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Princeton in the News

April 17, 1998 | Feedback



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AP Worldstream
Copyright 1998 Associated Press
April 17, 1998; Friday

HEADLINE: Clinton comes to summit empty-handed on trade powers
BYLINE: TOM RAUM

Americas Summit
DATELINE: SANTIAGO, Chile

Four years ago, U.S. President Bill Clinton stood with 33 fellow Western Hemisphere leaders on the steps of a stately Miami mansion and celebrated ''a moment when the course of history in the Americas changed for the better.''

But at the second Summit of the Americas this weekend, Clinton has little to show for his vision of a free-trade zone by 2005 stretching from Alaska's North Slope to Argentina's Tierra del Fuego.

The course of history may have to wait a little longer.

Some analysts suggest the time for the United States to seize the free-trade initiative may have passed, with Latin American countries forming other economic alliances instead with each other and with markets in Asia and Europe.

''It will take place eventually, but you've had some roadblocks in the way,'' said Paul Sigmund, professor of politics at Princeton University and former director of its Latin American studies program. ''The administration did not push hard enough and fast enough when there was momentum.''

 

Business Week
Copyright 1998 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
April 20, 1998

HEADLINE: SHOULD UNCLE SAM POUR MORE BUCKS INTO SCHOOLS?
BYLINE: By Karen Pennar; Senior Writer Pennar covers education and economics.

Ready, class? Sharpen your No.2 pencils and answer a few simple questions about the state of public education in America.

Reducing class size will:
a. Improve children's test scores
b. Have no effect on performance
c. Both of the above

Students' test scores:
a. Have risen over the past 20 years
b. Rank low internationally
c. Both of the above

If you answered ''c'' to all three questions, congratulations! You have a handle on how difficult it is to evaluate America's educational system.

Improvements have to happen, of course, at the local level. But the feds can help in championing change, especially by sponsoring well-designed experiments to learn which reforms truly work. Rather than finance a nationwide reduction in class size as President Clinton has proposed, the Education Dept. should fund more and better tests of the impact of smaller class size. Or, as Princeton University economist Alan B. Krueger suggests, other ''incremental reforms,'' such as a longer school year, after-hours programs, and summer programs could be tried and studied. These initiatives needn't be as costly as the current budget requests. But they could play a big part in leveraging meaningful reform at the grass roots.

 

Chapel Hill Herald
Copyright 1998 The Durham Herald Co.
April 17, 1998, Friday

HEADLINE: UNC economics prof wins Friday prize
BYLINE: RICHARD RAY UNC News Services

CHAPEL HILL -- James A. Wilde, associate chairman and director of undergraduate studies in economics, was named as the 1998 recipient of the William C. Friday/Class of 1986 Award for Excellence in Teaching at UNC.

Wilde is among several campuswide teaching award-winners who will be honored at an April 23 banquet hosted by Chancellor Michael Hooker.

Wilde graduated from Wesleyan University in Middletown, Conn., in 1960. He earned his doctoral degree from Princeton University in 1968.

 

The News and Observer
Copyright 1998 The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC)
April 17, 1998 Friday

HEADLINE: Backpacker's creed: Be prepared
BYLINE: Joe Miller, Staff Writer

March 22: It was one of those unsettled days when the weather resembled a third-world country struggling with its first democratic election.

Spring, the newly seated season, had been in office a full two days. And at the lower elevations, it appeared to have a pretty firm grip: temperatures in the mid-50s, red maples leading the march to bloom, the sun's arc noticeably higher than it had been even the weekend before.

- If you're Internet-savvy, you've no doubt stumbled across the Princeton University Outdoor Action Program Web site (www.Princeton.edu/ oa). The site's expansive backpacking entry has been compiled into a 374-page reference, "The Backpacker's Field Manual," by center director Rick Curtis ($14.95, Three Rivers Press). As helpful as the Web site, with tips on the basics (trip planning, equipment and cooking) to the vital (first aid and wilderness survival).

 

Newsday
Copyright 1998 Newsday, Inc. (New York, NY)
April 17, 1998, Friday

HEADLINE: JUDGE VINDICATES PRINCETON / SCHOOL BLEW WHISTLE ON LYING STUDENT

BYLINE: THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

DATELINE: Hartford

A judge threw out a lawsuit yesterday by a Princeton University graduate and would-be doctor who sued his alma mater for alerting medical schools that he had lied about his academic achievements and background.

"Simply put, it's not outrageous to tell truthful statements about someone's fitness to practice medicine to those who have a need to know," U.S. District Judge Dominic Squatrito said.

The graduate, Rommel Nobay, had admitted he told numerous lies and half-truths in applying to Princeton and later to medical school. He claimed he was part black and a National Merit Scholar and that a family of lepers had donated half their beggings to support his dream.

The judge threw out the case on the fourth day of the trial after testimony was over but before the case had gone to the jury.

Dean Nancy Malkiel testified that Princeton was obligated to alert the medical schools about his lies.

"It's up to us to see to it that the people entering the medical profession are competent, confident and trustworthy," she said.

 

THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
Copyright 1998 Sentinel Communications Co.
April 17, 1998 Friday

HEADLINE: SARAH JANE WHITE

BYLINE: Bill Buchalter Of the Sentinel staff

Sarah Jane White has been a softball pitcher since the sixth grade, the past four for Winter Park High.

She also has been playing the violin since kindergarten and now occupies the first chair of the Florida Symphony Youth Orchestra. She doubles as an associate concert master.

They are completely different, yet in many ways, they are the same, White said. It takes a lot of self discipline for both, and both are outlets of different sorts.

White figures she needs the outlets. She plans to major in chemistry or math at Princeton next fall, where she hopes to catch up with her catcher the past three years, Devon Keefe, currently the leading hitter in the Princeton program.

 

Press Journal
Copyright 1998 Scripps Howard Newspapers (Vero Beach, FL)
April 17, 1998, Friday

HEADLINE: OBITUARIES

Bayard Stevens

Bayard Macdonald Stevens, 82, of Vero Beach, died April 15, 1998, at his residence after a prolonged illness.

He was born March 9, 1916, in Hoboken, N.J., and moved to Vero Beach 14 years ago from Bay Head, N.J.

