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Photos by Emily Trost ’13

 

After the onslaught of midterms, most Princeton students headed home or into hibernation for the weeklong break that began after classes ended Oct. 28. While my classmates recovered, I stood in a Swiss quarry clumsily balancing a hardhat on my head, gazing up at massive walls of chalky yellow and white rock.

 

With me stood nine students from my paleontology course, a recent alumnus, a geosciences lecturer, a geosciences professor, a Swiss professor of geology, and his graduate student. Our Swiss guide asked us to examine the massive rock for clues about what sort of environment we would have been standing in over 130 million years ago. Putting our noses close to these chalky surfaces, we could see that these rocks told a surprising story. If we had been here 130 million years ago, we would have been walking on the seafloor.

 

We were looking at the remnants of ancient carbonate platforms, the products of today’s coral reefs that serve as indicators of changing ocean and global climate conditions over time. Our studies of mass extinctions in Professor Gerta Keller’s 300-level course, “Evolution and Catastrophes,” required an understanding of the many global processes that contribute to these severe environmental changes. But to really understand those processes, Keller makes it a necessity that her class travel each year. “The classroom is one thing,” she said. “It’s theoretical. You are shown pictures, given concepts, and explained things — but it’s not real.” Standing on an ancient seafloor in Switzerland, however, is.

 

Four Princeton undergrads traveled to Palo Alto, Calif., last weekend to compete at Facebook’s campus in a national hackathon programming competition. They ended the weekend with top honors for their program “Color Me Bold,” and a head start on a potential future business dispensing algorithmic fashion advice to end users over the Internet.

 

The platform, created by Daniel Chyan ’14, Angela Dai ’13, Tiantian Zha ’13 and Amy Zhou ’13, would allow users to take a photograph of an outfit and upload it a website that then recommends modifications to the outfit based on complementary color schemes.

 

If the idea seems fanciful or trivial, consider the technical obstacles the group overcame: The program first reads the photograph, then normalizes for the lighting, identifies colors and articles of clothing or accessories like ties or jewelry, generates advice based on color coordination algorithms, and finally displays the recommendation in a visually appealing format. And the team designed and built the program in a period of 24 hours.

Seventeen young men and women dressed in button-down shirts and business attire quietly took their seats at a long, narrow table in a conference room just down the street from the white dome of the U.S. Capitol. They opened their binders and began sorting bills and resolutions they planned to discuss for the next few hours. A gavel banged on the table.

 

“The chair will now look favorably on a motion to open the docket.”  

 

A young woman in a white blouse waved her name placard. “Motion to open the docket,” she offered.

 

“Is there a second? All in favor?” asked the chairwoman.

 

Seventeen placards shot up into the air. Gavel in hand, Molly Nacey ’13 smiled at the group from the head of the table. “The chair will now entertain ‘The No-Fly List Notification Act,’” she said. “Please take a few minutes to read it over.”

 

The room quieted to the sounds of rustling papers and pen scratches as 17 high school students from across the country prepared to debate the proposed legislation with Nacey moderating the discussion.

 

For Nacey, it was her first time chairing a committee at the Princeton Model Congress (PMC) conference, a three-day, student-run program held in Washington, D.C.  Designed to be educational, fun, and transformative for high school students, the conference, now in its 30th year, invites students to step into the shoes of U.S. congressmen and women, Supreme Court justices, cabinet members, members of the press, and others involved with the political process.

  

It is official–the students of Whitman College have spoken, and they have chosen to be known forevermore as the “Whitman Whales.”

 

The University’s newest residential college is now the only one with its own mascot. Though Whitman College Council Arts Chair Jackson Dobies ’14 first introduced the idea of a mascot specifically for use in intramural sports, the vote between mascot choices evolved into more than a decision over what graphic to put on a jersey.

 

Rather, the election between the Whales, Wolves, and Knights engendered spirited debate about college pride and community – and drew a stunning 405 participants, a majority of the students affiliated with Whitman.

 

Puns played a prominent role in the debate. The “Whitman wail” is a communal cry of despair that occurs at midnight before every Dean’s Date, and members of the college refer to themselves as “Whitmanites,” adding humor to the idea of “Whitman Knights.” Alliteration was another consideration, with Knights the clear loser in that contest.

