It was a powerful decision, reached by consensus with little objection. Late last fall, members of the university's discipline committee were tired of seeing the sophomore come before them, and he, in turn, had exhausted the university's list of penalties. There was only one option remaining: expulsion.

Expulsion is the ultimate penalty in the university's discipline arsenal, and officials describe some offenses that would warrant its use with adjectives usually reserved for murder trials: "gruesome," "heinous," and "egregious." Indeed, the discipline committee has expelled only three undergraduates in the past 20 years.

The student expelled this year had been suspended for 199697 after the FacultyStudent Committee on Discipline found that he had plagiarized a paper, said Kathleen Deignan, the associate dean of student life. Returning last fall as a repeat sophomore, he "engaged in some rather serious drunk and disorderly conduct, yelling derogatory remarks at a faculty member," she said. Within three months of that incident, said Deignan, the student was then found guilty by the discipline committee of "attempted shoplifting" in a local liquor store and of misleading a university official in the course of that investigation.

"Having adjudicated offenses with this person before, [we] felt comfortable in also coming out in saying 'enough is enough,'" said Elissa Doyle '98, the student chairwoman of the discipline committee.

Expulsion may be rare at Princeton, but discipline officials say it is not avoided. Moving to permanently separate a student from the university community is the most dramatic of the penalties the university may employ, explained Deignan, who has served as secretary of the discipline committee for 14 years. Lesser penalties include suspension, in which students return automatically after one to three years; required withdrawal for one to three years, returning only after satisfying certain conditions; and, if students are secondsemester seniors, the withholding of their diplomas.

Discipline officials dealt with 820 cases of behavioral and academic violations in the three academic years before the present one, their records indicate. Of those, 21 ended in suspensions and three in required withdrawals. No expulsions were tallied.

"Expulsion has been held out as a penalty to be applied only in cases where we either believe that the student has demonstrated that he or she is simply incorrigible," said Deignan, or "the infraction that they have committed is so heinous that we can't imagine ever having that person return."

Expulsion for a first offense has not occurred in the last 20 years. The most likely circumstance for expulsion would come from repeat violations, noted Deignan. The other two students who were expelled were disciplined for repeat violations: one for sexual harassment and the other of plagiarism.

The Honor Committee, which judges cases involving inclass examinations, follows similar standards as the discipline committee. A student would be expelled due to a first offense only if the "violation is really egregious," said William Nance '98, the Honor Committee chairman. A second conviction of violating the Honor Code results in an automatic expulsion. Deignan said she did not believe the Honor Committee had expelled anyone in her 14 years at the university.

Discipline officials said their goal of educating a student through punishment makes expulsion an unpopular penalty. Usually the committee strives to "recognize the severity of what the student has done but also to keep them within the folds of the university community," said Doyle, noting that in expulsion for a second offense, "There's a feeling that the educative function really didn't work."
-- Stephen Fuzesi '00

This story was adapted from one that appeared in The Daily Princetonian.

Fourteen faculty members retire

Fourteen faculty members have transferred to emeritus status: Russell Banks (humanities), Stephen F. Cohen (politics), H. C. Curtiss, Jr. *65 (mechanical and aerospace engineering), Kenneth S. Deffeyes *59 (geosciences), Hildred H. Geertz (anthropology), John K. Gillham (chemical engineering), Robert G. Gilpin, Jr. (politics and international affairs), Charles Gilvarg (molecular biology), William W. Graessley (chemical engineering), Roy Jackson (engineering), Saul A. Kripke (philosophy), Sam B. Treiman (physics), Paul A. Volcker '49 (international economic policy), and John Waterbury '61 (politics and international affairs).

Banks came to Princeton in 1982 and was named Howard G.B. Clark '21 University Professor in the Humanities in 1994. His 1998 Cloudsplitter is the most recent of nine novels, including two -- Affliction (1989) and The Sweet Hereafter (1991) -- that have been made into films. Banks earned his bachelor's degree at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in 1967. Among his numerous honors and awards are two Pulitzer Prize nominations (1986 and 1989). He plans to continue writing, dividing his time between Princeton and Keene, New York.

