In a controversial move, the decision will forgo the usual restrictions on returning frats that would exclude Sigma Pi from voting in the IFC and participating in rush week. 29 brothers remain on campus and have been pushing for their official return, but not everyone is convinced that they deserve it. After their presentation before the IFC, Sigma Alpha Mu President Ross Freilich ‘09 asked, “Why is the IFC responsible for creating sanctions for their recognition?… They came in expecting to get recognition without a plan to move forward from last November’s event.”

In explaining the lenient reinstatement, IFC President Gregory Schvey ‘09 noted the fraternity’s “unique situation,” but some members of the board remain wary. IFC Vice President for Recruitment Greg Mezey ‘09 said, “we need to be cautious with how quickly we give privileges back to chapters that have been reprimanded.”

Schvey added, “We will see how it turns out and vote again next year.”

IFC Votes to Re-Recognize Sigma Pi Fraternity; House Will Be Required to Have Dry Rush [Cornell Daily Sun]
Sigma Pi Returns to Campus [Cornell Review]

I’m packing my long underwear and trekking up to Ithaca for the weekend with Heywood, a band that’ll be playing at Tammany Nightclub at Risley Hall tomorrow night (details below). I’ve never been to Cornell and need something to do to pass the time while they’re rehearsing — anything fun on campus or off this weekend? Leave your suggestions in the comments. I will document the good times for IvyGate, natch.

And come see Heywood (and, I assume, your friends). This is the schedule:

10:30 – Shadow’s Dance Troupe
10:40 – Rhythmix Break Free Hip-Hop
10:50 – Whistling Shrimp
*intermission*
11:00 – HEYWOOD
*intermission*
12:00 – Sarah Rae Robinson
12:10 – Willis Improv
12:30 – Natalie Masis
12:40 – Ethan Cohen
12:50 – Anders

This morning, the New York Times reported that Harvard’s endowment has lost $8 billion, or 22 percent of its value, in the last four months. In a letter to the deans, University President Drew Faust and Executive Vice President Edward C. Forst ‘82 said that the total loss in value will likely be closer to 30 percent by June, the end of the current fiscal year. Harvard’s endowment is the largest in the country, and the $8 billion loss alone is larger than the endowment value of all but four other American universities (Yale, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT).

The Crimson says, “Yesterday’s figure dwarfs Harvard’s worst single-year endowment loss of 12.2 percent in 1974. The endowment has clocked only three years of negative returns, all under three percent, in the subsequent three decades.” The Faculty of Arts and Sciences has already instated a hiring freeze, and expansion and construction projects, employee salaries and benefits, and “staffing levels” might be further affected. Faust and Forst declined to comment on reports that the University is looking to sell $1.5 billion of its private equity holdings.

Brown has joined Cornell and Dartmouth in delaying construction and imposing a staff hiring freeze, but, in a rare bit of nice news, also told students that the University would be flexible about outstanding balances and late payments. Princeton is cutting its 10-year construction budget by $300 million and delaying renovation and construction of new buildings, several indefinitely beyond the capital plan’s 2016 end date. Other universities are following in Penn President Amy Gutmann’s footsteps and donating part of their salaries to the schools. Columbia’s PrezBo admits that the endowment has been hit but says that the school would “go out of business” before cutting back on need-blind financial aid. Like Harvard, Columbia might also sell some of its private equity assets.

In probably unrelated but interesting financial news, Princeton invested in Zimbabwe in 2006-2007 even as the United States and European Union were considering imposing harsher sanctions on President Robert Mugabe and his human rights-violating, food-shortaging ways.

As always, we can’t do it without your tips. Hit us up.

Columbia will use any excuse to throw a capital-S Summit, so in a few weeks the Law School will host Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, Howcast, Access 360 Media and the U.S. State Department to discuss the “best ways to use digital media to promote freedom and justice, counter violence, extremism, and oppression”:

These young leaders will form a new group, the Alliance of Youth Movements, which will produce a field manual for youth empowerment. The field manual will stand in stark contrast to the Al Qaeda manual on the basics of terrorism, found by Coalition Forces in Iraq… [It] will form the cornerstone of a much larger online “hub,” where emerging youth organizations can access and share “how-to” guides and tips on using social-networking and other technologies to further their causes.

The Howcast press release doesn’t provide details on what exactly in the terrorism manual requires an in-kind response, but the forum was specifically inspired by an anti-FARC Facebook group that helped organize millions of Colombians to demonstrate against the guerrilla organization. Whoopi Goldberg, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and MSNBC’s Luke Russert are scheduled to speak.

The 2,277,290 members of IF 10 MILLION JOIN MARC ZOMBERG WILL BRING BACK THE OLD FACEBOOK! might be a little skeptical of the efficacy of the site in affecting social change, but we’re sure that donating our status to get out the vote for Barack Obama made a difference. Right?

“Experience” the frustrations and obstacles of living in poverty in a Poverty Simulation cosponsored by the Student Volunteers Council (SVC) and the Crisis Ministry of Princeton and Trenton. Participants will “experience” poverty for a month (four 15-minute weeks), and then a discussion about community service, public policy, and the myths of poverty will follow. Free lunch will be provided.

Hey! You don’t get free food in poverty! 100 people have signed up so far to go to “Realville,” where they will roleplay welfare recipients, people with disabilities and old folks living on Social Security, and go to jail and the pawnbroker.

If you’ll recall, Dartmouth just hosted a similar event, the Two Dollar-a-Day Challenge. And that Dartian from Zimbabwe said, “As a person who lives and sees poverty at home, I think it’s sort of a stupid exercise. I mean, fasting for a day isn’t going to tell you what hunger is like,” remember? I miss college.

We had something like this once a year in elementary school gym class. It was called TRAFFIC and we all wheeled around on scooters and if we sped or veered off the roads or ran through the stop sign we were sent to traffic-jail, and when we went through the car wash Mr. Hennessey spritzed us with water. It was exactly like real driving.

The Princeton Poverty Simulation is next Saturday, November 22nd. Who’s in?

Read more:
Volunteers switch roles, experience life in poverty [Princetonian]