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Homeland Security's Chertoff to visit campus Saturday

Homeland Security's Chertoff to visit campus Saturday

Homeland Security secretary Michael Chertoff will give the closing address of the Wilson School's 75th anniversary kickoff weekend on Saturday afternoon, school spokesman Steve Barnes said Wednesday.Chertoff's speech, scheduled for 2 p.m., is expected to focus on the role of international partnerships in the war on terror and the Department of Homeland Security's risk management strategy.Chertoff is the second Bush administration cabinet official speaking in as many days.

NEWS | 09/28/2005

Gates to speak on technology

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates will speak at Richardson Auditorium on Oct. 14 about the ever-changing role of computer technology in today's world, the University announced Wednesday.Gates was also named the recipient of the 2005 Crystal Tiger Award, which was founded two years ago to honor an individual who has improved society and impacted the lives of undergraduates.Gates' address ? scheduled for 11:30 a.m.

NEWS | 09/28/2005

Robertson recounts role engineering Twin Towers

World-renowned structural engineer Leslie Robertson, chief engineer of the original World Trade Center in New York, spoke Wednesday about his design of the Twin Towers and said he had designed the buildings with an airplane impact in mind.His design was sufficient to withstand the impact of the largest plane of the time, a Boeing 707, Robertson said.But the force of impact from the larger Boeing 767 planes ? first produced some 15 years after the buildings were constructed ? was too much for the towers."All this talk of designing buildings for airplane impact is crazy," Robertson said.

NEWS | 09/28/2005

Public Safety to get new offices

The Department of Public Safety will relocate to a newly renovated facility at 200 Elm Drive, near Baker Rink, at the end of next month.Director of Public Safety Steve Healy called the new location an "absolutely beautiful building." The department has been housed in Stanhope Hall since the early 1970s.Public Safety staff will move into the building on Oct.

NEWS | 09/28/2005

University begins to renovate Dillon Gym

The first wave of renovations to Dillon Gym, which took place from August 15 to August 21, brought changes to its interior including a refinished main gym floor, a renovated Martial Arts Room and shock-absorbent flooring under exercise machines in the Stephens Fitness Center.The renovations are part of a project by the Health and Well-Being Task Force to upgrade the "appearance and operation of Dillon Gym," according to William Traubel, the University's director of building maintenance.

NEWS | 09/27/2005

Library supporters begin year-long celebration

In honor of its 75th anniversary, the Friends of the Princeton University Library has planned a series of year-round events that will serve as both a celebration and a fundraiser for the University.The celebrations, which are free for all members, will include a series of workshops on the physical book, tours of Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., libraries to view the Friends' collections and a dinner featuring Pulitzer Prizewinning poets Paul Muldoon and C.K.

NEWS | 09/27/2005

New religious group advocates environmentalism

Three University professors have joined a newly-formed alliance created to oppose a proposed Congressional bill that would change the Endangered Species Act (ESA).The Noah Alliance, a partnership of Jews and evangelical Christians, issued concurrent statements by the Academy of Evangelical Scientists and Ethicists and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life opposing the bill.

NEWS | 09/27/2005

RIAA plans suit against another student

Less than six months after the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) brought copyright infringement lawsuits against 26 University students, it now appears that yet another student will soon be sued.As part of its ongoing campaign to curb illegal file-sharing on college campuses, the music industry trade group plans to subpoena the University for information on a student allegedly engaged in music piracy, OIT senior policy adviser Rita Saltz said Monday.Saltz refused to indicate whether the targeted individual is a graduate or undergraduate student, but did say that the person has been notified.RIAA spokesperson Jenni Engebretsen said she would not comment on any future or potential litigation.The University received the notice from the RIAA Sept.

NEWS | 09/27/2005

Fall study abroad numbers decline

Correction appended Study abroad has been significantly less popular this fall, with the number of students overseas less than half the number that were abroad at this time last year.

NEWS | 09/27/2005

Eating clubs raise funds for victims

From male auctions to rock concerts, eating clubs have come up with creative ways to raise money to benefit the victims of Hurricane Katrina.Cap and Gown Club will be donating the $1,000 it won in a dodgeball tournament last spring, as well as supplies, to a school from the region struck by the hurricane."We're working on picking a recipient so we can arrange a donation of school supplies, books, or whatever they need," Cap President Matthew Klitus '06 said.

