PRINCETON GREETS THE CLASS OF '00
The Class of 2000 shook the campus out of its summer-long siesta when it arrived for orientation week, September 7-11. To prepare nervous first-year students for what's ahead, the university planned a host of activities, including open houses for departments and campus organizations, faculty panel discussions, cookouts, musical performances, and "Sex on a Saturday Night," a dramatic performance to prepare students for potential dangers lurking.
Nearly 700 freshmen started the school year early by loosening up with classmates on outdoor adventures and community-service projects before tending to the details of college life. Six hundred first-year students and 181 student leaders took part in Outdoor Action's annual hiking, canoeing, and rock-climbing trips. Another 82 freshmen and 20 student leaders participated in Urban Action projects in Trenton, Philadelphia, and Princeton. They helped build and renovate affordable housing, worked in a soup kitchen, and volunteered at a youth camp.
At Opening Exercises in the Chapel on Sunday, September 8, President Shapiro urged the freshmen to become citizens who treasure new ideas, are independent thinkers, and feel social responsibility for those less fortunate. On Monday night, the new students attended a class meeting on diversity at which several students offered advice. Joanne Augustin '97, who had attended an all-black high school, encouraged them to examine their own opinions about people who are different from them and to share their own cultural heritage with others. Tucker Culbertson '99, who is gay, implored students not to stereotype other people. "It's very easy to hate what we don't know," he said.
With 1,130 members, this year's freshman class has 83 fewer students than last year's entering class. More than half the Class of 2000, 53 percent, are men, and 47 percent are women. Overall, women make up 46 percent of the 4,602 undergraduates enrolled.
African-Americans are 7.3 percent of the Class of 2000. The percentage of first-year Asian-Americans is 13.2. Latinos are 7.2 percent. Native Americans are 0.6 percent. From 36 countries, foreign students are 4.1 percent of the Class of 2000. Sons and daughters of alumni make up 12 percent of the entering class.
New Jersey sent the most first-year students to Princeton. It is home to 161 students, New York to 140, and California to 112.
The Graduate College welcomed 460 new students, 34 percent of whom are female. (Figures for graduate-school registration are not final.) Foreign nationals make up 36 percent of new graduate students and represent 50 countries. Among U.S. nationals, minorities make up 12 percent of new graduate students; 6.1 percent are Asian-American, 3.5 percent are Latino, and 2.4 percent are African-American. One Native-American student registered. By area of study, 105 new degree students are in the natural sciences, 85 in engineering, 84 in humanities, 78 in public and international affairs, 62 in social sciences, and 26 in architecture. The total graduate-school enrollment is 1,740. Classes started on Thursday, September 12.

ORAL HISTORIES: ALUMNI REMINISCE
A diverse group of alumni have shared their thoughts on all things Princeton in Going Back: An Oral History of Princeton, recently published by the Princetoniana Committee of the Alumni Council. The booklet features excerpts from 30 interviews and period photographs. Alumni, including former New Yorker cartoonist Whitney Darrow, Jr. '31, former Secretary of State James A. Baker III '52, and 12-letter athlete Emily C. Goodfellow '76, reminisce about such things as getting into Princeton, their professors, the trials of Bicker, coeducation, and returning for Reunions. Actor Dean Cain '88 recalls his visit to campus on a gloomy March day. James Q. Bensen '36 talks about football's glory days, when the "Big Three" were Princeton, Harvard, and Yale. And Charles S. Dawson III '70 remembers the limited social life for African-Americans. The complete transcripts from these interviews are available at the University Archives, in Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library. The Princetoniana Committee printed some 2,500 copies of Going Back, which may be obtained at no cost through the Alumni Council at Maclean House and Mudd Library.

