News from
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Office of Communications
Stanhope Hall
Princeton, New Jersey 08544-5264Contact: Mary Caffrey 609/258-5748
University Health Services (609) 258-5036
Date: November 6, 1998
AIDS Panels to be Displayed on Princeton Campus During Quilt Across New Jersey
Princeton, N.J. -- Sections of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display at several sites at Princeton University from Tuesday, November 10, through Saturday, November 14, as part of the Quilt Across New Jersey project that began November 2.
Princeton University is one of more than 40 colleges and schools in the state that will display parts of the quilt during the first two weeks of November. Quilt Across New Jersey is the largest project of its kind ever undertaken by the state's higher education community. In Mercer County, sections of the quilt will be displayed at Rider University, the College of New Jersey, and Mercer County Community College, as well as Princeton.
Quilt panels sent to the Princeton campus will be shown in several locations to reach a broad cross-section of the campus community. Display sites will be:
Chancellor Green (the student center). Tuesday, November 10, at 10 a.m. to Thursday, November 12, at 1 p.m.
Murray-Dodge Hall lobby. Tuesday, November 10, at 10 a.m. to Thursday, November 12, at 2 p.m.
McCosh Health Center. Friday, November 13, from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Mathey College Dining Room. Tuesday, November 10, from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. (Princeton University students only).
Center for Jewish Life, dining room. Thursday evening, November 12, to Sunday evening, November 14.
The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt is a traveling memorial to a fraction of the estimated 11.7 million people worldwide who have died of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. That total includes 379,258 deaths in the United States through June 1997. Each panel of the quilt, approximately the size of a human grave, is decorated to represent an individual AIDS victim, or, in some cases, a parent and child.
The quilt, which began with two panels in 1987, has grown to more than 41,000 panels featuring 80,000 names. The AIDS quilt was last displayed in its entirety on the Mall in Washington, D.C., in 1996. It has grown so large that it will not be displayed in its entirety again. The full quilt weighs 52 tons and would cover 16 football fields.
Quilt displays provide an opportunity for students, staff and faculty to think about the impact that HIV/AIDS has on their communities and to remember those who have died of AIDS. Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, an honorary member of the Princeton Classes of 1922 and 1970 and a member of the University Board of Trustees, is serving as honorary chair of Quilt Across New Jersey. The project is a collaborative effort among the New Jersey Collegiate Consortium for Health in Education, Rutgers University and the central New Jersey chapter of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.
At the Princeton campus, Quilt Across New Jersey is being organized through the Office of Health Education within University Health Services and the student organization Princeton AIDS Awareness.