September 11, 2002: Notebook

FACULTY FILE
Nonprofit nexus

Admission office investigated
Staff disciplined and director reassigned

Princeton sued by Robertsons

New editor for PAW named

Madam president at one year
Before pronouncing on Princeton’s future, Tilghman is reflecting on what she’s learned

Second highest Annual Giving

9/11 remembered

New dean of engineering hired

IN brief

FACULTY FILE

Photo: Princeton Communications

Professor Julian Wolpert found that New York City’s nonprofit sector, while not carrying the luster that the financial and technological industries do, was a major cog in the city’s economic engine during the last decade.

Employment levels in the nonprofit field grew at 25 percent, compared to 4 percent for the city as a whole. That growth made the sector, which includes hospitals, universities, cultural institutions, and social service organizations, the fastest growing source of jobs in the city, according to a new study by Wolpert and others.

“We were very surprised. The study was motivated by the notion that the nonprofit sector is not widely known and not widely appreciated. The findings go well beyond what we expected,” says Wolpert, who arrived at Princeton in 1973 and is the Henry G. Bryant Professor of Geography, Public Affairs, and Urban Planning at the Woodrow Wilson School. He also chairs the urban and regional planning program.

Wolpert’s two-year study also revealed that nonprofit organizations accounted for one in seven city jobs, or 14 percent of the labor force, and pumped more than $43 billion into New York City’s economy in 2000.

For nearly 20 years Wolpert has focused his research on the nonprofit sector and philanthropy and has written on such topics as location theory, the provision and delivery of public and nonprofit services, urban development, and environmental policy.

Wolpert taught a course entitled “The American City” last spring at the Woodrow Wilson School and is set to teach an undergraduate course on geography and public affairs and a graduate-level class on planning theory and process this year.

By A.D.

Admission office investigated

Caption: The admission office problem prompted editorial cartoons, such as this one, which appeared in area newspapers.

Summertime at Princeton and its admission office is usually a peaceful time. This year, however, the discovery of unauthorized uses of applicants’ personal information to access a Yale University Web site in early April splintered that peace, putting Princeton on the ugly end of a media frenzy.

On August 13 President Tilghman held a press conference to describe what an internal investigation by a former federal prosecutor had discovered about why admission office staffers accessed, 14 times, a Yale Web site designed to let its applicants know if they had been accepted.

Many of the facts of what some media outlets called “Ivygate” were already known before Tilghman spoke:

• Eight students’ names, birth dates, and social security numbers were used to access Yale’s online notification system.

• Yale learned about the breach of its Web site after Princeton’s Stephen LeMenager, the associate dean and director of admission, mentioned getting onto the site during an Ivy League admission officers meeting in May.

• Yale investigated the breaches and turned its information over to the FBI and Connecticut police, who continue to investigate the case.

• Tilghman learned of the incidents after Yale President Richard Levin called her on July 24, the day before the Yale Daily News was about to break the story on its Web site.

• The university apologized to the students involved and LeMenager was immediately put on paid administrative leave pending the internal investigation.

What was not known was the motivation behind the entries and what the university was going to do with LeMenager, who had worked his way up to second in command after nearly 20 years, and Dean of Admission Fred Hargadon, who headed the office for the last 14 years and had not made any public comments on the matter since the story broke.

As she read from a five-page statement, Tilghman explained how LeMenager was the first to enter the Yale Web site on April 3, just hours after Princeton mailed out admission letters to the Class of 2006. She said LeMenager accessed the site to check its security because Princeton was considering a similar system, just as LeMenager had told a Yale student reporter three weeks earlier.

LeMenager was “surprised” there were no extra security measures and told Hargadon and other members of the staff about his discovery. (The lack of security on the site also made Yale the target of bad press.)

During the next hour, LeMenager demonstrated the site three more times, using two more applicants’ names and confidential information. Eventually several staffers entered the site that day. More unauthorized entries were recorded on April 5 and April 15.

Despite allegations of Ivy League competition for students run amok, the investigation revealed that the integrity of last spring’s admission process had not been affected and that “simple curiosity” was the only motivator for the online entries, Tilghman said.

But she went on to announce that LeMenager had been removed from his position and that Hargadon would be retiring once he completes his term in June 2003. “I think that the actions that were taken by our admission staff were breaches of ethical behavior and breaches of confidentiality,” said Tilghman.

