Here are two Newsweek video clips that are companion pieces to this week’s article on “post-racialism” at Princeton. The round table discussion features Princeton students talking about race relations on campus and what it means to be a black Princeton alumnus in the real world.
Another clip after the jump:
Joe Rospars, who managed the new media aspect of then-Senator Obama’s presidential campaign, spoke at Princeton last Thursday about the Democratic Party’s head start in Internet campaigning.
He emphasized the role of participation and giving Obama supporters the tools and assistance they needed to become community organizers and take part in traditional campaign activities like phone banking and canvassing.
Rospars, who looks like he knows his way around Facebook and Twitter, said that the new media campaign’s success came from giving people a way to participate.
”The technology we used was actually pretty simple — not a lot of significant, super complicated innovation happening,” Mr. Rospars said. “It was really about applying simple tools to lower the barrier to entry into the traditional campaign operation.”
For the full story, visit centraljersey.com.
(image source: irishtimes.com)
Muhammad Kader, 38, was arrested in connection with a sexual assault incident that occurred last Friday night at Richardson Auditorium. According to Public Safety’s Crime Log, Kader, who was working as a waiter on campus, assaulted a female member of Princeton’s staff and “tried to kiss her and then touched her.”
The assault was reported at 9:56 pm, during a dress rehearsal for Princeton Glee Club’s performance on Saturday. The Crime Log also stated that “the victim was able to positively identify the suspect,” who was taken into custody and sent to Borough Police Headquarters. Kader was released on $2,500 bail.
A suspect was also arrested in connection with early Sunday morning’s incident that took place on Alexander Beach. In that incident, according to a Public Safety alert sent out Sunday morning, the suspect reached under a female student’s clothes to touch her. The report said that he “approached the female student and attempted to speak with her, then grabbed her, preventing her from leaving after she attempted to walk away from him.” Another female student intervened and tried to pull the victim away.
But what about the Campus Masturbator?!?
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at McCarter Theatre
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed the urgent need for a new multilateralism during his address on Friday morning to an audience of nearly 1,000 people in McCarter Theatre.
”We need a new vision, a new paradigm and a new multilateralism,” Mr. Ban said. He defined this multilateralism as one that delivers “a set of global goods,” recognizes intercollaboration and has necessary authority and resources.
Mr. Ban traced this idea of multilateralism to former President Woodrow Wilson’s mission to create a League of Nations after World War I.
”He called for the nations to come together to ‘make it safe for every peace-loving nation,’ “ Mr. Ban said, quoting President Wilson. “Justice can be maintained to promote social programs and better standards of life with larger freedoms,” Mr. Ban added.
Read entire article at the Princeton Packet here.
(image source: princeton.edu)
April 27, 2009 Issue
Michelle Obama ’85 didn’t like her time at Princeton. In her senior thesis, she wrote how she always felt she was “black first and a student second” because of
a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society … never becoming a full participant.
Almost 25 years later, do Obama’s observations still reflect what it’s like being an African American student at Princeton? Newsweek interviewed two multigenerational black families that attended Princeton, and their experiences show what “postracialism” actually means in today’s world.
Click here for the full Newsweek story and for video of Princeton students discussing race relations on campus today.
The Princeton community has received two Campus Safety Alerts from Public Safety since yesterday morning about reports of lewdness and sexual contact. The first report is, well, hilarious. But the second incident, not so much.
The first incident:
In separate incidents at approximately 2 and 2:39 a.m. on Saturday, April 18, 2009, two Princeton University female students reported a male was masturbating and exposed his genital area to them while they were walking alone across campus. The first incident took place as the victim was walking on McCosh Walk toward the University Store and the suspect was on the steps between Buyers and Witherspoon halls. The victim said she also saw the suspect earlier in the evening near 1879 Hall and the School of Architecture, where he was masturbating as he walked behind her. The second victim reported that she saw the suspect near the first entry of 1879 Hall, where he exposed himself. The victim said the suspect ran toward Washington Road toward Nassau Street. The suspect did not come into direct contact with either victim.
