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The 'Street' still strong: Clubs draw large numbers of sophomore members

The 'Street' still strong: Clubs draw large numbers of sophomore members

The busiest week of the year on Prospect Avenue ended in February with 932 students ? more than 80 percent of the sophomore class ? joining eating clubs through Bicker and sign-ins.Ivy Club had the highest selectivity rate, accepting only 64 of the 145 students who bickered.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Into the stacks, for better or for worse

Students get "Stoned" at Princeton all the time.The lure of the 18th-largest library in the country, Harvey S.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Princeton offers students a wide array of electronic resources

Welcome to the world of advanced electronic resources.While your parents are still struggling to program the DVD player, at Princeton you will be able to research your term paper, send e-mail to your friends or tour a museum in Paris ? all from the comfort of your own dorm room.All you need is a computer and a network connection to tap into the University's Dormnet system.So instead of becoming a "have-not" on an information-driven campus, overcome your computational phobias and learn about the electronic resources available to you as soon as you arrive at Princeton.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Wisdom wielders

Princeton boasts a large and high-powered faculty worthy of its reputation as one of the best in the nation.These famous scholars, unlike their research-oriented counterparts at other Ivy League schools, often teach undergraduate courses ? maybe even yours. Nobel PrizesIn the past few years, Princeton has consistently produced Nobel Prize winners in various departments.Electrical Engineering professor Daniel Tsui won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1999 for his discovery of the fractional quantum Hall effect.Molecular biology professor Eric Wieschaus shared the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1995 with two other researchers for their work on fruit fly genetics.In 1994, senior research mathematician John Nash shared the Nobel Prize for Economics with two research teammates for their work on game theory.Creative writing professor Toni Morrison, physics professor Joseph Taylor and researcher Russell Hulse, who works at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, all won Nobels in 1993.Morrison, who also won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel "Beloved," coordinates the Princeton Atelier, a program that gives undergraduates the chance to collaborate with famous professionals in the creative world such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez.Physics professor Val Fitch won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1980 for his discoveries about high-energy subatomic particles.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

A guide through the academic wilderness of Princeton: Faculty advisers offer insight

Don't worry if you have no idea what courses you want to register for in the fall ? your academic advisers may help you feel a little less clueless.Under a system implemented in 1997, approximately 60 faculty members serve as advisers, with each counseling about 30 freshmen and sophomores.In each college, 10 faculty members advise freshmen while five are assigned to sophomores.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Facing the challenge of your academic life, and winning

If you thought getting into Princeton was hard, wait until you see what you have to do to get out.Every spring, college seniors across the nation break out the sunglasses, play frisbee, drink beer and work on their tans.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Local commission approves public smoking ban

A ban on smoking in nearly all public buildings in Princeton Borough and Township ? including the Prospect Avenue eating clubs ? will be in effect by the time students return to campus in September.The Princeton Regional Health Commission approved the ban at its June 1 meeting, despite a chorus of criticism during the last several months from eating club officers, local restaurant owners and organizations such as the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association.The ordinance prohibits smoking in restaurants, bars, cabarets, taverns, work places, restrooms, lobbies, reception areas, hallways, elevators and all other public enclosed areas with the exception of retail tobacco stores. Eating clubsFollowing its introduction in February, the ordinance sparked several months of confusion and controversy on the issue of whether it would apply to the eating clubs ? a question that was resolved on May 16, when the commission voted to reject an amendment that would have exempted private social clubs from the ban."It's an amendment that intends to clarify between private and public facilities," regional health officer Bill Hinshillwood said in explaining the amendment prior to its rejection.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Impractical? Perhaps, but the liberal arts curriculum is also illuminating

If you thought you came to college to learn something practical, forget it. Princeton is one of the last bastions of the high-minded, esoteric and abstruse ? the liberal arts education.Come September, when you arrive at this small liberal arts university in central New Jersey, it will be time to begin your new life as an A.B., a candidate for Princeton's Bachelor of Arts degree.Ignore your calculator-toting roommates when they casually mention their course load of "Electromagnetic Field Theory and Optics" or "Mechanics of Solids and Fluids," ad nauseam.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

The Moral Mentor

Anders Chen '01 kept forgetting. He knew that people were starving in places around the world, that they lived without houses or clothes or doctors or books and that children died in swaths every day from malnutrition.He knew this.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

