Indo-Pakistani War of 1947–1948

The confrontation between India and Pakistan dates from the first day of theirindependence from the British Empire, and the first war they fought was over the possessionof Jammu and Kashmir. The war was a limited affair – limited in its goals, in a limitedtheatre, with limited means. It was the first modern war in which one of the belligerents(Pakistan) relied on an artificially created and nurtured insurgency in the target area to realizeits political goals. The experiment – partly due to lack of doctrinal foundations and lack of experience – had only limited success, but its results encouraged Pakistan to rely oninsurgents and irregular militias in the enemy's rear in it later wars


This short and limited war is a fascinating story for several reasons. Its most significantelement is the employment of non-state actors as combatants in service of a state’s interests.The employment of non-state combatants was only partly successful, but the events haveshown how a modern state can deploy the principles, tactics, techniques and procedures of asymmetric warfare against another, much stronger state. The events of the war also callattention to the fact that contrary to the contemporary western attitude – which lingers on tothis day – there is absolutely no difference between western and Asian soldiers, when thelatter are properly trained and led. Asian officers are able to plan and execute large-scaleoperations, control, move and support divisions and corps without the benefit of westernadvisors, and their command performance can meet the highest standards. Asian soldiersunder Asian officers and NCOs can fight with as much skill as, and their self-sacrificingheroism and professional behaviour ca



THE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

In spite of the economic and strategic advantages the colonies represented, maintaining alarge colonial empire was a huge burden for Great Britain after World War Two. The Labour


Party made the dissolution of the empire a key part of its post-war agenda, and following itselectoral victory in 1945 it set about granting independence to those colonies that weresufficiently developed to stand on their own as sovereign states – and India was among thefirst.Although the Muslims were in a significant numerical minority in India, they had dominatedthe subcontinent for hundreds of years. This dominant role ended by the middle of the 19

 century, as the European empires gradually extended their rule over India. The Muslims couldnot come to terms with the loss of their power, influence and privileges and adjusted to thenew social order with great difficulty. They barely tolerated the rule of the Christian infidels,and simply could not imagine living under the rule of peoples they had subjugated anddespised for centuries – the Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs – even if independent Indiapromised secular democracy and free exercise of religion.

Their mass organization, theMuslim League, insisted on creating a Muslim state as part of the independence process.Pakistan – the Land of the Pure – was created by combining the Muslim-majority parts of thecountry (in the west Sindh, Baluchistan, the Northwest Frontier Province, and the western partof the Punjab, and East Bengal in the east). (See Figure 1.)According to the law governing the independence process (the Independence of India Act) therulers of India’s nearly 600 states could decide to join India or Pakistan, or remainindependent. Most rulers had no real choice: geography and demographics made the decisionfor them, but in the case of Kashmir the question was more complicated.

The state's locationon the borders of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and China made it a strategically importantplace for both India and Pakistan. The ruler was Hindu, but the majority (about 2/3) of thepopulation was Muslim. However, even among the Muslims there was no consensus on thecountry’s future: the most influential politician, Sheik Abdullah was opposed to India’spartition, but if that had to be, then he stood for Kashmiri independence. The Maharaja couldnot – or did not want to – make a decision: he hoped that if he delayed the decision longenough, Kashmir could become an independent, sovereign state.India could perhaps have accepted an independent Kashmir, but Pakistan insisted that theMuslim-majority state should join the Muslim Pakistan. Pakistan's head of state, Ali Jinnah,was ready to settle the matter by force, but that would have led to open war with India – and
1
As India’s independence was becoming a reality, the Muslims had reason to fear Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist,Christian, Jaini, Jewish and other religious payback for centuries of abuse. (Goel, no year)
2
"Kashmir" as a geographic term is applied to the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir; to the Pakistani state of Azad Kashmir; to the Kashmir valley, and to the independent principality of Jammu and Kashmir.

the Pakistani armed forces, which were just being created, were nowhere near strong enough.In order to avoid the embarrassing spectacle of former colonies obtaining independence andimmediately attacking each other, the British government would also have prevented openconflict. Even before independence was declared, the Pakistani government already appliedeconomic pressure: it halted traffic on the only railroad line going into Kashmir, confiscatedKashmiri trucks and blocked the importation of essential staples and fuels (food grains, sugar,salt, gasoline, household kerosene) into Kashmir. Economic blockades generally work slowly,and it was not different in Kashmir’s case either. Since the blockade did not achieve resultsfast enough, the leading politicians of the Muslim League and senior officers of the armedforn be a match to, or even surpass, any European orAmerican regular force,,

