News

News & Notes: Dartmouth students stage sit-in at president's office

About 25 Dartmouth students staged a two-day sit-in at the school president's office over campus diversity issues from April 1 to April 3, the Huffington Post reported. The protest began Tuesday afternoon and demanded the president’s response to issues raised in the “Freedom Budget,” a document written by students that listed over 70 different actions for the administration to take to eradicate oppression on campus, the students alleged. The listed items addressed issues on oppression related to racism, sexism, ableism and heterosexism.

News & Notes: Wawa takes down U. class banners in preparation for move

The string of University class banners donning the upper walls of the Wawa convenience store were recently removed to allow for remodeling, according to a Wawa manager. Once the minor renovation was completed, employees were instructed not to repost the banners since the convenience store will be moving in a few months, the manager explained. As part of the University's $330 million Arts and Transit Project, the Wawa will be relocatedsouth of the Forbes College Addition on the west side of Alexander Road by the late summer of 2014, according to the project website. The website also says that the current Wawa building will be demolished to make room for the new arts facilities once the relocated locale opens for business. It remains unclear whether the class banners will be placed on the walls of the new Wawa building once it is completed.

Eisgruber '83, U. professors head to Paris for global conference

A delegation of University officials and professors, including University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83, will travel to Paris for the second annual Princeton-Fung Global Forum from April 9 to 11, where university leaders and policy makers will convene to discuss the future of higher education. Created last year with a $10 million donation by University trustee William Fung ’70, managing director of Li & Fung Group, the forum was designed to provide a venue for educators from different backgrounds around the world to discuss their views on important global issues. “We look for important things in world affairs that matter.

USG to make Lawnparties announcement on Monday night

The USG will make "a very important announcement" about Lawnpartieson Monday at8:30 p.m. in Frist Campus Center, according to Social Chair Logan Roth '15."I just want everyone to get super, super excited because this is at the very least going to be the best Lawnparties that I've been to," Roth said at Sunday's Senate meeting.In other topics discussed at the meeting, the USG aims to launch the Princeton 2018 website for newly admitted students by Thursday, USG president Shawon Jackson '15 said. "What we have right now is a completely redesigned framework," IT Committee Chair Clement Lee '17 said.

Entrepreneurship Club hosts 80 teams in TigerLaunch competition

The top winners at the Entrepreneurship Club's TigerLaunch Competition were FireStop, a mobile application for firefighters, and SignSchool, an online learning platform for American Sign Language.The final two rounds of the month-long competition took place this weekend. The annual competition began with 80 teams that belonged to either the Entrepreneurship track, which includes for-profit proposals, or the Social Entrepreneurship track for mostly nonprofit proposals. In the first round of competition, teams submitted a proposal for their startup idea.

Advertise This holds first U. marketing conference

The University’s first national marketing and advertising conference, held this weekend, invited guest speakers from different marketing backgrounds to teach students about how to change marketing strategies to target contemporary consumers.

Princeton Garden Theatre to be renovated with new management this summer

The Princeton Garden Theatre, a movie theater that is owned by the University, will be renovated under new management in June, ending its over 20-year lease agreement with Garden Theatre Inc. The administration has decided to lease the establishment to non-profit company Renew Theaters. Garden Theatre Inc. did not respond to multiple requests for comment. Executive Director of Renew Theaters John Toner explained that his company operates three other theaters in Pennsylvania and traditionally manages downtown establishments built during the classic Hollywood period between 1927 and 1963. “I think it’s a really good fit,” Toner said of the upcoming agreement, which will take effect on June 1.

News & Notes: Patton ’77 allegedly stole first husband, newspaper reports

Susan Patton ’77 allegedly pursued her first husband — Steve Jaffe, an advertising executive at an agency she worked at — while he was still married, the Daily Mail reports. Patton has previously declined to comment on her marital history besides stating that she is divorced with two sons.

News & Notes: Harvard forms sexual harassment committee

Harvard University president Drew Faust announced the creation of a sexual assault task force in an email to the Harvard student body and faculty on Thursday afternoon. Former Harvard Provost Steven Hyman, who oversaw the creation of Harvard's Office of Sexual Assault and Response, will chair the task force, Harvard's independent newspaper The Crimson reports. Last year, Harvard formed a working group to evaluate if its sexual assault policies were in accordance with federal Title IX regulations.

Students reflect on Pace Center international service trip to Peru

A group of seven students traveled to Urubamba, Peru over spring break as part of the Pace Center for Civic Engagement’s pilot international service trip. The team, which brought solar power to the rural 16-home village of Corpani Peñas, also teamed up with Bridge Year Program students in the area to build cleaner brick-burning stoves in homes in Huycho and cement patios for homes in Tambococha.

Updated: Having obtained safety data, Novartis seeks licensure for Bexsero vaccine in the U.S.

Novartis — the manufacturer of Bexsero, the meningitis B vaccine used tovaccinate University students this spring—announced that it is currently filing an application for FDA review of its vaccine, in the hopes of obtaining licensure. The use of Bexsero at the University and at the University of California at Santa Barbara has given Novartis safety data from 14,000 people, almost twice the number — 8,000 — that helped Novartis gain approval for Bexsero in Australia, Canada and the European Union, FierceVaccines reported.

