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May 4, 2011

Panel discusses policy, security implications of bin Laden's death

Less than two days after the killing of Osama bin Laden, the James Madison Program hosted a panel discussion that asked what his death will mean for America and the world. Held in Dodds Auditorium May 3 and moderated by Madison Program director Robert P. George, the panel included Middle East and Islam historian Bernard Lewis, Near Eastern studies professor emerita Jennifer Bryson, assistant professor of Near East studies Michael Reynolds, and Darren Staloff, a history professor at the City College of New York.
 
wb_campus.jpgBryson said that it was important to consider what historians would think when looking back on the killing of Bin Laden, as well as the lessons to be learned from the period leading up to the Sept. 11 attacks. One such lesson, which Bryson said that the American government and private sector have “barely begun to learn and must learn more deeply,” is the importance of having an understanding and concern for what foreign populations think when conducting U.S. foreign relations.
 
“If America were once again to understand foreign populations … the world would find us to be more informed and effective,” she said, noting that the United States has not yet recovered its capacity for good foreign policy since the abolition of the U.S. Information Agency, once “a vitally important part of the U.S. government for foreign outreach.”
 
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Posted by Tara Thean on May 4, 2011 at 11:05 AM | No Comments

May 2, 2011

Working group recommends fraternity and sorority ban for freshmen

A working group of faculty, students, alumni, and administrators has recommended significant changes to curb activity by fraternities and sororities at Princeton and improve social and residential life on campus, according to a new report released May 2.
 
wb_campus.jpgThe group, which was asked to review the University’s goals for undergraduate social and residential life, found that most Princeton students are satisfied with their social experiences, and overall satisfaction is “generally higher than at other institutions.” But the group also found room for improvement, making recommendations that fell under three main headings – social and residential life, fraternities and sororities, and campus pub. They included the following:
 
  • Prohibiting freshmen “from affiliating with a fraternity or sorority or engaging in any form of rush,” with severe penalties, including possible suspension. 
  • Sustaining the University policy of not officially recognizing fraternities or sororities.
  • Reinstating a campus pub “that would be open to all undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and staff and help to model the responsible use of alcohol.”
  • Encouraging programs that provide freshmen with “meaningful opportunities to engage more with sophomores, juniors, and seniors early in their Princeton careers.”
 
Cynthia Cherrey, vice president for campus life, and Robert Durkee ’69, vice president and secretary, were scheduled to present the report at a May 2 meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community (4:30 p.m. in East Pyne, room 10). Look for full coverage of the working group’s findings and recommendations in the June 1 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly.
Posted by Brett Tomlinson on May 2, 2011 at 3:40 PM | No Comments

May 2, 2011

Dean's Bake: Students, bakers team up to honor Malkiel

Dean of the College Nancy Weiss Malkiel reviews the three cakes designed and baked in her honor for "Dean's Bake" April 29. (Habin Chung '12)
Dean of the College Nancy Weiss Malkiel reviews the three cakes designed and baked in her honor for "Dean's Bake" April 29. (Habin Chung '12)
In the fall, Nancy Weiss Malkiel, Princeton’s Dean of the College for the last 24 years, announced her plans to retire at the end of the academic year, and as that departure nears, people around the University have started to bid farewell. April 29 included perhaps the most unusual stop on the goodbye tour: Dean’s Bake, a cake contest in which students and confectioners from Princeton’s dining services aimed to give Malkiel a sweet and memorable send-off.
 
The event had the look of a Food Network show, with three cameras providing streaming Web video from the Frist Campus Center. Stu Orefice, the director of dining services, emceed the contest with a stream of foodie puns (including a promise that there would be no “bake inflation”), while chef Rob Harbison added commentary (“Real men do wear aprons”). The panel of four judges included Malkiel and her husband, economics professor Burton Malkiel *64.
 
Seventeen groups of students applied to compete, and organizers selected three promising teams to pair with experienced pros from the University bake shop. By the time the teams arrived at Frist, their cakes had been baked, cooled, and coated with one layer of icing. The challenge was to finish intricate decorations, carry the cake to a display table, and serve tasting samples to the judges in 45 minutes or less.
 
