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Updated: Cheng '16 wins USG presidency

Updated: Cheng '16 wins USG presidency

Grant Golub

University Student Life Committee chairElla Cheng ’16 won the Undergraduate Student Government presidential runoff election with 63.8 percent of the vote, according to an email sent by outgoing USG president Shawon Jackson ’15 on Friday afternoon. Her opponent, Will Gansa ’17, took the remaining 36.2 percent of the vote. Cheng will start her year in office at the beginning of the spring semester, in February. Cheng is also a former staff writer for The Daily Princetonian. Voter turnout was 15.2 percent higher than the voter turnout during the general election with 3,116 students casting votes, while the general election only drew 2,704 voters. The runoff election between Cheng and Gansa was announced Nov.

NEWS | 12/05/2014

News & Notes: Nancy Snyderman apologizes for violating quarantine

Daily Princetonian Staff

Princeton resident and NBC chief medical editor Dr. Nancy Snyderman returned to broadcast news on Wednesday and apologized for “scaring [her] community,”according to the Princeton Packet. After coming into contact with a colleague infected with Ebola, Snyderman went on a voluntary 21-day quarantine. However, she was found to have violated that quarantine when she was seen in public before the quarantine period ended and was forced to go on a mandatory quarantine for the remainder of the 21 days. “I’m very sorry for not only scaring my community and the country, but adding to the confusion of terms that I think came as fast and furious as the news about Ebola did,” Snyderman said to Matt Lauer on the Today Show on Wednesday. She explained that she wears “two hats” as both a journalist and doctor, and that “messaging sometimes collide.” Snyderman said that her crew did not appreciate how frightened the American public was of Ebola at the time and added that the public should focus on helping those in West Africa.

NEWS | 12/04/2014

Big Sibs reincarnated into campus-wide effort

Sharon Deng

After the Big Sibs community service project initiated by the Class of 2016 was cancelled last year, Big Sibs is back and now accepting applications from the current freshman, sophomore and junior classes. Now called Community House Big Sibs, the program is a revamped version of the Big Sibs project of the Class of 2016 and pairs University students with elementary school students one-on-one to engage in long-term mentorship relationships. Class of 2016 president Justin Ziegler ’16 said that the original project, which involved around 300 students, lasted a year and a half and was terminated last spring when the partner school was shut down by New Jersey’s Department of Education. The partner school, City Invincible Charter School, was an elementary school located in Camden, N.J. Ziegler said that as soon as he found out that City Invincible Charter School was closing, he and Big Sibs Board co-chair Sofia Gomez ’16 started looking for options to continue the project. “I saw first hand how well it worked last year and how people were really excited about it, and we had a positive impact,” Gomez said.

NEWS | 12/04/2014

Graduate School to reinstate diversity dean position following complaints

Aana Bansal

The University is in the process of reestablishing a dedicated deanship position within the Graduate School to deal with issues of diversityfollowing complaints voiced by graduate students, faculty members, trustees and alumni. A job description for the position of associate dean for diversity and inclusion was posted on the University's website on Nov.

NEWS | 12/04/2014

Iranian Nobel Prize recipient discusses relationship between fundamentalism and women’s rights violations

Pooja Patel

Fundamentalist violence is still a prevalent issue and should be addressed through education rather than military response, Nobel Prize recipient Shirin Ebadi said in a lecture Thursday.

NEWS | 12/04/2014

Hundreds gather on campus to protest racism, recent grand jury decisions

Hundreds gather on campus to protest racism, recent grand jury decisions

Lorenzo Quiogue

Close to 500 students, faculty, administrators and staff participated in a protest on the lawn north of Frist Campus Center at noon Thursday. “We seek to interrupt the daily routine of Princetonians to symbolize the constant interruption racism plays in the lives of people of color,” protest organizer Khallid Love ’15 announced at the protest. Love explained that the organizers had been planning the demonstration for several days as a strategic response to recent national events.

