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Wednesday may 1, 2013 vol. cxxxvii no. 55
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LOCAL NEWS
Preacher on Street sues town
CROSSING BOUNDARIES
By Lydia Lim and Allison Kruk senior writer and staff writer
In Opinion Luke Massa explains why it is okay to not be rembered, and Spencer Shen argues against open admission for the Wilson School. PAGE 6
In Street What’s happening on campus? We’ve got Lawnparties, Quipfire! and more. ONLINE
Today on Campus
4:30 p.m.: The Wilson School will host an art exhibit and panel titled “Cooking for Change.“ Robertson Hall Bowl 016.
The Archives
May 1, 2007 Campus Club announces it will reopen as a study space and social venue.
On the Blog Jay Dessy explains the heavyweight men’s crew’s “jorts” tradition.
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News & Notes U. faculty inducted into American Academy of Arts and Sciences eight members of the University faculty were among the 198 named as fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, according to a University press release. The Academy recognizes fellows for their contributions to scholarship, science, the arts and public affairs. The elected University faculty are creative writing professor Jeffrey Eugenides, classics professor Robert Kaster, mechanical and aerospace engineering professor Naomi Leonard, politics professor Stephen Macedo, computer science professor Jennifer Rexford, art and archaeology professor Yoshiaki Shimizu, philosophy professor Michael Smith and politics professor Leonard Wantchekon. The Academy was founded in 1780 with the purpose of cultivating “every art and science which may tend to advance the interest, honour, dignity and happiness of a free, independent and virtuous people,” according to its website. Its members include over 250 Nobel laureates and over 60 Pulitzer Prize winners. This year’s fellows will be inducted at a ceremony on Oct. 12 in Cambridge, Mass.
5.1 news FOR LUC.indd 1
MICHAEL STOCKWELL Preacher
On a Saturday night in October 2011, Michael Stockwell, a self-proclaimed open-air preacher and the cofounder of Cross Country Evangelism, stationed himself on a sidewalk on Prospect Avenue. Mounted on an amplifier in between Ivy and Cottage Clubs and surrounded by a dozen of his fellow evangelical ministers, Stockwell preached and handed out Gospel tracts for the span of one hour as students wandered past. “You will stand before God guilty, and on that Day of Judgment the only thing you will get is the wrath of God. If you die with your sins, it will be too late! We are here to warn you!” he told students at one point. Similar messages were repeated throughout the night. His preaching quickly prompted multiple 911 calls as well as an altercation with the local police. Charges of disorderly conduct were eventually filed against him but later dismissed after seven hearings in the former Borough Municipal Court in March 2012. Princeton Borough and Princeton Township have since consolidated into one municipality. See STREET page 2
EMILY HSU :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
President-elect Eisgruber delivers a talk titled “Crossing Boundaries: Perspectives on Visits to Israel and Ramallah” at the CJL Tuesday evening. STUDENT LIFE
Proposal to rescind P/D/F fails By Anna Mazarakis staff writer
The USG Academics Committee’s proposal to create a policy allowing students to rescind a pass/D/fail election after viewing a final letter grade was unanimously voted down by the Faculty Committee on Examinations and Standing earlier this month. The unanimous decision came after Academics Committee chair Dillon Sharp ’14 and Class of 2014 senator and Academic Life Total Assess-
ment committee member John McNamara presented to the committee on April 17. “It’s dead; it’s not happening,” Sharp said. Had the Committee on Examination and Standing voted in favor of the proposal, the Faculty Advisory Committee on Policy would have also had to vote in its favor before the entire faculty would have the opportunity to approve it. The policy was one of the Academics Committee’s main priorities for the semester.
