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Search engines will soon index Facebook pages

Search engines will soon index Facebook pages

Already under fire for allegedly loosening its privacy safeguards in recent months, facebook.com is facing further scrutiny after it announced plans to make some member information visible on web-based search engines such as Google.From its controversial news feed to recent talk of disclosing members' interests to advertisers, the popular networking site has recently sparked debate about its protection of user profiles, though that information remains far more restricted than on other networking sites like myspace.com.But Facebook administrators said the new policy ? which takes effect early next month and will make members' names, class years and profile pictures searchable by any internet user ? will not compromise users' privacy.

NEWS | 09/19/2007

Rumsfeld '54 provokes protests at Stanford

Stanford has recruited former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld '54 to join the Hoover Institution for one year as a visiting fellow.But nearly 2,000 Stanford faculty, students and community members have signed an online petition calling the decision to bring Rumsfeld, 75, to the conservative think tank "fundamentally incompatible with [Stanford's] ethical values." Some members of the university's Faculty Senate have called for a resolution in protest.Rumsfeld, who served as defense secretary twice, from 1975 to 1977 and then again from 2001 to 2006, is a polarizing figure, and debate on the Stanford campus seems polarized, too."We think he has distinguished himself for all the wrong things than what the university should stand for and what America should stand for," psychology professor emeritus Philip Zimbardo told The San Jose Mercury News.

NEWS | 09/19/2007

Bringing green to students' fridges

Local farmers selling organic fruit and grass-fed beef will transform the plaza outside Firestone Library into a makeshift market on Tuesdays this fall.The Greening Dining Group, a partnership between Princeton University Dining Services and Greening Princeton, has teamed up with several campus offices to organize the farmer's market in an effort to educate the University community on organic eating, local produce and environmental sustainability.Co-coordinators of the market Kathryn Andersen '08 and Ruthie Schwab '09 hired local farmers and vendors who use sustainable practices to sell their produce.

NEWS | 09/19/2007

Inspiring Oprah's charity

Sixteen years ago, a four-year-old girl and her father were walking down the street when they encountered a homeless man.

NEWS | 09/18/2007

Hazing charges dropped at Rider

The Mercer County prosecutor's office has dropped aggravated assault charges against two Rider University officials.

NEWS | 09/18/2007

Leach '64 accepts post at the Kennedy School

Less than a year after departing politics for academia, Wilson School visiting professor and former Iowa congressman Jim Leach '64 will take a leave of absence from the University to accept a post at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.Leach, who will serve as director of the school's Institute of Politics for the current academic year, cited the opportunity to help students enter the political scene and embark on service careers."The Institute of Politics is an engaging and dynamic place," he said in a statement, "and I am eager to begin working closely with students and staff, faculty and fellows to energize young people to embrace the challenges and opportunities of politics and public service."This semester was slated to be Leach's second of three semesters teaching at his alma mater. The longtime Iowa congressman ? who voted against the Iraq war and was known as one of Capitol Hill's most liberal Republicans ? was ousted from his House seat after the 2006 midterm elections, a casualty of public dissatisfaction with a foreign policy he himself had opposed.At Princeton, Leach was scheduled to teach a course on the international relations of East Asia, but the class was cancelled once it was clear that Leach would probably leave, interim Wilson School Dean Nolan McCarty said.McCarty said he does not blame Leach for his decision.

NEWS | 09/18/2007

A day with Petraeus GS '85

Like always, the din from the rotors of the Black Hawk was overwhelming. As though the whole picture were on mute, the rotorwash drowning out all other noise, I watched as Colonel Mike Meese GS '00, my professor for a Wilson School course last spring, climbed silently into the helicopter and buckled up across from me, followed by three more soldiers in bulky armor.Then Col.

NEWS | 09/18/2007

University to launch $1.75 billion campaign

The University will launch a five-year, $1.75 billion fundraising campaign Nov. 9, administrators and trustees confirmed yesterday.The campaign, the University's first since the completion of a $1.14 billion capital campaign in 2000, will support the major stated initiatives of President Tilghman's administration, including the creative and performing arts neighborhood, the engineering school, the neuroscience institute, financial aid, international outreach and campus life issues."All of us who have been involved in this see this as a tremendous opportunity to make Princeton an even better university than it is," Tilghman said in an interview.

NEWS | 09/18/2007

Campus Club hires director

As renovations begin on Campus Club, the eating club that closed two years ago, recently hired club director Dianne Spatafore has begun to prepare for the opening of yet another center for student life on a campus that already has a student center and six residential colleges.Spatafore will spend this year overseeing the club's renovation as well as planning the club's policies and calendar in conjunction with a soon-to-be-appointed student advisory board of 12 undergraduates and six graduate students.

