From Inside Higher Ed: More than 80 college and university leaders on Thursday urged the Education Department to drop an investigation into Princeton University.https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2020/09/25/college-leaders-back-princeton-civil-rights-probe

From The Atlantic: The piece examines the Department of Education’s investigation of Princeton: “No reasonable person could conclude that an onerous probe of Princeton for anti-Black racism is the best use, or even a good use, of scarce resources to safeguard civil rights.”https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/pretense-princeton-racist/616491/

From The Daily Princetonian: On Monday, Sept. 21, the Council of the Princeton University Community (CPUC) resumed its regular meetings via Zoom. During the meeting, administrators commented on the Department of Education’s recently-announced investigation into the University, gave an update on campus COVID-19 protocols, and spoke briefly about plans for the spring semester. https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2020/09/u-admin-talks-anti-racism-covid-19-at-first-fall-cpuc-meeting

On Tuesday, Sept. 29 at 4:30 p.m. ET, join Princeton University faculty members Kevin M. Kruse (Professor of History), Denise L. Mauzerall (Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Public and International Affairs, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs), Ali A. Valenzuela, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor of Politics) and Heather Howard (Director, State Health and Value Strategies and Lecturer in Public Affairs, Princeton School of Public and International Affairs) for a conversation that will preview the first presidential debate of the 2020 election season. Panelists will discuss what they expect and what they’re looking for from this year’s candidates throughout the 2020 debate season.

The panel will be moderated by Vice President for Communications and Public Affairs Brent Colburn and will begin with a welcome by Vote100 Fellow and Whig-Clio President Morgan Smith ’21.https://www.princeton.edu/events/2020/presidential-debate-faculty-conversation-featuring-kevin-m-kruse-denise-l-mauzerall-ali

The conversation will be live-streamed to Princeton University’s Facebook, Twitter and YouTube channels.

From Princeton Info: All manner of research — with all manner of potential real-world applications — will be on full display, in a virtual setting, at the annual Innovation Forum presented by Princeton University’s Keller Center on Tuesday, September 29, from 1 to 5 p.m. https://princetoninfo.com/forum-to-showcase-pus-innovation-pipeline/

From ROI-NJ: The Research & Development Council of New Jersey announced the 2020 Edison Patent Award winners. Princeton University and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory are named as honorees in the categories Energy and Emerging Technology, respectively.https://www.roi-nj.com/2020/09/21/tech/rd-council-announces-prestigious-edison-patent-awards-honorees-for-2020/

Construction of a bold and welcoming new Museum building at the heart of the University campus is slated to begin in early 2021.https://artmuseum.princeton.edu/new-museum-princeton

Coverage in the media:

• Dezeen: Adjaye Associates unveils “romantic and porous” Princeton University Art Museum
• The Art Newspaper: Stone, bronze, glass, pathways: Princeton University Art Museum unveils David Adjaye’s design
• Centraljersey.com: Designs announced for new Princeton University Art Museum
• Planet Princeton: Designs for new Princeton University Art Museum unveiled

Wintersession 2021 is a two-week virtual experience for Princeton University community members to experiment and explore through unexpected, active, and intriguing non-graded learning and growth opportunities. We seek to use the skills and talents of our whole community: undergraduate students, graduate students, staff and faculty can participate as teachers, learners or both!

If you’re interested in facilitating a workshop or leading an event, the final proposal deadline is October 6, 2020. Submit your proposal here: winter.princeton.edu/submit-a-proposal

Questions? Email wintersession@princeton.edu. https://winter.princeton.edu/what-is-wintersession

With this virtual fall semester now well underway, Princeton undergraduates are benefitting from months of work by their professors to adjust to fully remote instruction.

Many faculty members collaborated with the McGraw Center for Teaching and Learning to take existing courses from the classroom to the computer, or to design new classes for virtual instruction. More than 300 professors and instructors participated in 32 virtual academic strategies workshops this summer, and McGraw’s educational technologies staff had nearly 200 consultations with faculty to prepare for fall classes.

Princeton faculty and staff also have been working together on innovative solutions to keep students engaged in classroom activities — like shipping laboratory kits to students around the world so they can conduct at-home experiments as part of science and engineering courses.

Keep reading below for a behind-the-scenes look at how several courses have been reimagined for this new virtual world.

Stay safe and healthy.

