You’ve all probably heard the news by now: President Tilghman will be leaving us at the end of the year, ending her 12-year term as Princeton’s first female president. Her announcement yesterday caused a media frenzy and a slew of related commentary. For a visual reflection of this response and of President Tilghman’s legacy, check out this wordle, based on the first two pages of hits for a Google search of “Shirley Tilghman”:
Image source: http://www.wordle.net/
A few tidbits from the week: a Tuesday Newman’s Day, a whole lot of JP’s, and some pre-frosh.
“When I try to play football on Newman’s Day”
“What pre-frosh think Woody Woo majors do”
Another week, another round of Princeton-related internet commentary. Here’s what’s up this week:
Princeton FML
On Prefrosh and happiness:
On terrifying things:
As crunch time kicks in, a few newcomers appear on the scene.
A few key screenshots:
And, more happily:
And it’s back: the week in Princeton-related internet happenings…
Res college listservs
The war continues:
Princeton FMLs
On (un)common accidents:
Just like last week, allow us to provide you with this week’s best/most provocative/quirkiest in the world of Princeton-related social media. In other words, here’s a way to catch up on what you’ve missed, join in the debates, or (most likely?) relive this week’s procrastination material.
Res college listservs
On lost things:
Prince comments
On the controversial mention of the women’s crew team in In Defense of: Blacking Out:
On the debate over Beyond Annual Giving:
And, constructively:
Princeton FMLs
Gastro hangs on…
Image source: http://princeton2015.com/bike.html
“Where’s Al?” has been the refrain of the day within the Occupy Princeton movement. Al has driven a TigerTransit bus for almost three years, and was suspended for two days without pay by FirstTransit, which runs the bus system, for running a yellow light. Occupy, however, pointed out that Al had been organizing a vote on whether to unionize his fellow TigerTransit drivers. In an e-mail sent to Occupy members last night, Vahid Brown urged students to take action:
He was told his suspension was for “running a yellow light.” In fact, though, FirstTransit management are well aware of Al’s role in seeking to organize the union and have told other drivers as much in their ongoing efforts to intimidate drivers and discourage them from exercising their legally-protected right to vote on the formation of a union. This retaliation is unacceptable, but we can mobilize to make a difference.
Occupy Princeton leaders went on to encourage students to get in touch with Kim Jackson, Princeton’s director of parking and transportation, and Steven Skoler, general manager of FirstTransit, in order to communicate their support for TigerTransit drivers. According to Brown, over fifty people did so.
Christopher A. Sims (image source: www.nobelprize.org, Denise Applewhite)
Thomas J. Sargent (image source: www.nobelprize.org, NYU Stern)
After almost four decades of work exploring the causal relationships between policy decisions and the economy, Sims and Sargent received the Nobel Prize this morning in recognition of their independent, but complementary, research.
While Sargent’s research focused on more long-term economic trends as inflation targets, Sims, the Harold H. Helm ’20 Professor of Economics and Banking, focused more on short-term economic developments. Through statistical analysis, Sims and Sargent investigated whether changes in economic policy cause these developments, or whether policy-makers anticipate these developments when shaping policy.
And although the Nobel Prize website has yet to post details about the research and the winners, congratulations have already begun to flow in from around the world, some more cryptic than others. A personal favorite? “go VIKINGS we fianlly [sic] won.” Surely somebody gets it…
In an interview with the New York Times this morning, Sims said that his research holds real and important implications for the current state of global economic affairs, and recovery from it:
The methods that I’ve used and that Tom has developed are central for finding our way out of this mess.
When pressed for a simple policy solution, though, he hesitated. Whoever finds one of those, it seems, will be in the running for the next Nobel.
(Admittedly kind of sketchy) evidence of what promises to be a life-changing partnership.
We’ve all been there – rough night, d-hall accident, fight with a puddle. And then you’re stuck with this growing pile of dry-clean-only laundry that sits in the bottom of your hamper, waiting patiently as it becomes wrinkled beyond recognition. Well wrinkles begone! Craft Cleaners and the U-Store have struck up a love affair that promises to make all of our lives a whole lot easier.
Starting this semester, you can avoid the trek to Craft and just drop by the U-Store with your dry cleaning. From there, it’ll be spirited away to Craft, cleaned, and returned to the U-Store for your convenience. You can even purchase a specialized bag for this purpose to keep your dry-cleanables separate from your washing-machinables.
The deets: pick-up occurs twice a day, Monday-Friday, at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., and your cleaning will be returned two business days later.
Also, in the category of new U-Store goodies, word has it that the Nassau Street U-Store has just received its first Brooks Brothers shipment, allowing you to be both classily preppy and clean. Happy U-Storing!
TRUMAN SCHOLAR HALEY WHITE ’12 FIGHTS GLOBAL FOOD INSECURITY AND ROCKS OUT TO COLBERT’S COVER OF ‘FRIDAY’
Name: Haley White
Age: 21
Major: Woody Woo
Hometown: Chatham, NJ
Eating club/residential college affiliation: Charter/Wilson
What was your immediate response upon finding out you had won the Truman Scholarship?
I started to cry. Then, I called my mom, then my dad, then my stepmom, then my boyfriend, then some friends, then my brother. I think that my ex-stepfather was mixed in there too somewhere. I have a pretty complicated family tree. It’s like what the Brady Brunch’s would be if it took performance-enhancing drugs.
Who’s your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
Sally Frank ’80. She sued the eating clubs so that they would admit women. I admire her because she had the courage to stand up for her values at the risk of being ostracized and she did not give up after she graduated. She kept on fighting for more than ten years. I hope that in my best moments I am at least half as ballsy as her.
When the Steering Committee on Undergraduate Women’s Leadership was founded by President Tilghman in December 2009, its stated goal was to address an increasingly evident and concerning fact: women at Princeton were, in some way, flying under the radar. The number of women involved in leadership roles and the number winning academic prizes took a nosedive beginning in 2000. Somehow, the experience of women at Princeton was fundamentally different than that of their male peers.
(From left to right) Figure 1: Representation of Princeton Undergraduates in Highest Profile Leadership Positions on Campus, 1970-2010, by Sex and by Decade; Figure 2: Winners of Pyne Prizes, 1970-2009, by Sex and by Decade
President Tilghman charged the committee to address “the critical question of whether women undergraduates are realizing their academic potential and seeking opportunities for leadership at the same rate and in the same manner as their male colleagues.” After a year of work in focus groups, committees, surveys, and conversations, here’s what the committee of 9 faculty members, 6 undergrads, and 3 administrators came up with.
Check out all that cretin ivy (image source: ee.princeton.edu)
Oh, sorry, that’s “New Ways to Procrastinate.” In case you were running out of brief (?) diversions to get you through the upcoming week, or simply looking for new websites to add to your Self Control app, here’s a good one that can keep you going for a while. (If you don’t believe me, just check out today’s Tower Talk e-mails — 49 e-mails later, it’s still funny. Sort of.)
Just type in your name, a friend’s name, perhaps a mortal enemy’s name, and let the little website do its work. What you get out? Hilarious – and often terrifyingly accurate – anagrams of what you put in.
Take, for example, a small controlled experiment done on the site to elicit its true feelings about the Ivies. Inputs of each university’s name yielded the following:
Princeton University: “I spurn cretin ivy” (Possibly Princeton students’ favorite activity…)
Harvard University: “Try hard an’ survive” (At least that’s what “The Social Network” would have us believe.)
Columbia University: “Evil scum in obituary” (Really? I’ll have to start reading the obits more often.)