NEWS | 09/26/2005

Medical school exam to go digital

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) announced in July that it will administer only computer-based MCAT exams after August 2006, cutting the test's length nearly in half.

NEWS | 09/26/2005

Dancing with molecules

Nicknamed the "paper machine" by Matthias Roth GS, chemistry professor Herschel Rabitz has collected an astounding 653 publications for nearly four decades of work in the fields of chemistry, physics, engineering and biology.Rabitz, predominantly a theoretician, seeks to push the boundaries of what we can control.He's working on "manipulating the motions of atoms and molecules using lasers to make the molecules dance.""We want them to dance to our tunes," Rabitz said.His ultimate goal is to pull apart atoms and use lasers as a "molecular pair of scissors."This problem has fascinated scientists for 40 years, Rabitz said, but they have primarily approached it through the limited approach of intensely focusing a single wavelength of laser ? red or blue, for example ? on a molecule.But that idea is too simple, he explained, because molecules move in complicated ways."You don't make a Beethoven sonata by playing one key of the piano because you're sensitive to the sounds.

NEWS | 09/26/2005

Slaughter joins Freedom board

Four years after the devastating Sept. 11 attacks, the World Trade Center is again in the news, this time over controversial plans to construct an International Freedom Center on the site.The idea has come under criticism from some victims' families for focusing too broadly on freedom, detracting from the heroes of that day.

NEWS | 09/26/2005

Keohane explores definition of terrorism

The United States has been fighting an international war on terror for the past four years, but the official definition of what constitutes a terrorist act is debatable.

NEWS | 09/26/2005

U.S. lags in stem cell work, study finds

The United States' share of new publications in stem cell research is unexpectedly low and declining, according to a recent paper by Aaron Levine, a doctoral candidate in the Wilson School.

NEWS | 09/25/2005

Rising energy costs won't cause cutbacks

Despite millions of dollars in unexpected energy costs resulting from the impact of Hurricane Katrina, the University will not cut planned expenditures for the 2005-06 academic year, the University budget director said.Instead, the University will use endowment income to meet a projected budget shortfall, even as administrators consider energy conservation strategies to contain costs."Right now, there is no plan to make dramatic short-term cuts in the budget.

NEWS | 09/25/2005

Students teleconference to discuss fair trade

When the topic was NAFTA, Alexandra Connell '07 could ask students at the University of Guadalajara about deepening economic inequality.

NEWS | 09/25/2005

Simonyi donates $25 million to Institute

The Institute for Advanced Study drew dramatically closer to its yearlong fundraising goal with a $25 million gift from billionaire software developer and Institute trustee Charles Simonyi, the Institute announced Friday.Simonyi, who made his fortune developing Excel and Word for Microsoft, said he wanted to lessen the Institute's reliance on what he characterized as "uncertain" government funding."With a total endowment of $400 million, [the Institute] has worked with 21 Nobel Prize winners and practically all Fields Medals winners," Simonyi said.

NEWS | 09/25/2005

Franco '08 travels to Louisiana to volunteer

The images of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina inspired sympathy and horror in students who watched on TV, but they inspired Eugene Franco '08 to buy a plane ticket to Baton Rouge and take part in an enormous relief effort."I kind of felt compelled to do it because I'm from NYC, and after 9/11, the whole country sent donations and contributed expertise to the clean up effort and the rescue effort there," Franco said.

NEWS | 09/25/2005

Schools file brief on recruiting

Seven universities, including Columbia, Cornell, Harvard, Yale and the University of Pennsylvania, filed a legal brief last week opposing the military's "don't ask, don't tell" policy in anticipation of an upcoming Supreme Court case on the controversial Solomon Amendment.Princeton, one of three Ivy League schools with a Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) program on campus, was not approached about participating in the brief because it lacks a law school, according to Vice President and Secretary Robert Durkee '69.The case before the Court, Rumsfeld v.

NEWS | 09/25/2005

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