NEWS | 12/04/2014

News & Notes: Police implement year-end campaign to crack down on drunk driving

Daily Princetonian Staff

The annual “Drive Sober or Get Pulled Over” holiday statewide campaign will begin this Friday as local and state law enforcement officials will conduct saturation patrols and sobriety checkpoints to watch for potentially intoxicated motorists. The program seeks to combine high-visibility enforcement and public education about the dangers of drinking and driving. Twenty-two percent of all motor vehicle fatalities in New Jersey were alcohol-related last year, with about 10,000 deaths nationally. In Princeton, there were 62 arrests for DWIs in 2013 and 71 in 2012.

NEWS | 12/03/2014

Students and administrators meet to discuss mental health policy

Jessica Li

Rachel Bronheim ’15, Alexandra Marino ’18 and Zhan Okuda-Lim ’15, members of the Undergraduate Student Government's Mental Health Initiative Board met with Senior Associate Dean of the College Claire Fowler Wednesday afternoon to explore the possibility of publishing the official policies for mental health withdrawals and readmissions in the Undergraduate Announcement. The Undergraduate Announcement is a document that outlines the academic regulations, programs of study and course offerings of the University. Okuda-Lim said Fowler explained during the meetingthat the Undergraduate Announcement was established as a succinct and concise compilation of regulations rather than a detailed set of procedures. Fowler suggested that the Mental Health Initiative Board work with the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students to revise the current FAQs on mental health withdrawals and readmissions, which were published by ODUS this past May, to be recognized as the University's official protocol. The protocol would be characterized by specificity about current policies and would be made available to the public. Okuda-Lim further noted that a meeting is planned with Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students MichaelOlin to analyze the feasibility of this proposal. Fowler could not be reached for comment. The conference came after 95.5 percent of voters approved of a referendum question that appeared on the recent USG elections ballot thatcalled for greater transparency in mental health withdrawal and readmission policies. Referendum question 1 was drafted by Okuda-Lim. While concerns surfaced about the absence of demand for change, Okuda-Lim wrote in a Facebook post that releasing the official policies, which are currently not publicly accessible, is an indispensable stepping-stone for potential remediation. “It's difficult to push for a policy change when the policies are not even public,” Okuda-Lim added. According to Okuda-Lim, the few paragraphs published in the Undergraduate Announcement relevant to this issue are ambiguous.

NEWS | 12/03/2014

Former President Carter discusses violations of women’s rights in talk promoting new book

Former President Carter discusses violations of women’s rights in talk promoting new book

Annie Yang

Former President Jimmy Carter argued that the greatest unaddressed violation of human rights is the deprivation of equal opportunities for women in a talk about his new book, “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence, and Power” on Wednesday.

NEWS | 12/03/2014

Blackboard next to be updated after introduction of HireTigers, TigerHub this year

Do-Hyeong Myeong

The Office of Information Technology will be gradually implementing changes in Blackboard Learn, the learning management system used by the University, in order to make it simpler to use, Associate Chief Information Officer and Director of Academic Technology Services Serge Goldstein said. These changes will be implemented over the next two years. Goldstein explained that the changes will be implemented in two phases — the first phase includes uploading the Blackboard system, which has been running at the University server, to the cloud, and the second phase includes implementing new features of the Blackboard system, including a new user interface. Some of the new features of Blackboard include reduced menus, streamlined presentation of the interfaceand Gradebook, a new grading tool. Director of the McGraw Center and Associate Dean of the College LisaHerschbach explained that the new system will also allow for easy upload of student-created content and can be used to create open online courses and blend them with on-campus courses. One key change is that the new interface will make the functions previously hidden under complicated menus visible by creating icons. “The number of clicks is enormously reduced,” Goldstein explained.

NEWS | 12/03/2014

U. searching for special assistant to Eisgruber ’83

Grant Golub

The University is looking to hire a special assistant who will report directly to University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 in advancing his presidential initiatives and managing his projects. According to the job posting on the University’s hiring page, the special assistant to the president for strategic initiatives will work closely with Eisgruber and will “operate at the nexus” of his agenda.

