Nassau notes

Alumni and parents of current undergraduates will converge on campus for a day of lectures, award ceremonies and other events Saturday, Feb. 21.

Highlights of the annual Alumni Day and Parents’ Program, coordinated by the Office of the Alumni Association, include:

• A lecture at 9:15 a.m. by James Madison Medalist Claire Max, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California-Santa Cruz who has developed techniques to enable astronomers to more clearly observe the universe. Max, who earned a Ph.D. in astrophysical sciences from Princeton in 1972, will deliver a talk titled “An Adaptive Optics View of Black Holes in Colliding Galaxies” in Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall.
• An address at 10:30 a.m. by Woodrow Wilson Award winner Rajiv Vinnakota, co-founder of the SEED School of Washington, D.C., the nation’s first urban public boarding school for disadvantaged students. Vinnakota, a 1993 Princeton graduate, will speak in Richardson Auditorium on “Risk and the Social Entrepreneur.”
• A 12:15 p.m. Alumni Association luncheon and awards ceremony in Jadwin Gymnasium.
• A 3 p.m. service of remembrance in the University Chapel to honor deceased Princeton alumni, students and University faculty and staff members. The event will include readings by staff members from several departments.
• A 4:15 p.m. panel discussion in Richardson Auditorium on “Education Policy in an Era of Fiscal Uncertainty.” Moderated by Mark Watson, interim dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the panel will include: Anne-Marie Slaughter, who recently stepped down as Wilson School dean to become director of the policy planning staff at the U.S. State Department; Vinnakota; Gordon MacInnes, a lecturer in the Wilson School and education policy expert; and Joaquin Tamayo Jr., the principal of the Urban Assembly Academy of Government and Law, a New York City high school. The panelists all are Wilson School alumni.

The event concludes with a 6:30 p.m. dinner honoring Max. During the day, a variety of other presentations are planned on topics ranging from “The Road to Energy Independence via a Materials Revolution” to “Globalization and the Expanding Reach of American Christianity” to “How Bacteria Talk to Each Other.” A number of programs are scheduled for families, including: a discussion on “Navigating the College Admissions Process” for students in grades 9-11, led by Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye; a drum circle presented by MIMA Music, a nonprofit organization founded by alumnus Christoph Geiseler; and a Lego engineering workshop led by the student group Princeton Engineering Education for Kids.

While the Alumni Day and Parents’ Program is not open to the general public, faculty, staff and students are invited to attend the lectures, panels, workshops, luncheon and service of remembrance.

For a complete schedule and registration information, call the Office of the Alumni Association at 258-1900 or visit alumni.princeton.edu/main/goinback/alumni_day/.

Glenn Close to speak about acting career

Glenn Close

Screen and stage actress Glenn Close will deliver a public lecture titled “Are You Who We Think You Are?” at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 19, in McCosh 50.

Tickets for McCosh 50 have been distributed, but the event will be simulcast live in McCosh 28 and 46, with no tickets required for these locations.

Close will discuss the connection between the roles she has played and the audience’s perception of her. She also will speak about her training as an actress and the social value of the dramatic arts. The lecture is sponsored by the University Public Lectures Series as part of the J. Edward Farnum Lectures.

Close is an award-winning film, television and theater actress. She has been nominated for Academy Awards for her roles in the films “Dangerous Liaisons,” “Fatal Attraction,” “The Natural,” “The Big Chill” and “The World According to Garp.” Her current role in the television series “Damages” has earned her an Emmy and a Golden Globe award.

Close also won an Emmy award for the television special “Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story,” for which she played the lead character and was executive producer. She received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for her role in the television adaptation of “The Lion in Winter.” She is the recipient of three Tony awards for “Sunset Boulevard,” “The Real Thing” and “Death and the Maiden.”

Her work also includes the films “Jagged Edge,” “Reversal of Fortune,” “101 Dalmatians” and “Hamlet.”

In addition to the simulcast, the lecture will be broadcast live on Channel 7 to the campus community and archived online on the WebMedia site at www.princeton.edu/WebMedia/ for later viewing within the next year.

Rashad, Dinkins among speakers in symposium on black experience

Actress Phylicia Rashad and former New York City Mayor David Dinkins are among the featured speakers in a symposium designed to highlight important developments and achievements of black people in America. The symposium will be held from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 21, at the Friend Center. It is free and open to the public, but advance registration is required by Thursday, Feb.19.

The event, titled “From the Middle Passage to the Oval Office: Defining the Black Experience,” will feature talks on a range of issues facing the black community, as well as a mayoral panel discussion and graduate student presentations. Princeton’s Office of Academic Affairs and Diversity in the Graduate School is sponsoring the event along with the Black Graduate Student Caucus in honor of Black History Month.

In addition to Rashad and Dinkins, speakers at the symposium will include:

• Jeff Johnson, host and producer of Black Entertainment Television’s “The Truth”;
• Linda Coles-Kauffman, executive producer and host of New Jersey Network’s “Another View”;
• Doug Palmer, mayor of Trenton, N.J.; and
• Mildred Trotman, mayor of Princeton Borough, N.J.

Lectures, panels and student presentations will take place in 1, 4, 6 and 8 Friend Center. Continental breakfast and lunch will be provided for registered attendees.

An admissions information session for prospective students interested in master’s and doctoral programs at Princeton’s Graduate School will be held at 8 a.m. in the Friend Center Convocation Room.