Sharp explained at the beginning of his tenure as chair that the policy change would encourage students to continue to work hard throughout the semester and give them the chance to improve their grade point averages if they ended up doing better in a class than previously expected. Claire Fowler, senior associate dean of the college and an ex officio member of the Committee on Examinations and Standing, noted that there was consensus in the committee’s discus-
sion to preserve the point of the University’s P/D/F option, which the committee believed was to encourage students not to worry about grades in a class. “The faculty really thought the point of the P/D/F policy was to permit students to take courses that they were interested in without regard to grades, and they felt that the new proposal was putting the grade anxiety back into the P/D/F category,” Fowler said. “There was a general See POLICY page 4
ACADEMICS
U N I V E R S I T Y A F FA I R S
COS 126 drops P/D/F option
U. to begin search for Burstein’s successor
By Elizabeth Paul staff writer
The computer science department will implement a no-pass/D/fail policy for COS 126, 217 and 226 beginning in fall 2013. This policy change follows a dramatic increase in the number of computer science concentrators and rising enrollment in introductory courses. Over 55 percent of undergraduate students enroll in COS 126 during their undergraduate careers, according to Andrew Appel, computer science department chair. A total of 1,412 students enrolled in COS 126: General Computer
Science, COS 217: Introduction to Programming Systems, and COS 226: Algorithms and Data Structures during the 20122013 academic year. This spring semester, 382 students are enrolled in COS 126, putting it ahead of the famously large ECO 100: Introduction to Microeconomics, in which 187 students are enrolled according to the Registrar’s website. Appel explained that the computer science faculty made this decision “somewhat reluctantly” in an attempt to serve students in a manageable way, due to the strain that the large increase in student enrollment has placed on the department.
As of press time, only 99 students were enrolled in COS 126 for the fall 2013 semester. Registration is now open to the classes of 2014, 2015 and 2016. The Class of 2017 will not enroll in fall courses until September. The new policy was decided at a joint faculty meeting in December, where all members of the teaching staff met to discuss methods of addressing the rise in enrollment. While the department has increased staffing and will continue to do so, other resource limitations, including the number of undergraduate and graduate student assistants and office See COS page 3
By James Evans staff writer
Just after his appointment as the 20th president of the University, Christopher Eisgruber ’83 will lead the search for another key administrator, Executive Vice President Mark Burstein’s successor. Burstein announced in December that he would leave Princeton to become the president at Lawrence University, a liberal arts college located in Appleton, Wis. Eisgruber explained that,
as is the case whenever a high-level administrator position becomes available, the University would form a committee and contract an external firm to facilitate the search. “Right now, we are in the process of starting to put together the information we will need for a job description,” he said. “We’re talking to a search firm in preparation for retaining them, and I’m beginning to put a committee together.” He added that while he See VP page 5
STUDENT LIFE
Students gather for candlelight vigil for victims of Boston marathon bombing By Hannah Schoen staff writer
WENDY LI :: STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
A vigil for bombing victims took place in Scudders Plaza on Monday.
Princeton students held a candlelight vigil at the Fountain of Freedom in Scudders Plaza for the victims of this month’s attacks on Boston on Monday evening from 9 to 11 p.m. The vigil served as a space of silence for members of the University and larger Princeton community who wanted to participate. “Our vision for it is just to have sort of an intentional space for people to come and to mourn if they want to and to really just heal and reflect and send positive thoughts to the survivors and victims and just the whole city of Boston,” Emily Chang ’16, the organizer of the event, said.
The vigil featured a donation box whose funds will go to a charity that helps survivors of the Boston attacks purchase prosthetic limbs along with a banner on which participants could write messages to specific individuals affected by the attacks or to the city of Boston as a whole. Chang said that it hasn’t been decided where the banner will be sent yet, but it will probably be sent to the city government of Boston. Hannah Miller ’16, who attended the vigil, said that she felt especially connected to the events that occurred in Boston as a member of the running community. “I’m a runner, so I felt especially connected with the things that happened,” Miller
said. “We just want to support the entire Boston community. I think that’s pretty much the biggest reason why we’re here and to show them that they’re not alone in this,” another attendee, Shirley Zhu ’16, said. Chang, the organizer, who is from Boston, explained that she came up with the idea on April 19, the day of the Watertown shootings, when she was reflecting on a candlelight vigil that the Worcester community had done a couple days beforehand. “I was thinking about how that must’ve been really nice, just to have that intentional space — community space — building community in the wake of tragedy, which I think See VIGIL page 4
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