 

 

More than 80 budding Web entrepreneurs, including Princeton undergrads as well as students from nearby universities and professional developers, participated in the University’s first Startup Weekend Nov. 11-13.

 

The open competition challenged teams to start a Web-based company and pitch it to industry leaders. In addition to $1,500 and a head start on a new business venture, the Newsance.net team that won first place earned the attention of Internet developers, including investors and Web entrepreneurs who spent the weekend mentoring the teams and judging their final presentations.

 

According to Momchil Tomov ’14, one of the event’s student organizers, the program aimed to “help people overcome the initial barrier of realizing an idea.” Startup Weekend gave students a deadline, which often seems to be the most effective motivator for goal-oriented Princetonians. It encourages people to set aside time for an elective project, and possibly start a business in the process. “This event lets people dip their toe in the amazing world of startups in a creative environment,” Tomov explained.

 

Newsance.net team included Princeton students, a University of Pennsylvania undergrad, and one professional developer. Their startup is a news website that tries to “let you engage actively with your community in exploring the events around you” by adopting a kind of wiki-news open-source format that would let readers contribute to and edit live stories.

 

Cornel West *80, one of Princeton’s most prominent faculty members — and a major draw for students — is leaving the University.

 

West, a provocative figure known for his advocacy for liberal causes — and frequent sharp tongue — will rejoin the faculty at Union Theological Seminary in New York, where he began his career in 1977.

 

“It’s a devastating loss for Princeton,” said Eddie S. Glaude Jr. *97, the head of Princeton’s Center for African American Studies, which West helped to create and grow, drawing other well-known scholars. “We’re losing a master teacher. His office hours are legendary — they last well into the night.”

 

Enrollment in West’s introductory African-American Studies course topped 400. A freshman seminar on “Great Books,” co-taught with conservative activist Robert George, was also popular. More than 100 students applied for 15 slots in his freshman seminar on how great thinkers have responded to the problem of evil. West is on leave this year.

 

Princeton Triangle Club’s new show, Doomsdays of Our Lives, is set to debut at McCarter Theatre Nov. 18. The musical comedy, directed by Glen Pannell ’87, looks ahead to 2012 and the end of the world – which in this scenario is capped by an all-male kickline of “lovely Mayan maidens.” (Frank Wojciechowski).

Alan W. Lukens ’46, a retired Foreign Service officer, described his experience as a World War II soldier who helped to liberate the Dachau concentration camp in Germany during a Veterans Day observance Nov. 11 in the University Chapel. Lukens was part of the U.S. Army’s 20th Armored Division when it arrived at the camp in April 1945. “Entering the camp, we were faced with an awful sight,” Lukens said. While an estimated 100,000 people had died at Dachau from 1932 to 1945, about 35,000 survived. “They all looked like skeletons,” he said. Their survival, Lukens said, was due to their faith (many religions were represented), the hope that eventually they would be rescued, and love for each other in sharing what they had.

 

Lukens said he had been invited to return to ceremonies at Dachau in 1995, when about 50 U.S. military veterans had attended; in 2005, when about 10 veterans participated; and last year’s 65th anniversary observance, when he was the only U.S. soldier present at the camp’s liberation to attend. Lukens said he welcomed the opportunity to tell how Dachau has changed from “a symbol of infamy to one of hope,” and urged those attending the Veterans Day observance to remember the sacrifices of so many “who have died for our country.”

 

Princeton paid tribute to 76 alumni veterans who died in the past year, and said that 194 University staff members are veterans.

 

Visitors who come to Jadwin Gym for the women’s and men’s basketball season openers Nov. 11 and 12 may notice some new additions. Over the northwest entrance is a mantelpiece from the Osborn Clubhouse, the former athletics field house on Prospect Avenue that housed the Carl Fields Center in recent years and was demolished earlier this year.

 

On the northeast side is another relic from Osborn: a terra-cotta banner that reads “ORANJE BOVEN” – literally, “orange on top” or “orange above.”

