Princeton Alumni Weekly | The Weekly Blog: Campus News Archives

November 6, 2012

Wythes '55, influential trustee and venture capitalist, dies

Paul M. Wythes '55 (Photo: Orange Photography, courtesy of Sutter Hill Ventures)

Paul M. Wythes ’55, a longtime Princeton trustee who headed a special committee that spearheaded an expansion of the undergraduate student body, died Oct. 30 after battling cancer for several years. He was 79.

A New Jersey native, Wythes studied mechanical engineering as an undergraduate, earned an M.B.A. from Stanford Business School, and founded the Palo Alto, Calif.-based Sutter Hill Ventures, one of Silicon Valley’s first venture capital firms, in 1962. Sutter Hill invested in several successful start-ups, including Tellabs, Xidex, Linear Technology, Qume, and AmeriGroup.

Wythes, a Princeton trustee for 14 years, is best remembered as the chairman of the Wythes Committee, which convened from 1997 to 2000. The special committee aimed to determine “the optimal allocation of Princeton's human, physical, financial, and other resources to support the University’s long-term objectives,” with a particular focus on the first decade of the 21st century. Major changes recommended by the group — and approved by the trustees — included a 500-student expansion of the undergraduate population and the addition of a sixth residential college (later funded by and named for fellow Californian Meg Whitman ’77).

Wythes is survived by his wife, Marcia; two daughters, Jennifer Vettel ’86 and Linda; a son, Paul Jr.; and eight grandchildren.

October 28, 2012

Under the stars, a taste of life outside the bubble

(Photo: John O’Neill ’13)

The orange bubble was clad in white Oct. 25 for Forbes Diner Inn Blanc, a family-style dinner that brought together University students and Princeton community residents.

Inspired by “Diner en Blanc,” a flash-mob phenomenon in which hundreds of diners dressed in white picnic at landmarks, the event drew several hundred students from Forbes College and community members to Scudder Plaza in front of Robertson Hall.

The University and Corner House, a local family crisis counseling center, collaborated on the event in order to provide family-style dinners at an inexpensive price.

For University students, this was not only a much-needed taste of home but also a way to better connect with the community.

“It was nice to talk to people whose lives didn't revolve around our crazy and weird Princeton schedule,” said Elizabeth LaMontagne ’14, who sat with a seventh grader from Princeton Middle School and her mother. “We talked about a range of things, from what Kate [the younger girl] was going to be for Halloween to the mother's thoughts about an article by Peter Singer that my friends and I read for our Ethics and Public Policy class.”

Though life outside FitzRandolph Gate often seems worlds away, it was refreshing to see an outside perspective of the University.

“I never realized how often people who live in Princeton take advantage of the opportunities Princeton has,” said LaMontagne. “Kate mentioned that she attended a bat mitzvah held at one of the eating clubs, the mother spoke of coming on campus for arts events ... and both of them were huge fans of the arch sings that ‘seemed to just pop out of nowhere.’"

Both students and community members said they hoped that the success of Diner Inn Blanc would lead to similar events in the future.

October 26, 2012

Wikipedia editors highlight history of Princeton athletics

The "Nassau nine" of 1863-64. (Photo: Athletics at Princeton: A History, 1901)

Princeton has nearly 150 years of intercollegiate-athletics history, and the games played in the Internet age represent a relatively small slice. By 1901, a pair of Tiger fans, Frank Presbrey, Class of 1879, and James Moffatt, Class of 1900, had compiled enough stories, photos, and box scores to fill a rather hefty book, Athletics at Princeton: A History, which begins with a rundown of important firsts — Princeton’s first baseball game, vs. Williams in 1864; its first football game, vs. Rutgers in 1869; and its first trip to the intercollegiate rowing regatta, at Saratoga, N.Y., in 1874.

In the pages of Wikipedia, however, the Tigers of yesteryear have a somewhat limited footprint. On Oct. 19, 11 volunteer editors began to fill in a few of the gaps, drawing on reference materials at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library.