PROFESSIONAL VIOLINIST IS HISTORY MAJOR, TAKES PRIVATE LESSONS WITH ITZHAK PERLMAN(!)
Name: Caitlin (Cat) Tully
Age: 21
Major: History
Hometown: Vancouver/Austin/New York
Eating club/residential college/affiliation: Whitman/ Potentially 2D…
Activities on campus: Firestone. Good conversation. Spontaneous hijinks when opportunity arises.
Who’s your favorite Princetonian, living or dead, real or fictional?
Tony Grafton, for starting the HUM sequence.
What’s the best meal you’ve eaten in Princeton?
On campus, probably challah French toast with fresh whipped cream a friend and I made for a bunch of people last year.
In one sentence, what do you actually do all day?
Try to deserve to be here.
What is your greatest guilty pleasure?
Depends on the context and when you ask.
What’s the last student performance you saw?
King Lear, Laura Fletcher’s production. And Angels in America.
Do you know all the words to Old Nassau?
If I say no is that going to come back to haunt me? I know the actions…
While enjoying the fine Springtime weather of the past weekend, you may have noticed the throng of people gathered outside the Princeton Record Exchange (Prex, as the cool kids say) at around 10 in the morning.
Turns out these intrepid earlyish risers (for college) were waiting to get their hands on some limited edition vinyl, in celebration of the second annual Record Store Day. Said one enthustiastic record store owner when we called him up on Saturday: “It’s a national frickin’ holiday!” Not yet, good sir, but dare to dream.
Full article here
Dorit Beinisch, the equivalent of the Chief Justice on the Israeli Supreme Court, talked about balancing security and human rights in the age of terror.
And while the topic was no doubt fascinating, we found ourselves more distracted by some of the differences between the American Supreme Court and the Israeli model. For example:
Full article here
Yale recently launched an entire website to street safety in response to a string of traffic accidents and a year after a pedestrian Yale student was killed by a car.
Apparently New Haven drivers are so barbaric that walking Yalies, when not dodging knives wielded by crackheads, are keeping a wary eye out for their lives.
Sure, nothing ever happens in Princeton, but I’m glad to know my body won’t be meeting a fast-moving vehicle between classes.
You know it’s that time of year when the University erects a ridiculous circus tent on Alexander Beach, ruining pretty springtime vistas and impeding your drunken walk home from the Street. That’s right: hundreds of earnest and overeager 18 year-olds are about swarm all over campus and there’s nothing you can do about it.
The only thing a student can do to minimize contact with prefrosh is to not host them. It looks like many have decided to do just that, hence a somewhat urgent email today to Matheyites from Matt Frawley, Mathey’s DSL:
This Thursday over 700 pre-frosh will be arriving on campus, and though a good number of you have graciously signed up to be a host for one or more of those pre-frosh, we need MORE hosts. We are especially in need of male students to host.
…
So will this be an inconvenience? A bit.Are you really too busy to host? Well, who isn’t!!
Nevertheless, students are giving back by hosting. Please take a moment to give serious consideration to this opportunity and help save a pre-frosh from going somewhere other than Princeton.
Thanks,
Matt
Ah, yes, appealing to our sense of civic duties as Princetonians. Sorry. Won’t work.
Politico’s Arena, charting daily debates among policy-makers and scholars about recent moves in Washington, today tracks reactions to Obama’s shift in Cuba policy.
While contributors like John Kerry and Princeton professor Julian Zelizer add some fresh perspective to the discussion, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton (and prominent Twitter-er), weighs in on the debate with some, uh, “insight“:
I just returned from a week traveling and working in South Africa. After 7 days of Russian vodka and Cuban cigars it is clear to me that ideological battles should not restrict the free consumption of the best our cold war opponents export. Open Cuba!
Profound, embarrassing, it’s all the same thing.
(image source: pbs.org)