Cohen studies Soviet and Russian politics and history, and United States-Russian relations. He received his Ph.D. in political science at Columbia University in 1969 and began teaching at Princeton in 1968. That same year Cohen became director of the Program in Russian Studies and published Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution, which was nominated for a National Book Award. He has written a syndicated column for The Nation and has been a commentator for CBS News. In September Cohen will become professor of Russian studies, with affiliated appointments in the departments of politics and history, at New York University.

Curtiss is best known for his work in vertical and short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft and helicopter flight dynamics. In 1965, after two years as an officer in the Navy, he received his Ph.D. from Princeton and joined the faculty. Curtiss has served on many government advisory groups. In addition to spending more time on sailing and travel, as emeritus professor he expects to continue his current research in mathematical modeling of helicopters and other rotorcraft, as well as working with undergraduates on theses and projects.

Deffeyes, a geologist, served two years in the Army Corps of Engineers as a map maker before joining the faculty in 1967. He is known as the motive force behind the geology field trips that have enlivened beginning geology courses and freshman seminars. As emeritus, Deffeyes hopes to complete a manuscript and a computer program for water chemistry which he describes as "a 'what if?' tool that does for solution chemistry what a spreadsheet does for finance."

Geertz, who earned her Ph.D. from Radcliffe in 1956, specializes in the anthropology of art and in social organization as it relates to the theory of culture. A member of the Princeton faculty since 1970, she was the university's third female tenured professor and was instrumental in shaping the anthropology department. Her fieldwork in Indonesia and elsewhere has been the basis for scores of essays and papers and four books.

Gillham is an authority in the molecular design of thermosetting polymers. His research has focused on the events that occur on the molecular level as materials harden and on the way these changes affect their macroscopic properties. Gillham earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at McGill in 1959. After several years in the private sector, he joined Princeton's chemical engineering department in the Polymer Materials Program in 1965.

Gilpin, the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of International Affairs and a professor of politics and international affairs, is an expert on international political economy. His studies in both European and Asian arenas have covered the role of scientists in the formation of policy, the impact of nuclear weapons in international relations, and the role of the multinational corporation. Gilpin spent three years in the Navy. After completing his Ph.D. at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960, he joined the Princeton faculty in 1962. A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, he is the author of six books, including The Political Economy of International Relations (1987).

Gilvarg is known for his work on the biosynthesis of diamino-pimelic acid and for his studies of peptide transport, which have provided the pharmaceutical industry with tools for delivering antibiotics into bacteria. Gilvarg served three years in the Army and earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry at the University of Chicago in 1951. After arriving at Princeton in 1964, he became chairman of the Program in Biochemical Sciences and led the program to department status. He recently uncovered an important indicator for pancreatic cancer, which, he says, may give physicians time to initiate a cure before the onset of clinical signs of the disease.

Graessley is an expert on polymers, particularly the relationships between their molecular structure and liquid state. He earned his Ph.D. in chemical engineering at the University of Michigan in 1960 and joined Princeton's chemical engineering department in 1987. Graessley's work identifying the dominant role played by molecular entanglements in the rheology of polymer melts and concentrated solutions has guided researchers for more than two decades.

Jackson, the Class of 1950 Professor of Engineering and Applied Science, has made pioneering contributions in optimization and process control, chemical reaction engineering, fluid mechanics, and the mechanics of granular materials and fluidized beds. Jackson earned his D.Sc. in chemical engineering at the University of Edinburgh. In 1982 he joined Princeton's chemical engineering department. In 1995 he received the Engineering School's first teaching award.

Kripke joined the faculty as McCosh Professor of Philosophy in 1977. His work spans the disciplines of philosophical reasoning and abstract mathematical theory. A pioneer in modal logic, philosophy of language, and ontology, he has extended the boundaries of modern analytic theory. He earned his B.A. from Harvard in 1962. Both his books, Naming and Necessity (1980, 1982) and Wittgenstein on Rules and Private Language (1982, 1984), grew out of lectures he gave at Princeton. Kripke won the Behrman Award for distinguished achievement in the humanities in 1988.