Peerbuxbaloch

Celebrate Independence Day 14th August 2017

Celebrate Independence Day 14th August 2017

Independence Day celebrate on 14th August of every year in Pakistan. Pakistan is facing difficulties from last few years and the economic problem and electricity is big problem in Pakistan.. This year Pakistan People will be celebrate 14th August 2017 with new dreams and success in every field in Pakistan. Indeed Pakistan will be solved all these problems with the passage of time.......

A DEMOCRATIC PUNJAB 1937-47

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah with Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, probably at the time when the Jinnah-Sikandar Pact is signed in 1937. — Courtesy National Archives Islamabad


 1 After winning the general elections in the Punjab in 1937, Sir Sikandar, the leader of the Unionist Party in the Punjab, is faced with pressure from many of his Muslim parliamentary colleagues. Mindful of the need to maintain an equitable stance in a divided Punjabi political milieu, Sir Sikandar enters into negotiations with Mr Jinnah. As a consequence, the Jinnah-Sikandar Pact is signed.

The pact is essentially an arrangement whereby the Muslim League will represent the Muslims at the national level, while the Unionists will maintain a measure of independence at the provincial level.

Mr Jinnah’s ability to deal with various hues in the tapestry of the Punjab through democratic persuasion is reflected in the Muslim League’s ascension to power after 1947.

Mian Iftikharuddin is a scion of the Arain Mian family, custodians of Lahore’s Shalimar Gardens. He begins his political career in the Congress and rises to the presidency in the Punjab. In 1945, he joins the Muslim League. After Partition, he is elected as the first President of the Punjab Provincial Muslim League and Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah appoints him Minister for the Rehabilitation of Refugees.

In 1947, Mian Iftikharuddin founds the Pakistan Times; Faiz Ahmed Faiz is appointed Editor-In-Chief.

In 1949, Mian Iftikharuddin’s proposal for land reforms in the Punjab leads to a backlash from the feudal leadership within the Muslim League. In frustration, he resigns from his ministry and is expelled from the Muslim League in 1951.

After his death in 1962, Faiz Ahmed Faiz pays tribute to him with this couplet: Jo rukey tu koh-e-garan thay hum/ Jo chalay tu jaan say guzar gaye/ Raah-e-yaar hum ne qadam qadam/ Tujhay yaadgaar banaa diya (For when we stayed, we rose like mountains/ And when we strayed, we left life far behind/ Fellow traveller, every step that we ever took/ Became a memorial to your life

It is a tribute to Mr Jinnah’s political sagacity that he can mobilise talents like Mian Iftikharuddin’s to work within his government in the Punjab

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah in animated conversation

Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah in animated conversation with a group of students on the lawns of the University of Punjab, Lahore.

Students, particularly from Punjab, play a pivotal role in achieving a remarkable victory for the Muslim League in the 1945 general elections.

Visit our special 1947 feature commemorating 70 years of Pakistan: https://www.dawn.com/news/1338270/Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah in animated conversation with a group of students on the lawns of the University of Punjab, Lahore.Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah in animated conversation with a group of students on the lawns of the University of Punjab, Lahore.




It is estimated that over 15 million people were displaced during the Partition of the Indian subcontinent and two million lost their lives in the ensuing communal violence.

This feature covers 42 years from 1906 to 1948, an astonishingly short period of time, during which the freedom movement emerged and subsequently achieved the creation of a separate Muslim state under the dynamic leadership of Mohammad Ali Jinnah - the Quaid-i-Azam - the monumental founder of this nation.

As the nation marks its 70th year, Pakistan’s story becomes your story.

I’m a professor with a working-class accent – get over it

I don’t sound like a professor? That’s your problem, not mine, writes Peter Larcombe

The problems (reside with others)

In 2013, I became the first ever professor of mathematics at the University of Derby. Outside work – and also beyond immediate colleagues on campus – I routinely struggle with the problem of my research being completely beyond description to the layman, but what is more frustrating is the fact that I find people are surprised at my profession simply because of the way I speak – if they hear me first, then get to know what I do for a living, they are usually taken aback.