Mr. Stevens was a direct descendant of John Stevens, owner of the yacht America, which was the first winner of the America's Cup. He was a graduate of Princeton University and received his master's degree from New York University. He was a member of the Vero Beach Yacht Club, American Cancer Society and the Jazz Society, all of Vero Beach.

 

Austin American-Statesman
Copyright 1998 The Austin American-Statesman
April 16, 1998

HEADLINE: Town sustains cattleman's memory

BYLINE: Mark Babineck

Diminutive pioneer rancher Watt Matthews was a giant whose boots will never be filled. But folks around his beloved Albany are determined to do their best.

His family is holding on to famed Lambshead Ranch, on which Matthews was born, worked his entire life and died. Others are striving to preserve the way of life he and his family epitomized in this cattle-country community 144 miles west of Dallas.

Watt Matthews was the youngest of nine children of John and Sallie Reynolds Matthews. Born in a bunkhouse on the ranch in 1899, he lived much of his life there, other than four years at Princeton University. He gained a reputation as an industry leader, philanthropist and the embodiment of Western hospitality.

 

The Christian Science Monitor
Copyright 1998 The Christian Science Publishing Society
April 16, 1998, Thursday

HEADLINE: Once the Mideast's 'Paris,' Beirut Pulls a Phoenix

BYLINE: Edward Alan Yeranian, Special to The Christian Science Monitor

DATELINE: BEIRUT, LEBANON

HIGHLIGHT: Up from ashes of war comes cultural revival. But a legacy of official waste is hard to shed.

After a long absence, the clock tower of the American University once again rises above the Beirut skyline. A landmark to generations of Beirutis, it was razed seven years ago after being damaged in a mysterious explosion.

To many, the reconstruction of College Hall and its signature tower is a symbol of the educational and cultural renaissance now engulfing Beirut, a city whose name just a few short years ago was synonymous with civil war and urban terror.

John Waterbury, a former Princeton University professor, recently took up residence on the campus, becoming the first American University president to do so in almost 14 years. One former president, Malcolm Kerr, was gunned down while walking to his office in 1984.

 

CNNfn
SHOW: STREET SWEEP
April 16, 1998; Thursday

HEADLINE: G-7 Group Vice Chairman - Interview, CNNfn

GUESTS: Alan Binder

JAN HOPKINS, CNNfn ANCHOR, STREET SWEEP: The latest on the economy: housing starts slipping a bit in the March. Construction of new homes dropping 2.8 percent to an annual rate of 1.59 million. That is still considered a very strong pace and the line for first time jobless claims getting shorter than the number of applicants last month fell to a 9 month low, down 22,000 to 289,000.

There are signs though that manufacturers are feeling the fallout from Asia and tomorrow we'll get at hoe trade with that region and the rest of the world is holding up.

Alan Blinder the Vice Chairman of the G-7 Group is here. He's also a professor at Princeton and a former Federal Reserve vice chairman and he'll look at the big picture ahead of us. Welcome.

ALAN BLINDER, VICE CHAIRMAN, G-7 GROUP: Thank you. Good to be here.

HOPKINS: Let's talk a little bit about what's going on right now in the economy. Signs of strength or signs of weakness, in your view?

BLINDER: I think there are ironically just enough signs of weakness that we can breathe easily, not quite easily. I mean the story in recent quarters really has been the economy is just surging ahead at rates that if you're worried about inflation, and the Fed always is, start to get - raise concerns. A slow down pretty much immediately would be just what the doctor ordered.

 

THE HINDU
Copyright 1998 FT Asia Intelligence Wire
April 16, 1998

HEADLINE: Tiny acorns, mighty oaks, gypsy moths, mice and men

THE above poem is in the Japanese Haiku metre of three lines in the order of five, seven and five syllables. It was one of the entries in a recent Science in Poetry' competition, sponsored by a British magazine which wanted to bring together the two cultures of science and letters. The poem is a successful example of such a fusion - poetically correct, scientifically rigorous and aesthetically pleasing. The imagery is subtle and creative, while the scientific truth behind it rather telling. It talks about the connectivity between what are thought as remote and isolated events and highlights the web of nature.

A filigreed tapestry

See, what a tangled web or a filigreed tapestry it is. The oak tree in the forests mast; millions of acorns fall all over the forest ground; deer and mice come to feast on it; the mice feast not only on acorns but also on the gypsy moth larvae. This is good because that crashes the gypsy moth population and the forest flourishes.

The flip side is as the mice breed they also contract ticks and transmit the Lyme disease germs that they bear. The Princeton University ecologist Andrew Dobson has been quoted as saying "It is a wonderful example of how perturbing the system produces results that you would not have expected to be there, unless you had done the experiments". But the study also highlights the pitfalls. For example, any move to reduce acorn population (using chemicals, as had been suggested) in an effort to cut down the incidence of Lyme disease would have sent the gypsy moth population skyrocketing and denuded the forests.

 

The Guardian
Copyright 1998 Guardian Newspapers Limited (London)
April 16, 1998

HEADLINE: Science and technology: The dangers of self-improvement;

Reviewers savaged Remaking Eden, Lee Silver's warning of where genetic engineering may be leading. But Tim Radford finds the Princeton professor is unrepentant, and a number of scientific heavyweights are beginning to think along the same lines

BYLINE: TIM RADFORD

Later this year, in a new book called Consilience (published by Little, Brown, no price yet), Edward O Wilson, the great evolutionary theorist of Harvard University, will argue the same thing: that Homo sapiens is about to decommission natural selection, that from now on human evolution will be a matter for science and technology, tempered by ethics and political choice.

Actually, Lee Silver of Princeton University said it all in January in a book called Remaking Eden (Weidenfeld, pounds 20) and got into terrible trouble. The irony is that unlike the others, Silver is a molecular biologist and really does go around altering life as we know it, although not human life. Another irony is that he got it in the neck, in the Guardian, from Lord Winston, one of the giants of reproductive biology.

One of Silver's offences was to take the tentative and clumsy knowledge of human genes, which now exists, and propose a future Homo supergeneticus. Silver is entirely unrepentant: he doesn't propose a super race because he likes the idea, he says. He is being deliberately outrageous. He proposes it as a warning.

'My fear of genetic engineering is not so much that it will be used to hurt people, because most people want not to hurt their children; most people want to give their children advantages in life. My fear with genetic engineering very simply is one of the things I try to bring out in my book: that it won't be available to everybody. It will cause greater social injustice. That's my real fear,' he says.

