On more than one occasion I have had the misfortune of taking a train from the airport in Newark to Princeton Junction only to find that the incoming Dinky wouldn't be leaving for another hour. But I may one day reminisce about this unpredictable service, as proposals have been made to replace the train with a shuttle bus instead.
This was all prompted by the proposed move of the Dinky station to make way for the arts portion of the Arts and Transit Neighborhood. Apparently this did not sit so well with many Princeton residents.
But now, a proposal has been put forth to do away with the Dinky altogether. In its stead, a shuttle bus would run from Princeton Junction to Princeton along what is currently the Dinky's path. The bus would continue to so-called downtown Princeton.
An opinion piece by Chip Crider GS '79, who runs a local business, severely criticizes the proposed plan, noting that:
This [proposal] was touted as a solution to the Dinky station location stalemate elicited by the university's Arts Campus proposal. Well, who caused the stalemate? It was certainly not the university; it was those who insisted on not moving the Dinky station an inch ... And now the same people want to eliminate the Dinky.
We haven't yet heard the opinions students, faculty and University staff — who will be affected just as much by these plans. What do you think?
By Aaron Hosios, editor for Blogs
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Shocked? Saddened? Or maybe you made it to the festivities. Pi Day, held on March 14 (3.14, in case you're curious), is a celebration of everyone's favorite ratio, π.
While the math department has previously celebrated the fest with a pie eating contest and a digits of pi recitation contest to see who can recall the most, this year, March 14 fell during Spring Recess, and was not celebrated on campus.
This year, however, marked the town's first Annual Princeton Pi Day, complete with pie judging and pi recitation. Events at 1:59 (as π = 3.14159...) were run by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory researchers. Finally, local businesses offered discounts in honor of this day, which also happens to be Einstein's birthday.
For those who are simply devastated by their being unable to attend, fear not! March 14 will fall before Spring Recess during spring semester in 2012.
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But only if you're in business.
Carl Icahn '57, after whom the lab on campus is named, was recently the subject of a feature in The New York Times. The feature takes a look at his attitudes to business and his interactions with business executives.
While at the University, Icahn was a philosophy major. After graduating, he briefly attended medical school, but became a stockbroker instead.
Icahn — who, like many alumi, turned to the world of investment — is said to have "over the years perfected the art of stirring up trouble for companies and making money — sometimes lots of it — for his investors and himself."
The juiciest details come near the end of the feature where Icahn explains why he sued a good friend (and tennis partner) of his for making a business decision he didn't like.
Funds for the Carl Icahn Lab were donated by the Icahn Family Foundation, which Icahn founded and chairs, in 1999. The building was opened in 2003.
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Well, Spring Recess is over, and as everyone trickles back to campus, we're getting ready to resume regular blogging this week. Much has happened over break, so let's look back at some of the excitement:
1. Evacuations: As I was waiting for my airport train in Princeton Junction, a friend called to ask if I had been a part of the Icahn evacuation. Back on campus, Jadwin and Icahn (where I'm doing independent work) were evacuated after a bomb threat was made against the nearby construction site for the new chemistry building. While an all-clear was issued at 5 p.m., many researchers had a more relaxing Friday afternoon than they had planned.
2. Storm days: Many of our breaks began with thunderstorms, still too early to be counted with our beloved April showers. With trees blocking the Dinky (causing many to miss their flights), emergency shelter in Dillon, and a shoutout on Krugman's blog — hopefully no one will return to find a tree branch crashed through their windows.
3. Springing forward: If falling back gave Fall Recess an extra hour, I suppose it's only fair that springing forward do the reverse. Benjamin Franklin once noted that "Early to bed, and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise" and sarcastically suggested that the people of Paris could save money on candles by waking up earlier so as to make use of the morning sunlight. Here, however, his suggestion would not have meshed well with fire safety regulations. Those lamenting daylight saving time (DST) should direct all anger to the New Zealand entomologist who invented it.
Princeton connections! When DST was repealed by Congress in 1919 (only to be brought back in the 60s), our very own Woodrow Wilson vetoed the repeal twice, but was overridden. Also, which state, whose governor is an alumnus, began using DST only four years ago?
Hope you all enjoyed your 215 hours of break!