University reinstates Swahili course

After much debate by the administration, the University has decided to offer an introductory Swahili course again in the fall.Associate Dean of the College Hank Dobin announced that the class would make an encore appearance next year after weeks of protest by outraged students who opposed the University's initial decision to discontinue the class.The course will be administered under the African-American studies program next fall as a one-time course rather than as a student-initiated seminar.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Quantifying security: Students say they feel safe on campus, despite thefts

Sixty-two percent of undergraduates feel "very safe" at the University, though 24 percent said they have been victims of theft, according to a recent Daily Princetonian survey of 758 students.Despite the relatively large percentage of students who say they have been robbed on campus, Public Safety Crime Prevention Specialist Barry Weiser said the 1999-2000 academic year crime statistics are in line with the previous year's numbers."I think [the crime rates are] very similar to last year," Weiser said.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

University taps Dickerson for new vice president post

Janet Dickerson, Duke University's vice president for student affairs, has been selected by Princeton to fill the vacancy created by the departure of Dean of Student Life Janina Montero ? and then some.With Dickerson's arrival, Montero's old position will broaden both in name and function.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Money well spent?

The Trustee Initiative on Alcohol Abuse has been a key part of campus life this year, bringing with it an aggressive and well-funded campaign to reduce binge drinking at Princeton.But even after the trustees allocated $100,000 to fund non-alcoholic social events, opinions remain mixed on whether the initiative is succeeding in accomplishing its twin objectives ? to create social alternatives to drinking and to end alcohol abuse on campus.University Board of Trustees president Robert Rawson '66 said the alternative events are an integral part of the trustees' effort to end abusive drinking.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Over e-mail, we can be anyone we want, even our best friend

This entirely true story starts out funny then ends up tragic. It's like a class where you go to the first lecture and laugh at the professor showing slides of some famous scientific calamity (a volcano spurting magma on villagers with Loony Toons T-shirts) or the Grand Canyon (the professor's family vacation). Then after missing most of the lectures, you take the final, and you fail (which in Princeton means you get a B, "ruining" your GPA). Now the story.Last year, two chaps, whose roommate, Bob, spent fall semester in Spain, lived across the hall from me.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Diversity deficiency

When the three most recent USG presidents posed together for a picture at a party in Tower Club last fall, they contentedly joked about the scene being captured on film ? a multi-ethnic Mount Rushmore for 1990s Princeton.David Ascher '99 is Jewish and a member of Zeta Beta Tau fraternity.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

University continues ground-breaking construction campaign

Freshmen might want to consider buying hard hats as well as Princeton t-shirts and banners when they make their purchases at the U-Store this fall.While construction of the Wallace Social Science Center and the Lake Carnegie boathouse ? as well as renovations to Blair Hall, Frist Campus Center, Joseph Henry House and Dial Lodge ? will finish in August, other projects will commence this summer and continue during the school year.With the University in the midst of a massive dormitory renovation project, Little Hall ? the long, snaking gothic structure that housed Rockefeller and Mathey college residents this year ? will undergo renovations.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Class of 2004 ready for first year as Tigers

The University admitted 12.2 percent of undergraduate applicants this year ? 1,670 of 13,654 ? a slightly higher acceptance rate than last year's 11.3 percent.For the first time in University history, men and women both received 50 percent of the admission offers, Dean of Admission Fred Hargadon said.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Squirrel drives student nuts

Though some squirrels might be innocent critters that don't do much harm, others are just plain sadistic.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Princeton hosts a parade of entertainers

Students witnessed a slew of celebrity activity on campus last year, from the antics of Ben Folds Five, to the more serene, sing-a-long style of the Indigo Girls, to a reflective John Turturro and a raunchy Jon Stewart.Drawn by the promise of comedic brilliance and the beauty of free admission, 2,100 students piled into Dillon Gym on March 25 for the local humor of Stewart.Because the event was part of the alcohol initiative, the trustees provided a $20,000 grant ? the largest given thus far under the initiative ? to help cover the cost of the performance.Stewart, who grew up in Lawrence Township, said the show struck a personal chord for him.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

Even God rested on the seventh day, but you will not, or so it may seem

Never in the course of human events have so few caused so many so much pain.The nicely embossed brochures the University sends you tell all about the fascinating activities and extracurricular programs available at Princeton.They leave out one important fact, however: Unless your name happens to be Houdini, you will be hard-pressed to sample even a few of them.If you have any intention at all of getting something resembling an education for your $120,000, you are going to be very busy for the next four years with your work alone.Never fear, however, because there are a variety of tactics available for dealing with course chagrin, paper paralysis and homework hysteria.There is, of course, the most obvious and initially painless option: sloth.

NEWS | 07/16/2000

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