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D'Souza and Singer debate God, morality

D'Souza and Singer debate God, morality

There is no God, at least not in the Judeo-Christian sense, Peter Singer said Wednesday night in a debate titled ?Can There Be Morality Without God?? before a capacity audience in Richardson Auditorium.The debate, co-sponsored by Princeton Faith and Action, the Fixed Point Foundation and the Christian Union, featured Singer, the Princeton professor and controversial ethicist, and Dinesh D?Souza, a conservative writer and former policy analyst for Ronald Reagan.In his opening argument, Singer explained that he would not focus on his personal beliefs but would instead debate more generally.?We are not discussing any particular moral views held by any particular atheist,? he said.D?Souza, however, begged to differ.

NEWS | 12/03/2008

Student leaders see cultural apathy on campus

Correction appended

NEWS | 12/03/2008

Council passes library parking allowance

Tuesday?s Borough Council meeting began with a complaint from a member of the public questioning the constitutionality of the practices of Princeton Borough?s elected officials.Vic Fedorov of Laurel Road said that locally elected officials regularly violate the 10th amendment to the United States Constitution ?by doing what state and federal legislators should do.?Fedorov explained, without mentioning specific Princeton examples, that the public is not sufficiently notified of lawsuits, construction projects or meetings and cited quorum laws in New England as an example of proper procedure during his five minutes of allotted time during the public presentation portion of the meeting.Borough Mayor Mildred Trotman asked Fedorov to submit his notes to the Borough Clerk, explaining that the notes would be reviewed and that an administrator would decide whether the issue was of enough importance to discuss at a future council meeting.The council also discussed the ongoing matter of the three Borough Police officers under investigation for improper use of video recordings.

NEWS | 12/02/2008

Panelists: U.S. must provide relief for developing world even in downturn

Despite the ongoing recession, the United States must continue to help developing nations, four panelists said at a discussion held on Tuesday afternoon in Robertson Hall.The panel, titled ?What are American Obligations to Financing Poverty Relief and Global Health in Economic Hard Times?? featured founder and president of Orphans International Worldwide (OIWW) Jim Luce, Wilson School professor and World Bank researcher Jeff Hammer, bioethics professor Peter Singer and politics professor Charles Beitz.?American obligations to global health are exactly the same during hard economic times as at other times,? Hammer told the audience of about 40.Hammer explained that the United States spent only $16 billion in humanitarian aid last year, about .5 percent of the national budget.

NEWS | 12/02/2008

Kirby '11, Greenwald '81 survive plane crash

Mitchell Kirby ?11 had a lot to be thankful for over Thanksgiving break after he and Dan Greenwald ?81 survived a plane crash at Peter O.

NEWS | 12/02/2008

Shih '09 is University's sole Marshall Scholarship recipient

Michael Shih ?09, the sole Princetonian recipient of the Marshall Scholarship this year, plans to receive three graduate degrees in the next five years.A Wilson School concentrator, Shih will pursue an M.Phil at Cambridge University next year and an MSc from Oxford in Modern Chinese Studies the following year.

NEWS | 12/02/2008

Kurtzer may be Obama's Middle East envoy

President-elect Barack Obama may select Wilson School professor Daniel Kurtzer to serve as his administration?s special envoy to the Middle East, according to Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper.

NEWS | 12/02/2008

Diemand-Yauman '10 unopposed for USG president

Editor's note appended

NEWS | 12/02/2008

Dueling referenda may be on USG ballot

The Coalition for Intellectual Liberty (CIL), a recently formed partnership of the Anscombe Society, the College Republicans, the Princeton Tory and individual students, is petitioning for a referendum on the upcoming USG election ballot that, if passed, would formally ask the University to refrain from taking positions on controversial issues.The proposed referendum states that ?it would undermine the integrity of the community?s intellectual freedom for the University itself to officially take sides on profound questions about which its members reasonably disagree.? It then asks that ?University officials ? refrain from ... associating the University with particular points of view on disputed questions of morality, law, and policy.?If the University were to take such positions, it would be telling dissenting students and faculty that they are wrong, Anscombe public relations chair Brandon McGinley ?10 said.

NEWS | 12/02/2008

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

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