Office of Communications

Cookies: Tech Security & Privacy, a podcast: This podcast, launched Wednesday, Sept. 16, is presented by the Princeton University School of Engineering and Applied Science. The podcast focuses on how consumers are so often the product when it comes to gadgets, apps and social media platforms. Season One kicks off with a two-part conversation with Arvind Narayanan, associate professor of computer science.  https://engineering.princeton.edu/series/cookies-tech-security-privacy-podcast

Ruha Benjamin, associate professor of African American studies at Princeton University, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, assistant professor of African American studies, have been named among the first cohort of Freedom Scholars, an initiative supporting progressive academics who are at the forefront of movements for economic and social justice.https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/09/15/ruha-benjamin-and-keeanga-yamahtta-taylor-named-freedom-scholars

From Town Topics: The YMCA is teaming up with Y member Princeton University Coach Mitch Henderson for the first time, to offer basketball lessons for players in grades one to six. The program is designed to take kids’ basketball skills to the next level by learning the fundamentals of basketball, enhancing their skills, and learning to play on a team, all while having fun, practicing Y values, and being active. Financial assistance is available for all programs. 

From Centraljersey.com: The Poll Hero Project (PHP) was founded in part by a group of Princeton University students. In less than two months since its founding, the PHP has encouraged more than 15,000 high school and college students around the country to become active participants in democracy. Freshman Olivia Cao is quoted. https://centraljersey.com/2020/09/15/poll-hero-project-offers-opportunity-to-work-in-person-elections/

From The Daily Princetonian: Late last month, Facebook announced that a number of external academics, including Andrew Guess, assistant professor of politics and public affairs at the University, will help the social media giant better understand its impact on the 2020 election. https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2020/09/princeton-professor-facebook-study-2020-general-election

Joel Cooper and Elke Weber:The psychology of reopening: Why we’re not taking the pandemic as seriously as before (The Daily Princetonian) 
Elke Weber:Op-Ed: How to get through to your risk-taking friends in the COVID-19 pandemic (Los Aangeles Times) 
Cecilia Rouse: How millennials’ financial futures have been impacted by pandemic unemployment (CNBC) 
Alan S. Blinder: Will Congress Ever Break the Covid Relief Standoff? (The Wall Street Journal)and Economists warn of US ‘wasteland’ without stimulus deal (Financial Times)
Peter Hepburn:Eviction Filings by Big Landlords Surged After Trump Issued Ban (Bloomberg) 
Eddie Glaude Jr.: Princeton Prof. on Race Relations: “Our Democracy Is Broken” (PBS) 
Chika Okeke-Agulu: Museums Are Filled With Stolen African Art. Is It Time To Return It? (NPR) 
Julian Zelizer:It’s hard to write a tell-all book when Trump is constantly telling on himself (CNN)andTrump’s federal budget is bigger than Biden’s campaign war chest (NBC News) 
Adji Bousso Dieng, incoming faculty: New website by Senegalese AI expert spotlights Africans in STEM (Thomson Reuters Foundation) 
Frederik Simons: Ocean’s hidden heat measured with earthquake sounds (Science Magazine) 
Nicole Avena: 5 Signs of Vitamin D Deficiency You Should Never Ignore (Eat This, Not That!) 

Hear students talk about their research, including transitional justice work in Central America and the United States; key language used by university officials in the wake of George Floyd’s murder; how brains sync up between teachers and students; the links between homelessness and poor patient outcomes in opioid treatment programs; helping the families of “disappeared” people; and more. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/09/15/research-interns-get-creative-around-science-and-social-change-summer-covid-19

Inside our cells, a sophisticated recycling system uses its own enzymatic signs to flag certain cells for destruction — and a different set of enzymes can remove those flags. Changing the balance between those two groups might provide a way to control a dangerous protein called SNAI2 that helps cancers metastasize, said Yibin Kang, Princeton’s Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Molecular Biology, who has spent his career studying the cells and molecules behind metastatic cancers. His team has a pair of papers coming out in next month’s issue of Genes and Development, released online today. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/09/17/kang-finds-keys-control-driver-cancers-aggressiveness

A new bacterial molecule with the unsavory tendency to track down and kill others of its own kind has been discovered in the human microbiome by researchers at Princeton’s Department of Chemistry. Named Streptosactin, it is the first small molecule found to exhibit fratricidal activity. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/09/16/seyedsayamdost-lab-uncovers-small-fratricidal-molecule

Princeton researchers are making key contributions toward developing a promising new treatment for the widespread and devastating diseases toxoplasmosis and malaria. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2020/09/15/novel-drug-could-be-powerful-weapon-fight-against-malaria-and-toxoplasmosis