Congratulations to Stuart Country Day School’s Sonya Jin ‘22 who was recognized as a Regeneron Science Talent Search Scholar. The #RegeneronSTS provides students a national stage to present original research and celebrates the hard work and novel discoveries of young scientists who are bringing a fresh perspective to significant global challenges. The 300 scholars and their schools will be awarded $2,000 each. more
Treat your bookshelf and home library to a book subscription box from Book of the Month (www.bookofthemonth.com), the original book subscription service.
This convenient subscription is perfect for bibliophiles who would like to support the publishing industry and rely less on ordering from Amazon and other big-box retailers. The other great thing about Book of the Month (BOTM), is that it provides a curated list of wave-making titles in a variety of genres and sub-genres. From new fiction to thrillers, romance, “quick reads,” history, family sagas, mysteries, and more, readers are sure to find a monthly title that appeals to them and will be shipped in the form of a hardcover, directly to their front door. more
Artworks Trenton, a leading visual arts center in central New Jersey, has announced the appointment of M’kina Tapscott as executive director, beginning January 18. The selection of Tapscott followed an intensive search and selection process. Tapscott succeeds Lauren Otis, executive director since February 2016, who in 2021 announced his intention to step down. more
Join Princeton Public Library (PPL) for a virtual Crowdcast event on Thursday, January 6 from 8 to 9 p.m. with writers Karen J. Greenberg and Julian E. Zelizer. On the anniversary of the Capitol insurrection, Greenberg and Zelizer will discuss the “subtle tools” that were forged under George W. Bush in the name of security and their impact on how the Trump administration was able to weaponize disinformation, xenophobia, and distrust of law. more
On the Monday before winter break, the National Center for Girls’ Leadership (NCGLS) at Stuart hosted a virtual Women in Leadership career lunch featuring four Stuart alums and a current parent with careers in business. Students cycled through Google Meet breakout rooms that were hosted by leadership endorsement candidates and guests shared their career journeys, lessons learned from mistakes, and reflections on their Stuart experience. Virtual panels like these have allowed Stuart Country Day to give current students access to more experts within the alumnae community who would not normally be able to attend in person. more
The Rubin Museum in New York City presents AWAKEN, a podcast hosted by acclaimed musician and performance artist Laurie Anderson about the dynamic path to enlightenment and what it means to “wake up.” In 10 episodes, the audience is led into a “deep dive” through the personal stories of guests who share how they’ve experienced a shift in their awareness, and as a result, their perspectives on life. From deep introspection to curious, yet life-changing subtle inquiries, awakening can take on many forms, from the mundane to the sacred. more
The new year is coming, and with all the challenges that many of us have endured over the past couple of years, the Arts Council of Princeton has partnered with Miya Table & Home to create a community project that is a refresh, a restart, and a recommitment to our personal goals, hopes, and dreams. This special Daruma workshop will take place on Tuesday, December 28 from 1 to 2 p.m. at the Arts Council of Princeton, located at 102 Witherspoon Street. more
The Center for Contemporary Art in Bedminster will be offering two winter art courses for children and teens with ASD and other special needs. Both classes will be taught in person.
The art course for children ages 6-10 will be taught on Mondays at 4-4:45 p.m. from January 24-March 7.
The art course for children ages 11-16 with special needs will be taught on Mondays at 5-5:45 p.m. from January 24-March 7. more
A book authored by local historian Harold James has been named to the Financial Times’ Best Books of 2021: Politics List.
The War of Words: A Glossary of Globalization, published by Yale University Press, reveals the origins of key buzzwords and concepts used in contemporary political debate such as “neoliberalism,” “geopolitics,” and “globalization,” while highlighting communication challenges associated with their misuse. more
Students enrolled in fall creative writing courses in the Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Creative Writing at Princeton University will read from their new works of fiction, poetry, screenwriting, and literary translation on Tuesday, December 7 at 5 p.m. in the Chancellor Green Rotunda on the Princeton campus as part of the Program’s Althea Ward Clark W’21 Reading Series. The reading is the culmination of students’ work in the Program in Creative Writing’s fall creative writing workshops. more
On Wednesday, November 17, The Hun School welcomed Freestyle Love Supreme Academy to campus as part of the School’s Centennial Speaker Series and Her at Hun: Celebrating 50 Years of Girls and Women. The outdoor performance was high-energy, interactive, and carried a message of positivity and inclusivity.