By Aaron Hosios, editor for Blogs
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Harvard and Princeton are both the Number 1 universities in the country according to US News & World Reports, but how does the experience at the two schools differ for students? Ralph Kleiner '05 offers a comparison of the two institutions.
In 2005, I graduated from Princeton with an A.B. in chemistry. Immediately thereafter, I started work on my Ph.D. in chemistry at Harvard. My experience at Harvard has been extremely rewarding both scientifically and professionally. The Boston area --- including MIT, Harvard and Harvard Med, the newly formed Broad Institute and countless other academic and industrial ventures --- is one of the most exciting places in the country for research in the natural sciences. As a grad student, it’s easy to take advantage of these opportunities; for an undergrad however, the competitive environment created by students who know exactly what they want to do, and those who are less certain, can be a bit overwhelming.
For most undergrads, college is more a place of exploration than a means to an end. My time at Princeton was spent doing just that. In addition to deciding on what I wanted to study, I dabbled in several fairly diverse activities, spanning everything from a cappella singing to playing on the sprint football team. (For those interested, Harvard has no sprint football team.) I also belonged to an eating club, that bastion of Ivy League indulgence and exclusivity that my non-Princeton friends tease me about incessantly. Of course, Harvard is not without its pretension, as evidenced by the recent licensing of its name to a line of preppy high-end men’s sportswear.
What I most treasured about my Princeton experience was the sense of community fostered by the school. I think that a large part of this was due to the relative seclusion of the campus as well as the focus that Princeton places on the undergraduate body (which, after all, constitutes more than two-thirds of all students on campus). Socially, the eating clubs provided an inclusive and convenient environment for meeting your peers. I also always had a feeling that the admission office had done an exceptional job of selecting students that were both sufficiently diverse and yet had a certain set of core values in common. The friends that I made at Princeton have remained some of the closest people in my life.
In contrast, Harvard is nestled in the heart of Cambridge, which provides a number of exciting opportunities for rest and relaxation for those with the initiative to seek them out. Nearby Boston has even more things to do if you envision yourself spending significant amounts of time off campus. While the town of Princeton is quaint and idyllic, the extent of its charm can be appreciated within the span of a single afternoon.
Ultimately, it’s hard to go wrong with either school as an undergraduate institution. The undergrads that I’ve interacted with at Harvard have all seemed very happy and would probably praise its virtues no less than I’ve praised those of Princeton. Neither school however, is an appropriate choice for someone interested in following college football. Then again, my hometown team, the Syracuse Orange, hasn’t fared all that well recently either.
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.
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Former legal advisor to the Secretary of State John Bellinger III `82 and Philip Bobbitt `71, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, signed a statement protesting recent attacks against attorneys in the Department of Justice who have represented Guantánamo detainees as private clients before their appointment.
Benjamin Wittes, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, issued the letter on Sunday in response to claims by Keep America Safe, a conservative advocacy organization, questioning the loyalty and patriotism of seven Justice Department attorneys.
Keep America Safe released a video last week in which the attorneys were referred to as the “Al Qaeda Seven.” The effort was led by Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
Eminent conservative figures such as former deputy attorney general Larry Thompson and former acting attorney general Peter Keisler joined Bellinger and Bobbitt as signatories of the letter.
Alluding to John Adams’ defense of the British soldiers charged in the Boston massacre, the statement cited “the American tradition of zealous representation of unpopular clients ... To suggest that the Justice Department should not employ talented lawyers who have advocated on behalf of detainees maligns the patriotism of people who have taken honorable positions on contested questions.”
The letter described the campaign initiated by Keep America Safe as “a shameful series of attacks” against Justice Department lawyers who have either represented terrorism suspects or supported amendments to detention policy.
The statement argued that “a uniformity of background and view in government service” would not benefit any administration, and a “diverse array of prior private clients,” adds to the strength of the Justice Department.
America’s response to the debate surrounding possible changes to detention policy depends on “an aggressive defense bar” and “those who take up that function do a service to the system,” the letter concluded.
By Dilek Izek, staff writer for News
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Today's Daily Prince had an opinion piece arguing for university-sanctioned on-campus fraternities and sororities. But this debate is not a new one. Some of the same arguments were being made before 1900. Read them under the cut!