Anyone interested in attending the symposium is encouraged to register by 5 p.m. Feb. 19, at gradschool.princeton.edu/forms/divforms/black_history_symposium/. Onsite registration will be available at 8 a.m. on Feb. 21.

For more information about the symposium and other Graduate School events, visit gradschool.princeton.edu/diversity/upcoming_events/.

Defense analyst discusses robots, war

“Robots and War: Everything You Were Afraid to Ask ... Afraid to Ask ... Afraid to Ask” is the title of a lecture by defense analyst, author and Princeton alumnus P.W. Singer set for 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 17, in Dodds Auditorium, Robertson Hall.

Singer, a 1997 Princeton graduate who concentrated in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, is a senior fellow and director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution. He is the youngest scholar to be named a senior fellow in the think tank’s 90-year history.

The lecture will explore issues covered in Singer’s latest book, “Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century,” which looks at the implications of new technologies for war, politics, ethics and law. A book signing will immediately follow the talk.

Singer’s research focuses on three core issues: the future of war, current U.S. defense needs and future priorities, and the future of the U.S. defense system. He served as coordinator of the defense policy task force for Barack Obama’s presidential campaign.

Singer has published articles in major newspapers and journals and has provided commentary on military affairs for broadcast outlets in the United States and abroad.

The talk is sponsored by the Wilson School.

Grammy Award-winning orchestra coming to McCarter

Composer/pianist Maria Schneider (photo: Jimmy and Dena Katz)

Composer/pianist Maria Schneider and her Grammy Award-winning orchestra will perform at 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 20, at the McCarter Theatre Center. The Los Angeles Times has described Schneider’s music as “the first truly novel approach to big band jazz composition of the new century.” According to The New York Times, “For its marriage of precision and imagination, and the outright beauty of its broad-canvas compositions, the Maria Schneider Orchestra has no peer in the realm of jazz.” For ticket information, call the McCarter ticket office at 258-2787 or visit www.mccarter.org.

Lecture series examines challenges related to ethics and climate change

An interdisciplinary group of scholars will examine the ethical dimensions of the challenge presented by climate change in a spring lecture series sponsored by the Princeton Environmental Institute and the University Center for Human Values.

Each of the following four lectures in the “Ethics and Climate Change” series will be held at 4:30 p.m. in Betts Auditorium, School of Architecture:

• Thursday, Feb. 19: “The Ethics of Carbon Trading” by Robyn Eckersley, a professor of political science at the University of Melbourne who has published widely in the fields of environmental politics and policy, political theory and international relations.

• Tuesday, Feb. 24: “Evaluating Climate Change Institutions: Justice or Legitimacy?” by Robert Keohane, a professor of international affairs at Princeton and an eminent scholar of world politics and international institutions.

• Tuesday, March 3: “Engineering Our Way Out of a Climate Catastrophe” by Daniel Schrag, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University who studies climate and climate change over a broad range of history.

• Tuesday, April 7: “Climate Justice and the Capabilities Approach: The Flourishing of Human and Non-Human Communities” by David Schlosberg, a professor of politics and international affairs and director of the environmental studies program at Northern Arizona University and the Barron Visiting Professor in the Environment and Humanities this semester at Princeton.

For more information about each of the lectures, visit web.princeton.edu/sites/pei/ECC/.

Lecture addresses ‘politics of rape’

A lecture on “The Politics of Rape: Gender, Race and Sexual Violence in the U.S., 1870-1930” by Stanford University historian Estelle Freedman will be held at noon Friday, Feb. 20, in 102 Woolworth Center.

The Edgar E. Robinson Professor in U.S. History at Stanford, Freedman studies the history of women and social reform, including feminism and prison reform, as well as the history of sexuality. Her most recent book, “The Essential Feminist Reader,” is an edited anthology of 64 primary documents from feminist history around the world spanning the 15th to the 21st centuries.

The lecture will be delivered at a luncheon sponsored by the Program in the Study of Women and Gender. The event is free and open to the public, but anyone interested in attending must RSVP to gershen@princeton.edu.

Symposium explores views on contemporary Chinese art

Zhang Hongtu, whose painting “Fish” is one of the works featured in the upcoming exhibition of Chinese contemporary art at the Princeton University Art Museum, will be among the participants in the “ARTiculations” symposium on March 7. (photo: Bruce M. White)

Six artists whose works will be on view in an upcoming exhibition at the Princeton University Art Museum are among the featured speakers in a symposium on Chinese contemporary art scheduled for 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Saturday, March 7, in McCosh 50.

The symposium, “ARTiculations,” was organized in conjunction with the March 7 opening of the exhibition “Outside In: Chinese x American x Contemporary Art” at the art museum.

Speakers will include the artists Arnold Chang, Vannessa Tran, Michael Cherney, Zhi Lin, Liu Dan and Zhang Hongtu, along with the curators of the exhibition and experts on contemporary Chinese and American art.

The six artists all are U.S. citizens. Some are immigrants, some were born in America, some are ethnically Chinese and others have simply adopted Chinese art and culture as their own. They are widely diverse in terms of the style and subject matter of their art, as well as their age and experience, and geographical and ethnic origins.

The symposium will provide a forum for the artists and other speakers to challenge perceptions and biases about what is “Chinese,” what is “American” and what is “contemporary” art.

The symposium is open to the public, but anyone interested in attending must register by Friday, Feb. 20. For registration information and the symposium schedule, visit tang.princeton.edu/Articulations.html.

The event is sponsored by the Tang Center for East Asian Art and the Princeton University Art Museum.