 

 

The phrase is a traditional Dutch refrain that dates back to the 1670s, according to the late historian Henry Havard. When Princeton students took up orange and black as the school colors in the 1800s – as a reference to Nassau Hall, King William III, and the House of Orange-Nassau – they appropriated the slogan as well, using it as a rallying cry at sporting events. It earned a place of honor in the Osborn trophy room, built in the early 1890s, and became a popular toast at alumni banquets. According to The Daily Princetonian, there was even a song titled “Oranje Boven” in an early edition of the Carmina Princetonia. In 1935, when a group of alumni donated a portrait of William III, “Oranje Boven” served as the headline for PAW’s cover story.

 

“Oranje Boven” can still be heard at sporting events, when the Netherlands’ soccer team is on the pitch. But at Princeton, the words are mostly forgotten, relegated to a bygone era when gridiron heroes like Knowlton “Snake” Ames 1890 and Johnny Poe 1895 led the Tigers to the top of the college football world.

 

Read more: Historic building to be history (PAW, April 28, 2010)

Slide show: Farewell to the clubhouse (PAW, July 6, 2011)

Emily VanderLinden ’13 showed up at “The People’s Kitchen” in Zuccotti Park on Oct. 16 intent on helping out with the community effort, which was set up to provide food for participants in the Occupy Wall Street protests. But VanderLinden came away with more than just a dishwashing experience: She also found herself pleasantly surprised by the spectrum of people she met in the kitchen who were involved with the movement.

 

“I got engaged with people in a really unique way,” she said, describing conversations with both the homeless and the affluent in the communal kitchen. “A little piece of everyone can support this movement, to be honest.”

 

VanderLinden is one of several Princeton students who have been making their way to New York City on recent weekends to check out Occupy Wall Street, a series of demonstrations in the financial district that started on Sept. 17, 2011. Demonstrators are largely protesting corporate greed, social and economic inequality, and corporate influence over the government – and several students from the University are joining in, whether as supporters or curious observers.

 

Lily Yu ’12 believes that poets and physicists aren’t that different. “They’re both looking to describe the world as clearly and honestly as they can,” she explained. Yu, an English major pursuing a certificate in biophysics, knows this firsthand. Her writing has been published in Clarkesworld Magazine and The Kenyon Review Online and chosen for the Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume 6. She says her work is the sort of “stuff that gives people headaches trying to classify.”

Her play, Glass, Darkly, won last year’s Princeton Science Playwriting Competition, and it is something different than her usual work, she says. Glass, Darkly seeks to bring the life of physicist Chien-Shiung Wu out of the shadows. Once a Princeton instructor in the 1940s, Wu was a Chinese-American physicist often called the First Lady of Physics and the Chinese Madame Curie. In addition to her contributions to the field of nuclear physics, Wu participated in the Manhattan Project, and her work laid the foundations for others to receive the Nobel Prize. Still, Yu says, history has seemed to forget Professor Wu.

Yu was drawn to writing about Wu’s life because she had known virtually nothing about Wu and felt something needed to be done. “I wanted to make something beautiful out of material that was interesting to me,” she said, laughing as she noted that her desire to write about Wu might have been a selfish one. “She was a Chinese-American physicist; I thought I was going to become a Chinese-American physicist,” Yu said.

Ambassador-in-Residence Barbara Bodine discussed Yemen’s development, challenges, and future for an audience of about 80 students and community members in Robertson Hall Oct. 11. The speech opened a Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) series on Arab political development.

 

Bodine, the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen from 1997-2001 and a lecturer in public and international affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School, began her talk by comparing Yemen 30 years ago to the country today.

 

Then and now, she said, the country was “politically precarious, economically precarious, and beset by external forces that wish it ill.” It also had the same ruler, the initially unpromising president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

 

Bodine sees some common threads in the Arab Spring events of this year – “demography, economy, technology, and democracy” – and demography, in her view, is a particularly salient issue in Yemen. More than 50 percent of the population is under 15 years old, youth unemployment has reached 60 percent, and fertility rates are among the highest in the world at six to seven children per family.

 

“There is high correlation between youth disproportion and civil instability,” she said, pointing out that young Arabs have no memory of the creation of Israel, a non-theocratic Iran, or perhaps even the first Gulf War, and their worldviews have been influenced by the availability of satellite television.

 

Bodine also stressed how close Yemen was – and still is – to becoming a “failed state” and examined how Saleh managed to retain control even during last spring’s political and social upheaval. She cited the opposition coalition’s total disorganization and Saleh’s own relative popularity as reasons for his current, if tenuous, grasp on power.