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00paw1024_coverNOBOX_00paw0707_Cov74 10/15/12 3:57 PM Page 1 Campus reacts to Princeton Tilghman’s decision Behind the scenes Alumni at Princeton A teacher inside Weekly prison walls Writer Suleika Jaouad ’10 October 24, 2012 • paw.princeton.edu THE PRINCETON CHAIR THE CLASSIC PRINCETON CHAIR IS THE ULTIMATE GIFT FOR YOUR FAVORITE PRINCETON ALUM. YOU CAN CUSTOM ORDER CAPTAINS CHAIRS, ROCKING CHAIRS AND SWIVEL CHAIRS - ALL AVAILABLE TO BE PERSONALIZED. ORDER NOW TO RECEIVE THIS DISTINCTIVE GIFT BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS! COMING UP DURING THE MONTH OF % NOVEMBER, MEMBERS SAVE 25% OFF OUR 25 OFF ENTIRE LEAGUE COLLECTION! ALSO, RECEIVE FREE GROUND SHIPPING ON LEAGUE ALL ORDERS OF $25 OR MORE! 36 UNIVERSITY PLACE CHECK US 116 NASSAU STREET OUT ON 800.624.4236 FACEBOOK! WWW.PUSTORE.COM SEPTEMBER 2012 PAW AD2.indd 1 9/26/2012 11:01:37 AM 01paw1024_TOC_01paw0512_TOC 10/5/12 8:34 PM Page 1 In the kitchen at the Princeton Graduate College, page 24. Alumni Weekly An editorially independent magazine by alumni for alumni since 1900 OCTOBER 24, 2012 VOLUME 113 NUMBER 3 President’s Page 2 Inbox 3 From the Editor 5 Campus Notebook 8 RICARDO Tilghman’s tenure • Princeton in BARROS Latin America marks anniversary • Grade deflation • Admission gets even tougher • First lady comes to town ‘I can’t put my life on pause’ 20 • Princeton honors Korean leader • IDEAS: Historian Michael Gordin on A young alumna chronicles life after a cancer diagnosis — pseudoscience • Breaking Ground: in The New York Times. A new approach to immune disorders By Sandra Sobieraj Westfall ’89 and Suleika Jaouad ’10 • ON THE CAMPUS: Students react to Tilghman’s announcement • What Lawnparties say about Princeton • Hidden Princeton 24 More We pass them without notice — the people and equipment Sports 16 that keep this campus running smoothly each day. A photographer Men’s water polo • Football vs. and writer present the stories behind some of them. Columbia • EXTRA POINT: Level the play- Photographs by Ricardo Barros, text by W. Barksdale Maynard ’88 ing field with transfer students? A Moment With 19 Michael O’Hanlon ’82 *91, on foreign policy What’s n ew @ PAW ONLINE Alumni Scene 32 Detroit alum returns to help his home- WHAT’S YOUR VIEW? Should Princeton accept town turn around • STARTING OUT: Teach transfer students? Respond to for America member Brittney Scott ’11 Merrell Noden ’78’s Extra Point. • TIGER PROFILE: Tim Eliassen ’65 ensures that huge glass projects don’t come READING ROOM: crashing down • William LIFE, INTERRUPTED IMAGES: J. Cooper ’62 on Lincoln and the Civil Links to selections from Gregg Lange ’70’s RON War • New releases Suleika Jaouad ’10’s New York Rally ’Round the Cannon BARRETT; Times blog. “Ivy style” in the spot- Perspective 35 SEAMUS light, from tailored tweeds Literature behind bars to preppy plaids. MCKIERNAN; By Matthew Spellberg GS WILSON WINS! A Firestone exhibit revisits Class Notes 38 PRINCETON the 1912 presidential election. Tiger of the Week Memorials 57 Read about notable UNIVERSITY Princeton Exchange 61 alumni every Wednesday MULTIMEDIA ARCHIVE — and send your own LIBRARY; Final Scene 64 nominees. PAW slide shows, videos, and SAMEER ON THE COVER: Photograph by Ashley Woo. podcasts, all in one place. A. KHAN THE PRESIDENT’S PAGE Tending to the Campus or some members of our University community, the more than 25,000 applications it now receives each September marks the end of the “lazy days of year. To accommodate the computers and scanners at the summer,” but for Vice President for Facilities center of this far-reaching change, West College’s flood- Mike McKay and his staff, the beginning of the prone basement had to be reconfigured on the inside and Facademic year is actually a respite. For 12 hectic weeks, sealed on the outside, all in a few months. Unfortunately, sandwiched between Commencement and Labor Day, excavating the basement walls threatened a feature of scores of staff and contractors, engaged in a host of small the building that was just as fragile — and certainly more but important projects, take advantage of the absence of loved — than the equipment we were trying to protect. I am our faculty and students and fan out across the campus referring to its beautiful expanse of ivy, which, if uprooted, to renew its infrastructure and refresh its landscape. And could take as much as half a century to grow back. Faced with 180 buildings and 500 acres to care for, they have with this conundrum, Grounds and Building Maintenance their hands full! mobilized their ingenuity. A set of wooden boxes was This work does not command the attention of projects constructed, and the ivy’s root balls — carefully wrapped like the construction of the Andlinger Center for Energy in burlap — were suspended in them until the project was and the Environment