Thursday, December 5, 2013

Bennett Rushkoff Running for Maryland State Delegate

Bennett Rushkoff announced on December 4 his candidacy for Maryland State Delegate for District 15, covering western Montgomery County. Currently the Chief of the Public Advocacy Section of the D.C. Attorney General’s Office, Rushkoff will appear on the ballot of the Democratic primary on June 24, 2014. A press release on Rushkoff's bid said,

“After 25 years of public protection work at the federal, state, and local levels, I’m ready to serve as an effective advocate in our General Assembly,” Rushkoff said.  “It would truly be an honor to join Senator Brian Feldman and Delegates Kathleen Dumais and Aruna Miller in representing District 15.” 
Rushkoff’s top three campaign issues will be education, health care, and the environment.  “We should strive to keep Maryland’s public schools No. 1 in the country, to ensure quality health care for all, and to promote clean, safe, and renewable energy as well as energy conservation,” he said.   
A graduate of Yale Law School, Rushkoff has previously served as a Special Assistant to the Maryland Attorney General, as a consumer protection attorney at the Federal Trade Commission, and as Special Chief Counsel in the Missouri Attorney General's Office.  He earned his undergraduate degree from Princeton University, where he majored in public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School.

Monday, December 2, 2013

Jonathan Sibley Featured in NJ Monthly Article on Life Coaches

NJ Monthly featured Jonathan Sibley in a November 6, 2013 article titled, "Change Agents: Seeking Direction with a Life Coach." The article discussed the services and strategies of five New Jersey-based life coaches, including Sibley, with the writer using herself as the test case for the coaches. The article said,

I used my two hour-long phone sessions with Sibley to zero in on a problem I presented to each of my coaches: time management. As a full-time freelance writer with two school-age kids, a husband and a house under renovation in Madison, my average day is apt to be sucked down a rabbit hole of suburban responsibility. How, I asked Sibley, can I get more out of my packed existence?
And we were off. 
In a voice as soothing as chamomile tea, Sibley traced the contours of my life, asking how I allocate my time and whether I might consider handing off some of my responsibilities. He was trying to help me envision the path to more poise, less stress. 
“You might say to some of the people you interact with: ‘Can we have a restructuring conversation? Because I find I’m juggling a lot of things.’” 
Here is what we decided at the end of my two sessions: I’m a good candidate for further coaching. Sibley noted that my resistance to change—an area he specializes in—was still burning strong. 


Sunday, November 17, 2013

Anne-Marie Slaughter Causes Ruckus with Knitting Comment

Anne-Marie Slaughter, president of the New America Foundation, caused a little online dustup last week with comments about retirement planning. Speaking at the Washington Ideas Forum on why women fall behind, she made these comments, as reported by The Atlantic:
It will also take time, she said, to change the notion that men and women should focus single-mindedly on their careers until the age of 55 and then ease into retirement. With life spans climbing into the mid-80s, Slaughter pointed out, “that leaves 30 years—30 years of what? You’re going to knit?”

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Beth Cobert Takes New Position as OMB's Deputy Director for Management

After 29 years as a consultant at McKinsey & Company, Beth Cobert has assumed her new position as deputy director for management at the federal Office of Management and Budget. The Senate approved her nomination in mid-October. According to Federal News Radio,

She will lead President Obama's second-term management agendawhich is focused on four pillars: efficiency, effectiveness, people, and economy.

John Wetmore Quoted in Article on Millennials' Driving Distinterest

John Wetmore was featured in an article in the Deseret News on October 25, 2013 titled, "Empty Roads: Car Love Fades as Millennials' Values Change." The article examines the reasons and the impact of lack of interest in driving on the part of millennials, the generation born between the early 1980s and the early 2000s.

The author turned to Wetmore, the long-time producer of the public-access program Perils for Pedestrians, for his views on the significant community-planning aspect of the car-shunning generation. Wetmore said,

"People are a lot more interested in having transportation choices than they were a couple of decades ago," he says. 
Companies are trying to attract millennials by locating in walkable urban areas, instead of fancy suburban high-tech parks, which has long been the trend.
"When people are passing each other on the sidewalk," he says, "there is serendipitous interaction that you don't have when driving by each other."

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Sylvia Hurtado Speaks at Diversity Conference

Sylvia Hurtado, a professor at UCLA and director of its Higher Education Research Institute, was the opening speaker on October 21 of the Diversity Forum at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. An article in the Daily Cardinal newspaper said,

Hurtado outlined her model for creating diverse learning environments and emphasized the need of recognizing different factors that influence the campus climate.
The first of these dimensions relates to the group’s history of inclusion or exclusion within the campus community. Hurtado added the campus community must ask “who’s at the table?” to ensure all groups are being fairly represented.
“Diversity is a resource, it’s not a problem,” she said. “Inequity is the problem.”






Sunday, October 20, 2013

Jill Pilgrim Merges Sports-Law Practice Into Buckner Firm

Jill Pilgrim has merged her sports-law practice into another law firm, now called Buckner. She will serve as senior counsel at Buckner on issues relating to sports law, higher education law and corporate and contracts law. A recent Buckner press release explains

Sports attorney Michael L. Buckner has rebranded, expanded and relaunched his sports law practice formerly known as the Michael L. Buckner Law Firm under the new singular name of Buckner. As part of the expansion, his firm has merged with Pilgrim & Associates’ sports law practice, added several veteran attorneys to the firm and formed an affiliation with Precise Advisory Group for client consulting services. Along with the new brand identity, the firm has launched a new website, www.bucknersportslaw.com.
 Jill Pilgrim, Lori Williams and Claire Zovko are the newest additions to the Buckner roster of attorneys. Pilgrim is senior counsel on issues relating to sports law, higher-education law and corporate and contracts law; Williams is senior counsel on issues relating to intercollegiate athletics, risk management and higher education law; and Zovko is of-counsel on issues relating to sports law, intercollegiate athletics and higher-education law.

