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2 U. faculty awarded Dan David Prize

2 U. faculty awarded Dan David Prize

Jessica Li

Two Princeton faculty members were named recipients of the 2015 Dan David Prize last month.Both history professor emeritus Peter Brown and sociology lecturer Alessandro Portelli were awarded in the “Retrieving the Past” category of the prize.They will be honored at a May 17 ceremony at Tel Aviv University in Israel.According to its website, the Dan David Prize is an international enterprise that awards grants in three categories for outstanding interdisciplinary research in the sciences and humanities.

NEWS | 03/05/2015

News & Notes: Five people injured in explosion, fire near Columbia, Barnard

Daily Princetonian Staff

An explosion and subsequent fire in a restaurant near Columbia and Barnard College injured five people and forced the evacuation of two Barnard dorms on Tuesday night, the New York Daily News reported. The explosion was reported at 11:30 p.m.

NEWS | 03/04/2015

Bernstein talks China's historical relationship with U.S.

Bernstein talks China's historical relationship with U.S.

Shriya Sekhsaria

The United States chose the wrong side in the Chinese civil war, Richard Bernstein, former Beijing bureau chief for TIME magazine, said in a talk on Wednesday. Bernstein discussed his recently published book, “China 1945: Mao’s Revolution and America’s Fateful Choice.” Bernstein said it was his publisher’s idea to write about a time in Chinese history that was important for the formation of China’s relationship with the United States, adding he gave himself poetic license to stretch the book from September 1944 to April 1946. “I had hoped to write something with scholarly authority that would be a good read —a popular read,” he said. The conflict began in 1927 and lasted until 1937, when the two sides united to fight a Japanese invasion, and then resumed in 1946 and continued until 1950.If the advice from a small group of China experts had been followed, the U.S.

NEWS | 03/04/2015

Rubin lectures on Ukraine crisis

Jessica Li

The United States will not take direct military action against Russia in Ukraine but will rather seek a resolution through multilateral agreements to empower Ukraine, saidEric Rubin, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, at a lecture on Wednesday. “We need Russia in the world, we need Russia’s cooporation, but we can’t say that because Russia is important; it can set its own rules," Rubin said.

NEWS | 03/04/2015

Over last 15 years, U. Art Museum has redoubled efforts to determine origins of WWII-era art

Christina Vosbikian

Art museums across the country, including the University Art Museum, have intensified their efforts over the past decade and a half to determine the provenance, or origin, of art from the World War II era. Guidelines issued in 1998 by the Association of Art Museum Directors and in 1999 by the American Alliance of Museums ask museums in part to attempt to resolve whether there might be potential claimants to art they are considering purchasing or which they have in their collections if there is the possibility that work of art may have been unlawfully appropriated by the Nazi government in Germany from 1933-45. Museums should also disclose the chain of custody for a work of art if it passed through Nazi hands even if it cannot identify potential claimants, the guidelines add. “The ethics in the field really require you to know the provenance of the objects in your collection,"Ford Bell, president of the American Alliance of Museums, said."If there is a claim against [an object’s provenance], you have to take it seriously.

NEWS | 03/04/2015

4th annual Mental Health Week starts to wrap up

Katherine Oh

The fourth annual Mental Health Week has been taking place this week, featuring the Dear World photography project, Me Too Monologues and workshops by Counseling and Psychological Services.The Me Too Monologues are the newest edition to the Week’s programming.

NEWS | 03/04/2015

Latkes win in Annual Latke Hamentaschen Debate

Jessica Li

By a narrow margin, latkes were declared victorious in the Annual Latke Hamentaschen Debate on Tuesday night. “[The Latke v.

NEWS | 03/03/2015

News & Notes: ACLU sues state over withholding Ebola quarantine documents

Daily Princetonian Staff

The American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey filed a lawsuit on Monday against the New Jersey Department ofHealth’s refusal to provide public records about state policies and protocols about exposure toEbola, according to Planet Princeton. The ACLU-NJ requested these documents on Oct.

