News

USG solicits grading complaints

The USG is shifting its stance on the University's controversial grade deflation policy from trying to abolish the policy to ensuring that it is fairly and correctly implemented for all students."Ultimately, I would like it [grade deflation] to be overturned," USG president Rob Biederman '08 said.

Photographer was with the Times

The woman who followed Tower Club's pickups with a camera on Friday was a freelance photographer employed by The New York Times, a Times spokeswoman said in an e-mail yesterday.

A little cash on the side

Richmond Owusu '09 spends at least eight hours every week deep within the bowels of Firestone Library.

Students design new agency

One week after launching the Student Design Agency, managers Tiffany Wey '07 and Andy Chen '09 have received about 30 requests for T-shirt graphics, posters and web-design work.They created this student-run business to respond to the demand for graphic design among on-campus groups and to create a new graphic design center for University students.

A man, a bus and a cause: An alum's ride for gay rights

Bram Wispelwey '06 will climb on a bus next month and take a road trip with a purpose.Wispelwey will join 55 other young activists in the Soulforce Equality Ride, which will visit 32 colleges and universities that ban openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students from enrolling.

Anthropologist seeks methods to solve AIDS epidemic

Encouraging monogamy is an ineffective way to combat the spread of HIV, since people will have extramarital sex and put themselves at risk even if they are warned against doing so, public health anthropologist Jennifer Hirsch '88 said in a lecture yesterday in Wallace Hall."Unilateral monogamy is about as successful as unilateral disarmament," she said.Sponsored by the Wilson School's Princeton AIDS Initiative, Hirsch's lecture drew upon her research regarding intimacy and fidelity, which she uses to lobby for public health policy changes to fight the transmission of HIV."You cannot prevent heterosexual transmission [of HIV] by telling men not to have sex," she said yesterday.

Go the distance

Harvard's head, a child of Princeton

Drew Gilpin Faust, who was confirmed as Harvard's new leader on Sunday, has another presidential connection in the Ivy League: She's descended from two past presidents of Princeton.Among her ancestors, Faust counts the University's second president, Aaron Burr, Sr., and Jonathan Edwards, the University's third president.They are far from the only Tigers in Faust's family tree.

Computers' role in classrooms questioned

Technology may well turn out to be the new taboo on campus, as professors increasingly worry about laptops in lecture and other pitfalls of the 21st century.Faculty members and technology experts debated the role of computers on campus yesterday, during the first Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) meeting of the new semester.

Purported Times reporter follows pickups

A journalist armed with a camera who said she was with The New York Times followed Tower Club pickups Friday morning until she was told to leave campus by Public Safety officers.The reporter's presence is consistent with recent attempts by the Times to contact eating club presidents for a story on bicker clubs, but when questioned by the University, editor of the Times' Education Life section Jane Karr denied sending a reporter to campus on Friday."[The reporter] said she was from The New York Times," Tower president Jonathan Fernandez '08 said.

Faust gets Harvard's top post

In a long-anticipated move, Harvard confirmed the appointment of its first female president yesterday, announcing that Drew Gilpin Faust will be the university's 28th president.Dean of Harvard's Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study and a civil war historian, Faust beat out a strong field of contenders for the position, including Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan '81 and the presidents of several elite universities.Faust is the fifth woman ? the fourth in the last six years ? to become president of an Ivy League university.

WPRB students oppose plan to sell

Despite more than a decade of financial struggles, WPRB, the 67-year-old student-run radio station, will not be shutting down.On Saturday, WPRB's alumni board of trustees presented the student officers with possible plans for change, including selling the station's broadcasting license and then either donating the profits to the University or converting the broadcast format to webcasts.

USG proposes mini-golf course, crush website for upcoming year

Having increased student e-mail quotas, chartered buses to Yale and lobbied the University to make late meals start earlier, the USG is now aiming to help students find true love.Last night, USG vice president Josh Weinstein '09 presented a prototype "crush website" that will allow students to list the netids of five students they have a crush on.

Tower, Cap increase in selectivity

The five Bicker clubs saw a small increase in the number of students seeking to join last week, with Tower emerging as the most selective.About 60 percent of the students who bickered the five selective eating clubs last week were accepted this weekend.

RCAs comfort hosed advisees

As bicker clubs picked up newly accepted sophomores on Friday with noisy chants and generous dollops of shaving cream, other students whose bicker attempts were not so favorably received found far less enjoyment in the weekend's events.Anticipating the possibility of such emotional trauma ? as well as the more physical risks that can accompany Bicker, pickups and Initiations, such as sexual assault ? residential colleges increased efforts this year to inform sophomores about eating options and address their concerns during and after the bicker process."Clearly, last year's Bicker was a disgrace and certainly dangerous in certain respects," said Mathey College Master Antoine Kahn GS '75.

Mo' weather, mo' problems

The following weather column is in loving memory of Anna Nicole Smith, Barbaro and the dignity of the American space program.Brrrr, Weather Fans, it's dog sweater cold: I fervently hope you spent Intersession in a toasty fashion, much as I did.

Harvard expected to name Faust first woman president

Harvard is expected to name Drew Gilpin Faust its 28th president this weekend, marking the first time in its 371-year history that the nation's oldest university will be led by a woman, according to two reports last night.The Harvard Corporation, the university's main governing body, has settled on its choice and will recommend Faust to the school's alumni board of overseers for approval on Sunday, The Harvard Crimson and the Boston Globe reported last night.The overseers are expected to make an announcement the same day, the Globe reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the situation.

Joke op-ed debated at joint forum

Discussion struck a measured tone last night when around 40 people gathered in Dodds Auditorium to talk about self-segregation, eating clubs and the overall Asian-American experience on campus.The forum ? which was billed by organizers as an opportunity for Asian Americans to voice their thoughts on all aspects of campus life ? fluctuated between criticism of a fake column published in The Daily Princetonian and discussion of larger issues of campus race relations.The meeting, cosponsored by the Asian American Students Association (AASA) and the 'Prince,' was organized after the newspaper ran a column in its annual joke issue that relied heavily on Asian stereotypes.

In USG, a new focus on details

Sitting at his desk in the USG office, newly inaugurated president Rob Biederman '08 summarized his hopes for the next year in a sentence that any of his predecessors could just as easily have uttered: "I would want Princeton to become a more enjoyable place to go to college."But he wants to achieve that goal differently, by focusing on details.He said he plans to persuade the U-Store to accept prox swipes as payment, to work on reopening Campus Club and to organize weekly viewing parties for television shows such as "24" in Frist Campus Center.Unlike the previous administrations under which members worked on personal projects, Biederman has set aside five to seven goals for the USG to work on jointly.

'Jewish Jordan' speaks on balancing basketball with Orthodox faith

A six-foot, three-inch point guard took Dillon Gym by storm Wednesday night, effortlessly sinking 19 of 20 shots from just inside the three-point arc.