Thirty regular decision applicants to Georgetown University, who have not yet been officially accepted to the university, received e-mails from the biology department, which congratulated them and welcomed them into the Class of 2014.
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions sent the biology department a list of acceptees from the Early Action program who had expressed interest in studying biology, but also inadvertently included on this list the names of the 30 regular decision applicants who were likely to be accepted. The department of biology sent the congratulatory e-mails to all the applicants on the list, to both accepted early-action applicants and to the regular-decition applicants.
Following the minor mishap, the admissions office sent the 30 elated students another e-mail, which stated that though they had not officially been accepted, they were “likely” to be admitted.
In February, The George Washington University sent acceptance e-mails to roughly 200 of its Early Decision II applicants who had (already) been notified of their rejection a few weeks earlier.
What’s going on in Washington?
By Wonpyo Yun, staff writer for News
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Georgetown follows George Washington’s lead
Saturday, March 6, 2010
Students petition USG-funded "porn screening"
Anscombe Society President Shivani Radhakrishnan '11 began an online petition this Wednesday and posters advertising the petition have cropped up around campus this weekend. Radhakrishnan is also a member of The Daily Princetonian Editorial Board.
In late February, the USG voted to grant $1,500 to the student group Let’s Talk Sex (LeTS) to fund the event. The petition is aimed at four administrators at the University including President Shirley Tilghman and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Students Thomas Dunne.
In a Daily Princetonian article, Radhakrishnan said that while the Anscombe Society does not object to discussion about pornography, “screening pornography ... is a relevantly different situation.”
The online petition, which is seeking 500 signatures, had 223 as of Saturday evening. The text of the petition reads, "We, as students of Princeton, oppose the public screening of pornography on campus." A sizable number of the signatories, however, are Princeton alumni or individuals not affiliated with the University.
*Update (3/7): The text of the petition now reads: "students, alumni, and community members of the Princeton community".
— Tasnim Shamma '11
Friday, March 5, 2010
Anscombe Society + Princeton Pride Alliance join forces
This Thursday, the Princeton Pride Alliance and the Anscombe Society are co-sponsoring a petition in the Frist Campus Center to protest the Ugandan "Anti-Homosexuality Bill"
and encourage Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to continue her efforts against the bill, which includes life imprisonment of homosexuals and HIV positive individuals.
Homosexuality is illegal in more than 30 African countries including Uganda, where it is currently punishable with up to 14 years in prison. In late January, the Ugandan Parliament agreed to remove the death penalty from the bill, but the Parliament is expected to continue discussing the bill in the coming weeks and months.
At the annual National Prayer Breakfast on February 4th, both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke out against the bill. Numerous religious organizations and leaders have also issued statements against the bill.
This marks a first in the recent history of these organizations. Read the 'Prince' this week for more details and coverage of the partnership and petition.
— Tasnim Shamma '11
Thursday, March 4, 2010
On and in the walls of the library
Just by walking around the perimeter of Firestone, you can stumble across a number of plaques and other mementos from Princeton’s past. If you walk up the steps from Washington Road, you’ll pass a terra cotta plaque (right), the only trace of the 1877 Laboratory. The laboratory — the precursor to Guyot Hall — occupied Firestone's current location until it was torn down in 1946 to make way for the library.The next time you go into the library, if you look to your right just before going through the main doors, you’ll see this ornament (below), a present from His Majesty, King George VI. It is a piece from the Houses of Parliament that was blown off during Word War II.
The library also has a time capsule of sorts. A small, lead-coated copper box rests in the cornerstone of the library. According to The Princeton Alumni Weekly, this box contains a variety or records and objects including a Bible; both a University and a Graduate College catalogue; a phonebook; a reproduction of the catalogue of the College of New Jersey from 1760; paraphernalia from the University's Bicentennial; a biography and picture of Mr. Firestone; copies of The New York Times, Princeton Herald, Princeton Packet, the Daily Princetonian, and the Alumni Weekly; photographs of the models of the library; some coins; and a copy of a letter from Thomas Jefferson to Ebenezer Hazard on the importance of preserving records. The box also contains specimens of the Osteopleurus newarki, which appears to be a species of fish from New Jersey. The first fossils of the Osteopleurus newarki were found during the construction of the library.As a final note, all the lights on the outside of the library are compact fluorescent.