NEWS | 03/03/2015

Simon talks art and society, plays “The Sound of Silence” at lecture

Simon talks art and society, plays “The Sound of Silence” at lecture

Chitra Marti

Photo by Yicheng Sun Art today seems to be no one’s priority, singer and songwriter Paul Simon said in a public conversation with creative writing professor Paul Muldoon on Tuesday. Simon also discussed his latest projects, his songwriting process and the role art should play in our society and performedhis song “The Sound of Silence.” “The world is so for one thing brutal, and for another so obsessed with speed and wealth, that it possibly calls for a redefinition of art,” Simon said.

NEWS | 03/03/2015

U. student, alumnus launch Campus Anonymous

Jacob Donnelly

Dan Kang ’15 and Akshay Kumar ’14 launched Campus Anonymous, a chat website for Ivy League students, on Sunday. Kang and Kumar are alsothe creators of Tigers Anonymous,a similar website that only University students can use. As of Tuesday afternoon, approximately 400 users had registered and over 1,000 conversations had taken place, Kang said, adding that the most frequent registrations were from the University and Columbia but that all eight Ivy League schools were represented. Kang said that he and Kumar created Campus Anonymous both because University students were too small of a pool to ensure users would be able to be paired with someone else and because students at other schools had expressed an interest in the concept. “In the beginning there was a lot of usage [of Tigers Anonymous], but a lot of time when people went on during the day, there weren’t enough people on it, and they stopped coming back,” Kang said. Campus Anonymous retains some elements of Tigers Anonymous, such as anonymity, randomly selected prompts to help users begin conversations and the option for users to reveal their identities if both users in a pair agree, although Kumar noted there were approximately 20 to 30 percent more prompts on Campus Anonymous. A unique feature to Campus Anonymous is the introduction of a terms of service and a privacy policy, Kumar said, noting that they are paying for SSL encryption for the chats.Kang said that he and Kumar cannot see the content of chats, and they do not think there should not be a way for people with malicious intentions to view any of the chats or discern any of the users’ identities. Although Kang and Kumar copied a lot of the chatting code from Tigers Anonymous, they had to work on a new filtering and authentication system to make sure emails were associated with Ivy League students and not with alumni of those schools. “There was a lot more machinery with Tigers Anonymous choosing prompts, so we were able to streamline that, make that more efficient,” Kumar said.

NEWS | 03/03/2015

Friendsy launches nationally

Lorenzo Quiogue

Friendsy launched nationally on Monday, allowing users from any college in the United States to sign up for the service. The site, which was created by students and allows students to indicate their interest in becoming friends with, hooking up with or dating other students,started at the University in 2013and gradually expanded to more colleges. Within 24 hours, the service attracted around 4,500 new users, on top of itspreexisting database of around 25,000 users, said Michael Pinsky ’15, one of the site's founders. Since Friendsy's initial launch to University students in May 2013, the core team has been working to add new features and components to the site, including applications for both the iOS and Android operating systems, Pinsky said.

NEWS | 03/03/2015

Fogarty lectures on Dear World Project for Mental Health Week

Christina Vosbikian

The Dear World photography project is designed to help people express their life stories, photographer Robert Fogarty said in a lecture on Monday. Fogarty was on campus on Monday to photograph students for his project as a part of Mental Health Week. “We’re here to celebrate your voices,” Fogarty said. Fogarty began the lecture by sharing stories of people he has met over the years through Dear World, including children he met in the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, former professional football player Steve Gleason and his struggle with ALS and survivors of the Boston Marathon. He started the project in New Orleans in 2009. Five University students also discussed their personal experiences at the lecture, includingBriana Christophers ’17, Ryan Fulmer ’16, Leea Driskell ’17, Zhan Okuda-Lim ’15 and Christina Rice ’17. “You have to go through these things to connect with other people,” Rice said. As each student spoke, their picture taken from earlier in the day was projected on a screen.

NEWS | 03/02/2015

News & Notes: Lempert recuses herself from 7-Eleven vote

Do-Hyeong Myeong

Mayor Liz Lempert said she would recuse herself from a vote on a proposed 7-Eleven because of a conflict of interest,the Princeton Packetreported. The Planning Board has a hearing on March 19 to discuss 7-Eleven’s proposal to move into the former West Coast Video property at 259 Nassau St. Lempert explained that she had received legal advice to recuse herself from the voting since the University, her husband’s employer, owns a driveway that goes through the site. Lempert is married to psychology professor Kenneth Norman. In addition to Lempert, three other board members are recusing themselves from the vote.

