Volume LXXI, Number 42
Fall Home Pages 22-30 New ACP Community Stage Series . . . . . . . . . 5 PDS STEAM Center Initiates New Era . . . . 11 It’s Rimbaud’s Week . . 12 Janis Joplin Musical Tribute at McCarter . . 31 PU Women’s Hockey Opens 2017-18 Season on Friday . . . . . . . . . . 36 PDS Boys’ Soccer Rolls Into State Prep B Semifinals . . . . . . . . . 41
Buddy Miller Brings the Music Home . . . . . . . 10 Art . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Books . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Calendar . . . . . . . . . . 19 Cinema . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Classified Ads. . . . . . . 45 Clubs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Mailbox . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Music/Theater . . . . . . 34 Obituaries . . . . . . . . . 44 Police Blotter . . . . . . . . 8 Real Estate . . . . . . . . 45 Service Directory . . . . 48 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Topics of the Town . . . . 5 Town Talk . . . . . . . . . . . 6
www.towntopics.com
University Endowment Grows 12.5 Percent, Increases to $23.8 B
Princeton University’s endowment, ranked fourth highest of all United States universities at $23.8 billion, has reported a 12.5 percent investment gain for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2017, up $1.6 billion over the past year. “The University relies on earnings from the endowment to cover more than half of its operating budget, as well as to help fund its highest priority strategic initiatives,“ said Provost Deborah Prentice. Last year, spending distributions from the endowment contributed about $875 million to the University’s budget. According to the Princeton University Investment Company (PRINCO), which manages the endowment and will certify the results during a meeting of its directors on October 19, consistently strong investment returns have allowed the University to initiate and expand its pioneering financial aid program. The average annual return on the endowment over the past decade has been 7.1 percent, placing Princeton’s endowment among the top percentile of 458 institutions listed by the Wilshire Trust Universe Comparison Service. College endowments and foundations overall returned 12.7 percent in the fiscal year ending June 30, according to Cambridge Associates, as reported by Bloomberg, with large allocations to U.S. and international equities helping some smaller institutions to outpace larger funds that are more likely to hold hedge fund and other alternative investments. Dartmouth led the Ivy League in endowment returns for the fiscal year ending June 30 at 14.6 percent, University of Pennsylvania was up 14.3 percent, Cornell 12.5 percent, Yale 11.3 percent, and Harvard 8.1 percent, according to Bloomberg. Prentice pointed out the significant impact of the endowment returns. “These earnings,” she said, “enable the University to provide generous financial aid that makes it possible for any student who is admitted to attend, regardless of ability to pay and without the need for students to take out loans.” The University trustees recently approved an 8.7 percent increase in undergraduate financial aid to $161.2 million in the University’s operating budget for the current year, with endowment funds Continued on Page 7
75¢ at newsstands
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Westminster Faculty Airs Frustrations at “Teach-in” Westminster Choir College is set to be sold by Rider University to an as yet unnamed buyer, said to be from China. But faculty at the famed music institution, which was merged with Rider in 1992, feels they have been denied a voice in the process. To demonstrate their distress, faculty members staged a “teach-in” Monday on the Princeton campus. Students packed Westminster’s Bristol Chapel to hear comments from faculty. The buyer is believed to be a for-profit corporation that runs K-12 schools in Asia but has no experience running a university. Elizabeth Scheiber, chairperson of Rider’s department of languages, literatures, and cultures and president of Rider’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said the union has several concerns about the buyer that Rider President Gregory Dell’Omo has identified only as “an international partner.” There is no need to sell the campus, Scheiber said, because Westminster is financially healthy. “Beyond that, we are concerned about selling an institution of higher learning to a for-profit institution,”
she said. “We worry about your money going to people who do not have a stake in education.” Instead of selling the campus, Rider could pursue other solutions such as increased fundraising, she suggested. Assistant professor of voice Thomas Faracco acknowledged Rider’s role, with the 1992 merger, in saving Westminster from closing down. “We would not be in this room right now if it wasn’t for Rider University,” he said. But instead of including faculty in the search for a new buyer,
Rider has left them in the dark. “Collaboration is in a musician’s DNA.” he said. In an August 30 interview with The Rider News, Dell’Omo said the buyer will “pretty much keep everything as is in terms of trying to keep as much of the staff — if not all of it — the administration, maintaining the [Westminster] Conservatory as well as continuing [education].” But the University community is frustrated by what they say is a lack of information about the foreign entity. Joel Phillips, Continued on Page 8
Planning Board Subcommittee Says No Springdale-West Drive Connection A determined group of residents has successfully taken the first step in blocking a plan to connect Springdale Road to West Drive and then open the combined road as a major artery in and out of Princeton. Last Wednesday, October 11, the Master Plan Subcommittee of the Princeton Planning Board read letters from the Princeton Environmental Commission, the
Marquand Park Foundation, the Friends of the Rogers Wildlife Refuge, and the Nassau Swim Club; perused a petition with 102 signatures, urging the deletion of the Springdale Road extension from the Master Plan; listened to public comments, including testimony from Princeton University, the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) and the Stony Brook-Millstone Continued on Page 14
DARTH MEETS HARRY: Many children previewed their Halloween costumes on Saturday at Finding the Great Pumpkin, presented by the Arts Council of Princeton and Princeton Shopping Center. The event featured family-friendly fun with autumn-themed crafts and activities along with live music. (Photo by Erica M. Cardenas)