In Short: Durkee ’69 To Retire; Eisgruber ’83 Defends Trustee Hugin ’76; Rail Service Interrupted

Published Oct. 12, 2018

ROBERT K. DURKEE ’69 — who has worked at Princeton since 1972 in roles that include assistant to the president, vice president for public affairs, and vice president and secretary of the University — will retire at the end of the academic year.

HILARY A. PARKER ’01, assistant vice president and chief of staff in the Office of the President, will take over Durkee’s duties as vice president and secretary of the University July 1, 2019. Parker will retain several of her current responsibilities when she assumes her new role.

From left: Durkee ’69; Parker ’01

Photos from left: Denise Applewhite/Office of Communications; Sameer A. Khan/Fotobuddy

President Eisgruber ’83 strongly defended University trustee BOB HUGIN ’76 at the Sept. 24 CPUC meeting as students raised questions about comments Hugin made in the 1970s through the early 1990s. Hugin, a Republican who is running to unseat Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., was president of Tiger Inn as an undergraduate and later a member of the eating club’s graduate board, and he made statements that gay students would not be welcome in the club and opposing legal efforts to force the club to accept women as members.

Eisgruber praised Hugin as “an extraordinary source of judgment and counsel on the board and an important ally on a number of different issues, including issues with respect to diversity.” Eisgruber said he disagreed with comments Hugin made 25 years ago, and noted that Hugin “has said himself that he regrets those comments and he was wrong to make the comments that he did.” Eisgruber also said conservatives on the trustee board play an especially important role in helping to unify alumni of “all different political persuasions.”

In a statement to PAW, Hugin said he was “proud to say that my views are a lot different than they were 40 years ago. Personal growth should be seen as a strength, not a weakness.” He said that if elected to the Senate, he would be “a leader on issues of equality.”

Rail service on THE DINKY will be suspended through mid-January as New Jersey Transit installs an automated braking system on its rail fleet. (The Dinky line was exempted from the new braking system because of its single-train service.) Buses will replace Dinky service at all scheduled times, according to NJ Transit spokesman Jim Smith. For connections to and from Princeton Junction, bus riders should allow an extra 15 minutes to posted schedules.

The Dinky

Ethan Sterenfeld ’20

A University program created to prepare high-achieving, low-income students for admission and success in college received high marks in a recent study by the Educational Testing Service. The evaluation found that the PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PREPARATORY PROGRAM (PUPP) “has a record of success that is unassailable” and added: “The time is right for PUPP to expand its role as a thought leader in the college access field.”

High school students from Princeton, Trenton, and three nearby townships take part in a three-year program that includes after-school enrichment and a summer institute. More than 400 students have participated in the tuition-free program since 2001. PUPP alumni have a nearly 70 percent graduation rate at a wide range of selective colleges, and one-third enroll in graduate or professional-degree programs after college.

Published in the Oct. 24, 2018, Issue

1 Response

Laurence C. Day ’55

6 Years Ago

Hugin's Values

The contretemps over Bob Hugin '76, elected by the clubby 36-member board of trustees itself for a long eight-year term as a charter trustee, focuses in large measure on his intemperate remarks as a student and as a 30-year-old graduate board member of Tiger Inn, referring to Sally Frank's gender discrimination lawsuit as "politically correct fascism." Then, he was anti-gay and anti-women in the clubs. Now running for the New Jersey Senate seat, he apologizes for his position way back in his grownup maturity when called out by his incumbent opponent Bob Menendez and says people can change their hardline and wrong-headed views.

Running for the Senate, Republicans nationwide have prominently displayed the character of chameleons, changing politically charged positions (health-care pre-conditions, anyone?) in a desperate expediency to lure voters as fast as these fish go dark and light. But tigers don't change their stripes. The inscrutable irony of his equating fascism with the Frank's lawsuit is that Hugin is Trump's man. Hugin would doubtless never condemn these congressional Republicans genuflecting and bowing to the new elite Radical Party led by Trump, calling him an American fascist. Though his president displays in words and actions all the earmarks of dictator Mussolini.

President Eisgruber hails Hugin in high esteem as one who brings unity to the Princeton community. Let's remember which closely knit group chose Eisgruber as president of Princeton, the trustees. He may not claim he is too beholden to their questionable views, but then again? Yet Eisgruber is one who stands up for his personal values. Now he is tested to stand up for true Princeton liberal values as he writes and speaks. Hugin does not reflect those inclusive values, words of late politically driven contrition notwithstanding.

It appears this former CEO of the Celgene biopharmaceutical titan was elected primarily as a charter trustee for his ability to raise money, pure and simple. The unity Eisgruber means is hitting up Republican alumni to give heavily to the Aspire campaign. The trustees are overloaded with those types, even weighed down with too many in the financial casino game. After Hugin loses or sneaks a Senate bid win, he would be more respected and humble to show his new-found emotional and intellectual maturity to resign as a Princeton trustee as too busy now, and volunteer for the MeToo movement, Common Cause, and People for the American Way. That would show what his liberal-arts education really means. Then reapply to be challenged by a full vote to be alumni trustee.