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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

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

U. may implement anonymous discrimination reporting system for students

Zaynab Zaman

The University may soon have a system for students to anonymously report discriminatory or offensive comments made by professors and preceptors, Asanni York ’17, co-chair of the Council of the Princeton University Community’s Working Group on Structure and Support, said.Though there are already processes in place to report discrimination, many students don’t know about them, York said.

NEWS | 03/01/2015

Most women elected eating club presidents since 2002

Most women elected eating club presidents since 2002

Jessica Li

Four women in the Class of 2016 are eating club presidents or presidents-elect, the most since the Class of 2002, when there were also four. When theSteering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadershipreleased its final report in 2011, only one woman in the Class of 2011 was president of an eating club.

NEWS | 03/01/2015

News & Notes: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory finds success with 3-D printing technology

Annie Yang

The Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is using 3-D printing technology to create custom parts for experiments with support from the U.S.

NEWS | 02/26/2015

Black History Month: Looking back at the early 2000s and today

Shriya Sekhsaria

The last 15 years have seen the Carl A.

NEWS | 02/26/2015

Members of the Class of 1977 start crowdfund to express support for sexual assault victims

Christina Vosbikian

A donation fund launched by members of the Class of 1977 this Monday called“Not the Princeton Mom”on the crowdfunding website GoFundMe.com, has raised $5,444 as of Thursday night, exceeding the fund’s original $5,000 goal.The money will be donated to the University's Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources and Education office.According to an email obtained by The Daily Princetonian, members of the Class of 1977 were emailed on Tuesday night about the fund.The email said the fund's goal was to express solidarity with victims of sexual assault in the face of what they perceived as offensive remarks by Susan Patton '77.

NEWS | 02/26/2015

Battlefield Society to appeal Institute plans to build faculty housing

Battlefield Society to appeal Institute plans to build faculty housing

Proposed IAS faculty housing project The Princeton Battlefield Society intends to appeal the Institute for Advanced Study’s plans to build faculty housing on what they contend to be hallowed and historically significant ground. The Institute for Advanced Study is not affiliated with the University but has long been a fixture of the town, once hosting scientists such as Albert Einstein, J.

NEWS | 02/26/2015

National Science Foundation renews funding for U. Center for Complex Materials

Katherine Oh

The National Science Foundation this week renewed its funding for the Princeton Center for Complex Materials until October 2020.The funding for the University totals about $6.4 million.NSF awards follow a six-year cycle, and the grant is conditional on following the research rules associated with the funding.

NEWS | 02/26/2015

Lakeside Graduate Housing project to open on June 1 after delays

Do-Hyeong Myeong

While the Lakeside Graduate Housing project is scheduled to open on June 1 after a year-long delay, some graduate students say that lack of communication, financial burden and less-than-optimal living conditions in temporary housing for the affected students have been problematic.The Lakeside complex was originallyslated to open in July 2014, but was delayed to September, then to December and finally to June 2015.Students who originally planned to live at Lakeside in the 2014-15 academic year were instead offered temporary housing at Butler Apartments, which were slated to be demolished during summer 2014, and at Stanworth Apartments.The delays were rooted in the complexity of the contractual relationships among the parties working to build the project, according to an October 2014 article in The Daily Princetonian.Christine Philippe-Blumauer GS, chair of the Butler Committee and a Butler Apartments resident, said that although the complex has many advantages, such as cheap rent, good location for some purposes and a family-friendly atmosphere, the insulation and furniture are in suboptimal conditions.“[The] Butler [Apartments complex] was always supposed to be temporary housing,” Philippe-Blumauer said.

NEWS | 02/26/2015

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