News from
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY
Communications and Publications, Stanhope Hall
Princeton, New Jersey 08544
Tel 609/258-3601; Fax 609/258-1301
Date: October 16, 1996
Contact: Mary Caffrey (609) 258-5748
Satellite Broadcast Offers Glimpse of Princeton University Anniversary Festivities
PRINCETON, N.J. -- Princeton alumni across the United States and around the world have been invited to come to campus to help the University celebrate its 250th Anniversary at a convocation and birthday party on Friday, October 25. For those who cannot make the trip, the University will provide a satellite broadcast of the day's events. Alumni in 14 cities as distant as Anchorage, Alaska, will gather to view the festivities and celebrate Princeton's milestone.
The University was founded October 22, 1746, when John Hamilton, acting governor of the Province of New Jersey, granted a charter to the College of New Jersey in the name of King George II of England. Exactly 150 years later, Princeton President Francis Patton proclaimed the change of name to Princeton University. In the keynote address at that sesquicentennial celebration, Professor of Politics Woodrow Wilson coined the phrase that has become Princeton's unofficial motto: "Princeton in the Nation's Service."
Service has been a theme throughout the 250th Anniversary celebration. Alumni groups have begun many new public service projects in honor of the anniversary, and plans are under way to establish a new Center for Community Service on campus, which will provide a locus for such ongoing efforts as the Student Volunteers Council, which involves 900 students in regular service projects, and Community House, which offers tutoring and other services to local families. As part of the celebratory events over Charter Weekend, Princeton will dedicate a stone on the front campus honoring the many contributions of Princeton alumni to the University and celebrating an expanded ideal of service: "Princeton in the nation's service, and in the service of all nations."
The Anniversary Convocation on Friday will feature a procession of faculty, students, alumni and staff; local officials; and visiting representatives of other colleges and universities. Harvard President Neil Rudenstine, former Princeton provost, and Yale President Richard Levin will greet the assembled guests. Specially commissioned poems by Reginald Gibbons, editor of the TriQuarterly Magazine at Northwestern University; Alicia Suskin Ostriker, professor of English at Rutgers University; and James Richardson, professor of English at Princeton, will be read. Nobel laureate Toni Morrison, who is Robert F. Goheen Professor in the Humanities at Princeton, will deliver the keynote address, "The Place of the Idea, the Idea of the Place."
After the convocation, the campus will be the scene of party celebrations, entertainment and refreshments. The whole community is invited. Among the activities will be an effort by the Garden State Ice Sculpture Team to create a record-breaking likeness of Nassau Hall that will be 12 feet long. At dusk Nassau Hall will be illuminated by electric candlelight. Guests will be given small flashlights for a torch-light parade to Poe-Pardee Field for dessert and a fireworks display beginning at 7 p.m.
A videotape of the day's events will be broadcast by satellite around the country every hour on the half-hour, beginning at 6:30 p.m. EDT. The alumni associations planning celebratory gatherings are: Anchorage, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbia (SC), Denver, Houston, New Haven, New York, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Tucson, Tulsa, and Washington, DC. Anyone in North America with access to satellite reception can view the broadcast via Ku-band at SBS-6/Transponder 11 or via C-band at Telstar 402/Transponder 20.