Princeton University

Princeton University, located in Princeton, New Jersey, is one of the eight Ivy League universities. Widely considered one of the world's most prestigious universities, it was founded as the "College of New Jersey" in 1746, and was originally located in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The school moved to Princeton in 1756, still under its original name. The name was officially changed to "Princeton University" in 1896. While originally a Presbyterian institution, the university is now non-sectarian and makes no religious demands on its students.

Table of contents

1 About Princeton 2 Famous alumni and faculty 2.1 Elected politicians 2.2 Government / Law / Public policy 2.3 Business 2.4 Economics 2.5 Mathematics/Science 2.6 Engineering/Technology 2.7 Literature 2.8 Sports 2.9 Entertainment 2.10 Other 3 Traditions 4 Lingo 5 External links

About Princeton

\nThe university offers two main undergraduate degrees: the bachelor of arts (A.B.) and the bachelor of science in engineering (B.S.E.). Courses in the humanities are traditionally either seminars or twice-weekly lectures with an additional discussion seminar, called a "precept" (short for "preceptorial"). This system was instituted by Woodrow Wilson, when he served as university president. All undergraduates must complete a senior thesis to graduate, and all juniors earning the A.B. degree complete one or two extensive pieces of independent research, known as the "junior paper" or the "JP" Princeton offers postgraduate research degrees (most notably the Ph.D.), but it does not have the extensive range of professional postgraduate schools of many other universities - for example, there is no law or business school. Its most famous professional school is the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, founded in 1930 as the School of Public and International Affairs and renamed in 1948. The university also offers graduate degrees in engineering and architecture. The university's libraries have 11 million holdings, and the main university library, Firestone Library, houses over six million volumes. In addition to Firestone Library, many individual disciplines have their own libraries, including architecture, art history, East Asian studies, engineering, geology, international affairs and public policy, and Near Eastern studies. Traditionally, each senior is given an enclosed carrel in the library for private use and the storage of books and research materials. Students at Princeton University agree to conform to an academic honesty policy called the Honor Code. This requires students to write a pledge on all written assignments which asserts that they have neither plagiarized their work nor committed any other breach of ethics. Signing the pledge indicates the understanding of the "two-fold responsibility" of the code: to observe the code oneself, and to report possible violations of other students. As a result of this code, students take all tests unsupervised by faculty members. Violations of the Honor Code incur the strongest of disciplinary action, including suspension and often expulsion. Impressively, such action is rarely needed despite the absence of test supervision. Nassau Hall, the University's oldest building. Note the tiger sculptures beside the steps. The campus, located on 2 km² of lavishly landscaped grounds, features a large number of gothic-style buildings, most dating from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The main university administration building, Nassau Hall, was built in 1756 and briefly served as the United States Capitol in 1783. Contemporary additions to the campus feature some more modern architecture, including buildings by Robert Venturi and the Hillier Group. Much sculpture adorns the campus, including pieces by Henry Moore (Oval with Points), Clement Meadmoore (Upstart II), and Alexander Calder (Five Disks: One Empty). At the base of campus is the Delaware and Raritan Canal, dating from 1830, and Lake Carnegie, used for rowing. Princeton is among the wealthiest universities in the world, with an endowment of over eight billion US dollars sustained through the continued donations of its alumni and maintained by expert investment advisors. Some of Princeton's wealth is invested in its impressive art museum, which features works by Monet and Andy Warhol, among other prominent artists. Most of the student body lives on campus in dormitories. Freshmen and sophomores live in residential colleges. Later-year students have the option to live off-campus, but few do, as rents and real estate in the Princeton area are extremely high. Undergraduate social life revolves around a number of coeducational "eating clubs" which are open to upperclassmen and serve a similar role to that which fraternities and sororities do at other campuses. Princeton has a "need-blind" admission policy, in which students are accepted into the incoming class on merit, regardless of their ability to pay the high tutition fees. Unlike other universities which ask students to take on the heavy burden of student loans, Princeton simply pays the remainder of costs the student's family cannot afford through grants from its endowment. Princeton was the first university to implement such a "no-loan" financial aid policy in 2001. Despite these policies, Princeton's student body, as a group, is generally regarded as more culturally conservative or traditional than the student bodies of peer institutions. However, most students have voted Democratic in presidential elections. In 1869 Princeton competed with Rutgers in the first ever intercollegiate football game, losing 6 to 4. Its rivalry with Yale, active since 1873, is the second oldest in American football. In more recent years, Princeton has excelled in men's basketball, both men's and women's lacrosse, and women's crew. Shirley Tilghman is the current president of Princeton University. \n

Famous alumni and faculty

Famous Princeton faculty members or alumni:

Elected politicians

\n*Bill Bradley A.B. 1965 - Former basketball star, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, former U.S. Senator\n*Aaron Burr 1772 - Vice President of the United States\n*Bill Frist A.B. 1974 - Senate Majority Leader\n*John F. Kennedy Class of 1939 (left after first semester for medical reasons) - President of the United States \n*Jim Leach A.B. 1964 - US Congressman\n*James Madison 1771 - President of the United States\n*Claiborne Pell A.B. 1940 - former U.S. Senator\n*Paul Sarbanes A.B. 1954 - US Senator\n*Eliot Spitzer A.B. 1981 - NY State Attorney General\n*Adlai E. Stevenson A.B. 1922 - former governor of Illinois, Democratic presidential candidate, and United Nations ambassador\n*Woodrow Wilson A.B. 1879 - President of the United States, and formerly of Princeton University and governor of New Jersey

Government / Law / Public policy

\n*James Baker A.B. 1952 - Secretary of State under George H. W. Bush\n*Ben Bernanke - Professor of Economics and Public Affairs, member of the Federal Reserve Board\n*Frank Carlucci A.B. 1952 - Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan\n*William Colby A.B. 1940 - director of the CIA under Presidents Richard M. Nixon and Gerald Ford\n*Allen Dulles A.B. 1914, M.A. 1916 - director of the CIA under President Dwight D. Eisenhower\n*John Foster Dulles A.B. 1908 - Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower\n*James V. Forrestal Class of 1915 (did not graduate) - Secretary of Defense under Harry Truman\n*Robert George Hon. 1988 - Professor of Jurisprudence, constitutional law scholar\n*Ralph Nader A.B. 1955 - Green Party presidential candidate\n*Richard Perle M.A. 1967 - neo-conservative policy expert\n*Donald Rumsfeld A.B. 1954 - Secretary of Defense under Gerald Ford and George W. Bush\n*George Shultz A.B. 1942 - Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan

Business

\n*Jeff Bezos B.S.E. 1986 - founder of Amazon.com\n*Malcolm Forbes A.B. 1941 - businessman and publisher\n*Steve Forbes A.B. 1970 - son of Malcolm, businessman and publisher of Forbes magazine\n*Carl Icahn A.B. 1957 - Corporate raider\n*Charles Schwab A.B. 1944 - founder of brokerage firm\n*Meg Whitman A.B. 1977 - CEO of eBay

Economics

\n*Gary Becker A.B. 1951 - Nobel laureate (Economics 1992) \n*Alan Blinder A.B. 1967 - Economics professor, Fed under Clinton\n*James Heckman Ph.D 1971 - Nobel laureate (Economics 2000)\n*Paul Krugman - Professor of economics, New York Times columnist\n*Harold Shapiro Ph.D 1964 - Professor of economics, President of Princeton until 2001\n*Michael Spence A.B.1966- Nobel laureate (Economics 2001)

Mathematics/Science

\n*John Bardeen Ph.D 1936- Nobel laureate (Physics 1972)\n*George Boolos, A.B. 1961- philosopher and mathematical logician, professor at MIT\n*Arthur Compton Ph.D 1916 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1927) \n*Clinton Davisson Ph.D 1911 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1937) \n*Richard Feynman Ph.D 1942 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1965)\n*Robert Hofstadter Ph.D 1938 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1961)\n*Edwin McMillan Ph.D 1933 - Nobel laureate (Chemistry 1951) \n*John Nash, PhD 1950 - schizophrenic mathematician who was the subject of A Beautiful Mind. Winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in economics for the Nash equilibrium.\n*Richard Smalley Ph.D 1974 - Nobel laureate (Chemistry 1996) \n*Steven Weinberg Ph,D 1957 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1979)\n* Andrew Wiles - the mathematician who proved Fermat's Last Theorem.

Engineering/Technology

\n*Hal Abelson, A.B. 1969 - directed implementation of the Logo programming language for the Apple II, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT\n*Alonzo Church, A.B. 1924, Ph.D.1927 - mathematician known for the Church-Turing thesis , developed the lambda calculus that exposed the "undecideability" problem and influenced LISP \n*Charles "Pete" Conrad, B.S.E. 1953 - astronaut, third man to walk on the moon\n* Brian Kernighan Ph.D 1969, electrical engineering. Professor, computer science. Co-inventor of the awk programming language, and co-author of the definitive textbook The C Programming Language.\n* Robert Tarjan - computer scientist, inventor of many algorithms related to graph theory. Winner of the 1986 Turing award\n* Alan Turing Ph.D 1938 - pioneering computer scientist, formulated the Turing machine and the Turing test. The Turing award is named in his honor.\n* Robert Venturi A.B. 1947, M.F.A. 1950 - architect, Pritzker Prize laureate 1991\n* Andrew Yao, computer scientist, winner of the 2000 Turing award

