By Tal Fortgang ‘17
What is an Ivy League university? The simplicity of the question is deceiving. Everyone knows what Harvard is. Except increasingly, no one does – not the students who attend, and certainly not the administrators who shape the institution, thereby answering that question every day.
Isaac Barsoum
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: On Friday, Nov. 7, 2025, Sunrise Princeton, alongside the Princeton Progressive Coalition, organized a rally of more than 100 demonstrators. We called on the University to act as a leader by defending life-or-death climate research, divesting from weapons manufacturers to end the genocide in Palestine, protecting immigrants and international students, and safeguarding academic freedom in a time when rising authoritarianism threatens progress across the world.
As a lead organizer for this rally, I learned an important lesson: Princeton students care a lot about progressive change, and are willing to publicly display their support because they’re optimistic that their actions can make a difference on a policy level. They just feel like they’re too damn busy.
Hayk Yengibaryan
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Robert P. George, the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence in Princeton University’s politics department and the director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, announced in a public Facebook post Monday that he has resigned from the board of trustees of the Heritage Foundation after six years. George’s resignation came amid a weeks-long controversy in the right-wing think tank after its president defended Tucker Carlson’s interview with far-right commentator Nick Fuentes.
George did not respond to requests for comment in time for publication
Annabel Green
Princetonians for Free Speech
Excerpt: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s debut 1920 novel, This Side of Paradise, follows protagonist Amory Blaine, who enjoys a particularly affluent life as an undergraduate at Princeton. Fitzgerald writes of Princeton:
Nikoloz Inashvili
Daily Princetonian
Excerpt: Princeton’s sweeping new policy passed Nov. 10 that would ban recordings in most settings without the consent of all participants will not take effect until Jan. 1, University spokesperson Michael Hotchkiss said in a statement.
However, there is still limited information about how the policy will be implemented, particularly regarding its enforcement and the scope of recording permissions. Hotchkiss wrote that “The University is preparing guidance on the implementation of this policy, which will be made available well ahead of the Jan. 1, 2026 implementation.”
Chris Cleveland, Substack
Excerpt: In the September issue of the Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW), there was a remarkable article. Alumni participation in Annual Giving had dropped dramatically over the last decade. This is a four-alarm fire -- not only for financial reasons, but because alumni participation is a key indicator for the national college rankings.