To begin the discussion of Princeton’s most influential
alumni, PAW prepared this list for consideration by our faculty-alumni
panel. We obtained names from many University sources, and solicited
input from the panelists, department chairmen, the University archivist,
and other experts on the alumni community. Nonetheless, we no doubt
left some important names off the list; we would welcome hearing
from readers. Write to us at paw@princeton.edu
Government / public
affairs
1. Samuel Alito ’72 – Current Supreme Court justice;
his appointment changed the balance of the Court and has led to
5-4 decisions on key issues such as school desegregation and abortion.
2. R.W. “Johnny” Apple ’57 – Famed New
York Times correspondent. In 40 years, he war, politics, and food
and drink. He led The Times’ coverage of the Vietnam War,
the Persian Gulf, and the Iranian revolution.
3. Norman Armour ’09 *15 – U.S. diplomat, served in
France, revolutionary Russia (1916-19), fascist Spain (1924), post-revolutionary
Chile (1938), and elsewhere. The New York Times called him the “ideal”
diplomat.
4. Hamilton F. Armstrong ’16 – Founding editor of
Foreign Affairs, an important American journal on international
relations.
5. N. Lloyd Axworthy *72 – The former Canadian foreign minister,
he campaigned against the use of child soldiers and the international
trade of light weapons. He also brokered the Ottawa Treaty, an international
agreement that banned anti-personnel land mines, for which he was
nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.
6. James Baker ’52 – Former secretary of state, treasury
secretary, and White House chief of staff, and chairman of the Iraq
Study Group.
7. Peter Bell *64 – Former President and CEO of CARE, the
international antipoverty organization.
8. Moe Berg ’23 – Professional baseball player who
later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during
World War II; his intelligence work led to the bombing of an atomic
research facility and to the capture of several German atomic scientists
who also were wanted by the Russians.
9. Frances Preston Blair 1841 – A politician who opposed
the extension of slavery (despite the fact that he was a slave owner)
and secession, Blair was active in the Missouri Free-Soil Party.
He campaigned for Abraham Lincoln in the 1960 Presidential election,
served as a general during the Civil War, and was nominated as the
Democratic candidate for vice president in 1868. Historians say
that he helped ensure that Missouri did not join the Confederacy.
10. William Bradford 1772 – A Princeton buddy of James Madison
and Aaron Burr, Bradford served as a colonel in the Continental
Army during the Revolutionary War. He served as U.S. attorney general
from 1774 until his death in 1795.
11. Bill Bradley ’65 - Hall of Fame basketball player, Rhodes
scholar, former U.S. senator from New Jersey, and presidential candidate
who challenged Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic Party’s
nomination in the 2000 election,
12. Aaron Burr 1772 –Served as vice president of the United
States before he mortally wounded Alexander Hamilton in a duel.
13. Frank Carlucci ’52 – Secretary of defense for
14 months under President Reagan after holding positions in the
state department, Office of Economic Opportunity (director), Office
of Management and Budget (deputy director), Health, Education, and
Welfare (under secretary), and the CIA (deputy director).
14. W. Hodding Carter III ’57 –Journalist and civil
rights activist. Helped run the Delta-Democrat Times, a Mississippi
newspaper owned by his family that was known for its support of
racial tolerance. Helped organize a biracial delegation to the 1968
Democratic National Convention to unseat the all-white segregationist
Mississippi delegation. Served as assistant secretary of state for
public affairs during the Iran hostage crisis.
15. William Colby ’40 – CIA director from 1973-1976,
after spending several years in the field in Sweden, Italy, and
Vietnam. In Vietnam, he headed the U.S./South Vietnamese rural pacification
effort, an attempt to quell the Communist insurgency in the South.
This initiative included the controversial Phoenix Program, designed
to identify and attack Viet Cong infrastructure. It is alleged to
have involved assassination and torture, but many argue that it
successfully reduced the level of insurgent strength in South Vietnam.
16. Julius Coles *66 – President of Africare, a nonprofit
organization that provides humanitarian aid in Africa. Spent 28
years as senior official with the U.S. Agency for International
Development.
17. William Crowe, Jr. *65 – During his 47-year career in
the Navy, Crowe served as a commander in several regions and, from
1985-1989, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. From 1993-94,
he chaired the President’s Foreign Intelligence Board.
18. George Mifflin Dallas 1810 – Dallas was a U.S. senator
from Pennsylvania and the 11th vice president of the U.S., under
James K. Polk. In gratitude for his support for the annexation of
Texas, the city of Dallas was named for him in 1846. Ambassador
to Great Britain from 1856 to 1860 under President James Buchanan.
19. John Danforth ’58 – U.S. senator from Missouri
for 18 years, special counsel to investigate the federal raid at
Waco, Texas, and representative to the U.N. Was appointed special
envoy to Sudan in 2001 for peace talks there. Currently writing
about the dangers of the rise of the religious right in politics.
20. Price Day ’29 – A writer for the Baltimore Sun,
Day won the 1949 Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for
his coverage of India’s first year of independence. He also
covered the Potsdam conference and the Nuremberg trials. He later
became editor of the Sun, and he is credited with the paper’s
strong stance in support of civil rights and against corruption.
21. William L. Dayton 1825 – U.S. senator; minister to France
during most of the Civil War; convinced the government of Napoleon
III not to recognize the independence of the Confederacy or allow
it the use of French ports.
22. John Doar ’44 – Assistant attorney general in
the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice from 1960
to 1967, the critical years of the civil rights movement. He successfully
prosecuted several civil rights violations and race-motivated murders
during this period, and he helped draft the Civil Rights Act of
1965. Also served as special counsel to the House of Representatives
for President Nixon’s impeachment proceedings.
23. Allen Dulles *16 – Director of the CIA from 1953-1961.
During this period, the CIA overthrew the governments of governments
in Iran and Guatemala, and was embarrassed by the downing of a U-2
spy plane over the Soviet Union. Dulles was implicated in the failure
of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in April 1961, and he resigned
that autumn.
24. John Foster Dulles ’08 – Secretary of state under
President Eisenhower and architect of several critical foreign policies
during the Cold War period. Helped to prepare the United Nations
charter, and played crucial roles in the development of the South
East Asia Treaty Organization and the Central Treaty Organization
(CENTO, which united Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and Pakistan in a defense
organization). Strongly advocated the principle of nuclear deterrence.
25. Oliver Ellsworth 1766 – The third chief justice of the
U.S. Supreme Court. Member of the Continental Congress and a delegate
to the federal Constitutional Convention, where he brokered the
Connecticut Compromise that broke the deadlock between the large
states (represented by Princetonian James Madison) and the small
states (represented by Princetonian William Paterson). As a U.S.
senator, he drafted the Judiciary Act of 1789, which established
the court system that continues to exist today.