 

The Morning Call
Copyright 1998 The Morning Call, Inc (Allentown)
April 16, 1998, Thursday

HEADLINE: MATHCONN TRIES TO INSPIRE GIRLS' INTEREST IN SCIENCE;

BYLINE: ELIZABETH BARTOLAI; (A free-lance story for The Morning Call).

Jackie Smith, 14, an eighth-grader from Eyer Junior High School, sat around a table with a group of girls from other schools and peeked through a wheel-like polarizer as part of an experiment about light rotation.

The Macungie teen was one of about 300 girls from 63 schools in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Maryland at Cedar Crest College Wednesday participating in the 10th annual MathConn.

The program is designed to spark middle-school girls' interest in math and science while introducing them to careers where those skills are needed.

The soap bubble geometry contest was presided over by Dr. Frank Morgan, professor of mathematics at Williams College and Princeton University.

It was held in an auditorium with Morgan galloping across the stage like a game show host, tossing T-shirts to girls who correctly answered questions leading up to the contest finale.

Morgan encouraged girls to guess if they didn't know the answer, explaining the goal is to get one question right. "Soap bubbles obey funny rules and math can explain them," said Morgan of the purpose of his presentation.

 

The Moscow Times
Copyright 1998 Independent Press
April 16, 1998

HEADLINE: Researcher Gunned Down Near Home

BYLINE: By Simon Saradzhyan

Moscow police said Wednesday they are still looking for clues in the violent death of Mikhail Ivanov, a former government adviser and prominent academic killed earlier this week.

Ivanov, a 37-year-old researcher at Moscow's prestigious USA/Canada Institute, was killed Tuesday morning after an unknown assassin shot him in the head and torso outside his apartment.

Police are looking into the possibility that the murder was linked to Ivanov's business activities; he moonlighted by offering advice to Russians seeking to emigrate to the United States.

One of Ivanov's books, on the U.S. immigration process, featured a foreword by a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jack Matlock.

Reached by telephone Wednesday, Matlock said he was deeply shocked by the tragic event.

The former diplomat said he had met Ivanov at least once, but his personal contacts with the man were tenuous.

Matlock, who is now a professor at Princeton University in New Jersey, said he agreed to write the preface last year after Ivanov sent him the "very good and accurate" draft of the book.

 

The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
April 16, 1998, Thursday

HEADLINE: Economic Scene; Few see bank consolidation as a harbinger of doomsday.

BYLINE: By Peter Passell

While the timing was dramatic, the news this week of two gigantic bank mergers shocked few economists who specialize in financial markets.

"This is the beginning of the catch-up game," explained Bert Ely, a banking consultant in Alexandria, Va. Legislation has prevented the creation of a dozen megabanks, he says, which would exist alongside hundreds or thousands of smaller independent ones.

That said, there is still disagreement over the potential efficiencies in moving from a world of $30 billion regional banks to one of $300 billion national banks. The merged entities may get some mileage from closing branches, integrating computer systems and combining specialized services -- for example, financing trade with Latin America. But there is "extreme skepticism" among researchers that the cost saving will offset the inherent inefficiencies of running larger corporations, said Alan Blinder, a former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve who teaches at Princeton University.

 

PR Newswire
Copyright 1998 PR Newswire Association, Inc.
April 16, 1998, Thursday

HEADLINE: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MEDALS

This year the Benjamin Franklin Medals go to:

In Life Sciences: Stanley Prusiner, University of California, School of Medicine, San Francisco, for his discovery of mutant proteins in the brain that cause "Mad Cow Disease."

In Physics: Daniel Tsui, Princeton University; Horst Stormer, Bell Labs; and Robert Laughlin, Stanford University, for the discovery of the fractional quantum Hall effect that explains the bizarre liquid-like behavior of electrons at extremely cold temperatures.

In Chemistry: Ahmed Zewail, California Institute of Technology, for pioneering the new and growing field of "femtochemistry," which uses short pulses of laser light to take pictures of chemical reactions, occurring in

less than a quadrillionth of a second.

In Engineering: David Payne, University of Southampton, U.K., and Emmanuel Desurvire, Alcatel Alshtom Research Center, France, for developing the erbium-doped fiber amplifier, a device at the heart of high-speed

transmission of voice, video, and data over long distances -- making it possible to send communications across oceans through fiber-optic cables at a rate of 5 gigabits/second -- the same as 320,000 simultaneous phone calls.

The Bower Awards -- the newest additions to the 17 medal awards bestowed by the committee -- were established in 1988 through a $7.5 million bequest from Philadelphia chemical manufacturer Henry Bower (1896-1988). The Bower

Award and Prize in Science, which goes to a distinguished scientist of any nationality for outstanding work in the physical or life sciences, carries a $250,000 cash prize, making it one of the richest American prizes in science.

 

The Record
Copyright 1998 Bergen Record Corp. (Bergen County, NJ)
April 16, 1998

HEADLINE: STUDENT WHO LIED TO MED SCHOOLS SUES PRINCETON OVER PRIVACY ISSUE

BYLINE: CHRISTINE HANLEY, The Associated Press

DATELINE: HARTFORD, Conn.

After getting an Ivy League education, Rommell Nobay identified himself as a black student when he sought acceptance to some of the most prestigious medical schools in the country.

The 1989 Princeton graduate is not sure, however, whether he is of black ancestry at all.

This week, he also admitted in federal court that he had lied or exaggerated about other aspects of his life, including a number of academic achievements. For example, he was not a National Merit Scholar, and a family of lepers had not donated half of their money to support his dream.

But it is Princeton that is on trial, not Nobay.

In a lawsuit he brought against the university in 1995, Nobay is claiming defamation, invasion of privacy, and breach of contract.

 

The Record
Copyright 1998 Bergen Record Corp. (Bergen County, NJ)
April 16, 1998; THURSDAY

BYLINE: DAVID GLOVIN, Staff Writer

Lisa Bronstein is among the newest professors in New Jersey.

Although she teaches sociology at River Dell Regional High School in Oradell, Syracuse University in New York State has deputized her as an adjunct professor and given her authority to teach a college-level course. She earns no pay from Syracuse, but her students earn three college credits.