or the installation of 16,500 completed, right on time to welcome the Class of 2016. photovoltaic panels on University The delicate balancing of old and new lands, designed to reduce our also distinguished a project to update the dependence on fossil fuels. No OVETT technology in McCosh 50, Princeton’s L ribbons are cut upon completion, largest lecture hall and one of its most but without such quiet tending, storied. It was in this room, for example, Princeton would cease to be a world- MAHLON that Albert Einstein delivered five class institution. From repointing lectures on relativity during his first visit masonry to repairing steam tunnels; to the United States in 1921. Of course, from renovating laboratories to in the past 90 years, technology has upgrading serveries, Facilities done its own part to alter conceptions exercises the kind of stewardship of space and time, and this summer, our that a great University both Office of Design and Construction and requires and deserves. Office of Information Technology joined For this we have four forces to bring McCosh 50 into the 21st things to thank. The first is century while maintaining its historic sufficient resources to care for ambience. The blackboards remain, but our campus well, minimizing discreetly housed in the podium is one deferred maintenance and of Princeton’s first forays into the world meeting emergencies when they of SMART technology — a tablet that arise — a credit to the generosity Preserving West College’s ivy while allows lecturers to annotate material of our alumni and the foresight waterproofing its basement. projected on the screen behind them of our trustees. The second is a and, ultimately, on any computer with an sophisticated rolling 10-year plan that forecasts what will Internet connection through what is aptly known as Bridgit need attention when, while allowing for the unexpected. conferencing. Similarly, McCosh 50 is now equipped with The third advantage we enjoy is the exceptional dedication high-definition television cameras and other technologies of our staff, who treat the grounds and buildings in their that will enable or enhance recordings, simulcasts, care as if they were their own. Many have worked at videoconferencing, and distance learning — part of a larger Princeton for decades, which means they know each natural effort to share what happens in our classrooms with a and manmade feature of our campus intimately, exemplified worldwide audience. Other spaces have also been upgraded, by electrician Renato Carazzai, who joined our staff in the and faculty and student reaction to these technological fall of 1958 and is still going strong. Finally — and most innovations will help determine the future shape of teaching importantly — the projects carried out each summer reflect at our University. a long and widely held belief that we must both actively A wide range of other projects left their imprint on preserve our material heritage and continually adapt it to our campus this summer. Some, such as the substitution changing circumstances; that Princeton can no more rest of electronic for mechanical dormitory room locks, will be on its physical laurels than on its intellectual ones. The net apparent when you return for Reunions; others, such as the result is a campus that positively shines, greatly enhancing regrading of Little-Edwards courtyard, are more subtle. the experience of Princetonians and visitors alike. But, obvious or not, those who carried out these projects Let me give you just two examples of the work we are the unsung heroes of a new academic year, which, like undertook this summer. One deceptively prosaic task was to so many before it, is reaping the fruits of their hard work. waterproof the eastern foundations of West College, built in 1836 — a project driven by the Office of Admission’s move from a paper-based to an electronic evaluation process for THE ALUMNI WEEKLY PROVIDES THESE PAGES TO THE PRESIDENT 20121024-1.2.indd 1 10/2/12 9:29 AM 03paw1024_InboxMastEditorRev1_Letters 10/8/12 12:31 PM Page 3 Inbox BUZZ BOX Inbox Unforgettable concerts: “The death camps in Poland were and are a gruesome Share your stories horror, not only for the Jews but for the Poles as well.” Each story, letter, and memorial at paw.princeton.edu offers a — Kenneth A. Stier Jr. ’54 chance to comment Ahistoryofsuffering and industry that its previously much Concerts are among larger Jewish population could have the most lasting I taught Polish to small classes perhaps provided. But the deeds are done, and memories of 20 times at Princeton, up to 2007, and raking up the Holocaust again just campus am admittedly a fan of Poland. Here stokes the anger many Jews still feel years, are some reactions to Jennifer Alt- against Poland. Let’s cut this histori- and the mann’s nicely written and illustrated cally benighted nation some slack.