NEWS | 03/02/2015

News & Notes: 28 seniors run for Young Alumni Trustee

Do-Hyeong Myeong

The online primary voting process for a Young Alumni Trustee for the class of 2015 will start on Tuesday, according to University spokesperson Martin Mbugua. Twenty-eight seniors are running in the primary election this year. The seniors are Tumi Akinlawon, Jimmy Baase, Elise Backman, Samisha Bansal, Ray Chao, Christina Chica, Albert Choi, Katherine Clifton, Gavin Cook, Catherine Dennig, Laura Harder, Zach Horton, Rana Ibrahem, Shawon Jackson, Adam Klosowiak, Joe Margolies, Zack McCourt, Sydney Montgomery, Phil Mooney, Zhan Okuda-Lim, Cordelia Orillac, Stephanie Rigizadeh, Paul Riley, Hannah Rosenthal, Misha Semenov, Jillian Wilkowski, Tiana Woolridge and Carolyn Yang. Backman is a former opinion columnist forThe Daily Princetonian.

NEWS | 03/02/2015

Faculty discuss copyright policy at meeting

Linda Song

The faculty discussed a motion to accept revised guidelines regarding online courses under the University’s copyright policyat the faculty meeting on Monday. The motion was rejected due to a lack of consensus and deferred for later discussion. The University began offering noncredit courses online in April 2012 on Coursera and launched its first massive open online course that summer. The University’s copyright policy says it does not normally make claims on the copyrights of the products of the teaching and research of its faculty.

NEWS | 03/02/2015

Students discuss differences in computer science degrees

Christina Vosbikian

The computer science department’s offering of both an A.B. degree and a B.S.E. degree is rooted in the engineering prerequisites being less applicable than they are to other engineering majors, according to department chair Andrew Appel ’81. The department offers both tracks because many topics and applications within computer science do not rely on required B.S.E.

NEWS | 03/02/2015

WuDunn GS '88, Kristof discuss educating girls at panel

Zaynab Zaman

Focusing on charity’s outcomes and educating girls will help to effect positive change in the world, University Trustee andformer New York Times editor Sheryl WuDunn GS ’88 andNew York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof said at a panel discussion on Monday. The panel washeld to discuss Kristof and WuDunn’s book, “A Path Appears: Transforming Lives, Creating Opportunity,” which focuses on problems faced by women and girls around the world and what can be done to expand their opportunities. Though some aspects of giving and charity are done well globally, there are also a number of things the charitable world does not do well, WuDunn said. “We believe that the charitable world is in need of a revolution,” WuDunn said. There is a need for an increasing focus on outcomes, she said, noting the new trend toward so-called effective altruism. The story of a nonprofit executive, Dan Pallotta, whose foundation raised around $72 million for breast cancer and AIDS relief in 2002 but was taken over by the Avon Products Foundation after criticism surrounding the level of the executive’s compensation, was an example of having the right intentions but leading to an ineffective outcome, WuDunn said.

NEWS | 03/02/2015

USG senate discusses TruckFest, ‘Dear World’ project

Katherine Oh

The Undergraduate Student Government senate discussed plans for TruckFest, approved new committee members and reviewed the progress of committee projects at its meeting on Sunday. In light of Mental Health Week, the senate meeting opened by introducing the photographer Robert Fogarty, who will be running the “Dear World” photography project on campus throughout the week.

NEWS | 03/01/2015

News & Notes: Over half of Jewish students have experienced anti-Semitism in first half of 2013-14, study says

Daily Princetonian Staff

Approximately 54 percent of Jewish students had anti-Semitic experiences on campus in the first half of the 2013-14 academic year, according to a study conducted by researchers at Trinity College that was released this week. The online survey consisted of questions regarding the situation and location of each anti-Semitic experience.

NEWS | 03/01/2015

Ph.D. candidates at elite schools have advantage in academic job market, study finds

Zaynab Zaman

Ph.D. students at elite schools like the University have a systematic advantage in being hired on the academic job market, according to a recent study. Elite schools have shown a trend of hiring Ph.D.

NEWS | 03/01/2015

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