Shirley M. Tilghman - Presidency

Presidency

Tilghman succeeded Harold Tafler Shapiro and became the 19th President of Princeton University in 2001. She was elected Princeton's first woman president on May 5, 2001, and assumed office on June 15, 2001. Under her administration, the University built a sixth residential college, named in honor of alumna Meg Whitman, to accommodate an 11 percent expansion of the undergraduate student body (an increase of some 500 students), as recommended by a special committee of the Board of Trustees chaired by Paul M. Wythes. Recently, however, Tilghman announced that she will be stepping down from her presidency in June of 2013.

The establishment of Whitman College, together with the reconstruction of Butler College, accompanied a significant reconfiguration of Princeton’s residential college system, which now incorporates upperclassmen as well as freshmen and sophomores, providing new residential options and increasing opportunities for social interaction across the student body. In addition, an effort has been made to strengthen the relationship between the university and Princeton’s independent eating clubs, where most upperclassmen take their meals, with the goal of enhancing the undergraduate experience of all students. In 2009, she appointed a committee chaired by Nannerl O. Keohane to review undergraduate women's leadership at Princeton.

Tilghman has presided over a number of academic initiatives, including the creation of a Center for African American Studies, the Lewis Center for the Arts (after alumnus Peter B. Lewis), the Princeton Neuroscience Institute and the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment (after alumnus Gerhard R. Andlinger). Along with the renewal of the Department of Chemistry, these steps have both capitalized on Princeton’s existing strengths and broken new ground, ensuring that the university will, in Tilghman’s words, continue “to make the world a better place through the power of the mind and the imagination.”

More broadly, Tilghman’s presidency has placed an emphasis on increasing the diversity of Princeton’s faculty and students; widening access to the university through improvements to its generous financial aid program and the elimination of admission through “early decision”; fostering a multidisciplinary approach to teaching and research; and strengthening the university’s international perspective through a wide range of initiatives – from the Global Scholars Program, which brings international scholars to campus on a recurring basis, to the Bridge Year Program, which gives incoming freshmen an opportunity to defer their studies for a year in order to devote themselves to public service overseas.

For Tilghman, Princeton has two essential missions. “One is to ensure that our doors are open as wide as possible to every talented student in the world who is capable of doing the hard work we ask of them. And that means maintaining our commitment to financial aid, which is the tool – the critical tool – to get those students to Princeton. And the second thing is that we must address the most critical issues, and push back the frontiers of knowledge, and not just in science and technology, but in social policy, and in public policy, and in understanding the nature of the human condition.”

Although President Tilghman has been accused of favoring women in her hiring practices, in fact, most of her appointees have been men. The women she has hired to senior positions include Amy Gutmann (who was chosen as the President of the University of Pennsylvania in early 2004) as Provost, the second-most-powerful administrative position in the University, Anne-Marie Slaughter as Dean of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs as well as her successor Christina Paxson, Maria Klawe as Dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science (chosen as the President of Harvey Mudd College in 2006), and Janet Lavin Rapelye as the Dean of Admission. Prominent men she has appointed include Charles Kalmbach as the Senior Vice President for Administration, the highest non-academic administrative post, David P. Dobkin as Dean of the Faculty, Gutmann's replacement Christopher L. Eisgruber, and Klawe's replacement H. Vincent Poor.

Tilghman also signed on to the Ivy League-wide Seven-week athletic moratorium, in which intercollegiate athletes were enjoined from taking part in supervised practices and other obligatory athletic activities for seven weeks during the academic year in order to encourage them to participate in other activities. Supporters of the proposal pointed to studies by former Princeton president William G. Bowen, whose book The Game of Life described the widespread academic underperformance of college athletes. Detractors claimed that it represented an encroachment on students' freedom to use their time as they saw fit.

While Tilghman has disquieted some alumni by promoting a more diverse university community, establishing a single admission process, and broadening the range of residential and dining options available to students, she has also found strong support for these actions and the vision that underpins them.

On September 21st, 2012, Shirley informed the Princeton Board of Trustees that she plans to step down as the 19th President of Princeton University at the end of the 2012 academic year.