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The University announced today that it will offer a nonbinding early-action option for applicants seeking admission in the fall of 2012. Princeton had offered an early-admission program for almost 30 years before moving to a single deadline for students hoping to enroll in the fall of 2008.

 

President Tilghman said in a statement that the University was pleased with its admission process over the past four years, but added that “we hoped other colleges and universities would do the same, and they haven’t. One consequence is that some students who really want to make their college decision as early as possible in their senior year apply to other schools early, even if their first choice is Princeton.”

 

Students who apply early-action to Princeton will be required to state that they have have not applied for early admission at any other school. They will be allowed to apply to other schools through their general admission process, and will have until May 1 to decide which school to attend.

 

Two years ago, two of the Big Three automakers declared bankruptcy and accepted federal bailout funds. The American auto industry had been in a steady decline, but suddenly it fell through the floor.

 

“As a young boy growing up in Detroit, if anybody had ever said to me that I would live to see the day when Chrysler and GM declared bankruptcy, I would have said, ‘no chance,’” William Clay Ford Jr. ’79 told an audience of about a hundred people at the Friend Center Feb. 15.

 

Ford Motor Company was the only automaker that refused federal funds, and William Ford, the company’s executive chairman and speaker at the annual G.S. Beckwith Gilbert ’63 lecture, could not be happier about the decision not to.

 

“We wanted to chart our own course, and we thought we had the ability to do so,” Ford said. 

 

Anne Anlin Cheng ’85

 

The Palm at the End of the Mind by Wallace Stevens

Praise by Robert Hass

 

Asking a professor of literature what is her favorite book to read is bound to incite feelings akin to panic because the de-selection process seems impossible. But there are two books of poems on my nightstand, because I return to them repeatedly over the years. One is Wallace Stevens’ The Palm at the End of the Mind, and the other is Robert Hass’ Praise. There are many books to love but only a few in one’s lifetime that shift the fundamental tectonic plates of one’s mind; these are two such books for me. Reading them changed what I thought poetry could be. They show me how lyricism can fuse into serious philosophical inquiry, and they remind me of the profound rewards and pleasures of being a reader.  

 

 

The snow that blanketed Princeton in January and early February is gradually melting, but the memories of playing in it remain fresh. PAW student photographer Habin Chung ’12 captured this image in McCosh Courtyard Jan. 27. From left, Adrian Young, Bingyu Zheng, Benjamin Gross, Yulia Frumer, Takashi Miura, and Erin Brightwell, graduate students in the history, religion, and East Asian studies departments, created this “Gradosaurus” (and later, an “Advisersaurus” as well). The eyes were apples from the dining hall and the teeth, Bugles corn chips.

 

When Kathleen Brite ’13 walks through FitzRandolph Gate with her Princeton diploma, she hopes to find herself back in the classroom – not to take another Princeton course on international relations, but rather to teach K-12 students.

 

“Whether it’s in the ghettos of America or rural Africa, I’m fairly sure that’s what I’m meant to do,” she said.

 

Like many college students, Brite has big goals for the future. As she makes her plans, however, Brite said she does not feel pressure to secure a well-paying job after graduation, largely because of the financial support she has received from Princeton’s financial-aid program.

“The financial aid has given me the opportunity to really focus on making a difference instead of getting a paycheck,” she said. “I know that it’s possible to do both, but most of the things that I love aren’t necessarily high-paying.”

Chern Han Lim ’11 expressed similar sentiments, explaining that graduating from Princeton without loans means that he is free to work where he pleases “without a huge burden on [his] shoulders.”

 

He added, however, that the aid has not had a strong impact on his career plans. “I sort of knew all along that I wanted to enter the finance industry,” he said.

 

Jill Dolan

 

Since I teach theater and performance studies, my favorite books tend to be plays, rather than novels or nonfiction.  One of my favorites is Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (both parts).  The plays always excite my students, because they use theatricality in imaginative ways to address a wide swath of issues relevant to our common situation.  Kushner manages to launch an intellectual conversation about democracy and faith through the apparatus of theater, while telling a story full of heart and soul about the human condition.  I’m always moved by his (characters’) declarations of faith, not in a religion, per se, but in the potential of human connection across our many differences.

 

At the risk of sounding entirely self-serving, I’m going to recommend my own book, Utopia in Performance: Finding Hope at the Theatre. The book’s premise is that we go to live theater as a way to connect with one another in profound ways, ways which, in the moment of being together as strangers, allows us to experience, just for a moment, what utopia might feel like.  The book describes performances at which I felt this, and engages with issues about performance and theater from the perspective of hope and fellow feeling.  I write only about performances that moved me in this book.  It’s a critical project, but it’s not about “criticizing,” per se, and offers an alternative model of engagement for spectators and for artists (for anyone, really, who cares about and loves going to the theater).

