E. Alden Dunham III ’53

Alden died Sept. 26, 2015, of complications resulting from a broken hip and Parkinson’s disease.

Alden was born in Glen Ridge, N.J., and prepared for Princeton at Montclair Academy. At Princeton, he was a member of Cap and Gown and won the Wanamaker English Language Prize.

After graduating as a member of Phi Beta Kappa from Princeton, Dunham spent three years as an officer in the Navy before earning a master’s degree from Harvard and a doctorate from Columbia. He worked for James B. Conant, former president of Harvard, from 1957 to 1961, and then served as director of admission at Princeton during the civil-rights era, from 1962 to 1966. Dunham was both reviled and revered as he worked to transform the admissions system, expanding admission of minority and public school students in pursuit of “the well-rounded class rather than the well-rounded individual.”

Dunham continued to work for educational reform during his 25 years with the Carnegie Corp. of New York. He wrote a study of state colleges and regional universities that won the 1970 American Council on Education Borden Book of the Year award.

Alden is survived by his wife, Laura; children Ed, Ellen ’80, Carroll ’85, and Rob ’88; six grandchildren; and one great-grandchild.