Duane McWaine Explains Princeton to Kiwis

U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand David Huebner '82, a passionate advocate of social media in diplomacy, writes a series about U.S. educational institutions on the US. Embassy's website. In his latest installment, he turns to page over to his spouse Dr. Duane McWaine '80, to take a long, detailed, gloriously illustrated look at Princeton University (complete with a nice plug and picture of Colonial Club. McWaine starts his tour of the University like this:

Thank you, Ambassador! Like many Princeton University alumni, I have been back to campus in beautiful Princeton, New Jersey several times in the years since I graduated, including twice this year alone. Each time I go back I’m amazed at what’s changed and heartened by what remains the same.
McWaine's ranges across Princeton's history, academics, student resources, alumni, eating clubs, Triangle Club, the P-Rade, athletics and his own experiences as an undergraduate. It's well worth reading.

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Bernardo Ferdman Co-Edits New Book, "Diversity at Work: The Practice of Inclusion"

Bernardo Ferdman has a website devoted to his upcoming book, Diversity at Work: The Practice of Inclusion, to be published in November by Jossey Bass/Wiley in the the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) Professional Practice Series. The book's content includes:

topic experts ranging from internal and external change agents to academics present detailed solutions for the challenge of inclusion—how to fully connect with, engage, and empower people across all types of
differences.

The editors and chapter authors translate theories and research on diversity into the applied practice of inclusion. Readers will learn about the critical issues involved in framing, designing, and implementing inclusion initiatives in organizations and supporting individuals to develop competencies for inclusion.

The authors' diverse voices combine to provide an innovative and expansive model of the practice of inclusion at the individual, group, and organizational levels. Case studies and illustrations show how diversity and inclusion operate in a variety of settings, effectively highlighting the practices needed to benefit from diversity.

Ferdman is Professor of Organizational Psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology of Alliant International University in San Diego, California, and a leadership and organization development consultant with almost three decades of experience. Ferdman—a SIOP Fellow, past Chair of the Academy of Management's Diversity and Inclusion Theme Committee and of AOM's Gender and Diversity in Organizations Division—consults, writes, speaks, teaches, and conducts research on diversity and inclusion, multicultural leadership, Latinos & Latinas in the workplace, and bringing one’s whole self to work.



Thursday, September 12, 2013

Amy Myers Jaffe Remembers Robert Deraney

In a September 11 post on her Fuel Fix blog, Amy Myers Jaffe shared her memories of classmate Robert Deraney, a consultant who was murdered by September 11, 2001 while attending a breakfast meeting at the Windows on the World restaurant at the World Trade Center.  Jaffe writes,
In 1977, a rag tag group gathered to study Arabic under the tulelage of Dr. Abraham Udovitch, an acclaimed scholar who studied the social and economic life of 11th century Egypt, among other topics.  It proved to be a highly successful group of people: To name a few, a professor of Middle Eastern politics (urbanism, gender and social movements) at American University in Washington, DC; the President and Chairman of the Board at the American Foreign Service Association and a former US diplomat with postings around the Middle East; a respected finance, banking, and oil and gas attorney based in Dubai; the director of international studies programs and assistant dean for legal writings at Villanova University School of Law, and of course, me, a global academic expert on oil and gas. 
But I am sure tonight we are all reflecting on the same thing: the untimely death of another of our Arabic 101 classmates whose life was cut short by his random decision to attend a breakfast at the World Trade Center restaurant Windows on the World on the morning of September 11, 2001. Robert Deraney was a ray of light. A Lebanese American who had the knack of getting along with even the craziest student members of the Middle East studies department of the 1970s, Bob exemplified all that is wonderful about being 19. He was vibrant, optimistic, creative, filled with laughter, and a force of nature.  If ever there was someone you couldn’t imagine being killed in an act of hatred, it would have been Bob. Bob wrote his senior thesis on the poetry of Khalil Gibran. He was a caring, open minded human being, who made time for everyone and could get a smile out of you even in the darkest of circumstances. I can still picture his face, chastising me for taking something mundane too seriously and forcing me to laugh at myself, not an hour later upon reflection, but then and there, while he tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for a smile to break across my lips. There is so much to be troubled about in the headlines today. So I try instead, on this day when I might otherwise be overwhelmed by grief and personal loss, to picture a moment of laughter with a colleague and friend who should still be with us.  
For those who knew me at 19 years old, picture me at house parties weekend swirling around in my roommate’s pink chiffon dress as Bob coasted across the dance floor like Fred Astaire. I was no Ginger Rogers, for sure, but Bob enriched our college experience in the 9 am section of Arabic 101 and beyond. What I wouldn’t give for some kibbe and a few pastries from his grandmother’s kitchen.

Sunday, August 18, 2013

American Lawyer Magazine's Tribute to Andy Steinberg

Colleagues warmly remembered aviation lawyer Andy Steinberg in an August 14 article on the American Lawyer's website. Titled "Amid AMR Merger Fight, Recalling a Jones Day Aviation Titan," the article placed last year's death of Steinberg (from complications resulting from eye cancer) in the context of merger efforts of his client, AMR Corp., the parent of American Airlines.

Early this month, the U.S. Justice Department and several states moved to block American's merger with U.S. Airways Group.

The article states,

The proposed deal, which has pulled in nearly a dozen Am Law 100 firms since US Airways and American agreed to join forces in February, would create the world's largest airline. The burden of making that merger happen now falls in large part on the antitrust lawyers advising the two airlines. For Jones Day, lead counsel to American parent AMR Corp., the assignment is all the more challenging because the firm will be without the services of aviation industry veteran Andrew Steinberg. 
Steinberg joined Jones Day as a partner in May 2008, according to sibling publication The National Law Journal. His two prior stops were the Federal Aviation Administration, which he joined as chief counsel in 2003, and the U.S. Department of Transportation, where he arrived as an assistant secretary for aviation and international affairs in 2006.  
"He wasn't religious, but Andy was Talmudic in his mastery of [aviation] law and all of its regulations, and there are a lot of them," says Jeffrey Shane, a former Hogan Lovells partner and onetime Transportation Department undersecretary—the latter job one that saw Steinberg report to him. "It wasn't unusual for him to come into my office and put on my desk a 10-page white paper he'd written on some creative way to address a particular issue. Andy had these totally original ideas all predicated on a statute."
Steinberg's obituary in the Washington Post can be found here.