 

Almost as soon as they boarded a plane en route to the Czech Republic Jan. 22, the Princeton Chapel Choir already was performing. Flight attendants, upon learning that the group was a choir, invited them to provide “pre-flight music” to replace the classical music typically played on board.

 

“Everybody from first class and everything came up to watch and listen to us,” Will Harrel ’13 said. “That was really cool.”

 

Several hours and one connecting flight later, the Chapel Choir landed in Prague, the first destination in the choir’s performance tour of Eastern Europe. The tour, comprising the Czech Republic, Austria, and Hungary, took place over the Intersession break and combined choir performances with visits to sites of historical and musical significance. Close to 50 members of the Chapel Choir took part – and former choir members Jennifer Borghi ’02 and Margaret Meyer ’05, who have both achieved prominence in the vocal arts, joined the group in Mozart’s “Laudate Dominum.” The group also performed pieces by composers such as Gustav Holst, Eric Whitacre, Moses Hogan, Rosephayne Powell, and Pavel Chesnokov.

 

The U.S. has a delicate balancing act to preserve in Egypt, said Daniel Kurtzer, a former ambassador to Egypt and the S. Daniel Abraham Professor in Middle Eastern Policy Studies, at a talk in the Woodrow Wilson School Feb. 1.

 

“The shelf life of my analysis is about an hour,” he joked. Just before the talk, President Hosni Mubarak had announced that he would not run for reelection. What leadership will take Mubarak’s place is still unclear, as demonstrators begin to call for regime change.

 

Kurtzer said that the opposition lacked a “natural leader,” though Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei has become in some ways the face of the movement. He also cautioned that the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, potentially could “hijack” the political situation in order to achieve its goal of making Egypt an Islamist state.

 

Updated Feb. 3, 2011

 

All five Princeton undergraduates who were in Egypt to start the spring semester have left on flights as unrest in the country grew and protesters continued to call for the ouster of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak.

 

Four students who were about to begin classes at the American University of Cairo left Egypt Feb. 1 on a U.S. State Department flight and have landed in Istanbul, said Nancy Kanach, senior associate dean of the college and director of the Office of International Programs. Kanach’s office has been in constant contact with the students whose cell phones are operating.

 

The fifth student, who had started in January at a Middlebury College program in Alexandria, left on a charter flight and landed in Prague Jan. 31, Kanach said.

 

 

Michael G. Littman

 

The Innovators, by David Billington ’50. Billington and I co-teach CEE 102, “Engineering and the Modern World.” This is the first of two Billington textbooks that we use in the course. The book is written for a broad audience and discusses the scientific, social, and symbolic aspects of engineering starting from the time of the industrial revolution. Great engineering works in the areas of structures, machines, networks, and processes are considered as well as the engineers and entrepreneurs who were responsible for their development.

 

 

Members of the Princeton community were in festive spirits at the Woodrow Wilson School’s sixth annual public service auction Dec. 16. Nibbling on holiday desserts, guests milled around tables in Robertson Hall’s Shultz Dining Room adorned with autographed books, handcrafted statues, and imported silks. For the third consecutive year, the event supported the Greater Donnelly Neighborhood Initiative, a nonprofit organization that runs programs for at-risk youth in the north Trenton area.

 

Graduate student Jennifer Onofrio spearheaded the organizing team of two dozen Wilson School volunteers. Students also donated goods and services, including private language lessons, catered three-course meals with wine pairings, and five hours of chauffeuring. A lunch with Dean Christina Paxson sparked at least one inter-class bidding war. Graduate student Kevin Smith brought his cowboy hat and Kentucky twang to his role as auctioneer.

 

Anthony D.J. Branker ’80

 

Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation by Paul Berliner (The University of Chicago Press, 1994)

 

I often reference Paul Berliner’s Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation in my research and teaching, and simply find it to be an inspiring read. This historically significant ethnomusicological work examines how jazz musicians learn to improvise and speak the language of jazz, both as an individual activity and through social interaction with like-minded peers, experienced jazz performers, or utilizing the jazz community as an educational system. As Berliner notes, this book “tells the story of the remarkableness of the training and rigorous musical thinking that underline improvisation [and] elucidates the creative processes that lie at the heart of the music culture of jazz.” Plus, there are a number of incredible interview excerpts from noted jazz artists who share their experiences as creators and practitioners, including Wynton Marsalis, Max Roach, Kenny Barron, Fred Hersch, Dizzy Gillespie, Curtis Fuller, Lee Konitz, et al.