way for a gubernatorial bid in California. [Los Angeles Times]

Selden Edwards ’63’s novel The Little Book earned high praise from reviewer Keith Runyon, who named it one of 2008’s best books and called it the best novel he’d read in nearly two decades. [Louisville Courier-Journal]

Outfielder Will Venable ’05 is aiming for a spot on the San Diego Padres’ opening-day lineup. [Marin Independent Journal]

Caltech chemical engineering professor Frances Arnold ’79 and colleagues are working to manipulate microbe communities and employ them in applications that range from drug delivery to fuel production. [Science News]

Contest winner

Congratulations to Jessica Dye ’05 of Brooklyn, N.Y., who won a $100 gift card from the U-Store in PAW’s drawing for readers who signed up to receive our e-mail alerts.

PAW’s annual look at Princeton’s top headlines, on and off campus.

January: Record number of students apply for Class of 2012

In the first application cycle since early admission was ended, the University received a record 20,118 applications, up 6 percent from the previous year. It’s the fourth consecutive year in which admission applications have set a record. Janet Rapelye, dean of admission, said the number and the quality of applicants “exceeded our expectations.” … [Read more]

February: Ethan Coen ’79 wins Oscar

Ethan Coen ’79 and his brother Joel, the directors and screenwriters of No Country for Old Men, earned starring roles at the Academy Awards ceremony Feb. 24. Their film won four Oscars, including the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. Another film with Princeton ties, Taxi to the Dark Side, was named the year’s Best Documentary Feature. Todd Wider ’86 and Jedd Wider ’89 served as executive producers of the documentary, which explores the arrest, torture, and death of an Afghani taxi driver at an American Air Force base.

March: Bob Goheen ’40 *48, Princeton’s 16th president, dies (By Merrell Noden ’78)

I was not sure what to expect back in the fall of 2006, as I walked through Robertson Hall on my way to meet Bob Goheen ’40 *48 for the first time. I came to Princeton in 1974, two years after Goheen had stepped down following 15 momentous years as University president. It’s hard to imagine how that time could have been more eventful: Goheen had welcomed minority students in real numbers, overseen the transition to coeducation, and transformed Princeton from an excellent undergraduate school into a world-class research university. To accomplish all that at any time would be an awesome achievement, but to do at a time of widespread paranoia, violence, and uneasiness about change was testament to the deep trust Goheen inspired in faculty and students alike. I knew the legacy but not the man. Goheen’s secretary offered to take me to his office. We rounded a corner and there, walking slowly before us, was Bob Goheen. Sensing that it would be ungracious to catch him, we slowed down to give him time to reach his office. A few moments later he stood up to shake my hand and then sat down, slightly breathless. His hair was rumpled, and he was not wearing his trademark bowtie. There was no self-importance or vanity about him. … [Read more]

April: Keller ’63 makes $25 million gift to strengthen engineering-liberal arts ties

For the last two years, Princeton’s Center for Innovation in Engineering Education has tried to provide an encouraging nudge for faculty pursuing new ideas in engineering classrooms. On April 7, the center received a major boost: a $25 million gift from Dennis Keller ’63, the founding chairman of DeVry Inc., and his wife, Connie, aimed at improving the links between engineering and the liberal arts at Princeton. … [Read more]

May: Researchers catch a star in the act of exploding

On Jan. 9, 2008, Alicia Soderberg, a postdoctoral research associate in astrophysics at Princeton, was studying the X-ray emissions conveyed from space by NASA’s Swift satellite when she recognized an extremely bright light on the screen of her computer, saturating the satellite’s view “as if we had pointed a digital camera directly at the sun,” she said. That light, Soderberg and colleague Edo Berger later confirmed, was a supernova — an explosion of a massive star. Their finding, named Supernova 2008D, or SN 2008D for short, was described in a paper published in Nature May 22. In a May 21 teleconference, Soderberg described the experience as being in the right place, at the right time, with the right telescope. “I truly won the astronomers’ lottery,” she said. … [Read more]