A college professor? At River Dell? "No one makes a big issue about hat," Principal Lorraine Brooks said. "But when kids walk into that room and take that course, they are taking a Syracuse course."

If state education officials have their way, there may be many more professors at New Jersey high schools. Under a plan being drafted, the state will ask all high schools to align with a college, preferably a New Jersey college, so high school students may take advanced courses.

The goal: to provide sophisticated courses to top students while exposing them to higher education. The hope is that it may even induce some to stay in New Jersey when they choose a college.

The program is earmarked for top students, "the exceptionally-abled," in the parlance of the state Department of

Education, and officials say they believe even the most prestigious colleges will participate.

Princeton University? "Probably," Schechter said.

"If the Princeton school district feels they have students who are so exceptionally-abled that they've given them all they can, the district can develop an... agreement with Princeton or Rutgers" to provide college courses at the high school, she said.

But when told of the plan, a Princeton University official said she doubted the school would participate because of a general concern about a lack of control over off-campus instruction.

"We have very specific standards about what the components of an undergraduate education should be,"said Mary Caffrey, a Princeton University spokeswoman. "There are requirements in each field of concentration."

 

The Baltimore Sun
Copyright 1998 The Baltimore Sun Company
April 15, 1998, Wednesday

HEADLINE: AN UNSINKABLE PASSION; Baltimore-born Walter Lord, author of 'A Night to Remember,' embraces the renewed interest in all things Titanic. It matches his own unfading fascination.

BYLINE: Fred Rasmussen, SUN STAFF

NEW YORK -- It was a rainy afternoon in 1927 when 10-year-old John Walter Lord Jr. made the discovery that would forever change his life.

In the library at the Towson farm of his aunt, Dorothea Deford, the Baltimore boy pulled down from a shelf a slim black volume titled "The Loss of the S.S. Titanic."

The book was written by Lawrence Beesely, a young science teacher at Dulwich College in England who had been a second-class passenger on the doomed ocean liner that had sunk so tragically and unexpectedly on April 15, 1912 -- 86 years ago today. Beesely's account detailing the disaster was one of the first ever published.

"I was hooked," says Lord, now 80. From a shelf in the study of his Manhattan apartment he takes down the Beesely book to show a visitor. "This is the book that caused all of the trouble," he says with a smile.

At Princeton University, Lord majored in American and Modern European History. After graduating in 1939, he went to Yale Law School, where, he confesses, he spent "more time in the Shubert Theater" than in class. World War II then intervened, and Lord left Yale to join the Office of Strategic Services, where he assembled intelligence reports.

 

Business Wire
Copyright 1998 Business Wire, Inc.
April 15, 1998, Wednesday

HEADLINE: Gilbert F. Casellas Elected to Prudential Board of Directors; Roger A. Enrico, Constance J. Horner, Burton G. Malkiel and Joseph H. Williams Re-elected

DATELINE: NEWARK, N.J.

NJ Chief Justice Reappoints Ida F.S. Schmertz As Public Director

Gilbert F. Casellas, director of the new Washington D.C. office of McConnell Vald's law firm, has been elected to the board of directors of The Prudential Insurance Company of America, it was announced today by Prudential Chairman and CEO Arthur F. Ryan.

Roger A. Enrico, Constance J. Horner, Burton G. Malkiel and Joseph H. Williams were reelected to the board, Ryan also announced.

Ida F.S. Schmertz was reappointed by Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court Deborah Poritz to a six-year term as one of six public directors on Prudential's board.

Malkiel, 65, is professor of Economics at Princeton University. Professor Malkiel previously was the dean of the School of Organization and Management at Yale University and a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisors. Professor Malkiel also serves on the boards of Baker Fentress & Company, The Jeffery Company, The Southern New England Telecommunications Company, Vanguard Group, Inc., and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Gestinova.

 

THE HARTFORD COURANT
Copyright 1998 The Hartford Courant Company
April 15, 1998 Wednesday

HEADLINE: JOHN HINCHLIFFE, 79; OF OLD SAYBROOK;

John Darnley Hinchliffe of Schoolhouse Road, Old Saybrook, died Tuesday at Gladeview Health Care Center, Old Saybrook, after a long illness. He was 79.

He was born in Paterson, N.J., and resided in Old Saybrook for the past 31 years. Mr. Hinchliffe was a 1941 graduate of Princeton University, where he was a member of the Key and Seal Club.

 

THE HARTFORD COURANT
Copyright 1998 The Hartford Courant Company
April 15, 1998 Wednesday

HEADLINE: UNIVERSITY'S DUTY GOES ON TRIAL;

SERIES OF MISSTATEMENTS ON APPLICATIONS FOR MEDICAL SCHOOL AT ISSUE

BYLINE: MARK PAZNIOKAS; Courant Staff Writer

Rommel Nobay insists that Princeton University had no right to warn some of the nation's most prestigious medical schools of the grave doubts it had about his academic record, his family history -- and his racial identity.

Nobay, who identified himself as a black applicant, won admission in 1994 to medical schools at Dartmouth College and Tufts and Georgetown universities, even though he flunked organic chemistry and barely passed other pre- med courses at Princeton.

Each school either rescinded its admission or pressured him to withdraw after learning of Princeton's concerns, which prompted Nobay to sue his alma mater in November 1995 for invasion of privacy and breach of contract.

Nobay replied that his parents are Kenyans, whose ancestors were from the Portuguese colony of Goa, now part of India. He said his racial background was a mix of Portuguese, Arabic and black African, and he estimated he is one-quarter to one-eighth black.

"None of the other ethnic designations ever worked for me," Nobay said.

 

The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
April 15, 1998, Wednesday

HEADLINE: Aid Packages Can Shift the Balance as the Leading Colleges Compete for the Best Students
BYLINE: By DAVIDSON GOLDIN

For students choosing between the nation's top colleges, price has traditionally had little to do with their decision on where to enroll.

For decades, Ivy League schools have not only charged near-identical tuitions but have also offered the same financial aid. In fact, until the Department of Justice forced an end to the practice in 1991, two dozen of the country's leading schools had an agreement by which each offered the same size aid package to anyone admitted by more than one institution. Even post-cartel, most top schools used similar formulas.

But as the May 1 deadline fast approaches for students to pick which school to attend, money is playing a greater role.