Treiman, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Physics, is a theoretical physicist who has done research and taught in the areas of elementary particles, quantum field theory, and cosmology. He served in the Navy from 1944 to 1946. Later he earned a Ph.D. in physics at the University of Chicago in 1952, the same year he joined the Princeton faculty. Treiman was chairman of the University Research Board from 1988 to 1995 and twice chairman of the physics department.

Volcker joined the university in 1988 as Frederick H. Schultz '51 Professor of International Economic Policy, splitting his time between Princeton and the investment advisory firm of James D. Wolfensohn Inc. The winner of the Woodrow Wilson Award in 1980, he had already held important federal positions under five U.S. Presidents, capped by two four-year terms as chairman of the Federal Reserve System (1979 through 1987). Volcker earned his M.A. in policy economy and government from Harvard's Graduate School of Public Administration in 1951 and the following year attended the London School of Economics. He was recently named a visiting professor at New York University's Stern School of Business.

An expert on the politics of developing countries and especially the countries of the Middle East, Waterbury became president of the American University of Beirut on January 1. Waterbury earned his Ph.D. at Columbia University in 1968 and joined the Princeton faculty in 1978. Named William Stewart Tod Professor of Politics and International Affairs in 1985, he directed the Center of International Studies from 1992 until 1997. The most recent of his many books is A Political Economy of the Middle East (with A. Richards, 1996).

PAW seeks new editor

PAW is seeking a new editor-in-chief. John I. "Jim" Merritt '66, who has headed the magazine since 1989, has decided to remain in his position through next June. He will continue as a contributing editor for the balance of 1999, then take advantage of the university's option for early retirement to pursue full time his interest in writing.

Merritt's successor will be appointed by the board of trustees of Princeton Alumni Publications, the nonprofit corporation that owns paw and oversees its editorial and business functions. Spearheading the search will be a committee consisting of three members of paw's Editorial Committee: Peter G. Brown '70, Landon Y. Jones, Jr. '66, and Professor of English Elaine C. Showalter.

The position will be formally advertised in the next (September 8) issue of PAW. Those seeking additional information can contact Brown c/o The Sciences, 655 Madison Ave., 16th Floor, New York, NY 10021 (212-838-6727, ext. 622; pbrown@nyas.org).

Where ruins and religion come together

Walk into the Nassau Street office of the Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project, and the rooms look functional and staid. This is not, however, the vision of its director, Davíd L. Carrasco, who started the project almost 20 years ago. For Carrasco, the archive is meant to be dynamic, interactive, and anything but sedate. Beyond files filled with visuals such as a slide of a ceramic vessel depicting the rain god Tlaloc, shots of the excavation of the Aztec Temple of Tenochtitlán, and copies of Aztec folio books illustrating their rituals, Carrasco would like to see the archive used as more than a sort of library. He wants it to foster conversations between students and scholars with this resource material at their fingertips. "The archive is an object and an action," Carrasco explains. "And it's the action, the discourse, that makes the study real for people." Even though the archive currently holds no meetings or seminars in its office, it still provides students with a treasure-trove of images and written sources and access to a network of international specialists in the study of Aztec and Mayan cultures.

A professor of the history of religions, Carrasco started collecting material that would end up in the archives from Mesoamerican sites in the southern two-thirds of Mexico, Guatemala, and parts of Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize, Costa Rica, and El Salvador while a professor at the University of Colorado in Boulder in the late 1970s. Gathering what now includes 10,000 transparencies and photographs of excavations, sites, architecture, and artifacts, plus a library of some 3,000 books, articles, and conference papers on pre-Hispanic, colonial, and contemporary Mesoamerican cultures was a natural fit for the work he was already doing -- gathering archaeologists, anthropologists, astrologers, art historians, ethnobiologists, and religious scholars at conferences to discuss aspects of Mesoamerican culture. At the time, the excavation of the Mexico City's Templo Mayor in 1978 was creating a new understanding of the Aztec world. Carrasco wanted to create an organization that would foster cross-disciplinary study of the religious dimensions of that world. He thought it was important for archaeologists, for example, to know something about the history of the Aztec's religion. "I wanted to create a dialogue with others on the religious dimensions of this world," he explains.

