Featured Stories Archive – August, 2007
Providing neuroscientists with a window to the brain
By Chad Boutin · Posted August 30, 2007; 10:11 a.m.
When Princeton neuroscientists want a close-up view of the brain, they need look no further than Green Hall's magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner.
Orange and black -- the history of Princeton's colors
By Jennifer Greenstein Altmann · Posted August 27, 2007; 04:43 p.m.
For more than a century, students and alumni of Princeton University have worn orange and black to signal their allegiance to the school.
Camp sparks a lasting love of computers
By Jennifer Greenstein Altmann · Posted August 23, 2007; 12:00 p.m.
Michael Lapointe stood hunched over a computer where four youngsters were electronically composing a song. Lapointe, who will be a junior at Montclair State University in September, was instructing the group of middle-school students attending this summer's Community House computer camp in the finer points of computerized music.
New summer program draws undergraduates to brain science
By Chad Boutin · Posted August 20, 2007; 12:00 p.m.
Five Princeton undergraduates are taking a good look inside the brain with some of neuroscience's latest tools and techniques during a nine-week internship program the University initiated this summer. The goal is to attract the next generation of researchers to one of science's fastest-growing and most challenging fields.
Venerable lecture hall reaches century milestone
By Jennifer Greenstein Altmann · Posted August 16, 2007; 03:00 p.m.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of McCosh Hall, which was built, according to former Princeton President Woodrow Wilson, as a "noble memorial to our beloved one-time leader" James McCosh, who was the 11th president of Princeton.
Garden Project aims to educate campus about food choices and sustainability
By Emily Aronson · Posted August 13, 2007; 02:00 p.m.
Ruthie Schwab, Ben Elga and Diana Bonaccorsi are spending their summer among rows of aromatic herbs, lines of leafy greens and mounds of sprouting vegetables, all contained in a small patch of land behind the University's Forbes College. While many of their fellow Princeton classmates work in air-conditioned offices, conduct research in sterile labs or travel to far-off places, the students sweat under the summer sun planting, watering and weeding the 55-by-12-foot garden they hope will provide the campus with more than just nourishment.
Italians sample science and America at Gran Sasso summer program
By Chad Boutin · Posted August 9, 2007; 02:00 p.m.
Far from their homes in the mountains of central Italy, a group of 22 high school students are spending three weeks on the Princeton campus, plunging deeper into science and American society than they ever have. Now in its fourth summer, the Gran Sasso-Princeton Physics Summer School draws promising young talent from the Italian region of Abruzzo, which is also home to the Gran Sasso National Laboratory.
Students swim waters of discovery in college prep program
By Jennifer Greenstein Altmann · Posted August 6, 2007; 12:00 p.m.
Two dozen high school students who are spending the summer at Princeton University gathered on a warm July afternoon in front of a large kiddie pool filled with what looked like an immense batch of Elmer's Glue. The experiment they were about to undertake would invest them with a sense of wonder at the marvels of the physical world. The project was part of a physics class in the Princeton University Preparatory Program, which brings 70 students from Princeton, Trenton and Ewing who are academically talented and from disadvantaged backgrounds to campus for three summers of intensive academic experiences.
Seminars offer teachers a fresh look at history
By Eric Quiñones · Posted August 2, 2007; 11:48 a.m.
"Despot" and "tyrant" are not terms generally associated with Abraham Lincoln. Yet in his efforts to preserve the Union as the Civil War erupted, Lincoln took drastic measures that were criticized as overstepping the limits of executive power.
Lincoln's controversial exercise of presidential wartime authority -- a familiar subject in today's political environment -- was the focus of a recent seminar for New Jersey high school teachers enrolled in a program at Princeton that aims to bolster their knowledge of American history and provide fresh perspectives to bring back to their own classrooms.