Selecting a new president

Like many Princetonians, I regret but appreciate President Tilghman’s decision to relinquish her office. All of us owe her a debt of gratitude for her stellar leadership.

But a paradox in the Nov. 14 PAW struck me. I note that the search committee for President Tilghman’s successor includes only two persons with connections to the graduate school, one who is a faculty representative and the other the president of the graduate-student association. Not much of a voice at all, it would seem.

At the same time, news briefs in the issue trumpeted an upcoming conference to celebrate the Graduate College’s centennial and a literary event for graduate alumni at a dinner in New York City, hardly the center of the universe at least for those graduate alumni whose academic careers scatter them across the country. Of course, the University regularly solicits graduate alumni for donations, and in the last few years encouraged us to walk in the P-rade.

It appears that graduate alumni matter when the University wishes to showcase who we are and what we have done and seek our support, but otherwise would consign us to the back of the bus. I applaud Princeton’s commitment to undergraduate education, but sending such conflicting images of its graduate-school endeavors seems unfortunate indeed.