“We need to work on fighting poverty instead of changing the
curriculum,” said Diane Ravitch, an opponent of charter schools and emphasizing testing. “Stop blaming the schools and the education system for social problems they did not cause.” She spoke last night at Princeton High School.
Category Archives: Around Town
Hurray for Suzanne at the NYC Marathon!
Here is a partial list of those Princeton-area residents who finished the New York Marathon, courtesy of the Times of Trenton, including those at the top of the roster — and at the bottom. I will try to add more later. Congratulations to all! And as well to those who ran the Princeton Half. Wish I had been in town to see the excitement.
PS: The residential locations I chose are the areas in which U.S. 1 Newspaper is distributed. But surely there were many more runners who WORK in the U.S. 1 circulation area. Congratulate your colleague and add more names as a comment! How many of them train with Princeton Running Company?
Special congratulations to you all, especially Suzanne P. Wish I had her gumption!
And for all you race coordinators out there (I’m thinking of the UFAR Riverblindness 5k) here are some athletes for your invite list!
26, Ryan Johns, Princeton, 02:25:08.
72, Robert Dennis, Kingston, 02:36:01.
216, Mahesh Sambasivam, Pennington, 02:47:29.
1480, William Cicoria, Jamesburg, 03:09:58.
1548, Martin Zastera, Trenton, 03:10:38.
2619, Hillary Schmitt, Princeton, 03:19:24.
3188, Russell Forsythe, Trenton, 03:22:55.
3737, John Brailsford, Princeton, 03:25:58.
4869, Yuji Hata, West Windsor, 03:30:03.
6196, Gennaro Faranetta, Lawrenceville, 03:35:24.
6779, Steven Enis, Monroe, 03:37:28.
7739, Neil Conley, Trenton, 03:40:21.
8704, Fehmeed Lodhie, North Brunswick, 03:43:27.
**** gap *****
Aditi Patel, Monroe,
Arun Prasath, Plainsboro,
John Giudice, East Windsor,
Alexandra Kachala, Monmouth Junction,
Cynthia Cirri, Trenton
Paul Legato, Princeton,
Adriane Vera, North Brunswick
Aditi Patel, Monroe,
Arun Prasath, Plainsboro
John Giudice, East Windsor,
Suzanne Podolski, Princeton.
The Pinking of American Board Rooms
In today’s New York Times, in an article on narrowing the gender gap on corporate boards, the name “Maria Klawe” rang a bell. Klawe sits on two prestigious boards — Microsoft and Broadcom — and is the president of Harvey Mudd College in California. But she used to be the engineering dean here at Princeton; she got in early on what malcontents called “The Pinking of Princeton University.” Early in her presidential tenure Shirley Tilghman put Klawe in charge of the E-quad.
Klawe didn’t hide the fact that she has a different working style from the male geeks. She brought her knitting to meetings. She doodled and drew during planning sessions. And instead of allowing herself to be memorialized in an oil painting, like the other white male engineering deans at the Friend Center, she painted her own self portrait — in water color (shown above).
She left Princeton for California and now, as a member of the International Women’s Forum, mentors women on the rise. “Too often,” she said in the article, “there’s a feeling that you’ve got one or two women on the board, so you don’t need another.” Whereas there are very few women directors “and there is a lot of room for more.”
There are four engineers in my immediate family, half are women. From the stories they tell, there is plenty of room for more.
‘Happy Chuckle’ – – Tears to My Eyes
When emotions get in the way of getting things done, sometimes you just have to let the work go. On Tuesday a copy of my father’s obituary, printed in the University of Maryland Medical School alumni magazine exactly 40 years ago, landed in my email box. I could think about nothing else all day.
How it happened: My daughter, Susannah Fox, spoke on Tuesday at the University of Maryland Health Sciences and Human Services Library on Embracing M Health: Mobilizing Healthcare, a main focus for her at the Pew Internet and American Life Project.
Susannah’s grandfather, my father, Frank Henry John Figge, died when she was three, but he looms large in family memories. He taught at the medical school for 44 years, and my mother, Rosalie Yerkes Figge, worked alongside him, helping in his research, all that time. As a prelude to her talk, Susannah ad-libbed a tribute to them, and the librarian — being a librarian — thoughtfully responded by ferreting out the obituary record to give her.
