The Weekly Blog: 1/17/07

NOTE: This post was originally published at princetonalumniweekly.blogspot.com/

Just in time

On Jan. 16, Princeton students celebrated Dean’s Date, the biannual deadline for turning in end-of-semester papers, with a 5 p.m. gathering on Chapel Drive that included music from the Princeton Band and tacos and hot chocolate provided by the University. This semester’s last-minute finishers included walkers, runners, a mountain biker, and a half-dozen sneaker-clad streakers who sprinted across McCosh Courtyard at 5:07 p.m.

Cowher shines in Ivy action

Women’s basketball star Meagan Cowher ’08 earned her second consecutive Ivy League Player of the Week award after scoring 31 points and 35 points, respectively, in a Jan. 12 win against Columbia and a Jan. 13 loss to Cornell. Cowher, who is averaging a team-best 19 points and 7.6 rebounds, is now 34 points shy of becoming the 11th Tiger woman to score 1,000 points in her career. With 11 games remaining, she also is on pace to break Sandi Bittler ’90’s single-season scoring record, set in 1988-89. The women’s basketball team returns to action Feb. 2 and 3 with home games against Yale and Brown.

Young scientists at work

Eighth-grader Varnika Atmakuri and eighth-grader William Ying team up during the tower-building event of the N.J. Science Olympiad Jan. 9 at the University. Looking on are post-doctoral student Mark Dobossy, left, and Roland Heck, associate dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. More than 500 middle school and high school students took part in the competition.

Photo by Frank Wojciechowski

Earth, through the eyes of teens

Alumni Katie Carpenter ’79 (producer) and John Heminway ’66 (executive producer) recently released a two-part documentary, A Year on Earth, which debuted on the Discovery Kids Channel in December and will be screened at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival (Jan. 27 through Feb. 4). The film follows three teenagers as they travel to five continents to “take the pulse of our planet and report back to their generation,” according to the film’s Web site. Carpenter, who was a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton last spring, said students in her documentary filmmaking course had a chance to see the project’s rough cut and “gave excellent notes.” The producers also solicited feedback from experts at the Princeton Environmental Institute. Discovery Education is distributing copies of A Year on Earth to 70,000 schools, and the film is expected to air again on the Discovery networks early in 2007. Check local listings.