Literature

\n*Ian Caldwell A.B. 1998 - co-authored the recent book The Rule of Four, set on the Princeton campus.\n*Frederick Buechner A.B. 1947 - Pulitzer Prize-nominated author\n*José Donoso A.B. 1951 - Chilean author\n*F. Scott Fitzgerald Class of 1917 (did not graduate) - writer \n*Toni Morrison - professor, Nobel laureate (Literature 1993)\n*Joyce Carol Oates - professor in the Creative Writing Program\n*Eugene O'Neill Class of 1910 (did not graduate) - Nobel laureate (Literature 1936) \n*David Remnick A.B. 1981 - New Yorker Magazine editor\n*Booth Tarkington A.B. 1893 - novelist\n*Thornton Wilder M.A. 1925 - Our Town premiered at Princeton\n*Edmund Wilson A.B. 1916 - literary critic\n*John Norman PhD in Philosophy

Sports

\n*Hobey Baker A.B. 1914 - famous hockey player; college hockey's top individual award is named in his memory\n*Bill Bradley A.B. 1965 - Former basketball star, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, former U.S. Senator\n*Jeff Halpern A.B. 1999 - current NHL player; plays for the NHL team Washington Capitals\n*Dick Kazmaier A.B. 1952 - Heisman Trophy winner 1952

Entertainment

\n*Dean Cain A.B. 1988 - actor, played Superman in the television series Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.\n*David Duchovny A.B. 1982 - actor best known for his role in The X-Files\n*José Ferrer A.B. 1933 - Academy Award and Tony Award winning actor\n*Charlie Gibson A.B. 1965 - TV morning show host\n* Brooke Shields A.B. 1987 - actress\n*Jimmy Stewart B.S. 1932 - actor

Other

\n*James Caldwell, American Revolutionary soldier and chaplain\n*Robert Goheen A.B. 1940, M.A. 1947, Ph.D. 1948 - former president of Princeton, former ambassador U.S. to India\n*Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee A.B. 1773 - American Revolutionary cavalry officer, father of Robert E. Lee\n*Alan Lightman A.B. 1970 - physicist and novelist, professor at MIT\n*Neil Rudenstine A.B. 1955 - former president of Harvard\n*George Rupp A.B. 1964 - former president of Columbia University\n*Ruth J. Simmons Hon. 1998 - first black president of an Ivy League school and first female president of Brown University\n*Peter Singer - professor of human values, expert on practical ethics\n*Cornel West Ph.D 1980 - professor of religion and African American studies

Traditions

\n*Bonfire - ceremonial bonfire only held if Princeton beats Harvard and Yale at football in the same season\n*The Clapper or Clapper Theft - climbing to the top of Nassau Hall and stealing the bell clapper so as to prevent the bell from ringing and, thus, from starting class on the first day of the school year. For safety reasons, the clapper has now been removed permanently.\n*Houseparties - formal parties thrown simultaneously by all of the eating clubs at the end of the spring term\n*Nude Olympics - annual frolic in first snow of the winter (now banned)\n*P-rade - parade of all alumni down the center of campus during reunions\n*Reunions - annual gathering of all alumni, not just major reunion classes\n*Steam-tunneling - exploring the many underground steam tunnels (now banned)\n*Newman's Day - students attempt to drink 24 beers in the 24 hours of April 24th, named after Paul Newman (now severely subdued due to extreme media attention in 2004 after Newman's lawyer sent a letter to the New York Times)

Lingo

\n*Bicker - the process by which students join selective eating clubs, similar to fraternity/sorority rush at other schools\n*Hose - As a transitive verb, to be rejected from a selective organization, e.g., in eating club bicker, interviews for selective courses, etc.\n*Dinky - Short (one- or two- car) train that runs from Princeton Junction to Princeton station\n*Late meal - Refers to the meals that can be redeemed in exchange for meals missed in the residential dining halls. A student receives credit to buy food in the dining area of the Frist Campus Center.\n*Locomotive - Distinctive Princeton cheer... "'ray, 'ray, 'ray, tiger, tiger, tiger, sis, sis, sis, boom boom boom ahhhhhhh. Princeton. Princeton. Princeton". (It's common to replace "Princeton" with a class year to toast a particular class.)\n*Old Nassau - the University itself, also the name of a distinctive song sung at most athletic events and many drama productions.\n*Reading Period - 2 week study period between the end of classes and the beginning of exams in January and May\n*The Wa - The local Wawa convenience store and food market\n*The Street - Prospect Avenue, home of the eating clubs\n*Woody Woo - Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs\n*Getting PMC'ed - when a student is hospitalized for drinking too much alcohol. In this case, a student is deemed too drunk to be treated by McCosh (the university infirmary) and is instead transferred to Princeton Medical Center.

External links

\n* Princeton's home page\n* Official Princeton athletics site \n\n\nCategory:Universities and colleges in New JerseyCategory:Ivy LeagueCategory:Princeton University