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Pro-choice advocate: Stand up for rights

Pro-choice advocate: Stand up for rights

Several years ago, a bishop visited Nancy Keenan to talk about abortion."He came swooping down my hall ... and you could almost feel the tension," Keenan recalled last night."I know your mother," the bishop said."Well, she's pro-choice too," Keenan replied."How can [you] hold this position as a Catholic?" the bishop asked her."You can dictate in the halls of the cathedral," Keenan told him, "but you can't dictate in the halls of the capitol."Then a Montana state government official, Keenan firmly held the view that you should "stand by what you believe in" ? even if it meant defying your own church by supporting abortion rights.That conviction has guided Keenan since the beginning of her political career.

NEWS | 10/19/2006

Winners named in freshman government race

Connor Diemand-Yauman has been elected the first president of the Class of 2010, defeating J. Brendan McGuire in a 24-hour runoff election that concluded yesterday afternoon.Diemand-Yauman ran on the slogan "two last names, one vision" and promised to give freshmen more opportunities for community service."As freshmen, it can be easy to play it safe and simply follow in the footsteps of others, especially in groups such as student government," Diemand-Yauman said in an email.

NEWS | 10/19/2006

Football beats Harvard

Some like to paint history in broad, melodramatic terms, replete with momentous events and great men.

NEWS | 10/19/2006

Democratic Menendez links opponent Kean to Bush

In 1982, Robert Menendez donned a bulletproof vest and testified against Union City mayor William Musto, helping convict Musto on charges of racketeering, extortion and fraud.In the final few weeks before the 2006 midterm elections, Menendez, now New Jersey's Democratic junior senator, is pushing this story from his early career to defend his record on fighting corruption, while his opponent ? Republican Thomas Kean, Jr.

NEWS | 10/18/2006

Republican Kean condemns rival Menendez as corrupt

When Thomas Kean, Jr. was considering colleges 20 years ago, the obvious choice was Princeton.But rather than attend the university where generations of Keans had gone, and where his father, Thomas Kean, Sr.

NEWS | 10/18/2006

Preceptors lament fixation on grades

Grading is essential to measure progress but should not drown out learning, new professors and teaching assistants said yesterday in a meeting sponsored by the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning in Frist Campus Center."The grade is an important part of it, but not the only thing we are trying to get out of the grading process," said Natasha Zaretsky, a seventh-year graduate student in the anthropology department who currently teaches a writing seminar.While many undergraduates focus their energy on the ongoing grade deflation debate, their teachers, in a series titled "Grading as a Teaching Tool," are discussing ways to shift the focus to feedback and improvement.The graduate students, many teaching for the first time, discussed how grading can measure and facilitate student progress, how best to design and grade assignments and how to encourage students to value learning above getting good grades."Some students are so grade-focused.

NEWS | 10/18/2006

Remnick '81 faults journalists

"It is a matter of historical record that governments frequently lie," New Yorker editor and Pulitzer Prizewinner David Remnick '81 told a capacity crowd in McCormick Hall yesterday afternoon.In a lecture sponsored by the University Press Club, Remnick argued that investigative journalists must serve as a check against the government ? a role he said they failed to play in the buildup to the Iraq War."Investigative reporting failed to uncover in real time ... these patterns of disillusion, spin and manipulation," Remnick said.He noted the fallacy of the Bush administration's argument that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and blamed the press for not dispelling the myth."All we can do is to beat the hell out of ourselves to figure out how we could have done it better," he said.Despite his disappointment with pre-Iraq reporting, Remnick was quick to credit certain journalists who have taken more critical stances on the war.

NEWS | 10/18/2006

Slaughter unfazed by family's suit

Though the multi-million dollar Robertson suit has "mushroomed wildly out of control," with another court date set for November, students should not feel any adverse effects, Wilson School dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80 said at a town meeting for graduate students last night.Echoing her previous remarks on the case, Slaughter emphasized her desire for Wilson School students to pursue jobs in government, despite the Robertsons' accusations.

NEWS | 10/18/2006

Diemand-Yauman is new frosh president

Connor Diemand-Yauman, who campaigned saying he hopes to go beyond organizing class events to expand community service events, has been elected the first president of the Class of 2010, USG vice president Rob Biederman '08 said this afternoon."I understand that providing free food and Princeton gear for students is something that everyone enjoys, but these things seem trivial when compared to what we can accomplish for those who are in desperate need of help," Diemand-Yauman said in an email to The Daily Princetonian earlier this week.Fatu Conteh is the class's vice president, Phoebe Jin will serve as secretary, Aditya Panda as treasurer and Michael Chou as social chair.Freshmen will vote again for class officers at the end of the year, during the general USG elections.

NEWS | 10/18/2006

Filmmaker blasts Bush Iraq strategy

"If Americans knew this history, Bush would be out in five minutes," documentary filmmaker Bob Taicher told a crowded Dodds Auditorium yesterday evening.Taicher came to campus to promote his new film, "Rush to War," which criticizes the Bush administration's policies on the Iraq war.

NEWS | 10/17/2006

Run-offs in all freshman government races

Freshmen Connor Diemand-Yauman and J. Brendan McGuire will compete in a runoff for the Class of 2010 presidency, the USG announced yesterday evening.

NEWS | 10/17/2006

Grad student initiates Latin table

"Salve!"The living room echoed with the syllables of a long-dead language as members of the Princeton Latin table greet a new arrival, wet and bedraggled from the driving rain outside.

NEWS | 10/17/2006

Gager reflects on life outdoors

Religion professor emeritus John Gager reflected on the relationship between nature and spirituality last night.About 30 people, mainly students, weathered the rain to attend Gager's talk at Murray-Dodge, entitled "Spirituality & the Outdoors." It was the second event in the Outdoor Spirituality program cosponsored by Outdoor Action and the Office of Religious Life to promote student interaction with the natural world and reflection on those experiences.Outdoor Action director Rick Curtis '79 lightheartedly introduced the speaker."This is a weekly meeting of the John Gager fanclub," Curtis said, noting that Gager is an avid outdoorsman, hiker, skier and rock-climber.Gager, who retired last spring after teaching at the University for 28 years, sat in an armchair with crutches by his side.

NEWS | 10/17/2006

In search of history

Since 1984, art and archaeology professor William Childs '64 GS '71 has awoken most summer mornings at 4:15, early enough to buy fresh bread for the students he brought to Cyprus to excavate the ancient city of Marion.The purpose of the dig, which was completed this year, was to determine the earliest points of interaction between the Cypriot copper mining center and ancient Greece.

NEWS | 10/17/2006

With 17 in the race, a struggle to stand out

Posters bearing doctored photos and funny one-liners still line entryways and lampposts while the remaining candidates for the freshman class offices of president, vice president, treasurer, secretary and social chair await election results.The initial polls closed yesterday afternoon, after candidates completed a week of campaigning to set themselves apart in a broad field of 36 prospective officers.

NEWS | 10/17/2006

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