That’s bad enough, I think, but a further irritant is that some of these same people quite cheerfully go on to offer something along the lines of “you don’t sound like a professor”.

To this, there is really no response (bar short shrift and invective, of course) other than asking what a professor is actually supposed to sound like, and this kind of reaction betrays one fundamental aspect of a society seemingly still very much caught up in the class system despite what politicians tell us – make no mistake, career mobility remains governed to an extent by the way we present ourselves, and verbal communication is an integral part of it in our day-to-day dealings with those around us; our accents and diction matter, in other words. 

I Yam what I Yam

I’m a Yam Yam – someone from the Black Country (part of England’s West Midlands), which comprises Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton. Lying historically at the heart of Britain’s Industrial Revolution, it has produced in us Yams both a dialogue and accent that are different from those of our dear second city neighbours in Birmingham.

With a high- to low-range lilt that is broader than the Brummie version, the Black Country accent has clearly identifiable and distinctive inflections, rhythms and intonations, together with a quicker, sharper speed of delivery. Birmingham and the Black Country might be geographically close, but they are apart linguistically.

They do have one thing very much in common, though, for it would be true to say that both shades of accent – through portrayal on television and radio – have all too often suffered the ignominy of being a marker of dim-wittedness. Funny? No. Accurate? Do me a favour. Have they been used to underpin a false stereotype? Yes, sadly, and it all smacks of media laziness and convenience.

No apology

I make no apology whatsoever for having my accent – I’m rightly proud of it, to be honest – and I resent anyone using it as the basis for an immediate judgement to be made about me.

I work in an intellectually elite subject (and thank goodness I do, clearly), so why is it somehow deemed a little out of place to speak my native regional tongue without it being commented upon as if the two things were incompatible in some way? I really can’t imagine having no accent, and the thought of speaking in bland upper middle-class tones fills me with horror as it would reduce me to a sort of default nothingness.

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Read next: Why I asked Twitter about academics from less privileged backgrounds

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I meet a lot of people in my job who – conversational content aside – “speak” very well (some of them try just a little too hard, in fact), and one thing I have learned is that an absence of discernible accent is no indication whatsoever of intellect, integrity, honesty, reliability or work conduct, believe me.

Some of them are actually not even that bright academically once you get past the glossy sheen of well-polished externality, spearheaded by proverbial (and dire) Queen’s English. It acts as a protective shield, deliberate or otherwise – and unfortunately does a pretty good job for the most part.

No compromise

I’m an ex-council estate kid who worked hard, and I am good at what I do; but I’ve not abandoned my modest roots and thus carry some of my upbringing with me.

Is that a problem? Do I need an “acceptable” voice to go with my adult role? I write my technical research papers and occasional pieces of exposition (yes, a few of us mathematicians can actually write) in ways that adhere to more or less universally agreed standards and guidelines, so please don’t deny me my own personal means of expression through vocabulary and dialect because they are as much a part of me as the academic side to my personality; I’m a professor and a Yam Yam in combination – that’s the point.

In the same way that I’m a mathematician every waking hour, I’ll never lose my accent or suffer the shame of deliberately watering it down based on a vague notion of public conformity or sense of embarrassment imposed on me for all the wrong reasons.

A lesson to be learned?

On a wider note, there are indeed many successful professionals who have strong accents. But are some of us fighting ourselves in a sense – dampening down natural speaking voices under the assumption that it will help us “get on” potentially as much as any real talent we may have?

At work, students like the fact that they can trust me in terms of subject knowledge, classroom performance and project supervision, but they also recognise that my accent also defines me to a considerable extent, fitting in for one thing with my love of football (remember that the West Midlands is a hotbed of club rivalry) and support of Aston Villa FC in particular. Some of them call me Professor Villa.

They get it – the valid duality of existence – but not everyone does, evidently.

A final thought: I’d encourage everyone to reflect on their own relationship with the singular matter of “the accent”, and ask themselves how it affects their initial perceptions and first impressions of people they meet, and in what ways it frames their relationships afterwards – the exercise may expose a layer or two of unchallenged prejudice, and prove to be a slightly uncomfortable and revealing process of self-evaluation.

Peter J. Larcombe is professor of discrete and applied mathematics in the department of computing and mathematics, College of Engineering and Technology, 

How U.S. News Calculated the Best Arab Region Universities Rankings

The inaugural U.S. News Best Arab Region Universities rankings are the first in-depth assessment of schools in the region. This 1.0 version of the rankings is the beginning of a long-term project to develop surveys and rankings for the region.

