From the Editor

Five years ago this fall, Princeton laid out a global vision meant to strengthen dramatically its international education and its ties to scholars, universities, and communities around the world. New initiatives swiftly followed: a Global Scholars program that brings international scholars to campus; the pioneering bridge-year program in which 28 incoming freshmen have delayed matriculation this fall to live and perform community service around the world; and new opportunities for research at all levels. In June, William Fung ’70 added one more project to the list, contributing $10 million to bring international scholars to Princeton through the Fung Global Fellows Program (see page 13).

One of the most successful ideas has been the Global Seminars program, in which small groups of undergraduates study abroad for six weeks during the summer, exploring one topic in-depth. PAW visited with students in two of those seminars, in Japan and Poland, this year. 

Though the students in those countries were studying different regions and time periods, the seminars had a similar theme: tragedy and resilience. In Japan, the students studied the impact of the devastating 2011 earthquake and tsunami, and the resulting challenges the nation faces today. In Poland, they examined a surprising resurgence in Jewish culture, seven decades after the Holocaust nearly ended Jewish life there. 

Both PAW writers — managing editor W. Raymond Ollwerther ’71 and associate editor Jennifer Altmann — said the seminars were powerful, eye-opening experiences; students portrayed in their articles said their lives were changed. For Altmann, the visit to Poland was particularly personal: Her grandfather, Norbert Jutschenka, was born in 1890 in Krakow, where the Princeton students stayed. By the time Hitler rose to power, Jutschenka, who was Jewish, was running a thriving women’s clothing company in Berlin that was stolen and “Aryanized” by the Gestapo in 1938. With that, Altmann’s grandfather quickly booked voyage out of Germany for his young family. 

She thought about him as she accompanied the Princeton students. In a short remembrance, she wrote: “As I walked the cobblestone streets of Kazimierz, which was the heart of the Jewish community in Krakow, I pictured him walking the same streets a century ago.”

PAW readers will notice a change in our Memorials section: Beginning with this issue, Nassau Herald photographs accompany many of the undergraduate remembrances. This change was made in response to alumni who have suggested over the years that college photographs would help them remember their classmates after so much time has passed. The length of each memorial remains the same.

Rosenthal ’71

PHOTO: COURTESY MARC ROSENTHAL ’71

Finally, readers of PAW’s ­January 2012 issue might recall the graphic essay by Marc Rosenthal ’71, “The Book and I,” about his love affair with books. Print magazine, a bimonthly journal of graphic design, selected the essay as a winner in its 2012 Regional Design Annual competition, the largest survey of graphic design in the United States. Marc’s illustrations will appear in the 2012 Annual, to be released in December. PAW art director Marianne Nelson designed the pages in our January issue. Congratulations to them both.