Over 300 students have filed requests to view their admission files under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act since Jan.
Students at the University of Pennsylvania protested the closing of the school’s Africa Center in front of prospective undergraduates, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported on Monday. The students also protested the merger of the school’s African studies department and Center for Africana Studies. The protest was led by students majoring in African studies, as well as members of the Penn African Students Association and of Students Organizing for Unity and Liberation. Students said the merger doesn’t make sense because Africana studies concerns itself with the African diaspora, while African studies focus on the African continent. Penn, in an email to students, said the changes were precipitated by a number of eliminations in federal funding. Some students, however, questioned the school’s motives, since the Africa Center employed only three staff members and Penn is in the process of opening a new center in Beijing.
Only 21 percent of Americans view Muslims favorably, and the media narrative needs to begin reflecting Muslims’ positive contributions to society, Muslim comedian Dean Obeidallah said at a lecture on Monday. “Before 9/11, I was a white guy,” Obeidallah said.
Stop Animal Exploitation Now, an activist group that monitors U.S. research laboratories, filed a complaint last week against the University with the Department of Agriculture for violations of the Animal Welfare Act. Negligence at a University laboratory in March 2014 resulted in the injury of two marmoset monkeys, SAEN alleged in its complaint. Two marmosets, one male and one female, escaped from their cages, according to Dean for Research Pablo Debenedetti’s report of the incident that was obtained by The Daily Princetonian.
The Undergraduate Student Government’s Undergraduate Student Life Committee launched its “As I Am” campaign for eating disorder awareness on campus on Saturday. Students can participate in the program in a variety of ways, including registering at a "Wellness Walkthrough" to learn about ways to eat nutritiously in the University's dining halls, consulting with campus nutritionist and eating disorders specialist Victoria Rosenfeld orhaving their photos taken in the USG office. Rosenfeld did not respond to a request for comment. “In the beginning, I don’t think we really envisioned it as a campaign,” USLC chair Kathy Chow ’17 said.
The Columbia admissions office destroys all documents created by or with comments from Columbia admissions officers, the Columbia Spectator reported on Friday. When Frederic Enea, a junior, learned of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, he asked to see his admission record.
Chief elections manager Grant Golub ’17 provided an overview of the spring elections process for U-councilor and class government positions at the weekly Undergraduate Student Government meeting on Sunday. There are 13 candidates running for the 10 available U-councilor positions, Golub said.
The Facebook group of the Class of 1977 was shut down on April 7 after an alumnus posted a controversial article from The Atlantic about “The Princeton Mom,” according to Robert Gilbert ’77.The article, which had been posted several times, was deleted several times by an administrator, and while the administrator responsible for the action is unclear, there is speculation by those interviewed that it was Class of 1977 president Susan Patton.
Some students who gathered in the University Chapelon Sundayto address issues of racism and prejudice turned their backs on University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, and some walked out.The gathering followed controversy last week concerning performances by student group Urban Congo that some said mocked African people and racist posts on the anonymous social media application Yik Yak.Alison Boden, Dean of Religious Life and of the Chapel, introduced each speaker.The event was intended to “take steps toward a better place,” she said.As Eisgruber began to speak, around 20 students stood and turned their backs to Eisgruber.
To address issues of sexual morality, one must first recognize the purposes of the human sexual faculties, Edward Feser, associate professor of philosophy at Pasadena City College, said in a lecture on Saturday.The event was moderated by politics professor Robert George.“The human sexual act is a seamless unity between the procreative and the unitive [ends] directed at the same time toward both biological generation and emotional communion,” Feser said, describing the unitive end as the relational and emotional strengthening between a man and woman.These two natural ends of sex — the procreative and unitive — are inseparable from each other, Feser said, because human beings perceive reality in both a sensorial and conceptual way.
HackPrinceton, the semiannual hackathon organized by the Princeton Entrepreneurship Club, brought in around 500 participants this weekend for a 24-hour software and hardware competition. “HackPrinceton is not just an event where you make a project and it’s like, ‘Who can win this?’ It’s much more about the holistic process of learning and being here,”Raeva Kumar ’17, a HackPrincetonco-director, said. The software track is very well-developed and represents the majority of the hacks that take place at the hackathon, Kumar said, but the University's electrical engineering department helps to facilitate the hardware track with the use of labs and equipment. The Entrepreneurship Club awarded three prizes in each of the software and hardware categories. In the hardware category, Joseph Bolling ’15, Ted Brundage GS and Ankush Gola ’15 took first place for a remote-controlled car controlled by the movement of fish in a mounted fish tank.
University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 sent an email to all undergraduate students on Thursday inviting them to a gathering on Sunday to discuss the recent controversies over Urban Congo and the selection of Big Sean as the Lawnparties headliner that sparked widespread discussion oncampus. “We owe it to ourselves to do better, to be better, and to embrace all the members of our community with respect and with genuine appreciation for the perspectives they bring,” Eisgruber wrote in his email.