NEWS | 12/03/2014

News & Notes: Turnout in USG run-off election up from regular election

Jessica Li

3,116 students cast votes in the run-off election for USG president between Ella Cheng ’16 and Will Gansa ’17, according to statistics released by the Undergraduate Student Government today.

NEWS | 12/02/2014

Panel ends in heated discussion about diversity, student criticism

Linda Song

A panel regarding socioeconomic diversity ended in a heated question and answer session between students and panelists on Tuesday evening. The panel — titled “What Kind of Diversity: Is Princeton Too Narrowly Focused on Race and Ethnicity Rather Than Economic Diversity?” and moderated by professor Peter Singer — included a protest by a group of students who said they criticized the way the panel discussion had been framed. The students, mostly dressed in black, waved a handout with a blue Post-it note attached to it whenever a panelist said something they disagreed with.

NEWS | 12/02/2014

News & Notes: Over 30 contract gastrointestinal disease over Thanksgiving weekend

Daily Princetonian Staff

Over 30 individuals reported gastrointestinal diseases to the Princeton Health Department between Thanksgiving Day andTuesday, Planet Princeton reported.

NEWS | 12/02/2014

News & Notes: Sexual contact incident reported on Prospect Avenue a mile away from campus

Daily Princetonian Staff

A case of criminal sexual contact allegedly occurred last Friday, Nov. 26 near a local elementary school located approximately one mile down Prospect Avenue from the eating clubs, according to a Princeton Police Department press release. An 18-year-old female was reportedly jogging on Prospect Avenue near Riverside Drive at approximately3:30 p.m.

NEWS | 12/02/2014

Winter break next academic year will be a week shorter as part of normal cycle

Jacob Donnelly

The academic year will start a week later next year, and winter break will be a week shorter, according to the 2015-16 academic calendar.

NEWS | 12/02/2014

Tiger Inn promises to make reforms following sex photo distribution

Shriya Sekhsaria

Tiger Inn's recent decision to fire two of its officers after they sent emails that were found to be disrespectful to women has reignited concerns about gender equality at the eating club that was once the last bastion of male-only membership. One of the emails included a picture of a female student performing oral sex on a male student, while a second email encouraged the membership to jeer Sally Frank ’80 — whose activism ultimately forced TI to accept women — at a recent lecture on campus. The club's graduate board has pledged to revise bicker and initiations, have more female undergraduate officers, create a co-ed bicker committee and include women in its graduate board. Former vice president Adam Krop ’15 and former treasurer Andrew Hoffenberg ’15 were fired last week, The New York Times reported. They will be moving out of their clubhouse dormitories, said Eric Pedersen ’82, a member of the TI graduate board.

NEWS | 12/02/2014

Students react positively to new neuroscience concentration

Daily Princetonian Contributor and Tammy Tseng

Student response to a newly approved neuroscience concentration has been mostlypositive since the University faculty voted unanimously to approve iton Monday. “I think [the neuroscience concentration] is a really great idea,” Vivienne Tam ’15 said.

NEWS | 12/02/2014

COS 126 to introduce novice-level precepts next semester

Pooja Patel

COS 126: General Computer Science will be introducing two new precepts next semester for students with little or no programming experience, undergraduate coordinator for the computer science department Colleen Kenny-McGinley said in an email on Nov.

NEWS | 12/02/2014

Students discuss Ferguson and related issues at town hall meeting

Daily Princetonian Staff and Anna Windemuth

The student community at the University should stand in solidarity with the people of Ferguson, Mo., and not remain silent in complicit violence, six student leaders announced to a packed auditorium in Frist Campus Center on Monday night.The presentation's call to action challenged campus community members to stand in the nation's service and fight for justice, ending with the mantra "No justice, no peace." The meeting took place a week after hundreds of University students protested the grand jury’s decision not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for shooting an unarmed African-American teenager, Michael Brown, in Ferguson.

NEWS | 12/01/2014

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