Poor Woodrow Wilson
Overheard in front of Frist this evening:
A sophomore girl is shrieking on the phone, holding a letter and running up the stairs from the first floor, saying: Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! [So quickly, that it sounds like she's saying "Money!"]
"I just got into Woody Woo!". She repeats this in a high-pitched voice several times and is still running as she's shouting.
Two guys cross paths with her and are walking down into Frist. Once they get inside, the guy repeatedly says "Oh my God, I can't believe that just happened!" He proceeds to point his finger to his head and pretends to shoot himself.
Good luck to all of the sophomores who applied! You're in for a ride! :)
— Tasnim Shamma '11
Wednesday, March 3, 2010
$10,000 of belongings stolen from Pyne Hall
Roughly $10,000 worth of personal belongings were stolen from a dorm room in Pyne Hall today, Public Safety Deputy Director Charles Davall said this afternoon. Between 10 a.m. and 1:08 p.m., someone went into a student’s unlocked room and stole the items, which included two computers, an “expensive” watch and gaming equipment, Davall said.
There were no witnesses and Public Safety has no suspects.
"We really, really implore the students to lock their doors. It’s the number one way they can prevent something like this from happening,” Davall said. After the theft was reported, officers canvassed Pyne Hall and asked whether student has seen “anything suspicious,” said Ana Sollitto ’11, who lives in the dorm. She said that officers went room-to-room to see if anyone was hiding in the rooms.
Davall said that officers, as part of protocol, were checking nearby unlocked rooms to see if anything “looked amiss.” Public Safety then locked the doors behind them. Davall said officers were not looking for a hiding suspect.
By Henry Rome, staff writer for News
Orange and Apples: Cambridge
With midterms coming up you might be ready to run away to another country. In that case, how does time in the United Kingdom sound? David Sayers, a graduate student in Near Eastern Studies and former undergraduate at Cambridge University, compares the two institutions.
Cambridge and Princeton have a lot of superficial similarities. They’re both underdog rivals to better-known institutions: one of them to Oxford, the other to Harvard. They’ve both got gothic architecture: one of them real, the other fake. They’ve both got chapels: one of them the largest in the world, the other the second-largest. They’ve both got collegiate systems: one of them evolved over the centuries, the other instituted by fiat to rival unsavory dining establishments. You catch my drift. It’s hard to come from Cambridge to Princeton for the first time and see more than a pale imitation of the former place in the latter. If you happen to spend some time in both places, however, that first impression quickly evaporates.
Perhaps the greatest single difference between Cambridge and Princeton lies in the relationship between university and town. In Cambridge, the university is the undeniable core of the town. It occupies the center, all roads lead to it, and much of the town caters to it and its students in the form of shops, pubs, clubs and even the kebab vans that pull up on market square at three in the morning to feed ravenous partygoers. The centrality of the university also breeds its own animosity, however: the famous hatred between town and gown, courtesy of which, again at three in the morning, I received the first proper beating of my life at the hands of a group of townies whom, in my freshman innocence, I had dared to ask which college they attended.
Such a thing would never happen in Princeton, not because the relationship between town and university is so good, but simply because there is none. Only the Communiversity fair brings town and gown together --- oh, I don’t know, every term? every year? --- across the otherwise stygian divide that is Nassau Street. It’s not so much that you can’t cross Nassau Street as a student, but that once you’re over there, there’s simply nothing there for you. Sure, there is the Princeton Record Exchange, the biggest secondhand music store on the entire East Coast. But if you’re looking for an affordable place to drink with your friends, a clothing store that has anything other than what a 50-something WASP U.S. suburbanite might want to wear or, God forbid, a club, I wish you better luck than I’ve had.