U.S. News believes that the 2015 Best Arab Region Universities rankings will allow prospective students, parents, policymakers and employers in the region to accurately compare institutions – something that had not been possible in the past due to a lack of standardized educational data. Arab region universities will also be able to use these rankings as a way to benchmark themselves against schools in their own country and region and discover top schools from other countries to collaborate with.

The rankings – which are based on bibilometric data and research metrics provided by Scopus, part of the Elsevier Research Intelligence portfolio – focus specifically on institutions' academic research output and performance and not their separate undergraduate or graduate programs.

Scopus is Elsevier’s abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature, covering 55 million documents published in more than 21,900 journals, book series and conference proceedings by more than 5,000 publishers. For the Best Arab Region Universities rankings, the Scopus database was aggregated for universities in the Arab region by school and subject.

The first step in producing the overall rankings was to determine which of the 800-plus Arab region universities would be eligible to be included in the analysis. U.S. News worked with bibliometric experts at Elsevier to set the analytical time period for the rankings: papers published in the five-year period from 2009 through 2013. This time period was chosen since many Arab region universities have only recently begun emphasizing the importance of their faculty publishing in journals and engaging in research.

Since various publication metrics were the sole basis of the overall Best Arab Region Universities rankings, U.S. News decided that to be included and ranked, an Arab region university had to have 400 or more total publications tracked by Scopus, meaning an average of 80 papers per year in the five-year period.

This publication threshold is well below the one used to determine eligibility for the U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings of the top research institutions worldwide; however, it was considered high enough to be the basis for a sophisticated, comparative analysis of publications and citations in the Arab region.

As a result of setting the threshold at 400 or more total papers, 91 schools were included in the overall rankings.

Papers published by Arab region institutions in the subject area of physics and astronomy were excluded based on input from Elsevier's bibliometric experts, who determined that their citation characteristics would distort the results of the overall rankings. There is, however, a separate subject ranking for physics and astronomy that is based on papers published exclusively in those fields.

Branch campuses in the Arab region that are operated by a parent university in another country were not considered for these rankings.

The second step was to calculate the rankings for the 91 universities using the nine ranking indicators and weights that U.S. News chose to measure research output and performance; all indicators were based on the 2009-2013 period. The weights emphasize, in nearly equal proportions, the importance of getting published in peer-reviewed journals; getting those publications cited by other researchers in their work; and having a paper be highly cited in its field.

Each school's profile page on usnews.com lists numerical ranks, out of 91, for the nine indicators, allowing students to compare each school's standing in each indicator.​ The indicators and their weights in the ranking formula are listed in the table below, with related indicators grouped together; an explanation of each follows

UCU reps ‘need protected characteristic’ to attend equality event

Motion passed at union congress under fire, but backers welcome ‘safe space

A policy to exclude union equality officers from much of their own equality conference if they do not have a protected characteristic has been branded “ridiculous” by a leading disability campaigner.

Emma-Jane Phillips, who sits on the University and College Union’s equality committee, said a rule requiring members to state whether they are gay,disabled or from an ethnic minority when applying to attend the union’s annual equality conference is wrong.

It means, in effect, that equality representatives elected by their union branch cannot participate in all discussions if they are white, male, straight and have no disability, said Ms Phillips, a senior lecturer in Northumbria University’s mathematics and information sciences department.

However, her motion to give equality reps the automatic right to attend conferences without having to self-identify was defeated at UCU’s congress, held in Liverpool from 1 to 3 June, the only motion not to pass during the summit’s opening day.

“Equality reps are passionate about equality regardless of their own situation,” Ms Phillips told Times Higher Education.

“To infer that someone does not understand someone’s situation just because you don’t tick a box is insulting,” she added.

Ms Phillips, who serves on UCU’s disabled members’ committee, said some equality reps would have to lie about having a protected characteristic to attend the conference – something they would not do, she believed.

“It is ridiculous that people who regard equality as their life can’t attend our equality conference,” she said.

However, Ciara Doyle, senior lecturer in youth and community studies at theUniversity of Greenwich, told congress that she would not attend the conference if equality reps of all types were allowed to attend.

