Indictments in the controversial closing of the George Washington Bridge in the fall of 2013 could come next week, PolitickerNJ reported on Tuesday, citing anonymous sources close to the investigation. Aides close to N.J.
The University recently received a $10 million donation from a currently unnamed University alumnus and his wife that will be used to finance the new music building thatis a part of the Princeton Arts and Transit Project. The Arts and Transit Project, which is expected to cost around $330 million, is expected to be completed in 2017. The new three-story, 23,000 square-foot building, which will eventually be named by the donors, will contain a 3,500-square foot performance and rehearsal room, acoustically advanced practice rooms and teaching studios, as well as a digital recording studio, University spokesperson Martin Mbugua said. The new building is essential to accommodate a vibrant performing arts scene on campus,Steven Mackey, chair of the Department of Music, explained. “We are bursting at the seams in our current music building primarily because performances have grown so much,” Mackey said.
Both students and local business owners approved of the return of the Princeton University Farmers’ Market, which took place for the first time since 2013 on Wednesday outside of Firestone Library. The market plans to continue to feature products from Terhune Orchards, Infini-T, Jersey City Veggie Burgers, Tassot Apiaries, Terra Learning Kitchen, Tico's Eatery and Juice Bar, Valley Shepherd Creamery and Whole Earth Center at markets on campus every Wednesday through May 13.
Dartmouth alumni released an open letter on April 2 demanding that Dartmouth president Phil Hanlon, the Board of Trustees and the Advisory Committee on Investment Responsibility divest from fossil fuels, The Dartmouth reported. The signatories were 79 Dartmouth alumni who said they would donate to the Multi-School Fossil Free Divestment Fund instead of the Annual Fund. Divest Dartmouth, a student-run organization, joined divestment groups from 16 other colleges to create theMulti-School Fossil Free Divestment Fund in December. The new fund calls for the involved Universities to immediately cease new investments — and divest from current holdings — in the fossil fuel companies within the next five years.
The Princeton Board of Health will vote on an ordinance next week to ban the sale of tobacco and electronic cigarettes to people under the age of 21. The Board made the recommendation last month by approving the introduction of the ordinance.
Princeton’s planning board unanimously approved plans late last month to locate a 7-Eleven and a post office at 259 Nassau St. This location was formerly the West Coast video site, but the site has been vacant for nearly a decade, according to The Times of Trenton. The 7-Eleven will be constructed to face Nassau Street, and the post office will be located in the rear.
Katherine Clifton ’15 was awarded the 2015 Martin A. Dale ’53 Fellowship, and will travel to Serbia to write a play about the relationship between the Serbs and Romani people in hopes to bring healing through theater. The fellowship, in honor of Martin Dale ’53, comes with a $33,000 grant, provides the winner the opportunity to spend a year after graduation to pursue a meaningful project “of extraordinary merit that will widen the recipient’s experience of the world and significantly enhance his or her personal growth and intellectual development," according to its citation. Clifton, who is concentrating in English with a certificate in theater, was a participant in the Bridge Year Program prior to freshman year, and lived in Serbia during that time.
The University’s tax-exempt status generated more than $100,000 per full-time equivalent student in taxpayer subsidies in 2013, according to an estimate from a study from the Nexus Research and Policy Center. A full-time equivalent student is a unit that denotes either a full-time student or a number of part-time students whose course loads add up to a full course load. In contrast to the University, the figure was $12,000 per student at Rutgers,$4,700 per student at Montclair State University and $2,400 per student at Essex County College. The study, called “Rich Schools, Poor Students: Tapping Large University Endowments to Improve Student Outcomes,” recommends that Congress repeal the exemptions from taxation that very wealthy, private, not-for-profit educational institutions receive.
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.
