News

Whig-Clio trip to expose students to education reform

Eight students will be going to Washington, D.C., to study education reform through a Breakout trip sponsored by the American Whig-Cliosophic Society this fall break, Whig-Clio president Adam Tcharni ’15 said. “When I came in as president, one of my goals was to establish community service for Whig-Clio,” Tcharni said.

Conservative columnist and professor discuss intellectual culture in higher education

The current culture in higher education is afflicted by a situation analogous to regulatory capture in industry, nationally syndicated political columnist George Will GS ’68 said in a two-person discussion with politics professor Robert George on Monday. Just as companies learn to produce changes in regulatory bodies that are favorable to themselves, it is possible that the tenure system produces professors who are largely replicas of the tenure committee, Will explained.

Number of fall bickerees down from last year

USG Senate addresses grading policy, sexual assault policy

The Undergraduate Student Government Senate passed several resolutions regarding its position on the Report from the Ad Hoc Committee to Review Policy Regarding Assessment and Grading, and welcomed Sexual Harassment/Assault Advising, Resources & Education to discuss its policies and future goals at its weekly Senate meeting Sunday. Among the resolutions made were resolutions stating that numeric quantities should be removed from the grading policy, that departments should be in charge of their own grading standards, that A-pluses should translate to a 4.3 GPA and that there should be no changes made to freshman year academics.

News & Notes: Yale leads in Ivy League endowment returns

Over the last two weeks, four of the eight Ivy League schools posted their endowment investment gains in the past year, with Yale leading the pack at 20.2 percent, according to Bloomberg News. Yale’s endowment grew from $20.8 billion to $23.9 billion, the Yale Daily News reported. Dartmouth reported a 19.2 percent gain in its endowment, the University of Pennsylvania reported a 17.5 percent gain, and Harvard trailed with a 15.4 percent gain. Although Harvard beat its internal benchmark with an endowment of $36.4 billion, illiquid investments in its private-equity portfolio negatively impacted returns, Chief Executive Officer of Harvard Management Co. Jane Mendillo said in a report. In the last two years, Harvard has had the worst-performing endowment in the Ivy League, Bloomberg reported. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology reported a 19.2 percent growth in its endowment, while Duke University reported a return of 20.1 percent.

U. announces search to fill new Asian American studies professorship

A multidisciplinary search is currently under way for a senior tenured professor in Asian-American studies, according to anannouncement posted on Princeton’s Asian American Studies at Princeton blog. Professor and activist Anne Cheng said that she feelsthe University is tremendously lucky to have the administration’s support in conducting the search.

FindA aggregates student and campus information in easy-to-use app

A group of students in COS 333: Advanced Programming Techniques have created FindA, an app that enables University students to find, in one central location, five things:the nearest bathroom, the nearest printer, another student’s dorm room, the location and time of a class, and a professor’s office. FindA, listed in Apple’s App Store as Princeton FindA, was made by Curtis Belmonte ’16, Emily Hsu ’16, Lucas Mayer ’16 and Kyle Dhillon ’16.Students must log in through the Centralized Authentication System, the same system used to log into Blackboard or Integrated Course Engine, in order to access the app’s features. The app’s name was one of the first things they decided on, Dhillon noted. “What is our app doing?

News & Notes: Stratospheric spacecraft project to begin orbit in December

The University’s stratospheric spacecraft project, SPIDER, is set to begin its 20-day orbit 110,000 feet above ground level in December. The primary SPIDER apparatus is a 10-foot-tall multi-chambered orb, which comes complete with cameras and lenses nearly a foot long each. The spacecraft’s specific mission after launching is to search for gravitation wave patterns produced by the Big Bang that occurred billions of years ago, searching for any proof of remains or traces of the universe in its earliest stages. In mid-October, the SPIDER team of researchers intend to bring all SPIDER apparatus, which was built mostly in Jadwin Hall, to Antarctica to make preparations for the launch date in December. According to physics assistant professor William Jones, the location is particularly convenient with Antarctica’s constant sunlight as an energy source. However, Jones predicts that it is unlikely SPIDER will come back in one piece simply because of the dangerous and long nature of the journey so far up.

News & Notes: MIT student found dead in dorm room

A sophomore from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology was found dead in her dorm room on Tuesday, VCB5 reported, citing an email sent to the student bodyby MIT President L.