I won’t even try to compare the two places in terms of academic excellence. If you’re lucky enough to be in a position to choose between two institutions like Cambridge and Princeton, it really comes down to apples and oranges. What you should ask yourself is what kind of environment would suit your character and goals better. Cambridge is diverse but distracting. During my time there I performed in plays, edited a newspaper, got kicked out of bars --- and had an average grade to show for it. That didn’t stop me from getting into Princeton, a place that is introspective but inbred. Here, I can’t wait to escape to New York on the weekends, but academically, I’ve never done better. And who knows what that might get you into?
If you're a former Tiger who is now pursuing graduate studies elsewhere or a Princeton grad student who attended undergrad outside the Orange Bubble and would like to contribute a comparison send an email to blog@dailyprincetonian.com.
Diggin' In The Mudd: Historical Princeton Poems & Songs
There is an ancient faculty most ancient in renown. The town is full of talent, and lager beer saloons When we look back on the days spent at college, Over the years that have parted our class— Deepened the furrows of life where they pass— Over the scenes of our old college days, Over our friendships, our sports and our lays. Cheer again ! Cheer again ! Cheer again ! Cheer again !
You thought "Old Nassau" captured the spirit of Princeton? How about these songs and poems from pre-1920 Princetonian history? Each provides a different (sometimes amusing) look at Princeton life and spirit!-Princeton Songbook, pub. 1869
That rules an ancient college built in ye ancient town;
The town is in the inland, far from ye ancient sea.
About the middle of the State of New-Jer-ze.
The boys sometimes get "dead broke" and pawn their old spittoons.
But this thing doesn't last long, the reason you shall see—
We always borrow when we're short in New-Jer-ze.
All powdered up, and lovely, in chignon and gay curls;
They always smash our hearts, although it strange may be.
The same girls smashed Out fathers' hearts in New-Jer-ze.
-Class of 1872, History Pamphlet
Years which have deepened and strengthened our knowledge,
Then we shall linger with dear recollections
Over our longings, our deeds, our reflections,
Till the echoes are borne far and wide,
Let the praises of Nassau abide.-Published "Princeton Verse", 1904
-John Russell Hayes, Collected Poems pub. 1916
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Samuelson on "Downward Mobility"
Robert Samuelson, columnist for the Washington Post and Newsweek, gave a lecture yesterday about the future of the American economy. He lectured to an audience of approximately 40 people, almost all of whom were above the age of 60. Other than me, there was just one other student, and he was dressed up like he might as well have been over 60.
Samuelson predicts that “Downward Mobility” will characterize the future of the American economy, meaning essentially that the incomes of Americans may increase slightly or stay stagnant, but the purchasing power of the average American family will be noticeably reduced. He noted that since the end of the Second World War, Americans have seen a relatively high rate of income increases, but that going into the future, economic growth seems limited.
Find out more about this talk after the jump.
Samuelson noted that, since the 1940s and 50s, economic growth has relied on two factors: an increase in productivity, and an increase in the labor force. The latter has historically been centered around an increase in married women entering the workforce and population growth following the baby boom. However, in recent years both of these have stagnated with baby boomers retiring and a peak in the number of working married women.
Now that baby boomers are claiming social security benefits, Samuelson believes that a combination of higher taxes and lower spending on benefits is the only way to sustain social security in order to avoid the “Downward spiral” which is being faced by nations such as Greece who constantly have to raise taxes to sustain their entitlement programs, which penalizes economic growth, resulting in lower revenue, and the need to continue to raise taxes while destroying their economy.
Samuelson suggests that the future of America may mean that “families will live in slightly smaller homes, drive slightly smaller cars, be more efficient with energy usage, and possibly go out to dinner less” which in his eyes “isn’t a tragedy.” However Samuelson concluded saying that he might be wrong, and none of what he describes will happen.
By Randy Khalil, staff writer for News
Monday, March 1, 2010
WWS 543 from the comfort of your own home
Paul Krugman, a professor of economics at the University, is also a writer for The New York Times. This semester he is teaching WWS 543: International Trade Policy and has apparently decided to make some of the course's content open to the general public.
This semester, he has been posting content from the class on his blog, The Conscience of a Liberal. This week, he is apparently lecturing about preindustrial trade. Surprisingly, none of the commenters have remarked on this unusual blogging activity.
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