In these excerpts, the bolded phrases mark characteristics I knew about but had not seen put into words. I am sure I read these kind words when they were printed, but I had not looked at them for 40 years. Hence, the tears.
. . .Dr. Figge was a close associate of another famous
Maryland anatomist, Dr. Eduard Uhlenhuth, with a relationship of almost father and son. While both were excellent anatomists and master teachers, their methods and approaches were far distant, with Figge becoming a “friend” and confidante to many of his students, particularly the top ones and the ones in trouble. He directed the studies of a number of graduate students in anatomy and other subjects, many of whom will be leading teachers in their time. His relationship to the students was close, warm and concerned. This was apparent in personal teaching, interviews, advisory sessions and private conversations….
. . .On the occasion of the passing of Dr. Figge it is no exaggeration to state that the University of Maryland, its faculty, students and friends have suffered a great loss. Comment has been made on the uniqueness of this great man. His eternal youthful appearance even with the passing years was a source of wonder. One can still see the genuine smile and hear the happy chuckle that characterized his greetings. His philosophy of relationship with others of all walks of life was that of the truly concerned and friendly Christian which smoothed over many situations which could have otherwise been very difficult. His scientific foresight and scanning of the horizon marked him as a true research brain and helped him lead the budding university of his youth into investigative fields. His influence and personal touch will be sorely missed at the University of Maryland, School of Medicine and in his many other interests and walks of life by a multitude who are privileged to be called his friends.
Today, October 25, is the day he died 40 years ago, but it is also a day of rejoicing, because seven years ago today my eighth and last grandchild was born.
What does all this mean? Now I know that words of tribute are even more important than I’d realized. We lost a good friend recently, and it is tempting to just send a sympathy card to his teenage children and go on with the day. Now I know that’s not enough. Someone took the time to capture my father’s spirit in words that enliven my memory 40 years later. I need to do the same for their father.
P.S., If you wrote this, or know who wrote it, please tell me!
Rock and Punk in Trenton
The Trenton Punk Rock Flea Market? It will be held at the Roebling Machine Shop on Saturday, November 9, and sounds like fabulous fun. This from Clifford Zink:
Joe Kuzemka, who has run Art All Night for the past several years, organized the first TPRFM last year at the Artworks building in Trenton with 55 vendors and about 2,000 people attended it. Joe held TPRFM 2.0 at the Trenton Social in the spring with 125 vendors and about 3,000 people attended. He expects TPRFM 3.0 in the Machine Shop, where Art All Night takes place each year, to attract 5,000 visitors. Art All Day is being organized by Artworks with events at the Machine Shop and around the city.
The sellers will have everything from vintage hats to auto parts.
Not Shop Till Drop
I am not a shop-till-you-drop shopper. I would rather try to find something on Nassau or Witherspoon Street, partly through laziness, partly through loyalty to the “buy local” efforts, which are being updated with a new “One Princeton” card and a new “repunch” card.
But last weekend I acquired a new respect for the entertainment that shopping can provide. In Maryland we hosted five college freshwomen (one my granddaughter) on fall break. They shopped for four days straight, having fun together. After two days, when we finally had some pretty weather, I thought for sure they’d do something outside. But no, gleefully, back to the malls. They didn’t actually buy that much but they sure had fun.
And I remember shopping sprees with visitors from overseas. Several years ago I helped a friend from Ghana load her suitcases with presents. Visitors from Africa and other countries are honor bound to bring back treasures from America. We made repeated trips to Dress for Less, Marshall’s, DSW, all the discount stores. Trip after trip after trip to Nassau Park and Mercer Mall.
It was a chance for us to get to know each other, a way better experience than 30 years ago, when I was helping two rather gruff male students from Russia buy bathing suits for their wives. Not an experience I would care to repeat.
But when I got a press release from long-time colleagues, Ken Ellens and Anne Sweeney, about the Outlet Collection at Jersey Gardens, I thought — now THIS is the place to take visitors from abroad. Everything cheap, and under one roof.