Hargadon was retiring in June regardless of the revelations, but considering the circumstances, Tilghman said, it was important to announce it now.

In his own written statement, Hargadon said he was “ultimately responsible for the manner in which we conduct the university’s admission process and the manner in which all members of the admission office staff conduct themselves in the course of that process” and pledged to restore the integrity of his office. A search for his replacement begins in the fall.

LeMenager is now working in the university’s office of communications and will be there until an administrative position “commensurate with his considerable talents and experience” is found, Tilghman said.

The members of the 30-person admission office who either entered the Yale Web site or were aware that the site was being entered were also disciplined and will be going though a training program on their responsibilities when it comes to privacy and confidentiality. Tilghman would not say how many staffers were involved or what their discipline entailed.

Yale’s president said he was impressed with Princeton’s handling of the situation.

Princeton officials will now be reviewing university policies and practices on privacy and the security of data. Last spring, the university approved the creation of a new position, Information Technology Security Officer, and applications for that post are currently being reviewed.

By A.D.

PAW ONLINE: For a more detailed version of this story click here. On WEB EXCLUSIVES: Q&A with Professor Peter Singer on Internet ethics.

Relatives of Charles Robertson ’26 and his wife, Marie — the couple who anonymously donated $35 million in 1961 to set up the Robertson Foundation, which funds the Woodrow Wilson School — are suing Princeton for what they called the university’s “betrayal of the Robertson family’s trust” and its failure to fulfill the foundation’s mission of training government servants in international affairs.

The lawsuit, filed on July 17 in New Jersey, accuses university-appointed trustees on the board that oversees the Robertson Foundation with developing “a scheme to transfer control of the investment of the foundation’s assets to the Princeton University Investment Company, Princo, and to commingle the foundation’s assets with the university endowment.” Princo manages Princeton’s endowment.

The defendants named in the lawsuit are Princeton University, President Tilghman, John Sherrerd ’52, Peter Wendell ’72, John Kenefick ’43, and the Robertson Foundation. Tilghman, Wendell, a university trustee and a director of Princo, and Sherrerd and Kenefick, both university trustees, emeriti, are all members of the foundation’s board.

The board also includes three Robertson family members: Charles and Marie’s son William Robertson, his cousin Robert Halligan *73, who earned his degree from WWS, and Katherine Ernst.

University officials would not comment on the litigation. But according to a statement they issued after the lawsuit was filed, the volunteer investment committee of the foundation’s board has recommended adding a layer of professional, day-to-day management of its $550-million endowment and is only evaluating options, including Princo, in that regard.

“There is no proposal to commingle funds of the Robertson endowment with the university’s general endowment. Nor is there a proposal to disband the three-member investment committee,” read the statement.

If they win the lawsuit, the family members plan to seek another school to carry out the foundation’s mission.

By A.D.

New editor for PAW named

Photo: Denise Applewhite

Marilyn Marks *86, a veteran journalist with expertise in covering education, has been named editor of PAW, the magazine’s board announced. She will begin later this month.

Marks, who earned a master’s degree in public affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School, has been the university’s director of media relations and its principal spokesperson for the past two years. Before that, she held other jobs in journalism and communications, chiefly as a reporter at the Miami Herald, where she won awards for education coverage.

“The PAW board is thrilled that Marilyn will be returning to her first love of journalism, after earning the trust of reporters and university officials alike in her current job,” said the board’s chair, Todd S. Purdum ’82, chief diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times. “We have high confidence that her experience, independence, and integrity will serve her well in her new role editing an independent publication for and about the Princeton alumni family.”

“As a graduate alum,” Purdum added, “Marilyn will bring a special understanding to PAW’s coverage of the Princeton faculty’s pioneering research in a host of fields, and to the life of the mind in the university community.”

Marks earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism and sociology, summa cum laude, from Syracuse University in 1981, and has also worked as a journalist at the St. Petersburg Times and the Jerusalem Post, among other publications, and has freelanced for numerous newspapers and magazines.

Photo: At her first Reunions as president, President Tilghman waves to reuners along the P-rade route. (Ricardo Barros)

After just a year at the helm, Shirley M. Tilghman has already started leaving her mark on Princeton. A hands-on administrator, she has spent many hours actively listening to faculty, students, and alumni. She’s been visible not only on the front page of the New York Times but also out and about campus: attending lectures, student performances, and community meetings. At the same time, she’s assembled a team of senior-level faculty and administrators to help her lead the university in the years ahead.

