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News and Notes: Michelle Obama ’85 wears Princeton shirt, speaks about experience at U.

News and Notes: Michelle Obama ’85 wears Princeton shirt, speaks about experience at U.

Daily Princetonian Staff

First Lady Michelle Obama ’85 wore a T-shirt on Thursday bearing the University's name, according to an Instagram picture shared on Obama's account. Obama wore the shirt for a College Signing Day event in San Antonio on May 1 as part of her Reach Higher Initiative to encourage young adults to finish their education. Obama, who has rebuffed invitations from the University in the past and rarely mentions her connection to the University, also discussed her experience at the University in her speech at the event. "I focused my entire high school career not just on getting a high school diploma, but on getting into Princeton," Obama said. "I thought I had done everything I could to prepare myself for Princeton, but when I got there, I was totally overwhelmed.

NEWS | 05/04/2014

Forbes dean to be replaced by a current Director of Studies

Jacob Donnelly

The position of dean of Forbes College, which was recently left vacant, is open to only six eligible candidates.The positioncan only be filled by someone who is currently a director of studies in a residential college at the University,according to an online job posting. A posting for a new director of studies is also advertised, although the residential college is not named, and is not restricted to internal candidates. Filling the post of dean with a director of studies is standard hiring procedure, Senior Associate Dean of the College ClaireFowler said in an interview.

NEWS | 05/04/2014

USG implements ‘Conversations’ project to engage students in dialogue

Charles Kyungchan Min

Conversations, the first summit of a new dialogue series,took place Thursday at Frist Campus Center’s food gallery during late meal. This new initiative, sponsored by USG and the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, intends to bring students from different backgrounds together and engage them in dialogues on different topics. “I was initially hoping that there would be a couple of 15-minute dialogues in five tables,” U-CouncilorSol Taubin ’16, the lead project coordinator for Conversations, said.

NEWS | 05/03/2014

News and Notes: Gilens appears on 'The Daily Show'

Daily Princetonian Staff

University politics professor Martin Gilens appeared on an episode of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Wednesdayalongside Northwestern University political science professor Benjamin Page. Gilens and Page published a study in April that used regression analysis to analyze the differences in influence that affluent individuals, interest groups and average citizens have on government policy outcomes. Gilens told Stewart that they analyzed over a thousand policy changes over the past few decades and found that elite groups and individuals had a disproportionate share of influence over policy. Page also addressed University economics and Wilson School professor Paul Krugman's view that the study raises good points but discourages people.

NEWS | 05/01/2014

News and Notes: U. cancels early morning classes following intense rain

Sheila Sisimit

The University delayed opening until 10 a.m. on Thursday due to many roads being closed and traffic being slowed by flooding, according to an email sent out by the University telephone and emergency notification system. Classes continued as scheduled. Only employees in critical roles needed to report for their shifts before 10 a.m. Dining halls, Frist Campus Center and all campus libraries except Mudd Library remained open as scheduled. The University also postponed the start of the working day several times earlier this year due to intense winter storms.

NEWS | 05/01/2014

U. included in list of ongoing Title IX investigations

Angela Wang

The Department of Education named Princeton as one of 55 colleges and universities currently under federal investigation for sexual violence complaints on Thursday.

NEWS | 05/01/2014

Student group organizes sit-in protest

Durva Trivedi

Wearing white face masks and black clothing, sitting cross-legged in a semicircle on the ground outside Frist Campus Center, about a dozen student members of Praxis Axis sat quietly in protest on Thursday at noon. The students played a recording of raised voices against classism, racism, sexism, heteronormativism and administrative response to sexual assault and mental health issues played on repeat. On its publicized “Day of Disruption,” the group published the Praxis Axis Press, a four-page newsletter, in which they relayed their manifesto, claiming to speak as a “collective of queer people, trans people, people of color and people of faith coming together for a simple purpose: to disrupt.” The group displaced Daily Princetonian newspapers in at least two distribution boxes, replacing them with the Praxis Axis Press.

NEWS | 05/01/2014

Art, psychology Class of 2016 majors overwhelmingly female

Ruby Shao

While bachelor's degree concentration declarations for the Class of 2016 were predominantly male in the science, technology, engineering and math fields, the gender distribution was roughly even in the social sciences and the humanities. Female A.B.

NEWS | 05/01/2014

Krueger lectures on post-recession economy, income inequality

Krueger lectures on post-recession economy, income inequality

Daniel Johnson

Alan Krueger spoke to seniors on Thursday about the difficulty of managing the economy during the recession and the importance that rising inequality could play in the future of the United States. Kruger is a professor of economics and public affairs and former Chairman of U.S.

NEWS | 05/01/2014

Habermas talks international law, European politics

Jacob Donnelly

The principle of state equality is an important goal of international law and a point of contention in European politics, Jürgen Habermas, philosopher and professor emeritus at the Goethe University Frankfurt, said in a lecture on Thursday. Habermas explained that in international law, the principle of state equality guarantees an equal standing to all states and governments. In contrast to Americans, the people of Europe do not want a large federal state, Habermas said.