My granddaughter and her friends would love it.
Making Music and Money
Just off Alexander Road, escaping most notice, is a prosperous commodities hedge fund, Caxton, founded in 1983. I thought of it when reading “Is Music the Key to Success” in the arts section of the New York Times, yet another tribute to how music lessons seem to promote intelligence. Caxton’s co-founder, Bruce Kovner, was quoted on the importance of music to developing mental acuity.
I’ve never interviewed Kovner, though I have followed the progress of Caxton with eagerness and amazement. Such hedge funds are like a forbidden mystery to me. How do they make so much money so quickly?
His name came up in the pages of U.S. 1 on March 8, 2006, when he donated his valuable music manuscript collection to Juilliard. It was a paparazzi-like opportunity to summarize his biography, excerpted from a book. He had been hired by Helmut Weymar to be a trader at Commodities Corporation but had moved to Manhattan after founding the firm. But U.S. 1 Newspaper doesn’t care where you live, only where the business is located.
The link to the U.S. 1 article is here but, since the story is way down on the page, here is the gist of the Kovner part.
excerpt from U.S. 1:
. . .As a collector of rare books and manuscripts, Kovner named his company after the English printer. It grew from incubator space at Commodities Corp. on Mount Lucas Road to its own quarters on Morgan Lane and Enterprise Drive before moving to Alexander Road.
As told by Jack Schwager in his “Market Wizards” book, Kovner was a harpsichord-playing taxi driver when he began trading commodities in 1977 by borrowing $3,000 on his credit card. He did have a blue collar background, but he also graduated cum laude from Harvard (Class of 1966), pursued a PhD at Harvard, managed political campaigns (thinking he might eventually be a candidate himself), hobnobbed with such celebrities as Henry Kissinger and Pat Moynihan, and served as consultant for various government agencies.
Kovner joined Commodities Corp. in 1977 and settled in Princeton with his wife, Sarah, a craftsperson who made violas; they have three children. He left in 1983 with $7.6 million to found his own company. According to the New York Times the family is living in New York on Fifth Avenue at 94th Street. Forbes magazine says Kovner is worth $2.5 billion, and with $10.8 billion under management last year, Caxton is the seventh largest hedge fund company.
Within three years the manuscripts will have their own climate-controlled room at Juilliard, which hopes to make some of them available on the Internet. Kovner is chairman of the board at Juilliard.
Note that these figures are from 2006. Kovner has relinquished the CEO’s job. I am still waiting for my excuse to interview Kovner.
In Princeton and DC: Old Girl Networks at Work
The WIBA Leadership Conference was a delightful success, and on an appropriate day, when Congressional women did an endrun around recalcitrant men to lead-broker a compromise.
From Time magazine:
It’s quite an irony that the U.S. Senate was once known for having the worst vestiges of a private men’s club: unspoken rules, hidden alliances, off-hours socializing and an ethic based at least as much on personal relationships as merit to get things done. That Senate—a fraternal paradise that worked despite all its obvious shortcomings—is long gone. And now the only place the old boys’ network seems to function anymore is among the four Republicans and 16 Democrats who happen to be women.
At the WIBA conference, woman after woman told of battling the old boy networks. “Women can’t direct theatre,” Emily Mann was told, yet McCarter hired her. She knew what she could do. Asked: “Did you ever think you would get a Tony? breathless pause expecting modest no”
Mann’s answer: YES.
I think the operative slogan is: “Never underestimate the power of … ”
Scratching the Itch
If I were in business, instead of retired, I would eagerly pursue strategies for
“growing” my blog. If someone wanted to ‘do it” i.e. market it for me and split the profits, maybe I’d be willing to pay more attention to the blog. Could this work as a business model?
Right now Princeton Comment is just a public service, a way to capture a moment (a speaker, a thought) for posterity. And when something comes up that I have written about before, it is a way to scratch that itch. There needs to be a 12 step program for retired journalists.
Practice Your Way to a Nobel Prize
As the new Nobel winners are being announced, here’s a testimony from a previous one about the value of studying an instrument — to develop concentration.
Princeton Comment 