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Delbanco focuses on history of higher education

Delbanco focuses on history of higher education

Though institutions like Princeton are the exalted embodiments of a collegiate education, most Americans have a drastically different college experience, Andrew Delbanco, professor of American studies at Columbia University, said Monday evening as he challenged the audience to question where American colleges come from, where they are now and where they are headed.Delbanco?s lecture is the first of a three-part lecture series titled ?Does College Really Matter?

NEWS | 12/01/2008

American University of Paris chooses alum as head

Celeste Schenck ?75 was appointed president of the American University of Paris (AUP) in October, becoming the AUP?s 12th president and its second female president.

NEWS | 12/01/2008

University faculty approves new biology graduate program

With fewer than 40 members in attendance, the University faculty approved a graduate program in quantitative and computational biology at its meeting Monday.The proposal for the program stated that ?[t]he Program of Computational Biology is intended to facilitate graduate education at Princeton at the interface of biology and the more quantitative sciences and computation.? The program will offer Ph.D.

NEWS | 12/01/2008

Report: University has big local economic effect

The University plays a major role in the state and local economies, according to a report examining the University?s financial role in the region in the fiscal year ending in June 2007.The University has significant financial and job-creation impacts on both New Jersey and Mercer County: The University was at least partially accountable for $1.09 billion in economic activity and 10,655 full-time jobs in New Jersey, and it was at least partially responsible for $833 million in economic activity and 8,951 full-time jobs in Mercer County, according to a University statement about the study.The report was compiled by Appleseed, an independent New York consulting firm.

NEWS | 12/01/2008

Tax revaluation causes anxiety

As Princeton Borough and Princeton Township prepare for their first property-tax reassessment since 1996, residents are taking a hard look at factors that make both municipalities? property taxes among the highest in New Jersey.According to The Newark Star-Ledger, the average Borough resident paid $12,636 in property taxes in 2005, and the average Township resident paid $13,222, putting both municipalities in the 98th percentile among all New Jersey municipalities.One factor that drives up the taxes, residents and officials say, is the University.?The 800-pound gorilla is the University,? Borough Councilman Roger Martindell said, adding that according to his calculations, every Borough resident?s tax bill would decrease by 25 percent if the University began paying property taxes on all of the property it owns that is not taxable under state law.The Borough cannot collect taxes on 43.6 percent of its land, the fourth-highest percentage of untaxable land among the state?s municipalities, according to the Star-Ledger.

NEWS | 12/01/2008

College presidents donate back to their schools

In light of the current economic crisis, the presidents of Penn, Rutgers and other public and private institutions of higher education have decided to either turn down their annual salary increases or otherwise make a monetary donation to their schools.Penn president Amy Gutmann and her husband Michael Doyle have made two donations to Penn recently.

NEWS | 12/01/2008

Volcker '49 to head new economic advisory board

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker ?49 will head a newly created White House advisory board tasked with helping jumpstart the economy and stabilize financial markets, President-elect Barack Obama announced Wednesday.The panel, the President?s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, will consist of prominent figures from different business sectors who can provide ?fresh perspective to me and my administration,? Obama said at a news conference Wednesday.?The inevitable recession can be moderated,? Volcker wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in October.

NEWS | 11/30/2008

Group urges University trustees to oppose Prop. 8

A new student organization, Equality Action Network (EAN), is seeking to employ a USG referendum to persuade the University?s Board of Trustees to sign a statement against California?s Proposition 8, which eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry.The proposed referendum ?states that the undergraduates of Princeton University support equal protection under the law for homosexual partners vis-a-vis the recognition of homosexual marriages? and requests that the Board of Trustees file an amicus brief with the California Supreme Court in support of overturning the proposition, according to an e-mail from founder Jacob Candelaria ?09 announcing the group?s formation.Two hundred undergraduate signatures are required for the referendum to be placed on the ballot for the upcoming USG election.

NEWS | 11/30/2008

Choreography outside the classroom

When most professors head to the library or a laboratory to conduct research, instructors in the University?s dance program catch the train to New York and take to the stage to direct, choreograph or perform.Acting dance department head Rebecca Lazier founded a contemporary dance company, Terrain, in New York in 2001.

