In the News

The University’s Aspire campaign passed the $1 BILLION MARK May 29, which represents 57 percent of the campaign’s $1.75 billion goal. Brian McDonald ’83, vice president for development, said the figure includes nearly 100,000 gifts from more than 50,000 donors. The five-year campaign runs through June 30, 2012.

President Obama said June 3 that he would nominate JIM LEACH ’64, a former Republican congressman from Iowa who has been on the Woodrow Wilson School faculty since 2007, as the next chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. “I am confident that with Jim as its head, the National Endowment for the Humanities will continue on its vital mission of supporting the humanities and giving the American public access to the rich resources of our culture,” Obama said in a statement. The appointment requires Senate confirmation.

The Princeton campus was in a LOCKDOWN for about 45 minutes June 3 after Public Safety received reports of a young man with a handgun near Dod Hall. The gun was found to be a toy, which the teenager — not a Princeton student — said he found in a campus collection area for discarded belongings. No charges were filed in connection with the gun, which was properly marked as a toy, but the teen and three friends were charged with possessing alcohol and marijuana. The scare was reported across the country.

Three Princeton graduate students and one adult graduate dependent were confirmed to have contracted THE H1N1 VIRUS, better known as swine flu, in early June after showing symptoms in May. All four became mildly ill and were recovered or recovering by June 2 after being treated with medication.

New York Times reporter Nicholas Confessore ’98 was part of a team of reporters awarded a PULITZER PRIZE for breaking-news reporting for coverage of the downfall of former New York governor Eliot Spitzer ’81.