News

At the top of the world: Folkerts ’11 summits Mount Everest

At the top of the world: Folkerts ’11 summits Mount Everest

On her final ascent through the Khumbu Icefall, Vanessa Folkerts ’11 remembers the stillness being broken by a growing rumble. A red helicopter zoomed past on its way to a Himalayan peak, only to re-appear with a long rope swinging a loaded body bag.

NEWS | 09/22/2010

Local politician Diane Weeks ’75 passes away at 57

Diane Kathryn Weeks ’75, an attorney from nearby Mendham known for her civic engagement and love for the University, passed away Sept. 6. She was 57 years old.

NEWS | 09/21/2010

Study: $75K is upper limit to link between money, happiness

Can money buy happiness? Two prominent scholars at the Wilson School say “no.” Psychology professor emeritus Daniel Kahneman, who won the Nobel Prize in economics in 2002, and Wilson School professor Angus Deaton, a past president of the American Economic Association, collaborated on a study of this classic question using survey data from roughly 450,000 respondents on income and measures of happiness.

NEWS | 09/21/2010

Paid to play: Internships at Google and Microsoft

At many office buildings, mid-afternoon lethargy is fought with trips from the cubicle to the coffee maker. At Google, Joshua Newman ’11 learned, the battle is waged with Nerf guns.

NEWS | 09/21/2010

Mercer County schools receive $12M in federal funding

The New Jersey Department of Education announced on Monday its plans for allocating $268 million in federal education funds to school districts across the state, including $12 million for those in Mercer County.

NEWS | 09/21/2010

A business in biking

When Nick Frey ’09 began building a bamboo bicycle for a group project in 2008, the professional cyclist thought he was channeling his passion into schoolwork. He didn’t know it at the time, but he was also launching a second career as a bicycle designer.

NEWS | 09/21/2010

White House economic adviser Larry Summers will return to Harvard

White House economic adviser Larry Summers is set to depart the Obama administration and return to a professorship at Harvard at the end of the year, the White House announced Tuesday.

NEWS | 09/21/2010

Recruiters favor students at state schools, study shows

Two hundred miles from campus, Princeton’s peers at Penn State are having a laugh — and, perhaps, a job interview.Last week, The Wall Street Journal published the results of a survey finding that top companies prefer to recruit from large state universities rather than from Ivy League schools or small liberal arts institutions. According to the 479 recruiters that responded, Princeton is not among the overall top 45 schools for recruiting graduates.The schools identified are the “top picks for graduates best prepared and most able to succeed” in entry-level positions.

NEWS | 09/20/2010

Housing Office institutes new system for lockouts

For students locked out of their room, a call to Public Safety is no longer the ticket to a quick re-entry.The Undergraduate Housing Office implemented a new lockout policy this year, requiring students to pick up a temporary loaner key from the housing office in MacMillan Building if they get locked out during regular business hours. If the loaner key is not returned within 24 hours, the borrower will be charged $75 to pay for a lock change. Students locked out after regular business hours can still call Public Safety free of charge. According to the Public Safety website, students will also be charged for after-hours lockouts beginning next semester, though administrators emphasized that this proposal is still under consideration.

NEWS | 09/20/2010

Weinstein ’09 creates CollegeOnly, a social networking site targeted at college students

It’s a familiar feeling at Princeton: Students take photos at events, only to regret them when they appear on Facebook, open to the eyes of employers. But Josh Weinstein ’09 — the former USG president turned entrepreneur — said he has a solution.Last month, Weinstein launched CollegeOnly.com, the latest in a line of social networking websites he has created exclusively for college students that combines many features of his previous projects.

NEWS | 09/20/2010

University forms working group to study social life

The University announced the creation of a 13-member working group on campus residential and social life on Monday. President Shirley Tilghman charged the group with following up on the work of last year’s Task Force on the Relationship between the University and the Eating Clubs by soliciting opinions from diverse members of the University community.

NEWS | 09/20/2010

Class of 2014 contains greatest number of minority students ever

The Class of 2014 contains the greatest number of minority students in University history, according to new matriculation statistics released Monday night.The 1,313 members of the freshman class include 490 students from American minorities, constituting 37.3 percent of the class. There are also 141 international students from 47 countries, representing 10.7 percent of freshmen. The class also contains 208 students, representing nearly 16 percent of freshmen, who come from “low-income” backgrounds, according to a University statement.

NEWS | 09/20/2010

New certificate program in astrobiology explores potential for extraterrestrial life

The University has announced a new Planets and Life certificate program, which will introduce students to astrobiology, a field that explores the origins of life and the potential for life on other planets.Astrophyiscs professor Adam Burrows, director of the new program, explained that a number of students were interested in exploring the potential for life on other planets, a topic that is garnering increasing attention nationally, internationally and locally.

NEWS | 09/20/2010

Charter will use weighted sign-in system

Seven months after Charter Club became the only sign-in club to fill to capacity in first-round sign-ins, the club has decided to change the format of its sign-in system for this February, allowing sophomores to boost their chances of acceptance by attending club events.

NEWS | 09/19/2010

Sex may reduce stress, study shows

A new study by University researchers suggests something that college students have known for decades: Sexual activity may lower stress.

NEWS | 09/19/2010

Lights, camera, action

Several students used the summer to get their feet wet in the moviemaking industry, getting a front-row seat to the acting, marketing and behind-the-scenes wrangling that goes into every film.

NEWS | 09/19/2010

Print quota cut costs by 1 percent

Paper consumption fell 17 percent and printing costs declined 1 percent during the 2009-10 academic year after the Office of Information Technology implemented a printing quota last October, OIT senior manager Leila Shahbender said in an e-mail.

NEWS | 09/19/2010

Federal law aims to ease burden of textbook costs

A new federal law requires that colleges and universities post, “to the maximum extent practicable,” the ISBNs and retail price details of all textbooks on their online course schedule, so that students can have the information they need to shop around in advance. Alternatively, according to a June announcement from the Department of Education, schools can link course schedules to a site such as an affiliated bookstore. Princeton is compliant with the law because lists are posted on Labyrinth’s website and linked to the Registrar’s site, University spokeswoman Emily Aronson said in an e-mail. But the textbook buying experience remains unchanged for students, who still have to go through Labyrinth to find ISBNs and prices for most textbooks.

NEWS | 09/16/2010

Chin ’75 discusses landmark internment trial

With Denny Chin ’75 narrating, 13 students celebrated Constitution Day on Thursday afternoon by reenacting the historic 1942 trial of Minoru Yasu, who intentionally violated a curfew imposed upon Japanese-Americans during World War II.

NEWS | 09/16/2010

Pair of newly released rankings of world’s best universities place Princeton 5th, 10th

Princeton was ranked fifth and tenth among the world’s best universities, according to two major rankings released this month. Times Higher Education put Princeton behind Harvard, California Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford, in that order, in a ranking released yesterday, while QS placed Princeton behind four British universities, Harvard, Yale, MIT, University of Chicago and Caltech. University of Cambridge had the best score in the QS ranking.

NEWS | 09/16/2010

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