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Notebook: October 8, 1997
Campus greets Class of 2001
Freshmen begin their academic odyssey
A FLURRY of activity awaited the Class of 2001 when it arrived on campus for Orientation Week, September 6-10. First-year students had barely enough time to cram all their worldly goods into their new dorm rooms before heading out to meet new friends and learn more about their school.
Eager students attended a host of events, including department open houses, faculty talks, panel discussions, academic advising sessions, activity fairs, cookouts, and "Sex on a Saturday Night," a dramatic performance to prepare them for potential pitfalls.
Laura Marallo '01 spoke for her classmates when she noted feeling both excited and overwhelmed to commence her education at Princeton. She and some 700 members of the Class of 2001 tested their mettle during outdoor adventures and community-service projects before tending to college life. Marallo, who participated in Outdoor Action's trip to the Black Forest, in central Pennsylvania, reasoned, "I figured if I could survive that, I could survive Princeton." She was one of 615 first-year students and 165 student leaders who took part in Outdoor Action's annual backpacking, canoeing, and rock-climbing trips. Another 98 freshmen and 24 student leaders loosened up with classmates while helping their new neighbors through Urban Action projects in Princeton, Trenton, and Philadelphia. They worked in a soup kitchen, helped build houses for low-income families, and ran programs for children.
At Opening Exercises in the Chapel on Sunday, September 7, President Shapiro addressed the new students, who were born around 1980 and who will graduate the year of the new millennium. Drawing on the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey (whose theme, played by university organist Joan Lippincott, made for a dramatic musical backdrop), Shapiro urged students to take advantage of the numerous resources available at the university in embarking on their voyages of exploration and discovery. Most important, he said, "is your voyage of self discovery," for which, he added, they have "ultimate responsibility."
On Tuesday night in Alexander Hall, some older students offered advice on diversity. Paul Rodney '00, the president of the Black Men's Awareness Group, told the assembled first-years that it's up to them to make the university a truly diverse and welcoming place. Chi Soo Kim '99, a member of student government who has also been an officer in the Asian-American Student Association, encouraged them to open their minds and try new experiences through involvement in Princeton's many activities and organizations.
This year's entering class has 1,134 students. More than half the Class of 2001, 54.8 percent, are men, and 45.2 percent are women. Overall, women make up 46.5 percent of the 4,606 undergraduates enrolled.
African-Americans are 6.2 percent of the new class. The percentage of first-year Asian-Americans is 13.2. Latinos are 5.6 percent. Native Americans are 0.6 percent. From 23 countries, foreign students are 4.3 percent of the Class of 2001. Sons and daughters of alumni make up 13 percent of the entering class.
New Jersey sent the most first-years to Princeton. It is home to 163 students, New York to 143, and California to 113.
The Graduate College welcomed 465 new students, 38 percent of whom are female. (Figures for graduate-school registration are not final.) Foreign nationals make up 42 percent of new graduate students. Among U.S. nationals, minorities make up 20 percent of new graduate students. Ten percent of the new students are Asian-American, 5 percent are Latino, and 5 percent are African-American. By area of study, 95 new degree students are in the natural sciences, 100 in engineering, 86 in humanities, 86 in public and international affairs, 67 in social sciences, and 31 in architecture. In all, 1,765 students are enrolled in the Graduate College. Classes started Thursday, September 11.
A.B. students get new advising system
THE UNIVERSITY has initiated a pilot program to improve academic advising for A.B. students in all five residential colleges. The program will make faculty advisers more accessible to underclassmen and introduce peer advisers. (Engineering students have their own advising system.)
The program, which was unveiled by Assistant Dean of the College Harold Y. McCulloch, Jr., last winter, will be assessed in the late fall. It calls for increasing the number of faculty advisers from 12 to 15 per college and redistributing their work load. Previously, each faculty adviser was responsible for about 35 freshmen and sophomores. This year, advisers will guide members of only one class. "The focus of first-year students is so different from that of sophomores, who are thinking about a major more seriously," said McCulloch.
Each of 10 freshmen advisers per residential college will meet with between 18 and 20 students, while each of five sophomore advisers will meet with about 35 students.
The freshman advisers will be drawn from a variety of departments and be expected to have an expert command of their departmental offerings, as well as knowledge of other fields. Sophomore advisers should have a command of curricular issues within their academic divisions.
Drawn mainly from the senior class and nominated by their departments, 10 peer advisers per residential college will be linked with freshmen and sophomore faculty advisers. Peer advisers will meet with students throughout the year to discuss course selection and will be involved in planning activities relevant to academic advising.