NEWS | 05/01/2014

News & Notes: Obama, Biden, celebrities call for action against sexual assault

Daily Princetonian Staff

President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden appeared on Tuesday alongside celebrities such as Steve Carell and Daniel Craig in a 60-second video focusing on sexual assault. The video is a rousing call for action against sexual assault, which the all-male cast describes as “happening to our sisters, and our daughters, our wives and our friends.” It is the second public service announcement of the “1 is 2 Many”campaign the White House has been launching since 2012.

NEWS | 04/30/2014

News & Notes: Student accepted to all ivies chooses Yale

Daily Princetonian Staff

High school senior Kwasi Enin has decided to attend Yale this coming fall after being accepted by all eight Ivy League schools: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania and Yale, CNN reported. He announced his decision to accept Yale’s offer at a news conference in the gymnasium of his school, William Floyd High School. Enin said that his visit to Yale’s campus in New Haven, Conn.

NEWS | 04/30/2014

Falleti discusses contradictory research on participatory democracy in Latin America

Jacqueline Gufford

Participatory democracy is a work in progress, Tulia Falleti, associate professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania, saidin a lecture Wednesday on the introduction, spread and evolution of local participatory democracy in Latin America. Falleti is a fellow with the University’s quarterly political science journal, World Politics.

NEWS | 04/30/2014

Politics professor emeritus Paul Sigmund dies

Politics professor emeritus Paul Sigmund dies

Sarah Kim

Paul Sigmund, professor emeritus in the politics department, died at the University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro on Sunday from pneumonia, his family confirmed.

NEWS | 04/30/2014

Alpha Delta Phi establishes local affiliate at U.

Lorenzo Quiogue

The Alpha Delta Phi fraternity, a nationally chartered organization, has established a local affiliate at the University and has 13 members, according to the ADPhi national fraternity website. Jake Scinto ’16, the president of the fraternity's Princeton affiliate, explained he got the idea to form the organization from visiting his brother, who is a member of the fraternity's chapter at the University of Connecticut. “I went down and visited him, and I met a lot of different people from all over the country and the whole national organization, and I had always wanted to be a part of it, but I couldn't think of a way to contribute to it,” he explained. Scinto and his roommate, Henry Pease ’16, whose brother is a member of ADPhi at Dartmouth, then decided to get in touch with the national charter of the organization in late October to look into establishing a local chapter. Bill Bronson, the director of ADPhi, explained that the fraternity had been at the University in the 19th century, so the creation of the local affiliate was actually a “restart” for the organization. “[The national organization's board] seemed really excited about the whole thing, and they were really a huge help to us.

NEWS | 04/30/2014

Perception of wartime atrocities depends on who committed them, study says

Ray Mennin

Assistant psychology professor Alin I. Coman has published a one-year studyinPsychological Science,a journal of the Association for Psychological Science, assessing the effects of wartime atrocities on people of different social groups.

NEWS | 04/30/2014

Rosen ’17 founds nonprofit to include women in orthodox Judaism

Jacob Donnelly

Netzitzot, a new nonprofit venture cofounded by Maya Rosen ’17, is selling tzitzit online that are specifically tailored to women. Tzitzit are specially knotted ritual fringes worn by some adherents of Judaism.

NEWS | 04/29/2014

News & Notes: Almost half of New Jersey residents disapprove of Consolidation

Daily Princetonian Staff

More than a year after the municipal consolidation of Princeton Borough and Princeton Township, a survey by Rutgers-Eagleton shows that nearly half of New Jersey residents are not in favor of consolidating municipalities. According to the poll, 46 to 48 percent of state residents oppose their town consolidating with a nearby municipality, an eight percent increase from 2010. The township and the borough of Princeton merged in 2013; after the merging, the town saw a drop in crime rate, budget and tax savings and increase in bond rating. In an interview with the Princeton Packet, Anton Lahnston, former chairman of Princeton’s Consolidation Study Commission, explained that the reason for opposition could be found in residents’ suspicion about change and distrust in local government. The poll surveyed 816 state residents between March 31 and April 6.

NEWS | 04/29/2014

News & Notes: Harvard facing investigation for alleged misconduct in sexual assault cases

Daily Princetonian Staff

The U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights is launching an investigation into Harvard for alleged misconduct in handling sexual assault cases, the Huffington Post reported Monday. Among the accusations were Harvard allegedly failing to move a sexual assault perpetrator from the dormitory in which the victim lived, and that Harvard’s sexual assault policy is outdated and discriminatory. The Huffington Post had previously reported on March 31 that a group of Harvard students had asked the OCR for a review of Harvard’s legal compliance with Title IX and the Clery Act.

NEWS | 04/29/2014

In Bunch '09 murder-suicide case, a number of questions remain

Chitra Marti

At the University, Bryan Bunch ’09 was one of the only open libertarians on campus. He was “not your stereotypical student,” one of his friends said. Bunch also never joined an eating club, instead opting to live and dine in Mathey College for all four years, in one of the first classes that allowed students to live in their residential college as upperclassmen.

NEWS | 04/29/2014

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