In the last few months, first Princeton, then Yale and Stanford announced sweeping changes to their financial aid policies that signaled a new philosophy: the schools would compete not just on the basis of academic programs and prestige but with deeper discounts.

Designed to attract middle-income applicants, the liberalized aid policies ease requirements to qualify for grants, which unlike loans need not be repaid.

Princeton officials said they acted because of a drop in the number of students qualifying for scholarships, from an average 43 percent of the student body in the early 1990's to 38 percent now. Most of that decline was in middle-income students who officials believed were concerned about the burden of heavy loans, what with tuition, room and board at top schools exceeding $30,000 for the first time this coming school year. Middle-income families with assets that inflate their net worth are often asked to pay more than they can afford from their annual income.

 

The Providence Journal-Bulletin
Copyright 1998 The Providence Journal Company
April 15, 1998, Wednesday

HEADLINE: COLLEGE HOCKEY Another Bennett going Ivy as Dave selects Princeton

BYLINE: Sherry Skalko

Dave Bennett is going to Princeton next year.

Yes, one of the Bennetts, Harvey Jr.'s son.

The Bennett name is more closely associated with Brown University, yet it isn't exactly a family tragedy that Dave picked the Tigers. Three of his uncles - Curt, John and Jim - went to Brown, and his father went to Boston College.

Bennett narrowed his choices to Brown, Dartmouth and Princeton. When he walked on Princeton's campus during his last recruiting visit, his decision was made.

"Everything about it felt right," he said. "It has everything going for it - the campus, the coaching staff, the team. Everything factored into it."

 

The Record
Copyright 1998 Bergen Record Corp. (Bergen County, NJ)
April 15, 1998; WEDNESDAY

HEADLINE: FLOODED NEWSPAPER, N.J. NATIVE WIN PULITZERS/PHILIP ROTH RECEIVES ELUSIVE PRIZE FOR FICTION

BYLINE: HILLEL ITALIE, The Associated Press

DATELINE: NEW YORK

After winning virtually every major prize in one of the great literary careers of recent times, New Jersey native Philip Roth finally won a Pulitzer, receiving the fiction award Tuesday for "American Pastoral."

Roth was born in Newark in 1933 and lived in a neighborhood near Weequahic Park. He later taught creative writing at Princeton University.

 

USA TODAY
Copyright 1998 Gannett Company, Inc.
April 15, 1998, Wednesday

HEADLINE: MOST WIRED: Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H., tops the list of 100 Most Wired Colleges in May's Yahoo! Internet Life magazine, out Tuesday. After complaints last year about its methodology, Yahoo! asked more detailed questions, did more follow-up and consulted databases this year. Some big changes: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, dropped from 13 to 63; Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif., jumped from 84 to 27; New Jersey's Princeton University dropped from 12 to 66.

 

Wisconsin State Journal
Copyright 1998 Madison Newspapers, Inc.
April 15, 1998, Wednesday

HEADLINE: WHAT'S NEW

BYLINE: Matt Mullins

Random House's Three Rivers Press has produced ''The Backpacker's Field Manual,'' billed as ''a comprehensive guide to mastering backcountry skills'' ($ 14.95).

A nifty little book, it was written by Rick Curtis, who directs something called the Princeton University Outdoor Action program.

It has advice on planning hiking trips, selecting equipment, cooking, nutrition and water purification, low-impact hiking, weather, safety and backcountry first aid. It is peppered with ''Tricks of the Trail,'' such as carrying baking soda both for cleaning and for rehydration formulas.

If you don't mind turning to Princeton University for advice on hiking, it's not a poor choice.

 

The Florida Times-Union
Copyright 1998 The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL)
April 14, 1998 Tuesday

HEADLINE: Video cure; Take two movies and call me in the morning

BYLINE: Matt Soergel, Times-Union movie writer

PRESCRIPTIONS

Everyone knows this simple truth: Movies can affect the way you feel. So here are some movies to match your mood, offered by author Cathie Glenn Sturdevant, therapists John and Jan Hesley, Princeton University film scholar Michael Wood and Penny Powell, who oversees Critics' Choice Video's Big Book of Movies:

Sluggish? Energize with Some Like it Hot or anything by the Marx Brothers, Duck Soup, perhaps, Wood said. Or try The Gods Must be Crazy or Tootsie, Sturdevant said.

Feeling sick? 'Try some melodrama, where everybody else is suffering,' said Wood. 'Some Bette Davis movie, Now, Voyager, maybe. Or something a little more cheerful; I like the Coen brothers' Raising Arizona.'

 

The Florida Times-Union
Copyright 1998 The Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville, FL)
April 14, 1998 Tuesday, City Edition

HEADLINE: Grateful ex-pupil endows award fund for teachers

BYLINE: Mary MacDonald Times-Union staff writer

Gilchrist Berg, the founder of a Jacksonville investment management company, thanked his elementary school teachers yesterday for inspiring him as a child by creating one of the largest cash award programs for teachers in the nation.

Over the next five years, four cash awards of $10,000 will be made annually to Duval County teachers who have similarly inspired students for at least a decade.

Berg, now 47, went on to graduate from Lee High School and Princeton University. His investment company, Water Street Capital, oversees funds for individuals and non-profit institutions.

The public announcement was uncharacteristic of Berg, an intensely private man who eschews publicity. He decided to provide the award, he said, because it seemed to make sense.

 

Health Line
Copyright 1998 American Political Network, Inc.

April 14, 1998

HEADLINE: PHYSICIAN SUPPLY: NEW STUDY FORECASTS GENERALIST GLUT

After years of warnings by health care analysts that there is a shortage of primary care doctors, the Boston Globe reports "surprising evidence that the nation now has too many primary care physicians." Further, the "surplus probably existed even while health planners were sounding alarms about shortfalls."

The prospects were "nearly as bleak for pediatricians," but not as bad for family practice. But the survey's results do show that "previous estimates of a shortage of primary care doctors were erroneous," according to Whitcomb. "There are just some horror stories about the percent of those graduates who are not able to practice full time," he said. Further, if managed care holds good on its promise to cut costs, "as many as 40,000 more doctors could lose their jobs," according to Princeton University health economist Uwe Reinhardt.

 

The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
April 14, 1998, Tuesday

HEADLINE: THATCHER, EDWIN D.