Nineteen members of Fossil Free Yale were fined and threatened with arrest after a day-long sit-in on Yale’s campus, according to the Yale Daily News. On April 9,48 members of Fossil Free Yale entered Woodbridge Hall in the morning to begin the day-long sit-in. Later that afternoon, approximately 150 people gathered around Woodbridge Hall and formed a human chainto advocate for the divestment of Yale’s endowment from fossil fuels. The Yale Police Department Chief Ronnell Higgins issued a5 p.m.deadline for the protestors to disperse, threatening those who did not with arrest.
Nyssa Emerson GS, a graduate student in the chemistry department, was struck by a 2008 Toyota Prius Wednesday night while crossing Washington Road, according to a press release published by the Princeton Police Department.Twenty-year-old Steven Cruz, the driver of the Prius, was alone in the car as it approached the marked crosswalk on Washington Road, south of Ivy Lane, at approximately 9:32 p.m.Emerson said that she had gone to Frist Campus Center to get a cup of coffee beforehand before returning to the chemistry department.“I think on one side of the road, a car had stopped for me, and so I entered just a crosswalk and it seemed clear, but the other car didn’t stop, and hit me,” Emerson said of the last thing she remembered about the accident.Princeton First Aid and Rescue Squad transported Emerson, who suffered critical injuries, to Capital Health Regional Medical Center in Trenton, N.J.The Prius, which sustained damage to the front end and windshield, was towed, according to the press release.The officer investigating the accident, Patrolman Marshall Provost, who was also assisted by the Mercer County Prosecutor’s Office Serious Collision Response Team, is preparing charges against the driver, PPD Lieutenant Robert Currier said.Currier added that there were no updates as of Thursday afternoon.Cruz and Provost could not be reached for comment.Although Emerson has no brain or spinal injury, she has broken bones and said she is in a lot of pain.
The University is planning a potential expansion of its bike sharing program by cooperating with the township and increasing the amount of bike stations both on campus and in the community, University Director of Community and Regional Affairs Kristin Appelget said.The bike sharing program was launched in Novemberto coincide with the opening of the new Princeton Station.
Save the Dinky, a local nonprofit group, is raising awareness of Dinky ridership by calling attention to a past agreement signed in 2011 by representatives of Princeton Borough, Princeton Township and the University. The document, titled “Memorandum of Understanding” outlines the University’s intentions to work with both the Borough and the Township,statingthat if the proposed zoning agreements within the Memorandum are approved, any subsequent changes made by the University will be reviewed and voted upon in a public hearing led by the planning board. The University and the municipalities also agreed to establish a joint task force that would be called the Alexander Street/University Place Transit Task Force. However,Anita Garoniak, president of Save the Dinky, said she questions how the University will fulfill promises stated in theMOU. “The MOU was suppose to promote Dinky ridership and nothing has been done to do that,” Garoniak said. Director of Community and Regional Affairs Kristin Appelget said the University has been upholding all aspects of the agreement. “Many of the items that are outlined in the agreement have already been achieved,” Appelget said."It is important to remember that the agreement was struck in 2011 and much progress has been made since then.
New documents suggest that Harvard was dealing with suspicious primate deaths before 2010, The Boston Globereported. Harvard had previously reported four monkey deaths from 2010-12 at its New England Primate Research Center, which was supported by taxpayer funds. However, a detailed spreadsheet released by the former head of the center, Frederick Wang, contained the medical histories of 14 monkeys from 1999-2011 and suggested that the center harbored suspicious primate deaths long before 2010. Wang told the Globe that his experience and review of the data suggests that the deaths were primarily a consequence of human error and inadequate animal care, which caused the monkey’s deaths primarily by deprivation of water. In 2013, the Primate Research Center announced that it would close.
The Daily Princetonian ArchivesWhile many now identify Ted Cruz '92 as the classic example of a conservative populist politician, few still remember a time in his life when he seem destined for the ivory tower or understand how someone so committed to the life of the mind became a grassroots phenomenon. Cruz had already begun thinking about the topic of his senior thesis while he was a freshman,his roommate and debate team partner David Panton ’92 said. “He was 17," Panton said.
Despite facing numerous challenges, the American public should look towards the fight for justice, equality and civil liberties with optimism, American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony Romero ’87 said in a lecture on Wednesday. “We believe that everyone is entitled to live a life of dignity," Romero said.
It is a moral duty to put pressure on the University to divest from companies profiting from the occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza, Cornel West GS ’80, professor emeritus in the Center for African American Studies, said at a panel discussion on Wednesday. “We don’t want our money spent on those particular private sector institutions that are facilitating this kind of occupation,” West said.“Occupation is immoral, is wrong, is unjust, is illegal and it can only be pushed back — we have experienced this in South Africa — when voices of those across the border… are heard." The vote on the student referendum calling for University divestment from the occupation of West Bank and the siege of Gaza will occur on April 20, Max Weiss, professor of Near Eastern Studies and moderator for the event, said. A lot of people have expressed relief in having found a mechanism to talk about the difficult situation in the region through the petition, Molly Greene, professor of History and Hellenic Studies, said, noting that a similar petition is underway at Stanford University. Even though the University has engaged in divestment as recently as 2006, it is difficult to make progress due to University policy, Greene said, especially because the University gives out mixed messages about what leads to divestment. "Is it something the trustees decide?