Freestyle Love Supreme (FLS) was conceived by Lin-Manuel Miranda, Thomas Kail, and Anthony Veneziale. The group is currently performing on Broadway and are the subject of a Grammy Award-winning documentary on Hulu. FLS Academy are talented members of the cast who spin cues from the audience into humorous bits, instantaneous songs, and fully realized musical numbers. From singing to rapping to beatboxing with harmonies and freestyle flow, each show is unique to their audience. more
Labyrinth Books in Princeton will host a hybrid, livestream event with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon on Wednesday, December 1 at 6 p.m. Muldoon will introduce his 14th collection of poetry, entitled Howdie-Skelp: Poems. He will be joined by fellow poet Michael Dickman. more
At the end of October 2021, Penn Medicine opened the doors to its 1.5-million-square-foot future-ready pavilion. The 17-story building on Penn Medicine’s West Philadelphia campus houses 504 private patient rooms and 47 operating rooms. The pavilion will play host to the latest inpatient care for cardiology, cardiac surgery, medical and surgical oncology, neurology and neurosurgery, and transplant surgery. It will also be the site for Penn Medicine’s new emergency department. more
The 2021 Princeton Dance Festival returns with in-person performances featuring new and repertory works by choreographers Rebecca Lazier, Kyle Marshall, Justin Peck (staged by Michael Breeden), Larissa Velez-Jackson, Omari Wiles, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, and Germaine Acogny (staged by Samantha Speis), and new work staged by Tina Fehlandt inspired by Mark Morris’ choreography on the 40th anniversary of the founding of his famed dance company, performed by Princeton dance students. All performances will take place at McCarter Theatre on November 19-21. more
Just in time for the holidays, West Windsor Arts Council (WWAC) is offering a fused glass ornament workshop on Wednesday, November 24 at 3 p.m. at 952 Alexander Road in Princeton Junction.
The class will be two hours long, during which participants will make three of their own inspired keepsake glass ornaments. The class will include hands-on instruction on how to design several ornaments for tack fusing, including cutting small pieces of glass and using a flame to shape glass stringers. The participants will glue their ornaments and fuse them together using a special kiln in the studio. The finished products will be returned to the students in 7-10 days, complete with a silver-plated bail for hanging on their Christmas tree. more
Ever wonder what your day-to-day life would be like if you lived 100 years ago? 200 years ago? How about 300 years ago? The Hightstown Woman’s Club thought just that same thing and created a “Slice of Life” Art Quilt to commemorate 300 years of living in Hightstown, New Jersey. On Sunday, November 14 at 2 p.m., they will be presenting this work of living history and art to the Borough officials at the historic Fire House event room, 140 North Main Street.
At the event, the Woman’s Club CIP Committee will reveal the two-year process that brought them to the finished product. This was a community effort, with 26 makers from Hightstown and East Windsor participating. An accompanying book has been produced with a rich historic compilation of the art quilt subjects, and will be available to view and purchase in time for the holidays. more
The 8th annual Women Entrepreneurship Week (WEW) at Montclair State University was kicked off by cosmetics giant Bobbi Brown in conversation with friend and award-winning WNBC-TV reporter Tracie Strahan.
Brown was one of a dozen speakers who shared their stories of pivoting, as well as of failures and successes along their entrepreneurial journeys with the in-person and virtual audience. WEW is a global event, as students and attendees from 250 universities in 40 countries and 48 states participated this year, said Mimi Feliciano, a Montclair State University Advisory Board member for The Mimi & Edwin Feliciano School of Business and board member of the Feliciano Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (FCE&I), which hosted the event. more
McCarter Theatre inaugurates its new series of three National Geographic Live Sunday afternoons featuring the world’s leading explorers, adventurers, writers, and photographers, bringing their work from the pages of the iconic magazine to the stage. It kicks off with Brian Skerry’s Secrets of the Whales, based on a Disney + channel TV special featured as part of its Earth Day observances this past April. more
Professor Kate Crawford is a leading international scholar of the social and political implications of artificial intelligence (AI). Her work focuses on understanding large-scale data systems in the wider contexts of history, politics, labor, and the environment. Crawford will deliver a free public lecture at Princeton University’s McCosh 50 on Wednesday, October 27 from 5 to 6:15 p.m. Crawford will also be joined by Wendy Brown, a political theorist who works across the history of political thought, political economy, and critical legal theory. more
George School has announced that Anjali Amin ’22, Forest Ho-Chen ’22, Christian (Zachary) Kalb ’22, and Arshdeep (Arshi) Nagra ’22 have each been named National Merit Semifinalists in the 67th annual National Merit Scholarship Program.
These four students are among 16,000 semifinalists throughout the country, each qualifying for one of the 7,500 available National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $30 million that will be offered in the spring. more
New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) ranks in the top quarter of U.S. universities and colleges in the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education College Rankings for 2022.
For the second year in a row, NJIT has earned a spot in the top 25 percent of universities, jumping another 16 spots from the 2021 rankings and an impressive 200 places since 2017. Additionally, NJIT is the second highest ranked public university in New Jersey among schools offering degrees in several disciplines, including business, engineering, architecture, and history.
“Since the ranking’s inaugural year, NJIT has steadily climbed the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education U.S. rankings,” said Fadi P. Deek, NJIT provost and senior executive vice president. “Our upward trajectory and improved standing is a testament to focused and strategic improvements we are making in our academic programs and faculty, and the positive feedback provided by our students.” more
Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts has named award-winning photographer Jeff Whetstone as the new director of the University’s Program in Visual Arts. Whetstone has been a member of the visual arts faculty since 2015 and succeeds Martha Friedman, who has directed the program since 2016 and will return to teaching full-time.