She’s also had to battle recent fires — a lawsuit filed by the son of the late Charles S. Robertson ’26 who wants the money back that his father donated to endow the Woodrow Wilson School, and allegations that staff in the Office of Admission hacked their way into Yale’s Web site restricted to applicants.

What has surprised her the most about her new job, she says, has been “how much I have enjoyed it” — the intellectual stimulation and finding ways to “make things happen for other people.”

The press has paid the new president a lot of attention for appointing women to several top posts, including provost, dean of the Woodrow Wilson School, and dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science. “I have been taken by surprise at how surprised people have been about this. I did not set out to appoint women. What I certainly did was put very good women on search committees with the expectation that they would have their eyes wide open for good women candidates. . . . My goal in this . . . is to reach a place where no one notices the gender of a new appointment.”

One thing she’s had to figure out is “when I need to drill down into a problem and really understand the details” and when to let other people “take the responsibility of doing the drilling down. . . . In science . . . you always drill down. . . . In administration, it’s not possible.”

Ever the scientist, Tilghman says she’s not ready to make large pronouncements about Princeton’s long-term future. Last year she learned as much as she could about the university. “And what I’m spending the summer doing is reflecting on what I’ve learned,” she said during an interview in July. But she does see Princeton helping all of higher education “to think about the ingredients of a great education in the new technological world. I don’t think there is a university in this country that has truly a clear vision of how technology is going to transform the process of education.”

More immediate plans for the university, says Tilghman, include examining the recommendations from a report to be prepared this fall from the Task Force on the Hiring and Retention of Women in Science and Engineering, and determining how to “structure the study of other countries — international relations broadly construed,” she says. That is, how to integrate the work of faculty who study particular countries with that of those who study broad issues, such as diplomacy. The events of September 11 “created a sense of urgency — that we do something about it this year and not next year or the year after.”

Other areas Tilghman intends to address include encouraging students to distribute more evenly across the curriculum so they don’t clump up in the chronically populated departments like economics, English, and history; getting rid of academic programs “that are clearly moribund”; and making sure junior faculty members are allowed to blossom.

Even with the extraordinary demands on her time, Tilghman continues to teach and spend Fridays in her lab, to keep up her Sunday-morning tennis game, and even to mentor Hasina Outtz ’04 through the Mellon Fellowship Program that encourages minority undergraduates to pursue a career in teaching or research.

By all accounts, Tilghman has earned the respect and admiration of almost everyone she meets. “I don’t know of anyone who dislikes President Tilghman,” says Nina Langsam ’03, president of the USG. “She is a very warm and friendly person, and she truly cares about everyone in the university community.” The first female USG president in more than a decade, Langsam credits Tilghman’s presence for helping her win the election. “Students seem to have accepted that women can hold top leadership positions.”

Most words Tilghman utters about her new post are along the lines of exciting, exhilarating, and delighted. But she admits there is one thing she has found “annoying”: “There are occasions when I find myself in a meeting where I get impatient, where I feel as though it’s been poorly organized or we’re not getting to the point. And I’m so conscious of the value of my time that I find myself getting irritated. . . . I was like that before I became president — it’s just that now every minute counts.”

By K.F.G.

PAW ONLINE: For a Q&A with President Tilghman, click here.

Princeton’s 2001—02 Annual Giving campaign reached its second highest total ever, but for the first time since 1996 the campaign did not top the previous year’s total.

After six straight record-breaking years, contributions to the campaign totaled $36.4 million, nearly $300,000 less than last year’s record high. About 58.3 percent of all undergraduate alumni participated this year, compared to 59.4 last year.

Considering the financial climate created by a longer-than-expected recession, the September 11 terrorist attacks, and the summer’s stock market plunge, university officials were pleased with the results.

“Under the circumstances everybody was proud of these results and should be,” said Bill Hardt ’63, director of Annual Giving. “These are good results under tough conditions.”

A major highlight of the campaign was the Class of 1952 becoming the first ever to surpass the $6-million mark. About 83 percent of the 50th reunion class participated and raised $6,047,713.

