If a man serves time in prison, will he ever have the opportunity to compete for a job? Not likely, unless proposed legislation passes the State Senate. The NJ Opportunity to Compete Act (S2586), otherwise known as Ban the Box, will be discussed Thursday, June 13. It would let someone with a prior criminal record — who posed no threat to society — to apply for employment without having to disclose the record on the very first application. Time enough to reveal that in the interview. For more on how to support this legislation, click here.
Karen House (right), former publisher of the Wall Street Journal, with Alice Barshaw, on the staff of the Princeton Regional Chamber. Karen spoke at the chamber on June 6.
That someone in the Medici family had African heritage may come as a surprise, but that’s what we learn in Revealing Presence in Renaissance Europe,on view through Sunday at the Princeton University Art Museum. When Alessandro de Medici, the out-of-wedlock son of Pope Clement VII and an African maid in the Medici household., became the Duke of Florence, there were no full-face portraits of him. Contemporary portraits showed him with a hood. After his death the portrait was painted that hangs on banners all over campus to promote the exhibit. Look here for an intriguing art history puzzle, about the picture next to it. The label on the picture reveals the sad fact that Alessandro was no popular favorite, “tyrannical,” is the word they use.
It’s definitely worth trying to get there before this exhibit closes on June 9. And it makes an intriguing juxtaposition to the four walls of shoulder to shoulder portraits of Old White Powerful Men, the former portrait collection of the New York Chamber of Commerce. J. Pierpont Morgan, William H. Vanderbilt, Grover Cleveland — these portraits are fascinating because the personality of each man shows through.
This exhibit has a different title from the one I used, but the bottom line is — that when the need for diversity came along, i.e. the idea that women and people of other races might possibly be admitted to the great halls of business, the paintings needed to go. As the New York Times review says, “old white men did not fit in with the chamber’s commitment to diversity. ” They are now owned by Credit Suisse and on view in Princeton through June 30.
If you think that in 2013 nobody makes politically incorrect comments about race, or gender, think again. Today in the racing column of the New York Times, in a discussion of a filly that will run in the belmont, a veterinarian was quoted as saying, “It takes a special filly, one that is willing to stare down the boys and say, ‘No this one is mine.’ It’s so much about personalities and intimidation when these horses match up. I think it’s the same reason women don’t have as much, and the same kind of success, as men in the workplace.”
I would be more outraged, except that the person quoted was a woman.
Moshe Budmor is one of my favorite people. In the ’80s, I reviewed the multimedia works that he and his amazing wife, Katya Delakova, staged. He is having a retrospective concert on June 15 and a writing buddy of mine, Michele Alperin, did this terrific profile. by Michele Alperin. I like the one Michele wrote for the Packet, even better (am waiting for it to go online). A concert of his music is June 15, 7:30 p.m., Bristol Chapel, Westminster Choir College. The concert is free. Call SAndy Sussman at 609-921-7334 or ssussman@princeton.edu.
Meanwhile two wonderful bits of his ever-so-wise advice: When you go to an interview, he was advised, “it means they like what they see and you can only spoil it through talking. if you let them talk, they feel that they had a wonderful conversation.” Continue reading Moshe Budmor’s retrospective→
A year after he sold his company, Rosetta, for more than $500 million dollars, 13 years after he founded the firm, Chris Kuenne began grooming his successor, and at the 15 year mark he is now, basically, “emeritus.”
Hall of Privilege: The Mathey College Common Room includes a fireplace dedicated to a Rockefeller, Laurence, Class of 1932
“Unpleasant social encounters resulting from white privileges and preferences became a boot camp for survival,” said an African American, Robert J. Rivers, who grew up in Princeton, In 1953 he was one of the first African Americans to graduate from Princeton University. Many would say that “unpleasant social encounters” never happen today, but I’ll bet most of those deniers are white.
Rivers credits the desegregation pioneers, including Frank Broderick, Class of ’43 and editor of the Princetonian, who attacked the social and emotional hypocrisy of fighting for “democracy” without admitting black students.
Andrew Hatcher, who grew up in Princeton, was refused admission, and later became President Kennedy’s associate press secretary.
Dean Carl Fields (after whom the Fields Center is named) who set up ‘home away from home’ families for black students.
