For the past five years, Rabbi Julie Roth has been working to change a puzzling statistic: Thirteen percent of Princeton’s undergraduate student body is Jewish, the lowest percentage of any Ivy League university besides Dartmouth, which comes in at 11 percent.
Atheists on campus have no formal support network comparable to those provided by many religious groups, several students noted in interviews with The Daily Princetonian, but Dean of Religious Life Alison Boden said that to her knowledge there has been no interest expressed in forming such a group or instituting a position similar to Harvard’s humanist chaplain to specifically address the needs of atheist students.
Until three summers ago, Kate Williams ’89 didn’t know much about yak faming. But that all changed during the summer of 2007, when Williams and her husband, Rob Williams ’89, traveled from their home in Vermont to visit her brother in Montana, where he owned a small herd of yaks.Today, along with her husband and two other families, Williams co-owns Steadfast Farm in Waitsfield, Vt., home to the Vermont Yak Company and the only meat-producing yak herd in the Northeast.
The world economy is in a state of “apocalypse not now,” Nobel laureate and Wilson School professor Paul Krugman told an audience of roughly 300 in McCosh 50 on Wednesday afternoon. Krugman juxtaposed a confidence in the handling of the economic downturn with caution about the future, explaining that he is not “totally without hope but not optimistic either” regarding future economic challenges.
The University library system is reducing its operational costs and freezing its acquisition budget but will not reduce its hours or layoff any student employees, University Librarian Karin Trainer said in an e-mail. These changes reflect the library’s efforts to meet the University’s requirement that all departments cut their budgets by an average of 7.5 percent this year and another 7.5 percent next year.
President Tilghman’s pay — including her $738,432 salary as well as $45,027 in benefits and deferred compensation — stood at $783,459 in the 2007-08 academic year, the most recent year for which tax filings are publicly available. In addition to compensation, Tilghman also had an expense account totaling $76,810 for the 2007-08 year.
On the hardwood floor of John Katzman ’81’s Manhattan office stands a life-size wooden cow painted to look like a No. 2 pencil — the writing utensil mandated by the College Board for students taking SATs. But Katzman’s connections to standardized tests run much deeper than his office decorations. Almost immediately after his graduation from Princeton in 1981, Katzman founded The Princeton Review test prep company, serving first as president and then as CEO until his departure in 2007.
While math and science departments have long been home to a disproportionately high number of male faculty members and students, in recent years humanities classes have typically hosted a larger female contingent.Yet the philosophy department at Princeton mirrors a nationwide trend of attracting fewer women than other humanities.
Justin Woyak '09 and Katie Pocalyko '10, who are among a small number of University students and alumni who plan to enter Christian ministry after graduation, said the University supports those who decide to pursue a life of religious service, no matter how late they discover this calling.
The University will eliminate one RCA position from each residential college next year due to budget cuts, administrators began telling current RCAs this week.
A number of University seniors are currently competing for Rhodes Scholarships, 32 of which are awarded to students at American colleges and universities, for the completion of graduate work at Oxford.
Dozens of undergraduate alumni have served on the board as young alumni trustees over the last 40 years, but no comparable positions have ever been established for young Graduate School alumni, despite interest expressed by some members of the current Graduate Student Government who said the board was “inaccessible” to graduate students.
All University undergraduates will be limited to printing 2,100 sheets of paper this year, but the 84 students in ORF 405: Regression & Applied Time Series are trying to do away with paper entirely.
With job titles such as “Chief Ninja” and “Deputy Chief Ninja” the Boston-based startup company SCVNGR might not look like a serious endeavor. But the company, which was founded in 2008 by Seth Priebatsch ’11 and designs large-scale, electronically based scavenger hunts, has amassed profits and accolades in two short years.
Ron Meyer, president and chief operating officer of Universal Studios, spoke about his journey in the film industry to roughly 100 students Monday evening in Robertson Hall as part of Business Today’s seminar series. Meyer described the unlikely path that led him from obscurity to fortune and answered questions on topics ranging from his personal film preferences to the future of the movie business.
Over the past four years, as the University has sought to reduce the number of A-level grades given to students, the number of seniors graduating with honors has declined slightly, from 44 percent in 2005 to 41.4 percent in 2009, according to statistics provided by the Office of the Registrar.
African American Studies professor Cornel West GS ’80 discussed his 19th publication and first memoir, “Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud,” on Monday afternoon in McCosh 10 to a full house of scholars, students and members of the community.
Last Saturday night, a small crowd of students queued up on Nassau Street to watch “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” taking advantage of a new initiative by the USG and the Undergraduate Film Organization (UFO) offering free movies at Princeton Garden Theatre.
The USG plans to launch a new election system called Helios in time for the Class of 2013 elections beginning today, USG president Connor Diemand-Yauman ’10 said in an e-mail sent to the sophomore class on Friday. The launch follows a successful test run with the Class of 2012.
In a little more than two weeks, many Princeton students will cast their votes in the New Jersey gubernatorial election. But some other students have been involved in the election for months.This year’s race has been hotly contested so far, with several recent polls showing the top two contenders, incumbent Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican Chris Christie, within one percentage point of each other. Students and organizations on campus have been actively campaigning and said they will continue to do so in the next few weeks leading up to the election.
