Eisgruber in Conversation

In a Reunions conversation with alumni, President Eisgruber ’83 said this has been “the year of the committee” on campus, suggesting that Princeton’s ongoing strategic-planning process includes “at least one task force that is working on something that you are very interested in.” Among the topics touched on during the hour-long session in Richardson Auditorium:

• Asked if diversity is a means to an end or an end in itself, Eisgruber said, “There are extraordinary benefits to many different kinds of diversity on the campus. … One of the things that studies about diversity confirm over and over again is that if you choose students from a wide variety of routes, they will go to a wide variety of places and make a difference after they graduate — and that matters to us.”

• He again raised the possibility of expanding the undergraduate student body. Asked about the prospect of adding a professional school, he said that would “change the culture far more” than adding another residential college. 

• The women’s basketball team, which won its first NCAA tournament game after going undefeated in regular-season play, “exemplifies what Ivy League athletics is all about — the idea that we can produce first-rate students of high academic caliber and high character who are also extraordinary athletes.” 

• With courses in entrepreneurship attracting large numbers of students and with enrollments “exploding” in computer science courses, he said, the number of engineering degrees awarded this year was up 33 percent from a year ago. 

• In response to a question about Princeton’s decision to end selective admission to the Woodrow Wilson School, Eisgruber said that “we thought it was just a mistake to have one school where in some sense the animating principle of it ... was selectivity rather than your interest in pursuing this particular subject matter.” Interest in studying public policy has “grown tremendously” as a result of opening up the school and restructuring its curriculum, he said.