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Posted by Brett Tomlinson on May 2, 2011 at 11:45 AM | 1 Comment

April 25, 2011

Religion professors discuss Islam and Christianity

Students, faculty, and community members packed McCosh 50 April 20 to see Oxford University professor Tariq Ramadan in conversation with Princeton professor Eric Gregory on the subjects of Islam, Christianity, and the problem of oppression.

wb_campus.jpgThe event served more as a way for the two to share the views of each faith than it did as a way for the two to agree on how the faiths can work together to combat oppression.

Ramadan, a professor of Islamic Studies, spoke at length on the ways in which the basic tenets of a spiritual life in Islam inform Muslims’ understanding of how to resist oppression.

He explained that everyone possesses two competing tendencies – a dark side and a light side – and oppression results from letting the dark side take over. By nature, Ramadan explained, humans are engaged in an intimate struggle between their evil and benevolent sides, and to lead a spiritual life is to control one’s darker half with his enlightened half.

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Posted by Woody Hines on April 25, 2011 at 10:35 AM | No Comments

April 21, 2011

Duncan calls for reform, encourages students to consider teaching

U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan spoke to students, faculty, and community members about the importance of education reform and the steps necessary for returning America to world prominence in education in a lecture at Richardson Auditorium April 20.
 
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan greets members of Students for Education Reform during his April 20 visit to Princeton. (Brian Wilson/Office of Communications)
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan greets members of Students for Education Reform during his April 20 visit to Princeton. (Brian Wilson/Office of Communications)
“Whether you look at [education] as a civil-rights issue, as an economic imperative, as an issue of national security – I look at it through all three of those lenses – we have to get better faster than we ever have in education,” Duncan said.
 
He listed five goals he hopes to see accomplished in the next few years: reform of the No Child Left Behind law; an increase in access to and quality of education; bringing together school boards, management, and unions to work on reform; recruitment of the next generation of teachers; and an increased use of technology as an effective teaching tool.
 
Duncan particularly stressed the importance of a high-quality crop of new teachers to replace the retiring baby-boomer generation of educators, noting that the Obama administration aims to recruit one million teachers over the next four years.
 

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Posted by Tara Thean on April 21, 2011 at 10:25 AM | No Comments

April 11, 2011

Table tennis returns to nationals for sixth straight year

The Princeton University Table Tennis Club will travel to the collegiate national championships in Rochester, Minn., April 15-17. (Amitabha Ghosh GS)
The Princeton University Table Tennis Club will travel to the collegiate national championships in Rochester, Minn., April 15-17. (Amitabha Ghosh GS)
 
As recruiting goes, it wasn’t exactly a hard sell. Amaresh Sahu ’13 had already been admitted to Princeton when he first heard about the University’s table tennis club. He knew a few of the players from the junior tournaments he’d competed in since he was 11 years old. So when he arrived on campus in fall 2009, he became a regular at the club’s nighttime practices at Dillon Gym.
 
Last spring, Sahu played his way into the national quarterfinalis in the individual men’s bracket and helped Princeton earn a top-four finish in the team championships for the fifth consecutive year. The Tigers are returning to the national tournament this week and hoping to chart a path to the national finals.
 
To reach the nationals, teams have to earn points at regional events. For Princeton, there were two this year: an October tournament at Penn State, where the Tigers placed second to Maryland; and a February tournament at Dillon, where Princeton avenged its earlier loss, sweeping Maryland 4-0 in the finals.
 
In the national draw, Sahu said, the teams to beat will be Texas Wesleyan, the defending champion, and Lindenwood University in Missouri. Both schools treat table tennis as a co-ed varsity sport and have lineups filled with international recruits.
 
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Posted by Brett Tomlinson on April 11, 2011 at 9:10 AM | No Comments

April 4, 2011

Paper-crane project aims to raise awareness of disaster in Japan

 
Bonnie Eisenman ’14, left, and Kai Shibuya ’14 fold paper cranes at Frist Campus Center. To date, organizers of the project have collected more than 5,800 cranes. (Photos by Habin Chung ’12)
 
With millions of dollars in financial support and supplies making their way to the Japanese earthquake victims in the next few weeks, a group of students from Princeton and Stanford have launched something different to show their support: the Million Crane Project, a nationwide effort to unite major universities, high schools, and other organizations in a massive crane-folding endeavor to raise awareness of the earthquake and its devastating effects.
 