HOW TO WRITE GOOD SEX: A PRIMER BY (LECTURER) ELIZABETH BENEDICT
In her new book, novelist and lecturer Elizabeth Benedict doesn't encourage writers to compose more frequent or more explicit sex scenes. Quality, not quantity, is what matters.
"I feel like the spotlight is now on me when I'm writing a sex scene to write a really good one," says Elizabeth Benedict, a novelist and lecturer in the Council of the Humanities and Creative Writing whose book The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers was published this summer. That doesn't mean she feels she has to write about great sex or sexual encounters that are arousing; instead, she explains, "It means writing scenes that are powerful emotionally." Although Benedict has been incorporating intimate encounters in her fiction for 20 years, she hadn't analyzed what makes a good sex scene until about a year ago, when the editor-in-chief of the publisher Story Press asked her to write The Joy of Writing Sex. Its title is a play on the 1970s how-to book The Joy of Sex.
In today's fiction, writers often include every groan of a sexual encounter. Benedict was interested in finding out what makes a good sex scene when, as novelist Carol Shields told Benedict, "the language of sensuality has become so eroded by popular culture."
We know the mechanics of sex, and we've all read our share of steamy scenes. But describing every twitch of a sexual encounter does not a good fictional sex scene make, says Benedict, who came to Princeton in 1994 and teaches fiction workshops. The mechanics of sex aren't very intriguing, "but what it means in people's relationships is interesting and complicated and changing all the time," says Benedict, sitting in the Princeton house she shares with other renters. A real challenge in writing sex scenes, she says, is to be original and tell readers something they didn't already know about the characters.
In The Joy of Writing Sex she offers writers guidelines to incorporating sex scenes into their fiction. Her book is for both novice and experienced authors, some of whom feel befuddled in writing about coitus, says Benedict.
For her book Benedict interviewed a range of authors who have written well about sex: Dorothy Allison, Russell Banks, John Updike, Alan Hollinghurst, and others. And she includes excerpts from work by writers such as Joyce Carol Oates, Terry McMillan, Peter Carey, and David Lodge. She chose writers from different generations, gay and lesbian authors, and two writers who don't write about explicit sex to find out why.
Some of the writers she interviewed have struggled either with de facto censors such as grandparents or parents or with their own internal censors. Dorothy Allison told Benedict: "If I hadn't learned to write about sex and particularly to write about my own sexual desires, I don't think I would have survived. I think the guilt, the terror I grew up with was so extraordinarily powerful if I had not written my way out of it, I'd be dead."
The most important element in determining how a sexual encounter should evolve in a work of fiction is the relationship the characters have to each other, says Benedict. So she organized chapters according to those relationships: first-time lovers, married couples, characters involved in adulterous liaisons and other types of illicit sex. She also includes a chapter on characters who masturbate.
"There are a lot of really bad sex scenes," says Benedict. Some of the major problems writers face are thinking a good sex scene has to be about good sex and focusing too much on the physical details instead of who the characters are and what each wants from the encounter; writing a sex scene as if it were a sex manual; and dropping a sex scene into a story without connecting it to what comes before and after. "In real life, sex doesn't have to mean anything. But it has to mean something in a work of fiction for it to be there, and the characters have to change because of it," says Benedict.
Good sex scenes surprise readers by giving them insight into the plot. They are always about sex and something larger, she says. The needs, impulses, and histories of the characters should drive a sex scene. The best writing of sex in literature, she explains, subverts the orgasm and makes it the least important aspect of the scene, unlike pornography, in which the focus of the scene is the climax. Writers need not be explicit, but they must be specific. "What makes good writing of any kind is the specificity of it-specific to those characters, that moment in the story, so that it could only be happening to those characters," says Benedict.
Composing love-making scenes has always come naturally to Benedict. A 1976 graduate of Barnard College, she came of age when sexual freedom and women's sexual pleasure were matters of public debate. "The fallout from that sexual tumult became my material, and it wouldn't have occurred to me not to write about sex," she says.
Benedict has written three novels-Slow Dancing (Knopf, 1985), The Beginner's Book of Dreams (Knopf, 1988), and Safe Conduct (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1993)-and is working on a fourth. She wouldn't reveal what it's about but says that yes, it will have sex scenes.
To the same question she had asked some of the authors she interviewed-Do your sex scenes physically excite you?-Benedict answers, "no comment."
-Kathryn F. Greenwood

ACLU ACCUSES UNIVERSITY OF INTERNET CENSORSHIP,
PRINCETON CLARIFIES POLICY
Princeton had a run-in over the summer with the American Civil Liberties Union for what the ACLU claimed was the university's unconstitutional policy regarding political communication over its computer network. The ACLU believed that the university had tried to stifle free speech among students, faculty, and staff. It wanted Princeton to rewrite its policy and had threatened litigation if the university didn't do so. Attorneys for the ACLU of New Jersey and the general counsel's office discussed the matter on September 12, and the ACLU dropped the matter, satisfied that it wasn't trying to prohibit political speech by individuals. The ACLU decided not to litigate after Princeton agreed to send a letter to the campus community clarifying its policy and to revise its written policy.
The brouhaha started when the ACLU got wind of potential civil-liberties violations from members of the campus community concerned about a July 19 memo that reiterated Princeton's policy against the use of university resources, including the Internet, for political campaigns. Howard S. Ende, general counsel, and Ira H. Fuchs, vice-president for computing and information technology, posted the memo on the campus network in response to campaign literature placed on the network by two partisans of congressional candidate Rush D. Holt, the assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. One e-mail message originated from an off-campus e-mail address and the other from one on the campus, said university spokesman Justin Harmon '78.
According to Harmon, the university sent the July 19 policy statement to remind campus members not to use resources on behalf of a political candidate if doing so would suggest university support of the candidate. In Harmon's view, some people-including the ACLU-read the memo too liberally as a broad-based ban on political dialogue on campus. The Rush Holt partisans did nothing wrong, he added.
Princeton's memo was worded in such a way, however, to suggest that individuals cannot send campaign literature over the Internet and that the Holt partisans acted inappropriately.
As a nonprofit institution, Princeton is forbidden by law from financially supporting campaigns or commercial purposes, explained Harmon. University officials claim the policy is not intended to stifle free speech, but only to protect the university's tax-exempt status with the IRS. The policy permits individuals to express their political views.
Since that memo, the ACLU had taken the debate to the press and to President Shapiro in a long letter. Princeton, meanwhile, had tried to clarify its policy. ACLU officials were pushing for Princeton to change the policy because they believed that, as written, it bans the use of university computers for political purposes. According to ACLU attorney David Rocah, this violates the New Jersey Constitutional guarantee of free speech.
In a follow-up memo to the university community on August 22, Ende and Fuchs tried to clarify Princeton's policy, making clear that the university is not trying to stand in the way of free speech. Fuchs and Ende wrote, "students, faculty and staff are generally free to communicate their personal views on political candidates using e-mail and the Internet." But they also warned everyone to "bear in mind that the IRS may deem personal use of university resources for campaign activities, including the Internet, to be political activity by the university itself."
Because the Internet is an evolving medium, the university has had trouble wording its policy clearly, said Harmon. In a September 16 letter to The Daily Princetonian, Ende stated that personal political discourse on the computer network is not prohibited. He also suggested that if an individual's correspondence on the Internet may be interpreted as an official position of the university, it may be necessary to add a disclaimer noting that the views expressed are those of the writer and not of the university.