Monday, August 5, 2013

Sharon Keld Launches Corps Social Website for "Dating With a Purpose"

Combining her marketing savvy gained in the corporate world with a passion for public service built through Peace Corps tours in Morocco, the Philippines and Armenia, Sharon Keld has launched Corps Social, a website that describes itself as "dating with a purpose."

Appealing to people interested in both dating and friendship, the site launched in July after months of development work. The home page describes it thusly:

Enjoy helping others? Meet people who share your passion! 
Welcome to Corps Social – the dating and friendship website where Returned Peace Corps Volunteers, AmeriCorps Alums, Teach for America alumni, former UN Volunteers and other like-minded people come to chat, meet and date. With Corps Social you can meet someone who shares your altruism and your sense of adventure, someone who can relate to your service and your openness to new experiences. 
Corps Social brings together thousands of people just like you, all around the world. You’ll find your fellow members come in all ages, colors and religions. Currently-serving volunteers, the newly-finished/just-getting-resettled and those from long ago are welcome!



Friday, July 19, 2013

Anthony Branker Releasess "Ballad for Trayvon Martin"

Anthony Branker, Director of the Jazz Studies Program at Princeton, has released an instrumental composition titled "Ballad for Trayvon Martin," which is getting new visibility in the wake of the decision in the Martin-Zimmerman trial in Florida.

Over 6 minutes long, the saxophone-driven piece can be heard at Soundcloud, along with information about Branker and his group, Word Play. Their latest album is titled Uppity. 


Friday, July 12, 2013

Steve Wexler Fielding Tiger-Talented Band for July 19 NYC Gig

Steve Wexler has pulled together a Team of Tigers to add power to his Top Shelf R&B band when it hits the stage on Friday, July 19 at the Cutting Room in New York City. Alums storming the stage with Steve will include Gene Lewin ’84 (currently touring with Audra McDonald) and singing phenom Sarah Ann Sillers ’13. For an extra inducement, use the promo code SHELF! to get tickets for $15 (vs. $25 at the door). You can order tickets at this link

Sunday, June 9, 2013

'80s Own Captains Courageous, Scott Miller, Competing in the Bermuda One-Two Race

Scott Miller, skippering the "Resolute," is competing in the Bermuda One-Two Race from Newport, Rhode Island, to Bermuda. Miller writes, "The singlehanded race from Newport to Bermuda starts tomorrow (Saturday) mid-day; the doublehanded race back from Bermuda starts June 20 (probably late morning start).  The races should take me a bit more than 4 days to complete."

The site provides a tracking function (third link down on the left on the home page) so yachting fans can follow the progress. Miller's boat is the Resolute, leading the group in Category 1 as of late Sunday morning.

Cabell Chinnis Talks About Life as a Gay Supreme Court Clerk

The New York Times on June 9 featured a front-page story titled, "Exhibit A for a Major Shift: Justices' Gay Clerks." The article looked at the interactions of Supreme Court justices and their gay court clerks in the 1980s. One of the clerks interviewed was C. Cabell Chinnis, who clerked for Justice Lewis F. Powell Jr. when Justice Powell was considering his crucial vote in the Bowers v. Hardwick case, involving a George law that criminalized sodomy. The article states,

C. Cabell Chinnis, a gay lawyer who practices law in Palo Alto, Calif., was one of Justice Powell’s clerks as the justice was struggling with how to vote in the Hardwick case. In an interview, Mr. Chinnis said his boss must have known about his sexual orientation. “He had met my boyfriend,” Mr. Chinnis said. 
Indeed, the justice sought him out for advice precisely because he wanted to learn about the mechanics of gay sex, Mr. Chinnis said, recalling an uncomfortable exchange on the subject. 
“This 78-year-old man is asking me about erections at the Supreme Court,” he said.
The conversation was unusual, as Mr. Chinnis was not the clerk who had been assigned to work on that case. But the two kept talking as the justice wrestled with the issues in the case. At one point, Mr. Chinnis recalled, he made a plea to his boss based on a comparison to a pending case about the right to vote in judicial elections. 
“It’s more important to me to make love to the person I love,” Mr. Chinnis remembered saying, “than to vote for a judge in a local election.”
Justice Powell initially considered striking down the law, but ultimately voted to uphold it.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Anne-Marie Slaughter Considers Webs and Ladders

In a column posted on the Huffington Post today, "Do You See the World as a Ladder or a Web?", Anne-Marie Slaughter shared her perspective on web people and ladder people as ways of approaching life and work. She writes,

When I was a first-year law student in 1982 I read Carol Gilligan's In a Different Voice, in which she studied adolescent girls and boys and concluded that girls were more likely to gravitate toward an "ethic of care" and boys were more likely to express an "ethic of justice." Gilligan's point, then and now, is that both perspectives are equally valid and equally essential to human existence. Her findings interested me. But what rocked my world was her description of two different concepts of power, contrasting a ladder and a web. As she explained, if you live or work in a hierarchy, then the position of greatest power is at the top -- the first rung on the ladder. On the other hand, if you live or work in a network or other horizontal community, the position of power is in the middle, the hub of the wheel or the center of a web. The two visions do not fit well together: being at the top of a ladder translates to being on the periphery of the web; being at the center of the web becomes the middle of the ladder. But each is unquestionably a power position in their respective environments.

Friday, May 31, 2013

Eve LaPlante Looks for Louisa May Alcott's Jewish Roots

Eve LaPlante has followed up on her dual bio of writer Louisa May Alcott and her mother, titled "Marmee & Louisa." In an article in the May 28 issue of the Forward newspaper, she recounts a journey to Portugal to explore the Sephardic Jewish roots of Alcott, a relative of hers.

In an article titled "Discovering Louisa May Alcott's Jewish History on Portuguese Tour," LaPlante recounted the family's history and her connection to it. She wrote,

My late aunt, Charlotte May Wilson, whose grandmother was Louisa’s closest first cousin, told me that the Jewish ancestry was a topic of pride in the family. The first person we encountered in Lisbon, the cabdriver who picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel, offered us an impromptu history lesson on Portugal’s Jews.

