I have been reading PAW avidly since it was slipped under my dorm room’s door. I have always valued PAW’s editorial independence. Unlike many other Princeton publications, it has not been obliged to toe the party line. I recognized and appreciated this right from the start.
This independence seems like it could be severely compromised by the plan sketched in your letter. Under that plan, the University administration would have a much more direct role in guiding PAW. My own experience as an academic has made me suspicious about this kind of oversight. My own university’s counterpart to PAW is also editorially independent, which I value very much. It’s certainly no bomb-thrower, but it has evidently found a way to assure its editorial independence. I hope that PAW is able to find some way to do so as well.