A calendar of events has been organized to promote opportunities for advisers and advisees to discuss curricular issues. Orientation for freshmen, for example, was restructured to allow more focused attention on choosing courses. Faculty advisers and first-year students will meet periodically to discuss course selections and changes. A graduate student advising coordinator in each college will assist in integrating the various elements of the advising program.
Incremental changes to the academic advising program had been made in the previous three years, but there was a consensus that several concerns remained requiring structural changes to the program. These concerns included increasing opportunities for faculty mentoring and providing structured opportunities for upperclassmen to share their experiences with their younger peers.
Students had complained that advisers were not knowledgeable about the curriculum in general or about specific courses and that their relationships with advisers were bureaucratic and often didn't go beyond course-card signing.
McCulloch worked with USG representatives, directors of studies, and Peter I. Bogucki, assistant dean for undergraduate affairs in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, in coming up with the pilot program.
Making Internet safe for commerce
IT SOUNDS like a plot from a spy novel. The infiltrator, eager to get past the sentry guarding the company headquarters, learns that certain trusted employees are waved through the gate without being subjected to the company's rigorous security measures.
So the infiltrator studies one of the trusted employees and soon can mimic the worker's voice, gestures, and facial expressions so well that he can greet the guard and walk by without anyone raising an eyebrow.
This may seem like a far-fetched way to gain access, but according to Edward W. Felten, assistant professor of computer science, it could happen to your computer.
Felten leads a group in the computer science department that last spring uncovered this flaw in the part of the Java Development Kit, version 1.1.1, that verifies a "digital signature." This is just the latest of 10 different Internet security threats that Felten and a team of faculty and graduate students have uncovered in the past year and a half. Their work began when graduate students Drew Dean and Dan Wallach began researching Java, one of the more popular programs that let computer users surf the World Wide Web.
The group, called the Secure Internet Programming team, evolved out of private relationships between members of the computer science department and software designers at corporations such as Microsoft and Sun Microsystems. Other SIP team members include Professor of Computer Science Andrew W. Appel '81 and graduate student Dirk Balfanz.
Team members make it their business to stay ahead of the thieves or mischief-makers who might use the Internet to enter a computer network and steal, alter, or destroy proprietary information. "We're not thinking about what one might do with ill-gotten power," says Felten, who in 1993 earned his Ph.D. in computer science and engineering at the University of Washington. "We're thinking about how things can break down."
Take the "digital signature" flaw. When computer users surf the Web using Java, they may come across pages that contain small programs called applets. Internet users can unwittingly download an applet that can do damage, and Java is supposed to prevent this. But in the flawed versions, a "trusted" signer was able to bypass security steps. And the SIP team found that a renegade applet could imitate a trusted signer to get into a computer system. "The problem doesn't affect major browsers (Netscape and Internet Explorer)," Felten says. Sun fixed the flaw with a new version of the Java Development Kit.
Team members periodically brainstorm to come up with possible problems that merit examination. Once an idea takes shape, it can be just a few hours before the researchers know whether their suspicions prove accurate.
The team's mission is to uncover security problems before they wreak havoc and, in time, to help create an Internet environment that is safe for commerce. According to Felten, the team is already moving beyond its hunt for flaws in individual products and into basic research. "We want to identify, and address, the underlying causes of these problems," he says. Graduate students and even undergraduates can take part in the research; Elliot Berk '97 did his senior thesis with the SIP team.
The team's early discoveries of problems with Java and Netscape Navigator forced their manufacturers to issue fixes, or "patches," to correct problems or to issue an updated version of the software. As the SIP team gained notice, informal relationships developed into formal agreements between the team and companies whose products are put to the test. Current research is sponsored in part by Bellcore, JavaSoft/Sun Microsystems, and Microsoft.
Exchanges with software designers at the companies help both sides, Felten says. A designer may know a great deal about his or her own company's products and very little about the competition. "We have a perspective many of them may not have," says Felten.
Team members have also worked hard to develop explanations of the SIP work which are accessible to the public. Felten frequently talks to the media, particularly writers who focus on the computer industry.
Public education is important, for it will never be possible to create an Internet that is completely safe from tampering. Security concerns must be balanced against factors such as cost, ease of use, and flexibility. "My goal," says Felten, "is to help people understand what the risks are."
The address of the SIP homepage is http://www.CS.Princeton.EDU/sip/.
--Mary Caffrey
Edward Felten's guidelines for safer Web surfing
1. Know about the Websites you are visiting. (If you aren't familiar with the creator of a site, be careful about what information you give the site; you could wind up with a virus on your computer.)