LaPlante's tour explores architectural nooks and crannies of Jewish history in Portugal, complete with burnings at the stake, explusions and other grim milestones, along with more recent efforts at reconciliation.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Amy Myers Jaffe Examines Meaning of Syria Crisis

Amy Myers Jaffe's new post at Fuel Fix looks at the ongoing crisis in Syria and draws some larger meaning from it. Looking at Syria in the context of the Cold War, Arab nationalism and U.S. political issues, Jaffe writes,

What is needed is the social and political will to enforce cease fires based on political negotiations and peace-keeping systems until rule of law can take hold. A good first start would be increased commentary (and social pressure) ending the societal glorification of “freedom fighting.” That goes for both citizens of the Middle East and those who are clinging to their guns here in the United States. Either we trust and believe in rule of law or we are all doomed to the same fate as Syria. In Boston, citizens did not use their personal guns to protect themselves or try to capture the Boston Marathon perpetrators and kill them. The entire society stayed at home to allow those actually elected and charged with that responsibility to do their jobs under the continuing scrutiny of a free press and a functioning judicial system. There is a lesson in that not only for those who would send off a car bomb to kill innocent people to a political end in an Iraq or Syria but also for all Americans.
Jaffe is a leading expert on global energy policy, geopolitical risk, and energy and sustainability. Jaffe serves as executive director for energy and sustainability at University of California, Davis with a joint appointment to the Graduate School of Management and Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS). At ITS-Davis, Jaffe heads the fossil fuel component of Next STEPS (Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways).

Judge Mennin Lays Down the Law

New York Judge Felicia Mennin was featured in a New York Times "City Room" article about an artist given a summons for leaving his art materials unattended in Grand Central Terminal. The most relevant passage states:


Mr. Thomas went to Midtown Community Court on May 1, accompanied by Thomas E. Wojtaszek, a Brooklyn lawyer he hired after striking up a conversation with him – where else? — on the subway.
Mr. Wojtaszek asked the judge, Felicia Mennin, to dismiss the summons because leaving an unattended bag did not seem to fall under the New York State penal code’s description of disorderly conduct.
He disputed the description by the officer on the summons – that Mr. Thomas showed “intent to cause a hazardous condition by leaving a bag unattended, causing a crowd to disperse and cause alarm” – saying Mr. Thomas certainly did not intend this, nor did his action cause dispersion or alarm.
And the state’s penal code does not make leaving baggage unattended a crime.
“The bag was still within his custody — what artist would leave the tools of his trade behind?” Mr. Wojtaszek said in an interview last week. “But this judge was not susceptible to reason.”
“She said, ‘I think in the light of the facts of the last two weeks,’ and I cut her off because it was apparent that she meant the bombing of the Boston Marathon,” he recalled. “I said, ‘This happened back in February,’ and she said, ‘But it happened after 9/11.’”
“The judge did not cite any precedent or case law,” Mr. Wojtaszek said.

The case will be tried on June 20.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

J. Todd Weber Named Finalist in Service to America Medal Program

J. Todd Weber, chief of Centers for Disease Control's Prevention and Response Branch, has been named a finalist in the considerations of the Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals, which are presented annually by the nonprofit, nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service to celebrate excellence in the federal civil service. Details are here.

Based in Atlanta, Weber was nominated for his work in Quickly identifying contaminated medicine as the cause of a major meningitis outbreak in 2012, and led the national public health response, alerting 14,000 potentially exposed patients and providing treatment information to the medical community. According to the Medals website,


In September 2012, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) began receiving reports from health officials in Tennessee about patients diagnosed with a rare form of meningitis. This worrisome information set off alarm bells at the CDC, which quickly launched an emergency response team led by Dr. Jonathan Todd Weber, chief of CDC’s Prevention and Response Branch.
Weber and his team ultimately linked the outbreak to injections of a steroid, which had been produced by the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts and distributed to 76 facilities in 23 states. While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Massachusetts Board of Pharmacy investigated the firm and halted further shipments of what turned out to be contaminated medication, the CDC worked with state and local health departments and clinical facilities to notify, in record time, approximately 14,000 potentially exposed patients.


Weber's CDC bio says that he is the Incident Manager of the Multistate Meningitis Outbreak and Chief of the Prevention and Response Branch of the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The branch investigates and responds to emerging infections and related adverse events among patients and healthcare personnel. Prior to this position, he was assigned to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control in Stockholm, Sweden for four years where he worked principally on pandemic influenza preparedness, as well as healthcare associated infections and antimicrobial resistance. 

During his 22 years at CDC, Weber has held various positions, including Director, Office of Antimicrobial Resistance in the Coordinating Center for Infectious Diseases and has worked in the divisions of Bacterial and Mycotic Diseases, Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention, and the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. He is a Fellow in the American College of Physicians and the Infectious Diseases Society of America.




Saturday, April 27, 2013

Donna Weng Friedman Creates "Flight of the Bumble Bee" App

Donna Weng Friedman has created an iTunes app based on "The Flight of the Bumble Bee" that uses animation and music to introduce children to classical music. “Kids literally can’t enough of it,” notes Friedman, a classical pianist and piano teacher in New York City, who has two school-aged children herself. The app’s next installment will be released shortly and will feature the musical tale of “The Swan” set to the music of Camille Saint-Saens. The new app can be ordered here.

“The Flight of the Bumble Bee” app turns one of the world’s greatest classical scores into pure fun, taking children along on the thrilling adventure of a little bumble bee set to an original recording of NicolaiRimsky-Korsakov’s famous composition “The Flight of the Bumble Bee.” As they follow the notes and the imaginative, narrated tale of an impatient bee, kids can make the app’s brilliantly-illustrated characters “come alive” by tapping or touching the screen of their iPad.



With its combination of superb music—performed by some of America’s finest musicians and recorded by an 11-time Grammy winning producer—and entertaining video designed to fit perfectly with the musical twists and turns, the new app is already earning raves from children, educators, and parents alike.

Donna says of the new project, "I have created interactive classical music apps for children ages 2-8, featuring some of the world's top musicians, including Carter Brey, principal cellist of the NY Philharmonic.  My audio producer is 11-time Grammy award winner David Frost, and my art director is my 16 year old daughter, Mickey. I have written stories to go with famous short pieces in the classical music repertoire with the idea of teaching young children how to listen to and appreciate the storyline that is inherent in the music. The apps are designed for both visual and auditory learners."

