If Goldman Sachs released tables of the best Ivy League universities at making money, Princeton would come second. (This is based on absolutely no analysis of the following figures.)
PRINCO, the Princeton University Investment Co., announced annual returns of 14.7 percent for the fiscal year of 2010 today. After last year’s return of -23.5 percent and this year’s big turnaround, Princeton’s endowment currently stands at $14.4 billion. Annualized returns for the past decade amount to 7.9 percent.
Yeah, cool, a nice chunk of change, whatever. But what bugs me is that Columbia posted returns of 17.3 percent (albeit on a $6.5 billion sum). At least we beat Harvard (11.4 percent increase to $27.4 billion) and Yale (8.9 percent increase to $16.7 billion).
Does that mean we can start getting more free stuff/study breaks/Lawnparties?
We like to look out for you here at the Ink, so here are some pointers we found in the news of the day.
Some bros, studying abroad, immersing themselves in culture that is liquid (via community.ifsa-butler.org)
First, our do: Study abroad. According to a new study by researchers at the University of Washington:
Students who go abroad while in college are likely to increase or even double their alcohol intake while they’re away, a new study has found.
Drinking increased most dramatically in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the study by researchers at the University of Washington found. Students reported drinking more when they perceived their fellow travelers were drinking more heavily, and those who planned to make drinking part of their cultural immersion did so.
As they say… “When in Rome.” Or, “When in heavy-drinking Oxford/Spain/Cuba/Paris.” Cultural immersion!
Our don’t?: Post embarrassing photos of yourself on Facebook. Apparently they take a really long time to delete, so if you’re planning on hiding from your employer, they still might be able to find those pictures of you guzzling a sheepskin of wine in Athens. Gawker chimes in:
Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica offers definitive proof: A Facebook picture she “deleted” in May 2009 and wrote an article about in July 2009 was still on Facebook’s servers today, more than 16 months later. The social network removed the links to the picture right away, but never got around to removing the actual image file, meaning anyone who had or could obtain an URL to the image could get it from Facebook.
So when you study abroad, tuck away the camera when happy hour starts. Because when you’re caught double-fisting tequila and wearing only a sombrero, you’ve gone more than native.
UPC '25 -- we've expanded our membership's demographic since then (via PAW)
Ever wanted to write for a real newspaper? Had the urge to dig around for a hot story? Have you ever felt the burning desire to contribute to this fine online publication?
Well, now’s your chance. UPC would like to extend an invitation to all freshmen and sophomores to come audition for membership in the University Press Club. But first, allow us a minute to introduce ourselves (since we do a lot more than just publish this here blog):
The University Press Club has provided undergraduate members with the opportunity to work with regional newspapers as stringers for the past 110 years. The Club has been a defining aspect of the Princeton experience for hundreds of its alumni throughout the century. These graduate members are actively involved in the Club’s development, and serve as invaluable resources to Club members. Our alumni include David Remnick ’81, Editor-in-Chief of the New Yorker; Mike McCurry ’76, former Press Secretary to the Clinton White House; Wendy Kopp ’89, founder of Teach for America; Todd Purdum ’82, National Editor of Vanity Fair; Adam Frankel ’03, speechwriter to President Barack Obama; and numerous other leaders of their fields.
As an undergraduate member, you’ll be working with professional editors at newspapers like the Trenton Times, New Jersey’s Star-Ledger, the Princeton Alumni Weekly, The New York Times, the Huffington Post; you’ll be compensated for your services; you’ll collaborate with us to produce “The Ink”; you’ll be paired up with one of our alumni in a mentor relationship; and you’ll have fun doing it. Promise.
Well, there’s the spiel.
If the Press Club sounds like something you might be interested in, come to our open houses, all in McCosh 64:
Tomorrow, Thursday, September 23, at 8:30 PM
Thursday, September 23, at 10:00 PM
Monday, September 27, at 4:30 PM
There’s a Facebook event, which is here. To learn more about us, check out our “About” page, read about our members here, and take a look at our really long history.
Remember, no prior journalism experience is needed to try out; our candidates’ period is a crash-course in writing, news style, and reporting.
If you have any questions about the Press Club but can’t make it to any of the meetings, shoot us an email at pressclb at princeton.edu.
Oh hey freshman carrying two very heavy-looking Labyrinth bags. What’s that? Oh, you like playing exorbitant prices for books that you’ll read ten pages of and never look at again?
For those of you who don’t wallpaper their rooms with euros or enjoy shilling top-shelf prices for absorbing titles like “Fundamentals of Microeconomics, Fifth Edition, with Special Accompanying Compact Disc You Realistically Won’t Ever Open,” take this piece of advice: Don’t buy from Labyrinth.
