I read with great interest the June 5 issue of PAW. Congratulations for putting together this issue giving a fond farewell to President Tilghman.
Her 12 years as president are justly celebrated for advancements in the arts, the architecture on campus, diversity, life sciences, student life, etc., as the titles of the articles made clear. However, I do feel the need to point out that in the realm of international expansion and raising the University’s international profile, the University has fallen short during her presidency.
Harvard and Yale, the two institutions that we most often are compared with, have been much more proactive in recent years. By way of example, Harvard now has a sizable research and teaching center in Shanghai that is fully operational. Yale has a joint venture in Singapore with the National University of Singapore that will admit its first freshman class in 2014.
Compared to what they have done, our global initiatives such as Global Seminars, semesters abroad, and expanded language programs (as mentioned in PAW) appear paltry and conventional. I would like to highlight this point in the hope that we will do a lot more in the international realm under President Eisgruber ’83.