Donna has given workshops and demonstrations at schools in New York to 100 children, and "they all love the apps, especially the music. It is almost like bringing a mini concert to children, families and schools, giving some who may not otherwise have the opportunity to hear great music performed by great musicians."

NY Parenting Magazine will feature a story on the apps in the May issue.

The “The Flight of the Bumble Bee” app offers a variety of options that allow children to customize their musical experience. These include: 
  • The bumble bee’s story told with narration, music and interactive animation
  • The story told with read-along text for young readers, in addition to narration, music and interactive animation
  • Music and interactive animation only (kids, make up your own story!) 
  • A paint-to-the-music option that lets kids of all ages use their fingers to “paint” directly on the screen
  • The app also features a Korean-language version as well as an engaging maze game, in which kids help the little bee escape the spider web and get back to the beehive.

Experts in child growth and development agree that nurturing an appreciation and understanding of the “language of music” helps children flourish, intellectually and emotionally. Children may view this app as an entertaining game—but parents and educators will know that they’re also benefiting from the brain stimulation that classical music provides to growing minds. 

Children will ask for the app because it’s fun and holds their attention,” says family therapist Peter Abrons, PhD, “while parents will appreciate the beneficial effects that stem from this musical exposure. It’s a win-win!”



Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Van Wallach to Appear on "Kovacs Perspective," Internet Talk Show

Author Van Wallach will appear tomorrow night starting at 9 pm on "The Kovacs Perspective," an Internet talk show hosted by Steve Kovacs. The topic of the discussion will be Wallach's book "A Kosher Dating Odyssey," which just celebrated its first-year anniversary since it was published by Coffeetown Press. Listeners will be able to email questions to Kovacs as part of the show.
Jill Pilgrim, co-founder and principal of Precise Advisory Group, recently served as a presenter in an INTERPOL workshop in Salvador, Brazil. The Integrity in Sport workshop is part of the global INTERPOL/FIFA Training, Education and Prevention Initiative that was created to tackle match fixing and corruption in soccer.

Pilgrim's presentation identified the elements that are necessary to include in effective anti-fraud rules developed by soccer associations, an orderly way for soccer associations to conduct internal anti-corruption investigations and proceedings and optimal communication and cooperation between soccer associations and law enforcement. She said,
 
I was thrilled to participate in the INTERPOL workshop in Brazil. For the future of soccer or any sport, it is vitally important to discuss the topic of best practices in governance and how to avoid or identify corruption, educate people on the scope of the problem and help people understand how they can be a part of the solution to eliminate or identify and deter corruption. INTERPOL and FIFA have created an outstanding forum for discussion of these important topics among the leaders who can and must influence football's future globally. My presentation also covered strategic planning parameters and ready-to-implement guidelines and ethics practices.
 
The objectives of the Integrity in Sport Workshops are to:
 
  • Improve knowledge and understanding of the global threat from match-fixing and irregular/ illegal betting and its impact at national level (What are the current tactics used by criminals to initiate match-fixing in soccer and likely trends in the future?);
  • Identify current good practice and ways to prevent match-fixing and corruption in soccer and more effectively protect the future of the game; and 
  • Further encourage global, regional and national bodies associated with soccer to work together more effectively in partnerships, regularly sharing information and taking action to prevent match-fixing.

Sunday, April 21, 2013

Kathryn Hall Announces New Princeton President, Christopher Eisgruber '83

Kathryn A. Hall, chair of Princeton's Board of Trustees, announced on Sunday that Christopher Eisgruber '83 would become the 20th President of the University on July 1. In an email sent out today, Hall wrote, 

Dear Princetonian,
As chair of the Board of Trustees, it is my great pleasure to let you know that the Board, acting on the unanimous and enthusiastic recommendation of the presidential search committee, today elected Christopher Eisgruber ’83, currently the University’s provost, as Princeton’s 20th President, effective July 1.  The full text of the announcement can be found on the University’s home page (www.princeton.edu). 
            The search committee included nine Trustees, four faculty members, two undergraduates, a graduate student, and a member of the staff.  Over the past six months, the committee received more than 320 submissions to its website, where it asked for advice on the qualities to be sought in a new president, challenges and opportunities facing the University, and candidates who should be considered.  It held open forums on campus and conducted more than 100 sourcing interviews with members of the campus community and leaders of higher education throughout the country.  The suggestions we received were very helpful and contributed greatly to our decision that Chris is the very best person to serve as Princeton’s next President. 
            Princeton has been blessed with a series of remarkable Presidents over the past 50 years.  Each has had a different style and personality, but all have been devoted to serving the best long-term interests of the University and all have led Princeton through periods of change.  I am confident that Chris will continue this pattern, and that he has the skills, personal qualities and devotion to Princeton to lead our University with vision, imagination, courage and conviction.  As I say in the announcement, Chris was described to us again and again as principled, passionate and prepared, and we certainly concur. 
            I want to thank all of the alumni who provided us with suggestions and advice and who met with us during the course of the search.  In addition to being a member of the Class of 1983, Chris is also an honorary member of the Classes of 1967 and 1968.  I know he will be joining President Tilghman as she meets with alumni during Reunions later this spring, and I hope many of you will have opportunities then and on other occasions to congratulate Chris on his appointment and to join me and the other Trustees in wishing him every success as our next President.
Katie Hall ‘80


Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Marc Fisher Co-Authors Washington Post Article on Boston Bombings

Marc Fisher co-wrote the Washington Post's major roundup article on the Boston Marathon bombing of April 15. Drawing on reports from Post correspondents in Boston and elsewhere, Marc and co-author Vernon Loeb wrote,

BOSTON — On the day after, the what and the how of the Boston Marathon bombings became clearer — explosive devices crafted from pressure cookers and stuffed with nails and ball bearings killed three people and injured 176 — but the who and the why remained a mystery.
With no one claiming responsibility for Monday’s attack, hundreds of investigators in Boston and Washington began combing through more than 2,000 video and still images of the race route, searching for clues that might help determine whether the bombings were an act of domestic or foreign terrorism, planned by an organized enemy or a lone actor.

Sunday, April 14, 2013

Robert Klitzman to Appear on WNYC's "Leonard Lopate Show" on April 15, Reflects on Human Genome Project

Bioethicist Robert Klitzman will appear on the Leonard Lopate Show on WNYC, 93.9 FM, on Monday, April 15 as part of the 10th anniversary of the complete mapping of the human genome. Klitzman will discuss the impact of the mapping on medicine.

In addition, Klitzman published an essay on the website of Psychology Today reflecting on the anniversary. The essay, titled, "Am I My Genes? Confronting Fate and Family Secrets in the Age of Genetic Testing," examines the benefits and also the complications arising from the sequencing. He writes,

April 14th 2013 marks the 10th anniversary of the completion of the Human Genome Project — the successful mapping of the entire human genome, the three billion molecules that are the blueprints for us as human beings. This event ranks with NASA’s response to Sputnik as one of the great achievements of modern science supported by public funds. Over the past decade, researchers have continued to make incredible strides, discovering genes associated with diabetes, depression,schizophreniabipolar disorder, and other diseases. The future possibilities are enormous.

But we should use this anniversary as an opportunity to not only celebrate, but reflect. These miraculous discoveries present us too with countless dilemmas, and are far outpacing our abilities to grasp and address their ethical, legal, social and psychological implications. The genome is far more complicated than anyone imagined. The more we learn, the more we realize how much we don’t know. Uncertainties and controversies abound.

Klitzman is the director of the Masters in Bioethnics Program at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. His bio there notes,
Dr. Robert Klitzman has conducted research and written about a variety of ethical issues in medicine and public health to promote public and professional education concerning these issues. He has written five books, drawing on qualitative as well as quantitative methodologies, and also has written for the New York Times and other publications to improve public understanding of ethical and policy issues concerning public health and medicine.

Richard Greenberg's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" Now on Broadway

Playwright Richard Greenberg's adaptation of Truman Capote's "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is now on Broadway. The New Yorker, among other publications, looked at the new version of the book and movie, and Hilton Als had this to say:

Literary, but verging on cinematic, moments like these must be what inspired the playwright Richard Greenberg to adapt the story for the stage. Greenberg clearly thought that it would be possible to make “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” (at the Cort, under the direction of Sean Mathias) theatrical, given that Holly herself is so theatrical. Besides, isn’t her m.o. rather like that of a conventional play—in that she moves life’s action along by telling character-driven stories? There isn’t a chink in Greenberg’s professional script, but it never really attempts to capture, let alone analyze, what makes Capote’s Holly feel so alive, or why she makes everyone who loves her feel more alive, too. 
For more details and tickets, here's the official website.

Eve Beglarian's New Chorale Work, "Building the Bird Mound,” to Debut April 18 in NYC

Drawing on materials from her epic voyage down the Mississippi River, Eve Beglarian's new musical piece, "Building the Bird Mound," will debut on April 18 in a performance by the Voices of Ascension at the Church of the Ascension at 5th Avenue and 10th Street in New York City.

An article about the work for chorus and organ appeared on the church's website. It provided this background on Beglarian's production:

Two years ago Voices of Ascension’s music director Dennis Keene commissioned composer Eve Beglarian to write a work for chorus and organ, set to a spiritual text. In 2009 Beglarian had set off on a 4-month kayak trip the length of the Mississippi River, to collect sounds, songs, spiritual inspiration from the great river and from people along the way. WestView News interviewed Beglarian in her West Village apartment to learn about “Building the Bird Mound”, a 15 minute composition which came out of what she calls her “River Project”. 
Beglarian relates that she took prize money she had won to finance the kayak trip down the river, starting in Minnesota in August 2009, sleeping at campsites along the way. When she reached Mississippi and visited an ancient Native American site there, she was strongly advised by an acquaintance to visit Poverty Point, Louisiana, the site of the prehistoric “Bird Mound”. This large earthwork in the form of a giant bird with outspread wings is believed to date to at least 1500 BCE. Paleontologists consider it a gathering place for a hunter/gatherer people, rather than a settlement by an agricultural community. The importance of the mysterious site is rising as excavation proceeds— this year the U.S. requested a World Heritage designation by UNESCO.

Tickets for the premiere are available at 212-358-7060.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

Lawfareblog.com Can't Stop Talking About Jonathan Fredman

In late March, a ferociously detailed discussion of national security legal matters involving an episode in the career of CIA lawyer Jonathan Fredman surfaced at the excellent lawfareblog.com. The storm of security/law argumentation broke out on March 31 when blog co-founder and editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes published a post titled, "Memo to the Press: Just Shut Up About Jonathan Fredman," about a quote attributed to Fredman.

Wittes is a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution, where he co-directs the Harvard Law School-Brookings Project on Law and Security. Wittes tracks the circuitous trail of the quote through books and publications. Journalists quote without checking whether it's accurate. Wittes' post even contains a Princeton angle, probably of interest mostly to obsessive trackers of the boldfaced names in the Class Notes of the Princeton Alumni Weekly. Wittes refers to Pulitzer Prize-winner Barton Gellman '82's book, "Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency." Wittes writes,


A number of writers have, when confronted with the reality of the quotation, recanted. Barton Gellman, for example, included the quotation in the hardcover edition of his justly famed book about Vice President Cheney. He later wrote:
I have come to believe I did an injustice to Jonathan Fredman, a senior lawyer for the CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence. On p. 187 I quoted an infamous line he is said to have delivered at Guantanamo Bay (“if the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong”), the source of which was an unsigned memo released by the Senate Armed Service Committee. Upon closer inspection and further reporting, I have lost confidence in this document, which purports to be minutes of a meeting Fredman attended but plainly departs from verbatim quotation. I have removed the reference to this alleged quotation in the paperback, with an explanation in the chapter notes. 
Yet, no matter how many writers fix their error, the quotation keeps showing up.

The post sparked responses from a journalist and a lawyer involved national security matters, with commentary from Wittes. Readers can find the entire discussion at lawfareblog.com, all of which is impossible for a layman to summarize in any coherent or accurate way. The blog is worth checking to see if the volleys of perspectives continue.

Friday, April 5, 2013

Ann-Marie Slaughter Keeps Making News, Becomes President of New American Foundation

From Princeton to Harvard Law to the State Department to Princeton and now back to Washington, DC; Anne-Marie Slaughter maintains her high-profile, high-impact career with a move announced this week to the New America Foundation, where she will become the President. She will assume the position on September 1. The complete release on the move, which made national headlines, is here.

The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States. New America emphasizes work that is responsive to the changing conditions and problems of our 21st century.

Slaughter is currently the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs a the Woodrow Wilson School, where she had been the dean from 2002 to 2009. In a website article about Slaughter,the New American Foundation said,


Having served on the New America board, Slaughter said she has always been a big fan of the organization, but that the idea of taking on another job in Washington, away from her home and tenure in Princeton, was quite daunting when the search committee first approached her.  In the end, though, Slaughter says she decided to follow the advice she always offers students: “Do what you want to do.”
Slaughter told staff that she had agreed to be president on one condition: “That we be ambitious.”
She reflected about the differences between academia and government.  In the former setting, the highest rewards go to those who can come up with big ideas and have their name attached to them.  Conversely, “in Washington, you take big ideas and turn them into bite-sized ideas, and try to convince others that these were their ideas in the first place.”

Before taking the new post, Slaughter will complete a book she's writing about work-family issues, building on the blockbuster cover article she wrote last year for The Atlantic.

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Steve Wexler, Musician and Data Visualizer, Profiled in Newspaper

The multifaceted Steve Wexler gets a vibrant profile in the March 24 edition of the Journal News publication in New York's northern suburbs. Complete with photos of Wexler plucking at a bass guitar, the article, "Notable Neighbor: Briarcliff Manor Band Leader Steve Wexler's Talent is Top Shelf,"  highlights his love of Motown music and his band, the Top Shelf. The article also includes 10 things you don't know about Wexler, which you'll have to read for yourself because the list is so much fun (with obligatory Princeton references). On the musical front, here's the range of appearances for Top Shelf:

Steve Wexler and the Top Shelf has played everywhere from the Intrepid to Mohegan Sun, to the Cutting Room, a stunning venue in Manhattan. 
And you can occasionally catch the act locally, entertaining audiences at small venues such as 12 Grapes in Peekskill and the Towne Crier Cafe in Pawling. 
“You’re giving your all with each performance. You’re very exposed. You’re trying to convey something that’s palpaple and has meaning and have energy and enthusiasm came out of it. When you get it back from the audience, it just multiplies,” Wexler says.

Marc Fisher Details Prep-School Abuse for New Yorker

Marc Fisher, a 1976 graduate of the Bronx's Horace Mann School, has published a detailed investigation in the New Yorker of abuse charges against faculty members. The article, "The Master: A Charismatic Teacher Enthralled His Students. Did He Abuse Them?" focuses on English teacher Robert Berman. Fisher, a senior editor with the Washington Post, begins the article with a personal anecdote:

When I was in high school, at Horace Mann, in the Bronx, in the nineteen-seventies, everyone took pride in the brilliant eccentricity of our teachers. There was an English teacher who slipped precepts from the Tao Te Ching into his classes on the Bible and occasionally urged us to subvert standardized tests by answering every question with the word “five.” There was a much loved language teacher who would pelt distracted students with a SuperBall. There was a history instructor who, in a lecture on how the difficulty of delivering mail in the early days of the republic helped shape Federalist ideas, would drop his trousers to reveal patterned boxer shorts.

One group of boys stood apart; they insisted on wearing jackets and ties and shades, and they stuck to themselves, reciting poetry and often sneering at the rest of us. A few of them shaved their heads. We called them Bermanites, after their intellectual and sartorial model, an English teacher named Robert Berman: a small, thin, unsmiling man who papered over the windows of his classroom door so that no one could peek through.
Assigned to Berman for tenth-grade English, I took a seat one September morning alongside sixteen or seventeen other boys. We waited in silence as he sat at his desk, chain-smoking Benson & Hedges cigarettes and watching us from behind dark glasses. Finally, Mr. Berman stood up, took a fresh stick of chalk, climbed onto his chair, and reached above the blackboard to draw a horizontal line on the paint. “This,” he said, after a theatrical pause, “is Milton.” He let his hand fall a few inches, drew another line, and said, “This is Shakespeare.” Another line, lower, on the blackboard: “This is Mahler.” And, just below, “Here is Browning.” Then he took a long drag on his cigarette, dropped the chalk onto the floor, and, using the heel of his black leather loafer, ground it into the wooden floorboards. “And this, gentlemen,” he said, “is you.”
  • The next day, I asked to be transferred. I was not alone.

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Greg Mankiw Quoted in Article on Harvard Cheating Scandal

The Harvard Crimson published a lengthy article on February 28 on an ongoing cheating scandal involving a government class. "The Fall of Academics at Harvard" also mentioned similar behavior in the Economics 10 class led by Greg Mankiw, Professor of Economics.


“Collaboration,” recalls Igor Liokumovich ’15, who took Ec 10 last spring, of the general environment surrounding the course. “It wasn’t that. It wasn’t collaboration on homework; it was passed down very much the same as I heard the scandal was.” He pauses. “But I feel like it’s like that with any large class, you know? I don’t think it was specific to Ec 10.” 
Liokumovich jokingly recalls “200 freshman in Lamont Café, trying to scramble to get stuff together” as they completed their problem sets. 
“Because only your section TF grades your work, and if you have friends from six different sections,” he adds, “there’s no way you’d get caught.” 
In an emailed statement to The Crimson, Professor N. Gregory Mankiw writes that students who do copy and are not caught will still suffer in the exams, as he believes that the problem sets are the best way to prepare.

The article includes comments from Princeton's Honor Committee, as a contrast to Harvard's approach:

“Typical Harvard,” chair of Princeton’s Honor Committee and senior Antonia Hyman remembers thinking when she heard about the Gov 1310 scandal. She describes Princeton students discussing the incident on campus: There was “the idea that that couldn’t happen here—that it wouldn’t happen here.” 
Like Donovan, Hyman of Princeton stresses that students have a twofold responsibility both to refrain from cheating and to report students they suspect have done so. Princeton’s honor committee was established in 1893 after students approached the administration demanding its creation: The university had gained a reputation for being easy and of low standards, Hyman says. “The Princeton degree was becoming somewhat of a joke." 
The Undergraduate Honor Committee has since been entirely student-run, handling all violations of the honor system that involve all written examinations that occur in the classroom. Hyman says around half of the reports that she receives are directly from students themselves. 

Sunday, February 24, 2013

PAW Features Eve Laplante's New Book

The March 6, 2013 issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly has a "Reading Room" feature on Eve Laplante and her recent book Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother. The article says,

In previous biographies, Eve LaPlante ’80 has mined her family history for ancestors such as the Puritan colonist Anne Hutchinson and the Salem, Mass., witch judge Samuel Sewall. LaPlante always had planned a third biography on perhaps her most famous relative, novelist Louisa May Alcott, but hadn’t found a fresh angle on the writer ofLittle Women. Then LaPlante, with her daughter, started digging through her mother’s attic, where they discovered some May and Alcott family papers, including letters written by Louisa’s mother, Abigail May Alcott.

Monday, February 4, 2013

Ted Fishman Looks at Positive Impact of Immigrants

Ted Fishman provided a positive look at the impact of immigrants on American economic and social trends in a February 3 column in USA Today titled, "Immigrants Help Grow Our Economy." Fishman writes, 

Of course, we can't just open our borders to all comers, but we can make it easier to attract the younger and educated immigrants our economy needs to grow. As members of Congress consider the proposals, they should consider some factors that could surprise them. In America today, states and cities grow on the strength of immigration. Without it, their populations grow older and their workforces go wanting.

Fishman is a member of USA Today's Board of Contributors. 

Sunday, February 3, 2013

Amy Myers Jaffe Examines Climate Change in Foreign Policy Magazine

Amy Myers Jaffe co-wrote an article titled "An Idea Whose Time Has Come" in Foreign Policy Magazine. She writes,

While a comprehensive federal response to global warming may yet be out of reach, a number of states and localities are taking action independently -- as is much of the rest of the world. Moreover, the president's nomination of Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) as the next secretary of state elevates a staunch advocate of climate policy at the same time as a growing list of American allies are looking for increased cooperation on that front.

Monday, January 21, 2013

John Rogers Shares Views in Article on Obama

John Rogers shared his perspective on the changes in President Obama during his first term in a New York Times article titled, "After 4 Years, Friends See Shifts in the Obamas." The article appeared on January 19, shortly before Inauguration Day. The article notes,

The rituals they introduced are now matters of tradition instead of innovation. At their White House Seder, the small group of mostly African-American and Jewish attendees reads the Emancipation Proclamation right before welcoming Elijah, just as the year before. The president played basketball on Election Day 2012, as he did on most of the voting days in 2008. But this time it felt different: the men older, the action slower, a reunion game with everyone talking about the old days, said John Rogers Jr., a longtime friend who joined in.


Len Ritz Addresses Post-Hurricane Real Estate Issues

Len Ritz and two other members of the Manhattan real estate law firm of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. answered questions in Habitat Magazine about legal issues facing the boards of co-ops and condos in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Here is one question and response:

Q: Is there any difference in the law between how co-ops and condo apartments are handled when they cannot be lived in because of storm damage?

A: Co-operative and condominium apartment buildings, though structurally similar, have fundamentally different legal structures. Owners of condominium apartments actually own their apartments. In contrast, "owners" of cooperative apartments are really tenants under a proprietary lease between themselves and the co-op corporation. The existence of the lease can lead to different results for the same types of damage.

Friday, January 4, 2013

Eve LaPlante Wins Kudos for Book on the Alcotts

 Eve LaPlante's recent book, Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother, was mentioned on several lists of the best books of the year, including those from National Public Radio and the Seattle Times. LaPlante's website describes the book thusly:
In this groundbreaking work, LaPlante paints an exquisitely moving, utterly convincing portrait of a woman decades ahead of her time, and the fiercely independent daughter whose life was deeply entwined with her mother’s dreams of freedom. Based on newly uncovered papers, this moving portrait of Louisa May Alcott’s relationship with her mother will transform our view of one of America’s most beloved authors.

 LaPlante, coincidentally, is a cousin of Louisa May Alcott and a great-niece of Abigail May Alcott.

She has published articles, essays, and five nonfiction books. Seized is a narrative portrait of a common brain disorder that can alter personality, illuminating the mind-body problem and the limits of free will. American Jezebel tells the true story of LaPlante’s ancestor the colonial heretic and founding mother Anne Hutchinson. LaPlante’s second ancestor biography, Salem Witch Judge, about the 1692 judge who became an abolitionist and feminist, won the 2008 Massachusetts Book Award for Nonfiction. LaPlante’s new books — Marmee & Louisa, a groundbreaking dual biography of Louisa May Alcott and her mother, and My Heart Is Boundless, the first compilation of the personal writings of Abigail May Alcott — were published by Free Press in November 2012. 

LaPlante is making appearances throughout the winter and spring to promote the book in New England, with a complete schedule here

Amy Myers Jaffe Talks About Pipeline Protesters on NPR

Amy Myers Jaffe spoke with National Public Radio last month in a segment about a protester trying to stop the Keystone XL pipeline in east Texas. The NPR website says,

But Daniel's extreme efforts highlight the agony that individuals around the country are facing as new pipelines are built so a larger portion of oil can come from Canada and into the U.S.

"It feels very invasive, but the reality is that it happens all around the United States. It's not limited to just Texas," says Amy Jaffe, an energy expert from the University of California, Davis. "The bottom line is, it's public good because we use so much oil in this country that we cannot afford in our current lifestyle to turn down infrastructure. We're all participating in that by getting in our car."

Jaffe is the executive director for Energy and Sustainability at University of California, Davis with a joint appointment to the Graduate School of Management and Institute of Transportation Studies (ITS). At ITS-Davis, Jaffe heads the fossil fuel component of Next STEPS (Sustainable Transportation Energy Pathways).