Former ambassador Christopher Hill speaks on foreign policy

The state of world affairs will continue to be challenging for the United States to deal with, but the United States shouldn’t shy away from active participation, said Christopher Hill, former ambassador to Iraq and assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs. Hill explained that although the United States and its allies have largely succeeded in incorporating Russia into the framework of international affairs over the 23 years since the Soviet Union’s collapse, that participation is a double-edged sword in the case of the West’s reliance on Russian oil and gas. He added that Russia’s invasion of Crimea is broader than the aspirations of the Ukrainian people, which the American media commonly portrays as reason for concern, but instead extends to the question of Russia’s future role in the international community. Sanctions may not be the best approach to resolving the crisis, he said. “I remember we used to put [smart sanctions] on Milosevic, denying him a visa to go visit Disneyland and somehow change future of Kosovo,” Hill said jokingly. Hill then turned his attention to Syria, saying that the crisis in Syria is one of the most pernicious crises the world faces. Secretary of State John Kerry should not get hung up on the issue of removing Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria, Hill said.

News and Notes: Police department works on rash of burglaries

The Princeton Police Department is working with other police departments nearby to combat a recent "rash" of burglaries, Town Topics reported. Princeton Police Captain Nick Sutter confirmed thatthere have been six burglaries and one attempted burglary so far. Residential daytime burglaries have occurred over the past several weeks in Princeton.

News & Notes: Penn’s women lacrosse team allegedly wreaked havoc at bar

The University of Pennsylvania is conducting an investigation after members of its women’s lacrosse team allegedly damaged Fado Irish Pub during a party Saturday night, The Daily Pennsylvanian reported. Director of Athletic Communications Michael Mahoney said in a statement that Penn coaches and senior staff are meeting with lacrosse team members and are deeply concerned about the allegations made by the bar's manager. Fado general manager Casey Neff told The Daily Pennsylvanian that a group of about 50 people attending a lacrosse team event had shattered a glass light fixture, smoked marijuana in the bathroom and exposed a female student’s genitals to patrons. Neff also said that he does not plan on filing charges because he was not able to identify which specific individuals were responsible for the damage. Student groups affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School have already been banned from Fado due to past unruly conduct.

Do It in the Dark campaign aims to make students aware of their energy usage

All six residential colleges will engage in the Do It in the Dark Campaign, which aims to raise awareness in energy use and recycling habits, from April 1 to April 26. Wattvision, a real-time visualization of energy usage data, will monitor each college’s energy usage progress and determine a winner based on which residential college shows the most improvement in energy consumption over the three weeks.

Meadow discusses gender, transgender children

While gender boundaries are shifting, they are also becoming more intricately articulated, lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and Sociology Tey Meadow argued at a lecture on Wednesday. Meadow spoke about the emergence of a new social category, the transgender child, and explained that this social category came into existence because people began to understand gender identity as a symbolic boundary separate from both body and sexuality. Meadow explained that current prevailing theories on gender revolve around “doing a gender,” wherein gender is defined by socially constructed relationships, and mentioned the movement to “undo gender,” in which some experts propose that the entire concept of gender should be undone and rejected. However, Meadow argued that the theories relating to doing gender provide an insufficient framework for understanding gender and instead argued for the theory of “being a gender,” wherein gender is both a social assignation and a personal identity, a classification determined by society but also a feature of the self. She also said gender was broken down into three parts: bodies, behavior and identity. For parents dealing with transgender children, Meadow explained,“being a gender” has three main steps: assuming an identity, which happens at the individual level; convincing others, which happens at the interactional level; and securing recognition, which happens at the institutional level. The process starts, according to Meadow, when parents begin to notice gender problems in their children — in particular, when their children engage in play or other gender behaviors that provoke concern.

In lecture, Bernanke says he emphasized transparency while at the Fed

Ben Bernanke, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve and former chair of the economics department, was presented with The American Whig-Cliosophic Society's 2014 James Madison Award for Distinguished Public Service in a ceremony on Wednesday.Bernanke followed the ceremony by discussing his time at the Federal Reserve as well as his time in academia with economics professor Alan Blinder ’67, who served as vice chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1994-96. Bernanke said his legacy includes an increased transparency within the Fed, noting that during his time as chairman he appeared on ‘60 Minutes’ and granted requests for interviews with the media to inform the public about monetary policy. “Democratic legitimacy requires that [the Fed] explain itself,” Bernanke said.

Postgraduate fellowship to drop Princeton affiliation in name following discussion with U. officials.

The fellowship initiative founded as "Princeton in the Middle East" will change its name after a discussion with University officials who asked that it not include the "Princeton in" construction. The University called into question last month the use of the construction “Princeton in”in an independent program founded by University alumni.

News & Notes: Elements ranked 20 among U.S. restaurants

Princeton’s Elements ranks 20th of the 100 best American restaurants, according totheOpinionated About Dining’s survey. Elements is the only New Jersey restaurant on the list. Since the annual survey was created in 2012, Elements, which first opened in 2008, has consistently moved up the list.

Cartoon: Night owl/early bird roommates