NEWS | 09/18/2007

Middlesex author Eugenides to teach creative writing

With seven years and a Pulitzer Prize under his belt, author Jeffrey Eugenides has returned to Princeton to join other lauded writers like Joyce Carol Oates and Chang-rae Lee in teaching in the University's creative writing program.Paul Muldoon, chair of the Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, described Eugenides as "that rare creature ? a great writer who is also widely admired, including by a generation only recently come to reading."Eugenides taught at the University in 1999-2000, around the time that his 1993 debut novel "The Virgin Suicides" was made into feature film starring James Woods, Kathleen Turner and Kirsten Dunst.In 2003, he won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for "Middlesex," the coming-of-age story of an intersex person growing up in Michigan.

NEWS | 09/17/2007

A healthy start

Students refueled with bagels and cream cheese on McCosh walk yesterday morning. The free brunch was provided by the USG.

NEWS | 09/17/2007

A 'Second' Princeton

Students can now wander Nassau Hall, gaze across Richardson Auditorium and relax in Chancellor Green ? all without leaving their dorm rooms.Now that several locations on campus have been replicated in Second Life, an online program that lets users live, work and own property in a 3D virtual world, those buildings can be explored through the internet.

NEWS | 09/17/2007

Average grades drop 6.4 percent

The average percentage of A's awarded to undergraduates has dropped by over six percent University-wide since the grade deflation policy was implemented three years ago, according to a report released yesterday by the Faculty Committee on Grading.While an average of 47 percent of undergraduates received A's in courses during the period 2001-04, the percentage fell to an average of 40.6 percent from 2004-07.The grade deflation policy requires every department to cap its A-level grades at 35 percent in undergraduate courses and at 55 percent for independent work."The Princeton faculty has now demonstrated conclusively that with clear intent and concerted effort, a university faculty can bring down the inflated grades that ? left uncontrolled ? devalue the educational achievements of American college students," the Committee reported.The Faculty Committee on Grading incorporated last academic year's grading results into a broader comparison of the percentages of A's granted before and after the policy was implemented in fall 2004.Humanities departments saw the greatest decreases in the percentage of A grades awarded.

NEWS | 09/17/2007

Summer in the heat of battle

Well before dawn on a day in late July, encumbered by a rucksack, assault pack, helmet and body armor, I waddled out of a boxlike armored vehicle called a Rhino onto the tarmac in Baghdad's International Zone under the watchful eyes of half a dozen heavily armed security contractors.

NEWS | 09/17/2007

Colbert slated for Class Day

Comedian Stephen Colbert, the host of the satirical Comedy Central show "The Colbert Report," will deliver the Class Day address on June 2, senior class president Tom Haine '08 announced yesterday morning."For his success as an actor, author and public speaker, we are honored that Mr. Colbert will be joining the senior class to help us celebrate the end of our college careers," Haine said in an email to seniors.In choosing a speaker, the Class Day chairs looked for a celebrity ? someone whom students would know and be able to identify with, said Jonathan Galeano '08, one of three Class Day co-chairs charged with selecting a speaker.Describing Colbert as "our gift to the class," Galeano said he thought Colbert's satirical wit would appeal to the student body."Princetonians would tend to love that kind of satire," he said.Many seniors reacted positively to yesterday morning's announcement.

NEWS | 09/17/2007

Stephen Colbert to speak at Class Day

Comedian Stephen Colbert, widely known as the host of the satirical Comedy Central show "The Colbert Report," will deliver the Class Day address on June 2, Class of 2008 president Tom Haine announced this morning."For his success as an actor, author and public speaker, we are honored that Mr. Colbert will be joining the senior class to help us celebrate the end of our college careers," Haine said in an email to the Class of 2008.The announcement comes on the heels of a controversy over the 2007 Class Day speaker, "West Wing" actor Bradley Whitford, a selection that disappointed a number of last year's seniors.

NEWS | 09/16/2007

Activities fair

Freshmen attend the fall activites fair in Dillon Gym, where hundreds of student organizations attempted to attract new members.

NEWS | 09/16/2007

Despite criticism, University stays in rankings game

For the eighth consecutive year, Princeton ranked first on U.S. News & World Report's list of top universities, which the magazine released last month.Newsweek and Kaplan, meanwhile, called the University the "Hottest for Liberal Arts" on its "Hottest Universities" list, in which 25 institutions are singled out for excellence in a particular category.

NEWS | 09/16/2007

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