From 9 a.m. to 9 p. m. Monday through Friday, students, faculty, and community members have been stopping by the Million Crane Project table at the Frist Campus Center in between classes and errands to fold paper cranes. The crane-folding idea comes from the Japanese legend of senbazuru, which promises a wish to anyone who folds one thousand paper cranes. The project team hopes to collect one million paper cranes by May 11 – exactly two months after the disaster – to be used in the creation of a piece of memorial art by artists such as Makoto Fujimura.
 
“I’ve become convinced that this project will add a new dimension to what international aid is or how anyone should support a country,” student coordinator Shiro Kuriwaki ’14 said. “It’s much more sustainable than donations – it prevents donor fatigue. Folding cranes has no cost.”
 
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Posted by Tara Thean on April 4, 2011 at 1:25 PM | 2 Comments

March 29, 2011

Rugby alumni, teams to celebrate two anniversaries

Relatively few American students play rugby before college. For many of the men and women who pick up the sport at Princeton, the first game they watch also becomes the first one they compete in. Newcomers learn the basics, refine their skills, and eventually pass on what they’ve learned to the next crop of novices. The students also drive the program off the field, managing everything from scheduling to finances.
 


The 1931-32 Princeton men’s rugby team, left, and the 1981-82 women’s team, right. On April 9, alumni will celebrate 80 consecutive years of competition for the men and 30 consecutive years for the women. (Courtesy Bric-a-Brac)
The 1931-32 Princeton men’s rugby team, top, and the 1981-82 women’s team. On April 9, alumni will celebrate 80 consecutive years of competition for the men and 30 consecutive years for the women. (Courtesy Bric-a-Brac)
It’s a cycle that has endured with remarkable consistency, and on April 9, alumni of the Tiger programs will celebrate that tradition by marking two anniversaries: 80 consecutive years of competition for the men’s squad, and 30 consecutive years for the women’s team.
 
The weekend also holds great importance for the current Princeton teams, which are slated to compete on the West Windsor Fields. Men’s rugby will vie for the Rickerson Cup at the New Jersey State Intercollegiate Championship April 9, while women’s rugby will host the Ivy League Tournament April 9-10.
 
Men’s rugby traveled to Southern California for a recent spring-break trip, and according to captain Zak Deschaine ’11, the chance to focus on rugby for a week paid dividends. It also gave West Coast alumni a rare opportunity to catch Princeton in action.
 
“We played Loyola Marymount while in Los Angeles on tour, and we must have had 20 or 30 alumni show up,” Deschaine said. “It’s really a cool thing to see. … It’s something special to be a part of.”
 
In the first four years of the New Jersey State Intercollegiate Championship, Princeton has captured the Rickerson Cup three times, including last season, when the Tigers edged William Paterson in the final. Deschaine expects William Paterson to be a team to watch this year as well.
 
The women’s rugby team, which toured Ireland during spring break, will host the first Ivy League Tournament in three years (regional scheduling commitments have hampered the event).
 
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Posted by Brett Tomlinson on March 29, 2011 at 8:55 AM | No Comments

March 28, 2011

Farrow, Payne speak about Sudan's future

Mia Farrow (Pierre Holtz for UNICEF, via Wikipedia)
Mia Farrow (Pierre Holtz for UNICEF, via Wikipedia)
Actress and humanitarian Mia Farrow and U.S. Rep. Donald Payne, D-N.J., visited Princeton March 25 to speak to students and community members about prospects for peace in Sudan, an East African nation torn apart by violence and genocide. The talk, which drew about 100 people to Whig Hall, was sponsored by the International Relations Council, a Princeton student group associated with Whig-Clio.
 
Farrow, a UNICEF goodwill ambassador who has traveled to Sudan more than a dozen times, presented images from her trips and told stories about the people she has met, including villagers displaced from their homes in the Darfur region.
 
While Darfur may have receded from the headlines, Farrow said that aerial attacks and ground assaults on its people continue, under the direction of the Sudanese government in Khartoum.
 
