In response to: General Letters to the Magazine
Current issue
November 2024
Princetonians lead think tanks; the perfect football season of 1964; Nobel in physics.
Princetonians lead think tanks; the perfect football season of 1964; Nobel in physics.
We are 11 graduate school alumni (1967-68 MPAs) who have spent 16 months expressing concern over the standing and strategic direction of the School of Public and International Affairs. We have underscored three main concerns to Princeton’s leadership and made suggestions for addressing them.
First, we have flagged the decline in the school’s perceived standing since its preeminence in our day. U.S. News & World Report, which ranks Princeton as the top U.S. national university, ranks the SPIA 9th among graduate schools of public affairs. We have suggested sharpening the SPIA focus on U.S. policy and implementation as the surest way to build competitive advantage.
Second, we have questioned the value of increasing international student capacity at the cost of expanding the homegrown pool of U.S. public service talent. We have suggested prioritizing national challenges, especially improving the performance of the public sector, since doing so is the foundation of U.S. global leadership.
Third, we have urged a sharper focus on learning from skilled practitioners as well as scholars to equip degree holders to take on both policy and management challenges. We have suggested increasing access to practitioners through term appointments.
Our views took shape in response to a request from the SPIA dean in June 2023 to provide input into the strategic initiative that the school was framing. We had little difficulty reaching a consensus. We are all pragmatists committed to the SPIA who have kept in regular touch for years. We have decades of public sector, nonprofit, and private sector experience.
Our interest led to an amiable Zoom call with Dean Amaney Jamal in November 2023, a follow-up conversation with a strategic messaging group, and a joint letter to President Eisgruber ’83 and the dean in September 2024. The President’s full-page reply highlighted the outstanding scholarship of the SPIA faculty (a concern we never raised) and endorsed current SPIA priorities.
Princeton’s leadership has not ignored us, but also has not engaged us on the substance of our concerns and suggestions. Since the new SPIA branding video welcomes alumni engagement, we hope others will join us in trying to make that engagement happen around the future of the SPIA.
Alumni interested in further discussion should contact John Yochelson (johnyochelson@me.com).