The “edit-a-thon” was the third of its kind hosted by Mudd this year. Q Miceli ’12, a former student employee at Mudd, suggested the idea after attending a Smithsonian-sponsored edit-a-thon in 2011. She organized the first two Princeton events — focused on University history and women at Princeton — and returned as a participant this time.

Christa Cleeton, a special collections assistant at Mudd, said that the edit-a-thons encourage Wikipedia editors to take advantage of the vast range of historical documents that are available to the public. The events also aim to show that a visit to the archives is not as challenging as it may seem, Cleeton said.

Continue reading Wikipedia editors highlight history of Princeton athletics…

October 25, 2012

Daniels '71 discusses government efficiency in campus visit

Mitch Daniels '71 (Photo: Ray Taylor, via Wikipedia)

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels ’71, nearing the end of his second and final term at the helm of the Hoosier state, visited the Woodrow Wilson School Oct. 25 to speak about the reforms his administration enacted in the last eight years. The event was sponsored by Innovations for Successful Societies, a University program that plans to publish a case study of Indiana’s state government in November.

Daniels, a former director of the U.S. Office of Management and Budget, recounted some of his favorite examples of changes in state agencies, from reducing wait times at the department of motor vehicles to providing less expensive but more nutritious meals in the state’s prisons. He credited better measurement and employee incentives, such as performance pay, for encouraging improvement.

“Government is the last monopoly, and in the absence of any competition, there is very little impulse to do things better,” Daniels said.

Daniels also said that government unions are a “huge impediment” to change. On his first day in office, he rescinded a predecessor’s executive order requiring state employees to pay union dues and ended collective bargaining for public workers. Those moves, Daniels said, streamlined the process of reform by allowing the state to pursue private contracts for certain government services.

Continue reading Daniels '71 discusses government efficiency in campus visit…

October 24, 2012

Nobel laureates Krugman and Stiglitz address economic affairs

Princeton professor Paul Krugman, top, and former faculty member Joseph Stiglitz discussed the economy at an event in New York City. (Photos: Jon Roemer/Courtesy the Woodrow Wilson School [Krugman]; Wikipedia/Lawrence Khoo [Stiglitz])

In a freewheeling discussion that focused on the United States’ economic slowdown and what to do about it, Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman talked about the need for more government spending with Columbia University professor Joseph Stiglitz during “A Conversation with Nobel Laureates” Oct. 23 in New York City.

The discussion, before about 700 people at an auditorium at the Fashion Institute of Technology, reached back to the Great Depression for historical comparisons and across the ocean for current-day examples of countries with economies that are doing better than ours.

Describing how government spending helped the United States recover from the Great Depression in the 1930s and 1940s, Krugman said an injection of funds during an economic downturn “is not a sugar high. It’s more like a diet of essential nutrients.”

Added Stiglitz, who taught at Princeton from 1979 to 1988, “There is a vicious cycle going on, where a weak economy leads to more inequality, which leads to a weaker economy.”

The Nobel Prize-winning economists (Stiglitz won in 2001, Krugman in 2008) agreed that cutting social safety nets was not a means to a stronger economy. Scandinavian countries, which have strong social programs, have done well in this economy, Krugman said.

On the issue of health care, the pair talked about the ways in which President Barack Obama’s health care legislation has figured in this year’s presidential campaign.

Continue reading Nobel laureates Krugman and Stiglitz address economic affairs…

October 23, 2012

After publishing her first book, Leong '13 begins senior thesis

On a recent Thursday evening, packs of sharply dressed Princeton students flooded the basement of Robertson Hall for a Goldman Sachs information session, hoping for a shot at success. Down the hall, a similarly dressed politics major from Malaysia, Elaine Leong ’13, spoke of her success of a different sort: becoming a published author as an undergraduate.