26. James Forrestal ’15 – Served as secretary of the
Navy and, after the National Security Act of 1947 was passed, as
the first secretary of defense. As Navy secretary, he directed a
naval expansion and procurement program during WWII. As defense
secretary, he initiated a reorganization of the U.S. armed services.
27. William Frist ’74 – A physician and former U.S.
senator from Tennessee who served as Senate majority leader from
2003-2007. At Princeton, he and other family members donated the
Frist Campus Center, and he is teaching Princeton students about
health-care policy during the 2007-08 academic year as a member
of the Woodrow Wilson School faculty.
28. Barton Gellman ’82 – Washington Post reporter
who shared the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in national reporting for coverage
of the war on terrorism. Gellman contributed an important piece
about failed efforts to catch Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks,
and he subsequently broke stories about the intelligence reports
that led up to the war in Iraq.
29. Andrew Goodpaster *50 – NATO Supreme Allied Commander
in Europe, commander in chief of the United States European Command,
and the 51st superintendent of the United States Military Academy
at West Point.
30. Lisa Halaby ’73 – Queen Noor of Jordan. Involved
in numerous humanitarian efforts, including United World Colleges,
the United Nations University International Leadership Academy,
the Landmine Survivors Network, Women Waging Peace, Seeds of Peace,
the International Campaign to Ban Landmines, the Aspen Institute,
the World Wildlife Fund International, Refugees International, and
the International Commission on Missing Persons.
31. Keith Hansen *87 – Responsible for overseeing the World
Bank’s AIDS initiatives in Africa.
32. Richard Holbrooke *70 (one year as fellow at the WWS) –
Assistant secretary of state; brokered a peace agreement among the
warring factions in Bosnia that eventually led to the signing of
the Dayton Peace Accords in 1995.
33. William Johnson Jr. 1790 – An associate justice of the
U.S. Supreme Court from 1804 until his death in 1834. His independence
earned him historical distinction as the “first dissenter”;
in many cases, he was the only one on the Marshall court. He wrote
34 minority opinions, far more than his contemporaries on the court.
34. Nicholas Katzenbach ’43 – Attorney general in
the Johnson administration. Key person behind the Warren Commission,
which investigated President Kennedy’s assassination. He was
active in several Justice Department civil rights initiatives, including
the desegregation of the University of Mississippi in 1962, the
desegregation of the University of Alabama in 1963, and the passage
of the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
35. Thomas Kean ’57 – New Jersey governor and co-chairman
of the 9/11 Commission, which ultimately concluded that the Sept.
11, 2001, terror attacks were preventable.
36. George Kennan ’25 – U.S. diplomat during the Cold
War. Responsible for articulating the containment strategy, among
other policies, and helped George Marshall draft the Marshall Plan
to rebuild post-War Europe.
37. Wendy Kopp ’89 – Founder of Teach for America,
one of the most popular and influential public-service programs
today; author of a book on the state of education.
38. Henry Labouisse ’26 – President of UNICEF from
1965-1979. During his leadership, the organization was awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts in community-based health, nutrition,
education, water, and sanitation issues.
39. W. Anthony K. Lake *74 – National security adviser under
President Clinton, when he helped to formulate U.S. policy toward
Bosnia, North Korea, Haiti, Iraq, Somalia, and China. During the
Nixon administration, he accompanied Henry Kissinger, then the national
security adviser, for the first secret meeting with North Vietnamese
negotiators in Paris.
40. James M. Landis ’21 – New Deal lawyer who served
as adviser to three U.S. presidents and as dean of the Harvard law
school. Called the “dean of the regulators” by a biographer.
41. Edward Livingston 1781 – A prominent American jurist
and statesman, he was influential in the drafting of the Louisiana
Civil Code of 1825. Represented both New York and Louisiana in Congress,
and served as the U.S. Secretary of State from 1831 to 1833.
42. H. Brockholst Livingston 1774 – Jurist on New York and
then U.S. Supreme Court. By 1791 he emerged as a notable anti-Federalist,
helping carry New York for Jefferson. On the New York court, his
decisions supported emerging capitalism. On the U.S. Supreme Court,
Livingston reverted to Federalism and fell under the sway of Chief
Justice John Marshall; his death in 1823 marked the beginning of
the breakup of Marshall’s influence over the court. (He was
a distant cousin of presidents Bush.)
43. James Madison 1771 – Called the “father of the
Constitution” for his involvement in drafting the document,
Madison later served as the fourth president of the U.S.
44. Harold Medina 1909 – A federal district court judge
in New York, Medina is remembered for hearing a 1949 case in which
11 leaders of the U.S. Communist Party were convicted of plotting
to overthrow the government.
45. Judith Miller *71 – A Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter
for The New York Times, Miller wrote a piece about weapons of mass
destructions in Iraq that was used by administration officials to
justify the invasion. She spent time in jail for contempt of court
for refusing to testify before a federal grand jury investigating
the Valerie Plame CIA leak.
46. Ralph Nader ’55 – Consumer advocate and three-time
presidential candidate (1996, 2000, 2004).
47. Joseph Nye ’58 – A former dean of Harvard’s
Kennedy School of Government (where he expanded the core faculty,
increased financial aid, and created new student programs and fellowships),
Nye has served as assistant secretary of defense for international
security affairs and as chairman of the National Intelligence Council.
With Robert Keohane, Nye developed the influential “neoliberal
model” of international relations (which posits that international
cooperation is possible because states are rational actors that
seek to maximize their gains, and though there are opportunities
for conflicts and cheating, institutions and regimes generally keep
the system in check).
48. John Oakes ’34 – Editor of The New York Times
editorial page from 1961 to 1976. Credited with creating the modern
op-ed page and inspiring The Times’ strong voice. Helped to
make environmental issues a prominent topic both on the page and
in national debates.
49. Don Oberdorfer – A journalist for 38 years, 25 of which
were spent at The Washington Post covering the Nixon White House,
northeast Asia, and U.S. diplomacy. Oberdorfer is also the author
of five books, including an award-winning book about the Tet offensive
and another book about Princeton history.
50. Maurice Pate ’15 – Founded UNICEF in 1947.
51. William Paterson 1763 – A signer of the Constitution
who is best known for helping to shape the legislative branch at
the Constitutional Convention. Later, as an associate justice of
the U.S. Supreme Court, he participated in the landmark Marbury
V. Madison case, which established the court’s power to declare
laws unconstitutional.
52. Claiborne Pell ’40 – A U.S. senator from Rhode
Island from 1961-1997, Pell is responsible for the creation of Pell
Grants, which provide financial aid to low-income U.S. college students,
and the congressional bill that eventually created the National
Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
53. David Petraeus *85 *87 – A general in the United States
Army; commander of U.S. forces in Iraq.