“In fact, with attention now focused on [South Sudan], the violence in Darfur has escalated to a point that we have not seen since 2003 or 2004,” Farrow said. “Just since December, at least 14 villages have been attacked; 70,000 to 100,000 people have been displaced and have fled, joining the 2.7 million already homeless. … These are the victims of our indifference.”

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Posted by Brett Tomlinson on March 28, 2011 at 3:15 PM | No Comments

March 28, 2011

Undergraduates attend conference of education leaders

From left, Theodore Schleifer '14, Alex Meyer '12, Katelyn Gostic '13, Tara Thean '13, Eudes Lopes '13, Kevin Ofori '13, Claire Cole '12, and Emily Myerson '12 before a panel at the Yale School of Management Education Leadership Conference. (Courtesy Tara Thean)
From left, Theodore Schleifer '14, Alex Meyer '12, Katelyn Gostic '13, Tara Thean '13, Eudes Lopes '13, Kevin Ofori '13, Claire Cole '12, and Emily Myerson '12 before a panel at the Yale School of Management Education Leadership Conference. (Courtesy Tara Thean)
Students from the Princeton chapter of the national nonprofit organization Students for Education Reform (SFER) headed to New Haven, Conn., March 25 to join the Yale School of Management Education Leadership Conference, an annual event for the education reform community. The conference brought together more than 650 policymakers, district superintendents, nonprofit leaders, teachers, community members, and students for panel discussions on education issues of national importance.
 
Panelists included Newark Charter School Fund founder and Princeton alumnus Stig Leschly ’92, who discussed mayoral control and school board governance of schools in the United States with fellow panelists Robert Bobb, Daniel McKee, and Kathleen Nugent. The four speakers debated what Leschly called “the near failure of democracies in America” in electing the right leaders to provide school vision and oversight.
 
Meanwhile, Arthur McKee ’90 of the CityBridge Foundation moderated “Lessons learned from Gates’ investments in teacher effectiveness,” a panel discussing the preliminary results shown by the eight districts funded by the 2009 Gates Foundation donation of $335 million to support components of teacher effectiveness.
 

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Posted by Tara Thean on March 28, 2011 at 1:00 PM | No Comments

March 25, 2011

Campus committee explains findings on women's leadership

Members of the Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership spoke to an audience of about 50 students and faculty in Dodds Auditorium March 23, discussing the findings of their yearlong study on women’s undergraduate leadership.

 
wb_campus.jpgPresident Tilghman spoke first on the motivations of the study. “One of the important missions of this university is to empower our students to go out into the world, take it on, and to make it a better place,” she said. “I wanted to understand as much as we could, whether in fact men and women were leaving here feeling powerful.”
 
The 18-person committee consisted of nine faculty members, six undergraduates, and three administrators who met regularly from February 2010 to January 2011. Subcommittees focused on the first-year experience, academic and faculty issues, campus life, extracurricular activities, alumni perspectives, and comparison to other institutions.
 
Committee chairwoman and Princeton professor Nannerl Keohane introduced the findings and general recommendations of the committee, citing a steadily rising percentage of female leadership in the most visible student organizations lasted from the 1970s to the start of the new millennium, when female leadership in organizations like student government, the newspaper, and the honor committee dropped precipitously.
 

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Posted by Woody Hines on March 25, 2011 at 12:30 PM | 1 Comment

March 21, 2011

Undergraduate women underrepresented in leadership, academic prizes

wb_campus.jpgA yearlong study has documented that women at Princeton are underrepresented in the most visible undergraduate leadership positions and as recipients of major academic prizes, disparities that have existed for the past decade.
 
“By and large, women feel that they are not expected or encouraged to fill certain types of leadership positions – but not that they are not entitled to fill them,” the Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership wrote in a 100-page report released March 21.
 
The committee was charged by President Tilghman with exploring how students define and experience leadership and “the critical question of whether women undergraduates are realizing their academic potential and seeking opportunities for leadership at the same rate and in the same manner as their male colleagues.”
 
The committee found an “upward trajectory” of women holding the top posts in key campus organizations (student government, the Honor Committee, The Daily Princetonian, class president) as the numbers of women increased during the 1970s through the 1990s. But it found a “striking” downturn in these numbers during the 2000s.
 

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Posted by Ray Ollwerther on March 21, 2011 at 2:40 PM | No Comments
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