Peter McDonough, who has served as general counsel for the University since 2002 and provided legal advice to the University since 1990, intends to step down at the end of the academic year.
The charity that will be featured at Lawnparties this year, TEAM Charter Schools, was selected because several people on the USG social committee liked the organization and had worked with it before, social committee chairLogan Roth ’15 said. He also said the social committee’s decision to contribute to a charity through Lawnparties had been floating around for several years, and he really wanted to move forward with it this year. TEAM Charter Schools, a region of schools in Newark and Camden, N.J., will benefit with proceeds from the sales of raffle tickets and merchandise, while no money originally budgeted for Lawnparties will be handed to the charity.
The University has reduced the number of guests that graduating seniors are allowed to bring to the 2014 Reunions in an attempt to slow down the growing Reunions attendance numbers. Graduating seniors were allowed to purchase tickets for up to five guests for Reunions in previous years.
Seven hundred and twentyadmitted students attended the first session of Princeton Preview on Thursday, compared to 700 admitted students in attendance at the first session of Princeton Preview last year. However, both students at the University and prospective studentshave expressed disappointment at the University’s decision to change Princeton Preview from a weekend visit to a one-day event. Cynthia Cherrey, vice president of campus life, announced in an email to the student body last week that the Princeton Preview program would be shortened in order to minimize the chances that prospective students not vaccinated for meningitis would contract the disease. Crystal Wang, 17, a prospective student and native of East Brunswick, N.J., said she was disappointed that the program had been cut short.
The state of New Jersey has implemented a Distracted Driving 2014 Statewide Crackdown program, ongoing until April 21.
Princeton’s Lawnparties lineup is “easily the worst lineup of all Ivies,” a Columbia Lion blog post said on Tuesday.
With three rooms remaining in upperclass housing for the Class of 2016 one day before the official end of junior upperclass room draw, at least 103 students had yet to draw into a room.Most of these students will have to place into the housing draw wait list. However, these numbers are not uncommon. "Every year we typically have between 100-120 juniors on the wait list,"Manager of Undergraduate Housing Angela Hodgeman wrote in an email, obtained by The Daily Princetonian, to 309 juniors who had yet to draw into a room as of 9 a.m.
A room in Forbes College was burglarized last Friday, according to the Department of Public Safety's daily crime logs. Mike Caddell, University media specialist, said that the incident took place between 2:15 p.m.
The University will allow student-organized plans for informal overnight hosting to continue in orderto supplement the shortened Princeton Preview for the Class of 2018,but it will not endorse these plans. Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Michael Olin said that while the University recognizes that the informal hosting program is well-intentioned, the formal hosting program was nevertheless cancelled for well-considered reasons.
The United States will suffer in the future if it does not invest in the basic research that is the foundation for applied technology, John Holdren, director of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, said in a lecture Wednesday. Holden explained that Obama has stood behind his pledge to restore science to the forefront of the administration's attention, including investment in multi-disciplinary and high-risk research, support for science, technology, engineering and mathematics education reform and development of an advanced information technology ecosystem.
While mathematics professor Yakov Sinai is known worldwide for his paramount contributions in dynamical systems, mathematical physics and probability theory, his students and friends say that he is, most strikingly, a gentleman. A few of Sinai’s major developments in math includeKolmogorov-Sinai entropy, Sinai's billiards, Sinai's random walk, Sinai-Ruelle-Bowen measures and Pirogov-Sinai theory. Sinai was recently awarded the prestigious Abel Prize in mathematics by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for the cumulative impact of his research, adding to a long list of recognitions and accolades over the span of his 50-year career.
Harvard sophomore Andrew Sun died Sunday of an apparent suicide after he fell from a downtown Boston Building, The Harvard Crimson reported. No additional information regarding Sun’s motivations has been released. Sun did not die immediately on impact and was taken to the hospital where he was treated for injuries caused by the fall.However, doctors believed Sun’s chances of recovery were slim and informed the dean of Sun’s residential house that his time on life support would be limited. He died Monday morning with his family present.Interim Dean of the College Donald Pfister announced Sun’s death to the Harvard community via email Monday morning. A New Jersey native, Sun was an Economics major, a member of Harvard College Faith in Action and Harvard Financial Analysts Club, according to the Crimson. This is not the first suicide reported at an Ivy League school so far this academic year.
