In Short: Early Action, Compliance Review, and More

The admission rate dropped this year for EARLY-ACTION CANDIDATES as the University accepted fewer students from a larger pool of applicants for the Class of 2021. Princeton offered admission to 770 of 5,003 students (15.4 percent), compared to 785 offers in a pool of 4,229 (18.6 percent) a year earlier. This year’s pool was the largest in the last six years and increased 18.3 percent over last year. Of students offered admission, 50 percent are male and 50 percent are female, and 16 percent are children of alumni.

The University has reached an agreement with the U.S. Justice Department to revise its policies, practices, and training related to the treatment of students with mental-health disabilities. The department began a COMPLIANCE REVIEW in May 2014, shortly after a student filed a federal lawsuit that charged discriminatory treatment. The suit remains pending.

Under the agreement, Princeton will revise its policies on leaves of absence and provide more detailed information on accommodations that students with disabilities may request. The University said in a statement that there were no findings of noncompliance, but that it had agreed to “better explain University procedures and options available to students with disabilities.”

Charles Fefferman *69, professor of mathematics, is one of two winners of the 2017 WOLF PRIZE in Mathematics from the Wolf Foundation in Israel. He was cited for his “major contributions to several fields, including several complex variables, partial differential equations and subelliptic problems.” He shares the award with Richard Schoen of the University of California, Irvine. Fefferman joined the faculty in 1973. In 1978 he received the Fields Medal, which honors outstanding mathematicians under the age of 40.

Princeton is one of 17 universities to sign an agreement designed to encourage and speed collaborations with Building 8, a FACEBOOK research and product-development team. Building 8 focuses on areas such as augmented and virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and connectivity, and is led by Regina Dugan, who was previously head of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Facebook will pay a fee to universities for their contributions. The agreement is “an opportunity for our researchers to partner with industry to push the boundaries of knowledge and technological capability,” said Dean for Research Pablo Debenedetti.

PETER J. DOUGHERTY, Princeton University Press’ director since 2005, announced that he will retire at the end of 2017. Dougherty joined the Press as its economics editor in 1992. During his time as director, the Press has published books by a dozen Nobel Prize winners and two National Book Award finalists; had four New York Times bestsellers; opened an office in China; and digitized its entire list of publications.