June: More than 20,000 celebrate Reunions 2008

The P-rade is an event for Tigers of many stripes — and for many patterns, prints, and plaids, too. But this year, viewers perched on the banks of Elm Drive likely experienced a sense of déjà vu from two large contingents of alumni donning jackets that featured alternating, finger-width vertical slats of orange and black. The first group was the Class of 1983, marching at the head of the P-rade in brand-new Reunions blazers. The second was the Class of 1958, back for its 50th reunion and wearing the same pattern. (The Class of 1933, which originated those familiar vertical stripes, was not represented in the P-rade, but two widows of class members were on hand at the Old Guard luncheon to celebrate ’33’s 75th.) … [Read more]

July: Andlinger ’52 gives $100 million to Princeton

The University announced a $100 million gift July 1 from Gerhard R. Andlinger ’52 to support energy and environmental research. The gift will create the Gerhard R. Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment within the School of Engineering and Applied Science and will support construction of a 110,000-square-foot building, to be called Andlinger Laboratory, between the E-Quad and Bowen Hall. The center will include several new faculty positions; major research areas will include sustainable energy sources, techniques to improve carbon management, and energy efficiency. … [Read more]

August: Lind ’06 wins gold at Olympics

When Caroline Lind ’06 and her U.S. rowing teammates won Olympic gold in the women’s eight, they hugged, cried, smiled, and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” with gusto on the medal stand. And in the week that followed, whenever they left the Athletes Village, the gold medals came with them. “I don’t know if many athletes wear their medals,” Lind said, “but my entire team was like, ‘We’re wearing them!’” At clubs and restaurants and on the streets of Beijing, the women were treated like celebrities. By the time Lind returned home, her medal had a tiny nick near the bottom, and its ribbon was starting to pill like an old T-shirt. “It’s well-loved,” she said. Lind was one of 15 Princeton alumni and students who traveled to Beijing as Olympic athletes or coaches. … [Read more]

September: Gehry-designed Lewis Library opens (By W. Barksdale Maynard ’88)

Is Princeton ready for Frank Gehry? Skeptics peering over construction fences at the corner of Washington Road and Ivy Lane had their doubts. Some predicted that Lewis Library would be the scariest thing to fall to earth in central New Jersey since that Martian spacecraft jarred Grover’s Mill 70 years ago — “Mr. Wilmuth, would you please tell the radio audience as much as you remember of this rather unusual visitor that dropped in your backyard?” But when the fences finally came down in the summer, two years later than originally scheduled, the skeptics tiptoed inside. No sign of any tentacled Martians glistening “like wet leather.” A sure cure for lingering aesthetic doubts was a trip to the fourth floor, almost 100 feet up: the soaring ceilings, the mazelike plan full of surprises, the whimsical plywood furniture, and, best of all, the view through giant windows of the rest of this strange building — crooked walls, tilted roofs, shiny steel and painted stucco and orange brick colliding in wild, delightful confusion. … [Read more]

October: Krugman wins Nobel in economics

Looking somewhat sheepish before a packed press conference Oct. 13 in Robertson Hall, economist Paul Krugman accepted the congratulations of friends, students, and colleagues as the recipient of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. A professor in the economics department and the Woodrow Wilson School, Krugman earned the award for groundbreaking research in the fields of international trade and economic geography. He is more widely known for his twice-weekly column in The New York Times. … [Read more]

November: Alumni candidates succeed at the polls

Jared Schutz Polis ’96 got a new job Nov. 4. The Internet entrepreneur from Boulder, Colo., asked the people of the state’s 2nd district to “hire” him as their representative in Congress, and on Election Day, a strong majority of voters backed the idea. In an election that will send Michelle Obama ’85 to the White House as first lady next month, Polis was one of six Princetonians to win a congressional or gubernatorial race. … [Read more]

December: Princeton, Robertsons settle donor-intent case

Princeton has settled its six-year legal battle with members of the Robertson family over control of the Robertson Foundation, the University announced Dec. 10. Under the settlement, the University will pay $50 million to a new foundation that will support the preparation of students for government service, and another $40 million to reimburse the Robertsons’ legal fees. The Robertson Foundation will be dissolved, giving Princeton control of the remaining funds, according to a University release. Robertson Foundation assets were worth more than $900 million on June 30, 2008, the end of the University’s fiscal year. … [Read more]

The Year at Princeton Archives: 2007 | 2006