Theta Delta Chi Magazine 1893:
Princeton Alumni Weekly, Excerpt from Letter from Member of Class of 1892:
Excerpt From Letter To "The Present Age" 1882:
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Last month, before receiving the James Madison Medal, General David Petraeus GS ’87 expressed his pride in Princeton’s decision to maintain its ROTC program after other schools had abandoned theirs. Looks like Stanford just got the memo.
At a meeting of the Faculty Senate last week, Stanford discussed reinstating its ROTC program, which was disbanded in the 1970s. Though no decisions have been made, the school took a page out of Princeton’s book when they decided to start a committee to investigate the possibility. The question was part of a larger discussion about preparing Stanford students for military leadership opportunities, which the committee will mainly address, and is partially a response to the expected repeal of current military restrictions on gays in the military.
In the words of Stanford history professor emeritus David Kennedy, who spoke before the senate in favor of returning the ROTC program to campus, "the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, which has been a serious impediment to reopening this discussion at all, will probably go away within the next year or two, and the field will be open to have a reasonable discussion on this.”
Yeah, former AP US-ers. That David Kennedy.
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If you are choosing between the University of Texas Austin and Princeton then your school spirit section of your wardrobe may not look that different. The Tiger's orange and Longhorns' burnt orange are not that far from each other on the color wheel. But how similar are the instututions themselves? Devon Edwards '05, a former Politics major and law student at UT, provides a comparison.
It is difficult to compare the University of Texas with Princeton. My perspective is incomplete: I attended Princeton as an undergraduate, but attended Texas as a law student, and the University of Texas School of Law is almost entirely a separate entity from the undergraduate college. But I did spend three years mixing in among the undergrads at raucous football games and ridiculous Sixth Street. My brother also attended Texas as an undergraduate, and some of my best friends at the law school had previously called the University of Texas’ 40 acres home as well. These perspectives, as well as my own, enable me to make some comparisons.
The most important difference between the two schools is that Princeton students generally make academic growth their first priority. Students at Texas view academics as only one part of a broader college experience. Princeton is filled with people who are unabashedly intellectually curious, and the small classes and precepts encourage students to work to grasp the material. Learning is personal. When discussing the roots of Nietzsche’s philosophy in front of eight peers as well as the professor, you better know what you’re talking about. In contrast, while Texas has the resources to challenge students, the larger class sizes prevent professors and students from personally and intellectually interacting. It is easier
to coast until the final exam, and students do.
While students at both colleges are intelligent and rounded people, certain differences are notable. You’ll continually be impressed by how freakishly smart your peers will be at Princeton. You’ll find students who dominated you in Beirut the night before blowing you out of the water in your physics class the next day. These people can be intense though, and at Texas you will find smart kids who like to relax a bit more. If you got into Princeton, you’re likely to be among the smartest kids in any room at Texas. At Princeton, you’re probably not even the smartest kid in your freshman bunk bed. (I definitely wasn’t.)
The difference in the size of the undergraduate student body also leads to differences in how students socially interact and cohere. The small size of Princeton allows the administration to construct a variety of effective communities and small groups: Outdoor Action groups, the residential colleges and the small precepts mandatory for most classes. And while Greek life at Princeton is more important than the administration would have you know, it is not a central component of interaction in the undergraduate system. In contrast, because Texas is so large, students already know many people from home with whom they band together to brave the larger crowds. Joining a fraternity or a sorority is more essential at Texas to make new friends. But the larger size of Texas, as well as the ease of access to the greater Austin community, guarantees a variety of social niches and escapes that Princeton lacks. While Princeton often feels like a self-contained bubble, Texas never does.
Texas completely outshines Princeton when it comes to organized sports. If you envision a healthy dose of Saturday tailgating and cheering loudly with friends, go to Texas. Somehow Princeton students have mastered the art of tailgating right through the football game. In contrast, Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium brims with rowdy burnt-orange fans. Students take fandom seriously; there is no Princeton equivalent to the pilgrimage to Dallas for the Texas-Oklahoma shootout, nor to the ever-present possibility of a football or basketball national championship. On the other hand, it is much more likely that you will actually participate in sports at Princeton, where crew teams that win at Nationals typically count many of their members as walk-ons.
Ultimately, you will probably make the right choice for you, or anyway, you’ll be so happy at either Princeton or Texas that you could not have imagined going anywhere else. So don’t sweat it, and enjoy whatever choice you make.
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.
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