The conference’s breakout sessions are a unique “safe space” for those with various characteristics to talk openly about their situations, which might otherwise be dominated by those with no personal experience of these matters, she said.

“We see in the union movement that…some people’s voices are far louder than others,” she told THE.

Arab Universities Chart New Course Between Research, Job Training

Arab region universities are competing to attract students and faculty from around the region and the world.

High youth unemployment and other factors have led to changes in higher education in the region.

by:

World Education News

The Arab world is engaged in a higher education arms race as it struggles to train unprecedented numbers of young adults for the jobs of tomorrow.

With government jobs dwindling and oil reserves drying up, countries across the region are increasingly turning to private universities to give students the skills that employers require in today’s high-tech economy. At the same time, political leaders are investing heavily​ to reposition their countries as leaders in producing new discoveries and research.

"Most universities that are opening in the region – good and not-so-good – tend to be professional schools," says Ahmad Dallal, provost at the American University of Beirut​, a leading research university in the Arab world. "But the region needs a critical mass of research institutions and needs to contribute to knowledge production, not just the transmission of knowledge."

[Check out how schools fared in the 2015 Best Arab Region Universities rankings.]

As a result, the region, led by the Gulf states, has seen the number of universities​ explode in recent years to more than 800 today, according to the comprehensive directory produced by U.S. News last year.​ The trend offers today's prospective students more choices than ever before – but with no easy way to shop around for the best option, as participation in accreditation bodies and worldwide rankingslags behind.

"There are universities in Lebanon – and across the region – that are offering Ph.D.s that have no business in some cases even offering a bachelor's degree," says Dallal.

The focus on job skills is to be expected in a region with the world's worst youth unemployment, at about 23 percent.​ The World Bank estimates that Arab nations need to create 3 million more jobs every year than they currently do if they hope to turn their economies around.

"Undergraduate programs in the Arab countries are more than ever geared toward serving the ever-growing needs of their communities," says Cesar Wazen, an expert in higher education with experience in Qatar and Lebanon​.​ "They are tasked with creating cadres who will handle the running of the country" and, in some countries, "the rebuilding of infrastructure due to massive destructions incurred lately."

Wazen argues that countries across the region have "growing, developing populations in need of skilled personnel rather than research-oriented graduates." He raises concerns about ranking universities solely by their research output, even as Qatar University, for example,​ ​lists becoming "a leader in research in the region" as one of its main goals.

Some recently established universities were created with research as a top priority.

Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah University of Science and Technology​, or KAUST, which offers master’s and doctoral degrees, likens​ itself to an Arab MIT or a modern-day House of Knowledge, after the 8th century Abbasid university in Baghdad.

"It is my desire that this new university become one of the world's great institutions of research," King Abdullah said in a speech heralding the university, which opened its doors in 2009.

As part of that trend, Arab universities are competing to attract students and faculty from across the region and around the world as they seek to expose their students to diverse cultures and viewpoints while raising their international profile. The push has led to a surge in the use of online tools to supplement – and, in some cases, replace – traditional classroom instruction, while establishing English as the lingua franca of education in the region, notably at KAUST and other recently established​ institutions.

[Learn how online education at one Saudi university is engaging women.]

The changes are welcome news to international experts critical of the region's track record of creating unemployable graduates suited mostly for government jobs that no longer exist.

"Fortunately, in recent years there has been an interesting diversification in the Arab world, which is allowing students to have in front of them more options than what they used to have in the past," says Francisco Marmolejo, higher education coordinator at the World Bank. "And of course this is due to the fact that there has been tremendous (demographic) ​pressure."​ 

Universities in the Middle East and North Africa

Explore Universities in the Arab Region

Global rankings typically only feature a few schools from the MENA region, but U.S. News is working with Arab universities and education systems to developexclusive rankings of schools in the region.

Click through to see images of some of the schools in the Arab region.

Pomona College

At a Glance

• Student Population: 1,610
• Undergraduate Population: 1,610
• Student to Faculty Ratio^a: 7
• Total Annual Cost^c: $62,632
• In-State Tuition^c: $45,832
• Out-of-State Tuition^c: $45,832
• Percent on Financial Aid^d: 68%
• Average Grant Aid Received (FT/First-Time): $35,988
• Percent Admitted^e: 14%
• SAT Composite Range^f: 1380-1540
• ACT Composite Range^f: 31-34

Forbes Lists

#48 America's Best Value Colleges

• #28 in Private Colleges
• #10 in Liberal Arts Universities
• #14 in the West

#26 in Grateful Grads

Forbes Financial Grade: 

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private institution that was founded in 1636. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 6,694, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 5,076 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Harvard University's ranking in the 2016 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 2. Its tuition and fees are $45,278 (2015-16).