Whetstone’s photographs and films imagine America through lenses of anthropology and mythology. His Post-Pleistocene series illuminates the depths of wild caves in Alabama and Tennessee where layers of human markings reveal millennia of cultural evolution. His ongoing New Wilderness project portrays a human-centric American wilderness and questions how human cultural connection to the wild is revealed in contemporary times. Whetstone’s artwork also investigates the role gender, geography, and heritage play in defining the human position in the natural world. A self-described biologist at heart, he explores the cyclical and evolving narrative of landscapes as a force that compels humans to adapt. His work varies considerably with each project, but always addresses the particularities of a place and explores interplay between geography and human experience. For Whetstone, the natural world is a cultural experience, and the built environment is firmly, yet problematically, situated within the web of nature. more
Lawrenceville is pleased to welcome the first class of Orion Military Scholars to the School, Rachel Deoki ’25 and Ben McCormick ’24. Lawrenceville is among the founding partners of the Orion Military Scholarship Fund (OMSF), teaming with select boarding schools to provide merit-based scholarships to children of active-duty U.S. service members. Deoki and McCormick’s fathers serve in the Army and Navy, respectively.
Lawrenceville’s Dean of Enrollment Management Greg Buckles has worked closely with OMSF, which he called “an incredible resource.… We’re leveraging their expertise to help us find outstanding students we know will be a good match for Lawrenceville,” he said. more
Princeton University’s Fund for Irish Studies presents a conversation with award winning novelist, dramatist, and screenwriter Roddy Doyle led by scholar and critic Frintan O’Toole, co-chair of the series, on Friday, September 17 at 4:30 p.m. via Zoom. Princeton’s Howard G.B. Clark University Professor of the Humanities Paul Muldoon, co-chair of the series, will provide a welcome and introduction. The event opens the 2021-22 series, which will be virtual for the fall. The event is free and open to the public.
Doyle has written 12 novels, including The Commitments; Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha, for which he won the Booker Prize in 1993; The Woman Who Walked Into Doors; and, most recently, Love. His latest book, a story collection called Life Without Children,will be published in the U.S. in spring 2022. Doyle has written eight books for children. He has also written for screen and stage. He is the co-founder of Fighting Words, which aims to help Irish children and young people to discover and harness the power of their own imaginations and creative writing skills. He lives in Dublin. more
Join Morven Museum & Garden on Sunday, October 17 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for a special workshop presentation with duck decoy Master Carver Jode Hillman. “The Art of Deception: Techniques and Theory of Creating a Three-Dimensional Black Duck Silhouette Decoy” will be an on-site class, held outdoors, masked, and socially distanced. All supplies and materials will be provided. Lunch will also be included from Brick Farm Market (selections to be made the week before class). Attendees are asked to dress for the outdoors and weather. Class size is limited to eight students. more
Drew University has made The Princeton Review’s annual “The Best 387” nation’s top schools. Drew has made the list every year since its debut in 1992.
The list, which includes only about 14 percent of the schools in the country, praised Drew for its 60-plus majors and minors, seven NYC semesters, top-ranked theater program, impressive science departments, engaging and dedicated faculty, and myriad research opportunities. more
A new outdoor labyrinth is nestled behind the residential Witherspoon Apartments on Princeton Theological Seminary’s Charlotte Rachel Wilson Campus. Along with many helping hands, Student Life Resident Daniel Heath, MDiv ’20, dreamed of the idea and coordinated the design and recent completion of the labyrinth.
The previously unused space is now an ecofriendly gathering place for students and their families with a labyrinth at the center. At nearly 50 feet in diameter, it is one of the largest labyrinths in the Princeton area. more
Montclair State University will receive more than $1.4 million from the state of New Jersey to support programs that help to address the impacts of COVID-19 on postsecondary students.
Gov. Phil Murphy and Secretary of Higher Education Brian Bridges announced the grants on July 12, with Montclair State among 35 public and public-mission private institutions receiving $30 million in state aid to implement vetted best practices that increase college completion, address barriers to student success, and develop sustainable systemic reforms. more
There’s nothing like drawing in an even larger group of your community’s kids because of your community’s own generosity.
Trenton Music Makers was honored to learn that it would be part of the cohort of grantees supported by the Trenton Arts Endowment Fund of the Princeton Area Community Foundation. The Fund will support the live 2021-22 opening of the after-school orchestra’s “Open Strings” project, begun online during the earliest days of the pandemic lockdown. more
As of August 2021, Drew University in Madison, N.J., has announced the addition of new majors in cybersecurity and statistics, as well as a dual-degree cybersecurity program with New York University. These new majors join an already robust selection of concentrations from the liberal arts college.
The new major in cybersecurity will be available in fall 2021. The program will offer a liberal arts approach with flexibility through elective offerings for students to choose emphases in software, systems, or interdisciplinary contexts.
Undergraduate degrees in cybersecurity are a rarity in higher education and the program’s liberal arts emphasis will further separate it from the few contemporary programs offered in the U.S. more