A former associate administrator in the Yale School of Nursing is suing the university, The Yale Daily News reported. Karen Curcio alleges in the lawsuit that she was fired from her position after she refused to fire a staff member on the basis of the latter's physical disability.
Ridership for the Dinky train line, which runs between the University and Princeton Junction, declined by 10.4 percent from October to December of 2013 as compared to the same period in 2012, according to New Jersey Transit, the state-owned company that operates the train line. However, according to the University, which operates a parallel bus system called TigerPaWW, total ridership went up by 5.8 percent when the University’s bus users are accounted for. NJ Transit’s analysis notes that the decline in Dinky ridership occurred around the same time as the implementation of TigerPaWW, the University’s shuttle bus system that was introduced last year due to the station’s temporary relocation. A new Dinky station is set to open this summer as part of the University’s Arts and Transit Neighborhood. Director of Community and Regional Affairs Kristin Appelgetexplained that the University implemented the free bus system in recognition of the fact that during the station’s transition phase the bus may be more convenient than the Dinky for some passengers. “Clearly the strong ridership numbers proved that that’s true,” Appelget noted. She added that there are additional options for passengers to connect to other transit roads from the temporary station, such as the municipality’s free bus system, which operates during peak commuter hours, or the TigerTransit bus, which is free to all members of the public. Craig noted that the TigerPaWW bus is susceptible to traffic and is only a temporary arrangement. The New Jersey Association of Railroad Passengers, an organization that advocates for more citizen involvement in deciding transit affairs within the state, issued a press release saying that the 10.4 percent decline is actually more in the range of 20 percent because ridership in the rest of the Northeast Corridor line has risen by 10.4 percent. “We can never determine exactly what happened because it didn’t happen,” NJ-ARP vice president Jack May said of possible variables in this assumption.
The Princeton Energy Plant, which provides electricity, steam and chilled water to the University campus, allows the University to take positive steps toward reducing its carbon footprint and energy-related costs. Plant manager Ted Borer explained that the plant is operated by a gas turbine that spins a power turbine which powers an electric generator.
Bexsero, the meningitis B vaccine created by Novartis that was offered to all undergraduate students over the course of the past four months, has received Breakthrough Therapy designation in the United States from the Food and Drug Administration. The drug received the new designation on Monday, which will allow for an expedited review, after an announcement last week that the company was filing an application for FDA review in hopes of obtaining a license. According to a press release on Novartis’ website, the Breakthrough Therapy designation “is intended to expedite the development and review of new medicines that treat serious or life-threatening conditions.” The FDA declined to comment and Novartis declined to be interviewed for this article. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which sponsored the emergency use authorization of the vaccine at the University, has not shared any of the data collected from the vaccine clinics with the FDA, CDC spokesperson Jason McDonald said. “What [the] CDC did during the vaccination clinics at Princeton was monitor for adverse events,” McDonald said.
The Princeton in Brazil program will not be held this year due to complications brought about by the country's hosting of the 2014 World Cup. Karen Gonzalez, manager of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese Languages and Cultures, explained that the decision to have the program go on a hiatus was brought about by anticipated increased costs and logistical difficulties. "We were anticipating an inflation of costs due to the World Cup, as well as limited availability of housing — the demand for housing will be great during that time," she explained.
Mark Benjamin ’14 will bike from Portsmouth, N.H. to Vancouver, British Columbiaover the course of 10 weeks this summer as a Bike & Build rider. Bike & Build is a nonprofit organization based inPhiladelphia, Pa.
University President Christopher Eisgruber ’83 chose Susan Wolf’s book “Meaning in Life and Why It Matters” for the Class of 2018 Pre-Read. Members of the Class of 2018 will receive a free copy of the assigned book fortheir first college assignmentin the mail this summer. During freshman week, Wolf will participate in a panel discussion about her book with other faculty members.
The 2014 Class Council postponed its Pub Night scheduled for Monday evening due to rain on Ivy Inn’s facilities. In an email addressed to the members of the senior class, Luchi Mmegwa ’14, the president of the 2014 Class Council, announced the rescheduling of the event, which allows seniors of legal drinking age to consume alcohol together at a bar that the Class Council reserves. A previous Pub Night this year was held at the Triumph Brewery on Nassau Street. An Ivy Inn representative explained that the Inn has an outdoor patio at the back, which the Class of 2014 had originally intended to use for the event.
