News from PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
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Princeton, New Jersey 08544-5264
Telephone 609-258-3601; Fax 609-258-1301Jan. 31, 2001
Contact: Peter Spencer (609) 258-3601
Senior David Tannenbaum wins Princeton's Sachs Scholarship
Princeton, N.J. -- David Tannenbaum, a senior from Great Neck, N.Y., has won the 2001 Daniel M. Sachs Class of 1960 Graduating Scholarship awarded by Princeton University. The award will provide tuition and expenses for two years while Tannenbaum studies economic and social history at Worcester College, Oxford University.
The Sachs Scholarship, one of the highest honors given to Princeton undergraduates, has been awarded since 1970 in memory of Daniel Sachs, who starred in football and lacrosse at Princeton before attending Worcester College as a Rhodes Scholar. Sachs died of cancer at the age of 28. Classmates and friends established the scholarship in his honor, stipulating that it be given to the senior who best exemplifies Sachs' character, intelligence and commitment, and whose scholarship is most likely to benefit the public.
Tannenbaum, who in 1999 won the annual Daily Princetonian Award for service to the Princeton community, has been an activist throughout his time at Princeton. He organized an anti-sweatshop campaign that resulted in changes to the University's contract requirements with apparel licensees and coordinated Green Party fundraisers in the 2000 election.
He served as editor-in-chief of the Princeton Progressive Review, a monthly magazine, and wrote weekly columns for the student-run Daily Princetonian on issues ranging from alumni reactions to increasing faculty diversity, to the history behind the names of campus buildings.
In addition, Tannenbaum sat on Princeton's Honor Code Committee and co-directed the Princeton University High School Debate and Forensics Tournament.
"I wasn't really very political until I got to Princeton, but something about Princeton pushed me," he said. "One thing is the incredible power Princeton students have to change the University. We have a lot of leverage and visibility that students at other colleges don't have."
A philosophy major, Tannenbaum is writing his senior thesis on the philosopher Immanuel Kant's theory of freedom and morality. He hopes to build a career in political organizing.
At Oxford, Tannenbaum hopes "to inform my future work with the history of political movements and the way marginal political movements can succeed," he said, referring to Norman Thomas, who ran for president five times on the Socialist Party ticket. "He never came close to being elected but he influenced policy on social security, the minimum wage and child labor," Tannenbaum said.
"My hopes are to study history outside this country and (come back with) another perspective," he said.
Tannenbaum is the son of Elliot and Susan Tannenbaum of Great Neck.
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