2. Use up-to-date browsers with the latest security measures.
3. Pay attention to security alerts.
4. If you have information on your computer that is truly critical (e.g., medical or business records), it shouldn't be connected to the Internet.
5. Bear in mind that when you visit a Website, you give it information about where you are and who you are.
Three earn tenure
IN JUNE, the trustees promoted three junior faculty members to the tenured rank of associate professor: Bernhard Keimer in physics, and Michael T. Orchard *90 and Mordechai Segev in electrical engineering.
Keimer, a condensed-matter physicist, joined the faculty in 1992 after earning his Ph.D. at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. A graduate of the Technical University of Munich, Keimer studies quantum magnetism in yttrium barium cuprate semiconductors.
Orchard, whose field is signal and image processing, was a member of the faculty at the University of Illinois and the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology for five years before coming to Princeton in 1995. A 1981 graduate of San Diego State University, he received a Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation in 1993.
Segev came to Princeton in 1994 and has taught classes in optical electronics, nonlinear optics, and electromagnetism. Named a Sloan Foundation fellow in 1995, he was elected a fellow of the Optical Society of America.
Six join trustees
ON JULY 1, SIX new members joined the Board of Trustees: charter trustee Anthony B. Evnin '62, term trustee Bill Bradley '65, and alumni trustees William J. Crowe, Jr. *65, Regis S. Pecos '77, Suzanne R. Perles '75, and Sarah E. Stein '97. All will serve until 2001, except for Evnin, who will serve until 2007.
ANTHONY EVNIN, of Greenwich, Connecticut, is the managing partner of Venrock Associates and a director of the Princeton University Investment Co., which manages the university's $4.8 billion endowment. Evnin, whose area of expertise is the life sciences, particularly biotechnology, received a Ph.D. in chemistry from MIT and previously served as a trustee from 1987 to 1991.
BILL BRADLEY, of Montclair, New Jersey, retired from the U.S. Senate in January after representing New Jersey for 18 years. A Democrat, his interests range from international relations and tax reform to race relations, campaign finance reform, and the restoration of what he calls "civil society." Bradley now is a senior adviser and vice chairman of the International Council at J. P. Morgan and Co. and has affiliations with Stanford University, the University of Maryland, and CBS Evening News.
Retired admiral WILLIAM CROWE is currently U.S. Ambassador to Great Britain, a post he has held since 1994. Crowe chaired the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1985 to 1989, then taught for four years at the University of Oklahoma. In 1990 the university awarded him the James Madison Medal, which recognizes extraordinary achievement and service by an alumnus of the graduate school.
REGIS PECOS, of Cochiti Pueblo, New Mexico, is the executive director of the New Mexico Office of Indian Affairs. He served two terms as lieutenant governor of Cochiti Pueblo and chaired the Sante Fe Indian School Board, which runs the first school in the country to be controlled by a tribe. He is believed to be the first Native American to serve as a trustee.
SUZANNE PERLES, of Washington, D.C., is director of the National Issues Leadership Project/Academy of Leadership, at the University of Maryland. In taking this position, she left a career as head of her own mergers and acquisitions advisory firm. The first woman from Princeton to be named a Rhodes Scholar, Perles received an M.B.A. from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Oxford.
SARAH STEIN is the young alumni trustee from the Class of 1997. This year she is teaching English in Guangzhou, China, through the Princeton-in-Asia program. She was a cofounder of Challenge '97, the class project that paired Princeton student mentors with youngsters at the Hedgepeth-Williams Middle School in Trenton, New Jersey.
By the numbers
ACCORDING TO a survey conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education, drug arrests on college campuses jumped by nearly 18 percent in 1995, the fourth consecutive year with a double-digit increase. Among the Ivies, Brown, Cornell, and Dartmouth reflected that trend. Arrests for alcohol violations rose about 1 percent nationally. Incidents of most other crimes declined or rose slightly. Even though drug arrests increased, colleges nationwide reported more than twice as many arrests for alcohol-related offenses as for drug violations. At Princeton, burglary was the major offense reported in 1995. Dart-mouth appears to have outscored its peers in liquor-law violations. The only murder reported by an Ivy was one at Harvard. The data for 1995 is the most recent available.
| Burglary | Car theft | Alcohol | Drugs |
| BROWN | 69 | 13 | 0 | 2 |
| COLUMBIA | 57 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| CORNELL | 139 | 8 | 11 | 18 |
| DARTMOUTH | 13 | 4 | 69 | 16 |
| HARVARD | 86 | 13 | 0 | 16 |
| PENNSYLVANIA | 75 | 46 | 0 | 0 |
| PRINCETON | 33 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| YALE | 256 | 5 | 0 | 12 |
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