THATCHER-Edwin D. Born February 21, 1915 in Brooklyn, NY. Died April 7, 1998. He is survived by his wife, Pauline. Mr. Thatcher attended Brooklyn Friends School and Princeton University, Class of 1936. He practiced architecture in Manhattan and was a member of the AIA. He was buried at Greenwood cemetery in a private ceremony on April 9, 1998.

 

The News and Observer
Copyright 1998 The News and Observer (Raleigh, NC)
April 14, 1998 Tuesday

HEADLINE: Joseph Curtis Sloane, 89, art historian emeritus
BYLINE: JULIA CORBIN, STAFF WRITER

CHAPEL HILL- - Jaroslav Folda first met Dr. Joseph Curtis Sloane in 1968, when Folda interviewed for a professorship at the University of North Carolina.

Like any other young man before a job interview, Folda expected the chairman of UNC's department of art to quiz him about the qualities he could bring to the department.

Instead, Sloane spent his time selling Folda on his dream for the department.

Sloane, 89, professor emeritus of art history at UNC-CH, died Friday at Carol Wood Retirement Community. A memorial service will be held at 3 p.m. Wednesday at Carol Wood.

He received his bachelor's and master's in fine arts and doctoral degrees from Princeton University. Before coming to UNC, he taught at Princeton and Rutgers universities and at Bryn Mawr College, where he was the chairman of the arts department from 1939 to 1951.

 

PR Newswire
Copyright 1998 PR Newswire Association, Inc.
April 14, 1998, Tuesday

HEADLINE: Blinder, Former Fed Official; Ex-U.S. Senator Rudman Among Five New Members Elected to Amex Board

DATELINE: NEW YORK, April 14

Three new governors representing the public sector and two representatives from the securities industry were elected to the American Stock Exchange's Board of Governors at yesterday's annual meeting of the Exchange membership. Elected to three-year terms were:

-- Alan S. Blinder, the Gordon S. Rentschler Memorial Professor of Economics and co-director of the Center for Economic Policy Studies at Princeton University. Mr. Blinder is former vice chairman of the Federal Reserve System and former member of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers.

 

Star Tribune
Copyright 1998 Star Tribune (Minneapolis, MN)
April 14, 1998, Metro Edition

HEADLINE: Concern for 'U' program keeps 11 students fasting; Strikers and officials remain at odds over the Chinese program.

BYLINE: Mary Jane Smetanka; Staff Writer

When University of Minnesota student Alexei Ditter visited his parents' home for dinner over the weekend, five places were set at the table.

Four of them had knives and forks and plates. In Ditter's spot was a bottle of juice.

On Monday, in the sixth day of a hunger strike over the state of the university's Chinese language and literature program, Ditter had lost 12 or 13 pounds, but not his commitment or his sense of humor.

He is one of the leaders of a group of 22 students who began fasting and occupying part of Morrill Hall Wednesday to protest what they see as neglect of the Chinese program. Students claim the program is understaffed and needs more faculty; the university has pledged to add funding and permanent faculty but won't add as many teachers as students want. Students want the program to become a department; the university says its size doesn't warrant that.

"I've never done anything like this before," said Ditter. "What you see is based on sincerity and a lot of inexperience."

This fall, Ditter heads to Princeton University for a five-year fellowship. "I am not here because of what I get out of this," he said. "I hope one day to be a professor, to teach. I see the supreme responsibility of the institution is to the students, to provide the best education possible."

 

The Boston Globe
Copyright 1998 Globe Newspaper Company
April 13, 1998, Monday

HEADLINE: Shortage of doctors turns into a surplus
BYLINE: By Larry Tye, Globe Staff

There is compelling new evidence that after years of warnings about a shortage of primary-care doctors, America finally is training substantially more of them and fewer specialists who are in oversupply.

But there also is surprising evidence that the nation now has too many primary-care physicians, and that the surplus probably existed even while health planners were sounding alarms about shortfalls. A soon-to-be-published survey shows that hundreds of new internists, pediatricians, and other generalists have had difficulty landing work or only have found part-time jobs.

All of which, analysts say, suggests how difficult it is for anyone to forecast the lineup of the nation's constantly shifting medical roster. It also suggests why so many of the 600,000 practicing physicians are so anxious about their future - and why that anxiety often works its way down to patients.

If managed care ever pushes ahead with the cost-cutting it originally promised, as many as 40,000 more doctors could lose their jobs, says Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton University.

 

The Courier-Journal
Copyright 1998 The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY.)
April 13, 1998, Monday

HEADLINE: FLOYDS KNOBS: Students in quake project keep track of what's shaking

BYLINE: BEN Z. HERSHBERG, The Courier-Journal

Lee Schmidt's favorite earthquake this year was Feb. 16 in the North Atlantic, 2,664 miles from Floyd Central High School, where Lee is a junior.

The powerful quake, measuring a dangerous magnitude 6.6, was detected by a thermos-sized device in an 8 foot-deep pit beneath the projector in the high school's planetarium.

The quake, which was in such an isolated area that it didn't cause any damage, is one of about 20 earthquakes detected by students using Floyd Central's seismometer since it went into steady operation Jan. 27.

The seismometer - wired to a computer in the school's physics lab - is part of the Princeton Earth Physics Project, a network that soon will connect 200 high schools across the country with university geologists. The network will provide geologists with reams of detailed information about the Earth's crust and give students the chance to do groundbreaking research.

THE HIGH SCHOOL network of seismometers has been discussed for more than a decade, according to an article on the Princeton University Web site. When Princeton got an $85,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to develop and distribute seismometers to schools, the concept became reality.

 

International Herald Tribune
Copyright 1998 International Herald Tribune (Neuilly-sur-Seine, France)
April 13, 1998, Monday

HEADLINE: Asia's Schools Get Down to Business; Many Vie to Meet Rising Demand in the Region for MBA Programs

BYLINE: By Thomas Crampton; International Herald Tribune

DATELINE: HONG KONG

He started business school just a few months ago, but David Ying has already received phone calls convincing him that he made the right decision. ''A friend of mine with a pretty well-paid job at SBC Warburg called me the other day to find out how good the program was here,'' said Mr. Ying, a first- year student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology's graduate business school.