Q&A: William Deresiewicz

William Deresiewicz, author of the controversial column “Don’t Send Your Kids to the Ivy League,” argues in his latest book, “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life,” that the current higher education system is facing a crisis.

Proposal seeks to require RCAs to disclose all reported sexual assaults to U. authorities

Starting this academic year and awaiting final approval, residential college advisers will be considered to be students with “special responsibilities” in regard to alleged instances of sexual misconduct, under proposed changes to “Rights, Rules, Responsibilities.”The proposed changes were approved by the faculty on Sept.

Annual Giving Campaign raises record amount

The University’s latest Annual Giving campaign raised a record-breaking total of$58,748,900, with an also record-breaking participation rate of 61.4 percent for undergraduate alumni. The previous record was $57,246,302 from two years ago, and the previous record for participation was 61.3 percent from 2010-11. Graduate alumniparticipation was 13.7 percent. University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 said the combination of three factors —quality of the education provided by the University, character of and intense loyalty to the community, andlasting reminder of how much alumni owed to the people that came before them —makes the campaign successful year after year. “Annual Giving is something that affects the lives of every faculty member and everystudent on this campus,” Eisgruber explained.

Student group creates first intercollegiate undergraduate journal of Asian-American studies

The Asian American Students Association is creating the first intercollegiateundergraduate journal of Asian-American studies, “Unfound.” The publicationis sponsored by the Program in American Studies andthe Fields Center. According to the website, the journal’s title reflects its mission to explore what hasremained unfound for Asian-Americans, who are caught between two identities.AASA co-president Evan Kratzer ’16, one of the editors in chief, said that members ofAASA’s Asian American Studies Committee drew inspiration for “Unfound” from theeffectiveness of the Princeton Journal of East Asian Studies, which is supported by the East Asian Studies Program. After realizing that an analogous journal for Asian-American studies did not exist in theUnited States, Kratzer said that AASA members sought to help build a community of peoplewho are interested in Asian-American studies. “In the past, the Journal of East Asian Studies had gotten Asian-American studies-specific articles, and they thought it wasn’t relevant because it’s not East Asian Studies.That’s completely true,” he said.

In book tour, Deresiewicz criticizes higher education

William Deresiewicz, author of “Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and The Way to a Meaningful Life” discussed the crisis of higher education at a lecture on Thursday. A former Yale professor, Deresiewicz gained national recognition after his column “The Disadvantages of an Elite Education” went viral online in 2008.

Twitter founder says consumers want transparency, social responsibility from big businesses

Consumers and employees are demanding more transparency and social responsibility from big corporations, said Jack Dorsey, founder and CEO of Square and co-founder of Twitter, at a discussion on Wednesday. Dorsey spoke as part of a panel entitled “Be the Change: Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy.” Besides Dorsey, the panelists were Deb Dugan, CEO of (RED), and Chris Kuenne ’85, a Keller Center professor and the CEO of Rosemark Capital Group. Dorsey explained there is now a need for companies to be mindful of everything going on in the community. “We have to focus on our element of the equation, but we can’t end the sentence there,” he explained.

News & Notes: Booker visits Tigerlabs

U.S. Senator Cory Booker visited Tigerlabs, a venture capital firm on Nassau Street, on Wednesday afternoon, according to Planet Princeton. Booker was in Princeton to judge a startup pitch competition.

News & Notes: Yale endowment grows by over $3 billion

The value of Yale’s endowment grew from $20.8 billion to $23.9 billion from June 30, 2013 to June 30, 2014, earning a 20.2 percent investment return, the Yale Daily News reported.

News & Notes: Eisgruber ’83, Lempert, town council to meet on Nov. 3

University President Christopher Eisgruber '83 and Mayor Liz Lempert, as well as members of the town council, will meet on Nov.

Unemployment rate accuracy impacted by rotation group bias, paper says

The statistical accuracy of the official unemployment rate is questionable, concludes a working paper recently published in the National Bureau of Economic Research by Alan Kreuger, Wilson School professor and former chairman of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. He conducted the research with coauthors Alexandre Mas, professor of economics, and Xiaotong Niu,analyst at the Congressional Budget Office. Methodology used by the U.S.

Perseus to assume distribution of PU Press books

Princeton University Press will outsource its distribution and book fulfillment services from a local company in Ewing, N.J.