Celebrating Princeton’s 250th anniversary

On Octo­ber 25, 1996 Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity cel­e­brated the 250th anniver­sary of the grant­ing of its orig­i­nal char­ter as the Col­lege of New Jer­sey. Fea­tured here is a record­ing of the Char­ter Day con­vo­ca­tion on the steps of Nas­sau Hall. Speak­ers include Prince­ton Pres­i­dent Harold Shapiro (3:46, 27:38), Neil Ruden­s­tine ’56, for­mer Prince­ton provost and then Pres­i­dent of Har­vard Uni­ver­sity (10:03), and Richard Levin, Pres­i­dent of Yale Uni­ver­sity (15:36). The keynote address was given by author and Nobel lau­re­ate Toni Mor­ri­son, Robert F. Goheen Pro­fes­sor in the Human­i­ties (40:06). The text of her address, titled “The Place of the Idea; The Idea of the Place” is pro­vided here.

This VHS video is part of the Uni­ver­sity Archives’ His­tor­i­cal Audio­vi­sual Col­lec­tion (items no. 1509).

This blog entry is ded­i­cated to our friend and col­league, Regine Heber­lein, who loves words and ideas, and who has brought her pas­sion for both to the Mudd Library for the past 20 months.  We wish her well in her new posi­tion in Fire­stone Library.

You must log in to post a comment.