''With staff reductions, he sees his colleagues getting fired, so he doesn't feel secure about his job. Another degree would make him feel better. ''

As an understanding of Asia becomes more important for Western managers, the number of applicants from outside the region also appears to be on the rise. This year, the International University of Japan received 23 applications from Europeans and Americans, compared with just five Western applicants for places in its 70-student class last year. The opportunity for a business degree with an international outlook and local knowledge brought Chris Kinnan to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. A Princeton University graduate, Mr. Kinnan scored in the top 4 percent on the standardized admissions test required of business-school applicants. ''It's not as if I had no other options,'' he said. ''But when I looked at U.S. business schools in terms of courses on international finance and trade, the most they offered was a two-week course.''

 

Sun-Sentinel
(Fort Lauderdale, FL)
April 13, 1998, Monday

HEADLINE: HEAVEN'S PLAYING FIELD
BYLINE: Matt Schudel

How far will you go to find heaven on earth? Will you journey to some lonely stretch of beach on the perfect Caribbean isle? Will you sail across the blue Aegean toward some perfect sun-scrubbed village in Greece? Will you hike high into the Rockies to find a promontory that no other human foot has touched?

You might, but I wouldn't.

You see, I am not an adventurer. Canoeing down a tropical river, walking barefoot over seashells, camping beside a mountain stream, docking a sailboat in a country where I don't speak the language - to me, these are visions of pure, fiery horror. I'm sorry, but mere nature does not make me happy.

I need a place created by the hand of man. I need buildings and artifacts. I need a deep, well-worn past, rich with the achievements of people of talent and skill. I need time and ease, a chair in which to contemplate these things and understand why they give meaning to my life.

That's why I went to Cooperstown.

Since then, historians have learned that Abner Doubleday was completing his plebe year at West Point in 1839 and wasn't in Cooperstown at all. If baseball had a single time and place of origin, it was most likely in New York City in the 1840s. But the facts do not make the myth any less appealing.

We now know that baseball evolved from the English sports of cricket and rounders and that early forms of the game were played in the 18th century. Princeton University banned the playing of "ball" in 1787 as "low and unbecoming gentlemen students." Cooperstown itself prohibited the game of townball in 1816.

 

THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Copyright 1998 Phoenix Newspapers, Inc.
April 12, 1998 Sunday

HEADLINE: NOVELIST INSPIRED BY T.S. ELIOT
BYLINE: By Anne Stephenson, Special for The Republic

In 1958, a woman named Emily Hale bequeathed to Princeton University more than a thousand letters written to her by the poet T.S. Eliot over the course of a relationship that remains a mystery to this day.

It has been the subject of much speculation. One confused biographer called Eliot's liaison with Hale "more than a friendship, definitely not a flirtation, something a little less than a love affair, but very like a long engagement."

Others believe it was a full-blown romance. Hale and Eliot knew each other for many years, but never were they so intimate as during the time Eliot was estranged from his wife, Vivienne. He wrote letters to Hale, and sent her draft copies of his work. She left her job in California to visit him in England, where they went for long walks and visited friends as a couple. It was with Hale that Eliot went to Burnt Norton, the place that inspired the first of his Four Quartets, considered by many to be his greatest poetic achievement.

More than 30 years after those letters arrived at Princeton, a young writer named Martha Cooley was reading the New York Review of Books one morning over breakfast. It was 1988, the 100th anniversary of Eliot's birth, and a new biography had been released. As Cooley read, she came upon mention of Emily Hale and the Princeton letters, and the secrets they might reveal someday.

"I was sitting there at breakfast - I will never forget this - and I thought that if I was the librarian in charge of that archive, I'd be under the covers with a flashlight," says Cooley, now 42. "I'd be reading those letters. Here was this bequest, by this person in Eliot's life that no one knew much about, somone with whom he had quite the correspondence, and quite the ambiguous relationship.

 

The Atlanta Journal and Constitution
Copyright 1998 The Atlanta Constitution
April 12, 1998, Sunday

HEADLINE: Books: Reviews and Opinion;

A solid learning foundation; Clear, concise writing guides reader through maze of architecture

BYLINE: Martin Zimmerman

REVIEW Shaping a Nation: Twentieth Century American Architecture and Its Makers. By Carter Wiseman. Norton. $39.95. 387 pages. The verdict: Wiseman deserves praise for this contribution to the continuing debate over what constitutes a vital architecture for our times. If you are cramming for an exam in architectural history at Emory, and you are somewhat baffled by the term "postmodern," or if you find the label "deconstructivism" intimidating, then you can get it all explained, in plain English, from Carter Wiseman.

Notwithstanding the strides made in Chicago by Sullivan and his peers, most notably Frank Lloyd Wright, the first few decades of the 20th century continued to be a period dominated by homage to the past, especially the neo-Gothic thrust, such as James Gamble Rogers' clusters of residence halls at Princeton University, or Ralph Adams Cram's ensemble in a similar vein undertaken at West Point. Wiseman is by no means apologetic about this period of Eclecticism, describing these times as perhaps "the most diversely creative of American architectural eras."

 

THE FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
C
opyright 1998 Star-Telegram Newspaper, Inc.
April 12, 1998, Sunday

HEADLINE: SPORTS BRIEFLY

CREW

Princeton University's men's heavyweight crews swept the Harlem River, winning the Childs Cup for the fifth consecutive year. The event is the oldest intercollegiate cup race in rowing, dating from 1879. The Tiger varsity, last year's undefeated Ivy and Eastern Sprint champion, defeated Pennsylvania by 73 one-hundredths of a second to remain unbeaten after three regattas.

 

The Jupiter Courier
Copyright 1998 Stuart News Company (Jupiter, FL)
April 12, 1998, Sunday

HEADLINE: FLORIDIANS NEED MORE PROTECTION FOR RELIGION

Editor:

On Sept. 15, 1997, Aymee and Abek Cepeda of Dade County, Fla., were fined $500. Their crime? Holding a Bible study in their home. Local officials said "conducting religious services in a residential district" was an "unauthorized use" of the property.

Natives of Miami and the descendants of Cuban immigrants, the Cepedas didn't think such a thing was possible in America. "I could not believe that in the United States, we could not have a small religious gathering in our home," Aymee told me. "We were disillusioned and shocked by what happened."

The plight of the Cepedas, who are appealing the fine, is more than just a study of twisted zoning ordinances. It outlines why the State of Florida needs the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) to protect our constitutional rights.