Carrasco, who came to Princeton in 1993, isn't the type of scholar who flourishes working always alone; his thoughts are stimulated by talking with other people. He prefers what he calls the ensemble approach, where meanings are distilled from a melting pot of sources. To this end, he has organized nine archive conferences in Colorado, Mexico, and at Princeton. At these conferences, scholars in different fields from both North and South America have discussed topics ranging from ecology to the Aztec concept of time to sacred space and ceremonial rituals. There are 25 scholars associated with the archive.

A Mexican-American, Carrasco earned his B.A. in English literature at Western Maryland College before spending a year studying for the Methodist ministry at Drew Theological School. Later, he headed to the streets of Chicago, where work with Chicano and Puerto Rican gangs blended with studies of theology and the history of religions at the University of Chicago. Carrasco's scholarly journeys have taken him to Mexico numerous times, especially to the Aztec Templo Mayor and more recently to pre-Aztec Teotihuacán. He has used these trips to flesh out what he calls the controlling metaphor of his research: the relationship between the city as a religious and ceremonial center and places and peoples outside the city center.

The master of Mathey College since 1994, Carrasco continues to write and publish prolifically. What he calls his bestseller, Religions of Mesoamerica, was written for use in introductory religion courses as part of a series on world religions. He is the chief editor of the multivolume Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures, due out in 2000, and has recently completed a book of essays on Mesoamerican ritual sacrifice, expected to be published next year. He does not limit himself to study of the past but has become friends with contemporary artists who use images and symbols of pre-Columbian society in their work. And Carrasco continues to direct the archive. With four years of financial support pledged by President Shapiro, he hopes the archive eventually will move from that Nassau Street office into an expanded space to become a "humanities laboratory," which will host exhibits and seminars.
-- Maria LoBiondo

In Brief

Boathouse: The university will use a $4 million gift from Irene C. Shea to expand and renovate its boathouse and crew facilities. The gift will be used to create the C. Bernard Shea ['16] Rowing Center, honoring her late husband. It will include a new rowing tank, larger locker rooms, better heat and ventilation systems, weight training areas, and additional launches, dockage, and boat racks.

Career Services: Beverly Hamilton-Chandler has been appointed the new director of the Office of Career Services, as of July 1. She comes to Princeton from the University of Pennsylvania.

Awards: In May the Center for Jewish Life honored William G. Bowen *58, who was president of the university from 1972 to 1988, for his support of Jewish life at Princeton and his role in making the CJL a reality. This event is part of a year-long celebration of the 50th anniversary of organized Jewish life at Princeton. Daniel C. Tsui, a professor of electrical engineering, has won the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics for his role in discovering and explaining the bizarre liquid-like behavior of electrons at extremely cold temperatures and high magnetic fields. The American Conference on Romanticism has chosen Formal Charges, by Professor of English Susan J. Wolfson, as the outstanding book in the field of Romanticism studies for 1997.

Nude Olympics: No snow, no problem...Some 25 sophomores and juniors tried to run an unofficial Nude Olympics in May near Poe Field. But it was brief, as Public Safety officers put a quick end to it.

In Memoriam

William C. Stewart '00, a resident of Antelope, California, was killed in a car accident on Route 95 in Pennsylvania on June 1. He was 19. Stewart, who was to major in economics, resided in Butler College his freshman and sophomore years. He was a member of Campus Crusade for Christ and Athletes in Action and a student worker with the university's Dining Services. He volunteered with the Princeton Fire Department.

Bernard dwork, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Mathematics, Emeritus, died on May 9, after a long illness. He was 74 and lived in Princeton. Dwork pioneered the application of p-adic analytic methods to the algebraic geometry of varieties over finite fields. His work led him to invent a new subject, the study of differential equations from the point of view of p-adic analysis.

Dwork, who received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Columbia University in 1954, joined the faculty in 1964 and transferred to emeritus status in 1993. He served in the Pacific campaign during World War II. In 1992 he was named Professore di Chiara Fama by the Italian government and awarded a special chair at the University of Padua.