As Leong ‘13 described in her Nassau Literary Review-sponsored talk, “Published at Princeton,” her success arose from a chance encounter in the basement of Witherspoon Hall, where she met then economics Ph.D. candidate Kaiwen Leong *11 (no relation) and economics major Edward Choi ’14. The two had already began collaborating on stories of Leong *11’s life experiences, in which he endured abuse and several school expulsions before achieving acceptance to and graduation from Boston University, and later, acceptance to Princeton. Leong ’13, who has a strong background in creative writing, agreed to help with the project. “It was kind of like saying yes to getting married,” she said, laughing. “But I said yes, and I never looked back.”

The product of their yearlong collaboration was a rough manuscript, which they then solicited for publication, a process that would prove to be more difficult a challenge than expected. Leong *11 began searching for publishers in Asia, and Choi and Leong ’13 searched, unsuccessfully, in the United States. “It’s like throwing it into a void,” Leong ‘13 said. “It was a complete failure.”

Leong *11 finally secured a publisher in Singapore, Marshall Cavendish, and in late September, the book was released in Singapore under the title, Singapore’s Lost Son: How I Made it From Dropout to Millionaire Princeton Ph.D. (The title is now available in the United States in Kindle format.) Though feeling like a “plankton” in a vast sea, Leong ’13 and the others enlisted connections at the University to help spread the word, and secured Provost Christopher Eisgruber ’83, President Tilghman, journalism professor Evan Thomas, and former trustee Shelby Davis ’58 as reviewers.

Continue reading After publishing her first book, Leong '13 begins senior thesis…

October 22, 2012

Admiral-turned-professor Mullen addresses the 'strategic ecology' of global interdependence

With an American flag pin on his lapel and no need for podium or microphone, Adm. Mike Mullen looked and sounded every inch the former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff when he spoke at the Scholars in the Nations Service Initiative (SINSI) annual event Oct. 18.

Professor Mike Mullen, pictured in his former role as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in 2007. (Photo: Wikipedia)

Mullen, currently the Charles and Marie Robertson Visiting Professor at the Woodrow Wilson School, described the “strategic ecology” of global interdependence, in which states must cooperate in the long term with each other and also with global “neighborhoods” in solving transnational problems such as joblessness, rising urbanization, extremism, and climate change.

Starting with China and the Asia Pacific region and promising to “walk around the world,” Mullen outlined the local and global problems he observed. He moved fluidly from discussing China’s hunger for resources to North Korea’s young, untested leader to a nuclear Pakistan and Syrian sectarian violence.

“We have moved from a time of control, which is what the Cold War was, to, I think, a time of influence,” he said, emphasizing the necessity for multilateral diplomacy. “It’s a time where we can’t do this alone.”

Continue reading Admiral-turned-professor Mullen addresses the 'strategic ecology' of global interdependence…

October 22, 2012

The comeback: Princeton football stuns Harvard, 39-34

Roman Wilson '14 caught five passes, including the game-winning touchdown, as Princeton erased a 24-point deficit in the fourth quarter. (Photo: Beverly Schaefer)

During Saturday’s football game against Harvard, 10,823 Princeton fans learned how wide a range of emotions they could feel in a three-and-a-half-hour span. At the start of the game, orange flags were flying and excitement was high on campus — the Tigers were 2-0 in the Ivy League for the first time since 2006, on a three-win streak and entering their biggest game in several seasons.

And then the game started, and that optimism was quickly laid to waste. Princeton’s defense, the second-stingiest in the nation, was no match for Harvard’s third-ranked offense, which stalled in Princeton territory on its first series before scoring touchdowns on its second, third, and fourth drives. Meanwhile, the Tigers could not solve Harvard’s defensive front, punting on all six of their first-half possessions. Harvard was up 20-0 at halftime, and though the Tigers surged momentarily in the third quarter, the Crimson rebounded to go up 34-10 early in the fourth.