By declaring RFRA unconstitutional, the Supreme Court opened up the possibility that our religious freedoms might be seriously curtailed. According to Professor Robert George at Princeton University, Catholic students could be forbidden to wear the rosary around their necks in public schools; religious organizations could be required to hire openly homosexual employees even if that practice goes against church teaching; and religious activities in prison could be abolished.

Mark W. Merrill
President
Florida Family Council

 

The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
April 12, 1998, Sunday

HEADLINE: Lone Star Setting

BYLINE: By Sean Wilentz; Sean Wilentz is a professor of history and director of the program in American studies at Princeton University.

FLAWED GIANT
Lyndon Johnson and His Times, 1961-1973.
By Robert Dallek.
Illustrated. 754 pp. New York:

Oxford University Press. $35.

As the passionate debates over the Vietnam War overwhelmed his Presidency, Lyndon B. Johnson decided that liberals would never give him an even break. Liberal intellectuals, Johnson concluded, were mainly snobs who had always regarded him with contempt, who believed his rise to the Presidency was a usurpation and who were exploiting antiwar feeling in order to replace him with Robert F. Kennedy.

Yet even the famously irascible Johnson could not have foreseen how rudely liberals and leftists would treat his memory 20 and 30 years later.

"Flawed Giant," the concluding half of Robert Dallek's authoritative two-volume biography, bucks the anti-Johnson trend. Dallek, a professor of history at Boston University, once described himself as an old-fashioned liberal. When he started studying Johnson's life, he has remarked, he heartily disliked his subject, only to discover, as he sat down to write, that his opinions had grown more nuanced. In his first volume on Johnson, "Lone Star Rising" (1991), Dallek directly rebutted Caro's defamatory depiction of Johnson's early career, while offering an alternative interpretation that, although hardly uncritical, found things to admire, not least Johnson's genuine compassion for the poor. Caro's depiction was by far the more evocative and captivating of the two, the work of a star journalist turned biographer; but Dallek's book was much sounder and more judicious, as close to a balanced appraisal as Johnson could have hoped from a liberal historian.

The same qualities mark this second volume, which covers Johnson's life from the beginning of his Vice Presidency in 1961 to his death in 1973. "Flawed Giant" deals summarily and persuasively with the wildest charges against Johnson. (He had nothing at all to do with Kennedy's assassination, although he suspected, as many Americans still do, that some sort of conspiracy existed.

  

The New York Times
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company
April 12, 1998, Sunday

HEADLINE: IN SEARCH OF ... When School Spirit Is on the Shopping List

BYLINE: By KATHERINE ZOEPF

BOOKS? Sure, college bookstores sell books. That's 65 percent of their business nationwide. But they also sell computer products (8.5 percent), magazines and popular books (6.7 percent), school supplies, including old-fashioned pencils and paper (7.9 percent), candy and a host of life's other miscellaneous necessities (6.5 percent).

Last but certainly not least, the stores sell dreams, memories, gifts and wardrobe basics that are engraved, stamped and otherwise embellished with the school's logo.

Whether you're a nostalgic graduate or a nervous freshman-to-be, there's plenty of merchandise to choose from in New Jersey, which has 98 stores serving 84 institutions, according to the National Association of College Stores. Here's what the New Jersey section found when it went shopping.

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY

PRINCETON

The campus looks its best in spring. Green lawns and sunny skies help the neo-Gothic stonework look a little less gray. This is just as well, for spring is college-shopping time for high school students and their families.

They come by the hundreds to take tours, visit the student center cafe and watch students strolling to classes, often wearing clothing in Princeton orange and black. After a few hours on campus,the Halloween-ish color combination starts to look a little less jarring. Many visitors will even be tempted to buy souvenirs themselves.

The Princeton University Store (known in student parlance as the U-Store), is the obvious first stop. Head to the second floor for clothing and miscellaneous Princeton gear, including the tiger-face Christmas lights pictured on page 1 of this section. There's also a prodigious assortment of mugs, water bottles, tea cups and shot glasses, all bearing, in some form or other, the Princeton logo, seal or tiger image.

 

The Plain Dealer
Copyright 1998 Plain Dealer Publishing Co.
April 12, 1998 Sunday

HEADLINE: INVESTOR VALUES FAMILY OVER BUSINESS; LIVING IN TEXAS HASN'T HURT HIS REPUTATION

BYLINE: By GLASTON FORD; SCRIPPS HOWARD

DATELINE: CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS

The stationery for one of investor Melvyn Klein's partnerships lists five cities: New York, Detroit, Corpus Christi, Philadelphia and San Francisco.

Corpus Christi is associated with those metropolitan titans because Klein is associated with the titans of Wall Street. The stationery is a subtle reminder of a promise that Klein kept and of the value he places on his family.

Perspective is important to Klein. Despite his business achievements, he said he considers his family and friends to be his greatest accomplishment. He has balanced a demanding profession with his commitment to his family.

He often arranged his trips out of town around activities that were important to his daughters as they were growing up. His older daughter, Jacqueline, 21, is now a junior at Princeton University. His younger, Jenna, 18, a senior at Ray High School, has been accepted to Stanford University.

 

The Times-Picayune
Copyright 1998 The Times-Picayune Publishing Co.
April 12, 1998 Sunday

HEADLINE: CONSUMERS DON'T HAVE HEALTH CARE GUIDE;

LACK OF RATINGS FOR QUALITY LEAVES PATIENTS IN THE DARK

BYLINE: By STACEY BURLING Knight Ridder Newspapers

DATELINE: PHILADELPHIA

Ask people at the mall how they chose their doctors and a big, but little heralded problem in health care quickly reveals itself.

When a blood vessel in her husband's brain broke three years ago, Laura Pfeil let the ambulance take him to an Abington Memorial Hospital surgeon recommended by an emergency room doctor at Doylestown Hospital. She knew nothing about either doctor.

"I didn't know anything about neurosurgery at all," the 60-year-old Warrington, Pa., woman said. "I had no idea."

Another flaw is that the information is self-reported by the health plans, though that will change next year.

Uwe Reinhardt, a health economist at Princeton University, said no other industry would consider relying on this kind of information. "It moves me," he said, tongue in cheek. "I've had tears thinking about HEDIS. How touching is a nation that believes self-reported data."