MARK WILF ’84 and his wife, Jane, have donated $4.5 million toward the construction of one of the new Butler College dorms and an additional $500,000 to support programs of the Center for Jewish Life. Wilf Hall will be one of four dorms in the four-year residential college, scheduled to open in 2009. “Jane and Mark Wilf have been generous supporters of the CJL ever since it was built,” said Rabbi Julie Roth, the center’s executive director. Wilf is a principal in Garden Homes Development, a family-owned real estate business, and a principal owner of the NFL’s Minnesota Vikings. The Wilfs live in Livingston, N.J.
In March, the faculty approved the JOINT DEGREE PROGRAM IN SOCIAL POLICY, which will connect social science disciplines and the Woodrow Wilson School to address issues of inequality. Graduate students in politics, psychology, and sociology may take courses in a new, interdisciplinary curriculum and pursue a Ph.D. in public affairs. Graduate students in economics will have opportunities to participate as well, through a special fellowship. Director Katherine Newman, the Malcolm S. Forbes Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs, said the program will combine training in the methods and theory of the traditional disciplines with an exploration of real-world policy questions. The first cohort of joint-degree candidates will begin studies in the fall. Information about the joint degree program is online at www.princeton.edu/jdp.
The “donor-intent” lawsuit filed by members of the Robertson family against the University finally has a TRIAL DATE: Oct. 1. The date was announced last month by Superior Court Judge Maria Sypek, who took over the case after the retirement of Judge Neil Shuster. Shuster issued a series of pretrial rulings Oct. 25 to shape the legal issues in the lawsuit, which was filed in July 2002.
History department chairman Jeremy Adelman is one of five organizers of a national effort to keep politics out of university hiring and tenure decisions. A petition posted online by the Ad Hoc Committee to Defend the University warns that outside pressure groups threaten ACADEMIC FREEDOM; it had gathered more than 640 signatures by mid-March, including 11 Princeton faculty members. Adelman said Prince-ton is “not immune” from such threats, noting as examples the controversy over the 1999 hiring of ethicist Peter Singer and the tenure controversy surrounding assistant professor Michael Doran *97, a Near Eastern studies scholar who took a position with the National Security Council. Adelman said issues can arise across the political spectrum, and that the group hopes to emphasize the need to protect the “priority of scholarship” in deciding who can teach and what is taught.
PRINCETON IN SPAIN has been added to the summer course offerings for students. Based in Toledo, students will live and attend classes at the Fundación Ortega y Gasset. The monthlong program will offer a choice of one of two courses taught by Princeton professors: “Studies in Spanish Language and Style” or “Introduction to Contem-porary Spanish Culture and Society.” Up to 25 freshmen and sophomores will be able to attend.