Harvard is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. Harvard's extensive library system houses the oldest collection in the United States and the largest private collection in the world. There is more to the school than endless stacks, though: Harvard's athletic teams compete in the Ivy League, and every football season ends with "The Game," an annual matchup between storied rivals Harvard and Yale. At Harvard, on-campus residential housing is an integral part of student life. Freshmen live around the Harvard Yard at the center of campus, after which they are placed in one of 12 undergraduate houses for their remaining three years. Although they are no longer recognized by the university as official student groups, the eight all-male "final clubs" serve as social organizations for some undergraduate students; Harvard also has five female clubs.

In addition to the College, Harvard is made up of 13 other schools and institutes, including the top-ranked Business School and Medical School and the highly ranked Graduate Education School, School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Law School and John F. Kennedy School of Government. Eight U.S. presidents graduated from Harvard College, including Franklin Delano Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. Other notable alumni include Henry David Thoreau, Helen Keller, Yo-Yo Ma and Tommy Lee Jones. In 1977, Harvard signed an agreement with sister institute Radcliffe College, uniting them in an educational partnership serving male and female students, although they did not officially merge until 1999. Harvard also has the largest endowment of any school in the world.

Columbia University

Columbia University is a private institution that was founded in 1754. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 6,170, its setting is urban, and the campus size is 36 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Columbia University's ranking in the 2016 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 4. Its tuition and fees are $51,008 (2014-15).

Columbia University, located in Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood in New York City, offers a wide range of student activities. The Columbia Lions field more than 25 NCAA Division I teams in the Ivy League. More than 90 percent of students live in on-campus housing, ranging from traditional residence halls to university-owned brownstones. Many of the brownstones are populated by the more than 25 Greek fraternity and sorority chapters on campus, whose membership includes about 10 percent of the student body. Organizations such as Urban New York, which gives out free tickets to city events, foster student interaction with life in the Big Apple.

Columbia is comprised of three undergraduate schools—Columbia College, The Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the School of General Studies—as well as a number of graduate and professional schools. Columbia’s graduate programs include the highly ranked Business School, Teachers College, SEAS, Law School, College of Physicians and Surgeons, School of International and Public Affairs, School of the Arts and Mailman School of Public Health. The university also has a well-regarded College of Dental Medicine and Graduate School of Journalism. Columbia is affiliated with Barnard College for women, the Union Theological Seminary and the Jewish Theological Seminary of America. Distinguished alumni include John Jay, founding father and first Supreme Court Justice; President Barack Obama; songwriting team Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II; and actress Maggie Gyllenhaal. Columbia also administers the Pulitzer Prizes.

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private institution that was founded in 1746. It has a total undergraduate enrollment of 5,391, its setting is suburban, and the campus size is 600 acres. It utilizes a semester-based academic calendar. Princeton University's ranking in the 2016 edition of Best Colleges is National Universities, 1. Its tuition and fees are $43,450 (2015-16).

Princeton, the fourth-oldest college in the United States, is located in the quiet town of Princeton, New Jersey. Within the walls of its historic ivy-covered campus, Princeton offers a number of events, activities and organizations. The Princeton Tigers, members of the Ivy League, are well known for their consistently strong men's and women's lacrosse teams. Students live in one of six residential colleges that provide a residential community as well as dining services but have the option to join one of more than 10 eating clubs for their junior and senior years. The eating clubs serve as social and dining organizations for the students who join them. Princeton's unofficial motto, "In the Nation's Service and in the Service of All Nations," speaks to the university's commitment to community service.

Princeton includes highly ranked graduate programs through the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. One unique aspect of Princeton's academic program is that all undergraduate students are required to write a senior thesis. Notable alumni include U.S. President Woodrow Wilson; John Forbes Nash, subject of the 2001 film "A Beautiful Mind"; model/actress Brooke Shields; and first lady Michelle Obama. According to Princeton legend, if a student exits campus through FitzRandolph Gate prior to graduation, he or she may be cursed never to graduate.