Princeton faculty, staff win CASE awards

Members of the University faculty and staff have won four national awards from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) for academic work and publications.

Harvey Rosen
, the John L. Weinberg Professor of Economics and Business Policy, received the H.S. Warwick Research Award for Outstanding Published Scholarship. He was recognized for the article "Altruism and the Child Cycle of Alumni Donations," published by the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, which he co-wrote with Jonathan Meer, an assistant professor of economics at Texas A&M University. The article explores motivations for alumni giving and whether contributions are affected by the expectation of a reciprocal benefit. The authors studied alumni contributions to an anonymous research university to determine whether donations were motivated by a perceived gain.

The Princeton Alumni Weekly received the gold award for general interest magazines with circulations of 30,000 to 74,999 produced at a college or university. The award was for the Jan. 23, 2008, issue, with a cover story on "The Most Influential Princeton Alumni Ever," and the June 11, 2008, issue, with a cover story on campus landscaping and preserving the legacy of Beatrix Farrand.

Publications produced by the Office of Development Communications to commemorate the dedication of the Lewis Library last fall received two gold awards, for excellence in design in the category of multipage publications and for special program publications packages.

One award recognized the dedication program, which captures the dynamic colors and shapes of the multistory, 87,000-square-foot science library, designed by Frank Gehry. The second award was for a package of items prepared for the dedication, which, in addition to the program, included the invitation, lapel pins, bookmarks, hats and buttons.

The University also won four regional honors in the CASE District II Accolades Awards program.

The Lunch 'n' Learn Information Technology seminars, produced by the Office of Information Technology (OIT), received a gold medal for best practices in communications. The award recognized the program for its fully integrated outreach. The lunchtime series features speakers with varied affiliations exploring a wide array of topics in technology. During the past four years, OIT's Education and Outreach Services have sought to transform the existing series into a fully integrated outreach effort, with a blog, podcasts, RSS feeds and Facebook posts.

The Office of Communications received two district awards. Kitta MacPherson, a senior writer in the Office of Communications, received a silver award in the excellence in news writing category. The award recognized news releases on astronomical sciences, mathematics, music theory, public health, quantum physics and superconductivity that were written in spring 2008. The communications office also was awarded an honorable mention in the "online/CD/DVD content" category for "Devoted to the arts: Students combine creative, academic pursuits in many ways," a package of stories, slide shows and videos that appeared on the University's homepage in February 2008.

The Office of Development's gift planning department received a bronze award in the "webcast/podcast/CD/DVD features" category of the alumni and fundraising features division. The award was for "Gifts for All Seasons," a video that illustrates how planned gifts have helped to shape Princeton's campus and describes the management of the gift planning program.

CASE is the professional organization for advancement professionals who work in alumni relations, communications, fundraising, marketing and other areas. Its membership includes more than 3,400 colleges, universities, independent elementary and secondary schools, and educational associates in 61 countries around the world.

The largest of the eight CASE districts, District II includes institutions in New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Ontario.