Twelve minutes and 45 seconds of game time later, all those struggles were long forgotten. Roman Wilson ’14 caught a prayer of a pass from Quinn Epperly ’15 for a 36-yard touchdown with 13 seconds left, completing a four-touchdown comeback and giving the Tigers a shocking 39-34 victory. The mood inside Princeton Stadium had gone from agony back to ecstasy, as students stormed the field after the final whistle to congratulate the sole leaders of the Ivy League.

“It’s an incredible feeling, looking up and seeing all the fans, seeing all the alumni, seeing all my teammates,” Wilson said after the game. “I don’t know if it’s sunk in yet.”

One online calculator says that, even after a 59-yard kick return by Anthony Gaffney gave Princeton great field position down 34-10, the Tigers had only a 2 percent chance of coming back to win. In reality, their odds were probably even lower — those calculations assume the teams are equal strength, while Princeton and Harvard sure didn’t look evenly matched for three quarters on Saturday. “I’m glad we don’t play a seven-game series, to be honest with you, because they’re senior-led and they’re that good,” head coach Bob Surace ’90 said after his team was outgained by more than 200 yards. “We were lucky to have one more play today.”

To overcome the deficit, Princeton had to score at least 24 points in the final quarter — something it hadn’t done in a period since Nov. 23, 2002 — and do so against the league’s second-best defense. Meanwhile, the Tigers had to get quick stops against a Harvard offense that had advanced into Princeton territory in all nine of its drives to that point.

Continue reading The comeback: Princeton football stuns Harvard, 39-34…

October 18, 2012

Foam fingers, polite partisanship as students watch presidential debate

PAW contributor Christopher Connell ’71 was on campus this week, and during his visit, he sat in on the presidential debate viewing party held at Richardson Auditorium. Below, Connell shares his impressions of the event.

(Photo: John O'Neill '13)

There were no non-partisans among the 400 Princeton students, faculty, and staff who flocked to Richardson Auditorium Tuesday evening for the second presidential debate — or at least they had a choice to make when they entered Alexander Hall. Only two doors were unlocked and outside one was an archway of red balloons fluttering in the night breeze, with an archway of blue balloons outside the opposite entrance.

In the doorway, Republican and Democratic activists took tickets and handed out red or blue foam fingers to those who wanted them.

The debate viewing was organized by Whig-Clio, Undergraduate Student Government, College Republicans, College Democrats, and other groups. A pro-Obama professor, Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80, and pro-Romney professor, John Londregan *88, warmed up the crowd with their own takes on the election.

Continue reading Foam fingers, polite partisanship as students watch presidential debate…

September 27, 2012

@jack comes to Princeton to talk Twitter, Square

Editor’s note: On Sept. 25 Jack Dorsey, co-founder of Twitter and Square, visited campus at the invitation of the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club to speak about his experiences as a tech entrepreneur. As an homage to Twitter, PAW blog contributor Gavin Schlissel ’13 covered the event in a series of 140-characters-or-less observations and quotations.

Walking in the door, 15 minutes to showtime. Greeter thrusts brand new, free “Square” into my hand

10 minutes to showtime: “hello! im @jack” on the projector, “Beautiful day” on the surround sound

The event is hosted by @princetoneclub — the group also hosts hackathons on campus & leads trips to Silicon Valley

Are we here to see him or vice versa? @Square marketing team showed up in force

Dorsey ( @jack ) steps out into wing, gray sport coat with one button buttoned … He looks like he’s done this before

.@jack panders to @Princeton “one of the most beautiful campuses I’ve ever seen” #true

Completely packed house — I’ve never seen McCosh 10 this full or this quiet. Dean Dunne, President Tilghman on hand

Setting the context for the talk: it’s going to be about “how do we change something that affects every single person on earth?” >>

<< @jack has done this twice >>

<< First by untethering people from mass media (Twitter) then by delivering merchants from archaic credit-card policies (Square).

.@jack : creativity is an ongoing process. Projector shows an unfinished painting—a heavy-handed metaphor but fitting and well-received

.@jack : “An idea that changes the course of the company can come from anywhere.” Companies should embrace new ideas.