Photo by Roland Glover
George Reeves, camp cook at Blairstown and grandfather of Jim Floyd, who graduated from Princeton in 1969. In the picture, he is shown with graduating PHS seniors Sam Nelson, Juan Polanco, and Jacklyn Adebayo, who received Unity Awards from Not in Our Town last month. (Floyd was so impressed by their accomplishments that he offered an additional gift toward their books at college.)
The speaker, Rivers, was one of three black students in a class of 700 in September, 1949. His account of the segregation and desegregation at this university, delivered at the Pan African Graduation in 2008, is an eye-opener. (This year’s event is Sunday, June 2 and I learned about this speech from a Facebook post from the Center for African American Studies.)
He concluded his speech in 2008 with appreciative words: But 55 years later, I count my blessings because I have been richly rewarded by unpredictable opportunities – and Princeton has changed.
On Commencement Eve, Not in Our Town will host Continuing Conversations on Race at Princeton Public Library. That’s Monday, June 4, at 7:30 p.m. In a discussion entitled Tongue Tied? Rehearse What to Say, we will talk about how to have a meaningful dialogue with people who have differing views about race and white privilege. You are invited.
Kuenne graduated from Princeton in 1985 and will follow Ed Zschau, in teaching the university’s very popular (highly competitive)High Tech Entrepreneurship class.
Read about the university’s success in commercializing technology in the cover story of this week’s U.S. 1 Newspaper.
Something sudden swept over her? That phrase is from the title of Susan Tenney’s new collaboration with her brothers, a work that premieres in New York on June 5. But it wasn’t sudden. She’s done marvelous Tenney and Company collaborations for years. And she is crowd-funding the production on the Web, as is entrepreneurial actor/singer/composer Scott Langdon.
Susan Tenney
Steven Mark Tenney wrote the script for Something Sudden Swept Ov3r Me (and the 3 is not a typo) with a plot that goes like this: Norbit Ufowatchin is a graduate student about to leave the field of Advanced Alien Artifacts, assume a prestigious residency, and write The Novel of His Life, when his professor entrusts him with a powerful device capable of changing planetary history. Who is the professor really, and who is his beautiful daughter?
In contrast, Langdon is looking to the far future for his productions, because currently he is in “Mame” at the Bucks County Playhouse with Andrea McArdle. Some of his projects are faith-based, such as the wonderful one-man versions of “All Eyes on the Cross” and “According to Mark.” Some are secular, like a one-man version of Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol” that he toured to wide acclaim.
For what he calls the Scott Langdon Project, he aims to “crowd fund” through Indiegogo. His goal: “to enrich the lives of all people, everywhere, by presenting audiences with transformative performing arts pieces through which people are challenged to see the world, and their role in it, in new and exciting ways”
Potential contributions start at $10 and $25 (for which you get an old-fashioned, paper mailed thank you note plus a CD of the Dickens evening.)
Support your local artists and you get it back in delight. As my father used to say, quoting Deuteronomy 25, Muzzle not the ox that treadeth out the grain. Just because actors and dancers love their work, they still need to be paid.
At the risk of not doing justice to Maisha Walker’s excellent talk on social media at May’s Princeton Regional Chamber Breakfast, here are some of her tips. I really don’t want to lose track of what she said, and I think it’s valuable for many of us.
Any new marketing technique requires a 6 to 12 month learning curve — first to learn the technology, then to soak up that community’s etiquette.
Experts say a human can have only 150 close relationships, but — for social media purposes — each of those 150 people have their own networks, making social media a powerful tool.
Nevertheless, social media connections aren’t helpful until you build them into relationships and make them real and local. Meet your connections!
Make sure you actually have a tangible goal that will affect your bottom line.
Realize you are a publisher. What will you publish?
Use the 80/20 rule. Twenty percent of your content should be highly unusual, surprising, attention grabbing.
Leverage all your resources, cross market, be consistent.
Track it, tweak it, repeat it. Don’t start any social media project if you can’t measure the results. It is not about traffic, it’s about customers.
In the photo at left, she highlighted the five social media tools that she recommends: LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and WordPress.
Debbie Schaffer of Mrs. G’s, no slouch in social media herself, said it was the best SM presentation she’d heard.
Princeton Comment 