54. Mahlon Pitney 1879 – U.S. congressman from New Jersey,
then associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. He and another
justice wrote a potentially important in-chambers decision (written
when the full court was not in session and an emergency ruling was
required) stemming from a dispute over rebellious presidential electors
who wanted to cast their Electoral College votes for Theodore Roosevelt
instead of William Howard Taft. The justices ruled that in the midst
of an election dispute, if ruling in favor of one side is likely
to cause the same “injury” as ruling for the other side,
the Supreme Court should stay out of the dispute until the state
courts sort things out, and not pick the winner. Some legal scholars
say it might have pertained to Bush v. Gore, had the Gore team brought
it up.
55. Joseph Reed 1757 – A delegate to the Continental Congress,
a signer of the Articles of Confederation, and a governor of Pennsylvania,
Reed was the first to detect the treason of Benedict Arnold. He
tried Arnold despite strong opposition from other members of Congress.
56. Tapping Reeve 1763 – Founded Litchfield Law School,
a leading law school in the 19th century that trained Aaron Burr,
John C. Calhoun, Horace Mann, and Noah Webster.
57. Syngman Rhee *1910 – Controversial first president (and
dictator) of South Korea from 1948 to 1960. He led South Korea through
the Cold War and earned American support for his strong stance against
Communism. He died in exile in Hawaii, after embezzling $20 million
of government money.
58. Anthony Romero ’87 – The first openly homosexual
and first Hispanic to be the executive director of the ACLU. A vocal
critic of Bush administration policies after 9/11.
59. Donald Rumsfeld ’54 – U.S. congressman and ambassador
to NATO before becoming defense secretary for presidents Ford and
George W. Bush. He is blamed for the Bush administration’s
war in Iraq.
60. Paul Sarbanes ’54 – U.S. senator from Maryland
from 1977-2007. Co-authored the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, which
established accounting reforms and investor protections in the wake
of corporate scandals at Enron, Tyco, etc.
61. George Shultz ’42 – Former secretary of state
who was well known for his opposition to the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages
scandal, and support for a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua. Also served
as secretary of the treasury and secretary of labor.
62. Anne-Marie Slaughter ’80 – Dean of the Woodrow
Wilson School, Slaughter is an influential writer on global governance,
international criminal law, and American foreign policy.
63. Eliot Spitzer ’81 – Current governor of NY. Won
national recognition during his eight years as New York state attorney general
for landmark cases protecting investors, consumers, the environment, and low-wage
workers.
64. Adlai Stevenson ’22 – Illinois governor and two-time
Democratic presidential nominee, Stevenson frequently is remembered
for his role as U.S. ambassador to the U.N., serving during the
Cuban missile crisis, when he famously challenged his Soviet counterpart
in the Security Council.
65. Richard Stockton 1748 – Lawyer, jurist, legislator,
and a signer of the Declaration of Independence.
66. Norman Thomas ’05 – Six-time presidential candidate
on the Socialist ticket. Opposed entry of the U.S. into World War
I, associate editor of The Nation, founded the precursor of the
ACLU, and pioneer in campaigning on behalf of minorities, such as
interned Japanese-Americans and Jews fleeing Europe during World
War II.
67. Smith Thompson 1788 – Secretary of the Navy in 1818
and a U.S. Supreme Court associate justice. He was one of the first
to suggest and work for a Naval Academy. On the court (1823-1840),
he contributed to several important decisions but was overshadowed
by John Marshall. He was one of a 4-3 majority that forced Marshall
into his sole constitutional dissent in Ogden v. Saunders (1827),
which involved a New York insolvency law that Thompson believed
was essential for any commercial society. Thompson’s major
role was in interpreting the commerce clause; he believed that states
could regulate commerce unless such acts directly conflicted with
congressional laws. He dissented in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (1831),
writing what some called his finest opinion. The dissent set forth
the concept that Indian tribes are separate sovereigns despite their
conquered position.
68. Abel Upshur 1807 – Secretary of the Navy and state.
He was expelled from Princeton for heckling the president of the
university during a speech. (Ironically, he died aboard the USS
Princeton when one of its guns accidentally exploded during an inaugural
cruise.)
69. Katrina vanden Heuvel ’81 – Editor of The Nation
since 1995, and its publisher since 2005, she is an influential
voice on the left of the political spectrum. She has edited several
books, and she frequently appears as a guest commentator in national
print and television media outlets.
70. Paul Volcker ’49 – chairman of Federal Reserve
Board, 1979-87; ended the stagflation crisis of the 1970s by focusing
on tightening the growth of the money supply rather than targeting
interest rates. Though the policy was successful, it came with a
high cost, particularly in the farm sector, as many family farms
went out of business. Later, Volcker investigated corruption in
the Iraqi Oil for Food Program at the request of the U.N.
71. James M. Wayne 1808 – Associate justice on the U.S.
Supreme Court from 1835-1867. He concurred in the court’s
Dred Scott decision, supporting slavery. At the same time, he was
committed to the preservation of the Union and remained on the bench
through the Civil War, which earned him the contempt of his fellow
Georgians.
72. Murray Weidenbaum *54 *58 – President Reagan’s
first chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1981-2,
helping to formulate supply-side “Reaganomics.”
73. George F. Will *68 – Syndicated columnist (450 newspapers),
contributing columnist for Newsweek and The Washington Post, and
commentator/analyst for ABC. He won a Pulitzer Prize for commentary
in 1977. He writes about politics, law, and social character. Former
Washington editor of The National Review.
74. Woodrow Wilson 1879 – President of Princeton University,
governor of New Jersey, and 28th president of the U.S. during World
War I. Proposed the League of Nations. (You know the rest).
75. John G. Winant ’13 – First head of the Social
Security board, head of the International Labor Office in Geneva,
and U.S. ambassador to Great Britain from 1941-46. He was a strong
advocate of progressive reforms, especially for women and children,
including a minimum wage. As ambassador to Britain, he became an
important adviser to President Roosevelt during the war.
Arts, entertainment,
and culture
1. R.W. “Johnny” Apple ’57 – Famed New
York Times correspondent. In 40 years, he covered war, politics,
and food and drink. He led The Times’ coverage of the Vietnam
War, the Persian Gulf war, and the Iranian revolution.
2. Milton Babbitt *42 *92 – American composer who is particularly
noted for his pioneering serial and electronic music. In 1982, the
Pulitzer Prize board awarded him a “special citation for his
life’s work as a distinguished and seminal American composer.”
3. Hobey Baker ’14 – Led Princeton to a national championship
in football (1911) and two national championships in hockey (1912
and 1914) before enlisting in the U.S. Army as a pilot in 1917.
Baker was immortalized in classmate F. Scott Fitzgerald ’17’s
literature, the Princeton hockey rink is named for him, and the
Hobey Baker Memorial Award is given annually to the top American
college hockey player.
4. Alfred Barr ’22 *23 – The founder of the Museum
of Modern Art in New York City. He broke with common museum practices
by creating advertising campaigns to ensure that exhibitions be
financially and intellectually accessible to the public. Scholars
say the works he selected for MoMA have formed the canon of modern
art history.
5. Roger Berlind ’64 – Successful Broadway producer
and philanthropist. The Berlind Theatre (part of the McCarter Theatre
Center) opened in Princeton in 2003.
6. John Peale Bishop ’17 – Poet, essayist for Vanity
Fair, and poetry critic for The Nation. Classmate of Fitzgerald,
and inspired one of his literary characters.
7. Bill Bradley ’65 – Hall of Fame basketball player,
Rhodes scholar, former U.S. senator from New Jersey, and presidential
candidate who challenged Vice President Al Gore for the Democratic
Party’s nomination in the 2000 election (also listed in government
/ public affairs). As a basketball player, Bradley led the New York
Knicks to NBA titles in 1970 and 1973. Teamed with Walt Frazier,
Willis Reed and Dave DeBusschere, Bradley was often seen as a determined,
selfless leader on some of the best squads in Knicks history.
8. F. Taylor Branch *70 – Pulitzer Prize-winning author.
Best known for his trilogy chronicling the life of Martin Luther
King Jr. and the history of the American civil rights movement.
9. Alan Brinkley ’71 – Professor of history and provost
at Columbia University. Progressive historian of the New Deal era.
He writes for Newsweek and The New Republic.
10. Robert Caro ’57 – Won the Pulitzer Prize twice,
for his biographies of Robert Moses and Lyndon Johnson.
11. Edward T. Cone ’39 *42 – Music scholar, pianist,
and composer who was a member of the Princeton faculty. He produced
two of the 20th century’s most influential books about Western
music, Musical Form and Musical Performance and The Composer’s
Voice.
12. Ward B. Chamberlin ’43 – Spent more than 30 years
as an executive in public broadcasting, working to strengthen its
foundation and promote its acceptance in American culture.
13. Robert P. Tristram Coffin *16 – Poet, novelist, and
essayist, he wrote 37 books while teaching at Wells College and
Bowdoin College. His Strange Holiness won the Pulitzer Prize for
poetry in 1935.
14. Andres Duany ’71 and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk ’72
– Founders of New Urbanism in architecture, a critique of
suburban development.
15. Michael Eric Dyson *93 – Dyson is a writer and a professor
(just moved to Georgetown from Penn) who specializes in African-American
culture. He has written high-profile books and articles about Martin
Luther King, Tupac Shakur, Bill Cosby, Malcom X, and the Hurricane
Katrina aftermath.
16. Jose Ferrer ’33 – Academy Award-winner (for his
portrayal of Cyrano de Bergerac in the 1950 film version of Cyrano
de Bergerac,) and a Tony Award-winner (for both directing and performing),
he was subpoenaed to appear before the House Un-American Activities
Committee as a suspected Communist, charges which he vehemently
denied.
17. F. Scott Fitzgerald ’17 – Author of several short
stories and novels, he is considered one of the greatest 20th-century
American writers.
18. Philip Freneau 1771 – Poet; roommate and close friend
of James Madison. Known as the “poet of the Revolution.”
Opposition journalist. Some of his later works are understood as
precursors to the transcendentalist movement, inspiring both Henry
David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
19. Robert Garrett 1897 – An Olympic athlete who medaled
in the discus throw (despite immense competition from the Greek
team), shot put, high jump, and long jump. Garrett was also a collector
of Near Eastern manuscripts, which he donated to Princeton.
20. Charles Gibson ’65 – Television journalist, anchorman
on World News Tonight, former host of Good Morning America.
21. Richard Greenberg ’80 – Writer of more than 25
plays, he recently won the Tony Award for Best Play for Take Me
Out.
22. Hugh Hardy ’54 *56 – Architect. Projects include
the new New York Botanical Garden Leon Levy Visitor Center, the
reconstruction of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the restoration
of Radio City Music Hall, and the redesign of Bryant Park in New
York City.
23. Thomas Hoving ’53 *60 – As director of the Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Hoving presided over its large expansion and renovations.
24. Lynn Jennings ’83 – Considered one of the best
female distance runners in history, Jennings is a three-time World
Cross Country champion and winner of the bronze medal for the 10,000-meter
race in the 1992 Olympics. She holds 39 national titles, more than
any other American runner, and speaks out against doping.
25. James Johnson *69 - Former CEO at Fannie Mae, Johnson became
the fourth chairman of the Kennedy Center in 1996. He began the
“Performing Arts for Everyone” initiative, which increased
the visibility of the center’s frequent low-priced and free
events. Created and endowed the Millennium Stage, which presents
a free event every evening.
26. Galway Kinnell ’48 – Poet, winner of the Pulitzer
Prize and the National Book Award.
27. Bowie Kuhn ’47 – Commissioner of Major League
Baseball from 1969 to 1984. He was the first to suggest that World
Series games be played at night, in order to attract more television
viewers.
28. Joshua Logan ’31 – Stage and film director and
writer. Logan shared the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for co-writing
South Pacific. (The show also earned him a Tony Award for best director.)
He was nominated for an Academy Award for directing for Picnic and
Sayonara.
29. Allan Marquand 1874 – Founder of the Department of Art
and Archaeology at Princeton. One of the first to introduce the
serious study of art into the curriculum of American colleges. He
made important contributions to the University Art Museum, and he
supplied the department’s library with books and photographs
from his own collection. By the early 1900s, half of the art teachers
at colleges east of the Mississippi had been trained in the graduate
curriculum he had developed.
30. Jason McManus *58 – Editor-in-Chief of Time Warner from
1987-1994.
31. John McPhee ’53 – Magazine writer and Pulitzer
Prize-winning author, McPhee has trained hundreds of Princeton students
in creative writing as a professor.
32. William Morris Meredith ’40 – Poet, and Pulitzer
Prize winner (1980). Poet laureate of the United States from 1978
to 1980.
33. W.S. Merwin ’48 - One of the most influential American
poets of the later 20th century. Antiwar poet during the 1960s.
Winner of a Pulitzer Prize and a Tanning Prize, which is one of
the highest honors bestowed by the Academy of American Poets.
34. Charles Moore *57 – Architect and former dean of the
Yale School of Architecture. Described as one of the first postmodern
innovators, along with Robert Venturi ’47 *50.
35. Frederick Morgan ’43 – Co-founded the Hudson Review,
a quarterly magazine about literature and the arts in NYC, in 1947,
and served as its editor until 1948. He published 10 books of poems,
two collections of prose fables, and two books of translations.
36. Jeff Moss ’63 – Children’s TV writer and
composer. The founding head writer of Sesame Street, Moss created
the personalities of Cookie Monster and Oscar the Grouch, wrote
storylines, and penned tunes including “The People in Your
Neighborhood,” “Rubber Duckie,” and “I Don’t
Want to Live on the Moon.” Winner of 14 Emmy Awards and four
Grammy Awards. He also wrote a dozen popular books published by
the Sesame Street franchise, three volumes of his poetry aimed at
children, and short stories. Newsday called him the “children’s
poet laureate.”
37. Demetri Porphyrios *74 *80 – A leading traditional-style
architect. Designer of Whitman College at Princeton as well as buildings
at Oxford and Cambridge.
38. David Remnick ’81 – Editor of The New Yorker since
1998. He is the author of several books, including Lenin’s
Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire, which won a Pulitzer Prize
in 1994.
39. Charles Rosen ’48 *51 – Pianist and writer on
music and art history who has been perhaps the leading English-language
critic of music for the last 35 years.
40. Charles Scribner 1840 – Founded Scribner publishing
house.
41. Charles Scribner 1875 – Founded Scribner’s Monthly
Magazine, which was very popular in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries, publishing articles by Jacob Riis, Richard Harding Davis,
Edith Wharton, and Theodore Roosevelt, among others, as well as
illustrations by Maxfield Parrish and Frederic Remington.
42. Brooke Shields ’87 – A child model and a TV/film/stage
actress, she also embarked on a public-awareness campaign about
postpartum depression.
43. Frank Stella ’58 – A painter and printmaker,
Stella has had a significant influence on minimalism, post-painterly abstraction,
patterns, and offset lithography. In 2001, a monumental Stella sculpture
was installed outside the National Gallery of Art in Washington,
D.C.
44. Jimmy Stewart ’32 – Film and stage actor. Won
an Academy Award for his role in The Philadelphia Story. He was
also awarded lifetime achievement awards at both the Oscars and
the Golden Globes. Other films include The Anatomy of a Murder,
Harvey, It’s a Wonderful Life, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.
Stewart also had a noted military career, rising to the rank of
brigadier general in the U.S. Air Force.
45. Booth Tarkington 1893 – Novelist and dramatist, he is
best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning novels The Magnificent
Ambersons and Alice Adams.
46. Lowell Thomas *16 – Writer, broadcaster, and traveler
who is best known as the man who made Lawrence of Arabia famous.
47. Robert Venturi ’47 *50 – A Philadelphia-based
architect, Venturi has designed buildings on Princeton’s campus
and around the world. He is a winner of the prestigious Pritzker
Prize; the jury said that he “has expanded and redefined the
limits of the art of architecture in this century, as perhaps no
other has through his theories and built works. Of the former, his
thin but potent volume, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture,
published in 1966, is generally acknowledged to have diverted the
mainstream of architecture away from modernism.”
48. Cornel West *80 – Princeton faculty member and author
of several works about race relations and American politics, including
a historical/philosophical rap CD called “Sketches of my Culture.”
He appeared in The Matrix trilogy.
49. Thornton Wilder *26 – Playwright and novelist. The Bridge
of San Luis Rey (1927) brought him commercial success and his first
Pulitzer Prize. In 1938 and 1943 he won the Pulitzer Prize for drama
for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, respectively.
50. Edmund Wilson ’16 – Wilson was a writer for The
New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The New Republic during the early 20th
century. His books Axel’s Castle, an international survey
of Symbolist poets, and To the Finland Station, a history of socialism/communism,
cemented his reputation as an influential literary critic of the
era.
51. Robert Wright ’79 – Essayist for The New Republic,
Time, Slate, The Atlantic Monthly, The New Yorker, and The New York
Times Magazine. His most recent book, NonZero, is about the evolution
of religious belief, focusing particularly on interfaith tolerance
amid globalization (also included in government/public affairs).
Science & Mathematics
1. William O. Baker *39 – president of Bell Labs from 1973-79;
advances made during his tenure led to the first operational fiber-optic
system. Served as scientific adviser to presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon, and Reagan; received 11 patents for his research
on the crystalline molecular structure of plastic and rubber; awarded
the Presidential National Security Medal in 1982 and National Medal
of Science in 1988.
2. John Bardeen *36 – Nobel laureate in physics, 1956; co-inventor
of the transistor.
3. T. Berry Brazelton ’40 – pediatrician; author of
26 books on pediatrics and child development; host of popular cable
TV program, “What Every Baby Knows”; often called the
most influential baby doctor since Dr. Spock. Hospitals worldwide
use the Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS).
4. Michael Brown ’87 – astronomer and professor at
Cal Tech; discovered Eris, the largest dwarf planet and most distant
object to orbit the sun. The discovery has helped answer questions
about the atmosphere surrounding Eris and Pluto.
5. Don Cleveland *77 – While still in graduate school, he
developed a rapid method for identifying and characterizing proteins.
Recently solved a 100-year-old genetic puzzle and determined that
the same genetic mechanism that drives tumor growth also can act
as a tumor suppressor. This could lead to new drug targets for cancer
therapies.
6. Arthur Holly Compton *16 – Nobel laureate in physics,
1927, for his discovery and explanation of the Compton Effect (change
in wavelength of X rays and other energetic forms of electromagnetic
radiation when they collide with electrons. It is a principal way
in which radiant energy is absorbed by matter, and is caused by
the transfer of energy from photons to electrons. When photons collide
with electrons that are free or loosely bound in atoms, they transfer
some of their energy and momentum to the electrons, which then recoil.
New photons of less energy and momentum, and hence longer wavelength,
are produced; these scatter at various angles, depending on the
amount of energy lost to the recoiling electrons. The effect demonstrates
the nature of the photon as a true particle with both energy and
momentum.) The discovery was essential to establishing the wave-particle
duality of electromagnetic radiation. Compton later was instrumental
in initiating the Manhattan Project, and he directed the development
of the first nuclear reactors.
7. Karl Compton *12 – president of MIT, 1930-48. He developed
a new approach to the teaching of science and engineering and set
up the graduate school. He was a member of the committee that advised
President Harry Truman on the use of the atomic bomb, and helped
organize the American Institute of Physics.
8. Charles “Pete” Conrad ’53 – astronaut
who walked on moon on the Apollo XII mission in 1969 (third man
to walk on the moon); space commander of Gemini XI, setting a world
record in highest achieved altitude. He also was a commander of
Skylab II, the first U.S. space station.
9. Clinton Davisson *11 – Nobel laureate in physics, 1937,
for his discovery that electrons can be diffracted like light waves,
thus verifying the thesis of Louis de Broglie that electrons behave
both as waves and as particles. This discovery verified quantum
mechanics' understanding of the dual nature of subatomic particles
and proved to be useful in the study of nuclear, atomic, and molecular
structure.
10. Sidney Drell ’47 – physicist, influential arms-control
specialist, winner of a MacArthur genius grant, coauthor of two
books on quantum mechanics, member of the President’s Foreign
Intelligence Advisory Board and Science Advisory Committee.
11. Richard Feynman *42 – Nobel laureate in physics, 1965,
for expanding the theory of quantum electrodynamics; also did important
research into particle theory and the superfluidity of liquid helium.
Assisted in the creation of the atomic bomb; invented Feynman diagrams,
a tool to calculate and conceptualize subatomic particles.
12. Henry Fine 1880 – leading 19th-century mathematician
and mathematical and scientific educator; made Princeton a leading
center for the study of mathematics.
13. Elaine Fuchs *77 – cell biologist and pioneer in biochemical
and molecular studies of human skin diseases; leader in the modernization
of dermatology; a pioneer in reverse genetics (an experimental procedure
that begins with a cloned segment of DNA, and uses this knowledge
to introduce programmed mutations back into the genome in order
to investigate gene and protein function).
14. Margaret Geller *75 – MacArthur Fellow; co-discoverer
of the Great Wall of Galaxies, a cluster of galaxies 200 million
light-years away.
15. Peter Gott ’57 *58 – author of America’s
most popular medical-advice column; more than 10,000 readers write
to him each month with questions concerning health.
16. Harry Hammond Hess *32 – In 1960 Hess made his single
most important contribution (regarded as one of the century’s
most important advances in geological sciences) by theorizing that
the Earth’s crust moved laterally from long, volcanically
active oceanic ridges. “Sea-floor spreading,” as the
process was later named, helped establish the concept of continental
drift as scientifically respectable and triggered a revolution in
earth sciences.
17. Robert Hofstadter *38 – Physicist who received the Nobel
Prize in 1961 for his research electron scattering in atomic nuclei
and his discoveries concerning the structure of the nucleons.
18. Craig Jordan *91 – Stem-cell researcher who identified
a molecular switch involved in cell survival that appears to be
unique to leukemia stem cells and absent from normal blood stem
cells. This has led to the testing of drugs that appear effective
at killing leukemia stem cells while sparing healthy stem cells.
19. Robert Kahn *64 – Former director at the U.S. Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency, where he developed ARPANET, which
led to the Internet.
20. Eric Lander ’78 – Leader of the Human Genome Project;
founder/director of the Broad Institute, a partnership between Harvard,
MIT, the Whitehead Institute, and other hospital systems with the
goal of using the human genome to understand and treat diseases.
21. Walsh McDermott ’30 – Influential public-health
official; developed anti-tuberculosis drug, Isoniazid, which is
used worldwide today to prevent and treat TB.
22. William McElroy *43 – Discovered luciferase, the enzyme
that causes fireflies to glow. This can be used in the detection
of disease (organisms can be caused to glow), forensics (helps detect
traces of blood), and in other applications.
23. Edwin McMillan *33 – Nobel laureate, 1951. He discovered
neptunium, the first element heavier than uranium, and made important
advances in the development of the cyclotron, a machine used to
accelerate charged particles. Today, this machine can help treat
cancer in addition to being utilized in nuclear physics experiments.
24. William Francis Magie 1879 – Founder of the American
Physical Society. As an influential, longtime Princeton physics
professor, he figured in the transformation of Princeton from a
college to a university.
25. John Milnor ’50 *54 – Mathematician known for
his work in differential topology, K-theory, and dynamical systems.
His most celebrated single result is his proof of the existence
of 7-dimensional spheres with nonstandard differential structure.
Fields Medal winner.
26. W. Jason Morgan *64 – The first to propose that the
Earth’s surface was formed of plates; co winner, 2000 Vetlesen
Prize for Earth Science Achievement; current Princeton professor.
27. Henry Fairfield Osborn ‘1877 – Eminent paleontologist
and the driving force behind the establishment of the American Museum
of Natural History as a preeminent scientific institution. Promoted
eugenics.
28. Tullis Onstott *80 – Princeton geology professor known
for his research into endolithic life beneath the Earth’s
surface, named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential
people in the world (2007) because his work has shown that life
can exist in extreme conditions on earth and hence possibly in outer
space.
29. John Prausnitz *55 – As the creator of an entire discipline,
molecular thermodynamics, he ranks among the most influential engineers
of the last 50 years. His work (more than 660 papers, a major textbook,
and five monographs) has led to the insights, developed the techniques,
and demonstrated the value of combining approximate molecular theory
with strategic data and computational power to establish foundations
for uncovering and describing patterns of behavior in properties
of every known type of chemical system.
30. George Prendergast *89 – Cancer researcher who specializes
in the areas of cancer-cell signaling and molecular cancer therapies.
His current work focuses on genes that suppress cancer cells and
on a novel immunomodulatory therapy that has been derived from his
work. He also serves as deputy editor at Cancer Research, the leading
cancer journal.
31. Wilder Penfield ’13 – Neurosurgeon; did important
research on causes of epilepsy; found a physical basis for memory;
developed a map of the brain.
32. Sydney Pestka ’57 – One of the developers of the
anti-cancer drug interferon, which helps the immune system by inhibiting
the reproduction of viruses and certain cancer cells.
33. Benjamin Rush 1760 – Early physician who served as surgeon
general during the American Revolution. Advocated preventive medicine,
including inoculations for smallpox and yellow fever, as well as
hospital sanitation and respect for patients (especially the insane).
34. Henry Norris Russell *1900 – Astronomer and director
of the observatory at Princeton; established (with a colleague)
the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, which was crucial to understanding
stellar evolution. (The significance of the H-R diagram is that
stars are concentrated in certain distinct regions instead of being
distributed at random. This regularity is an indication that definite
laws govern stellar structure and stellar evolution.)
35. Lewis Sarett *42 – first chemist to synthesize cortisone;
a great contributor to the treatment of arthritis.
36. William B. Scott 1877 – Vertebrate paleontologist; leader
of Princeton Patagonian expeditions; brought one of the most prominent
paleontological collections in the world to the Princeton museum
of geology and archaeology.
37. John H. Seinfeld *67 – A professor at the California
Institute of Technology, Seinfeld is the atmospheric scientist who
developed the first mathematical models for describing urban air
quality that are now used by air-quality managers around the world.
His early focus was on understanding the chemical and physical processes
occurring in the polluted urban atmosphere. This work led to his
landmark 1972 papers on mathematical models for air pollution. From
these came the first urban air-quality models incorporated in the
federal Clean Air Act, and which today provide the basic tool employed
by air-quality scientists worldwide. Seinfeld's work continues to
provide many fundamental advances linking atmospheric processes
from local pollution formation to global climate change.
38. Frederick Seitz *34 – Co-inventor of the Wigner-Seitz
unit cell, an important concept in solid state physics; president
of Rockefeller University, 1968-78; noted skeptic about global warming
and whether CFCs damage the ozone layer.
39. Richard Smalley *74 – Nobel laureate, 1996, in chemistry,
for the discovery of a pure form of carbon called buckminsterfullerene,
the so-called “Bucky Balls” (the most symmetrical molecules
ever discovered). The carbon is significant because it helps physicists
attain a deeper understanding of high-temperature superconductivity,
which can be used in medicine, manufacturing, and other areas.
40. Henry DeWolf Smyth ’18 *21 – Physicist, diplomat,
and government official who played several key roles in the early
development of nuclear energy. Authored the first official history
of the Manhattan Project; commissioner on the U.S. Atomic Energy
Commission from 1949 through 1954; U.S. representative to the International
Atomic Energy Agency 1961-1970. Princeton professor.
41. Gerald Soffen *61 – Project scientist, Viking Mars Project;
founder, Mission to Planet Earth program (NASA program dedicated
to understanding the total Earth system and the effects of natural
and human-induced changes on the global environment); creator, NASA
Academy (10-week summer program designed to give future leaders/astronauts
a look into how NASA functions).
42. David Spergel ’82 – Astrophysics professor at
Princeton; was a developer of the WMAP satellite and mission, which
continues to beam back data from space that provides information
about the origins of the universe. In 2006, Spergel and his team
released groundbreaking results in support of inflation theory,
a model that explains the growth of the universe following the Big
Bang.
43. Lyman Spitzer *38 – Physicist known as the “Father
of the Hubble Space Telescope.” Princeton professor, 1947-97;
founder, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory; NASA’s Spitzer
Space Telescope honors his work.
44. Connie Liu Trimble ’84 – Oncologist whose research
has helped lead to a vaccine against cervical cancer.
45. John Tukey *39 – Mathematician/statistician, known for
work in telecommunications industry; coined the terms “bit”
and “software”; Princeton professor, 1950-2000.
46. Alan Turing *38 – Developed foundation for the modern
computer; leader in breaking German “Enigma” codes during
World War II.
47. Steven Weinberg *57 – Won the Nobel Prize in physics
in 1979 for his work in unified field theory. Weinberg theorized
that two forces in physics, the electromagnetic and the weak force,
are the same at extremely high energy levels. This was an important
step toward physicists’ goal of finding a single elegant equation
to explain all the matter and forces in nature.
48. Frank Wilczek *75 – Nobel Prize winner in physics, 2004,
for explaining the force that holds the parts of an atomic nucleus
together – another important step toward developing a unified
theory for everything.
49. Edward Witten *76 – Pioneer in string theory; winner
of the Fields Medal, the highest honor for mathematicians; professor,
Institute for Advanced Study.
Business and economics
1. Norman Augustine '57 *59 – Chairman, Lockheed Martin;
led National Academies Committee on Science Engineering and Public
Policy (produced report on economic competitiveness); preaches that
“science education is the future strength of the US economy.”
2. Gary Becker ’51 – Nobel Prize winner in economics,
1992, for work on topics such as racial discrimination, crime, family
organization, and drug addiction.
3. Jeff Bezos ’86 – Founder of Amazon.com, named Time
magazine’s Man of the Year, 1999; Amazon.com was one of the
first major companies to sell goods via the Internet.
4. Jack Bogle ’51 – Founder of the Vanguard Group,
one of the largest mutual funds in the world; named by Time magazine
as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004;
his investment strategy focuses on the superiority of index funds
rather than the traditionally managed mutual funds.
5. David Card *83 – Labor economist; won Clark Medal for
best U.S. economist under the age of 40. Has done a significant
amount of research on immigration, education, inequality, and job
training.
6. Barbara Cassani *84 – Built Go Airlines, the first successful
budget airline in Great Britain; leader in London’s bid for
the Summer Olympics in 2012.
7. Mort Collins *63 – Nationally recognized venture capitalist,
who as the founder and managing partner of four previous venture
funds has scored impressive achievements in markets such as life
sciences, communications, software, and electronic materials. Member
of the Research Roundtable of the National Academy of Sciences.
Chaired President Reagan’s Task Force on Innovation and Entrepreneurship
and served as a technology policy adviser to President George H.
W. Bush.
8. Philip Condit *65 – Chairman and CEO, Boeing Corp.
9. Malcolm Forbes ’41 – Publisher of Forbes magazine;
donated the money for one of Princeton’s residential colleges.
10. William Clay Ford ’79 – Former president of Ford
Motor Co.; focused on improving fuel efficiency in the Ford fleet,
but the effort did not meet goals and ultimately was scaled down.
11. James Heckman *71 – Nobel Prize winner in economics,
2000, for “theory and methods that are widely used in the
empirical analysis of individual and household behavior, within
economics as well as other social sciences.” He studies the
impact of a variety of social programs on the economy and on society
at large, and has written on the impact of civil rights and affirmative-action
programs, taxes, unionism, and other issues.
12. Lee Iacocca *46 – As chairman of Chrysler Corp., he
brought the company back from bankruptcy and moved to improve fuel
efficiency
13. Robert Johnson *72 – Founded and led the Black Entertainment
Television (BET), a media force that became the first African-American-owned
company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
14. Andrea Jung ’79 – CEO of Avon. Considered one
of the most powerful women in American business; contributed significantly
to strengthening the company’s reputation as a leading direct
seller of beauty products.
15. John Kamm ’72 – Business leader who went on to
found of Dai Hua Foundation; civil rights activist in China; has
helped about 400 Chinese political prisoners.
16. Arthur Levinson *77 – President and CEO, Genentech.
Under his leadership, the company has been a leader in the development
of cancer drugs.
17. Peter Lewis ’55 – Philanthropist; CEO of Progressive
Insurance. During his tenure, Progressive became the fifth-largest
auto insurance company in the U.S.; major benefactor to Princeton.
18. Bruce Maclaury ’53 – Under secretary of the Treasury
for monetary policy (1969-71), president of Federal Reserve Bank
of Minneapolis (1971-77), president of Brookings Institution (1977-95).
19. Burton Malkiel *64 – Member of the Council of Economic
Advisers; noted economist, writer, and Princeton economics professor;
leading advocate for the Efficient Market hypothesis; wrote popular
finance book, A Random Walk Down Wall Street.
20. N. Gregory Mankiw ’80 – Harvard economics professor
and former chairman (2003-2005) of the President’s Council
of Economic Advisers. Author of two popular college textbooks, including
an introductory book, Principles of Economics, which has sold more
than a million copies and been translated into 20 languages.
21. Jason D. McManus *58 – Editor-in-Chief, Time-Warner
Inc. (1987-94) at the time of its creation.
22. Walter Morgan ’20 – Certified public account who
created and founded the Welling Fund, one of the country’s
first mutual funds, in July 1929. He followed a conservative investment
policy that served him and his customers well through the stock-market
crash, and the firm’s assets passed the $1 million mark by
1935. Precursor to the Vanguard Group.
23. Nathan Myhrvold *83 – As chief technology officer at
Microsoft, he contributed significantly to the creation of Microsoft’s
most successful operating systems: Windows, Windows NT, and Windows
CE.
24. John Nash *50 – Nobel laureate in economics (1994) for
his work related to game theory; best known in popular culture as
subject of the best-selling novel and popular motion picture, A
Beautiful Mind.
25. Michael Porter ’69 – Professor at Harvard; world
authority on competitive strategy and the competitiveness and economic
development of nations, states, and regions. Author of 17 books
and over 125 articles; a course he developed at Harvard is now taught
at universities worldwide on video, online, etc. Created and chairs
Harvard Business School’s program for newly appointed CEOs
of billion-dollar corporations.
26. George Rathman *51 – Founder of Amgen, the world’s
largest independent biotechnology company.
27. Laurance Rockefeller ’32 – Philanthropist, venture
capitalist, and financier; invested in Eastern Airlines, which became
the most profitable airline after WWII.
28. Louis Rukeyser ’54 – Longtime host of the popular
television show Wall Street Week. He was also the author of several
books about investments.
29. Eric Schmidt ’79 – Chairman and CEO of Google
Inc. (since 2001).
30. Michael Spence ’66 – Nobel Prize winner in economics,
2001, for work in information flows and market development; most
famous for his theory of how individuals in the job market communicate
with others who have less information, which has led to a great
deal of debate in the field of contract theory.
31. Paul Volcker ’49 – Chairman of the Federal Reserve
Board, 1979-87; ended the stagflation crisis of the 1970s by focusing
on tightening the growth of the money supply rather than targeting
interest rates. Though the policy was successful, it came with a
high cost, particularly in the farm sector, as many family farms
went out of business. Later, Volcker investigated corruption in
the Iraqi Oil for Food Program at the request of the U.N.
32. Murray L. Weidenbaum *54 – Chairman of the President’s
Council of Economic Advisers 1981-82; a key spokesman for the Reagan
administration on financial/economic issues.
33. Meg Whitman ’81 – President and CEO of eBay; Business
Week has included her on its list of the 25 most powerful business
managers annually since 2000; major benefactor to Princeton.
34. Gordon Wu ’58 – Builder and philanthropist; chairman
of the board of Hong Kong-listed Asian infrastructure firm Hopewell
Holdings Ltd.; advocated the construction of Asia's largest bridge
project linking Hong Kong, Macau and China's Zhuhai city; major
benefactor to Princeton ($100 million).
Higher education, religion,
and the humanities
1. Danielle Allen ’93 – Political theorist, professor
of classical languages and literature, former dean of humanities
division at University of Chicago, recipient of 2001 MacArthur fellowship
for her writing on democracy and citizenship. Recently appointed
to join the Institute for Advanced Study (to the chair formerly
held by Michael Waltzer), becoming the first African-American permanent
faculty member.
2. James Billington ’50 – Librarian of Congress. During
his tenure, the library has expanded its public outreach significantly.
3. William Bowen *58 – Former Princeton president; sparked
public debate on college admissions and the roles played by race,
athletics, and income in higher education.
4. Howard Crosby Butler 1892 – Archaeologist and first director
of the Princeton School of Architecture; successfully excavated
Syrian ruins from 1910-1922.
5. Karl Compton *12 – President of MIT, 1930-48. He developed
a new approach to the teaching of science and engineering and set
up the graduate school. He was a member of the committee that advised
President Harry Truman on use of the atomic bomb, and helped organize
the American Institute of Physics.
6. W. Robert Connor *61 – Director of the National Humanities
Center, a privately incorporated independent institute for advanced
study in the humanities, from 1989 through 2002. As director, he
developed programs that linked state-of-the-art scholarship with
strengthened teaching at both the college and pre-collegiate levels.
Formerly Andrew F. West Professor of Humanities at Princeton and
president of the American Philological Society.
7. Harold Dodds *14 – President of Princeton, 1933-57, a
time of great growth in the size of the student body and faculty;
oversaw creation of academic departments in music, creative arts,
aeronautical engineering, Near Eastern studies, building of Firestone
Library and Dillon Gym, and a great expansion in the Woodrow Wilson
School.
8. Elena Kagan ’81 – First female dean of Harvard
Law School; former associate counsel to President Bill Clinton;
deputy assistant to the president for domestic policy; deputy director
of the Domestic Policy Council.
9. Raymond B Fosdick 1905 – President of the Rockefeller
Foundation (1936-1948), during which time the foundation supported
Planned Parenthood and organizations to promote world peace.
10. Basil Gildersleeve 1849 – Dominant figure in classical
scholarship in the late 19th century.
11. Robert Goheen '40 *48 – President of Princeton, 1957-72,
during which period Princeton admitted large numbers of minorities
and women for the first time; U.S. ambassador to India, 1977-1980.
12. James Hepburn 1832 – His work in developing a Romanized
Japanese alphabet and Japanese-English dictionary was seminal and
is still influential.
13. Richard Land ’69 – Head of the Ethics and Religious
Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, perhaps the
strongest lobbying organization on the religious right; spokesman
for conservative viewpoint.
14. Chang-Lin Tien *59 – President of University of California,
Berkeley, 1990-97; fought to preserve the university’s academic
excellence during time of severe cuts in state funding.
15. James Manning 1762 – First president/founder of Brown;
delegate for Rhode Island in the Continental Congress in 1786.
16. Allan Marquand 1874 – Founder of the Department of Art
and Archaeology at Princeton. One of the first to introduce the
serious study of art into the curriculum of American colleges. He
made important contributions to the Unversity’s Art Museum,
and he supplied the department’s library with books and photographs
from his own collection. By the early 1900s half of the art teachers
at colleges east of the Mississippi had been trained in the graduate
curriculum he had developed.
17. Anthony Marx *90 – President of Amherst College; leader
in national movement to make Amherst and other colleges more accessible
to qualified students from lower-income families.
18. Whitney Oates ’27 – Founding member of National
Council on the Humanities; professor of classics and Greek.
19. Hikoichi Orita 1876 – A student of James McCosh, he
was instrumental in revolutionizing and modernizing the Japanese
system of higher education.
20. Henry Fairfield Osborn ‘1877 – Renowned paleontologist
and the driving force behind the establishment of the American Museum
of Natural History as a preeminent scientific institution.
21. Moses T. Pyne 1877 – Major benefactor to Princeton;
gave collections of rare books that became the origins of Princeton’s
Department of Rare Books and Special Collections.
22. John Rawls ’43 *50 – Philosopher; considered one
of the most influential proponents of liberalism since John Stuart
Mill.
23. John D. Rockefeller III ’29 – Philanthropist;
established the Asia Society and the Asian Cultural Program in 1967
to encourage East-West cultural and economic exchange.
24. Laurance Rockefeller ’32 – Philanthropist, venture
capitalist, and financier; invested in Eastern Airlines, which became
the most profitable airline after WWII.
25. George Rupp ’64 – Former president of Columbia
(1993) and Rice (1985); head of International Rescue Committee.
26. Harold Shapiro *64 – Former president of Princeton and
University of Michigan; at Princeton, he oversaw a huge increase
in Princeton’s endowment. Co-chaired National Bioethics Advisory
Commission (1996-2001).
27. Henry P. Van Dusen ’19 – Theologian; helped found
World Council of Churches.
28. Henry Van Dyke 1873 – Educator; chair of the committee
that produced The Book of Common Worship of the Presbyterian Church.