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This Day in History: Panel on women’s changing status abroad, presidential election, Wilson School apps decrease

On this day in history, March 9, 1988, The Daily Princetonian reported on a decrease in Wilson School applications, a panel on the changing status of women abroad, the ongoing presidential primary campaigns, and new appointments for the Humanities Council.

“Sophomores seeking entrance into the Wilson School may find applicant numbers more favorable than in past years,” our reporter wrote. “[A]pplication totals dipped to 147 this year, a 13 percent drop from last year’s 166 applicants.”

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The ‘Prince’ also covered a panel on changes in the social status of women abroad. The Princeton University Women’s Organization and the International Center sponsored the event, which invited faculty, staff, students, and a women’s delegation from the Chinese mission to the United Nations. A woman from China “explained how the status of women has changed by comparing epithets used to describe them. Once women were so denigrated that a husband commonly called his wife ‘the family cook,’” the ‘Prince’ reported. “Now women are referred to as ‘half of the sky,’ she said, a reference to a Chinese proverb which once predicted that men would support the sky when it fell.”

The Humanities Council appointed 18 fellows for the 1988–89 academic year, which included a Pulitzer Prize winner, an author, and a reporter for The New York Times. All of the fellows led their own courses, such as “Literature and Psychoanalysis,” “Politics and the Press,” and “Writing about Law.”

The ‘Prince’ reported on the 1988 presidential election campaign, which at that stage, was still waiting for the Republican and Democratic nominations. George H.W. Bush, who was the vice president under former President Ronald Reagan, took the lead for the Republican presidential nomination. At press time, he had won 14 of the day’s 16 Republican primaries and caucuses. Kansas Sen. Bob Dole was in second place.

The Republican nomination was considered to be “all locked up,” according to the ‘Prince.’

Former Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, then-Tennessee Sen. and former Vice President Al Gore, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson were the primary Democratic contenders.

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