Yeah I guess buying books at Labyrinth would be cool, if it weren’t for the fact that Amazon has all the books you need, for a fraction of the price, and you don’t even need to schlep from Nassau with a crapload of volumes you won’t need for another four weeks. You won’t have to mess with the lines, or the humans, if that’s a sticking point for you. (Also, ever notice you can’t talk on the phone in there? Who are these people?)
Plus, now Amazon is offering a free one-year membership to its Prime service for college students (that’s you!), which means that you get free 2-day shipping for practically all the books you’re going to be ordering from them. Check the offer out here.
So, freshman with tired arms, I implore you, take those books back. There’s some fundamental microeconomics for you.
Well, that’s happening. Yes, ScwhartzDY™ (don’t try stealing that CBS) will be one of 11 teams throwing themselves into challenges around the world for the chance to win one million dollars. How’s that for your first paycheck outta college?
CBS today started promoting the event, and here are the guys introducing themselves on the Race website.
Look at that! Witty, tricky, and they got the whole “we’re best friends!” thing going on to boot. Everyone’s gonna be rooting for these tigers. (Not to mention “Relationship: Ivy League A Cappella Singers” — that’s one for the scrapbook.)
The two also answered some questions for CBS. Schwartz’s answers are particularly hilarious:
If I could switch places with someone: Yanni
Role model/hero: My parents, Mother Theresa and Kenny G (not necessarily in that order).
What are you passionate about? Tweezin’ the old unibrow
What would you do if you won the million dollars? If I were to win the million dollars I would buy a pony, but just one.
People would be surprised to learn: That my name, “Jonathan,” is translated to mean “gift from God.” Coincidence? I think not.
The Senate just voted 63 to 37 to confirm Elena Kagan ’81 as the 67th Supreme Court Justice. The confirmation makes her the third consecutive Princetonian to be elected to the Supreme Court, along with Justices Sonia Sotomayor ’76 and Samuel Alito ’72. That also makes Princeton the most represented college on the Supreme Court.
For the full story, here’s the Timeson the subject. Rigorous analysis and intrepid reportage forthcoming.
For our existing coverage on the Kagan nomination, confirmation battles, and her time at Princeton, check out our Elena Kagan tag.
That up there is Shirley Tilghman, President of Princeton University. Opposite her is “Dick Van Buren” ’10 (who asked we change his name for this article). In the photo, DVB is icing Shirley Tilghman. This is his story.
But, let’s backtrack for a second — if you haven’t yet heard of icing, well, I guess you’re not a bro, bro. Quoth the Times:
The premise of the game is simple: hand a friend a sugary Smirnoff Ice malt beverage and he (most participants have been men) has to drink it on one knee, all at once — unless he is carrying a bottle himself, in which case the attacker must drink both bottles of what [one bro] described as a “pretty terrible” drink.
The trend’s struck colleges across the country, and has even started to creep into everyday bro life. (Icing a bro when he gets to his office desk in the morning, icing a bro when he gets back from the gym, icing a bro coming out the bathroom — classic, all of them.) Unfortunately, the chronicler of the offline meme, BrosIcingBros.com, has stepped down. But if you stuck around for Reunions this year, you might have seen the wreckage of the beautiful game around campus — freshly downed bottles of Ice were strewn about campus much of the weekend.
And one of those Ices had Shirley’s name on it. DVB tells us how things went down.
Some breaking news for you this Wednesday afternoon: Even after his fainting spell last week, Gen. Petraeus, a four-star general with a master’s degree and PhD. from the Woodrow Wilson School, replaced Gen. Stanley McChrystal as the commander of American forces in Afghanistan. Politico reports:
President Barack Obama has relieved Gen. Stanley McChrystal of command of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, POLITICO has learned, and replaced him with Gen. David Petraeus – putting a general well-known throughout the world for his work in Iraq in charge of the mission in Afghanistan.
The Petraeus move is in some ways a demotion for the four-star general – who as head of U.S. Central Command was McChrystal’s boss, in charge of the whole Middle East theater. But it signaled a desire by Obama to move swiftly to cap the McChrystal situation by picking a sure-footed new commander, familiar with combat zones, counter-insurgency and how to deal with the press.
The move came in response to a very forthcoming Rolling Stone profile of McChrystal released yesterday. In it, McChrystal spoke out against high-level American officials, including Vice President Biden (who he referred to, charmingly, as “Bite Me”) and President Obama, who he found unprepared and unengaged in some meetings with him.
Petraeus, who wrote his Princeton dissertation on “The American Military and the Lessons of Vietnam,” recently spoke at Alumni Day this past March.
Hopefully al Qaeda hasn’t seen this picture already. Not very threatening.