NEWS | 11/30/2008

Attacks in Mumbai shock Indian students

Last week?s terrorist attacks in Mumbai have hit close to home for several Indian students at the University and have generated discussion throughought the community.?I have friends that had both of their parents killed in the attacks,? Mumbai native Nikhil Seth ?11 said.Seth added that that he is ?more shocked than most? because he worked in a building near one of the hotels struck by the terrorists.?I would go and eat lunch at the hotel and spend time in the coffee shop, and it was right there where so many people were killed,? he said.For some Indian students, last week?s attacks added to fear and frustration over the growing number of terror-related incidents in their country.?I think these attacks were the final straw,? Jahnabi Barooah ?11 said in an e-mail.Seth noted that though there have been numerous smaller attacks in India, ?these attacks felt like they were on a greater scale because they encompassed so large an area.?Barooah noted that she is fortunate not to have had any members of her family injured or killed in the attacks.

NEWS | 11/30/2008

U. Rabbi mourns friends slain in Chabad House

Chabad Rabbi Gavriel Holtzberg and his wife, Rivka, both good friends of University Chabad chaplain Rabbi Eitan Webb, were killed late last week in a terrorist attack in Mumbai, India.The couple had moved from Brooklyn to Mumbai about five years ago with the goal of managing a Chabad House, a synagogue and social hall run by the Lubavitch Hasidic movement.

NEWS | 11/30/2008

Web Update: Volcker '49 to head Obama's economic recovery board

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker '49 has been chosen to head a new economic advisory board for President-elect Barack Obama.

NEWS | 11/25/2008

Princeton, Interrupted

One afternoon midway through the fall of her freshman year, Mary ?10 was walking through her common room when her roommate turned to her and said, ?It?s great how you?re so happy all the time, Mary.

NEWS | 11/25/2008

Orszag ’91 selected to direct Obama’s budget office

Peter Orszag ?91 has been named director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) in the Obama administration, President-elect Barack Obama announced Tuesday.Orszag, who resigned as director of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on the same day, will be a key member of the president-elect?s economic team, advising the president on a variety of issues including federal spending programs and managing the federal budget.

NEWS | 11/25/2008

Decline in alcohol citations worries Borough

The number of citations issued in Princeton Borough for driving while intoxicated (DWI) dropped 23 percent in 2008 compared to the same period last year, raising concerns about the effectiveness of the Borough?s policing.The Borough issued 89 DWI citations between Jan.

NEWS | 11/25/2008

Administrators outline projects delayed by downturn

The construction of a satellite art museum in the Arts and Transit Neighborhood has been delayed after administrators decided that it is not critical to the University?s immediate academic needs.

NEWS | 11/25/2008

Global economic crisis presents challenge to Aspire, Annual Giving progress

Editor's note appendedThough the University is still on track to meet its Annual Giving (AG) and Aspire capital campaign goals, the ongoing economic downturn presents a potentially challenging situation, Vice President for Development Brian McDonald ?83 said on Tuesday.

NEWS | 11/25/2008

Solis ’07 wins Mitchell prize for social work

After working in South Korea and Chile in the year and a half after he graduated from the University, Michael Solis ?07 is now taking off for Ireland.Solis, one of the 12 winners of this year?s George J.

NEWS | 11/24/2008

Post-midterms, advisers help frosh

Many students do not seek advice from their assigned residential-college academic advisers, even as the start of spring 2009 course selection approaches for freshmen and sophomores.Nathan Brown ?12, a Wilson College resident, said that because his four freshman-year classes were required, he had little need to discuss class choices with his adviser.

NEWS | 11/24/2008

Romer to be chair of Council of Economic Advisers

Christina Romer, an economics professor at UC-Berkeley who taught at the Wilson School from 1985 to 1988, has been appointed the chairman of President-elect Barack Obama?s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA).The CEA, established in 1946, is tasked with ?[providing] the President with objective economic analysis and advice on the development and implementation of a wide range of domestic and international economic policy issues,? according to the White House?s website.Romer received her undergraduate degree from the College of William & Mary in 1981 and her doctorate from MIT in 1985.

NEWS | 11/24/2008

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