The Class of 1997 also set a record for a fifth reunion, raising $192,711, with a participation rate of 61.3 percent. Along with the Class of 1997, the Classes of 2001 and 1998 also had participation rates of more than 60 percent.

Other statistics:

The Class of 1931, with 33 members, reached 100 percent participation.

The Class of 1932 set a 70th-reunion record, bringing in $177,141.

The Class of 1963, which raised $551,063, broke its own record for a non-major reunion.

The Class of 1942’s participation rate of 84.3 percent was the highest among major reunion classes.

The Class of 1939 surpassed the 90 percent mark for the 11th consecutive year.

Photos from left to right: Robert Cruikshank ’58, Robert McIlvaine ’97, Buff Wohlforth ’76

Memorial funds established to honor the 13 Princeton alumni who died in September 11’s terrorist attacks have received nearly $500,000 in donations from families, classmates, and friends in the first 12 months since the tragedy.

Two endowed scholarships and an annual award have already been created as tributes to three of the alumni: The Robert L. Cruikshank ’58 Scholarship, the Robert G. McIlvaine ’97 Scholarship, and the Martin P. “Buff” Wohlforth ’76 Memorial Award. All three awards were distributed this past year.

The Cruikshank scholarship went to Scott Farrell ’02, a member of the lacrosse team and a former Merrill Lynch intern who spent last summer working in the shadows of the World Trade Center near to where Cruikshank worked. The McIlvaine scholarship was awarded to Eric Bland ’02, an English major who also earned a certificate in theater and dance. The Wohlforth Memorial Award went to golfers James Milam ’02 and Avery Kiser ’05 via Princeton’s Friends of Golf. The award will go annually to the male and female golfers who demonstrate the most leadership, integrity, and ability in contributing to the golf program.

The university continues to develop plans for future memorials with the other families. Plans for a memorial garden have moved forward with a proposed location, but several other aspects of the project remain unresolved.

Maria Klawe, a computer scientist and dean of science at the University of British Columbia, has been named dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Science, effective January 1, 2003. She succeeds James Wei, who stepped down June 30 to return to full-time teaching and research after 11 years in the post. James Sturm, a professor of electrical engineering and director of the Center for Photonics and Opto-Electronic Materials, will serve as interim dean through December.

Klawe has been a leader in both academia and industry. She has held faculty positions in mathematics and computer science at Oakland University in Michigan and the University of Toronto in Canada, and later joined the IBM Almaden Research Center in California. After eight years at IBM, she returned to academia in 1988.

In addition to forming more ties among its own disciplines, said Klawe, Princeton’s engineering school has the opportunity to interact more closely with the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. “In so many ways,” she said, “the current issues that need to be addressed require perspectives not just from different engineering disciplines, but from other communities of disciplines.

“Technology plays a huge role in our society today, a fact that will become increasingly more important in coming decades. Leaders of the future need a good understanding of the potential benefits and pitfalls of technology,” she said. Klawe’s husband, Nick Pippenger, who holds a Canada Research Chair in Computer Science at the University of British Columbia, also will be coming to Princeton in the summer of 2003 as a computer science professor.

 

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William B. Russel, a longtime faculty member in chemical engineering, has succeeded John Wilson as dean of the Graduate School. Wilson had served as dean since 1994.

Trevor Leitch ’02, an economics major, was awarded a Rhodes scholarship. He plans to study philosophy, politics, and economics at Wadham College while at Oxford. A resident of Bermuda, Leitch has served as the captain of Bermuda’s National Debate Team. Lillian Pierce ’02 and Katherine Buzicky ’02 are also Rhodes scholars.

Robert Palmer, a longtime faculty member of the history department, died June 11 at his home in Newtown, Pennsylvania; he was 93. He first came to Princeton in 1936, but left to work for the War Department during World War II. He returned to Princeton, where he worked for two decades before relocating to Washington University in St. Louis. Known professionally as R. R. Palmer, he wrote several books, including one that was widely used as a high school textbook for years and the award-winning Age of the Democratic Revolution (1959).

Ten students at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City have been selected as the first recipients of the Justice Scholarship, which was established by the university in February to honor the memory of the public service heroes of the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center who received academic training at John Jay College. The Justice Scholarship is one of several programs that Princeton created with a $1-million commitment to assist individuals most directly affected by the attacks.