PALMER UPDATE
It's official: the 82-year-old Palmer Stadium will see its last hurrah on November 23, when the Tigers take on Dartmouth in the final game of the football season. (For Bill Robinson '39's reminiscence of Palmer, see page 29.)
Demolition of the venerable structure will begin next spring or early summer, and construction of a new stadium is expected to be completed by the 1998 football season, said Richard R. Spies *72, vice-president for finance and administration. The track complex, which will be located adjacent to the football stadium on Frelinghuysen Field, will be completed by the 1998 spring track season. As a result, Princeton next year will have neither a home outdoor track-and-field season nor a home football season. University officials have not yet determined where the teams will practice and compete during those seasons.
The new football stadium, which will also accommodate soccer and lacrosse games on a grass field, will be located about 70 feet north of the present stadium to make room for the 400-meter, eight-lane Olympic track. The stadium will feature an open-air concourse and a horseshoe-shaped building that will incorporate concession stands, restrooms, staircases, storage areas, and a press section. The stadium will seat 30,000 spectators in two tiers and will have lights for night games. The grandstands will appear to be separate from the horseshoe-shaped building but will be linked to it by bridges. The track complex will seat 2,500 in a covered grandstand along one side of the field.
The new stadium will be a "wonderful mix of Palmer Stadium tradition and a new, open, civic-minded sports arena," said Spies. Spectators will feel close to the action on the fields, he added.
At press time, the Princeton regional planning board had yet to review plans for the stadium, but the university was hoping to receive approval by the end of September.
Princeton filed a separate application with the planning board for site-plan approval to construct a 93-space parking lot on Ivy Lane, across from the stadium. This parking space is needed for the cars now assigned to the area around the exterior of the existing stadium. The university plans to relocate and renovate a large house now located where the parking lot will be. It will move the house, which had been used for many years as a residence for the dean of the Chapel, to an area bounded by the Computing Center on Prospect Avenue and faculty-owned homes on FitzRandolph Road and Western Way. Once renovated, the house will be made available for sale or rent to senior faculty members or administrators.

IN BRIEF
Satellite broadcast: To accommodate alumni who will not be able to take part in the October 25 Charter Day festivities on campus, the Office of the 250th has arranged for a private-circuit satellite broadcast of edited excerpts of the day's activities and anniversary events recorded on earlier occasions. Alumni who live in North America and have access to satellite reception (such as sports bars, community colleges, or local chambers of commerce) can receive the broadcast on the following satellite channels-Ku-band Satellite: SBS-6/Transponder 11, and C-band Satellite: Telstar 402/Transponder 20. (Viewers in Canada, Mexico, Virgin Islands, Alaska, and Hawaii will have access to C-band only.) The program will run 40 minutes and will be repeated every hour on the half hour starting at 6:30 p.m. EDT until midnight. A test signal will be broadcast on October 22, from 6 to 7 p.m. EDT. During that time, viewers can call the control room at 202-467-5600 with questions.

Moving on: Associate Dean of Religious Life and of the Chapel William C. Gipson has left Princeton to become the university chaplain and special assistant to the president of the University of Pennsylvania. Gipson had a wide range of responsibilities during his six-year tenure at Princeton. He supervised the Hallelujah Worship Service, a Sunday celebration in the black-church tradition, and the Interfaith Initiatives program. He also cochaired the Race Relations Working Group and helped start the freshman summer orientation program.

Homepage: paw's homepage, up and running for a year, has added a new feature. This fall junior David Itzkoff will contribute a biweekly, online On the Campus column. Itzkoff's musings on student life at Princeton will not appear in the printed magazine. When you log on to paw's homepage (http://www.princeton.edu/~paw), you can also view the current issue and past issues, send a letter to the editor, submit an ad, send information to Books Received, change your address, submit news to your class-notes secretary, and read about Tiger sports.