Top of the agenda this past week: World Cup. Princeton alums had a hand on all sides in the run-up to the tournament, from coaching, to hosting, to lambasting on Comedy Central. More sports on the docket too, as some Tigers got picked in the MLB drafts this past week. And other stuff: Paul Krugman made funny sounds in an unfunny movie and Meg Whitman ’78 won an election to go to another election.
Don't mess: Bradley '80
Unless you’ve recently slipped into a coma, or are one of millions of Americans who are wondering why people are playing football with their feet, you’ve probably tuned into a few of the World Cup matches. The biggest news of the Cup on this side of the Atlantic has to be the unexpected tie between England and the U.S. on Saturday.
Strangely, Princeton has a hand in all this: you may have heard that the U.S. Men’s National Team trained at Princeton’s Roberts Stadium from May 17 to May 23. Not only that, but the team’s coach, Bob Bradley ’80 earned a history degree from the University, coached soccer at Princeton for 11 years, and his brother, Scott Bradley, coaches Princeton’s baseball team. Eerie, we know.
Princeton-soccer-Comedy Central connections abounded on Thursday, as The Daily Show‘s John Oliver reported from Princeton on the state of the U.S. Soccer Team. Here’s the clip, complete with tons of shots in Princeton’s rather indistinguishable stadium (save for some orange and black and Fine Hall in the distance):
But even afterwards, on the Colbert Report, Comedy Central kept on with the Princeton-soccer vibe.
How much would the state of California cost if it were up for auction on eBay?
In her quiet plot to take over the world, former CEO and President of eBay Meg Whitman ’78 won yesterday the Republican candidacy in California’s gubernatorial election this fall. Whitman defeated state Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner with 64% of the vote compared to his 26%. Some news sources call this a landslide. To me it sounds like California hasn’t subscribed to grade deflation.
Her win comes after she spent $80 million ($71 million of which were her own) in the race and made the primary the costliest in Californian history, which would have made it awkward if she hadn’t won, because, dude, that’s like two Whitman Colleges. The victory also makes Whitman the first woman to ever hold the Republican nomination for California’s governor position.
Oh, right, and before we forget, to save the media the trouble, we’ll just let you know now: Whitman’s senior thesis was titled The Marketing of American Consumer Products in Western Europe and was 83 pages. No word on her report card, but she graduated, says Wikipedia, with honors. So that’s fun.
Also fun: If Whitman wins, she will be the one one of two Princeton-educated governors in the United States, and will be head of a state that is severely screwed and running a $20 billion deficit. So hopefully Whitman can market some Californian products to Western Europe, which also slowly collapses under the heavy weight of its debt.
At any rate, Whitman will face Democratic ex-governor and California Attorney General Jerry Brown in the gubernatorial election. Good luck Meg, and cheers — here’s to having another Princetonian be important.
(image via solidprinciples.com)
(Ed.: An earlier version of this post stated Whitman’s victory in the fall would make her the one governor from Princeton, but we forgot Mitch Daniels from Indiana.)
Since it’s summer and we know you’re busy at your super-important [insert bank here]/[insert NGO here]/[insert research institution here] internship or backpacking across Europe or voraciously watching back episodes of Gossip Girl, we here at The Ink round up the week’s news so you don’t have to. Today we’ve got some graduations stuff, some art crime stuff, some reality TV show stuff, some fratty stuff, and generally, stuff.
First up this week: Alumni swarmed Princeton this weekend, as you might have guessed, for Reunions. There wasdebauchery, there was dunko (as per the Wall Street Journal), and good times had by old people. God reportedly attempted to smite the revelers, but only knocked out a few trees. Fun!
A tree near Dillon Gym faced the wrath of nature
Also, graduation happened, which is weird to think because that means a quarter of the student body has moved on into the real world. At Baccalaureate on Sunday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ’86 told the Class of 2010 about his grandmother and to be kind.
The Class of 2010 marched on anyway, and 1,166 seniors passed through FitzRandolph Gates, with some special guests. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was given an honorary degree for a bunch of stuff, among them being a trailblazer for women’s rights and being pretty old.
Valedictorian David Karp (who had 29 A’s and A+’s!?) spoke, along with salutatorian Marguerite Colson, who gave her address in Latin to a bunch of people who couldn’t understand her:
Because few students today know Latin, the new graduates follow along using printed copies of the remarks. These include footnotes telling when to applaud (plaudite) and laugh (ridete). Guests and other audience members do not have the annotated copies, a practice dictated by tradition because the salute is directed to the members of the class.
Here’s a slick video Princeton made of the happenings. Money shot’s near the end, with the Class of 2010 on the steps of Blair Arch, doing the creepy Heil singing “Old Nassau.”
We’ll miss you guys!
And then, that huge sucking sound you heard on Wednesday? That was campus being evacuated for the summer. News grinded to a halt, but stuff still happened, apparently:
