Since it’s summer and we know you’re busy at your super-important [insert bank here]/[insert NGO here]/[insert research institution here] internship or backpacking across Europe or voraciously watching back episodes of Gossip Girl, we here at The Ink round up the week’s news so you don’t have to. Today we’ve got some graduations stuff, some art crime stuff, some reality TV show stuff, some fratty stuff, and generally, stuff.
First up this week: Alumni swarmed Princeton this weekend, as you might have guessed, for Reunions. There was debauchery, there was dunko (as per the Wall Street Journal), and good times had by old people. God reportedly attempted to smite the revelers, but only knocked out a few trees. Fun!
A tree near Dillon Gym faced the wrath of nature
Also, graduation happened, which is weird to think because that means a quarter of the student body has moved on into the real world. At Baccalaureate on Sunday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos ’86 told the Class of 2010 about his grandmother and to be kind.
And then NBC news anchor Charlie Gibson ’65 cracked some jokes, along with Class Day speakers Zach Zimmerman ’10 and Becca Foresman ’10. Reports indicate everybody had a good time. Too bad superstar student body commander-in-chief CDY wasn’t there, because he was racing with Jonathan Schwartz ’10 while filming an episode of the CBS reality show The Amazing Race.
The Class of 2010 marched on anyway, and 1,166 seniors passed through FitzRandolph Gates, with some special guests. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was given an honorary degree for a bunch of stuff, among them being a trailblazer for women’s rights and being pretty old.
Valedictorian David Karp (who had 29 A’s and A+’s!?) spoke, along with salutatorian Marguerite Colson, who gave her address in Latin to a bunch of people who couldn’t understand her:
Because few students today know Latin, the new graduates follow along using printed copies of the remarks. These include footnotes telling when to applaud (plaudite) and laugh (ridete). Guests and other audience members do not have the annotated copies, a practice dictated by tradition because the salute is directed to the members of the class.
Here’s a slick video Princeton made of the happenings. Money shot’s near the end, with the Class of 2010 on the steps of Blair Arch, doing the creepy Heil singing “Old Nassau.”
We’ll miss you guys!
And then, that huge sucking sound you heard on Wednesday? That was campus being evacuated for the summer. News grinded to a halt, but stuff still happened, apparently:
- The Princeton museum’s curator is being investigated by the state of Italy and may be the target of criminal proceedings that are under way. The Times reports:
According to a 14-page legal notice from the public prosecutor’s office in Rome, J. Michael Padgett, 56, antiquities curator at the Princeton University Museum of Art, is a focus of a criminal investigation of “the illegal export and laundering” of Italian archaeological objects.
Yikes. Italy’s alleging that Mr. Padgett was involved in the buying, selling, or lending of Italian art “looted or stolen” from the state without its consent. The investigation comes as a surprise, since in 2007, Italy had come into an agreement with Princeton to exchange eight antiquities for Italian cooperation and bilateral agreements.
But hey, at least it’s not as bad as when Yale confirmed that an art curator had received a Yale doctorate when she hadn’t, prompting a lawsuit from the the Sungkok Art Museum in South Korea.
- Relatedly, the museum acquired three pieces with “aesthetic excellence” and the Times reports on an upcoming exhibit of the Princeton faculty meeting room financed by alumni. Maybe that cancels out the potential lawsuit? Probably not.
- And finally, a potentially big story here: Our very own Brian No ’10 reports in PAW that Shirley Tilghman is considering banning fraternities and sororities in response to the John Burford ’12 tell-alls printed this past semester in the Prince. The founding member of the Theta sorority weighs in and says Princeton doesn’t need ’em. Some former Greek life dropouts also weigh in on their pledge experiences.