Dorsey borrows Steve Jobs’ phrase about the culture of continuing innovation: “It has to be built into the DNA of the company”

Motivation for square: credit card payment should be easier: “The industry that created it has not innovated at all” in 60+ years.

.@jack breaks down credit cards: merchants pay 3-7% on transactions to cover credit card fees that just fund reward programs

Square philosophy: buying things should be really easy: “It feels like stealing... it feels really great. Not that stealing is great...”

Continue reading @jack comes to Princeton to talk Twitter, Square…

September 25, 2012

Dale winner Morgan '14 follows trail of segregation-era travel guides

Peyton Morgan '14 snaps a photo of a historical marker on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta. (Photo: Cole Morgan)

This is the fifth and final post in our summer series about Dale Award recipients.

“See how happy I am?” Peyton Morgan ’14 said, showing off the picture on his driver’s license. He acquired the license in anticipation of a seven-week summer road trip, during which his only guides were a GPS and The Green Book. The book, published by postal-service worker Victor Green between 1936 and 1964, once served as a guide to hotels, restaurants, and businesses that would serve African-American travelers.

Backed by a Martin A. Dale ’53 Summer Award, Morgan followed an itinerary through 15 cities across America as he documented the present state of the locations listed in the book. Undertaking the trip on a newly minted license was daunting (“I’m surprised they let me go!” the Chicago resident said), but his determination drove him — literally — to find meaning in a largely forgotten text.

Searching for the listed establishments, Morgan found little: Only two people he met had heard of The Green Book, and while some buildings still stood, few remained as they had been during the segregation era. Sometimes, all physical evidence had disappeared completely. “The visit of that day would consist of going to the side of the highway, and realizing that the neighborhood is no longer there,” he said.

Continue reading Dale winner Morgan '14 follows trail of segregation-era travel guides…

September 24, 2012

Former ambassadors speak on ongoing violence in Middle East

In response to the recent anti-American violence in Libya, Egypt and Yemen, two Woodrow Wilson School professors and former U.S. ambassadors addressed the Princeton community Sept. 19. Daniel Kurtzer, former U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel, and Barbara Bodine, former U.S. ambassador to Yemen, spoke before a packed audience of students and community members in Dodds Auditorium.

Kurtzer suggested that the displays of violence, which he called “horrific” and “terroristic,” demand a reassessment of the way Americans view the Middle East and its people. Such violence, he said, “happens against a backdrop of a certain way of thinking which we as Americans need to understand.”

Describing American embassies in these countries as “large and convenient targets,” Kurtzer recommended rethinking “the American footprint in the Middle East” and how the U.S. conducts diplomacy. Having had a staff of over 2,200 people in his own embassy, Kurtzer offered that a “leaner and meaner presence” may better serve U.S. interests in this region in the future.

Bodine similarly suggested that the events posed a “legitimate question about how we present ourselves in the Middle East” and a corresponding need to reconsider the size and structure of American embassies.

Continue reading Former ambassadors speak on ongoing violence in Middle East…

Recently in Campus News

November 6, 2012

Wythes '55, influential trustee and venture capitalist, dies

October 28, 2012

Under the stars, a taste of life outside the bubble

October 26, 2012

Wikipedia editors highlight history of Princeton athletics

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October 25, 2012

Daniels '71 discusses government efficiency in campus visit

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October 24, 2012

Nobel laureates Krugman and Stiglitz address economic affairs

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October 23, 2012

After publishing her first book, Leong '13 begins senior thesis

October 22, 2012

Admiral-turned-professor Mullen addresses the 'strategic ecology' of global interdependence

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October 22, 2012

The comeback: Princeton football stuns Harvard, 39-34

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October 18, 2012

Foam fingers, polite partisanship as students watch presidential debate

September 27, 2012

@jack comes to Princeton to talk Twitter, Square

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September 25, 2012

Dale winner Morgan '14 follows trail of segregation-era travel guides

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September 24, 2012

Former ambassadors speak on ongoing violence in Middle East

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